Matt Wronkiewicz's Weblog

The final public meeting of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee was today, and it looks like they did their job extraordinarily well. They really kept their focus on the goal of extending human civilization beyond Earth, and this was reflected in all of the options they are considering. To summarize, their recommended options are: maintain ISS and give up on NASA exploration, spend a little more to explore free space, and spend a little more to explore the moon. All of these options included some common recommendations. First, they called Ares I unaffordable and redundant, and recommended dumping it. Given their findings,… Read More

I'm really looking forward to hearing the final public meeting of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee tomorrow. My hope is that the committee will come up with a set of options that lead us along the way to becoming a truly spacefaring society rather than distracting us away from it. Reading the summary of Dr. John Marburger's testimony last week here really sharpened my view of what we are doing and space and where we need to go from here. What are we doing in space? Not enough.

The greatest achievement of the 20th century, in… Read More

My wife Darcy finished her doula and lactation consultant coursework and is now taking appointments! She also has a website up for her practice at DoulaDarcy.com. If you're expecting an addition to your family or you know someone who is and lives in or near Ventura and Santa Barbara, California, feel free to give her a call. Speaking as someone who has witnessed two births, it was really great to have her there. Read More

The Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee is currently assessing options for sending astronauts beyond low Earth orbit, given budget realities. As they requested input from the public, I sent them my thoughts on the options they have presented. Here is my letter:

My name is Matt Wronkiewicz. I am a computer programmer with little involvement in the space industry, but I am excited about both the possibility of visiting outer space some day and the potential benefits from its economic… Read More

I am pleased to announce version 1.0 of Virtual Range, my rocket simulator for Mac OS X. Virtual Range can simulate the flight of a rocket model in real time (on sufficiently powerful CPUs), and tell you if it is stable. It will also record the maximum altitude and acceleration, and the time until apogee. All this is very important information if you have built a rocket and want to know what kind of engine you should put in it. Virtual Range estimates the aerodynamic forces acting on the rocket in flight using the US Air Force DATCOM drag methods and Barrowman's center of pressure method. The simulated flight is displayed with basic, but accurate… Read More