Category Archives: ESA

On Contracting

Posted on Mon, 2008-09-29 by gravityloss

Rand Simberg has discussion on some stuff that’s vital for an efficient spacefaring future. I feel those ideas of making fixed price contracts where the contractor bears all the risk are a bit oversimplified, but hold a lot of truth … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, ESA, industry, Motivation | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Fed Up

Posted on Wed, 2008-06-18 by gravityloss

I’m quite that just right now. It will pass. Perhaps. There’s been some discussion in various places about both NASA and potential future launch vehicles. Everything’s just so static in a large sense. Completely hopeless. I’ll throw in the towel … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Demotivation, ESA, ISRU, Motivation, NASA, RLV:s, Suborbital | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

ATV Docking Right Now

Posted on Thu, 2008-04-03 by gravityloss

ESA live video here and live blog here, NASASpaceflight.com live thread here. Distance now a few meters. EDIT: Success! ATV is now docked to ISS. The live streaming video worked great perhaps for the first time ever. Now ESA has the Columbus lab and the ATV on the ISS. This success will probably raise space awareness throughout Europe, I hope … Continue reading →

Posted in ESA, NASA, Spacecraft | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

First ATV nearing ISS

Posted on Mon, 2008-03-31 by gravityloss

The first European Autonomous Transfer Vehicle is nearing the International Space Station as I write this. It’s demo day 2 and it will go to 250 meters distance. Docking will be a few days later. ESA has a live blog here. NASASpaceflight.com has a live thread here. Someone just posted a screen capture: There’s video at … Continue reading →

Posted in Depot, ESA, NASA, Spacecraft | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

European Lunar Program Alternatives

Posted on Tue, 2008-03-11 by gravityloss

ESA’s Architecture for Exploration Study (AES) is overviewed in Lunar Base Quarterly 1/2008 (EDIT: to be clear, the Quarterly was released in January): Lots of Ariane 5, Angara and Soyuz launches with space docking, a space station in Earth-Lunar L1 … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Colonization, Depot, ESA, ISRU, Lunar | Tagged , | Leave a comment