The Rocket Company: Chapters 9-12

In the continuing serialization of the updated version of the book The Rocket Company by Patrick J. G. Stiennon and David M. Hoerr, with illustrations by Doug Birkholz.  This week you can obtain the following chapters of the book:

Download these within the next week. Only four chapters will be available at any one time.

See also the electronic version of the updated book is available at  The Rocket Company eBook by Patrick Stiennon, David Hoerr, Peter Diamandis, Doug Birkhol: Kindle Store/Amazon.com.

Space policy – June.19.13

There will be a House committee hearing on the NASA authorization bill this morning at 10:00 am EDT: Subcommittee on Space Hearing – NASA Authorization Act of 2013 | Committee on Science – U.S. House of Representatives

A draft of the bill contains language that would prohibit funding for much of the NASA plan for future asteroid missions. However, its emphasis on redirecting NASA to focus on missions to the Moon does not include funding for the systems to do lunar expeditions.

I’ll note that the reason the Augustine committee recommended asteroid missions for the human spaceflight program was to have something useful to do while landing and surface operations systems were being developed for lunar and Mars missions. There would not be enough money to develop such systems in parallel with development of the launch and in-space transport systems. This authorization draft shows this to be the case. The SLS/Orion project eats up the HSF funding in a NASA budget that is actually getting smaller rather than remaining flat as in the Augustine worst case scenarios.

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Dennis Wingo posts his thoughts on destinations for the : Moon, Mars, or Asteroids, Which is the Best Destination for Solar System Development? – Dennis Wingo

 

 

Space policy roundup – June.18.13

Some space policy for today:

Update: More policy items

 

Everyone can participate in space