Space policy round-ups

Some NASA policy and budget related items:
/-- Shelby seeks a critical mass - Space Politics
/-- Which track for NASA? - Huntsville Times
/-- Advice to Obama From Senator Bill Nelson - spacepolicyonline.com
/-- NASA: Money key to more space shuttle flights - msnbc.com/AP

Update: Criticism mounts against Obama's plans to change NASA strategy - washingtonpost.com.

Some comments from Elon Musk:

"The problem with Constellation was that success was not one of the possible outcomes," says Elon Musk, founder and chief executive of SpaceX, a start-up rocket firm that would be in the running for one of the new NASA commercial contracts.

Musk plans to conduct the first test launch of his Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral, Fla., sometime in the coming weeks. He puts the odds of success on the first try at 70 to 80 percent.

"It's trivial to build a rocket. It's incredibly difficult to build a rocket that goes to orbit," Musk says.

The timetable could put the launch very close to Obama's April 15 space conference. That makes Musk nervous.

"It is looking oddly close to the middle of next month. Which is a little scary," Musk says. "I'd hate for any decision here to be informed by some unfortunate situation on our first launch."

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The latest Res Communis collection of space law, regulation and policy links: Library: A Round-up of Reading - Res Communis.

Posted 03/09/10 | 16:34:46 by TopSpacer | Filed under: Space policy

Comments

Dollars to donuts Space X doesn't launch before June. He should be happy the April 15th visit gives him yet another excuse to delay launch. His predictions of launch dates are laughable.

Posted by Joe Blow at 03/10/10 10:33:34

Give him a break. There are an awful lot of spotlights/cross-hairs trained on SpaceX. At this point I imagine that he envies Blue Origin's secretiveness.

Posted by Tom D at 03/10/10 12:15:29

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