QuantumG's Blog

Ever get that feeling you're shouting into the void? Rand Simberg, someone who's opinion on space I truly value, has written an article on The Gap, and taken the well trod path of how bad it is to be reliant on the damn Ruskies . With the coming retirement of the Space Shuttle, the most immediate issue in human spaceflight is how to get U.S. crews to the International Space Station. When the decision was made in 2004 to retire the shuttle, the plan was to have a small "gap" starting this year, during which the Russians would provide this service, as they did for the two-and-a-half-year period after Columbia was lost. But if lawmakers in the House have their way, we could be buying rides from Russia to the space station for the foreseeable future. Argh. Rand, you know better, so I'm just going to have to assume you're playing down to the saps who read AOL News (and I imagine they are saps, cause who reads that?). As you know, the Soyuz has been used...

I don't even know anymore. Buzz Aldrin has written another article , this time over at the Huffington Post. A number of my former colleagues, and other critics, have expressed concerns about the plan, and in particular, they express grave reservations about 'the Gap' -- the end of the Space Shuttle Program, and the inability for the US to provide human access to space -- save for limited flight opportunities and capabilities with our Russian partners, pending the maturing of the commercial space transportation capabilities, or other future systems to meet these needs. So it's about "human access to space". Ok, to do what? Why do you want human access to space? What's the point of it? Unless you address that question you can't seriously talk about what kind of access to space you need. Will suborbital access do? No? Ok, how about one orbit? No? Ok, how about 2 days? No? How about 2 weeks, the endurance of the shuttle? No? Oh, permane...