Testifying before the President's Commission on Moon, Mars and Beyond at the Georgia Centers for Advanced Telecommunications Technology in Atlanta, GA, Teal Group senior space analyst Marco Caceres yesterday recommended that one way to improve the long-term sustainability of President Bush's new Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) is to "de-link" the Moon-Mars missions and aim to accomplish each of them in timeframes of within 10 years.
Posted by jburk at March 26, 2026 08:26 PM | TrackBackTodays sucessful flight of the x-43 scramjet engine at Mach 7 is good news for a canceled project with only one more test flight paid for under the program. This was a hydrogen fuel test with air of which after being boosted to I think some where around Mach 5 believe before the ships engines were fired. I think this can also be done from the ground up with Lox assist until you get the speed up for the scramjet to work. I personally would like to see this programmed continued some how.
Posted by: Harold LaValley at March 27, 2026 06:49 PMMartian Methane news has a huge impact on the SEI journey to the Moon to Mars vision. Like another blog put it. This changes the game for safe exploration (the no risk NASA we now have) of Mars and for the chances for teraforming Mars for Human use. There will be large delays with regard to Mars sample return and other operations that were in the planning stages I would think. Not to mention the amount of cash needed to make it safe for Human explorations will go up. If anounced as life then the whole vision of the President will mostly likely lose support from the government side of things due to danger.
Posted by: Harold LaValley at March 27, 2026 07:09 PMThe next tourist to the ISS wants to conduct experiments and enjoy the trip for 20 million. This a great time that we live in if you are rich with monetary resources.
Like most of us that would want to go and would be willing to work for the next 10 years for a year stay on the moon or for that fact anywhere in space. It is likely to end if the shuttle or some other economical vehicle is not created soon as reported in an article on the scientist CEO to be third space tourist on space.com which indicated that the russian soyuz price tag will be due to rise. To keep up with the ever ongoing launches to the ISS since the shuttle grounding. I guess maybe NASA should start paying the bills for these ships if we are never going top fly the shuttle again.
Great article on the MarsNews from the msnbc site on ISS repairs, lesson learned form poor designs and accidents caused by human cause that need to be eliminated if we are to journey into space and beyound as the president put it.
Posted by: Harold LaValley at March 29, 2026 01:21 PM