Lee Billings has a good piece on the current state of play.
Fortunately, given the vision being displayed by wealthy entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos, we are approaching a day in which NASA and its budget will be largely irrelevant to humanity’s move into space.
Young people support big government, unless it costs any more money. They’re for smaller government, unless budget cuts scratch a program they’ve heard of. They’d like Washington to fix everything, just so long as it doesn’t run anything.
Hardly surprising, considering that they were “educated” in a government-school system, and then went to colleges infested with mindless leftist professors. And I hate that the pollsters say they’re more “liberal” than older people. No, they’re more leftist.
Apparently, my Droid 4 is vulnerable to this, but it’s unlikely it’s actually hit me since a) I don’t do much with my phone and b) I don’t rely on Google for my data storage, other than contacts. But I don’t understand why they can’t patch. I don’t think I should have to upgrade my phone/OS in order to protect myself from this sort of thing.
OK, so how soon could this be available for a planetary mission? What’s the power/mass ratio, and cost, compared to an RTG?
This is interesting. The company is getting into the orbital assembly business:
Phase one of CIRAS began in September 2016 and will last a total of two years. During this period, Orbital ATK will lead the team in maturing technologies necessary for robotic assembly of large space structures, such as next-generation telescopes or solar-powered structures for transport or communications. These capabilities include methods to connect or disconnect joints on a structure and address precision measuring and alignment through a 15-meter robotic arm and a precision robot. The team will also develop the technology needed to conduct in-orbit modular assembly of structures, allowing parts to be brought to space as needed via multiple launches, which simplifies the design of spacecraft and reduces cost. [Emphasis mine]
They must realize that this increases the risk to SLS, and their SRB production. Have they decided that this new business focus is a better bet?
…to heal the health-care disaster the Democrats gave us:
While some Republicans have attacked the Affordable Care Act without proposing an alternative, Mr. Price has introduced bills offering a detailed, comprehensive replacement plan in every Congress since 2009, when Democrats started work on the legislation. Many of his ideas are included in the “Better Way” agenda issued several months ago by House Republicans.
In debate on the Affordable Care Act in 2009, Mr. Price railed against “a stifling and oppressive federal government,” a theme that pervades his politics. His most frequent objection to the law is that it interferes with the ability of patients and doctors to make medical decisions — a concern he will surely take with him if he wins Senate confirmation.
“The practicing physician and the patient could not have a better friend in that office than Tom Price,” said Representative Michael C. Burgess, Republican of Texas, who is also a physician.
That’s “Dr. Price,” to you, New York Times.
I’m sure that the Dems will fight tooth and nail to prevent his confirmation, but Harry Reid screwed them with his nuclear option. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here’s how Trump’s HHS pick wants to replace Obamacare:
I wrote about the most recent version of Price’s plan in detail when it came out last year, but here’s how it would basically work.
It would repeal the text of Obamacare, and replace it with a system that would provide tax credits to individuals based on age. Though previous versions had varied the credits based on income, doing so by age is easier to administer (HHS won’t get into the problems it’s had with Obamacare in terms of verifying income for the purposes of the subsidies) and it also provides more money to those who have to pay more for insurance. In addition, there would be a one-time tax credit to put in a health savings account for routine medical expenses.
Unlike previous incarnations of GOP reform proposals, the plan only modestly meddles with the tax bias in favor of employer insurance, and also encourages small businesses to band together to purchase insurance through trade associations and allows for the sale of insurance across state lines. He also calls for providing grants to states to cover those with pre-existing conditions (one way Trump may square his promises to repeal Obamacare while offering something to those with such illnesses).
It’s got some problems, but it would be a huge improvement over the current Charlie Foxtrot. But then, almost anything would.
Thanks to SpaceX and ULA, the US is set to outlaunch Russia this year, for the first time ever.
Meanwhile, in Huntsville, NASA is trying to figure out just how low a flight rate they can get to.
[Update a few minutes later]
Unsurprisingly, the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration’s “roadmap” includes the dead ends of SLS and Orion.
“No scientific evidence for their use.”
It’s not just nutrition that’s a scientific Charlie Foxtrot. I had a cardiologist in Florida try to put me on Lipitor a few years ago. I told her, “there’s no scientific evidence that it reduces heart risk in people like me,” I told her. “Where did you hear that?” she demanded. “The Pfizer web site,” I replied. She was flabbergasted.
Here‘s kind of a typically dumb piece, which reeks of Apolloism:
I am a big fan of space exploration and I think that Elon Musk’s SpaceX is a visionary company that is trying to conduct meaningful space exploration. Yet, Congress might want to take a hard look at the ticket price for Musk’s latest endeavor before spending $10 billion to populate Mars.
First, SpaceX is not “trying to conduct meaningful space exploration.” It is trying to establish human settlements on Mars. And if it could really be done for as little as $10B, that would be an incredible bargain to the taxpayer, compared to (say) spending that same amount on SLS/Orion in the next three years, as NASA currently proposes.
I am a limited government conservative, yet I fully support government funded space travel. But it must be smart and it can’t fund risky adventures. The one concern I have about SpaceX’s plan to travel to Mars is that, on its face, the plan seems more like a for-profit enterprise than true space exploration. I would support pure exploration of Mars and a project that has a stated goal of forwarding humanity. Musk’s idea seems like he is more in it for profit than science.
#ProTip: “Limited-government conservatives” do not spurn profit. And even if making a profit on “science” was really a bad thing, settling Mars has nothing to do with “science.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, Musk has received about $4.9 billion already in government subsidies for his three companies. Now he comes to the federal government wanting more. And he has been the beneficiary of many contracts to put satellites into space that run in the billions.
#ProTip: Tesla and Solar City get subsidies. SpaceX gets contracts. One is nothing like the other two, other than federal dollars are involved.
This is a laudable idea and Elon Musk should be celebrated as one of the great innovators of our time, yet the taxpayers should not be funding for profit space exploration and may want to find another contractor who wants to go to space for purely scientific space exploration.
This is a perfect example of the mental confusion that occurs when (as many ignorantly did with Apollo) we conflate “exploration” with “science” with space development and settlement. Mr. Woodson needs to go read my recent screed.
[Update a couple minutes later]
As usual, the comments over there are idiotic, including a couple appearances of the ignorant “NASA’s Muslim outreach.”
The GAO has issued a new report. I haven’t read it yet.