June 5, 2022

Canadian Space Agency Funds Novel Ideas for Potential Moon Infrastructure (Source: CSA)
As humanity tackles the challenges of creating a permanent human presence on the Moon, multiple Canadian companies will undertake seven concept studies. These reports will help develop capabilities and define potential Canadian infrastructure contributions on the Moon's surface.

These proposed solutions, selected following a Request for Proposals, aim to develop technologies and expertise that would support commercial interests and enable lunar science. Once the concept studies are completed, five solutions may be selected to move to the next step – prototyping.

The studies funded focus on five main areas: Agriculture and food production; Autonomous and intelligent robots and rovers; Avionics and communication; Mining and In-situ resource utilization; and Power generation and distribution. Click here. (6/5)

China Launches Shenzhou 14 Crew Mission to Support Module Installation (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
China scuessfully launched the Shenzhou 14 mission to their Tiangong space station on Sunday morning, June 5, at 02:44 UTC, which was 10:44 pm EDT on Saturday the 4th. The crewed launch of three taikonauts took place from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China, with the Shenzhou spacecraft being taken to orbit by a Chang Zheng 2F (CZ-2F) rocket from a pad known as Space Launch Site 1. (6/4)

Oxford Case Study Explains Why SpaceX is More Efficient Than NASA (Source: Quartz)
The results are clear in a statistical analysis of NASA and SpaceX projects. In 118 space missions, NASA saw an average cost overrun of 90%. Over 16 missions, SpaceX saw an average cost overrun of 1.1%.  SpaceX projects tended to take an average of about four years, while NASA projects averaged about seven years. Interestingly, both NASA and SpaceX tend to promise faster delivery than actually occurs—SpaceX does in four years what it says it would do in three, while NASA does in six or seven years what it said it would do in four.

As an aside, the paper offers a useful response to a common concern from SpaceX’s critics—that it is underbidding on government contracts to build market share, relying on prodigious venture investment to make up the gap, as if it were Uber fighting taxis. By comparing public financial data on bids and investment, the authors conclude that underbidding can’t make up the vast gap between costs of NASA and SpaceX projects.

The significance of all this is that NASA (and other policymakers or corporate planners) should adapt a platform approach to solving problems. “Sectors of the economy where government finds it difficult to control spending or timeframes or to realize the benefits quickly enough—e.g., health, education, climate, defense—are ripe for a platform rethink,” they write. This can even break the “iron triangle” of project management, popularly expressed as the notion you can only produce something with two of three characteristics: Fast, cheap, or big. SpaceX, however, exceeds NASA in all three dimensions: scope, cost efficiency, and speed. (6/2)

At 17, She Was Her Family's Breadwinner on a McDonald's Salary. Now She's Gone Into Space (Source: CNN)
A rocket built by Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin carried its fifth group of passengers to the edge of space, including the first-ever Mexican-born woman to make such a journey.

Most of the passengers paid an undisclosed sum for their seats. But Katya Echazarreta, an engineer and science communicator from Guadalajara, Mexico, was selected by a nonprofit called Space for Humanity to join this mission from a pool of thousands of applicants. The organization's goal is to send "exceptional leaders" to space and allow them to experience the overview effect, a phenomenon frequently reported by astronauts who say that viewing the Earth from space give them a profound shift in perspective. (6/5)