Category Archives: Commercial Space
One large step… (the first Dragon mission to the International Space Station)
Tuesday morning (May 22nd, 2012) at 3:44 AM (EDT), SpaceX will (again) attempt to take one large step forward on the path to the commercialization of space. The mission is an ambitious flight of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon … Continue reading
NASA Authorization Act of 2010: Back to the Past
Senator Bill Nelson (D, Florida) introduced the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 to the Senate commerce committee last week, and it is slated for a committee vote and discussion on July 15th. If enacted, the bill would add one or more … Continue reading
The Most Important Rocket Launch Since the First Space Shuttle
Starting Friday morning at 11:00 AM Eastern Time, a plucky startup company founded by Elon Musk, the cofounder of Tesla Motors and PayPal, will begin the first attempt to launch what is possibly the most important new rocket since the … Continue reading
Recommendations to the US Human Spaceflight Plans Committee (the Augustine Commission)
There are only two ways that NASA can achieve more lofty goals in space – spend more money, or reduce the cost. The Apollo program successfully used the former strategy, but in the process demonstrated the difficulty of sustaining an … Continue reading
"Final" Hubble Space Telescope Repair Mission and the Inevitable Death of Hubble
The inclusion of the new docking port on Hubble means that NASA will have more options when it comes time to service Hubble again or deorbit it, and it’s likely that a commercial option might be the cheapest and best. Continue reading
New Animation Reveals Additional Details of SpaceX’s Dragon Spaceship
SpaceX yesterday posted a new animation to their Web site yesterday illustrating what a launch of their new seven-person spaceship, the Dragon, will look like, and some new details that are sure to make space geeks intrigued. Continue reading
SpaceX Achieves Orbit – Access to Space Just Got a Lot Cheaper
Today at 4:15 PM (PDT) the private company SpaceX successfully launched its partially reusable Falcon 1 rocket into orbit for the first time after a string of three prior failures. The rocket, and the company, was built from scratch over … Continue reading