2011 The year of Private Space?

Leonard David believes 2011 is the year private space (or new space) will take off. Here's crossing our fingers.

SpaceX Makes NASA Look Bad

Robert Block at the Orlando Sentinel thinks SpaceX's ability to launch a cheese-manned capsule into orbit and recover it for $800 million is "raising some serious questions about NASA." Meanwhile, NASA is spending $500 million in six months on a program that no longer exists.

First Android in Space

In February, NASA hopes to launch Robonaut 2 to the International Space Station. R2 (who could resist) is humanoid from the chest up.

How to Colonize Mars

Joel Levine, a researcher at NASA Langley has just published a book called The Human Mission to Mars: Colonizing the Red Planet. I haven't read it yet, but as soon as I can get it I will post a review.

Fox has a overview.

There are no words for how stupid this is...

I can't even bring myself to comment on how dumb this is.

How Many NASA Engineers…

"You are so dumb, really dumb, for real"

Government 1 Common Sense 0

Due to the insanity that is the United States Federal Government, The Constellation program has been cut but NASA is still forced by congress to spend $500 million on the dead Ares 1 rocket through March.

From Fox News:

Constellation is the umbrella program that includes the Ares I, the rocket NASA has been building to replace the space shuttle as means of transport to and from the International Space Station, as well as other spacecraft that would have been capable of performing a variety of missions. President Obama cancelled Constellation last year, but thanks to congressional delays and inaction, the program simply won't die -- and it's costing big bucks.

This is mostly related to the fact that congress can't get a budget passed. Hopefully the next congress can get something together. In a world of deficit hawks and tea parties, however, this seems insane. This is why the government shouldn't be doing so much, they suck at most things.

Top Space News of 2010

Clark Lindsey has his list of the top space related news of 2010.

This is my top three. It is completely based on my own (rational) self-interest. In other words, things that I believe help get my wife and I into space.

3. Bigelow Aerospace signed a deal with Boeing (of all people) to launch space stations into orbit. Apparently, six countries are interested in leasing their very own space station.

2. Scaled Composites/Virgin Galactic had a successful glide test of VSS Enterprise and Eve.

1. It is hard to argue that SpaceX had the best year of any new-space company. They closed it out with a successful launch and re-entry of the Dragon capsule carrying a wheel of cheese on December 8. They also signed the largest commercial launch contract in history with Iridium.