The Dear Astronomer blog hosts the latest Carnival of Space.
Carnival of Space #288 – Dear Astronomer
The Dear Astronomer blog hosts the latest Carnival of Space.
The Space Review: Celebrating a Ten Year Anniversary
The new issue of The Space Review marks the tenth anniversary of this unique and excellent publication. TSR successfully fills an important niche not served by the mainstream aerospace press. It provides a venue for long article discussions of a wide range of technology, history and policy topics and particularly on topics related to the NewSpace industry and community, which really came of age during the past decade. Kudos to Jeff Foust for creating and maintaining this great resource.
Jeff discusses the history of TSR: A ten-year experiment.
And Jeff reflects on the big questions dealt with by TSR in the past decade and what the big questions are for the next decade in space: Asking the big questions for the next ten years
Louis Friedman similarly looks at the past decade and at the coming decade in space: Ten years back, ten years forward
Sam Dinkin ponders Elon Musk’s desire to go to Mars: Can Elon Musk retire on Mars in 2023?
Taylor Dinerman reports on the spread of space capabilities to many more countries in the past decade: Proliferating military space power in 2013 and beyond
===
In addition to the anniversary articles there is an essay by Harley Thronson and Dan Lester of the Future In-Space Operations (FISO) study group: Future In-Space Operations (FISO): a working group and community engagement. (See previous posting.)
And Dwayne Day writes about the Lockheed-Martin Athena launch vehicle: Athena rising?.
Future In-Space Operations – A priority for today
In the latest issue of The Space Review, Harley Thronson and Dan Lester of the Future In-Space Operations (FISO) study group write about the background and purpose of FISO: Future In-Space Operations (FISO): a working group and community engagement.
I want to thank Harley and Dan for pointing to this blog in their article. I try my best to highlight the presentations given to the group (see the FISO Working Group Presentations Archive) . I find the topics discussed to be among the most interesting and important spaceflight concepts and projects of our day. Development of an in-space infrastructure is clearly key to practical and affordable utilization of space and to making humanity truly spacefaring.
LandsatLook Viewer – see changes in the landscape over 40 years
NASA launched today a new Landsat earth observation spacecraft, continuing the series of Landsat missions that go back to 1972: NASA launches $855 million Landsat mission – CBS News.
Check out this cool LandsatLook Viewer. You can compare images of a given location as seen by Landsats over the decades.
Update: Via the Original Rocket Dungeon comes this cool video of the separation of the Landsat spacecraft from the upper stage booster and then drifting toward the rising sunlight:
Space law roundup + Public optimistic about humans on Mars in 2033
Res Communis post the latest collection of space and aviation law, regulation and policy links: Library: A Round-up of Reading.
===
Leonard David reports on a somewhat surprisingly optimistic view by the public of the probability of having people on Mars in 20 years time: Humans on Mars by 2033: New Poll Shows High Confidence – Coalition for Space Exploration.
Update Feb.12.13: Stephen C. Smith questions the methodology and objectivity of the survey and the survey manager responds in the comments at Caveat Emptor – Space KSC.
Here’s another discussion of the poll: Americans Confident Humans Will Walk on Mars Within Two Decades- ExploreMars – Feb.11.13
Update Feb.14.13: A couple more responses to the survey: