There are documentation problems at NASA. It’s endemic to the industry. It’s one of the causes of high costs. And failures. Be sure to read the comments.
One of the advantages that SpaceX has is that with a tightly integrated co-located team, the knowledge is much more accessible, though individuals become more critical
A take-down by Robert Samuelson.
[Update while later]
Florida Governor Rick Scott has turned down funding for it.
* My decision to reject the project comes down to three main economic realities:
o First – capital cost overruns from the project could put Florida taxpayers on the hook for an additional $3 billion.
o Second – ridership and revenue projections are historically overly-optimistic and would likely result in ongoing subsidies that state taxpayers would have to incur. (from $300 million – $575 million over 10 years) – Note: The state subsidizes Tri-Rail $34.6 million a year while passenger revenues covers only $10.4 million of the $64 million annual operating budget.
o Finally – if the project becomes too costly for taxpayers and is shut down, the state would have to return the $2.4 billion in federal funds to D.C.
That last “if” should be a “when.” Good for him. Too bad we don’t have as much sense in Sacramento.
[Update a couple minutes later]
This seems to have been influenced by my friend (and fellow member of the Competitive Space Task Force) Bob Poole of the Reason Foundation:
the Reason Foundation issued its report nearly two weeks ago. Using estimates for a proposed rail line in California, it projects the Tampa-to-Orlando link could cost $3 billion more than estimated.
Research by the Reason Foundation and the study’s main author, Wendell Cox, regularly offers a skeptical view of rail, so the findings are not particularly surprising. What’s notable is the work was overseen by Robert Poole, a foundation director who served on Scott’s transition team for transportation issues.
“It’s understandable that some are dreaming of flashy high-speed rail trains carrying tourists and residents between the two cities,” Poole said in a news release. “When you look at realistic construction costs and operating expenses you see these trains are likely to turn into a very expensive nightmare for taxpayers.”
Hey, Jerry, I’m sure Bob’s available for a similar analysis for CA. In case you haven’t noticed, you have budget problems, too.
Don’t hurt the burglars. I liked this comment:
Don’t leave bottles of brown-coloured bottles of pesticides in your shed – burglars might think you have left them some beer. Don’t leave a supply of bird nuts – burglars might get food poisoning – thinking you were leaving them some munchies to go with the previous item. Don’t put pitch forks in your sheds – burglars might stab themselves on them as they clamber through the window. Don’t put glass in the window frame – burglars might get a scratch followed by blood poisoning. Make sure there is adequate lighting – in case burglars accidentally step on a rake and whack themselves in the gob. Please provide an adequate seating arrangement – so that weary burglars can take a rest, before taking the rest of your stuff. A bucket is NO substitute for slopping out, sorry I mean going to the ‘boudoir’. Burglars expect a proper netty! Adequate toilet paper should be on supply AT ALL TIMES!
Somehow, Great Britain doesn’t seem so great any more.
An idiot SpaceX-hating troll in a gun forum.
Life is getting harder for pimps. It may be the world’s second oldest profession, but one that has very little value added (it would have none if prostitution were legal).
More thoughts from Elizabeth Scalia.
When I was growing up, it never occurred to me to aspire to get an Ivy League degree. Of course, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go to college, and my high school grades (and lack of even taking the SAT) showed it.
[Update a while later]
“College for all” harms students.
Thoughts on the incremental nature of the destruction of liberty. Unfortunately, it’s like a ratchet, and it’s a lot harder to get rid of bad laws than to create new ones.
This is a frightening commentary, not just on Internet literacy specifically, but the complete failure of our educational system to teach critical thinking. Because thinking is hard.
They rely too much on credentialism in hiring:
It is odd that the soft firms, which market themselves to clients as being super-smart repositories of brainpower (of course this is largely a fiction; see point 3 above), would rely so heavily on university admissions committees. They effectively outsource a big chunk of due diligence on their most important investment (human capital) to a group of people whose judgement they somehow trust, but perhaps without detailed understanding. When I was on the faculty at Yale I knew people in admissions and it’s not clear to me that they were the best able to spot potential in 18 year olds. In studies of expert performance admissions people are less good at predicting UG GPA than a simple algorithm. (The “algorithm” is simply a weighted sum of SAT and HS GPA!)
I’m a lot less impressed by Ivy degrees than I’m supposed to be. And I think that the current occupant of the White House is a great example of why.