Space Forum / Space Policy / September 2007

The European Space Agency (ESA) and other European partners have
started to look at developing a Crew Space Transportation System
(CSTS) which may be able to launch humans into space.
A study, with addition contributions from Japan and Russia, has been

A piece in Popular Mechanics on propellant depots, and their benefits:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/air_space/4224660.html?series=35

Better late than never.
If, of course, the strategic thinking leads to reasonable actions.
http://www.fcw.com/article103852-09-24-07-Web
Air Force 'shocked' by Chinese actions in space

Now here's something worth talking about:
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070913/ap_on_hi_te/google_moon_prize>
"Google Inc. is bankrolling a $30 million out-of-this-world prize to the
first private company that can safely land a robotic rover on the moon

Isn't this a Cape Verde deal going down?
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/DATA/RT/EATL/IR4/20.jpg
Why do you have to use a European Satellite to catch these terrorists?

I have long accepted the standard idea that lunar rilles are mostly
collapsed lava tubes but after looking at a lot of rille pics I am now
not so sure.  However, I cannot accept the odd idea of them being
electrical discharge features on a large scale.  I wonder if they

.
HOW and WHY the Google Lunar X Prize could become a BOOMERANG for the
american pride!
Google has estabilished the INTERNATIONAL Lunar X Prize giving five

There is a relatively new space advocacy group out there, and
we want to draw a little attention to ourselves:
http://marsdrive.com
A little background -- MarsDrive was officially incorporated in

How many hundred tons of prep could NASA have saved if it had used such a
system on shuttle-station missions?
September 13, 2007 // Satellite to test special deliveries from space -
Student-led experiment would use tether system to drop 'Fotino' to Earth

I was reading here:
http://pdf.aiaa.org/preview/CDReadyMSEC05_1205/PV2005_2510.pdf
That a lot of the lunar dust is very fine elemental iron particles.
So, all we have to do is to combine it with an oxidizer to form a

The Peruvian meteorite that caused so many people to become sick
released mind controlling organisms.  They behave as an intelligent
swarm and have taken control of the minds of all who came near the
crash site so they deny anything has happened.  They will tell us,

Fox, BBC etc have a story about a meteorite impact in Peru that made a
crater releasing some kind of gas that made "scores of people sick"
and made a 100' wide crater.  Sounds like a ploy to get publicity for
a cheezy sci-fi movie.

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I think that fusion energy researches are a GIANT WASTE of TIME and
MONEY (several Billion$$$ so far) since the (cold/hot/semi-hot) fusion

I know there are good reasons for not setting the target as Mars, such
as possibility of contamination of Mars by non-sterilised spacecraft,
but I feel that Mars would have been a better target.
Using aero-braking would have resulted in a lower Delta-V than the

I sorta remember that the stuff in these hand warmer is basically iron
and water so that the formation of an oxide is exothermic.  Could the
nanophase iron in lunar dust be used to produce heat this way?