Commentary by Mike Snead, President, Spacefaring Institute™
Sixty years after humans first reached orbit, commercial orbital passenger spaceflight has yet to begin. This article explains why this “puzzle” exists and how to jumpstart a new commercial spaceliner industry. Continue Reading115 – Solving the commercial passenger spaceflight puzzle
This article shows how America’s aerospace industry now has the capability to build a substantial and robust American LEO astrologistics infrastructure and provide aircraft-like fully-reusable space access for passengers. Continue Reading102 – DSIAC Journal article: American “astrologistics”
Disruptive American astrologistics: Unleashing the potential of America’s aerospace industry to assert American dominance in space. Continue Reading101 – Disruptive American astrologistics
As General Arnold first recognized 60 years ago, the United States must become a true human spacefaring nation, both militarily and commercially. Continue Reading99 – 2019: Moving America towards becoming a true human spacefaring nation (Part 2)
While Congress is exhausting itself in the political judo of rearranging the “deck chairs” of Congress, technologically and operationally the United States is making significant strides towards the long-held national Continue Reading98 – 2019: Moving America towards becoming a true human spacefaring nation (Part 1)
Anxious to achieve fame and glory, individuals and businesses are seeking to undertake commercial human spaceflight without due regard, in my view, for protecting the safety of the public wishing Continue Reading97 – Why airworthiness certification is necessary for commercial human spaceflight
President Trump’s reconstitution of the National Space Council has generated important public discussion of America’s future in outer space as a true commercial human spacefaring nation. On October 5, 2017, Continue Reading76 – Space Review Article: Some commentary about the National Space Council’s inaugural meeting (Part 2)
In President Trump, pro-spacefaring Americans have a president who, for perhaps the first time since President Kennedy, advocates for America to return to being—using a phrase from Kennedy’s 1962 speech Continue Reading75 – Space Review article: Some commentary about the National Space Council’s inaugural meeting (Part 1)
The following is a transcript of the inaugural meeting of the reconstituted National Space Council held on October 5, 2017. I prepared this transcript based on the above video recording Continue Reading74 – Transcript of the October 5, 2017 meeting of the National Space Council
On January 23, 2017, this article was published in The Space Review. A PDF of the article is here. The apparent intention of the Trump administration to reestablish the National Continue Reading71 – Space Review article: An engineer’s view of what low-cost, reusable, commerical passenger space transportation means
America faces two critical challenges this century. The first is responding to the uncertainty that the abnormally high and rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) level will have detrimental environmental consequences Continue Reading68 – Understanding Why Wind and Ground Solar Energy Cannot Replace Fossil Fuels
America faces two critical challenges this century. The first is responding to the uncertainty that the abnormally high and rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) level will have detrimental environmental Continue Reading67 – Understanding Why Nuclear Power Cannot Replace Fossil Fuels
On February 29, 2016, the first of my three-part series on world environmental and US energy security was published in The Space Review. (The pdf of the article is available here.) Continue Reading56 – Space Review series (Part 1): The Paris Climate Agreement and Space Solar Power
Recap After a general discussion of the fallacy of trying to use the prize concept to advance commercial human spaceflight, I started a series of postings focused on the Cheap Continue Reading44 – Part 3 of criticism of the Cheap Access to Space (CATS) draft legislative proposal
With a new proposal being developed to advance commercial passenger and payload orbital spaceflight using a prize, it’s worthwhile to explore whether this approach makes sense. I don’t believe that Continue Reading41 – The fallacy of using prizes to try to advance commercial passenger spaceflight
The Space Frontier Foundation and the National Space Society announced March Storm 2015 (March 15 – 19, 2015) in Washington DC to lobby Congress on advancing American commercial human space Continue Reading40 – Coalition of the Space Frontier Foundation and the National Space Society announced to resume citizens lobbying of Congress