Jeff Foust has the story from yesterday’s NASA Advisory Council meeting on the issues.
[Update a few minutes later]
Congress: "Comm Crew behind schedule, cut the budget!' "SLS/Orion behind schedule, increase the budget!" http://t.co/hsyGdq7uxi
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) July 29, 2015
But remember, blacks can’t be racist because they have no power.
I missed this on Monday, but Jeff Foust has a report on last week’s announcement. A lot of comments there, including the usual ignorance from Marcel Williams.
Spaceflight Now has the video released by the NTSB.
[Update a while later]
Wayne Hale: Pilot error is never the root cause.
[Afternoon update]
Dough Messier has broken down the crucial seconds frame by frame.
I’m going to switch from listening to NTSB meeting to hear the status on exploration systems at 9 AM PDT. Phil McAlister will be discussing Commercial Crew status later this morning. I would note that in this morning’s meeting in the House, Chairman Culberson was very enthusiastic (as expected) about the Europa mission, but he still insanely imagines that SLS is the solution to it.
I’m listening in live now, but Leonard David already has a story up.
[Update a few minutes later]
Doug Messier has the executive summary. Full report won’t be available for a couple weeks.
[Update a while later]
Temporary adjournment to wordsmith final findings. Sumwalt wants to make clear that while it was pilot error (Finding 1), it was an institutional failure at Scaled that made it possible for such an error to be catastrophic. There also seems to be some (IMO, undue) criticism of FAA-AST, and talk of “political pressure” to prematurely issue licenses/waivers. People (including NTSB) need to understand that AST currently has no statutory authority to regulate safety of the spaceflight participants, including crew, and they are chronically under-resourced to carry out the responsibilities that they are authorized to do. In fact, George should be careful what he wishes for, because if the learning period expires this fall, he still won’t have the budget he needs to expand his authority.
One thing that’s not clear yet (to me): If part of the problem was inability to read instruments due to vibration under thrust. If there was a digital readout, that (and other critical information) should be replaced with an actual Mach meter.
[Late-afternoon update]
Here‘s Jeff Foust’s report.
I’ve been on a telecon all day on the NASA Advisory Council meeting at JPL. Some very interesting discussion on launch and technology issues. I’m generally impressed with the tech plans, except for the absence of serious ISRU.
It’s refreshing to see an AP/NYT story that doesn’t try to blame it on SUVs.
While this is a good general topic, nowhere is it more true than in human spaceflight:
Sometimes the new competition wins anyway. Uber has been good at generating a large base of mobile customers, then using them to pressure politicians: When New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio went after Uber, Uber used its app to let its users pressure de Blasio.
Happy Uber customer Kate Upton weighed in, producing more pushback than de Blasio could withstand — especially when it turned out he’d gotten over $550,000 in donations from taxicab interests.
Other services aren’t so lucky, and the ability to do an end run around regulators, though welcome, isn’t universal. And if, on top of setting up your lemonade stand, you need licenses, permits, lobbyists and subsidies to make it, not many new lemonade stands will get started. That’s good news for existing lemonade stands, and for the politicians they support, but it’s bad news for everyone else.
Including people who actually want to affordably accomplish things in space.
How’s that new minimum-wage working out for you, Seattle?
The notion that employees are intentionally working less to preserve their welfare has been a hot topic on talk radio. While the claims are difficult to track, state stats indeed suggest few are moving off welfare programs under the new wage.
Despite a booming economy throughout western Washington, the state’s welfare caseload has dropped very little since the higher wage phase began in Seattle in April. In March 130,851 people were enrolled in the Basic Food program. In April, the caseload dropped to 130,376.
At the same time, prices appear to be going up on just about everything.
Some restaurants have tacked on a 15 percent surcharge to cover the higher wages. And some managers are no longer encouraging customers to tip, leading to a redistribution of income. Workers in the back of the kitchen, such as dishwashers and cooks, are getting paid more, but servers who rely on tips are seeing a pay cut.
Some long-time Seattle restaurants have closed altogether, though none of the owners publicly blamed the minimum wage law.
“It’s what happens when the government imposes a restriction on the labor market that normally wouldn’t be there, and marginal businesses get hit the hardest, and usually those are small, neighborhood businesses,” said Paul Guppy, of the Washington Policy Center.
And then there was this exchange I had with Asantha Cooray over on Twitter earlier in the week:
@acooray Then why do you say it's a good thing? Minimum wage is a war on the young. Keeps them off first rung of career ladder.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) July 22, 2015
@acooray Why should you get an exception? You should be protesting the terrible policy itself.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) July 22, 2015
@acooray It's not like you have some issue unique to you. Every employer has the same problem when the govt interferes with the market.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) July 22, 2015