All We Are Saying Is Give Musk A Chance

Rand Simberg lays the wood on Loren Thompson regarding SpaceX, AKA new space. New START may leave a lot to be desired but new space, not so much: legacy launch system costs, that is EELV, are (forgive me) sky high. Other recent and related stories: Elon Musk Revisited SpaceX, The Company That Saved NASA? China [...]

The New Method of Russian Mission Assurance

In a court of law, circa 1995, the following was offered as the acid-test of confirmation, substantiation, and verification: if the glove don’t fit, you must acquit.  DNA and statistical probability?  Don’t worry so much about that…it’s complicated. In Russia, in 2011, the test of confirmation, substantiation, and verification it’s this: if the launch is [...]

Danger Room ♥ Cartwright

Where is the love?  Like my fickle friend, the summer wind, sometimes circumstances just change.  So what’s it all about, Alfie?  Well, it look like the President’s favorite general won’t be the next Chairman of the JSC if Danger Room has it right.  [Marine General James] Cartwright has been definitively ruled out as the next [...]

EU announces launch date for Galileo

Galileo, the poster-child for European space overruns, must be about done, because the EU has announced a launch date:  20 Oct. EU industry commissioner Antonio Tajani said the launch, from the Kourou spacesport in the European enclave at the northern tip of South America, would take place at 7:00 am local time and the satellites [...]

The Russian Anti-Missile Defense Saga Continues

The anti-missile defense drill that Russia is running with the U.S. and NATO continues and the song remains the same. In this verse, recently added, the Russians want a pledge that missile defense won’t be used against them: "We are proposing, and asking for it to be put in writing, that the missile defense system [...]

The Kennedy Space-Myth

How do myths get started?  As an effort to burnish legacies. Which is exactly what happened with President John Kennedy and the U.S. manned space flight program. Check out this awesome post, a review of the John M. Logsdon book “John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon” from which you can only conclude [...]

Growing U.S.-Chinese Arms Race?

Is there a growing U.S.-Chinese arms race? Absolutely not.  You can only have an arms race when two or more racers are racing. The U.S. is not racing; China is racing on its own.  That’s what happens when the government is flush with cash, the military is highly ambitious and seems to be disconcertedly disconnected [...]

Who Believes in Missile Defense? Russia.

Russia believes in missile defense.  They say so right here: "Our analysis has shown that the initial phases of the U.S. system do not pose a threat to Russian strategic nuclear weapons," [Russian General Staff operations head Lt. Gen. Andrei] Tretiak said in remarks carried by Interfax. "This will change by the third and fourth [...]

CIA Getting Serious About Leaks…Sort of

Leon Panetta is getting serious about leaks.  That is, leaking on the op that took out bin Laden…parts of it…regarding some people.  From the Panetta memo sent to those in the agency: Disclosure of classified information to anyone not cleared for it—reporters, friends, colleagues in the private sector or other agencies, former Agency officers—does tremendous [...]

Defense Cuts: What’s The Frame of Reference?

Cut, cut, what to cut?  This time the what-to-cut presentation comes from Michael O’Hanlon, writing at Politico. Gates already intends to scale back the size of the standing Army and Marine Corps as the Afghanistan campaign begins winding down. In rough numbers, the combined active-duty strength of about 770,000 would decline by some 45,000. But [...]