The SpaceX Dragon capsule has docked, NASA has a new partner in space exploration, and I am among a handful of writers who saw this coming: [Read more…]
The Zingularity
Just another Freethought Blogs site
The SpaceX Dragon capsule has docked, NASA has a new partner in space exploration, and I am among a handful of writers who saw this coming: [Read more…]
Here’s something a researcher told me in a recent interview with some asteroid miners: when it comes to newspace, failure is an option. It has to be. If we restrict ourselves as a species only to tasks with super high confidence rates, the rate of progress will slow to a crawl. This failure is an option theme may lead in my upcoming post on Planetary Resources. For now, SpaceX is doing marvelously: [Read more…]
An unmanned SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lit up early morning skies around Kennedy Space Center this morning. The booster and its Dragon spacecraft could signal a new era in more affordable space travel: [Read more…]
SpaceX has teamed up with space station developer Bigelow Aerospace to dramatically lower the cost of reaching and living in space. No aerospace company would turn down money from zillionaires looking for out-of-this-world adventure, but the bread and butter of this business would probably come from other sources: [Read more…]
Today a shuttle that barely flew draws the faithful like believers to a shrine. The shuttle Enterprise is making low altitude passes from DC to New York City on the way to JFK airport and its retirement on the deck of the USS Interpid. The nation’s love affair with the adventure of space travel is on full display on malls in our capital and the streets of the Big Apple. I share that, like so many of you, having imprinted on NASA’s astonishing endeavors from earliest memory as surely as a baby duck on its mother. Sadly, we find ourselves without ground to orbit capability even as the sleek Enterprise wows onlookers one last time. Hopefully, that’s not permanent. And in that spirit of optimism, a little more info on Planetary Resources, the asteroid miners featured here last week, came out: [Read more…]
There’s been little in the way of details from the announcement last week of a new company, Planetary Resources, AKA the asteroid miners. There will be a news conference or some type of event this Tuesday in Seattle where the fledgling firm will unveil some of its plans: [Read more…]
The dwarf planet Ceres, largest object in the main asteroid belt; a lucrative oasis floating in space?
Three zillionaires, an astronaut, and a corp of dreamy engineers walked into a bar and decided to shoot waaaay beyond the moon: [Read more…]
SpaceX Dragon spacecraft shown in a hypothetial dock with the ISS. The next test of this system is scheduled for 30 April
That was my opening line at a small talk over the weekend, my warmer upper, it’s not exactly a spine tingler, but it’s the truth. The only manned ground to orbit launch capacity on earth exist in Rsocosmos, the dregs of the Russian manned program. Because of management missteps, congressional malfeasance, a world-wide recession and austerity programs in the few space faring countries left standing, we as a species, ladies and gentlemen, are about one single launch/operational/reentry disaster away from having no manned capability at all, while a luxury free-fall hotel and science station weighing in at almost a million pounds whizzes around empty of science and man until it burns into a briefly spectacular, $100 billion high-altitude fireworks show. Right now much of our hope hinges on this event: [Read more…]
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, its a giant launch system for commercial spacecraft! It’s not built yet, but the legendary Burt Rutan claims his company will build it and space customers will come: [Read more…]
Enhanced-color view of Phobos obtained by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on March 23, 2008. Stickney crater, the largest, is on the right side.
The Russian mission to visit and sample the tiny Martian moon Phobos may have already run into a problem so big it threatens to sink the entire effort. After reaching low earth orbit, the kick stage of the rocket failed to fire on time, leaving the spacecraft unable to break orbit and head for Mars: [Read more…]