| Sunday,
July 25, 1999 The following is an important commercial. I
don't do many commercials. I include the entire announcement to give you a
chance to see what SAS does. I've also just sent them my check for $100.
SPACE ACCESS UPDATE #88
Copyright 1999 by Space Access Society
Stories
This Issue:
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Latest on Congressional NASA, DOD RLV Funding
-
Rotary Rocket Flies ATV, Does Second Round of Layoffs
-
Miscellany - USA Sponsored Shuttle Forever Symposium, New US Defense
Space Policy,
SAS Needs Money!
Latest on Congressional NASA, DOD RLV Funding
Our
current alert (see www.space-access.org/updates/alt0799b.html
) asks you to contact any members of the House or Senate Appropriations
committees local to you, and ask them to A: add $50 million
to NASA Future-X for reusable rocket low-cost flight ops demonstrations, and B: as a matter of priorities, do NOT fund startup
of the premature and oversold "Spaceliner 100" airbreathing launcher project.
The
Senate NASA appropriators (the HUD, VA, and Independent Agencies subcommittee, then the full Appropriations committee) were
scheduled to "mark
up" their NASA funding bill last week, but they once again postponed. Keep
after them, but save the phone charges and use paper mail - all they'll say about when they will actually do
markup is "before the
August recess", which starts August 6th.
That narrows things
down to either this coming week, or the week after, and
we'd guess at the current pace the week after (starting Monday August 2nd) is more likely.
So if you haven't yet gotten around to contacting them, or if you did but via voice phone, get their
DC office address from www.vote-smart.org
, buy a stamp, and send them a letter
first thing this week - it'll likely get there in time.
The
House HUD/VA appropriations bill, as of last Thursday, was still scheduled for subcommittee markup this Monday July 26th, late
in the day. So if your Congressman is on Appropriations and you haven't yet
contacted him or her, phone or fax Monday!
See the alert at www.space-access.org
for details on how.
Over in
the Defense Department budget, we're pushing for funding for the X-40B "Space Maneuver Vehicle" (SMV), a
spacegoing version of the
USAF Phillips Lab X-40A landing-only reusable upper stage demonstrator
flown successfully last winter. X-40B
will demonstrate a variety of
reusable space-launch, on-orbit, and reentry operations we and the USAF think very useful, operations complementary to
what NASA plans to do with
the related X-37.
We and
various like-minded folk have been working this one for a while - the Senate Defense Appropriation was passed weeks ago
with $25 million for this
project. Last week the House
marked up and passed its
version of the DOD funding bill with surprising speed - with nothing for
SMV in it, oops.
We've
been given to understand that there is support for USAF SMV among the House Appropriators, and that it is possible they'll
accede to the Senate position
of $25 million funding when it comes time
for the two to hammer out their differences in conference. We don't know when the Defense Appropriations conference will
happen, though we suspect
(for arcane tactical reasons) it may take place untraditionally
early, within the next two weeks. As
soon as we know the timing
for sure, we're going to be asking your help pushing hard for full funding for X-40B.
Rotary Rocket Flies ATV, Does Second Round of Layoffs
Rotary
Rocket Company at about 8:30 am PDT on Friday July 23rd flew their
Roton ATV for the first time, doing multiple rotor-borne liftoffs,
low-altitude hovers, and landings over the course of several minutes. The
ATV is Rotary's "Aerial Test Vehicle", intended to demonstrate structures, systems, and the
rotor-borne landing mode for
the company's planned Roton reusable launch vehicle.
This initial flight took place several months behind the original
(very aggressive) schedule - late, but not in our view unusually so, given the leanness of the budget (Rotary built
and flew the ATV on $30
million total funding that we know of) and the universality
of Murphy's Law - development projects *always* take a little
longer than the engineers expect.
Unfortunately,
Rotary seems to have run low on shoestring - their ATV flight coincided with the effective date of their second
round of layoffs. We have not been able to get a definitive answer on the scope
of the latest round of layoffs (we observe that even for companies
in trouble, not being straight with the press is counterproductive) but it seems likely based on what we have
been able to dig out that
absent an immediate infusion of cash, Rotary is at
best in mothballs and at worst is history.
Miscellany
-
United Space Alliance (USA), the Boeing/Lockheed-Martin Shuttle operating
consortium, is sponsoring the Space Shuttle Development Conference
at NASA Ames, Moffet Field CA (actual site seems to be the
Westin Santa Clara) with an all-star cast, Wednesday July 28th through
Friday July 30th, 1999. The
general theme of the conference seems
to be the prospects for continuing Shuttle operations for decades
to come. Information at
www.futureshuttle.com; media registration
contact is Jack King at 407 861-4358.
-
The US Department of Defense has adopted its first major new space
policy in a while - one key point being that we will treat space a lot more like we treat the sea and international
airspace, as a medium where
we support freedom of navigation and we will defend
US assets, another point being that we will be pushing toward more
flexible lower-cost space operations, both unmanned and potentially
(if the cost comes down enough) manned.
-
And finally for this Update, Rotary Rocket isn't the only outfit on
a too-short shoestring. Information
warfare in support of radically
cheaper space transportation costs a whole lot less than actually developing hardware, but it still costs.
If you like what we're doing and you want to see more, money is the sincerest
form of flattery. An SAS membership is $30, and gets you a discount on our annual
conference (Space Access '00, April 27-29, 2000, in Phoenix Arizona)
plus direct email subscription to our Updates and Alerts.
Yes, we
give away our Updates and Alerts promiscuously - Job #1 is to get across our point of view.
No, we don't incessantly nag SAS members to renew or donors to give more - we're old-fashioned
enough to think that's rude.
No, donations to SAS are not tax-deductible - we
do far too much lobbying to qualify for 501c3 tax-deductible status
without lying like rugs, and regardless of how common this may
be we won't do it. And no, we
won't take donations from government
contractors that might be affected by our positions; that way
lies self-censoring impotence as the next big corporate check gets
ever more important. We've
seen that, we won't do it.
Given
the above self-imposed restrictions, it's a tribute to our supporters that we're still here and fighting after seven
years. We've seen checks for five bucks, we've seen a blessed few for
a thousand.
Money translates very directly to time and energy - we thank
you every one for all you've given over the years.
It's
settling into a long grinding struggle, alas.
Please, help us stick
with it. Send your checks to
SAS, 4855 E Warner Rd #24-150, Phoenix
AZ 85044.
Space
Access Society's sole purpose is to promote radical reductions in
the cost of reaching space. You
may redistribute this Update in any
medium you choose, as long as you do it unedited in its entirety.
Space
Access Society http://www.space-access.org
space.access@space-access.org
"Reach
low orbit and you're halfway to anywhere in the Solar System" -
Robert A. Heinlein
Winnie, the WinChip system running Windows 95b (because I want one
machine running W 95b) has tended to be a fussbudget, so today I replaced
the non-name memory with some genuine Crucial memory. So far, the results
have been splendid: whereas the machine didn't like to shut down properly,
and sometimes would sit there 10 hours then blue-screen, none of that is
happening now. Whether that will continue I don't know; if you don't know
what causes a problem and you don't know how to make it happen, it's
pretty hard to be certain you have fixed it. I have a few signs though: a
couple of games seem to play better, with the sound settings working
properly.
With luck this has ended the temperamental nature of that machine,
which is as well, because it's the system Niven likes to use (well it's in
the right place) and it's convenient for me to keep the Win 95b machine at
that station; I was about to put an entirely different machine there (he'd
never notice the difference) but if this one is stable it will stay in
place. While I was at it I updated the network access and added TCP/IP and
that all worked as well. I have to say that I don't like this network as
much as I might because it takes about 40 seconds for "My
Computer" to come up the first time I access it after a shutdown. I
know, I know, it's scanning the net, and 40 seconds isn't that long, which
is probably a better indication of what I am used to than anything else.
After all, at one time it took some 40 seconds to save a CHAPTER on my old
S-100 system with 8-inch floppies, and I thought that was wonderful. Now I
complain about 40 seconds the first time after I have shut down...
More mail in a few minutes. I'm still cleaning up.
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