Category Archives: Media Criticism

Media Criticism, Space

An Alternate History

21 Comments

Paul Spudis wonders what might have been for the VSE. My biggest problem with it is this:

Ten years ago, we took a critical turn on the road to our future in space. We now have a reliable, sustainable launch system based on Shuttle hardware. We have no need to pay foreign countries to carry our crews into orbit.

Any launch system based on Shuttle hardware is not going to be sustainable, because it has too high a fixed operating cost. Also, there is no explanation of how our crews are getting into orbit. The only thing he talks about in terms of US launch capability is this:

As Shuttle was completing its final ISS missions, the reliable Shuttle hardware was simultaneously being developed into the new Neptune launch vehicle – an affordable Shuttle side-mount rocket that we now depend on to regularly and reliably supply our space efforts. This heavy lift vehicle, with almost 80 metric tons of capacity, has proven to be more than adequate in supplying the needs of lunar return. Since Neptune was developed entirely with existing Shuttle pieces, we were able to use the manufacturing facilities at Michoud and the vehicle-processing infrastructure at the Cape without making significant modifications. More than any other early effort of the VSE, the development of Shuttle side-mount Neptune (versus the development of a wholly new launch system) was the key decision that advanced our return to the Moon. Because Neptune was developed in parallel with the completion and retirement of the Space Shuttle, we experienced an interval of less than a year when our civil program could not send people into space.

But the link doesn’t say anything about “Neptune,” and there is no discussion of how crew gets to orbit. On Neptune? In what crew module? And does that mean you have to launch eighty tons every time you want to launch a crew? The only discussion of a “Neptune” rocket I can find is the proposal by Interorbital Systems, which certainly isn’t Shuttle derived. Why no mention of EELV? Or SpaceX? Or commercial cargo and crew?

So I find the piece a real head scratcher.

Business, Economics, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

When ObamaCare Unravels

11 Comments

And it is when, not if. It presents an opportunity to finally fix problems with the system dating back seven decades:

There is an alternative. A much freer market in health care and health insurance can work, can deliver high quality, technically innovative care at much lower cost, and solve the pathologies of the pre-existing system.

The U.S. health-care market is dysfunctional. Obscure prices and $500 Band-Aids are legendary. The reason is simple: Health care and health insurance are strongly protected from competition. There are explicit barriers to entry, for example the laws in many states that require a “certificate of need” before one can build a new hospital. Regulatory compliance costs, approvals, nonprofit status, restrictions on foreign doctors and nurses, limits on medical residencies, and many more barriers keep prices up and competitors out. Hospitals whose main clients are uncompetitive insurers and the government cannot innovate and provide efficient cash service.

We need to permit the Southwest Airlines, LUV -0.19% Wal-Mart, WMT +0.22% Amazon.com AMZN +1.11% and Apples of the world to bring to health care the same dramatic improvements in price, quality, variety, technology and efficiency that they brought to air travel, retail and electronics. We’ll know we are there when prices are on hospital websites, cash customers get discounts, and new hospitals and insurers swamp your inbox with attractive offers and great service.

…Health insurance should be individual, portable across jobs, states and providers; lifelong and guaranteed-renewable, meaning you have the right to continue with no unexpected increase in premiums if you get sick. Insurance should protect wealth against large, unforeseen, necessary expenses, rather than be a wildly inefficient payment plan for routine expenses.

People want to buy this insurance, and companies want to sell it. It would be far cheaper, and would solve the pre-existing conditions problem. We do not have such health insurance only because it was regulated out of existence.

Time to make a clear distinction between “health care” and true insurance, and let the market work. Instead, as always, we try to fix a mess caused by regulations with more regulations. This time, I hope it was a bridge too far.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary

Government Is Not Santa

3 Comments

Free-market capitalism is a pre-condition for generosity:

Government isn’t Santa. It’s the Grinch.

Think about it: The redistributionist impulse is driven by envy and bitterness. It is an economic position held, not accidentally, most strongly by people who cringe at the sight of a manger scene — by people who resent and suspect the very word “Christmas.” The redistributors are the people culturally inclined to abolishing Christmas from the public sphere, who will spend the solstice wailing in angst if a public-school choir should so much as hum “Away in a Manger,” never mind singing the verboten words “Little Lord Jesus.” And, in the Grinchiest fashion, they want to take your stuff.

Does anybody really need that many Christmas presents? Is it not the case that, at a certain point, you have enough in your stocking? And who among them has the honesty of Hillary Clinton, who once proclaims that it’s necessary to take things away from us in order to achieve her vision of a better world. If you strap reindeer antlers to your dog while sharing those sentiments, you’re a Seussian villain. Strap donkey ears to yourself while endorsing the same view and you’re the president of these United States.

Heh.