…for the Trump administration. I’ve just started to skim it.
Category Archives: Economics
Off The Air
I was at the Space Settlement Summit all day yesterday, and will be all day today as well, with a non-functioning laptop. I will be tweeting occasionally from my phone, however, and I’ll probably have some overall thoughts on the event tomorrow.
Forget Mars
A planetary scientist who would prefer to live on Titan.
As usual, destinations are a secondary issue. What’s important is the ability to affordably get wherever we want in the solar system. Elon is at least paying lip service to that now.
Morgan Stanley
…says that Elon Musk is building an elevator to orbit. Not literally, but certainly functionally.
[Update a while later]
Some news from Blue Origin as well, revealing more details about BE-4 and New Glenn. I found this curious, though:
Becoming a government supplier doesn’t happen overnight. There is a series of certifications one has to go through. Right now having ULA using our engines and qualifying our engines into that supply system is a good thing for us. They will fly a year ahead of us, in 2019. We will come into the market in end of 2020, 2021. And at that point if we choose to go into government contracting, it will imply setting up cost accounting systems that are geared to the government.
I don’t understand what he means, unless they plan to provide launches cost plus. For a fixed price, their accounting is none of the government’s business.
[Update later morning]
Chris Bergin has an update on the SpaceX launch manifest. Among other things, FH launch in December remains a possibility, NASA is OK with a flight-proven rocket for CRS missions, and first landing at Vandenberg will happen with the Iridium 4 mission. Plus, a mystery payload next month.
[Noon update]
Elon revealed more technical (but not financial) details on an AMA Saturday.
Trump And John Roberts
Trump has done what Roberts would not: Start to bring ObamaCare into Constitional compliance.
I continue to believe that there was something very disturbing about Roberts’ last-minute change of position, possible including blackmail. Recent revelations about other instances of the Obama administration spying on its political adversaries do nothing to reduce that belief.
[Update a while later]
ObamaCare was built with intrinsic flaws that Trump is now exploiting. It’s what happens from the hubris of thinking that such landmark social policy doesn’t need bipartisan support.
[Late-night update]
Sorry, everyone, but Trump didn’t instigate the ObamaCare acapolypse.
Nope. It was baked into the cake.
BFR
Gwynne apparently had some interesting things to say about the plans. They’re going to (as some have surmised) built a production facility at LA Harbor, because transportation from Hawthorne would be too unwieldy. And it also makes sense that they’d use Bolsca Chica as the first launch site. Particularly if they use an off-shore platform that won’t require solidifying the soil at the launch site. Haven’t checked, but I’m pretty sure it will easily fit through the Canal.
[Update a while later]
Meanwhile, in China, a private (?!) company wants to copycat them. I take this more seriously than the government program.
The Blockchain
What life might be like on it.
Not sure this was the 21st century I was looking forward to.
The Old Space Age Began
Today is the 60th anniversary of Sputnik. I have some thoughts over at The Weekly Standard. I’ll have more later today at PJMedia.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Henry Spencer reminds me that upon the successful launch, Korolev supposedly said “The road to the stars is now open.” A little premature, I think…
[Update a while later]
For a detailed history of the program, go read Asif Siddiqi over at The Space Review (it’s part one, the second part will appear next Monday).
[Update a couple minutes later, after going through the Siddiqi piece]
This is excellent. It is likely now the best available history of its development.
[Update a few minutes later]
Anatoly Zak reminds us that Sputnik wasn’t about the satellite; it was about the rocket.
[Update a while later]
More from Siddiqi on recent translations. Kind of amazing how much we still don’t know about space history six decades later.
[Update a while later]
How dreams of space-faring zombies resulted in Sputnik. Well, sort of.
[Update late morning]
Here‘s Chris Gebhart’s take.
[Afternoon update]
My (other) take is now up over at PJMedia. As usual, most comments are ignorant and/or idiotic.
[Update a week later]
Part 2 of Siddiqi’s new history is up now.
[Bumped]
The Continuing Waste Of SLS
Eric Berger has the latest.
How Much Will BFR Cost?
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.