Space Forum / Space Policy / November 2003

It looks like 2003 will probably see a decline in
worldwide space launch total from last year's 65,
though the totals will probably better 2001's 59.
Recent annual totals

For those with the longevity and patience to have followed the
ever-developing story of a Defense Satellite Program successor
(SBIRS in the current manifestation), the General Accounting Office
has issued yet another report on the GEO/Molniya(HEO) components,

Check it out here!
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=894
Tho, budget wise , I puzzle over what the White House and
the Congress really want to do?

I've noticed in the post-Columbia discussion of basic problems with
the shuttle design, a lot of negative attention gets focused on the
configuration that has the shuttle, with engines, side-mounted on the
ET. I understand a lot of the problems the configuration causes, among

The recent post here commemorating three years of manned presence
aboard ISS got me to thinking.
First, good.  Hooray for ISS and its crews.  A continuous presence in
space is the obvious first property of a spacefaring civilization.  If

What would be necessary to launch the remaining ISS modules - Node 2,
Centrifuge, Kibo, Columbus - without the Shuttle? Obviously any new
Russian modules will go up on Proton, but I am assuming that would not
be feasible for Shuttle-manifested launches due to politics. What

If plans hold, Cape Canaveral/KSC will host more space
launches during 2003 than any other site - the first
time this has happened since the late 1990s.    
Table 1 is list of launch sites, ranked by number of

According to :
"http://space.com/missionlaunches/rtf_shuttlec_031114.html"
NASA is looking at shuttle-derived heavy lift cargo carriers
as one possible option for future heavy-lift requirements in

In "The Space Environment" by N. H. Langton (1969) they say the
Apollo plan was to avoid most of the van Allen belt radiation by
going through near the edge.  Cape Canaveral is 28.5 degrees North,
which is about right for going toward the Moon.  The radiation

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/fof_osp_031119.html
" ...and provide the ability to enter Earth's atmosphere without any active
control via ballistic reentry. This combination meets NASA's requirements
for safe human space flight. "

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/beyondleo-03a.html
Why not Mars? I guess that the U.S. is figuring it has to get there before
the Chinese claim it!! Anyway, since it has already been done before the
chances of success should be very high.

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
Tokyo, Japan
2003/11/07
Reusable Vehicle Flight Experiment at Noshiro Testing Center

China launching one crewed flight per year?  Yawn.  
Here is the real space race.
"http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0311/15marssample/"
Who will be first to bring back a piece of Mars?

There's not much on the web about the forerunner hotel on Luna which will be
necessary for driving space tourism to drive Lunar development so I started a
site which has some sketches and will have some CAD drawings of the way the
first practical and economical Lunar Lodge *has* to ...

what do we need to do before we send men back ?
A couple of things I came up with are:
An orbiter to map the Moon in detail especially the poles. Many areas of the
Moon today are not mapped to 20 m resolution we can easily do 10m for the