Newt Gingrich and an eclectic band of NASA skeptics are trying to sell President Donald Trump on a reality show-style plan to jump-start the return of humans to the moon — at a fraction of the space agency’s estimated price tag. The proposal, whose other proponents range from an Air Force lieutenant general to the former publicist for pop stars Michael Jackson and Prince, [editor: that’s the Space Development Steering.. Read More
The Great Space-Off
The Space Development Steering Committee suggests a contest to get Americans to the moon, this time to stay. The Committee urges NASA to ask private industry space companies to compete. With what? With private moon programs launched on private rockets. Programs whose first steps would allow these private companies to land Americans on the moon by 2024, the goal of the current presidential administration. But the Space Development Steering Committee urges.. Read More
The Instant Moon Program
The Trump administration, its Space Council, and that council’s head, Vice President Mike Pence, are looking for a way to get to the moon fast. And to get there to stay. They are impatient with current NASA plans. Those plans won’t get us to the moon until long after President Trump is out of office. The Space Development Steering Committee proposes a six-part COTS program that will get us on the moon to.. Read More
The Edge of an Earthquake
We may be on the edge of an earthquake in NASA and in the space community. James Bridenstine, NASA’s head, has said that we will send humans into orbit around the moon by 2020. To get us there, there’s a possibility that NASA won’t use its own rocket. Instead, it may buy rocket launches from private companies like United Launch Alliance and SpaceX. And the new White House budget has backed that.. Read More
The Rubies of the Moon?
There’s a massive value to the Moon that even that heavenly body’s most passionate fans in the space community are missing, says veteran space engineer and author of the book Moonrush Dennis Wingo. Jeff Bezos has called over and over again for us humans to move heavy industry into space and to focus on gardening the planet. Wingo says the moon is rip-roaring with advantages for this move of industry.. Read More
Was NASA’s Moon Plan Designed By Chinese Saboteurs?
The Chinese are racing us to be first to put a permanent village on the moon. We are way, way ahead in technology. But the Chinese could easily pass us. Why? Greed. The greed of the SMIC, the Space Military Industrial Complex. And the complicity of NASA. The Trump administration wants America to get to the moon, to get there to stay, and to get there fast. There is a good way to achieve this.. Read More
The New Space Race Pits the U.S. Against China. The U.S. Is Losing Badly.
This article first appeared in the Washington Post on January 10th. By Namrata Goswami Namrata Goswami is an independent senior analyst and author of “Outer Space and Great Powers.” In October, as Damien Chazelle’s Neil Armstrong biopic “First Man” arrived in theaters, the movie provoked an uproar over what it didn’t show: the moment when Americans planted a flag on the moon. But in trying to affirm American greatness, the.. Read More
Zero-Carbon Energy
Using Elon Musk’s Falcon Heavy rocket, we could harvest solar power in space and send it to earth for a startlingly low figure, ten cents per kilowatt hour, a price competitive with ground-based solar, wind, and other alternative power sources. So says John Mankins, the world’s leading expert on space solar power, a 25-year NASA veteran. Solar power harvested in space has stunning benefits. It is totally carbonless. It produces zero greenhouse gases. And in the long run, it can replace fossil fuels. Completely. What’s more, providing electricity to distant,.. Read More
Inspector General Details SLS Delays and Cost Overruns
On October 11, 2018, a Russian Soyuz rocket carrying an American astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut began leaking an ominous plume of smoke and the astronauts were forced to make an emergency landing. This totally shut down humanity’s ability to take people to space. The manufacturers of an overpriced, under-capable, and currently non-existent rocket called the Space Launch System have jumped into the breach, planting articles claiming that the Soyuz.. Read More
What the Falcon Heavy Can Do
Solar energy from space at ten cents per kilowatt hour, a price competitive with coal, oil, terrestrial solar power, and wind power. That’s what one expert on space solar power says is within our grasp thanks to Elon Musk’s vastly underused new rocket, the 140,000-pound-cargo-carrying Falcon Heavy, the most powerful rocket on earth. Solar energy from space has no carbon emissions, no down times for clouds or night, can be.. Read More