The Hits Keep Coming

…from Jay Barbree:

Heard on MSNBC at 9:48 am EDT: Jay Barbree says that Orion will carry a crew of “as many as 6 astronauts” and that the Ares 1 is the “best designed” and “safest rocket ever designed” .

Heard on MSNBC at 9:57 am EDT: Jay Barbree says “We have new people who do not have experience in this office who are trying to go through a commercial launch [for crew] and if they do it will be a delay for at least a decade before we have [something for] astronauts from this country to fly upon.”

This is (or should be) a continuing embarrassment for NBC. As I’ve noted before, they need to get an actual reporter, like Bobby Block, and not just a NASA cheerleader and faithful stenographer for PAO.

10 thoughts on “The Hits Keep Coming”

  1. On most of the NBC (and in particular MSNBC) we probably disagree about the various personalities, but when it comes to Barbree, we are in die-hard agreement.

    He needs to be replaced

    Maybe they could hire Miles O’Brein

  2. There’s a point at which (most) elderly but distinguished reporters just should retire from the field lest they become an embarrassment to themselves. Barbree passed that point long ago.

    Of course, you don’t even have to be particularly elderly to become dated, you just have to refuse to face change, viz Dan Rather and his stubborn refusal to believe that his Bush records could have been concocted on the web.

  3. I’m not in the space loop enough to know the “what” of this is off base.

    But most of the science content on the MSM is shoddy and silly. Most of the “science reporters” could do science at noon, and Britney Spears at 6, with EXACTLY the same touch of pathos, voice inflection and knitted brow.

    And all the while, understanding less of either topic, than the viewers. And they’ve had the story of the century to report on to get screen time too.

    Global Warming.

    It requires no understanding. All it requires is steadfast belief and overt emotion. And it looks like the news. but it’s really and usually a public service announcement in support of global warming, wind energy, abortion, or some other liberal cause celibre.

    But I’ll bet the producers sound something like this just before they roll tape…

    “…Ok Bob, we’re about to shoot the tape of the polar bears at the zoo for the global warming / animal extinction special for February Sweeps.”

    “…Let’s go with the tried and true format…we’ll start with you talking Bob, we’re shooting the polar bears frolicking in the pool, you’ll get a forlorn look, then we’ll pull back over your shoulder to your head shot, showing your concern, you tell the fools…sorry, the prospective donors…sorry the VIEWERS, just WHY we need more federal money to save the polar bears from global warming, and more federal money to fight “whatever” …we’ll insert some hot report or story from the news the week before this goes to air for the then current tie in…OK everybody…get ready…here’s the tape tag…NBC polar bear bs…sorry, sorry…NBC polar bear PSA…sorry sound guy…I just can’t keep it all straight anymore…we got it this time, wait…NBC global warming is causing animal extinctions, scene one, shot one…and take one…ACTION…”

    Of course, I’m being somewhat cynical. But just somewhat is all I’ll admit to. As I heard almost this conversation here in central NC over the summer while ‘People for Polar Bears’, or some such group was shooting squirrels in a park were we had our concession tent set up.

    They were decrying the park being used for rock and jazz music. It scares the squirrels. It didn’t scare them enough for me. They kept trying to climb up on the worktable and steal or un-popped popcorn!!

    It was sickening. The cinematographers, not the squirrels. The squirrels were just trying to get a cheap, easy meal.

  4. Reporting in the dinosaur media went into hard decline when fact checking went out of style. Instead we got know nothing talking heads repeating uncritically any press release from an ‘in’ source, and rejecting anything that conflicts with their preconceptions. And they wonder why the news business is dying.

  5. I can count the number of smart, competent news reporters that I know on the fingers of one hand. The vast bulk of them are both dense AND lazy — they call you on the phone and ask to be “educated” (in no-greater-than-20-second sound bites, if you please) about whatever topic on which supposedly they are reporting.

    The good news is that I know a lot of their phone numbers and caller ID permits me to just be “out of the office” when they call.

  6. Who the heck still watches broadcast news anyway? When I’m business traveling, I try to find the corner of the airport farthest from the ubiquitous cable news nonsense blaring on every flatscreen.

  7. I have a question: Just how viable is Dragon as a near-term manned spaceflight option? I know that the answer is somewhat contingent on the performance of the Falcon launch vehicles, but let’s assume that Falcon 1 and 9 perform well in the coming years.

  8. Pro Liberate: Depends on what you mean near term. If you mean right now, no. But it certainly will be ready before Orion is. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it fly next year for cargo. Once you have a pressurized recoverable capsule you need little to make it support people. If SpaceX was not working on manned spaceflight already, why would they bother researching PICA heatshields?

  9. Everything I’ve read indicates that Dragon is being designed from the get-go as a manned spacecraft, even though it will initially operate for unmanned transport of cargo.

    As for the timing, I think I could get something into orbit before Orion goes anywhere, but I guess I mean in the next three years or so. What I’d love to see is for SpaceX to launch people into orbit for purely commercial purposes before or at the same time NASA starts using Dragon for manned spaceflight.

    Naturally, it would be even better if other companies could do the same or better.

  10. Paul Spudis wrote:

    I can count the number of smart, competent news reporters that I know on the fingers of one hand. The vast bulk of them are both dense AND lazy — they call you on the phone and ask to be “educated” (in no-greater-than-20-second sound bites, if you please) about whatever topic on which supposedly they are reporting.

    Alas, this is an understatement. For a while I worked in science writing and media relations for a federally funded research lab at a major university (not in Corvallis, BTW). Many of the news media people I had to deal with decided to be journalism majors because they wanted to avoid science and math in school. And sometimes, thinking I was one of them, they’d make contemptuous remarks about the “nerds” they were interviewing.

    The good news is that I know a lot of their phone numbers and caller ID permits me to just be “out of the office” when they call.

    *sigh* If only …

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