Category Archives: Technology and Society

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Space History, Technology and Society

The SLS Frenzy

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So apparently, the SLF fanbois (and fangirls) going crazy over a giant welder on Twitter.

Anyway, I was rereading this essay I wrote half a decade ago. It was depressing. Here’s how little of some of it I’d have to change to keep it relevant to today.

Continue reading The SLS Frenzy →

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Space, Space History, Technology and Society

KSC Versus MSFC

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I had an interesting Twitter discussion this morning, that gave me an insight that had been floating around in the back of my mind, but that I’d never articulated, either to myself or others. It sort of crystallized when someone said that Bob Cabana, head of KSC, was an SLS supporter.

One of the tenets of the Apollo Cargo Cult is that we can’t go beyond earth orbit without a really big rocket. The conventional wisdom has been that the biggest constituency for SLS is Marshall, because that’s were it is being developed. But if you think about it, there are a lot of things Marshall could be applied to — it doesn’t have to be developing big rockets (something it hasn’t successfully done in almost four decades). For instance, it could be developing technology and demonstrators for orbital fuel storage and transfer. That would be at least as much in its wheelhouse as SLS.

KSC, on the other hand, has little justification for existence if NASA doesn’t have its own (big) rocket to launch. Without a big rocket, it doesn’t need the VAB, and the VAB and the crawler are really the only unique capability it has, in terms of physical infrastructure. If everything is going up on commercial rockers, even from Pads 39, KSC doesn’t have much to do, other than integrating NASA’s payloads onto them. That’s not a trivial task, but it’s not one that justifies the center’s budget or workforce. So, while Marshall could in theory be redirected to something useful, KSC can’t really. That’s why Nelson supports it so strongly.

It struck me in fact that the VAB is the high cathedral for the cargo cult. What would happen to the religion if it was taken out by a hurricane?

Business, Economics, Popular Culture, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Stick Shifts

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What are they worth?

If and when we ever sell our (silver) 2000 BMW, I suspect we’ll be happy that it’s got a clutch in it.

Which is another peeve. Almost every car now (including our new RAV-4) comes with a “manual” option for the transmission, but there’s no shift pattern. It’s like a motorcycle — you have to go through the gears sequentially. And the lack of clutch really defeats most of the purpose.

One other related gripe:

Since dealers are ninety-nine percent of the customer base at an auction, dealer preferences dictate what sells for good money. Fast-turning automobiles in high demand sell for good money, period point blank. No dealer wants to take a risk on an odd color or an unusual equipment group (think: Sebring convertibles with the expensive folding hardtop, stripped-out Explorer XL trims from the Nineties, loaded short-wheelbase S-Classes) or manual transmissions. They’d rather buy what sells easily and go home. Therefore, auction prices reflect dealer desires, not customer desires.

This disconnect between dealer and customer desires punishes the customer at every turn. It’s why Honda and Acura make you take a non-color with a stick-shift Accord or TSX: the dealers don’t want to stock a brown Accord V6 six-speed even if there’s a guy (YO!) willing to buy it. It’s why you see interesting combinations of colors and options in the order brochure but never at the dealers. It’s why the flotilla of individual options that marked the Detroit era of new cars has become a maze of packages and mandatory tie-ins, even when the car in question is manufactured in the same state as the selling dealers.

The dealers want the stuff that turns quickly. That means silver Camrys and red Ferraris and automatic convertible Corvettes and all-wheel-drive S-Classes. Your desires have nothing to do with it. They aren’t listening to you. They don’t care. While you’re busy displaying your autism spectrum disorder by lecturing the salesman about the actual cam lobe profile on a car you’re thinking about buying two jobs from now and for which you expect to pay invoice minus holdback, three families in used SUVs have come in and bought new SUVs and the store has grossed them front, back, used, and F&I. You mean nothing to a dealer. Period.

It drives me nuts that I can’t get a clutch in a car with horsepower, at least with the Japanese. For example, Honda won’t give you a manual transmission unless it’s mated to a four cylinder engine. If you want it on the six you’re out of luck. The only reason I can think of for them to do this is that they don’t want to have to have a beefy enough gearbox to handle the extra power, but I’m not sure that’s the reason.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Another Close Approach

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An asteroid will pass us on Sunday at about a tenth of the distance to the moon.

There are a lot of natural disasters we won’t be able to prevent (e.g., supervolcano explosions, or a nearby gamma-ray burst). But this is something that we could, if we were willing to devote more resources to it. And it wouldn’t take a lot more. In fact, it could be done for a lot less than we’re wasting on SLS/Orion.