Eric Berg has the latest on the Leaning Tower of not Pisa, but Launch.
Can't someone just take this program back behind the barn and put it out of its and our misery with an axe? https://t.co/KbwbZqXSGc
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) February 20, 2018
[Late-morning update]
Good point in comments. This London skyscraper only cost half a billion dollars, in the heart of one of the most expensive cities in the world.
…struggle to achieve even average reliability.
Mind blowing . . . makes blogs look relatively reliable, since comments and wider discussion quickly point out any flaws https://t.co/5yEL637k3v
— Judith Curry (@curryja) February 20, 2018
Martin Elvis says it’s a game changer. BFR would be even more so. But this (from the story’s author) is a little silly:
Also, I feel like launching all of those rockets and processing the metals can’t be good for the environment.
The metals would be processed in space. The whole point of this is to start to move industry off the planet, which would be great for the environment. He should try thinking, and doing some actually analysis, rather than going on feels.
[Tuesday-morning update]
This seems related, sort of: Planetary Resources has a funding shortfall.
Seems like those billionaires who supposedly founded it don’t actually have that much faith in the venture.
It is an absurdly low-cost rocket.
As Gwynne often says, “I don’t know how to make a rocket cost $400M.”
[Friday noon update]
Thoughts from Bob Zubrin on what this means for the moon and Mars.
Some thoughts on Michael Mann, the lawsuits, and the sad state of climate science, from Judith Curry.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Terrible: By awarding Mann as super-communicator, the AAAS is telling us that engaging in hyper-partisan gutter politics, targeted against Republicans and colleagues you disagree with, using unethical tactics is great.https://t.co/zA2HJF0tB3
— Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) February 15, 2018
I agree that we have the tech to do this affordably, but I strenuously disagree with this:
The activities at this moon base would be focusing on science, as is the case in the Antarctic. It could provide an official U.S. government presence on the moon, and its motivation would be rooted in U.S. national policy—again as are the U.S. Antarctic bases.
To the degree that the focus should be on “science,” it should be about better learning how to live on the moon, and Antarctica is a terrible precedent, in that we aren’t allowed to exploit it for its resources. That’s also why the Outer Space Treaty itself, which was modeled on the Antarctic Treaty, is a problem.
The good, the bad, and the ugly.
It’s always more fun to build new stuff than to maintain it. I discovered when I arrived late at DCA last week that the Metro isn’t running past 11:30 PM, probably so they can finally do long-needed maintenance on it. It’s long been a system run more for its employees than its passengers.
I just finished an essay on space visions, including Krafft Ehricke. I forgot to include lunettas and solettas, but I’ll get a chance to take another whack at it, since it’s been delayed until the spring issue of The New Atlantis.
Here‘s Loren Grush’s account (I finally met her briefly in person there).