Other « Space Politics

Breakfast with Mike

By Jeff Foust on 2005 April 19 at 12:49 pm ET

Here’s your chance to have breakfast with new NASA administrator Michael Griffin: just you and Mike—and 100 or so other people. Women in Aerospace will be hosting a breakfast on Tuesday, May 3, in Washington, with the new administrator as the keynote speaker. Details should be up on the WIA web site shortly, or you […]

Space policy priorities

By Jeff Foust on 2005 April 18 at 7:47 am ET

In an article in this week’s issue of The Space Review, Sam Dinkin ranks a number of space policy options designed to improve space access or otherwise further commercial development of space. There are some interesting ideas here, such as subsidizing EELV developers on a per-launch basis rather than as a flat fee as currently […]

Space science and social conservatism

By Jeff Foust on 2005 April 13 at 12:52 pm ET

Or, at least how Washington Post cartoonist Tom Toles perceives the intersection of these topics…

Better late than never

By Jeff Foust on 2005 April 6 at 8:09 am ET

According to a report in a California newspaper, the California State Assembly has approved a resolution congratulating the SpaceShipOne team for winning the Ansari X Prize and opening the door for space tourism. Of course, this is six months after SpaceShipOne made its X Prize-winning flight; by comparison, the US House of Representatives passed a […]

Rutan on regulatory issues

By Jeff Foust on 2005 April 1 at 7:50 am ET

Reason magazine has published an excellent interview with Burt Rutan that focuses squarely on regulatory issues involved with commercial human spaceflight. Rutan, as many readers know, is not a big fan of the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, and has made it clear on a number of occasions that he would prefer to have […]

Lunar exploration meeting

By Jeff Foust on 2005 April 1 at 7:28 am ET

Over at RocketForge, Michael Mealling points out that NASA’s Robotic and Human Lunar Exploration Strategic Roadmap Committee, is holding a meeting yesterday and today at the University of Maryland on various scenarios for lunar exploration. It’s probably a little too late to attend unless you’re in the immediate area and have an open schedule today […]

Hubble makes for strange bedfellows

By Jeff Foust on 2005 March 30 at 7:27 am ET

The Space Frontier Foundation and the Mars Society announced yesterday that they are jointly calling on NASA to mount a shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. “The Hubble deserters’ embrace of irrational fear as a core ethic threatens a precedent that would preclude any future human accomplishments in space,” the Foundation’s spokesman, Rick […]

Hubble, Mars, both, or neither

By Jeff Foust on 2005 March 25 at 7:47 am ET

The Baltimore Sun published an editorial yesterday proclaiming its support for Michael Griffin as the next NASA administrator. However, the editorial also called on Griffin to put more emphasis on Hubble and less on Mars: “While he is on record backing the Bush plan to send humans as far away as Mars, we hope his […]

Albrecht on exploration and Griffin

By Jeff Foust on 2005 March 24 at 7:53 am ET

Most of a Tuesday morning briefing by Mark Albrecht, president of International Launch Services, focused on the state of the commercial launch industry in general and ILS’ performance in particular. However, the conversation did drift to NASA’s exploration program. For that Albrecht could offer some unique insights: earlier in his career he served as executive […]

Mike Griffin gets some respect

By Jeff Foust on 2005 March 20 at 1:55 pm ET

I noted in my article in The Space Review last week that Michael Griffin is not yet well known outside of the space community: on Google the top result for “Michael Griffin” was an escape artist who promises “½ intensley [sic] original magic”. Fortunately, over the last week Dr. Griffin is starting to get a […]

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