Category Archives: Political Commentary

Political Commentary

You Want Astroturfing?

14 Comments

This is astroturfing.

And hilarious. And more signs of their desperation.

But they won’t be well dressed, so I guess they have that going for them.

[Evening update]

More thoughts on astroturfing, and hypocrisy, from Jesse Walker. This part seems a little unfair, though:

It’s entertaining to watch the same people who spent the Bush years smearing the antiwar movement as “on the other side” suddenly rediscovering the virtues of noisy protest.

I can’t speak for others, but I never called antiwar people, per se, on the other side. I reserved that term for people who wore kaffiyehs, marched with Palestinian flags, said that they supported the troops when they shot their officers, and called people in Iraq killing US troops their version of the Minutemen.

Just sayin’.

[Update a few minutes later]

Megan McArdle has some thoughts, from experience:

Have I mentioned recently that I hate PIRG? Well, I hate PIRG with the kind of blackhearted distilled rage that normally characterizes the breakup of a thirty year marriage. They, and their whole canvassing operation, are a vile beast that subsists on dishonor, greed, and the rapidly disintegrating idealism of impressionable young people.

But the LA Times piece makes it sound like the Obama administration, or some other wing of the Democratic party, is hiring these volunteers. It is, I suppose, possible, but it’s not the most likely supposition. PIRGs love national health care. So do most of the other groups they work with. Given that their canvassing operation is the fundraising arm of half the left-wing groups in this country, they’re the obvious people to hire if you want to take your message to the streets. I’m sure there are loads of perfectly legitimate groups out there with money to spare and a heartfelt desire to push national health care reform for its own sake.

Whether or not the administration is involved, it’s true, unadulterated astroturf. And really, it’s all part of the collectivist hive. The administration doesn’t have to orchestrate it, because it can count on its fellow travelers.

And yes, I know exactly the connotations with which the phrase “fellow travelers” is fraught. They are intended.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Meghan McCain

3 Comments

Slapped down:

Ms. McCain’s ideas are neither new nor exciting. In fact, if you took Nelson Rockefeller’s speech to the GOP in 1964 when Barry Goldwater was nominated, toned down the language so a whiny teenager would understand it, inserted a few pointless digs at other peoples’ appearance/online fan base, one or two lines of bizarre biker fetishization, and peppered it with logical fallacies and non sequiturs, you’d have the makings of a pretty standard Meghan McCain column. In fact, if you took the former self-described “conservative” and two-time Adlai Stevenson supporter Peter Viereck’s thoughts on Joseph McCarthy and replaced the name “McCarthy” with the name of any socially conservative Republican politician/commentator, and replaced the terms “communists” and “reds” with the word “gays” or “bikers,” you’d also have the makings of a pretty standard Meghan McCain column. Both of these people ended up lost on the ash heap of failed Republican political figures, a destiny which Ms. McCain herself is destined for if she keeps on offering unsolicited advice.

What a ditz. But it’s sort of like shooting a whale in a barrel.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Space

More Augustine Thoughts

13 Comments

…from Clark Lindsey. I have to say that Sally Ride has risen considerably in my esteem in the past couple months. And I’m a little disappointed, but not shocked that Bo Bejmuk (with whom I worked at Rockwell) doesn’t quite seem to get it. Operational costs are key. NASA simply can’t expect to just have money shoved at them.

[Update a few minutes later]

Lindsey versus Coppinger. It’s quite the beat down.

I was going to respond, but haven’t had the time. I read Rob’s stuff, and sometimes I just shake my head. He has an apparently massive capability to delude himself on both the politics and the economics. He’s been whistling past Ares I’s graveyard for months.

Political Commentary

The People Are Waking From Their Trance

16 Comments

Republicans are now trusted more than Democrats on almost all major issues (including health care):

Overall, Republicans lead Democrats in terms of voter trust on eight out of 10 key issues for the second consecutive month, and the two are tied on one issue.

Republican candidates continue to hold a modest lead over Democrats for the seventh straight week in the Generic Congressional Ballot.

The GOP now holds a six-point lead on the top issue of the economy, an advantage that has changed little over the past four months.

Health care is not the only issue which the Republicans are enjoying a first-time lead. Voters now trust the GOP more than Democrats on the issue of education, 41% to 38%. This is also the first time in over two years the Republicans have held an advantage on that issue. Democrats led Republicans on education by three points in July and seven points in June.

Republicans lead Democrats on Social Security for the second straight month, this time by a 43% to 39% margin. Social Security is another issue where Democrats have enjoyed consistent leads in recent years.

The GOP maintains a strong 51% to 35% lead on taxes, after holding the same lead in July. Republicans have been trusted more by voters on the issue of taxes in every poll conducted since February.

Apparently, the fastest (and only) way to convince voters that the Democrats are terrible on the major issues is to put them in charge. Fortunately, it works. Let’s just try to minimize the damage until we can rectify the situation next November.

[Afternoon update]

Here’s another sign that the American people are coming to their senses:

With improvements in the economy and only a fraction of the stimulus money having been spent so far, most Americans — 72 percent — say returning the unused portion of the $787 billion dollar stimulus to taxpayers would do more to boost the economy than having the government spend it. Majorities of Democrats (59 percent), Republicans (87 percent) and independents (70 percent) think the money should be returned to taxpayers.

I have to say that I’m surprised that even the Democrats agree. I don’t think that the worst is over yet, but the “stimulus” is anything but, and will just contribute to the problem as long as it goes on.

Political Commentary

Stop Lying About Us

4 Comments

The American College of Surgeons slap down the president. I guess TOTUS must have taken August off.

[Update a few minutes later]

Heh:

…feeling it was my patriotic duty to do so, I have copied the statement from the American College of Surgeons and posted it to the whitehouse.gov website, asking them to look into this ‘fishy disinformation’.

Fishy indeed.

[Late afternoon update]

Obama’s rhetoric versus reality.

Political Commentary, Space

A Defense Of DIRECT

46 Comments

Stephen Metschan emails, per my recent piece in The New Atlantis:

I agreed with much of what you wrote especially with the lead up to how we got to where we are today. In fact even key elements of what you wrote as solutions to going further are actually part of the DIRECT plan which goes far far beyond the Jupiter Launch System which is just a one component of that plan. One day I wish you would at least publicly acknowledge this. In fact the CE&R were very informative in help us come up with a good compromise between the two extremes of Ares or an exclusive existing EELV approach. Also for the record we are no longer anonymous to the Commission as I promised them. In fact Leroy’s question of who are we was a call to arms. To suffice to say what they found will result in some significant changes shortly to NASA middle management.

You continue to have three key blind spots in three very different areas of physics, politics and experience.

Starting with physics. Whether we like it or not the rocket equation governs our current reality. In addition, RLV will always have higher mass fraction than ELV. As Carl Sagan once said “The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition”. Changing who the government writes the checks to won’t change physics or the golden rule. Further the dynamics of how young, efficient yet inexperienced organizations turn into old, inefficient yet experienced organizations, given enough time and money, won’t change either. While the last one is not strictly physics its durability across human organizational history is almost an axiom of the human condition which in turn mirrors the life cycle of individuals only on longer time scale.

Politics, you almost got it with the statement of the Iron Triangle but you failed to weave that into a broader understanding of solution that works. Politics is the art of the possible. As long as the space services customer base is dominate by government, elected representatives of the taxpayers who ultimately foot the bill will have a dominate influence. Until something ‘like’ Lunar He3 comes along (ie this particular idea may never be possible) the space industry will be dominated by government, the market niche of joy rides for millionaires not withstanding. For now telling the likes of Senator Shelby that your plan is to shut down MSFC is like taking grocery bag to a tank fight. In addition, the Jupiter launch system is not just slightly better than Ares but is less than half the cost (development, operational and fixed). The fact that our plan saves so much money has actually been the problem with the Senator from Alabama. Any guess on how well a plan that destroys NASA as we know it would be received? In addition our fixed cost (ie no launches) is less than 20% of the Human Space Flight budget, well below Ares and an improvement over STS. At launch rates that far exceed our mission budget that percentage number barely moves while the cost per kg to orbit drops below $4,000. The biggest problem we have is that the incremental cost per launch is even lower than this already extremely competitive full amortized cost thereby make any conceivable ELV or RLV approach based on existing physics by any nation or organizational paradigm ‘more’ expensive not less. So your cost argument is completely backwards. In a Jupiter world the government will need to subsidize the ‘commerical’ market not the other way around by paying much more to launch the same payload via multiple smaller launchers than the incrementally cost of what one more Jupiter launch would entail.. Besides their is no absolutely no reason why the Jupiter couldn’t be designed, built and operated by a ‘commercial’ industry consortium or FFRDC for the matter. Again I see little difference between the commercial companies of USA, ULA, SpaceX, Rent-A-RLV, etc. They all are ‘commercial’ companies of one size or another yet the golden rule will still hold sway. Bottomline: lets not throw out the high volume heavy launch infrastructure and workforce out with the NASA management bath water.

Concerning Experience. You also continue to neglect for some reason the fact that launch cost is only 20% of the overall mission cost. As such even if a time machine delivered a device, that for some mysterious reason would only work on Earth, which could place any mass you wanted into Earth Orbit using Duracell battery you would only lower the cost of space exploration and development by 20%. On the other hand we have lots and lots of cost date from real programs that prove that attempting to pack 10kg of spacecraft into a 5kg box increases costs many times that of the actually launch cost think JSWT and MSL. Further even in an EELV paradigm the ISS would still cost more, have less capability and weigh more than Skylab which the Jupiter could put up in one launch. I for one much prefer Skylab over the ISS rabbit warren for trips Beyond LEO.

So in summary I agree with a lot of what you wrote by the ‘close’ on some of your key recommendations only make sense if you ignore physics, politics and experience.

I don’t have time to respond at length, but briefly, there is no correlation between mass fraction and launch costs of which I’m aware. If there is one, it’s certainly second order, relative to flight rate and whether or not you throw hardware away. So I (as always, as I did in a previous piece in The New Atlantis) summarily reject the flawed and false argumentum ab physics.

As for the politics, while closing down MSFC might or might not be a good idea, I do in fact recognize that it is politically unrealistic. I don’t, however, think it politically unrealistic to apply that resource to something useful, that actually advances us beyond LEO, rather than building Yet Another Launch System. For instance, propellant depot development should in theory be in their wheelhouse. Having them do it wouldn’t necessarily be the most effective way to get it done, but it may be the kind of political compromise necessary to at least get the agency to start doing the right thing, if not doing the thing right.

I also recognize that cost of launch is (currently) a small fraction of total mission cost. What I don’t recognize is that this is an iron law of aerospace, rather than an artifact of the way we’ve been doing space for the past five decades. And in fact, for a propellant delivery, the cost of launch dominates, and the vast majority of mass that has to be delivered to LEO (at least until we start to utilize extraterrestrial resources) for extraterrestrial missions is propellant. Also, I share the enthusiasm for Skylab over ISS, in terms of volume, but one can get volume without a heavy-lift vehicle. Just ask Bob Bigelow.

So I plead innocent to all three charges.

[Thursday morning update]

Clark Lindsey has a response to Stephen’s thesis.

[Bumped]

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

Crazy Wolverines

2 Comments

Michael Barone has some advice for his fellow Michiganians:

I think it would be possible to improve Brewer’s proposals, to provide even more aid to beleaguered Michigan. My alternatives:

● Mandating all employers to provide health insurance that covers everything for all employees and dependents or face a penalty of life imprisonment without parole. (Michigan’s Constitution has banned capital punishment since 1855.)

● Raising the minimum wage from $7.40 per hour to $100 an hour and covering all workers or people who apply for a job.

● Increasing unemployment benefits by $1,000 a week, making all workers and job applicants eligible and adding 10 years to the time one can receive benefits.

● Cutting utility rates by 99%.

● Imposing a 100-year moratorium on home foreclosures.

Let the last Michiganian who leaves turn out the lights.

One of the problems that the Republicans have had is that by conceding the principle, they are always playing near their own end zone. They have to start arguing against these things on principle, rather than (as the old joke goes) haggling over the price. This kind of reductio ad absurdam can be effective in waging that battle.