NOAA’s low hanging problem — Part 1

SpacePolicyonline.com and The Weather Channel both posted stories last week about the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) “urgent” need for a new weather satellite. You can read the stories from both sites here and here. According to their posts, there is a projected satellite and data gap for sun-synchronous low earth orbiting (go here […]

I don’t think Hell has frozen over (yet)

Under the exasperated sighs of “Riiiiight” and “Surrrre,” Boeing has proudly announced on November 8 a “partnership” (read “monopoly”) with the United States Air Force (USAF). This partnership is supposed to help everyone involved to reduce “supply chain costs.” As I’ve noted before, the government and military’s acquisitions systems are broken. This system affects the […]

United Nations has a space fleet?

Did you know the United Nations (UN) has a space fleet ready for disasters? The UN doesn’t really run the constellation, but there’s a signed charter, the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters, which has about 23 members involved with it. Some United States organizations are members, such as DigitalGlobe (hence Tomnod), National Oceanic and […]

Too much XS–in government space

Every now and then, an article, like this one posted in USA Today, shows up. The gist of the article is: the Pentagon is looking for a “cheap” way to get satellites into space. In this particular case they’re looking at a “space plane” called XS-1. We’ve heard this before, with pretty much the same […]

SpaceX Merlin Rocket Engine LiveScribe Love

I decided give you all a little hint about the next post I’m working on. This old LiveScribe, um, video(??) is narrated by Tom Mueller, SpaceX’s Vice President of Propulsion Development. What that position typically means is he’s in charge of a lot people who know how to build rocket engines and motors, how to […]