It’s worth thinking about.
Category Archives: Business
Solving The Real Problem
One of the most bizarre aspects of contemporary space policy is the degree to which the policy establishment has completely thrown in the towel on reducing the cost of access to orbit, as exemplified by the Senate Launch System. Stewart Money lays out the technical issues on the off chance that the community will come to its senses and decide that this is an important goal.
An RL-10 Killer
I’ve known, or at least guessed, that this was in the works for several months (almost a year, really). It was the only thing that made any sense in terms of why ULA would have wanted XCOR to build a hydrogen piston pump. It’s not good news for Pratt & Whitney — they’re going to lose what has been essentially a monopoly for decades. I would assume that the engine production will not occur in California. They’ll be looking for some place with a sane business environment. Again, I have no specific knowledge, but Florida would make a lot of sense.
[Update a few minutes later]
The latest Lurio Report is out. Clark has the T of C. If you don’t subscribe, you should.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Clark also has additional links on the XCOR story.
[Update a few minutes later]
Busy space news day. The latest Space Studies Institute update is out.
[Update in the afternoon]
It turns out that “Joe” in comments had a good guess as to development time:
Sowers said Monday that the pace of the development will depend on the level of investment as milestones are met in the build-a-little, test-a-little approach favored by XCOR. Under the low-cost development approach, it would be 5-10 years before flight engines are available, depending on how the work goes.
Of course, as I said, my estimate of much less time was based on having “adequate funding.” Sounds like they’re doing go as you pay.
But It’s Not Enough For The Theftists
The US taxes the rich more than any other OECD country.
Markets Don’t Ration
…people do. The difference is who makes the decisions.
The Launch Lab
There’s a nice long piece at Air & Space about Mojave. I’m still reading it, so I may have comments later.
A Bit Of Good News
The law-school bubble is popping:
“I’m hearing from the students I work with that they are concerned about the value of a law degree,” said Tim Stiles, a career adviser at the University of North Carolina. Students, he said, often tell him they have read press accounts about the difficulty of finding law jobs.
Some students are starting to feel they don’t need an advanced degree to improve their career opportunities, college advisers said.
Business-school applications for the fall 2011 class have not been tallied yet by the Graduate Management Admission Council. But last year, the average number of applications to full-time graduate programs declined 1.8%, the Council said, the first decline since 2005.
“When the economy first went down, students saw law school as a way to dodge the work force,” said Ryan Heitkamp, a pre-law adviser at Ohio State University. “The news has gotten out that law school is not necessarily a safe backup plan.”
It’s not just good news because it’s generally good news when bubbles finally deflate, at least for productive activity. It’s also good news because the overproduction of lawyers in itself has high external costs on society. I wish that we could swap a million or so for Japanese engineers.
How Washington Ruined Your Washing Machine
Not to mention your toilet. And lighting. Sadly, it’s one of the more innocuous things they’ve ruined.
The Founders weep.
Space Access ’11
Henry Vanderbilt has the list of speakers up. With the number he has, it’s going to be hard to come up with a schedule. It really needs two tracks, given the time available, but that would entirely change the flavor of the conference. I’m not sure what he wants me to talk about, but likely it will be my ongoing efforts to get Republicans and conservatives to act like it when it comes to space policy.
Now that this stuff is finally taking off (both figuratively and literally,with real hardware), the industry may be outgrowing the conference. I’m sure that Henry can’t be unhappy about that, though it may mean big changes in the future.
A Disaster-Proof Nuclear Plant
How to build one.
Don’t call them “fool proof,” though. Von Braun used to say that you can’t build something to be fool proof, because fools are too ingenious.