There’s an interesting piece over at the American Enterprise Institute today bemoaning our lack of progress in space, but it misdiagnoses the problem. I may have an analysis over at Open Market later.
Category Archives: Business
Is Barack Obama Merely Incompetent?
Or is he evil?
There’s no reason he can’t be both, of course, but if he is, it’s better to have an incompetent evil president than a competent one. Anyway, Kevin Williamson has some good advice for the Republicans.
Stuck In A High-Cost Box
Over at Open Market, I have some thoughts on the Air Force’s latest launch-contract award to ULA.
Lynx Development
…is XCOR ahead of schedule?
The first major piece of structure – the fuselage of the Mk1 version — will be delivered to Xcor the week of 16 January, said Andrew Nelson, chief operating officer and vice president of business development.
Next month, Xcor will tender work packages for building the cockpit pressure vessel and strakes in February, with delivery of the two subassemblies scheduled in April in May, said Khaki Rodway McKee, the Xcor programme manager.
Roll-out of the Mk1 is scheduled in July or August from Xcor’s hangar in Mojave, California, she said.
Taxi tests are scheduled to begin in October or November, which will be quickly followed by a short hop and finally a brief first flight by the end of the year.
When I was up there a few weeks ago, they were expecting the fuselage in February. And a rollout in summer?
Doing The Math
The latest Afterburner from Bill Whittle:
A Ten-Year Anniversary
…of science blogging, from Derek Lowe. Congratulations.
Marginal Launch Costs For Reusable Vehicles
I’m writing a paper that contains the following sentence: “Current reusable suborbital providers, such as XCOR Aerospace, Virgin Galactic, or Armadillo Aerospace, are likely to expand their performance envelopes into orbit over the next 10 to 15 years, driving prices down much closer to the marginal cost of propellant, which means potential prices of less than $100 per pound of payload to LEO.”
Can anyone find me a citation to substantiate this statement? I don’t really want to show my work in this document.
[Late evening update]
Ummmmm…folks in comments?
This is all fun, but I don’t need the argument — I know the argument. I need a citation of someone at least semi-credible who has made it, somewhere else.
Save The Blacksmiths!
Why creative destruction is the core of capitalism.
Newt’s (and Rick Perry’s) attacks on Romney and Bain Capital are undermining the argument for limited government. They’re also giving ammunition to Obama in the fall if Romney is the nominee.
[Update a few minutes later]
Related: Romney doesn’t have to apologize for his Bain career.
Commercial Crew And Solyndra
Clark Lindsey takes on the ongoing idiocy of thinking them equivalent, or comparable.
USA History Bleg
Does anyone from Boeing know the sequence of events of the formation of USA? At the time it was created, was it known that the company was going to purchase Rockwell’s space divisions, and were the legacy Rockwell people part of the new contract? USA was formed in September of 1996, I think, but the purchase didn’t occur until late in the year. I’m assuming that, since Rockwell wasn’t one of the initial parents, this must have been part of the purchase negotiations, but am curious to know how it all worked.