Sam Dinkin runs the numbers. Looks about right to me. People really don’t appreciate how little of the cost of a launch is propellant, and once we fix that, how much we can reduce it.
They had their first “meeting” today (scare quotes because it was basically a scripted dog and pony show). Bob Zimmerman has some thoughts. Mine: The tension between the old cost-plus dinosaurs and commercial space within the administration was on full display, but everyone recognizes that we’ve shifted back to the moon. “Civil” space remains focused on pork, “commercial” space is focused appropriately on cost reduction. Nothing new on the milspace side to anyone who’s been following it, but I’m sure it was news to several of the council members.
Catalonia, to be sure, has trampled on the Spanish Constitution. But constitutions depend on the consent of the governed, and Catalonia refuses to be governed by Madrid. Rajoy now faces a political crisis without a clear solution. His minority government depends on the support of a Basque regional party, and the Basques are sympathetic to the Catalans. The governor of the Basque Autonomous Region proposed yesterday that Madrid adopt a British or Canadian solution, allowing the Catalans to vote on secession as did the Scots in 2014. The difference, of course, is that the Scots depend on British subsidies and voted to stay, while the Catalans subsidize the rest of Spain and would vote to leave. The Basques well might follow.
This is an existential crisis for the Spanish state, for reasons I laid out on Sept. 30. Spain is at the cusp of a steep rise in the proportion of elderly dependents (from 25% of the economically-active population to an insupportable 50% by 2050). The question comes down to who will be eaten first in the lifeboat: with the lowest fertility rate of any large European country, Spain cannot support its elderly, and the Catalans want to maintain themselves first.
There is a great deal of speculation about the possible knock-on effects in the rest of Europe. Catalonia is a singularity. The notionally separatist Lombard League has no stomach for a real fight, and no ambitions to create an independent country, as the League-affiliated Mayor of Bergamo explained in an interview yesterday. The Lombards merely want to keep a higher proportion of their tax revenue. The Italian regionalists are playing comedy, while the Catalans are enacting a tragedy: They perceive this moment as one of existential import for their future existence, and will not back down.
The first response of the rest of Europe, to be sure, will be to ask the Catalans as well as the Rajoy government to put the genie back into the bottle. We are well past that point. After demonstrating that mass civil disobedience could defeat the heavy-handed efforts of the national government to suppress them, the Catalans will not turn back. Nor should they. Europe’s infertility leaves the more productive regions of Europe with the choice of impugning their own future by picking up the retirement bill for the continent’s dead beats, or going their own way.
Something that cannot continue will eventually stop.
He’s going to announce changes from last year’s plans tonight at 21:30 PDT (tomorrow afternoon in Adelaide). It will be streamed.
[Update early afternoon]
The liberating effects of retiring from NASA: Former astronaut Terry Virts is criticizing Deep Space Gateway and SLS/Orion. Combined with Elon’s pending announcement, Marshall (and Shelby) can’t be happy.
[Update a few minutes later]
Chris Bergin:
Blimey. Terry Virts going negative on SLS and DSG….on the eve of Elon announcing an SLS-class subscale BFR that Marshall folk have been going to great pains to say isn't a SLS-rival, but a potential colleague. https://t.co/wNbWCmnObg
Bob Zimmerman has some thoughts on Lockheed Martin’s DSG and Mars plans:
All these public relations announcements suggest to me that the Trump administration is getting close to unveiling its own future space policy, and they all suggest that this policy will be to build a space station around the Moon. My guess is that Lockheed Martin and SpaceX are vying for a piece of that pie in their announcements today.
Let me also note that Lockheed Martin’s concept above illustrates nicely what a lie Orion is and has always been. They have been touting it for years as the vehicle that will get Americans to Mars, but now admit that it can only really be a small part of a much larger interplanetary ship, and will be there mostly to be the descent capsule when astronauts want to come home. They also admit in the video at the first link that their proposal for getting to Mars is only a concept. To build it would require many billions of dollars. I wonder will it as much as Orion and SLS ($43 billion plus) and take as long (18 years plus) to build? If so, it is a bad purchase. We can do this faster, and for less.
But there are insufficient opportunities for graft in that.
While it is unclear whether NASA’s Deep Space Gateway mission will include landing on the moon, Lockheed Martin said its lander would also be capable of a lunar mission if required.
He plans to follow up from last year’s talk in Guadalajara with an update in Adelaide on Friday. Eric Berger wonders if he’ll explain how he’s going to pay for it. Me too.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Loren Grush has some questions, too. I guess we’ll find out Thursday night.