Space Programs
NASA, Soviet and Russian space programs and the International Space Station
Value for Cost: The Determinate Path
The report of the Augustine committee analyzes America’s space program through a very narrow prism. Much of their report argues that the existing program of record (more specifically, the Ares I and V launch system) is not affordable, a fact already apparent to most observers. Thus, the committee...
March 24, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Cameron’s Camera
Avatar’s creator hopes to direct the first movies shot on Mars.
March 23, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
The First Spacewalk, 1965
Forty-five years ago today, Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov made the first spacewalk during his Voskhod 2 orbital flight.Leonov recalled in his 2004 book with Dave Scott, Two Sides of the Moon:
When my four-year-old daughter, Vika, saw me take my first steps in space, I later learned, she hid her f...
March 18, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
A&S Interview: Chris Kraft
NASA's first Flight Director assesses the state of the space program 40 years after Apollo.
March 2010 |
By Michael Klesius
Stuck in Transit – Unchaining Ourselves From the Rocket Equation
Last fall, after much anticipation, the Augustine Committee presented us with their assessment of the future of space exploration. Its basic conclusion was that at currently envisioned budgets, the Program of Record (a.k.a. ESAS, Project Constellation) would not get us back to the Moon before many...
March 11, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
NASA Art on Tour
A traveling exhibit from the space agency's right brain.
March 09, 2010 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Help for the Orbiting Astronaut
This is the kind of thing that shows just how weirdly connected we've all become.The other day Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi was up on the space station, downloading pictures via Twitter that he'd taken out the window. He asked if anybody could identify a weird hexagonal shape in Australia....
March 08, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Space Toys
Space toys can be big business. In 2007, a toy Robby the Robot inspired by the 1956 movie Forbidden Planet was given a retail estimate of $4,500. But that's chump change compared to what Masudaya's Target Robot (right) went for at a recent auction at Dan Morphy—a whopping $52,900.True, the 15-in...
March 05, 2010 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Apollo Legends, On the Road Again
When Bob Hope took Neil Armstrong to Southeast Asia with the USO Tour a few months after the Apollo 11 moon landing, the troops at each show gave the astronaut and former Navy fighter pilot standing ovations whenever he walked on stage.Armstrong will travel abroad again to bolster troop moral, this...
March 03, 2010 |
By Mike Klesius
Talismanic Thinking
Wild claims are being tossed about regarding the future U.S. space program. Recipes for success are touted and e-mailed around – concepts based more on wishful thinking than on solid science and engineering. My friend Rand Simberg refers to those who would replicate anew the means we devised to g...
February 27, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Race and the Space Race
PRX Radio ran an interesting piece over the weekend, narrated by former astronaut Mae Jemison, about race and the early space program. NASA and the civil rights movement came of age in the same decade, and by chance, the agency's main centers were in places like Texas, Alabama, and Florida—the hear...
February 25, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
A Lunar Visionary
My good friend Klaus Heiss is resting in the hospital after recently suffering a stoke. Klaus is not widely known or familiar to many in the space community, but over the years, he has had a major impact on our national space program – a major player in both the Shuttle program and in helping to p...
February 23, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
More Detail From NASA
Those who say NASA is giving up on human space exploration may want to take a look at the details the agency just released about where its budgeted money is going over the next several years. The table on page EXP-3 of this document shows more than $15 billion over the next five years allocated for...
February 23, 2010 |
By Mike Klesius
The Astronaut Olympics
The other night, while most Americans were sleeping, the astronauts on the International Space Station decided to have a little fun. The Winter Olympics were on, the crew had a few hours of free time, and here's what they came up with:A couple things strike me about this scene, and the rest of the ...
February 17, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Confusing the Means and the Ends
The release of the proposed NASA budget and new “direction” has led to an intense “cage fight” in the blogosphere over who has the best rocket and the best architecture. Many “New Space” advocates are ecstatic, viewing the cancellation of the Constellation program as vindication of their view that...
February 13, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
No Stimulus Plan for Astronauts
For NASA's flying corps, it looks like 1975 all over again.
February 05, 2010 |
By Matthew Hersch
The Price of Human Spaceflight
So NASA’s Constellation program is dead. No more Ares rockets, no government-funded Orion capsule.With all due respect to the engineers who worked on the program, we’re better off without it.After six years and $9 billion spent, Constellation only managed a single suborbital test launch—of mostly m...
February 04, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Vision Impaired
The release of the new proposed budget for NASA has unleashed a blizzard of news articles and commentary. The administration proposes to terminate Constellation, the agency effort to design and build a new space transportation system to carry people to low Earth orbit and beyond. In its place, th...
February 03, 2010 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Live from the Space Station
As reality TV, let's just say it lacks drama. So far I haven't seen a single shouting match. But beginning today, you can watch live as NASA astronauts go about their daily business inside the International Space Station.The "Live From the ISS" link on NASA's space station web page shows you the vi...
February 01, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
