Ten Reasons Why NASA Must Kill Ares I & Buy Commercial Rides to Space

by Rick Tumlinson January 26, 2010 Enablers

The Space Frontier Foundation has led the fight for a free and open frontier in space for over 20 years. It is our goal that you and your children should have the right to explore and settle space in any way you wish, using your own resources and with the right to harvest the resources [...]

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Ares I: A Pass-Fail Test for Barack Obama

by Space Frontier Foundation January 23, 2010 Advocacy

The case against Ares I is overwhelming. It is overpriced, unnecessary, competes directly with private spaceflight providers and will take so long to develop that it has already created a several years long “gap” in US crewed access to space. The commercial alternatives are based on well-tested, mature systems currently used to launch U.S. military, scientific, and commercial satellites. Adapting these rockets to carry people is cheaper, faster and better.

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Intern with Us in DC this Summer – Deadline: January 31

by Berin Szoka January 22, 2010 Featured

Attention all college, graduate and professional students (and recent graduates)! The Space Frontier Foundation is participating for the first time, in the Charles G. Koch Summer Fellow Program, run by the Institute for Humane Studies—which is dedicated to advancing free market ideas. The application deadline is Sunday January 31.
So join us this summer to [...]

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Register for SFF’s “Take Back Your Space Program – First Flight”

by Mike Heney January 12, 2010 Advocacy

The Space Frontier Foundation’s year-long mission to Capitol Hill is about to begin. Get in on the beginning by registering [for free] to attend “First Flight” the week of Sunday, February 7.

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A President Worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize: Eisenhower & the Freedom of Space

by Berin Szoka January 12, 2010 Earth Observation & Remote Sensing

Ike’s warnings about the “military-industrial complex” did more to check the growth of the national security state than all past or future peace marches combined. But only recently has Eisenhower’s greatest achievement become clear: ensuring the right to peaceful uses of outer space.

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Gas Stations in Space?

by Bob Werb January 11, 2010 Advocacy

Fuel depots fundamentally change the economics of going beyond low Earth orbit. A lighter and drastically cheaper spaceship can be sent to low Earth orbit with empty tanks and fueled up before continuing on its way. Even better is the potential to refuel returned spaceships so they can be reused for multiple trips to deep space destinations, saving even more.

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Space Energy TEDx Talk by Peter Sage

by Berin Szoka January 10, 2010 Featured

Great TEDx talk by Peter Sage of Space Energy Inc.,  one of the corporate sponsors of the Space Frontier Foundation, about space-based solar power in general and his company’s plans in particular:

Here are two of the key papers Peter mentions:

Michael J. Hornitschek, Lt Col, USAF, War Without Oil: A Catalyst For True Transformation, 2006.
Space-Based [...]

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YouTube “Christmas Tree Rocketry” Inspires Interest in Science, Technology, Engineering & Math

by Berin Szoka January 9, 2010 Education

The X Prize was hard to beat in terms of its “cool factor,” but videos like this one show that there is no shortage of creative amateurs out there using social media tools to do the same thing for a fraction of what even the X Prize or Teachers in Space cost.

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Beware Of Space Junk: Global Warming Isn’t the Only Major Environmental Problem

by Berin Szoka December 20, 2009 Featured

Jim & Berin call on space-faring nations to create an Orbital Debris Removal and Recycling Fund (ODRRF) to offer bounties to entrepreneurs for removing space junk.

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The Kennedy Legacy in Space

by Bob Werb December 18, 2009 Featured

When President Kennedy declared in 1962 that “We choose to go to the moon in this decade,” he could not possibly have known that our desire to recapture the lost glories of the Apollo years would put us in a holding pattern, repeating the same mistakes over and over, like a broken record, well into the 21st century. His speech was followed by seven years of breakthroughs—and 40 years of decline.

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