All posts by Rand Simberg

War Commentary

Compare And Constrast

You know, if Dubya were one tenth the murderous bloodthirsty imperialistic stormtrooper cowboy that the foaming-at-the-mouth rabid left says he is, we wouldn’t be dropping leaflets with reward offers. We’d be dropping leaflets with an ultimatum to give him up in twenty-four hours, allow a monitored exodus, and then MOAB the place.

I’m not saying that’s an appropriate strategy, of course–I’m just pointing out that that’s what the George Bush of their fevered fantasies would do. Or perhaps he wouldn’t even give the warning–he’d just level the town. You know, like most other rulers in the region (who they seem determined to keep in power) would.

Space

Spacelines

Alan Boyle points to Sam Dinkin’s article at this week’s The Space Review that contends that there will be three players in the suborbital market (not because he has identified three favorites, but because that’s the way markets of this kind tend to work). Alan then predicts that Space Adventures will be one of them.

Well, maybe, but not necessarily.

This isn’t to imply that Space Adventures won’t survive, or continue to be successful, but I question its categorization of a spaceline. To date, it hasn’t acted in that role, or rather, it hasn’t acted fully in that role.

We have to define terms here. I consider a spaceline to be an entity that operates spaceliners. It can perform other functions (such as marketing, which is what Space Adventures primarily does), but if it doesn’t do that, it’s not a spaceline, any more than a company that doesn’t lease/own, and operate airliners can be considered an airline.

In the aviation industry, we have large commercial aircraft manufacturers, like Boeing and Airbus (the only two surviving after the consolidation of the past few decades), and we have airlines, which purchase or lease those aircraft and actually operate them, providing air transportation services to the public. The airlines market their services to the general public, and Boeing doesn’t have to worry about that–they only have to market their airplanes to the airlines.

In the early days, it wasn’t as cleanly delineated. In fact, in the thirties, the aircraft manufacturers also operated the airplanes, and established their own airline services. For instance, in the late twenties, Boeing had an airline called Boeing Air Transport. This company later purchased and merged with three other airlines to become United Airlines.

As a result of the Air Mail Scandal, in which charges were made of improper awarding of routes to politically powerful conglomerates, the airlines were forced to divest themselves of association with aircraft manufacturers, and we ended up with the system that we have today.

However, it’s not clear what the model will be for spacelines. Certainly initially, the people who build space transports will operate them, because no one else will know how, but it remains to be seen how the business models will work. The traditional wisdom is that with such a small market, the money is to be made in operations, rather than manufacturing, because there’s no need for that many vehicles.

In any event, I in fact founded Interglobal Space Lines years ago because I recognized a hole in the space industry. For aviation, there’s an interface between the flying public and the aircraft manufacturers–it’s called an airline. But there were no spacelines, and if someone wanted a ride into space, they had to deal directly with a launch vehicle manufacturer, who didn’t know how to deal with the general public–their customer base was government agencies and comsat manufacturers. My hope was that in founding a spaceline, I could start to address this disconnect.

I still hope to do that, as some of the vehicle designs and operations mature to the point that they can be purchased and operated by a separate entity. In fact, one of the things that I’ve been talking to FAA-AST about as the new regs have evolved is ensuring that launch licenses can cover providers who aren’t the vehicle manufacturer (analogous to having a Part 121 Operaters certificate). There’s no current precedent in the space industry for this–all licenses issued to date have been to the vehicle manufacturer, but I’ve been assured that there’s nothing in the current regulations that would prohibit it.

Anyway, as I said, in this formulation, Space Adventures is not an operator–they are a marketer of other entities’ services. This is an important role, but they’re not (yet) a spaceline. Only time will tell whether or not they choose to become one, and are successful at it.

General

I Hate Basketball

The title is a disclaimer to this post.

I’ve written before on why I think the sport is evil, but I seem to be caught in a perfect storm. I’m watching the last half of the fifth game of the NBA finals (the first game I’ve watched in years), because for me, it’s a twofer. I’m living in LA, which is Lakers crazy (and since I hate basketball, that just makes me hate it all the more). And I was born and bred in southeastern Michigan, so my tribal instincts out, and I get to watch the Pistons dismantle them.

The fact that they were supposed to have already lost the championship by now makes it all the sweeter. Detroit was supposed to get creamed, and instead, the Lakers would have already lost their shot at their legacy if the accused rapist hadn’t had a lucky shot in the second game. I’m going to savor the fourth quarter.

Then, I’ll hope once more that the sport implodes once and for all, with the collapse of the supposed superstars.