All posts by Rand Simberg
Obama The Day After
I think Rick Wilson has his number:
First, you’ll see his barely-contained contempt for the voters. After the briefest nod to their unhappiness, they’ll be described as angry, disaffected, and easily fooled by dark money and deceptive television ads. If only America was smart enough to understand his vision. If only they had his advantages of godlike wisdom and preternatural intelligence they’d understand what a terrible mistake they’ve just made. He’ll be very sad for them, really.
Next, he’ll punch the Washington media’s buttons with his usual phony construct of “I’m willing to work with anyone, Republican or Democrat, to get things done for this country.” Anyone, that is, except those mouth-breathing, cousin-marrying, snake-handling, slack-jawed, red-state yokels with bad suits and state-college educations. He’ll listen to good ideas, as long as they precisely match his own faculty-lounge vision of technocratic government uber alles. He’ll be open to reforms, except anything to do with the unsullied perfection of Obamacare or any other part of his regulatory overstate. He’ll certainly be willing to talk about the conduct of our foreign and military operations, as long as we remain constrained by his minimalist vision of American interests in the world, and continue to dishearten our allies and comfort our enemies.
What you won’t see in Barack Obama’s eyes or language is real understanding. He’ll say the words the Acela Media expects, and go through the motions at the press conference, but it will be empty of any true realization that this election was a brutal national referendum on his policies and his leadership. This President lacks the fundamental self-awareness of his how his actions (and inaction) brought this day upon him. Obama has always been the student with the gold-star sticker. He’s been told he was brilliant, special, and historic at every inflection point in his life. As a candidate — and as president — he was given every gift, extended every latitude, and cradled in the loving embrace of a media simultaneously enraptured by his charisma and terrified of criticizing the first black President in even the mildest terms.
We were never worthy of him.
John Stewart, Genius
Jon Stewart tells @camanpour that he didnt vote. He just moved, he says, doesnt know where to go to vote.
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) November 4, 2014
@StephenGutowski @jaketapper @camanpour If only there were some comedic television news program to do a funny rant about this.
— Casey Mattox (@CaseyMattoxADF) November 4, 2014
In Defense Of Daring
I respond to Jeffrey Kluger’s Branson bashing, over at The New Atlantis.
[Update a few minutes later]
Meghan McArdle says that of course space tourism will continue. The notion that a fatality in a flight test would destroy an industry is pretty stupid.
Also, nothing has changed in the past decade: Alex Tabarrok still doesn’t understand the difference between orbital and suborbital flight, or between flight test and operations.
Obama’s ISIS In Syria Strategy
It’s basically collapsed. But of course, tomorrow is its sell-by date anyway.
Branson And Refunds
I’m sure that you’re as shocked as I am that Sir Richard’s statement on Saturday is at variance with reality. I think the technical business term for this is “fiasco.” And I’m angry that it has so tainted the industry, not to mention given the FAA an excuse to regulate, if they wish to.
[Update a couple minutes later]
The real problem is “bad business.”
A Wounded Obama
We may be in for a rough ride.
And then there’s this:
The article, which includes a senior administration official gloating that Obama successfully pressured Netanyahu to avoid launching a military strike on Iran back when it could still have stopped the radical Islamic regime’s nuclear program, signaled that Obama has Iran’s back.
It continues to amaze me that any American Jews continue to support this man. Or Americans who care at all about our national security.
Pilot Error?
That’s not a statement, but clearly is a legitimate question. If so, he paid with his life.
Also if so, it’s a pretty easy thing to fix. But it still doesn’t explain why they deployed without the command to do so. And we still don’t really know how well the engine performed, or what kind of vibration environment it will provide the vehicle and passengers. At least publicly.
[Update a few minutes later]
It strikes me as ironic, and a demonstration of one of the major points of my book, that the two main features of the vehicle implemented in the name of safety (hybrid motor, and feathering wings) may have actually made the vehicle more dangerous and less operable. Lynx will be a much simpler system.
An Election About Nothing?
In Which I’m Quoted In The Times Of London
This comment was made in the weekend context, when most reasonably assumed that the engine had caused the disaster:
The decision to change the fuel may have been behind the crash. Experts questioned whether pressure from investors might have been a factor in decisions by Sir Richard Branson and Scaled Composites, the spacecraft’s designers, to pursue what many considered to be a flawed design.
“If Sir Richard wants to move forward with his business, he needs to go back to the drawing board,” said Mr Simberg, the author of Safe is Not an Option. “Many in the industry, including me, have been concerned about Virgin’s propellant system for years.”
Obviously, I expect them to continue down the current path now, absent some new engine concern. But my warnings were never that much about safety (though as I wrote on Saturday, the safety of hybrids has been dramatically overhyped), but whether or not it was a good engine from a business standpoint, in terms of performance, operability, turnaround, cost, and getting the vehicle to market soon. Those concerns have not gone away.
[Update a while later]
A pretty comprehensive story, including history, over at Popular Mechanics. He’s not sanguine about the prospects for the vehicle, though (like me) doesn’t see it as a setback for the industry itself.
[Update a while later]
What does this mean for New Mexico? A long but useful backgrounder.
[Update early afternoon]
Someone over at Arocket found a video of a previous SS2 flight in which feathers were unlocked ten seconds into the burn (as opposed to nine seconds on Friday). So if it was early, it wasn’t very. Not obvious pilot error yet.