Obama

Obama Champions Private Enterprise in Space over Bipartisan Support for Socialist NASA Program

by Berin Szoka April 21, 2010 Cheap Access to Space

Last Thursday I shared my thoughts in two short (<5 min) RussiaToday interviews on on President Obama’s big speech about NASA and his long-overdue cancellation of NASA’s white elephant known as “Ares I” rocket. (See Jeff Foust’s analysis here and here.) I was sorry to see the Administration decide to preserve the Orion capsule as a lifeboat [...]

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Change is Coming to NASA Space Launch

by Rick Tumlinson March 19, 2010 Advocacy

Change is coming to the US space program. At last! Real, dramatic and tangible change in both its effect and the course it will create in this nation’s future in space. It is long past time for us to try something different, as what we have been doing in our human space program since Apollo has been a failure of epic proportions.

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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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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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