All posts by Rand Simberg

Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

NASA’s Technical Report Server

9 Comments

Has Frank Wolf shut it down?

As the emailer who sent me the link notes, “I understand the need for an ITAR review, however, what we have so far is a blanket ban, with no prescription in place for when and how this issue will be resolved. In the meantime NASA’s vast archive of technical information, so vital to the commercial and private sector has vanished in a single day.”

So where in the days of sequester is NASA going to find the funds to review the data and get it back on line? Just more ITAR madness that has cost the US space industry billions over the past decade and a half.

[Thursday morning update]

More over at NASA Watch.

[Bumped]

Business, Social Commentary, Space

Slaying The Dragons Of Mars

78 Comments

Stewart Money has an interesting essay on progress in understanding the risks of a Mars flight:

This most recent experience brings to mind another observation Zubrin made in The Case for Mars, once it was foreseen that the oceans could be crossed, people of the era did not wait for the advent of iron plated steamships, they raised sail and headed out into the unknown with what they had available ”iron men in wooden ships.”

Why should we do any less?

Why indeed?

[Cross-posted at Safe Is Not An Option]

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

If You Don’t Support The “Assault Weapons” Ban

12 Comments

…you hate children and want them to die.

Plus, Ted Cruz gets a scolding, not an answer:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California wants us to know that she is “not a sixth-grader.”

Anyone who saw the recent exchange before the Senate Judiciary Committee between Feinstein and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas over guns and the Constitution might speculate that the reason she said this is because she couldn’t pass the entrance exam.

As for Cruz, a friend of mine for a decade, it turns out that the most important of the “Senate rules” is unwritten: Thou shalt not embarrass a fellow senator – even one in the opposing party – by making him or her look unprepared, uneducated or uninformed.

That’s not always an easy thing to avoid. The rulebook doesn’t say what to do when a Senate colleague who wants to ban certain guns dodges a tough question and then goes on the attack – thus embarrassing herself.

Nevertheless, Cruz, 42, is headed to the principal’s office. His infraction was asking the right question. What Cruz wanted to know was this: Why do liberals cherish the First and Fourth Amendments, but trash the one in between – the Second Amendment?

That’s a brainteaser. Why does the left play favorites with different parts of the Bill of Rights?

Experience teaches that the better the question, the less likely you are to get a straight answer.

That’s what happened here. Feinstein went on the offense. Abandoning reason for emotion, she scolded Cruz for daring to “lecture” her. After all, she said, she had seen the bodies of people killed by gunfire.

The illogic of these people defies description. They run on pure, grade-A unadulterated emotion.

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

Green Energy In The Red

6 Comments

Remember how if we didn’t let Obama hand out taxpayer money to his cronies like Solyndra, we’d be buying our solar panels from China? Well:

The world’s top-selling producer of solar panels has defaulted on a $541 million bond payment. The Chinese firm Suntech hasn’t posted a profit since the first quarter of 2011 and has been relying on the government of Wuxi, the city where it is headquartered, to stay solvent. But as more bills come due, this renewable energy producer is looking less and less sustainable.

Just shocking. If you’re an economic ignoramus, anyway.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

The Benghazi Cover Up

80 Comments

…continues:

With an apparent full-blown cover-up and perhaps dozens of public servants eager to talk, the House immediately should move to subpoena the Obama administration for the names and contact information for all 33 Benghazi survivors. It then should subpoena each of them, immunize them against prosecution, and protect them, their jobs, and their pensions and other benefits under the appropriate federal whistleblower statutes.

While some of these people should testify under oath behind closed doors, to protect classified information, others should offer sworn testimony in public hearings.

If Benghazi unfolded as Team Obama claims, and these 33 people have remained Sphinx-like merely because they had nothing contrary to say, so the historical record should read.

If, however, Obama & Company bribed, threatened, or intimidated these public servants to stay silent in order to secure Obama’s reelection, then Benghazi will prove to be a conspiracy more explosive and evil than Watergate.

Nobody died in Watergate.