Safe Is Not An Option, by Rand Simberg is a reliability expert’s look at the space program. The book is discussed at length on its own web site. Those interested in the space program should read it: the book is quite critical of current space policies. It has endorsements from both astronauts and space policy analysts.
His general thesis is that NASA’s obsession, born of the days when “ours always blow up” and brought back with a vengeance by the Challenger disaster, is eliminating all human risk from spaceflight. That doesn’t work and the obsession is a huge obstacle to progress. There will always be risks, and we will always have heroes.
Simberg is an aerospace engineer with considerable experience and his analyses of various space incidents such as the Challenger Disaster are spot on, which is to say, I agree with them. Recommended.
But the Alinskyites in the media (many of whom probably don’t even know who he is, but follow his rules for radicals to a tee), just say “What difference, at this point, does it make?”
He should either substantiate his claim, or apologize to President Bush, but I suspect his ego will just cause him to continue to ignore the criticism.
It was the usual post-communist leftie march. That is, it was a petit-bourgeois re-enactment of meaningless ritual that passes for serious politics among those too inexperienced, too emotionally excited or too poorly read and too unpracticed at self-reflection or political analysis to know or perhaps care how futile and tired the conventional march has become. Crazed grouplets of anti-capitalist movements trying to fan the embers of Marxism back to life, gender and transgender groups with their own spin on climate, earnest eco-warriors, publicity-seeking hucksters, adrenalin junkies, college kids wanting a taste of the venerable tradition of public protest, and, as always, a great many people who don’t think that burning marijuana adds to the world’s CO2 load, marched down Manhattan’s streets. The chants echoed through the skyscraper canyons, the drums rolled, participants were caught up in a sense of unity and togetherness that some of them had never known. It was almost like politics, almost like the epochal marches that have toppled governments and changed history ever since the Paris mob stormed the Bastille.
Almost. Except street marches today are to real politics what street mime is to Shakespeare. This was an ersatz event: no laws will change, no political balance will tip, no UN delegate will have a change of heart. The world will roll on as if this march had never happened. And the marchers would have emitted less carbon and done more good for the world if they had all stayed home and studied books on economics, politics, science, religion and law. Marches like this create an illusion of politics and an illusion of meaningful activity to fill the void of postmodern life; the tribal ritual matters more than the political result.
In other news, King Canute sits on the beach, against the tide. MT @mrford0: 311,000 march against Climate Change in NYC #climatemarch
I should note, though, that it’s not really fair to compare the time taken for the two events. You can make a lot more trips across the Hudson in a given time than across the Channel.
[Afternoon update]
As Paul notes in comments, it’s also a lot easier to evacuate when you don’t have the Luftwaffe attacking you.
It’s been thirteen years now, hard to believe. I’m sort of relieved that there have been no apparent attempts on the part of the enemy to commemorate it with an attack, but the day is still young. Instapundit has a lot of links.