Private Space: SCIMming Mars Mission

This is a really cool idea: instead of landing on Mars, why not just have a spacecraft skim the Red Planet’s atmosphere for dust, and return home with those samples? That way mission designers don’t have to worry about landing complexities and the added weight of a lander. And if a lander collected samples of […]

Google Wants a Piece of Virgin

Another space announcement from Google and Virgin Galactic last week took many folks by surprise. Google is supposed to be in talks with Virgin Galactic, and supposedly wants to buy a small stake in the sub-orbital flight company. One telltale sign of the seriousness of the talks is the companies have signed up and registered […]

SpaceX a Catalyst for Change to European Space Launch

Most of this site’s readers are somewhat familiar with the kerfuffle concerning SpaceX and the US government’s Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) contract. For those who aren’t, there are quite a few sources for the story, including this site. But the US government isn’t the only one on the defensive from SpaceX’s aggressive launch development program […]

Imagery Unchained (Finally!)

Back in September 2013 I wrote an opinion about why the US government’s laws regarding imagery resolution were very onerous. The rules just didn’t make sense in a world of cheap picture drones. That opinion was based on a story about DigitalGlobe attempting to get imagery restrictions relaxed so they could compete better in the satellite […]

Profits in Space

Do you know there are not many markets in the space business that are profitable? At least that’s the spin of this Space Daily article. It gives a few examples of areas in space business and operations that can continue to grow and/or have potential to grow. The area of space business which is growing like gangbusters, at […]