October 21, 2018

Russian Launch Failure Proves Why We Need NASA’s Space Launch System (Source: The Hill)
A NASA Inspector General report released last week gave a less than glowing assessment of NASA’s management of the Space Launch System (SLS) core stage development contract. Despite this necessary criticism, a recent launch failure demonstrates clearly that the country needs the SLS in its stable of launch vehicles. The Soyuz launch abort on October 11 that put a NASA astronaut at risk left the world in an unusual situation. For the first time since the 1960s, no nation on Earth currently has the capability of putting a human into space.

This is a direct consequence of the decisions arising from the Columbia Accident Investigation Board’s recommendations in 2003 that NASA terminate the Shuttle Program after completing the International Space Station. Compounding the problem was the Obama administration’s decision to cancel the Constellation program in 2010 and the failure to fully fund the commercial crew program.

Thankfully, since the SLS is being designed to send humans into space, America has another option on the table. Ending the program now would result in the country depending too heavily on commercial providers who have yet to prove their large-scale technologies. (10/20)

Why America Must Build the Space Launch System (Source: National Interest)
Hudson Institute national security expert Richard Weitz considers “erratic billionaires like Elon Musk” to be “too risky” when it comes to national strategic objectives. “Profits often trump patriotism,” he has written. Private sector fickleness also appeared when employee objections recently led Google not to renew a Pentagon drone contract.

SLS additionally possesses significant technical advantages over SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, former Senate Republican space and aeronautics adviser Jeff M. Bingham has noted. No “other existing rocket comes close to the capabilities of SLS for Deep Space missions,” particularly given that Falcon Heavy is not designed for human transport. Thus unlike SLS, Falcon Heavy does not have the “rigorous engineering needed when human lives are at stake.”

Bingham has also contrasted SLS’ cargo capacity, approximating a 3,800-square-foot home’s volume, with Falcon Heavy’s 750-square-foot apartment equivalent. The SLS’ size avoids “smaller elements that must then be assembled in space” and thus enables “reduced chance of error and difficulty with assembly.” Former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has added that the capacious SLS “drives down cost by reducing the number of missions needed to get a full complement of mission components into space.” SLS cost advantages extend to this powerful rocket’s “faster transit times to deep space locations.” (10/21)

Oumuamua Was Neither a Comet Nor an Asteroid...So What Was It? (Source: WIRED)
Like a hit-and-run driver who races from the scene of a crash, the interstellar guest known as ’Oumuamua has bolted out of the solar system, leaving confusion in its wake. Early measurements seemed to indicate that it was an asteroid—a dry rock much like those found orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. Then by this past summer, astronomers largely came around to the conclusion that it was instead a comet—an icy body knocked out of the distant reaches of a far-off planetary system.

Now a new analysis has found inconsistencies in this conclusion, suggesting that ’Oumuamua may not be a comet after all. Whether it’s actually a comet or an asteroid, one thing is clear: ’Oumuamua is not quite like anything seen before.

’Oumuamua wasn’t just being pulled by the sun’s gravity. Instead, it was being slightly accelerated by an unseen force, which they argued could only be attributed to comet “outgassing” acting like a thruster. With this additional information, the case appeared to be closed. “Interstellar asteroid is really a comet,” read the headline of a press release put out by the European Space Agency. Click here. (10/21)