Category Archives: Political Commentary

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary

Neil DeGrasse Tyson

30 Comments

Just making s**t up?

The point is that it’s not hard at all to prove that politicians, as a class, are some of the dimmest, dullest, and least inspiring group of people you could possibly imagine. It takes a special brand of lazy hack to feel compelled to manufacture evidence to that effect.

Not unusual for him. Also, while many people confuse median and average, Tyson has no excuse.

[Wednesday-afternoon update]

Tyson repeats the “space pen” myth.

Has anyone actually read his PhD thesis? I’m starting to wonder about the quality of it now.

[Bumped]

Business, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society, Weird

Musk Versus Bezos

28 Comments

Here’s the story on today’s announcement that ULA is teaming with Blue Origin to develop an RD-180 replacement. Thoughts anon.

[Update a while later, after the presser]

Clearly Jeff Bezos has declared war on Elon Musk. And ULA is showing how desperate it’s become. That’s what disruption looks like. More later, but I have to review our reply to Mann’s latest court filing. Speaking of which, I suspect that he regrets starting this hash tag.

[Update a while later]

Here’s Joel Achenbach’s take.

Over on Twitter, Trampoline Rocket is speculating that this is vaporware, like Amazon’s drones. He makes a pretty good case.

[Update a while later]

Here’s Alan Boyle’s take.

[Another update]

Aaaaaand, Aaron Mehta’s take.

Business, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Commercial Crew

26 Comments

There’s going to be an announcement at 4PM on NASA TV. Jay Barbree says it’s going to be Boeing and SpaceX. Which if true means two capsules, no wings.

[Update a while later]

Here‘s another similar report from the WaPo.

[Update a few minutes later]

Joel Achenbach has more, including the (bizarre, to me) part of the story about ULA getting a new engine for the Atlas from Blue Origin.

[Late-morning update]

OK, now James Dean is reporting that there will be two full awards, not “leader-follower.” I wonder if they have the money for that with a CR?

[Update just before noon]

Alex Brown has a story at National Journal. Annoyingly, everyone is calling them space “taxis” when, at least for NASA, it’s more of a rental-car model (if you insisted on a new car every time you rented). Also, everyone’s regurgitating NASA’s 2017 date. I’d at least note that SpaceX could possibly fly as early as next year, unless there is something else on the critical path than abort tests. Final point:

Boeing’s program is reported to be further along in its development goals.

I think that Pasztor story is BS. How can Boeing be in the lead when they haven’t even flown anything? I love this:

But people familiar with the process said Boeing, with its greater experience as a NASA contractor, appears to have become the favorite partly because it has met earlier development goals in the same program on time and on budget.

Everyone hits their budget. It’s a fixed-price contract. And who cares if they’re hitting program goals, if those are trivial goals (like design reviews)? How anyone can think that a paper vehicle is ahead of one that’s going to have its abort tests in the next few months?

[Update a few minutes before the announcement]

Here’s the link.

[Update after the announcement]

Well, no surprises, except amounts. Here’s Eric Berger’s take.

[Update a while later]

Here is Jeff Foust’s story.

History, Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Don’t Go To Mars

20 Comments

David Attenborough takes a novel and courageous stand. Let’s “sort out life on earth, first.” [Paywall]

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone make that argument before, except a lot of people, for decades.

“America? Let’s sort out life in Europe first.”

“Europe and Asia? Let’s sort out life in Africa, first.”

It’s obviously a mindless prescription for never settling new territory.