Author Archives: billgamesh

Parabolic Arc, the last forum where I was allowed to comment, has banned me. No criticism of the NewSpace flagship company (or it’s founder) is tolerated on any of the popular space forums. The intense and incessant harassment I have experienced over the last decade anywhere I have attempted to express my views was neverContinue reading “Banned Forever by NewSpace”

“Those guys would happily cut subsidies, then use the decline in ridership as prices increased and services were reduced as evidence the system was failing.” The majority of the fanboys commenting here are Ayn-Rand-in-space libertarians and completely disagree with anything being “publicly funded and/or subsidized.” In fact, what you just described, along with lying, bribery,Continue reading “The Shiny Horror has Landed”

“Until the advent of the reusable Falcon 9,-“ And after the “advent” of plastic milk jugs we started throwing them in the trash instead of reusing glass bottles at great expense. Even Philip Bono, the father of VTVL, understood that only so much reuse was practical and incorporated some expendable tanks in his designs. NotContinue reading “Expendable or Shiny”

I have come to believe Apollo 8 was the real milestone and landing on the Moon anti-climactic. It was the beginning of the space age and the end came with Apollo 17. They are all still alive from the first mission but only Jack Schmitt from the last. SLS and Artemis will begin the secondContinue reading “Jobs, Jobs, on the Moon”

Neoliberalism is best defined as Oligarchs with obscene wealth running the world….and eventually destroying it. It is only a fluke that two such exalted beings, Musk and Bezos, are hobbyists with rockets as their toy of choice. See how that works? While the NewSpace fans think this is working as a path to the future,Continue reading “NewSpace delenda est”

Comments from Parabolic Arc and The Space Review “The reason they’ve had so many failures of the Starship prototypes is that it represents nearly a half-century of development compressed into a short period of time.” Not really the reason at all. It is actually just a space shuttle that takes the external tank into spaceContinue reading “The Shiny Horror”

Stratolaunch Took to Air Two Years Ago Using this monster to get a launch vehicle, and not a very big one, up to around 40,000 feet and 500 miles an hour was never going to pay off. I just do not get how investors get conned into this stuff. The first stage of a launchContinue reading “Every Year 2017”

8:30 The white-obsessed are many and well-armed. I could have told them there were far more people ready for violence than they imagined. I have seen it for years in my workplace.

“OSIP is ESA’s website that enables the submission of novel ideas for space technology and applications.” “Anybody is welcome to submit ideas through OSIP. The platform supports individuals who wish to contribute to European space research and interact with space industry experts. It also encourages ideas from legal entities interested in interacting with ESA and gaining fundingContinue reading “Yet More Parabolic Comments”

Some more Parabolic Arc comments: 1. No “commercial” human-crewed platform will ever exist in LEO as there is no ROI. Notice I did not refer to it as a “space station.” I generally only do that to mock the space station to nowhere. A true space station would have two features; first a massive cosmicContinue reading “Shiny Number Four Blows Up”