I have some thoughts on the scandals over at PJMedia.
Back From Colorado
The good news is that I’ve landed in California. The bad news is that we were diverted to San Diego due to some sort of problem at LAX.
More anon.
…a few minutes later.
OK, the plan is to refuel and then head up the coast. We’ll see how long that takes.
Update at 15:15 PDT. Heading home from LAX.
Stratolaunch And OSC
Stewart Money has some thoughts on the implications of the culmination of the courtship.
I’ve never really believed that the true goal of this program was a significant cost reduction. I think that the only requirement for which it makes sense is rapid-response single-orbit rendezvous.
But one other point that Stewart doesn’t mention. In the original rollout, they declared that the goal was (at least eventually) human missions. I don’t know how many people are going to be willing to go to orbit on a two-stage solid, particularly given OSC’s record. I know that I wouldn’t be, particularly given the more attractive alternatives (SpaceX/Dragon and perhaps whatever XCOR eventually comes up with). I wonder if this is the final nail in the coffin of the original cover story.
Blue Origin
Clark Lindsey has collected the tweets from this morning’s session at the #NSRC2013.
Bottom line — they still won’t announce anything resembling a schedule. “We will fly when we are ready.” As opposed to everyone else, who will fly before they are…
Space Access Update
The very latest from the Space Access Society, including the new ITAR problems.
A Star Trek Movie Review
By someone who is both a Star Trek fan and a brilliant writer. Yes, at least one exists.
A Smoking Gun
What was a campaign official doing in White House meetings with the IRS?
Congressman Issa should call in Ms. Cutter and recall Mr. Shulman to testify under oath about these meetings. I, for one, would like to watch them squirm as they commit perjury.
Yes. Particularly since, no matter how much they attempt to synchronize their lies beforehand, they won’t know just how much independent information Issa has.
Susan Rice?
Is this the most politically tone-deaf administration in history?
And do they really think that throwing Donilon under the bus is going to make Benghazi go away?
I feel much more secure now that we have a security advisor who doesn’t know the difference between a terrorist attack and a rambunctious movie review.
[Afternoon update]
“Not one, not two, but three flips of the Obama bird:
Susan Rice is no more qualified to opine on matters of national security than a character from The Wizard of Oz. Like Obama himself, she is a highly politicized, over-credentialed Scarecrow, with certificates from Stanford, Oxford, and the Brookings Institution in place of a brain.
He’s being kind, I think.
[Update a few minutes later]
OK, per comments here and elsewhere, how can the administration prevent her from testifying on executive privilege when the thing that she will be testifying about occurred when she was working for the State Department?
OK, let me amend that. How can they credibly do so?
Not that that ever slows them down, either, of course. It didn’t with Holder in Fast and Furious.
And then there’s this. Maybe Bob-1 is right in comments (hey, you know, blind squirrels and all) and it’s not Donilon that’s becoming a bus speed bump:
As for birds two and three, I’ll leave it to my PJ colleagues to unpack the implicit antisemitic and anti-Israel nature of the Power appointment; the Irish-born Ms. Power is married to Harvard egghead Cass Sunstein, proving once again that leftists, like rock stars and supermodels, tend to travel in packs and marry each other because they never meet anybody else. But surely Hillary Clinton, who’s clearly now being fitted for the fall guy jacket regarding Benghazi, must be seething.
Keep the corn popper on standby.
The Fish Police
This is another area of government overreach that I’d like to see rolled way back.
The Space Transport Conundrum
Clark Lindsey has a useful essay on the two approaches to reusability, and prospects for the near future.