I’m working on a piece along these lines for PM or PJM, but Jim Oberg beat me to the punch:
The plan to reshape the Orion spaceship as a standby rescue vehicle for station crews has profound implications for the requirements of the commercial taxi and its cost. This strategy means the taxis won’t have to last for six months “parked” in space, like Russia’s Soyuz spaceships. The simplification of the taxi’s mission will allow its hardware to be significantly less expensive to build and to validate.
The crucial systems for the taxis have mostly already been built and are available as off-the-shelf technology — which means the spaceships could be much cheaper, much smaller and much more reliable.
The FUD being spread by defenders of the status quo has been almost palpable, and it’s all unjustified.
[Update a few minutes later]
I should add that I doubt very much if the commercial contractors are going to use the Orion abort system. It’s overkill, in both weight and cost. In fact, for a much lighter vehicle, as a taxi would be, it would probably kill the occupants from the acceleration.
I don’t understand all the criticism. My preference would be that he spend all his time on the links. Much less damage would be done the nation were he to do so.
Most of the people I talk to who refuse to listen to Rush have never done so, and simply believe all of the “terrible” things they hear about him in the media. But I do think that the notion of changing their political beliefs is very frightening to many of them.
Thoughts from David Harsanyi. The less trust we have in government, particularly the federal government, the better off we’ll be, so the latest polls are good news for those of us who want to restore it to constitutional principles. Barack Obama, with all of his lies, is doing the nation a favor. As are those who repeat the lies in his service.
[Update a couple minutes later]
“I don’t promote government failure — I expect it.” It’s certainly the way to bet.
This is pretty funny. I don’t watch the Morning Joe, but Mika made Joan Walsh look like an idiot. Not that that’s much of a challenge.
[Update a few minutes later]
It’s kind of inside baseball, but I’m assuming that the MSNBC suits have been telling Mika and Joe they’re not allowed to criticize Olbermann or Matthews. Hilarious.
Thoughts on Nazis being “right wing” or “conservative.” It’s nonsense, of course. They were revolutionaries who wanted to, and briefly did, utterly remake society.
[Update early afternoon]
This seems related, somehow: the fairy tale of the “Progressives”‘ own history. Jonah Goldberg has some thoughts as well. And there’s a fascinating and convoluted discussion in comments at the initial link above.
…versus the Tea Partiers’ culture of independence. It’s not (just) about the taxes. It’s about the spending, and the perverse incentives built into the system. And as Michael Barone points out, the Susan Roesgens of the world don’t understand that.
And the vile demagoguery of the Democrats in the wake of it, from Glenn Reynolds:
Lies and smears aimed at their fellow Americans, for short-term political gain. This is who they are, and this is what they do. It worked better, however, when there were fewer alternative channels of communication, and when their character was less well-known.
And as he notes, they’re busy going after imaginary “right wing” “terrorists,” while pretending that the real ones, who really do want to destroy our civilization, don’t exist. And they are being ignored to the point that we can’t even describe their motivations. In fact, they were doing it then — the White House and Janet Reno’s justice department shut down any investigation that might have led to the revelation of offshore help for McVeigh. Once they had their white “right-wing” “Christian” (he was an agnostic) terrorist, no need to confuse the American people with John Doe Number Two. Besides, if (say) Iraq had been shown to be involved, they might have had to do something about it.