…and change! Almost half of Democrat voters think that Obama should have someone face him in a primary. I have mixed feelings about this. I think I want him on the ballot in 2012. But it would be nice to see him get beaten up, as happened to Jimmy Carter. Of course, people forget that there was a third candidate in that race. Whether or not that happens this time partially depends on whether the Republicans learned from their mistakes.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
“Crime” Versus “Crime Crime”
We have way too many people in prison. Particularly federal prison. Because we are all criminals, given the insanity of the current federal code. I can’t imagine that the Founders ever envisioned this. But that’s what happens when the Tenth Amendment becomes a dead letter.
I Hope He’s Right
Did the expenditure of Nancy’s cannon fodder represent the high-water mark for “progressivism”? I’d like to hope so, but I fear not.
A Rally To Restore Fatwas?
The Rally To Restore Smugness is apparently stuff white people like. Plus, multiculturalism and sharia.
I Know It’s Stiff Competition
…but is Charlie Crist the most unprincipled politician in the land?
I’ll be happy to see a lot of people lose on Tuesday, but he’ll be in the top ten.
End Of Camelot
At long last, a Kennedy-free federal government.
Of course, there never really was a Camelot. And despite all the instant-mythology from two years ago, the current administration was the furthest thing imaginable from a return to it.
Young Voices
…who favor the Tea Party:
Rasmussen tracking polls show that 64 percent of Americans believe that “the country is headed in the wrong direction.” A CNN poll found that 56 percent of adults surveyed believe that “the government has become so powerful that it represents an immediate threat to the freedom and rights of citizens.” The size and scope of government, which currently amounts to 43 percent of GDP, will continue to exert downward pressure on economic growth as our generation matures.
Stewart, Colbert, McCain, and others may deride the Tea Parties as stupid, uninformed, and fearful masses, but these insults do not change reality. Unless we alter our current path, America’s reality is a grim one. The soaring national debt will fall squarely on the shoulders of today’s youth.
They’re at least as entitled to claim the mantle of the voice of their generation as Meghan McCain.
LEO Game Changers
Joe Carroll is giving a talk on some long-shot “wild cards” that could have a high payoff. One of them is aerosnatch of first stages, which could simplify launch system design by eliminating the need for flyback, and has such a high payoff in performance, that he suggests we understand it better before making any decisions on heavy-lift design, because it may set an upper limit on economical launch vehicle size.
Another is recycling aluminum on orbit, as a first step toward processing true extraterrestrial materials. He points out the bizarre (and typical of a government) situation in which everyone agrees that orbital debris is a problem, but there is no budget for it anywhere in the federal government. Also discussing slings and elevators, propounding the advantages of the former over the latter. For people to an from LEO, elevators, but for a lot of payload beyond, slings are the way to go. Makes an analogy of going from ships to railroads. Rockets are the ships, slings are the railroads (the latter requires an up-front infrastructure, and is limited in destination, but very efficient once in place). Thinks that the first sling will be at 51.6 inclination, second at zero.
Top Ten Technologies For Reusable CisLunar Transportation Architecture
Dallas Bienhoff:
Architecture has propellant depots, “depot tugs” between LEO and EML1, and landers from EML1 and the moon. Breaking up propulsion steps makes system more efficient. Can be launched and supported in 25-ton chunks (no HLV needed). Can also get tonnage back to LEO via aerocapture, to allow delivery of lunar water there.
Consists of personnel modules (zero-gee and g-oriented), propellant carrier, two modular depots, reusable transfer vehicles, aerobraked reusable vehicle, lander, all Lox/hydrogen.
Top ten techs:
10. Variable mixture ratio lox/hydrogen engine.
9. Low-g and zero-g oxygen/hydrogen liquefaction
8. Low-g water electrolysis
7. Deep-space autonomous rendezvous and docking (AR&D)
6. Aerocapture (need to fly aerocapture experiment from eighties that never flew)
5. Long-life reusable lox/hydrogen engine
4. Aero-assisted entry, descent and landing
3. Long-term zero-g cryo storage
2. Zero-g cryo transfer
1. Zero-g cryo fluid management (storage). Can be done with cryo coolers.
NASA flight technology demos (FTDs) support some but not all, but schedule far too long. Really important stuff out in 2025 time frame.
10, 9, 8, 7 and 5 (half of them) not covered by FTDs.
Needed now, cryo management, storage, transfer.
Next, AEDL, then aerocapture.
First three technologies enable depots, AEDL enhances ETO propellant tankers, long-life engines help cost, deep-space enables depot assembly and lander/stage mating.
Overall, enable reusability, enhance efficiency, promote reduced propellant delivery cost to LEO.
[Update a while later]
Dallas went too fast for me to capture everything, but in answer to a comment here, the reason for variable mixture ratio is that due to other uses (e.g. oxygen for life support), differential boil-off rates in storage, etc., you can’t count on any particular mixture ratio. Electrolysis gives you stoichiometric output, but while that’s the most efficient ratio in terms of energy production, it doesn’t maximize specific impulse (6:1 is the best for that). But the point is that you don’t want to waste any propellant when it cost so much, so you don’t care about Isp per se, as long as the engine can turn whatever ratio into useful thrust. The trades for this problem are very different than the ones for launch systems, when propellant, in whatever ratio desired, is a trivial part of the launch cost.
Transportation Session
Gary Hudson, chairing session, thanking Robin Snelson and Lee Valentine for reviving the conference series. Sobered by the fact that the last time he chaired a session at a Space Manufacturing Conference was almost three decades ago. He leads off with a discussion of advances in space transportation over the past three decades.
Nothing else matters as much as low-cost, routine and reliable LEO access — once in orbit, halfway to anywhere else.
Biggest challenge not technology. It’s market demand, financing and naive regulation. Don’t need “destinations,” or “heavy lift.” This building was built in pieces weighing less than ten tons at a time. Historically, NASA opposition was a concern, but that is the case no longer. Now it’s Congress.
Space launch expensive because we throw the vehicles away, and we fly them only once (reduces reliability). Don’t fly often enough, don’t climb learning curve, to amortize development costs. Everything has been tried, and nothing has worked. Nowhere close to a breakthrough (in terms of propellant costs becoming significant), because of the standing army. ULA, Orbital and SpaceX have developed “commercial” vehicles, but still haven’t fundamentally reduced cost of access to space.
Problem is the gap in market elasticity. Reducing price doesn’t increase revenue in current region of price. Reducing cost to a thousand or five hundred dollars a pound reduces revenue, because demand doesn’t increase fast enough until price far below that. Incentives are to maintain status quo. Need new markets, near-term “affirmative action” missions from NASA to get us over the hump (ISS resupply, prop depots, debris cleanup, exploration support). Not necessarily inappropriate, since past government policies have put us in this box. Medium term, tourism will provide useful markets, but long term goal must be settlement.
Technical roadblocks: no breakthroughs needed, but risk and cost reduction via NASA tech development can be useful.
Political: end to cafeteria filling, and recognizing role of private sector.
Legal: should be based on sensible engineering and science rather than emotional regulation (example of having to watch for desert tortoises on the runway for Burt’s spaceplanes, but not airplanes).
Financial: question not whether or not we can finance, the issue now is global economic collapse and whether the dollar will be worth anything in three months.
No social breakthroughs needed — we’re ready.
Needed breakthroughs:
Patient risk capital (this is where NASA can help).
Paradigm/Perceptual change — need to fix broken regulatory regime (e.g. ITAR), NASA brother-in-law problem.
Technical — highly reusable engines, innovations such as tethers, which is a “good cheat.”
What we don’t need: scramjets and airbreathers.
RLV technologies neede: active sluid cooling for entry, highly operable engines.
Achievable price goals: $500/lb within five years, $100/lb within ten to fifteen. Assuming RDT&E amortized through public/private partnerships, and that standing army is sized for business, not government pork.
Introducing Dallas Bienhoff of Boeing