Category Archives: Political Commentary

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Billion-Wise, Ten-Billion Foolish

57 Comments

I agree with Clark Lindsey’s post title on the stunningly stupid news that the Deficit Commission has recommended axing Commercial Crew, except it will end up costing a lot more than ten billion. It’s pretty clear from the announcement that they don’t even understand the purpose, and that it would save NASA billions. In fact, they are unwittingly recommending ending NASA human spaceflight, and consigning us to continuing to be held hostage by the Russians for years. More thoughts later, here or elsewhere. All of the nonsense about this in the media over the past many months hasn’t helped, of course.

[Evening update on the Left Coast]

I have more extensive thoughts over at National Review On-Line.

Humor, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Update: The Free Speech Crisis At Iowahawk Blog

8 Comments

Worsens:

During the ongoing Iowahawk suspension / unsuspension / disunsuspension / strike crisis, I suspected that I and the other corporate “suits” at Iowahawk would pull out all stops to discredit me. But I never thought that I would stoop as low as to engage in a whispering campaign accusing me of treason against the United States of America. Sadly, this now appears to be the case. As we all know by now, a mysterious rocket powered missile was spotted over California today. Just as mysteriously, a new meme is appearing on Twitter, somehow linking this event with my recent alleged trip to California and subsequent suspension of myself.

Let me be clear. Yes, I was in California recently. And yes, during my visit I did spend last Thursday at XCOR Aerospace, a manufacturer of suborbital rocket vehicles in Mojave, at the invitation of renowned controversial science space blogger Rand Simberg.

And yes, okay, I sometimes enjoy playing with and/or driving rocket-propelled items. What of it? I have never sought to hide any of this from the public. But for anyone to somehow string these completely unrelated “facts” as evidence of some sort of bizarre master plan on my part to steal a rocket from XCOR and use it in a botched hold up of a Malibu liquor store, well, I mean, come on. That’s just crazy talk. The so-called “facts” being shopped around by Iowahawk’s corporate goons are as coincidental as the unexplained weekend break in and missing equipment at XCOR. If you ask me, the so-called “mystery rocket” was almost certainly fired by UN ships, seeking to enforce war crime sanctions against California for “The Kardashians,” “The Hills,” and “Real Housewives of Orange County.”

I am shocked that myself would suggest that I would be involved in a brazen military attack on what is arguably still part of the United States. At long last, me, have I no shame?

Not that I’ve ever noticed. Neither he nor him would last two minutes if either of them had any shame. And now he’s dragging me in as an accessory. At this point, a suspension without pay is far too lenient. He should be forced to start blogging again without pay.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

Wise Up, Conservatives

35 Comments

Time to realize that the Apollo era is over. Iain Murray and I have a piece up at The American Spectator in response to that dumb blog post at Forbes last week. Many of the comments seem to utterly miss the point, though. And I have to say, I hadn’t previously been aware that I was a “committed leftist.” Though if I were a leftist, committing me would probably be the appropriate thing to do.

[Late morning update]

I am reliably informed that Loren Thompson, the guy who wrote that thing at Forbes, is bought and paid for by Lockmart. I would have mentioned that in the AmSpec piece had I known earlier.

And Mark Whittington has a hilarious comment, though (as always) completely inadvertently.

Humor, Political Commentary

Alvin Greene

5 Comments

The gift that keeps on giving:

South Carolina’s Democratic Party spokeswoman Keiana Page confirmed that on Tuesday an unidentified caller asked about the presidential filing fee and Mr. Greene confirmed to the political website Politico that he had made that call. When asked if he was considering a presidential campaign his response was, “Maybe, I’ll have to see.”

Well, that would boost sales of the action figures.

Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

About That “Missile” Off The Coast

37 Comments

I’ve gotten requests in comments and email for my thoughts, but I really don’t know much more than anyone else. I didn’t see it myself, but this explanation looks like the most likely one to me. Fortunately, it’s also the most benign one. I do think it’s a good reminder, though, that we need to get serious about missile defense.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Here’s a lengthy disquisition on the contrail theory.

Political Commentary, Space

A One-Paragraph Spec

11 Comments

Thoughts on NASA procurement problems over at Space News:

To an outsider, it seems self-evident that NASA’s procurement process is the thing that is broken, or we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. Look at Falcon 9, from drawing board to successful first flight in much less than 10 years, and an expenditure on the order of half a billion dollars, and compare that with Ares 1, and tell me NASA still knows how to run programs. Compare it further with the program requirements documents for Mercury and Gemini, highly successful programs back when we knew a lot less about spaceflight than we do today.

There’s no way Ares 1 and the Orion crew capsule should have cost anywhere near what they were costing, or take anything like as much time as they were taking, to get up and fly. Whether the problem lies within NASA, or with the government procurement rules within which NASA is constrained to operate, is a question that needs answering. But the end result is the same: another decade lost, and American astronauts sitting by the side of the road with their thumbs out, waiting for the next Soyuz launch.

Arguably our most successful manned program, the Gemini program, was conducted from start to finish in less than five years. It cost (including 10 crewed flights) somewhere between $5 billion and $7 billion adjusted for inflation — less than we have spent on Constellation/Ares without even making it to our first orbital test flight. Gemini did everything we need from a crewed spacecraft, at least until we get out of cislunar space. Put a beefed-up heat shield on it and it could have gone to the Moon, and there were some studies for that. That’s what we did when the U.S. had a cumulative total experience in manned spaceflight of three man-days — not man-years, not even man-months.

I am not an engineer. My degrees are in history and business. If I am anything, I am a historian. So, as a historian, I ask: What’s so hard about replicating this level of capability, with technology that’s 40 years more mature?

Well, as another (amateur) historian, I’ll answer the question. That was then, this is now. In the sixties, actually accomplishing things in space was important, because we were in a race with the Soviets. Today, developing useful space hardware isn’t important. Maintaining jobs in certain congressional districts is.