by National Space Society | Feb 14, 2019 | Commercial Space, Space Development
OPINION by Dale Skran, NSS Executive Vice President This is an update to a January 21 post that generated some controversy in the comments section. The controversy was about the following statement in the January 21 blog post: “The second reason the Falcon Heavy has...
by National Space Society | Jan 23, 2019 | Commercial Space, Space Development
Image: New Shepard flight NS-10 on the launch pad the morning of January 23rd, 2019. Courtesy Blue Origin. By Bob Brodbeck Blue Origin successfully launched the New Shepard suborbital rocket and uncrewed capsule to space today Wednesday January 23rd, and re-landed...
by National Space Society | Jan 21, 2019 | Commercial Space, Space Development
NOTE: An update of this post can be found here. OPINION by Dale Skran, NSS Executive Vice President On February 6, 2018 the first Falcon Heavy roared off the launch pad to a successful first flight. Elon Musk’s Red Tesla roadster soared in the direction of Mars to...
by National Space Society | Dec 24, 2018 | Commercial Space, Commercial Spaceflight, Space Colonization, Space Development, Space Settlement
Image: Starship Alpha construction at Boca Chica, December 23, 2018 (courtesy SpaceX). By Dale Skran NSS Executive Vice President Copyright 2018 I remember movies like When Worlds Collide. There was always, at least in my gauzy memory, a scene of the mighty rocket...
by National Space Society | Dec 13, 2018 | Commercial Spaceflight, Space Development, Space Tourism, Space Transportation
Image: View from Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity December 13th, 2018 (courtesy of Virgin Galactic). By Bob Brodbeck A historic milestone in space development, and especially for the start up of space tourism, was achieved this morning Thursday December 13th by Virgin...
by National Space Society | Dec 13, 2018 | Commercial Spaceflight, Space Development, Space Transportation
By George Mancuso On September 16, 2014, NASA awarded Boeing and SpaceX contracts to provide crewed launch services to the International Space Station (ISS). For the same contract requirement, Boeing could receive up to $ 4.2 B, while SpaceX could receive up to $ 2.6...
by National Space Society | Dec 3, 2018 | Commercial Space, Commercial Spaceflight, Space Development
Third Flight of the Same Falcon 9 Block 5 First Stage Makes History By Dale Skran NSS Executive Vice President In an earlier blog post (https://space.nss.org/the-spacex-triple-trifecta/) I described SpaceX’s three ambitious goals for 2018: Bring the Falcon Heavy (FH)...
by National Space Society | Sep 1, 2018 | Commercial Space, Space Development
Image: JAXA astronaut Norishige Kanai with the Made in Space ZBLAN machine, courtesy NASA. By Dale Skran According to sources inside Made in Space, the company is getting ready for the third flight of their ZBLAN fiber optic cable manufacturing machine. The first...
