March 2006 Archives

The investigation is underway, hopefully Elon and his team will get to the root cause as soon as possible and launch again sometime later this year.

Preliminary SpaceX Internal Analysis: Falcon I Flight...: "However, at T+25s, a fuel leak of currently unknown origin caused a fire around the top of the main engine that cut into the first stage helium pneumatic system. On high resolution imagery, the fire is clearly visible within seconds after liftoff. Once the pneumatic pressure decayed below a critical value, the spring return safety function of the pre-valves forced them closed, shutting down the main engine at T+29s."

(Via Commercial Space Watch.)

Just a follow-up to my post last week on Del.icio.us, Yahoo has added it to their toolbar. No surprise there since Yahoo acquired them recently. It will be interesting to see what affect this has on referrals.

New Tools in the Toolbar: "

We've been working hard on the Yahoo! Toolbar for IE and Firefox so here’s a quick update for you all.

Deliciousness
Speaking of changes, you must have heard about del.icio.us by now! People use del.icio.us to save and share web favorites. We've just created a del.icio.us button for our US users. You add it to your IE or Firefox toolbar to get easy access to your del.icio.us account from anywhere on the web. If you already have toolbar installed, you can add it with a click, otherwise, find it on the Add/Edit Buttons page in the 'Personal Tools' section.

(Via Yahoo! Search blog.)

Unfortunately the maiden flight of the SpaceX Falcon rocket ended in failure. After what looked like a good launch some 30 seconds into the flight the vehicle started to roll. Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX vice president of business development said the spacecraft was lost. More details when I have it.

We just posted this press release "Historic SpaceX Launch Set for Today March 24: The World's First Lowest Cost Rocket to Orbit" on SpaceRef. In the release is the following information on how to watch the first Falcon launch by SpaceX.

A live Web cast of this historic launch will be available at http://www.spacex.com/?content=webcast. Please note the feed will be coming over a satellite link, so users will experience periodic interruptions. When video freezes, merely restart/refresh program. Media will not be hosted at SpaceX Headquarters in El Segundo due to the new Web cast availability.

Ok I admit it, while I had heard of Del.icio.us some time ago I had not bothered to really pay attention to it. So when my business partner queried me about it I decided to finally have a look. Del.icio.us describes their service as "a collection of favorites - yours and everyone else's." And after looking at it I'm not quite sure what all the fuss is about. Is it truly a must use for finding nuggets of info on the 'Net?

In response to questions from the space community the Canadian Space Agency has provided a Q&A for bidders and extended the AO to May 26. The notice of intent is till due on April 18.

I had previously remarked on my blog that I felt the AO timeline was too short so I'm happy the community spoke up and that the CSA was able to respond favorably.

SpaceX Moves Closer to Inaugural Launch of...: After several issues over the last months it finally looks like Elon Musk and his SpaceX team are ready to launch their first Falcon rocket. If successful, and every space explorer wannabe is praying the launch goes well, this could open up the exclusive commercial space launch business for small start-ups with the balls (and money) to take on the establishment. Could SpaceDev, Rocketplane Kistler and others be next?

(Via Commercial Space Watch.)

This from MSNBC, and it's about time. About from some company in North America to step up and finally implement this. After the Japanese have had by phone services for several years now.

PayPal plans payments via text message: "PayPal, the online payment service owned by eBay Inc., has begun testing a new offering to allow people to make and receive payments using cell phones and other mobile devices."

I thought I'd let people know what conferences are on my radar this year. Each year it's hard to pick only a few conferences to attend, after all there are so many to choose from. So they have to be directly related to some business ideas I'm developing. So this year here are the conferences I'm attending and am considering attending.

The first is Search Engine Meeting in Boston, April 24-25. The conference brings together commercial search engine developers, academics and corporate professionals to learn from each other. I've had a long standing interest in search engines and directories having developed one in 1995 for Canada called Maple Square and currently do a lot of data aggregation with some new ideas in development.

Next up is Search Engine Strategies in Toronto, April 25-26. I'll only be able to attend the second day but it should informative in helping promote all the online properties I manage.

Next up is a conference I'm really looking forward to as it's one I've never attended. It's the 2006 International Space Development Conference which is being co-hosted by the National Space Society and the Planetary Society. It's being held in LA, May 4-7. Since the two largest space advocacy groups are co-hosting the event I'm expecting a good turnout.

When I last exchanged emails with George Whiteside on the event was that they were hoping for 750 people. I'd like to see that number over 1000, so make a point of going. It's got a great lineup of speakers. I also hope to talk to people about any business development ideas they have for the Mars Institute or SpaceRef.

NASA announced today that the launch of the next Shuttle mission, STS-121, has been pushed back to between July 1-19.

For me this is good news as I've been wanting to visit KSC and watch a launch for some time now and the May launch window wasn't working with my schedule. A July launch window works well and I may be able to finally see my first launch in person.

Well this year's LPSC conference looked really interesting when I checked the program schedule, unfortunately the timing was bad for me so I am unable to attend. However I still want to keep up to date with the happenings so I'm following a couple of blogs and a few colleagues are updating me. The blogs I'm following inlcude the Planetary Society Weblog maintained by Emily Lakdawalla and Nature's LPSC Newsblog.

The Swedish Research Council issued this press release today "Sweden plans to colonise space" which to me seems straight out of a sci-fi novel. Don't get me wrong, I want to see a moon base and sooner rather than later. But reading this press release just made me laugh. I respect the work of the Swedes, especially the Smart-1 team which built a great lunar robotic orbiter, but some of the text needs commenting on.

In this paragraph the person who wrote the release makes it sound like Dr. Järvstråt came up with the idea of a moon base and that President Bush was taking credit for the idea. Obviously any historian can tell you that the idea of a moon base was conceived a long time ago and by neither of these men.

Dr. Niklas Järvstråt, a well-reputed material scientist, devised a plan to put a colony on the lunar surface already a decade ago, long before President Bush revealed his grand plans for a moon base.

On March 7th the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) issued an announcement of opportunity (AO) for mission concepts to Mars. While this is an exciting opportunity for the community, and one which the Mars Institute is definitely looking into, there is one substantial draw back. The notice of intent is due April 18th while the actual proposals are due on April 28th. Considering the volume of information requested in the AO this is rather short notice to put something together even if the community has been thinking about this type of opportunity for several years.

So here I am on vacation in beautiful Maui enjoying a lazy Saturday afternoon sitting on my lanai facing the ocean reading my New York Times when I come across this article about Google's analyst meeting yesterday.

What intrigued me was the where Google saw the most potential for advertising growth. They said mobile phones. Now this is not news in of itself. But it does remind me of another recent article I read about mobile phones and advertising. Basicly what's in beta testing now is free mobile service in exchange for receiving those pesky SMS mobile text ads. I can see why Google could think that this would be a lucrative market. Image all those teenagers out there with parents screaming at them to control their monthly mobile phone bills. No problem, free service with Google ads.

The question is do you want all those ads disturbing you? And do you want your kids exposed to even more advertising? Think about it.