Space Enthusiast (formerly Cynic)
A view of alt.space from those who STILL won't drink the kool-aid.
Et tu, NASA? Have you succumbed to the political correctness run amok in the halls of our government? Apparently, the answer is a sad “yes”. This week’s Atlantic has a great essay on the latest lack of leadership chapter at NASA – the “we must dig into the leadership and culture at SpaceX” because, you […]
Read More Space Panties in a BunchA recent article in TheStar.com discusses how space may be the first frontier for the next major conflict. By major conflict I assume one in which the US is engaged with another world power and not the sort of massively asymmetric warfare we are engaged in in the Iraq & Afghanistan. Thinking through how a […]
Read More It’s a MAE MAE MAE MAE MAE MAE World….Go back to the Moon Build a Lunar Settlement (see #1) Send humans to Mars Build a Space Based Solar Power Satellite (other than a demo, if that) Build a real replacement for the Shuttle (i.e. something reusable) Build a Space Elevator Fulfill any other wild fantasy of the Space Tragic community Giving kudos where […]
Read More Why We Won’t (fill in the blank):When Dennis Tito flew to ISS, there was an outpouring of cheering from the alt.space community because the era of space tourism was finally here. Claims were put forth about how the $10m price tag was only the start, to be followed by a decreasing price that would make space accessible to more and more […]
Read More So Much For Space Tourism…So in honor of our 300th post, i was planning to do a detailed examination of where we’ve been in the past couple years since the Space Cynics blog was started, how the industry has/hasn’t matured, predictions we (and others) have made that have/haven’t come true, etc. And then I read this little gem. Seems […]
Read More What’s next? A note from his Mom?So, if the alt.space gossip lines are right, there’s trouble a-brewing in the halls of NASA these days, with the Administrator (Mr. Griffin) apparently not terribly interested in working with the Obama transition point person (Lori Garver). Kudos to Al Fansome for pointing this out (initially on the SpacePolitics.com website, from which this was shamelessly […]
Read More And there goes the Moon, or “Liar! Liar! Pants on Fire!”Now be prepared for everyone and their brother to come knocking on your door with their proposals and plans…
Read More Congratulations, President-Elect Obama!(this post is from the Old Space Cadet) On October 13, 2008, The Space Review carried my article The commercial suborbital sounding rocket market: a role for RLVs? http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1228/1 . This article provoked some interesting commentary (and a lot that wasn’t so interesting). For convenience of the reader, I am reproducing the text of the […]
Read More Alt.Space – The Thinkers and the Lunatic FringeFor those who suffered through the 1st Presidential stump speech fest (“debate” is too strong a word for what I witnessed), you may have noticed that the issue of Space didn’t get any coverage, other than a passing reference to China sending some astronauts up and how we should focus more on math and science […]
Read More Well, it sorta got mentioned…So it seems that our enlightened leadership in the Administration, having pissed away what the accountants will eventually calculate as over $1 trillion on a war against those who attacked us on 9/11 – I mean, a war against those who had weapons of mass destruction that they were 45 minutes away from using on […]
Read More Brother can you spare 7 trillion dimes…?
Space Enthusiast (formerly Cynic) 