Category Archives: Political Commentary

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

An Important Point For The Clueless Eric Holder

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…and his defenders:

We have to be careful to analyze our enemies in terms of their circumstances, not ours. An analogous mistake is made by those who claim Guantanamo Bay “causes” terrorism or materially contributes to terrorist recruitment; the jihadists themselves care only about the fact that we are detaining Muslims — they don’t care where, and they don’t have a clue or a care about the differences between military and civilian processes under U.S. law. Good intelligence requires taking the enemy on his own terms, not as we would think or act under the enemy’s circumstances.

This, in the context of whether or not the latest attempt had anything to do with the elections.

Political Commentary

Hope!

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…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.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Young Voices

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…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.

Economics, Political Commentary, Space

LEO Game Changers

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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.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Space

Top Ten Technologies For Reusable CisLunar Transportation Architecture

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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.