The stack of reports critical of various aspects of NASA’s Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft grew a little taller today. NASA’s Office of Inspector General has released a rather unflattering audit regarding the Spaceport Command and Control (SCCS) for SLS & Orion. The system, which will be used to control the network of ground […]
In 2013, the Houston Chronicle’s Eric Berger conducted a remarkable interview with retired NASA manager Christopher Kraft, the engineer who was the agency’s first manned spaceflight director, and who played a critical role in designing each of the boosters which elevated the United States from sub-orbital flight to the surface of the Moon in less than […]
A key element of NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission, or ARM, is being pushed back one year. According to reports from a meeting of the NASA Advisory Council’s human exploration and operations committee which took place last week, ARM’s program director Michele Gates said: “Under the new schedule, the ARM robotic mission would launch in December […]
For many of who take pride in NASA, it is embarrassing enough that the agency which once went to the Moon, and now says it is on a “Journey to Mars” has as its only defined human exploration goal, the Asteroid Redirect Mission. ARM’s objective, radically reduced from the original 2010 proposal of sending astronauts to […]
First, the good news. We are long past the days when the release of an Administration’s budget request for NASA was the most reliable guidepost to what the future of space exploration might bring. On the other hand, we are nowhere close to the point where it is no longer relevant either. That being said, […]
On February 3rd, Congress held another in an a seemingly endless line of hearings to discus NASA’s human space flight program. As usual, nothing was decided other than the fact that everyone seemed to agree with the assertion that what NASA is saying is a plan, is not one at all, and that some sort […]
The possibility of a joint U.S./Russian lunar program coming together in the late 2020’s is beginning to look like a viable options for the post ISS era. If by chance national space ambitions are not trumped by NewSpace accomplishments sometime in the next ten years, which is a distinct possibility, budget realities and changing fortunes […]
NASA Press Release: Oct. 8, 2015 15-206 NASA Releases Plan Outlining Next Steps in the Journey to Mars NASA is leading our nation and the world on a journey to Mars, and Thursday the agency released a detailed outline of that plan in its report, “NASA’s Journey to Mars: Pioneering Next Steps in Space Exploration.” […]
NASA held a media teleconference on Wednesday to announce the results of a critical review of the space agency’s Orion spacecraft, which had been tentatively scheduled for a first crewed launch in August of 2021. Based on the findings from the review, labelled Key Decision Point C, that launch is now not expected to take […]
Since leaving the moon in 1969, Buzz Aldrin has never been far from space advocacy, lending his name to a number of projects, and showing up at conferences long after other legendary astronauts have retired to a quieter life. That simply wasn’t in the cards for the second man on the Moon, in part because […]
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