Saturday, March 24, 2007
Space Access Society Conference 2007
My day job duties, moving, and other personal events have put a huge crimp in my blogging recently. They've also kept me from attending this year's Space Access Society Conference, where the people building America's other space programs come together. (Here.) But the following bloggers are liveblogging the event.
Transterrestrial Musings
Hobby Space
Space Politics
WhyHomeSchool
Go to their sites and read what they've written. It's the next best thing to being there.
Next year, head on over to Phoenix. The Space Access Society conference is one of the best. Spring Training ain't too bad, either. Go Padres!
-tdr
Technorati:
Space, 
NASA.
Transterrestrial Musings
Hobby Space
Space Politics
WhyHomeSchool
Go to their sites and read what they've written. It's the next best thing to being there.
Next year, head on over to Phoenix. The Space Access Society conference is one of the best. Spring Training ain't too bad, either. Go Padres!
-tdr
Technorati:
Space, NASA.Labels: Space Societies
Monday, August 21, 2006
AllSpace Mexican Dinner Recap
San Diego members of the Mars Society, the Planetary Society, and the National Space Society got together at Acapulco Restaurant today under the auspices of The Alliance for Space. Over margaritas and tacos, we talked about some of the historic events happening in space today.
For instance, the new definition of planet being debated by astronomers. We liked the planet/pluton proposal and couldn't quite understand what all the fuss was about.
There's also NASA's big news with the selection of SpaceX and Kistler Rocketplane as COTS finalists. We were glad SpaceX got picked. It turns out we all think pretty highly of Elon Musk.
Which of the non-finalists will switch gears and compete for Robert Bigelow's America's Space Prize? Whatever happens, we all agreed we're rooting for San Diego's own SpaceDev to do something in space with their plans to fly a spaceplane using hybrid rockets.
We talked about the plans by the Mars Society to conduct a four-month long mission in the Arctic next summer.
And then we went way out there and started talking abour terraforming the planets. We got to talking about Venus and Mars and how Venus has the gravity we need but Mars has the "better" climate. This got us talking about how much better it would be if Earth's sister planets were located in the Sun's sweet zone for life. By the time dinner was over, we had moved Venus and Mars to the trojan points of Earth's orbit around the sun. Venus especially would be great to have nearby. It's got that gravity that is almost Earth-like, easier for humans to adapt to than Mars would be. Once we decided to move Venus and Mars it seemed a shame to leave Mercury way down there out of reach so close to the Sun. So we thought about moving Mercury and all its minerals too. After all, if you're going to think big, then think BIG. How to do it? That's just an engineering problem!
Join us next month at Killer Pizza From Mars in Escondido. When? Stay tuned at the AllSpace blog (here) or the AllSpace mailgroup (here).
-tdr
For instance, the new definition of planet being debated by astronomers. We liked the planet/pluton proposal and couldn't quite understand what all the fuss was about.
There's also NASA's big news with the selection of SpaceX and Kistler Rocketplane as COTS finalists. We were glad SpaceX got picked. It turns out we all think pretty highly of Elon Musk.
Which of the non-finalists will switch gears and compete for Robert Bigelow's America's Space Prize? Whatever happens, we all agreed we're rooting for San Diego's own SpaceDev to do something in space with their plans to fly a spaceplane using hybrid rockets.
We talked about the plans by the Mars Society to conduct a four-month long mission in the Arctic next summer.
And then we went way out there and started talking abour terraforming the planets. We got to talking about Venus and Mars and how Venus has the gravity we need but Mars has the "better" climate. This got us talking about how much better it would be if Earth's sister planets were located in the Sun's sweet zone for life. By the time dinner was over, we had moved Venus and Mars to the trojan points of Earth's orbit around the sun. Venus especially would be great to have nearby. It's got that gravity that is almost Earth-like, easier for humans to adapt to than Mars would be. Once we decided to move Venus and Mars it seemed a shame to leave Mercury way down there out of reach so close to the Sun. So we thought about moving Mercury and all its minerals too. After all, if you're going to think big, then think BIG. How to do it? That's just an engineering problem!
Join us next month at Killer Pizza From Mars in Escondido. When? Stay tuned at the AllSpace blog (here) or the AllSpace mailgroup (here).
-tdr
Labels: Science Fiction, Space Societies
Monday, August 07, 2006
What's Up With That? Bob Zubrin Speaks Out.
The most recent Mars Society newsletter touting the success of this year's conference has some interesting things to say about the economic development of space.
To give the devil his due there is a kind of unrealistic "space saves the world" idealism that drives many of the ideas for economic development in space, solar power from space included. Comparisons between alleged economic benefits from space elevators or cheap rockets opening the space frontier and the benefits from the transcontinental railroad's opening of the American west ignore a crucial difference between the projects. The railroad was built to link the populations and developed economies of the east and west coasts. The only permanent settlement in space right now is the International Space Station.
And yet, there's nothing base about expecting some kind of economic return on investment in space. It's called fiscal responsibility. It's also the basis of capitalism, which has done more to improve the human condition for more people than any other economic system in history. Indeed, there's something refreshing and idealistic about spacers who try to think of ways that space can be made profitable and beneficial for humanity. At least they are trying to find ways space can improve the human condition.
Moreover, the idea that Mars will be a second home for civilization is no more based on truth than the idea that solar power beamed from the Moon will save the world. Sure Mars has resources for humans to use for settlements. But there is no evidence that humans can live their entire lives and especially produce healthy children in the high radiation low gravity environment that is Mars. Humans evolved in a 1G environment. We still don't know if humans can live permanently in space or if space will always be a place where humans travel temporarily for work and exploration.
Spacers really should stick together to advance our agenda. Advocates of solar satellites and making money in space are not the enemy. If we've got to have an enemy, lets pick on those who think we should do it all in space with robots.
tdr
Technorati: Mars, Mars Society, Space, Space Exploration, NASA.
Republished once for editing.
"In eight years, our ideas have gone from Quixotic to mainstream, and now the task is to make sure they are implemented, and not stopped either by those who oppose the Vision altogether, or those charlatans who are currently peddling fraudulent promises of cheap electricity beamed from Lunar solar power stations in order to lure the public into accepting an initiative degraded to a Moon-only objective.All rightee then.
'They have a fundamentally base understanding of human nature,' [Mars Society President Robert] Zubrin said. "They use deceit, and appeal to greed. They try to tempt people to support space with a false promise of saving them some money at the pump. We say we need to go to Mars because it is the planet that has the resources to support the birth of a new branch of human civilization, because that is what this is really about – creating an open human future where people will have the freedom to be the makers of their worlds, not just the inhabitants of a world already made, and growing ever narrower and more regulated as it seeks to constrain human aspirations to accept ever tighter limits. In the battle of ideas we will beat theirs, because ours are based on truth. We will win by building a movement based on Hope rather than Greed.'" (Here.)
To give the devil his due there is a kind of unrealistic "space saves the world" idealism that drives many of the ideas for economic development in space, solar power from space included. Comparisons between alleged economic benefits from space elevators or cheap rockets opening the space frontier and the benefits from the transcontinental railroad's opening of the American west ignore a crucial difference between the projects. The railroad was built to link the populations and developed economies of the east and west coasts. The only permanent settlement in space right now is the International Space Station.
And yet, there's nothing base about expecting some kind of economic return on investment in space. It's called fiscal responsibility. It's also the basis of capitalism, which has done more to improve the human condition for more people than any other economic system in history. Indeed, there's something refreshing and idealistic about spacers who try to think of ways that space can be made profitable and beneficial for humanity. At least they are trying to find ways space can improve the human condition.
Moreover, the idea that Mars will be a second home for civilization is no more based on truth than the idea that solar power beamed from the Moon will save the world. Sure Mars has resources for humans to use for settlements. But there is no evidence that humans can live their entire lives and especially produce healthy children in the high radiation low gravity environment that is Mars. Humans evolved in a 1G environment. We still don't know if humans can live permanently in space or if space will always be a place where humans travel temporarily for work and exploration.
Spacers really should stick together to advance our agenda. Advocates of solar satellites and making money in space are not the enemy. If we've got to have an enemy, lets pick on those who think we should do it all in space with robots.
tdr
Technorati: Mars, Mars Society, Space, Space Exploration, NASA.
Republished once for editing.
Labels: Space Societies
Monday, July 17, 2006
Attention San Diego Spacers!
San Diego members of the Mars Society, the Planetary Society, National Space Society, and the Space Frontier Foundation are coming together to form a group called the Alliance for Space, "AllSpace."
Our hope is San Diego spacers can use AllSpace to keep in touch with each other and stay informed about space news and events in San Diego and elsewhere.
We're meeting for Chinese dinner this Sunday, July 23, 2006 at 6 pm. We'll be at the Sunrise Buffet, 3860 Convoy Street.
Click here for the AllSpace Blog entry. Also go here to sign up for the AllSpace Yahoo mailgroup.
-tdr
Our hope is San Diego spacers can use AllSpace to keep in touch with each other and stay informed about space news and events in San Diego and elsewhere.
We're meeting for Chinese dinner this Sunday, July 23, 2006 at 6 pm. We'll be at the Sunrise Buffet, 3860 Convoy Street.
Click here for the AllSpace Blog entry. Also go here to sign up for the AllSpace Yahoo mailgroup.
-tdr
Labels: Space Societies
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Thanks For Nothing, Planetary Society.
The Planetary Society is trumpeting as a success the House Appropriations Committee's recent endorsement of more funding to space science. (Here.) The committee is restoring $75 million to space science, including money for the Europa robotic mission among others. Aeronautics gets $100 million back.
To achieve this result $151 million was cut from NASA's space exploration budget. Exploration Systems Research and Technology lost $135 million. Constellation Systems lost $16 million. (Here.)
No biggie, though. ESRT just pays for things like Centennial Challenges, Robotic Lunar Exploration, Prometheus, and other "technologies and capabilities that will make the national vision for space exploration possible." (Here, p. SUM 1-9.) Constellation Systems pays for things like development of the Crew Exploration and Crew Launch Vehicles and "the collection of systems that will enable sustained human exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond." (Here, p. SUM 1-8.)
So, the Planetary Society's victory restored funding for more robots but at the cost of reduced funding for projects designed to develop the new infrastructure for manned space flights to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
In their defense, Planetary Society members might say that the real problem is that NASA still funds the shuttle to the tune of $4 billion per year. In fact, the Planetary Society came out early in 2006 in favor of discontinuing the shuttle. (Here.)
A campaign truly committed to exploration might fight for restored science funding, increased human exploration funding, and reduced shuttle funding. But that's not what the Planetary Society's so-called Save our Science campaign supports. No, the SOS campaign says nothing about cutting the shuttle and increasing human exploration funding. Instead, it simply concentrates on restoring the status quo ante by increasing funding to the robotic science programs. (Here.)
The flaw in the SOS campaign is that it is backward looking. It looks at NASA's past successes at robotic exploration and believes the future of space exploration should look the same. Congratulations, that's what the Society's preliminary success will give us. More robots. The Same Old Stuff. O, boy. Thanks for nothing, Planetary Society.
-tdr
Technorati: NASA, Science, Astronomy, Space Shuttle.
To achieve this result $151 million was cut from NASA's space exploration budget. Exploration Systems Research and Technology lost $135 million. Constellation Systems lost $16 million. (Here.)
No biggie, though. ESRT just pays for things like Centennial Challenges, Robotic Lunar Exploration, Prometheus, and other "technologies and capabilities that will make the national vision for space exploration possible." (Here, p. SUM 1-9.) Constellation Systems pays for things like development of the Crew Exploration and Crew Launch Vehicles and "the collection of systems that will enable sustained human exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond." (Here, p. SUM 1-8.)
So, the Planetary Society's victory restored funding for more robots but at the cost of reduced funding for projects designed to develop the new infrastructure for manned space flights to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
In their defense, Planetary Society members might say that the real problem is that NASA still funds the shuttle to the tune of $4 billion per year. In fact, the Planetary Society came out early in 2006 in favor of discontinuing the shuttle. (Here.)
A campaign truly committed to exploration might fight for restored science funding, increased human exploration funding, and reduced shuttle funding. But that's not what the Planetary Society's so-called Save our Science campaign supports. No, the SOS campaign says nothing about cutting the shuttle and increasing human exploration funding. Instead, it simply concentrates on restoring the status quo ante by increasing funding to the robotic science programs. (Here.)
The flaw in the SOS campaign is that it is backward looking. It looks at NASA's past successes at robotic exploration and believes the future of space exploration should look the same. Congratulations, that's what the Society's preliminary success will give us. More robots. The Same Old Stuff. O, boy. Thanks for nothing, Planetary Society.
-tdr
Technorati: NASA, Science, Astronomy, Space Shuttle.
Labels: Scienceism, Space Societies
