May 2018
Space safety – the problem with dual hatting
...organizational causes of the Columbia accident - concluded that NASA’s organization for the Shuttle program combined, among other ... digging deeper into both the problem and the NASA rationale. NASA’s response is disingenuous in the extreme. Safety and...
March 2021
Building SLS - a contractual odyssey
...System (SLS), designed for a new era of human exploration beyond Earth orbit. Equipped to launch crews of up to four in NASA’s Orion spacecraft, its first significant test is Artemis, the much-publicised mission to land American astronauts “including...
September 2016
Paediatric cancer patients aim for the stars with space inspired art project
... as authentic. So I contacted my friend Gordon Andrews, a communications specialist for the International Space Station (ISS) team at the NASA Johnson Space Center, briefed him on my plan and asked if he could help me get accurate specs for a space...
January 2017
New oceans beckon for solar sail technology
... beyond today’s engineering capabilities, it is nonetheless physically possible. Solar sails are a technology whose time has come. NASA, private space groups and other governments are developing the technology for their next generation of scientific...
January 2017
Mini space station for mice to study effects of reproduction in reduced gravity
...provides accurate communications transmission/reception from Earth. The vehicle would nominally launch as a co-manifested payload on the NASA Space Launch System (SLS) to a lunar distant retrograde orbit, a stable lunar orbit where the service module...
June 2018
Striding through space
..., pointing at his suited white figure in one of the most famous photographs of spaceflight. As he drifted out to 80 feet, the NASA commentator announced: “McCandless and his MMU constitute a separate spacecraft of their own now.” “I’d been told about...
