An interesting history, and some reflections, from Judith Curry.
All posts by Rand Simberg
Blackout
The blackest material ever made.
On The 45th Apollo Anniversary
…author says too few people are dying in space.
A New Attack On SpaceX
Well, well…
I wonder who is putting them up to this? Basically, he’s the Congressman from eastern Colorado, not including the cities and burbs in the Front Range. But he may have some constituents who work for Lockmart or ULA. He’s not on any of the space committees. Also, note that he’s running against Mark Udall for Senate (likely to be one of the tighter races). Coffman, of course, is the congressman from Lockmart/ULA (Littleton). I wonder what SpaceX’s Space Act Agreement says about release of this kind of data? It looks like they want to do a smear job.
[Update a little while later]
Gee, look at the URL that came with the email. I’m sure that, like Lois Lerner’s missing emails, it has no significance.
[Wednesday-morning update]
Jeff Fooust analyzes at Space News.
| Press Release from Representative Cory Gardner |
|
Another “Recycled” Hard Drive
This time at the FEC:
The FEC has a far-reaching mandate into the operations of elections, which means that partisanship in that agency is particularly corrosive. The Hatch Act requires strict neutrality of all federal employees while on duty, and one would expect that to be particularly observed in the FEC. Instead, Sands tweeted partisan messages from her office in 2012; sent out fundraising pleas for Obama’s re-election campaign, called Republicans her “enemy,” and said they should shut up and “stand down.”
When the Inspector General came knocking, however, the evidence had vanished. The FEC “recycled” her hard drive, which meant that criminal charges could not be pursued. How exactly could this have happened? Sands was under suspicion of a crime under a statute which would be updated later that year, in a bill signed by Barack Obama himself. Shouldn’t the FEC have taken steps to secure evidence rather than destroy it?
Note her connection to Lois Lerner. It really is remarkable how fragile these devices are when confronted with a subpoena or investigation.
Spaceplanes
DARPA has announced the winning teams for XS-1. I’m not surprised by Masten/XCOR. They’ve been collaborating for years. I have no inside info, but I wouldn’t be shocked if there’s an acquisition or merger at some point. The NG/Virgin alliance is no surprise, either, given that Northrop owns Scaled. The Boeing/Blue team is more interesting to me. I wonder if it’s away for Boeing to try to become more entrepreneurial?
A Legal Victory For A Climate Scientist
It’s worth $250 big ones.
[Afternoon update]
Engineering And English Majors
It’s a revealing chart, though some of the liberal arts types might not understand it.
“Post-Empirical Science”
Yes, yes it is.
US-China Space Cooperation
A point/counterpoint between Michael Listner and Joan Johnson-Freese. I’m not a big fan of China cooperation myself (a dispute I have with Buzz), but this is probably the best argument I’ve seen for it:
Wolf’s rationale assumes the United States has nothing to gain by working with the Chinese. On the contrary, the United States could learn about how they work — their decision-making processes, institutional policies and standard operating procedures. This is valuable information in accurately deciphering the intended use of dual-use space technology, long a weakness and so a vulnerability in U.S. analysis. Working together on an actual project where people confront and solve problems together, perhaps beginning with a space science or space debris project where both parties can contribute something of value, builds trust on both sides, trust that is currently severely lacking. It also allows each side to understand the other’s cultural proclivities, reasoning and institutional constraints with minimal risk of technology sharing.
If it’s the current NASA cooperating with China, I’m not much worried about technology sharing, either, since NASA’s not allowed to spend much money on useful technology. I just think that cooperation with China (or anyone, really) is an unnecessary distraction from actually doing things in space. But the Congress isn’t really interested in that. It just wants to build big rockets. I certainly wouldn’t put any other country, whether China or even in Europe, on the critical path to anything.