A useful history from Dennis Wingo, and thoughts on potential competition from DARPA.
Category Archives: Economics
Marine Le Pen
In many ways, so is Trump.
[Update a few minutes later]
In reading, I see he made the same point:
Mme Le Pen is offering more of the medicine that sickened the patient. Protectionism and welfarism are the causes of France’s troubles. The French budget has not been in balance since 1974. In order to defend the privileges of state employees, successive governments have allowed the country as a whole to become less competitive, more strike-prone, more sclerotic and poorer.
It’s the same story every time. Protectionism inflicts the greatest harm on the least well off – who are often, paradoxically, its supporters. The Corn Laws were a massive wealth transfer from the poor to the rich. The Smoot-Hawley tariffs brought misery to America’s workers. Today’s anti-market agitators – the Trumps and the Tsiprases as much as the Le Pens – will find the same thing.
Indeed.
Commercial Crew Problems
This is why the rumors of delay to 2019. But this is crazy:
The final GAO report also will to delve into unrelated issues that threaten to delay initial launches of manned capsules by SpaceX and rival Boeing Co. Echoing conclusions of other studies by outside experts, GAO investigators have determined that both companies are likely to miss a 2018 deadline to start regular missions ferrying astronauts to the international space station.
According to industry officials familiar with the draft report, the GAO also pinpointed frequent modifications of Falcon 9 designs as a potential source of delays in obtaining NASA certification of the booster.
For Boeing, these officials said, GAO investigators—among other items—raised questions about the status of tests to determine the reliability of its parachute systems designed to help returning manned capsules land safely.
The GAO also has determined that both companies face an uphill struggle to meet NASA’s statistical goal of no more than one projected astronaut fatality in 270 flights, industry officials said.
The 1/270 requirement is completely arbitrary, and they will never know whether or not they’ve met it. Also, pretty sure that’s an LOC (loss of crew) number, not “astronaut fatality.” A career-ending injury would count, too.
[Update a while later]
SpaceX says they have a plan to fix the turbine-blade issue. It hasn’t caused any problem to date, but as Fernholz says, if you’re going to reuse engines, you can’t have blade deterioration.
The Truth About Science
…is bad news for those seeking certainty. Nice to see articles like this at places like The Guardian.
California Shouldn’t Secede
It should divide in two (or more).
It’s not a new idea.
[Update a while later]
Calexit would be a disaster for “progressive” values.
Well, OK, that makes me think it would be a good thing.
The President’s Right To Say “You’re Fired”
Yes, civil service is broken, and it’s become highly partisan in many agencies. Time for an overhaul.
DARPA
Don’t compete with private industry in satellite servicing. I agree — this is no longer “DARPA hard.”
Trump’s Latest EO On Regulations
I like the idea conceptually, and it may even be legal (but the courts will have to rule on that), but it will be almost impossible to implement. But it’s long past time to dismantle the regulatory state; Congress has delegated far too much of its duties on to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats.
[Afternoon update]
What does this mean for FAA’s rules on spaceflight?
Hyperloops And Tunnels
So we went over to the pod competition yesterday. I may have some pics later, but some quick observations:
I saw a lot of innovation; as Elon said, of the 27 teams, no two concepts were alike. I was amused that almost everyone had an aeroshell, for a vehicle that’s supposed to operate in vacuum. As I noted to Gwynne (who I just happened to run into for a minute, meeting her husband for the first time), the primary functional purpose of the aeroshells seemed to be to provide real estate for sponsors’ names, like race cars. (I also saw and finally got to meet Sandy Mazza from The Daily Breeze, who has been having fun covering Elon’s antics).
The winners of the race were supposed to be announced at 4:30, but at that point, only the German team had actually run (we heard their pod rattle by behind us as we were eating a hot dog by the tube). Apparently, it took a long time between runs, because they had to evacuate the tunnel after the pod was placed in it, then repressurize to get it out the other end. To pump it down took half an hour. My question (which I didn’t get a chance to ask anyone): Why not have an airlock at each end? Evacuate the tunnel, put the pod in the airlock, evacuate the airlock (which could happen much more quickly, then open the door to the tunnel. Reverse the process at the other end. Seems like it would save a lot of both time and energy.
Finally, as we were walking to the event (we parked at Lowe’s, across the street from SpaceX), we saw a lot of activity in the adjacent SpaceX parking lot. Elon had (as he’s warned on Friday) apparently started digging a hole for his tunnel. As he said in his remarks at the event, they were just getting going, and were going to start trying ideas on better tunneling tech (he thinks it can be improved five or ten fold, in terms of time and cost), but that they didn’t yet “know what they were doing, (which reminds me of an old quote from von Braun, possibly apocryphal, “Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing). Anyway, interesting times in Hawthorne.
Hyperloop Competition
There’s going to be a race this weekend in Hawthorne. I assume this will be the first time the test track will be used. We may go over and check it out.