As events unfold, it appears that the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE), the President's plan to return humans to the Moon and then onto Mars, is on the classic pride-before-the-fall trajectory. In the spirit of collegial exchanges, I offer the following observations and thoughts for our recovery. To my fellow rocket scientists and space enthusiasts, the time has come let go of last century's space dreams and start working toward a more contemporary future.

Plan B for Outer Space | SpaceRef - Your Space Reference

El Segundo, CA – November 18, 2005 – On Friday, November 25 at 1 p.m. (PDT), the Falcon 1 countdown to launch is expected to reach T-Zero. At that point, the hold-down clamps will release and the Falcon 1 rocket will begin its journey to orbit, accelerating to 17,000 mph (twenty-five times the speed of sound) in less than ten minutes.

Designed from the ground up by SpaceX, Falcon 1 is a two stage rocket powered by liquid oxygen and purified, rocket grade kerosene. On launch day, Falcon 1 will make history for several reasons:

* It will be the first privately developed, liquid fueled rocket to reach orbit and the world's first all new orbital rocket in over a decade.
* The main engine of Falcon 1 (Merlin) will be the first all new American hydrocarbon booster engine to be flown in forty years and only the second new American booster engine of any kind in twenty-five years.
* The Falcon 1 is the only rocket flying 21 st century avionics, which require a small fraction of the power and mass of other systems.
* It will be the world's only semi-reusable orbital rocket apart from the Shuttle (all other launch vehicles are completely expendable).
* Most importantly, Falcon 1, priced at $6.7 million, will provide the lowest cost per flight to orbit of any launch vehicle in the world, despite receiving a design reliability rating equivalent to that of the best launch vehicles currently flying in the United States.

The maiden flight will take place from the Kwajalein Atoll of the Marshall Islands. The customer for this mission is DARPA and the Air Force and the payload will be FalconSat-2, part of the Air Force Academy’s satellite program that will measure space plasma phenomena, which can adversely affect space-based communications, including GPS and other civil and military communications. The target orbit is 400 km X 500 km (just above the International Space Station) at an inclination of 39 degrees.

SpaceX Announces Falcon 1 Launch Date

The Aims of Astronautics
by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

Via Google Print

The Aims of Astronautics - Google Print

Are you looking for some help with a science fair project? If so, then you have come to the right place. The IPL will guide you to a variety of web site resources, leading you through the necessary steps to successfully complete a science experiment. If you have never done a science fair project before, it has been a while, or you just want to be sure you do a really great job be sure and look at the following websites for tips on what makes a good project before doing anything else. This way you will know ahead of time what will be expected of you.

I was helping a young friend come up with an idea for a science fair project, and this site looks like a great resource.

Internet Public Library: Science Fair Project Resource Guide

After some generalized comments by Scott Pace, John Connolly presented an overview of the new launch systems and spacecraft that will be used to return American astronauts to the Moon. Much of what Connolly presented had been released with the announcement of the results of the Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS). However he added new details previously not presented - and offered briefing charts which went into even greater detail.

A detailed article detailing the current vision of the hardware and mission planning involved in the new Exploration Architecture.

A Closer Look at NASA's New Exploration Architecture | SpaceRef - Your Space Reference

The White House has approved NASA's ESAS and it will be unveiled publicly on Monday at NASA HQ. As to what it will look like: think Apollo - both for what it will feature - and what it will not feature - as well as how things will look- and how they will work. Mars is only a footnote - a distant one at that.

They just can't seem to get it right, can they?

Rollout Plan for Griffin's Architecture Gains Momentum | NASA Watch

bunnygrrl wrote:
At any rate, I think NASA suffers from the same problems all extremely large bureaucracy do: lack of communication, strident "chains of command" and managers who are more who don't know enough to understand what their subordinates are telling them.

Let's not forget that NASA is a particular form of Govt. bureaucracy that takes its lead from directives from the Executive Branch but gets the actual means to do so from the Legislative. All snarkiness aside, Feynman was spot on during the 51-L investigation. He didn't "play nice" like some commissioners, and called it like he saw it.

I will always give the Shuttle program its due: it is/was a magnificent machine designed under the most schitzophrenic critera of any major engineering project ever. However, the levels of complacency that (IMO) will always exist among cloistered groups of engineers, managers and technicians when they work inside "the only game in town". It took someone like Feynman to call "Bullshit!" on the intellectual lethargy that grows around such stagnant systems.

RE: Personal observations on

] The painter is Esref Armagan. And he is here in Boston to
] see if a peek inside his brain can explain how a man who
] has never seen can paint pictures that the sighted easily
] recognise - and even admire. He paints houses and
] mountains and lakes and faces and butterflies, but he's
] never seen any of these things. He depicts colour, shadow
] and perspective, but it is not clear how he could have
] witnessed these things either. How does he do it?

Being the father of a legally blind (although sighted) child, this is a fascinating study about what it really is (neurologically speaking) to see.

New Scientist Senses special: The art of seeing without sight - Features

] SPOKANE, Wash. - David Atkinson spent 18 years designing
] an experiment for the unmanned space mission to Saturn.
] Now some pieces of it are lost in space. Someone forgot
] to turn on the instrument Atkinson needed to measure the
] winds on Saturn's largest moon.
]
] "The story is actually fairly gruesome," the University
] of Idaho scientist said in an e-mail from Germany, the
] headquarters of the European Space Agency. "It was human
] error %u2014 the command to turn the instrument on was
] forgotten."

Wow. That's depressing.

Yahoo! News - Professor's Saturn Experiment Forgotten

] MCGREGOR, Texas -- With a mighty roar that could be heard
] even through the concrete walls of the blockhouse at a
] rocket-testing facility here, a Space Exploration
] Technologies rocket engine called Merlin blazed to life
] Friday. The camera views on the monitors in the control
] room trembled as the engine shook the ground of the empty
] Texas plain with 73,000 pounds of thrust -- enough power
] to send a 1,500-pound payload into orbit.

Wired News: Race for Next Space Prize Ignites