A good summary, over at Wired. They didn’t accomplish all they planned, but it was a hell of a year, regardless, and next year promises to be better.
Along those lines, I’m a little disappointed that Blue Origin didn’t meet its 2018 goal of test passengers for New Shepard. I wonder what the issues were? Anyway, maybe next year will be the charm.
Funny, all the smart people were telling me that if I opposed it, it was because I wanted people to die.
Jeff Foust has the latest on the Gateway debate. To me it’s insane to even think about launching a lander wet, but if they admit they could do it dry, it takes away a lot of the justification for SLS.
SpaceX has shifted from composite to stainless steel, and will do initial flight tests “early next year.”
For Secretary of Defense?
I agree that we need someone who understands the technology threat at the helm of the Pentagon. But I wonder how familiar Goldman is with Griffin’s actual record when I read “praise” like this:
The overriding strategic risk to the United States is the loss of our technological edge, and the Defense Department needs a leader with the vision and expertise to restore it. Michael Griffin would be an excellent choice. A first-rate physicist, Dr. Griffin headed NASA under the Bush 41 administration.
First, Mike knows physics, but I wouldn’t call him a “physicist.” He’s first and foremost an aerospace engineer (not that there’s anything wrong with that). The problem is that, during his tenure at NASA, he devastated the space R&D budgets and promoted Constellation, an attempt not to develop needed new technology, but to repeat Apollo (except this time “on steroids”) with decades-old technology based on Saturn and the Space Shuttle.
At the time he left the agency (unwillingly) in 2009, all that was being developed to get back to the moon was a rocket designed to carry a capsule into low earth orbit, with no serious plans for things like a lunar lander, and those items were far over budget, and slipping more than a year per year (one of the reasons that, almost a decade later, we remain dependent on the Russians for access to our own space station). Even if they’d succeeded, the planned flight rate would be very low, at ridiculously high cost.
Now, in theory, he could argue that he is now older and wiser, and learned his lesson from that, but that’s negated by the fact that he continues to support their successors, the SLS and Orion. So, if we need someone to restore our technological edge, it’s hard to make the case that he’s the right guy for the job.
[Update a while later]
OK, if Mike Griffin were SecDef, just what would he do, going on past performance? Would he propose a giant expendable combat aircraft, based on parts from F-15s and F-16s, that would fly once a year, and each service could take a turn?
I didn’t work up the gumption to go look at Elon’s tunnel last night, but Megan Geuss did. Most seem to have been less than whelmed.
[Update a few minutes later]
Elizabeth Lopatto took a ride, too.
[Afternoon update]
Gizmodo has a round up of pans:
Hopefully Musk and his engineers will be able to make the ride feel less like a dirt road sometime in the future, especially if they want to build this concept in Chicago, as they promised in a high-profile press conference with the mayor back in June.
But even if they make the ride more pleasant, where does that leave this transportation concept more broadly? There are plenty of underground highways in America. But they haven’t offered a very futuristic alternative. They’ve only delivered more single-family cars—which appears to be exactly what Elon Musk is putting in the pipeline.
Elon Musk has done some very impressive things with SpaceX and Tesla. But his futuristic Loop transportation system leaves a lot to be desired. Namely, the futuristic part.
Seems like the roll out was premature.
[Thursday-morning update]
Over at Popular Mechanics, a less critical review.
[Bumped]
You can find a NASA astronaut to come up with any opinion you want, but Andy Thomas isn’t impressed with SpaceShipTwo. I share the criticisms (which were made by me and others when the SpaceShipOne concept was first revealed), but I don’t think it’s doomed to failure. It offers a different experience than New Shepard, and will have its own market. I continue to find it ironic that the systems Burt added for “safety” probably added hazards instead.
I don’t think I ever eat any of these, other than getting ice from the fountain machine, for water. As I’ve noted in the past, eating out is bad for both your health and your budget.
I disagree about pre-existing conditions, though. That requirement completely screws up the insurance markets. We need a different solution for that issue.
Thoughts from Tim Ball on ad homimem and ad verecundiam.