Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Next Big Future: Carnival of Space 279

From the carnival, a couple of items caught my interest:


  1. Tranquility Base: A Moonwalker Invents a Mars Cycler: Before he traveled to the moon, Dr. Buzz Aldrin completed a PhD thesis exploring how to dock spaceships  in the event of instrument failure....
  2. Next Big Future: Orbital Sciences Replaces SpaceX on Stratolaunch P...: Space.com - After the exit of launch services provider SpaceX as its rocket subcontractor, Stratolaunch Systems has turned to Orbital Scien...


Comments on the two links:
  1. There was a 8 part series on this blog about terraforming asteroids to be used as cyclers.
  2. A shocker.  I really like the idea of using an airlaunched assist in order to get to space.  Without SpaceX here, this may be a fatal blow to the project.  Another way of looking at is that SpaceX doesn't need them.  Furthermore, SpaceX isn't a public company.  That leaves out the possibility of investing in them with common stock.  SpaceX is disappointing me.
An additional thought:

While I'm at it, there was something on Instapundit on terraforming Mars.  In my opinion, that is a mistake.  The entire reason that Mars is a cold, dry planet is because it doesn't have a magnetic field, as Earth does.  It will only lose its atmosphere again if it is restored.  The sun will strip away its atmosphere with the solar wind.  There's no magnetic field to protect the atmosphere as we have on Earth.


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