Even as NASA’s ambitions are scaled back, there’s a surfeit of exciting things happening in near-Earth space transport, and R-Spec member Frank Glover was on hand to help us understand their significance.
The Commercial Spaceflight Federation's Commercial Space promotional video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx7FYlDY_zM
http://delphinus100.angelfire.com/link3.htm#csf
Jeff Greason of XCOR, on his experince on the Augustine Comission, whose
conclusions were instrumental in taking this policy direction:
http://www.xcor.com/video/isdc.html (streaming Flash video, and
downloadable .wmv and .mp4 video at ISDC 2010)
What's the ISDC, you ask?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_ Development_Conference
http://www.hobbyspace.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid=38608
The Augustine Commission reports, and more of Jeff's experiences:
http://delphinus100.angelfire.com/link3.htm#augustine
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's inflatable Mars ship
proposal:
http://delphinus100.angelfire.com/link3.htm#llnl Bigelow Aerospace and ILC Dover's manned space inflatable products:
http://delphinus100.angelfire.com/link3.htm#bigelow United Launch Alliance (ULA) alternative archetecture plans (no
heavy-lift launcher developmet required):
http://www.ulalaunch.com/site/docs/publications/ AffordableExplorationArch
itecture2009.pdf
http://delphinus100.angelfire.com/link3.htm#ula-alt
The case against the Space Launch System:
http://delphinus100.angelfire.com/link3.htm#sls The Comercial Crew Development companies:
http://delphinus100.angelfire.com/link3.htm#ccdev The Next Generation Suporbital Research Conference:
http://www.boulder.swri.edu/NSRC2012/Site1/Home.html
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2048/1
And, Planetary Science Institute senior scientist Faith Vilas (Alsa
suborbital observatory)...
http://www.xcor.com/press-releases/2011/11-07-12_ Planetary_Science_Instit
ute_selects_XCOR_for_Atsa.html
http://www.universetoday.com/87428/xcor-lynx-slated-to-fly- suborbital-tel
escope/
http://www.psi.edu/news/press-releases#firsttraining
...whom I briefly met in late 1999, is a former boss and co-rsearcher of
Kandy Jarvis, with whom I happen to be long aquainted:
http://observatory.space.edu/research/gaffeyResumePDFs/ 2000/Jarvis%20et%2
0al%20%282000%29%20Hyperion%20Phoebe%20Iapetus%20Link.pdf
http://physics.csusb.edu/~slederer/ledererSF36press.pdf
http://www.mendeley.com/research/characterization-of- catalytic-materials/
http://delphinus100.angelfire.com/link3.htm#kandyjarvis
http://delphinus100.angelfire.com/link3.htm#my-info (see 'good friend'
pictures)
...Though whether or not Faith will personally accompany the the Alsa
tlescope on an XCOR flight in the future, I don't know at this time.