Space Forum / Space Policy / September 2003

Was reading an interview with Phil Plait in this month's
Astronomy Magazine.
His Bad Astronomy website was catapaulted into the limelight
after he debunked a Feb, 2001 Fox TV show "Conspiracy Theory,

Scaled Composites has selected the winner of the SpaceShipOne hybrid rocket
contest between eAc and SpaceDev.  This is great news, since it means that the
manned rocket-powered flights are close at hand, and then...
You can find the press release courtesy of Clark Lindsey's ...

I grabbed this off the Mars Society Web Sight today. What got my
attention is that Sean O'Keefe said that it represented "wrong headed
thinking." Anybody know what he was referring to, the reuse of shuttle
or the idea of a 'simpler' capsule OSP?

Beal Aerospace's web site has quite a condemnation of NASA from Beal
himself accussing NASA of attempting to monopolize commercial space
industry.  Is this just sour grapes from a sore loser or is he
correct?  Knowledgeble opinions appreciated.

1. What fraction of a population has to be living or travelling in
space regularly or simultaneously for the whole population to be
called a "Spacefaring Civilization" ?
a) 0 percent

Check out
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2003qo104.html
2nd guy to be a Torino Scale 1, in the last few weeks. It may go away too, but
2009 is a lot closer than 2014!

PR With Universal Appeal
The Hubble's amazing but drab images of the cosmos are being digitally
enhanced as a splashy sales pitch for the space program.
By Allison M. Heinrichs, Times Staff Writer

Was anybody at the World SF Con in Toronto? I understand there was to be
a showing of some MCS footage... anybody see it?

Let's say suddenly Earth isn't going to be inhabitable for much longer,
maybe 4 or 5 years, and then it's no good. Could we evacuate Earth's
population to space, given that amount of warning? This scenario is based
upon something really bad happening that is definately going to ...

Under-construction satellite topples to floor in mishap
Tuesday September 09, 2003
By MATTHEW FORDAHL
AP Technology Writer

What aerospace companies are there in the Seattle area? There's
obviously Boeing and Blue Origin... what else?

Although in the 1950s/60s it seems that space colonization was only a
few decades away (see: sci-fi at the time), even if we had continued
to fund space development through private commercialization, I doubt
we'd be much farther than we are at today.  Aside from the dismantling

In deciding whether or not to fund NASA's proposed Orbital Space Plane
- a "space taxi" dedicated to crew transport, in contrast to the
current "space truck" - Congressional mavens are making a faulty
assumption. That is that because OSP will be launched on unproven

Dow Jones Business News
"http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/030905/0013000006_2.html"
is reporting that Measat Global Bhd. will pay only
$48.7 million for a 2005 ILS Proton launch of its

You all have probably seen this news item:
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=12454
Note: 2003 QQ47 went from 1 to 0 on the Torino scale (those boys at
JPL are sharp!).