I’ve been following the various twists and turns in NASA and private interest in NEOs for a few years, ever since the Flexible Path concept was suggested by the Augustine Committee. While I’ve always been of the opinion that the Moon makes the most sense of all the potential off-earth bodies to settle and develop, [...]
Category Archive for 'NEOs'
Random Thoughts: Asteroids and Money-Mouth Co-location
Posted in NEOs on Feb 15th, 2013
With yesterday’s meteorite impact in Russia, I’ve seen several clever tweets featuring this clever picture: But to me, meteor impacts today are nature’s way of asking “Have you thought about donating to the B612 Foundation’s Sentinel Mission lately?” Most serious students of NEOs have suggested that a space-based IR telescope like Sentinel is the key [...]
Thoughts on Jeff’s Talk Part 1: Subeconomic Resources
Posted in Business, Commercial Space, Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, NASA, NEOs, Space Development, Space Exploration, Space Law, Space Policy on Jun 10th, 2011
I finally got around to watching Jeff Greason’s ISDC talk last night (youtube link here), and it has got me thinking. In an effort to actually get some blog posts going again, I’m going to break this up into chunks to try and keep things short. Jeff made the point that you can look at [...]
HEFT Frustrations Venting
Posted in Commercial Space, ESAS, NASA, NEOs, Propellant Depots on Jan 13th, 2011
So, most of you in the space policy world have heard about NASA’s report back to Congress about how it wants to build an Ares-V classic HLV, but that Congress wasn’t giving them enough time or money, and Congress’ dignified response that “Nu Uh! You can too!” That exchange was annoying, but utterly predictable. What [...]
Why Not Just Fund the Program of Record?
Posted in Commercial Space, COTS, ESAS, International Space Collaboration, Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, NASA, NEOs, Politics, Space Development, Space Policy on Dec 14th, 2009
Amid all the recent discussion of the Augustine Committee’s results, Mark Whittington asks a question that a lot of people in Congress seem to be asking: “Why not just pay for the current program since any new program is going to cost more money anyway?” To elaborate, the line of reasoning goes that if the [...]
Forehead Smacking Moments: NEO Delta-V Misunderstanding
Posted in Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, NEOs on Oct 21st, 2009
This is kind of embarrasing to admit, but I had a long-time misconception about the delta-V requirements for reaching NEOs. A long time ago, I read some figure for delta-V requirements for earth-crossing asteroids. The figure was ridiculously low, something like 60m/s. At the time I read it, I didn’t really have a lot of [...]