Category Archives: Political Commentary

Then And Now

Paul Spudis has some guidance for the Augustine Commission to update the 1990 report to the 2009 report, based on what we know about the moon now that we didn’t then:

what do these discoveries mean for lunar return? We now know that sustained human presence on the Moon is possible, largely because we’ve found a source of near-constant power (permanent sunlight) and a source of sustenance and rocket propellant (volatiles, including water). The robotic Clementine and Lunar Prospector missions showed us that the poles, almost completely unknown in 1990, are inviting oases on the lunar desert. There, we can extract hydrogen and oxygen to make air and water for life support and propellant to fuel rockets. The sunlit areas can generate near continuous electrical power, with regenerative fuel cells providing power for the short duration eclipse periods. Locally obtained power and consumables means that continuous human presence is possible, without the enormous expense or unproven technology of large nuclear reactors and the delivery of massive quantities of material from Earth.

The new Augustine committee should be made cognizant of these facts. The more we learn about the true nature of the Moon, the more the goal of learning to live there on a quasi-self sufficient basis appears feasible. This opens up wholly new areas of operations and commerce in space, undreamed of as little as twenty years ago. It has the potential to change the entire paradigm of spaceflight, from a narrow, government-run, science-oriented program, completely dependent upon the caprice Congressional largess to a self-sustaining, free-market program, in which NASA develops and demonstrates new technologies that open up spacefaring by many different passengers and payloads for a wide variety of purposes.

Wouldn’t that be a breath of fresh space policy air?

College Is For Suckers

In many cases, it is. I’m glad I made it through without any student loans, though I was paid fairly well upon graduation as an engineer in the early eighties. But it’s really crazy to spend as much money as a degree costs when the degree has no marketable value.

I think that overrated higher education is the next government-financed bubble to pop.

[Update mid afternoon]

Derb has some more reader emails:

I made the same mistake myself: a BS in Geography is worth nothing on the job market. If I had it to do over again, I’d have taken shop classes in high school (assuming that they existed) and gotten a 2-year blue-collar technical degree. Other than engineering and business degrees, most college BSs and BAs are worthless.

and this:

Higher education is the biggest scam going. I don’t think that’s news to you (or Charles Murray). What’s really disheartening is that the business world plays along — demanding four-year degrees for positions that shouldn’t require them. It’s just a lazy way for them to make their “first cut.”

That is the problem. As Derb says, an aptitude test would do a better job, but it might not provide enough “diversity,” so the degree has become a poor surrogate. And it reminds me of NASA’s astronaut selection policy. It likes to select PhDs, or at least grad degrees, not because they are necessary for the job, but because they have so many more applicants than positions, it makes a handy filter.

But if I were a businessman, and I was just looking for a degree as evidence that the holder at least had the stick-to-it-iveness to get a degree, I’d be just as happy, and perhaps happier, with a technical associates degree than a bachelor’s in French Lit. Or even English.

A Fit Of Sanity

From Andrew Sullivan, on hate-crimes:

The real reason for hate crime laws is not the defense of human beings from crime. There are already laws against that – and Matthew Shepard’s murderers were successfully prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law in a state with no hate crimes law at the time. The real reason for the invention of hate crimes was a hard-left critique of conventional liberal justice and the emergence of special interest groups which need boutique legislation to raise funds for their large staffs and luxurious buildings. Just imagine how many direct mail pieces have gone out explaining that without more money for HRC, more gay human beings will be crucified on fences. It’s very, very powerful as a money-making tool – which may explain why the largely symbolic federal bill still hasn’t passed (if it passes, however, I’ll keep a close eye on whether it is ever used).

Oh, well, stopped clocks, and all that.

The World Gone Mad

…or at least Andrew Sullivan, though I think that he’s just the tip of the insane iceberg that continues to delude itself about the president. There are many words that could usefully and accurately describe him and his policies, but “conservative” is not among them.

[Update before noon]

Victor Davis Hanson discusses Obama’s radicalism, and missed opportunities:

Obama could have had a one-time stimulus, then vowed to balance the budget. He might have praised wind and solar as he asked the carbon industry to ‘get us through.’ He could have politely disagreed with Bush, but framing differences in the tragic notion of no good choices. He might have cooled the overseas apologies, savvy that other nations have more to apologize for than his own. Obama should have established zero-tolerance for tax avoidance at a time of record tax increases. He could have remonstrated with Wall Street, and sought to rein in excess without Europeanizing the financial sector. He could have proactively reformed entitlements with bipartisan support, rather than, as will happen, drastically address them in the 11th hour. But then to do all that would be to assume he never went to Trinity Church, knew no Rev. Wright, Ayers, Khalidi, etc., did not run mysterious campaigns that eliminated opponents before the elections, was not the most partisan Senator in Congress, and avoided rather crude social and racial stereotyping while campaigning. Most who read this will not agree, given the mesmerizing effect of the Obama charisma. But in time, unless there are radical changes, I think the nation will come to learn that such talent was not put in service to our collective welfare.

Some time, let’s hope soon, as Reverend Wright would say, President Obama’s chickens…will come home…to roost.

Moving The Goalposts?

Dr. Griffin is telling people that there is no need to check his work. Of course not.

In comments, “Red” sums up the problems with Griffin’s approach:

Dr. Griffin doesn’t seem to be aware of what the goals of the Vision for Space Exploration are. The goal is not for NASA to build a rocket, or two rockets. The goal is not to send astronauts to the Moon, or to Mars, or to near-Earth asteroids. Here’s the goal, according to the Vision for Space Exploration:

“Goal and Objectives
The fundamental goal of this vision is to advance U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests through a robust space exploration program. In support of this goal, the United States will:
• Implement a sustained and affordable human and robotic program to explore the solar system and beyond;
• Extend human presence across the solar system, starting with a human return to the Moon by the year 2020, in preparation for human exploration of Mars and other destinations;
• Develop the innovative technologies, knowledge, and infrastructures both to explore and to support decisions about the destinations for human exploration; and
• Promote international and commercial participation in exploration to further U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests”

Note that the space exploration program is just a means to an end. The purpose is to “advance U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests”. Also notice the strong emphasis on innovative technologies, knowledge, infrastructure, and international and commercial participation. Also note that some “decisions about the destinations for human exploration” are left to the future.

To emphasize commercial participation, the document later states:

“Acquire crew transportation to and from the International Space Station, as required, after the Space Shuttle is retired from service.” (Note that “Acquire” doesn’t mean “Design, Build, and Operate”).

“Pursue commercial opportunities for providing transportation and other services supporting the International Space Station and exploration missions beyond low Earth orbit.”

The Ares-based plan has nothing to do with any of this. Unlike EELVs or new commercial launchers, Ares rockets don’t support U.S. economic interests. The’re government rockets, so they can’t capture commercial launch business, or launch commercial satellites. They also aren’t useful for U.S. national security launches or payloads. They also aren’t useful for science payloads beyond astronaut missions (Ares V class science missions are too expensive).

The Ares rocket plan doesn’t involve international participation. It takes money away from the robotic exploration program mentioned above and described in detail in the VSE. The Ares rockets are too expensive to develop and operate, and hence fail the VSE “sustained and affordable” criteria above. Ares rockets are too expensive to allow space infrastructure like the VSE mentions. Even if Ares I and V were kept, they could incorporate in-space fueling to bring in commercial participation and spur the U.S. launch market (and as a side benefit dramatically increase payload to the Moon), but they don’t. The Ares plan under Griffin didn’t fund COTS-D commercial crew transport needed by the VSE (see above) – the recent stimulus package partial funding related to commercial crew transport came after Griffin. The Ares program is intended to break as little ground as possible technologically to reduce development risk, so the innovation mentioned in the VSE is gone. Innovation in other areas is drastically reduced to fund Ares (you don’t see very many robotic ISRU demos on the Moon, for example, or reusable space transport components in ESAS, in spite of that approach being central to the kinds of economic, security, and science benefits described here by Dr. Paul Spudis and Dennis Wingo).

Hey, but other than that, it’s a great plan.

[Early afternoon update]

In looking at this analysis, while I knew that ESAS was missing much of the Aldridge recommendations and the VSE itself, I hadn’t realized how almost completely orthogonal it is to them until I saw it all in one place like this. Was the Bush administration unaware of how far off Griffin had taken the plan, or were they indifferent? I know that if I had been the president, I’d have asked for an evaluation by the Aldridge team immediately upon announcement of ESAS/Constellation, scoring it against their own criteria (and we paid very close attention to those criteria when performing the CE&R studies), because it was a radical departure from previous anticipated plans. And I’d have likely forced a course correction on it. It would be worth an interview with Marburger to find out just what was going on.

My suspicion is that they just didn’t pay much attention to it, once the policy was in place, and they had an administrator who was supposed to know what he was doing. It just wasn’t a policy priority in the context of the other problems. Which isn’t surprising, of course, because as I’ve long pointed out, space isn’t important, and hasn’t been for over forty years.

The Crab Walk

If you missed Her Highness’ press conference yesterday, Dana Milbank has a very entertaining description of it:

As more skeptical questions were shouted, Pelosi opened her eyes wide. She licked her lips. She chopped the air with her hand and moved her arm like a windshield wiper. She swallowed hard. She used both hands to clear her hair from her face as she fired off pleas that “I wasn’t briefed,” “I wasn’t informed” and “They misled us.”

Enjoy.

From The Ground Up

I’ve often noted that, had the Bush administration been truly serious about the VSE, they would have at least attempted to create a new agency to carry it out, because NASA simply carries too much bureaucratic and pork-laden baggage from its Cold-War origins. This would be similar to what happened in the eighties, when the Reagan/Bush administration realized that they couldn’t count on the Air Force to do missile defense properly, and set up SDIO to report directly to the SecDEF.

Anyway, Frank Sietzen asks the question today, if you were building a new space agency from scratch, what would it look like?

Bad News In Lebanon?

Michael Totten says to brace for a Hezbollah electoral victory:

Geopolitically though, everything will change. Lebanon’s current “March 14″ government is an ally of the West and of Arab governments other than Syria’s. Prime Minister Fouad Seniora has repeatedly – and I think honestly – stated he wants a renewed armistice agreement with Israel. A “March 8″ government would reverse all those diplomatic efforts and push Lebanon back into, or at the very least toward, the Syria-Iran axis. War prospects with Israel would increase, and any eventual war would almost certainly turn out more destructive than the last one if the people of Lebanon willingly elect a coalition led by a jihadist party vowing war and destruction.

If it happens, this will be a major policy challenge for the new administration.