Comments on: Authorization negotiations http://www.spacepolitics.com/2005/07/28/authorization-negotiations/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=authorization-negotiations Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway... Wed, 17 Sep 2014 13:35:41 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.0.38 By: Joseph Warrantino http://www.spacepolitics.com/2005/07/28/authorization-negotiations/#comment-3853 Fri, 29 Jul 2005 12:26:47 +0000 http://www.districtofbaseball.com/spacepolitics/?p=620#comment-3853 I saw that. They should call it the Gadfly Newshour. One of these guys once worked for NASA (as an aeronautics historian) over two decades ago. The other once worked for NASA (as a biologist) a decade ago. Their primary qualification appears to be that they have opinions and attitude, which are not exactly in short supply these days.

]]> By: Greg Kuperberg http://www.spacepolitics.com/2005/07/28/authorization-negotiations/#comment-3852 Fri, 29 Jul 2005 03:33:46 +0000 http://www.districtofbaseball.com/spacepolitics/?p=620#comment-3852 On this theme there was a great interview (certainly by TV standards) of Keith Cowing and Alex Roland conducted by Ray Suarez on the PBS NewsHour. Whether or not Roland is a horrible hack as Dwayne Day described him in the Space Review (I don’t think that he is), the news today was making his case for him. Keith Cowing was clearly on the defensive, I thought.

But still, although I don’t agree with Cowing at all, I’m glad that he was there to share his wisdom.

]]> By: TORO http://www.spacepolitics.com/2005/07/28/authorization-negotiations/#comment-3851 Fri, 29 Jul 2005 03:12:24 +0000 http://www.districtofbaseball.com/spacepolitics/?p=620#comment-3851 Two reasons to retire the shuttle are (1) risk to crew and (2) cost of cargo. If the CEV, at first, is primarily a lower risk human transport, then the reason to keep or not keep the shuttle is cost of cargo. As on Earth, there are two basic categories of cargo – cheap and expensive, also often known as perishable and non-perishable. The shuttle cannot do the cheap type, but until the Fed Ex or UPS competitors come on board, what forcing function is out there?

The wildcards include PRC space plans, US 2006 elections incuding the obvious 2 term top gun limit, Rutan innovators, and global stability and economies.

There is one other item. Once ISS is built, is it time to tear it down, or what?

]]> By: Greg Kuperberg http://www.spacepolitics.com/2005/07/28/authorization-negotiations/#comment-3850 Fri, 29 Jul 2005 02:54:21 +0000 http://www.districtofbaseball.com/spacepolitics/?p=620#comment-3850 It has become clear that the space shuttle can only ever retire in disgrace. The talk about “completing” the space station is nonsense. You can’t finish a quagmire; you can only declare victory and go home. And fundamentally, the space shuttle is a self-perpetuating hero factory. So every new flight delay for the space shuttle makes its retirement come sooner, not later.

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