Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX Capsule Links Up With Space Station

Monday, June 1, 2020

Categories: ASCF News Bipartisianship

Comments: 0

Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Sunday successfully docked a company-owned capsule carrying a pair of NASA astronauts with the International Space Station, capping a weekend of notable accomplishments that opened a new chapter in commercial space endeavors.

Nineteen hours after a Falcon 9 rocket lifted off Saturday from Florida on a historic voyage featuring the first-ever private spacecraft to attain orbit with people on board, astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken made more history. They monitored the stately, automated rendezvous of their Crew Dragon capsule with the orbiting international laboratory 250 miles above earth, linking up at 10:16 a.m. ET to mark a new industry-government partnership aimed at revitalizing U.S. space ambitions.

Crucial parts of the trip played out smoothly, from the blastoff to the manual maneuvers near the space station and the seamless docking, culminating with a televised ceremony extolling the accomplishments.

“The whole world saw this mission, and we are so, so proud of everything you have done for our country and, in fact, to inspire the world,” an exuberant Jim Bridenstine, head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, told the crew via a video connection from its Houston mission control center.

Referring to the Covid-19 pandemic and the racial unrest across the U.S., Mr. Bridenstine said the latest successes notched by NASA in partnership with Space Exploration Technologies Corp.—the formal name for Mr. Musk’s company—will help Americans “look at the future and say things are going to be brighter.”

At a later press conference, Mr. Bridenstine said, “This has gone as well as we could have expected it to go.”

The mission’s assortment of firsts is likely to provide momentum for proposed public-private collaborations to return U.S. astronauts to the moon and similar arrangements for exploration of Mars and other commercial ventures throughout the solar system. President Trump has set a 2024 goal for the next moon landing.

NASA envisions a surge in companies hunting for business opportunities beyond the atmosphere. “There are other companies, right now, stepping up to the plate that want to be part of this” new government-industry dynamic, Mr. Bridenstine said.

Such projects still face significant funding and technical challenges, starting with uncertainties about prospects for future corporate profits. According to many experts inside and outside NASA, the agency’s current plans for swiftly getting back to the lunar surface at this point are significantly underfunded.

White House and Pentagon officials view the mission partly as a way to counter civil and military space advances by China and Russia.

SpaceX’s weekend exploits highlighted how far the closely held company has come since its creation as a scrappy startup with a handful of employees working out of a converted warehouse near a strip mall in a Los Angeles suburb.

Around 1 p.m. Sunday—nearly three hours after arriving at its destination—Crew Dragon’s hatch was opened, and the newest inhabitants of the space station crawled through a connecting tunnel to emerge into the $100 billion facility as its newest inhabitants.

“Bob and Doug, we’re glad to have you as part of the crew,” said U.S. astronaut Chris Cassidy, the space station’s commander, ringing a traditional ship’s bell to mark the occasion. The arrivals hugged Mr. Cassidy and two Russian crew members already in orbit.

Mr. Hurley, dressed in tan pants and a blue, short-sleeved polo shirt with the mission’s logo, said, “We’re just really glad to be on board this magnificent complex.”

On Saturday the crew underwent final medical checks, received weather and other briefings and then rode to the pad in a white, electric-powered sedan built by Tesla Inc., another of Mr. Musk’s companies. The launch was the first to blast human beings into space from a U.S. location in nine years, since NASA’s geriatric fleet of space shuttles was retired.

The technically smooth countdown at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center had its share of suspense, though, as weather forecasts predicted only a 50-50 chance of acceptable conditions, with rain in the vicinity. Dark, towering clouds and rain menaced the 230-foot rocket during earlier portions of the countdown, but the weather improved dramatically about an hour before launch.

Photo: Astronauts Doug Hurley, right, and Bob Behnken, second from the right, join the crew at the international space station. -  NASA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musks-spacex-capsule-links-up-with-space-station-11590934994?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1

Comments RSS feed for comments on this page

There are no comments yet. Be the first to add a comment by using the form below.

Search