All posts by Rand Simberg

Administrative, General Science, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary

Back On The Air (Sort Of)

29 Comments

Momentarily.

So, I came down with a cold on Tuesday evening. I first noticed it at a U of Michigan reception at SciTech after the main reception (attendees were in high spirits after their football team had won their first national championship after a quarter of a century, unalloyed by having to unfairly share it with Nebraska; I say “unfairly” because many think that Missouri beat them but lost on a bad call). I noticed that my throat was getting a little sore, and my nose was starting to run. (Interestingly, it was the sickest I’ve been since long before Covid).

Anyway, I was better on Wednesday, and attended the conference, then spent the later afternoon and evening with my niece who lives in Orlando. I had a scheduled flight to DC on Thursday evening, but decided to go to the airport and get out earlier on standby, and arrived here late yesterday afternoon. My nose started running again and I had a rough night sleeping, and I lost my voice during the day, but I’m on the mend now. I expect I’ll be much better tomorrow, and fine for the upcoming trial next week.

But I’m spending the weekend cramming for my upcoming testimony, probably Wednesday or Thursday, as a hostile witness for the plaintiff, so probably light blogging not just this weekend, but for the next three-and-a-half weeks. So be grateful if you get any free ice cream between now and the second week of February.

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

Another Artemis Delay

39 Comments

I wish that every time some politician (and Bill Nelson is definitely one of those) says that “Safety is the highest priority,” someone would ask them, “What is safe enough? When are you going to fly? How safe will it be then? If safety is the highest priority, why would you ever fly? Not flying is the only way to make safety the highest priority.”

Business, Space, Space History, Technology and Society

ULA

35 Comments

Can it get its mojo back?

I think that partially, even largely depends on whether it can get a better owner than the current ones.

[Update a while later]

I have more thoughts over at X.

[This is a good history from @SciGuySpace, but there’s a word missing in it: Starship. Tory’s problem is that he thinks that he’s competing against Falcon, but Elon is going to obsolesce Falcon ASAP. How will Vulcan or New Glenn compete against a fully reusable heavy lifter?

The thing about Elon is that he never faces the Innovator’s Dilemma. His first instinct is to obsolesce his own product line before a competitor can. Anyone who wants to seriously compete against SpaceX has to compete against his future plans, not his current business.

If space launch was just a business for Elon, he’d be as complacent as any other businessman in his position, but it’s not a business; it’s a passion, and he wants to get thousands of people to Mars. So he’s going to continue to out-innovate the competition.

Imagine a world in which SH/SS is flying daily (or more often) on regularly scheduled trips to ELEO at a cost of tens of dollars a pound. Propellant would be cheap enough to deliver a payload to anywhere in cislunar space for much less than the cost of a traditional launch. That is what ULA and BO are going to have to compete with if they want to stay in the launch business.

I know, “But there’s not enough demand for that level of launch activity!” Believe me, at those prices, we will finally see the kind of price-demand elasticity that will drive it through the roof. People will be doing things dreamt of for decades, held back only by launch costs.

So good luck to ULA (and BO) on their upcoming maiden flights this year, but I don’t predict a long future for them. Not to mention SLS… 

I feel like I should write a book about this.

[Monday-morning update]

ULA had a successful maiden flight, but there’s an anomaly with Peregrine.

[Bumped]