The communications delays between Earth and Mars can be half an hour or more, so the people on the ground can’t participate minute by minute in Mars surface activities. Henry Spencer Read Quote
The Apollo programme of the 1960s had some weight problems, too; in particular, the lunar lander needed some fairly drastic weight-reduction work. Henry Spencer Read Quote
SpaceX does seem to have had a run of bad luck, with its first three launches all failing. Henry Spencer Read Quote
An experienced designer with more freedom to act might have realised that there was just too much optimism in the Ares I concept: that a shuttle SRB was simply too small as a first stage for a rocket carrying the relatively heavy Orion spacecraft. Henry Spencer Read Quote
Is manned space exploration important? Yes – not least because it simply works much better than sending robots. Henry Spencer Read Quote
Sure, there were hopes that Constellation’s systems could later be adapted to support more ambitious goals. But Apollo had those hopes, too. It didn’t work in 1970, and it wasn’t going to work in 2020. Henry Spencer Read Quote
The Moon may not be quite as appealing as Mars, but it’s still a complex and poorly understood world, with many questions still unanswered. Henry Spencer Read Quote
In 1960-61, a small group of female pilots went through many of the same medical tests as the Mercury astronauts and scored very well on them – in fact, better than some of the astronauts did. Henry Spencer Read Quote
Progress requires setbacks; the only sure way to avoid failure is not to try. Henry Spencer Read Quote
