Steve Hayward writes that the Trump administration is arguably more conservative than Ronald Reagan’s. But to be fair, Reagan never had control of the House.
Category Archives: Economics
Idiot Conservatives
Eric Berger has the story on how, in attacking SpaceX, they’re ripping off the taxpayer and actively damaging national security.
[Update a while later]
Meanwhile, the target launch date for Falcon Heavy is now late December.
This would be a nice Christmas present to space enthusiasts and the nation at large. https://t.co/C9MtND81vD
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) November 1, 2017
Mike Griffin
The guy who ignored the advice of the Aldridge Commission and industry to utilize commercial providers for the Vision for Space Exploration, instead issuing no-bid cost-plus contracts for Constellation, that were overrunning and slipping more than a year per year when it was canceled, seems like an odd choice to be put in charge of reforming procurement at the Pentagon.
Getting Off The Rock
Sarah Hoyt has an interview with Jeff Greason (part 1, part 2 will be tomorrow).
[Tuesday-morning update]
NASA’s Risk Aversion
Remember when they were insisting on new-car-smell Dragons for CRS missions? Well, they’ve now approved flight-proven boosters. As I’ve long said, there will come a day when customers will demand a discount to fly on an unproven vehicle.
[Update a while later]
With today’s launch, SpaceX will double its record for annual launches.
[Update half an hour before launch]
You can follow launch and landing at the webcast.
SLS
You’ll be as shocked as I am to learn that first flight will likely slip into 2020.
Elon’s Plans
Doug Messier has a critique, with which I largely agree. He does seem to be laser focused on solving the transportation problem (which was the first one he encountered when he tried to implement his initial Mars plans). I emailed him years ago about the fact that we have no idea whether or not we can conceive/gestate in 0.4g. His response was basically, “that’s not my problem right now.”
But this blinkered mindset may not ultimately serve him well in terms of his long-term goal. It would be tragic for him if he solved the transportation problem, but not the biological one, and his dreams of Mars colonies ended up being still born, despite the cost reduction of transportation there.
The GAO And Climate
Media headline: “Climate Change Causing Billions Of Taxpayer Dollars In Disaster Relief.”
Accurate headline: “Cost Of Dealing With Weather Much Less Than Decarbonization.”
A New Space Policy
…for the Trump administration. I’ve just started to skim it.
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.