All posts by Rand Simberg

Political Commentary

Deja Vu

Many forget, but one of the things (besides Ross Perot, and the bogus supermarket scanner story, and his seeming unfeeling toward those who felt that the recovering economy wasn’t recovering fast enough) that resulted in George Herbert Walker Bush’s loss of his second term, was the limp response of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to Hurricane Andrew in the summer of 1992 before the election, in southern Florida. If his son is smart, he’ll have FEMA ready to aid the Gulf Coast immediately this weekend, if Charlie is even a small fraction as devastating as many are predicting.

[Update at noon Pacific Friday]

Welcome, Corner readers. It occurs to me that this is now likely to be worse than Andrew was, in terms of property damage. It’s at least as strong a storm, and there’s a lot more population in the current track. The Gulf Coast hasn’t been hit in over forty years, and there are a lot more people living there now than in the early sixties. It’s very likely to set a new record for financial losses from a natural disaster.

Space

The “Giggle Factor” Evaporates?

Alan Boyle has an email interview (something that I should have done long before now, if I hadn’t been buried in other issues recently) with John Carmack, in the wake of this past weekend’s vehicle loss (though not necessarily test failure). What was most interesting, though, was a little aside at the end of his column:

…Sunday’s explosive rocket mishap put Space Transport Corp. in the national limelight as an X Prize underdog with a can-do spirit.

The result: A slew of investors have e-mailed the cash-strapped company, saying they are interested in making an investment in the partners’ dream of developing space tourism.

“The national attention has been great. We’ve gotten a flood of e-mail, a lot from potential investors,” Space Transport vice president Eric Meier said Monday after he, company president Phillip Storm and volunteers cleaned up the wreckage and debris of Rubicon 1 on the beach near Queets.

“I’m trying to raise some money, and am responding to people who have expressed interest.”

Of course, it remains to be seen whether these were serious investors. We’ll find out in the next few weeks and months.

Space

The “Giggle Factor” Evaporates?

Alan Boyle has an email interview (something that I should have done long before now, if I hadn’t been buried in other issues recently) with John Carmack, in the wake of this past weekend’s vehicle loss (though not necessarily test failure). What was most interesting, though, was a little aside at the end of his column:

…Sunday’s explosive rocket mishap put Space Transport Corp. in the national limelight as an X Prize underdog with a can-do spirit.

The result: A slew of investors have e-mailed the cash-strapped company, saying they are interested in making an investment in the partners’ dream of developing space tourism.

“The national attention has been great. We’ve gotten a flood of e-mail, a lot from potential investors,” Space Transport vice president Eric Meier said Monday after he, company president Phillip Storm and volunteers cleaned up the wreckage and debris of Rubicon 1 on the beach near Queets.

“I’m trying to raise some money, and am responding to people who have expressed interest.”

Of course, it remains to be seen whether these were serious investors. We’ll find out in the next few weeks and months.