The latest Lurio Report is out, in which he discusses Armadillo’s recent launch mishaps, and NASA’s threat to derail commercial crew by doing it…uncommercially. Clark Lindsey has the T of C. And if you don’t get it, go subscribe.
Category Archives: Space
It’s Dead, Jim
I was thinking about responding to Paul Spudis’s bizarre attempt to resurrect the Shuttle, but Clark Lindsey has spared me the trouble. In fact I had this exact thought when I read Paul’s post title:
…neutral would be a big improvement over reverse, which is where NASA has been going for the past decade. Constellation burned up many billions of dollars on a plan to build retro-tech vehicles that would have been just as expensive, if not more so, to operate than the Shuttle. The administration’s plan, of course, is not in neutral but is moving forward on development of cost-effective commercial launch systems, though this could be undermined by Congress’s insistence on parallel development of a super-expensive, super heavy lift vehicle based on Shuttle hardware.
And the double standard remains amazing:
Dr. Spudis asks,
How long will our rapidly growing government (with its rapidly shrinking discretionary budget) patiently support “commercial” New Space efforts?
This question is bizarre. The alternative to the modestly funded commercial launch services program is another gigantically expensive in-house NASA project that has no more chance of succeeding than all of the previous gigantically expensive NASA space transport projects. There is, in fact, no alternative to commercial launchers. If they don’t succeed at providing reliable transport at significantly lower costs than the Shuttle, NASA’s human spaceflight program will simply fade away. Fortunately, there is a very strong likelihood that they will succeed.
As Clark notes, it’s ironic that Paul continues to champion transportation approaches with the least probability of achieving his goal of a practical lunar base.
Second Life Appearance
I’m going to be available for a discussion on various space topics in Second Life this afternoon, 5 PM PDT (this evening for people farther east), with Rocket Sellers. She’ll provide additional detail in comments here.
Rethinking Space Transportation Regulation
Wayne Crews, one of my colleagues at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, has some thoughts at Forbes about how best to regulate the new private spaceflight industry.
[Update a while later]
Speaking of my CEI colleagues, Iain Murray has a new book out, titled Stealing You Blind: How Government Fat Cats Are Getting Rich Off of You
Questions About NASA’s Heavy-Lift Plan
I ask them over at Popular Mechanics.
Meaningless Bipartisan Space Blather
An op-ed from Bill Nelson and Kay Bailey Hutchison:
The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 gave us the blueprint — a way to move forward with human spaceflight and to continue exploring the next frontier.
It extended the life of the International Space Station from 2015 to 2020 and eased NASA resources away from the end of the shuttle program and toward commercial spaceflight and NASA-led development of a heavy-lift rocket for deep-space exploration.
The blueprint we ushered through the Congress last fall also will help reduce the economic impact of the shuttle’s retirement. We made every effort to boost the aerospace industry and take advantage of an extremely skilled NASA work force. We also were able to avoid huge cuts at a time when Congress is slashing across the board.
While NASA and America’s space program are in a time of transition, one thing that most people can agree on is the need to press forward with human space exploration. Our country’s commitment to exploring space is a key in keeping the United States at the forefront globally of science and technology. Space exploration and a deeper understanding of how we can best utilize the great unknown is also vital to our national-security interests.
Translation: we don’t really know what “exploration” means, or how to do it, but we managed to keep the bacon flowing to our own states and those of our buddies. We’re also going to continue to claim that building a giant rocket for which there are no funded payloads is critical to national security, even though we have no idea in what way this might be true. And we’ll take credit for commercial spaceflight, even though we’ve been bad mouthing it for a year and a half, because we merely underfunded it, whereas the House wanted to zero it out altogether.
I hope and think that Nelson will lose his election next year, and Hutchison isn’t running again. I won’t miss either of them.
[Update a few minuts later]
Here’s a summary of a panel discussion in Orlando last week, on which Nelson sat. I have to say that he does sound like he’s come around on commercial space. But he’s still likely to lose, for reasons having nothing to do with space policy. I also think that Dale Ketcham overestimates the importance of space policy to the Florida electorate. They’ll be much more concerned about ObamaCare, Medicare and other issues.
Unexpectedly!
A compilation of headlines. What’s amazing to me is that none of them were in any way unexpected to me, because I’ve recognized the high level of economic nincompoopery at the highest levels of government for years. It’s a shame our intellectual betters (just ask them) in the media can’t figure it out.
[Update a while later]
Gee, I guess I’m smarter than the head of the Fed, too:
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told reporters Wednesday that the central bank had been caught off guard by recent signs of deterioration in the economy. And he said the troubles could continue into next year.
“We don’t have a precise read on why this slower pace of growth is persisting,” Bernanke said. He said the weak housing market and problems in the banking system might be “more persistent than we thought.”
You don’t say.
[Update a few minutes later]
Hard to argue with this:
As an economist, if I were working for a foreign government and were to design a package of policies to destroy a country’s economy, I would design a plan very similar to what we’ve undertaken in the U.S. over the past 18 months.
If we pursue another economic stimulus of similar size to the previous one, we may as well condemn the economy to another 10-20 years of recession.
Not only will it not work, but it will significantly add to an already grave debt problem. Stimulus is what keeps entrepreneurs from creating new jobs and products. It makes them nervous, because we have to raise taxes in the future to pay for stimulus spending, and this makes for a very uncertain business environment.
You could make a similar statement about space policy. As the preface to the book I’ve been working on for a while begins: “Imagine that extraterrestrial aliens had secretly contacted the White House and U.S. Congress after the Apollo landings, and told them under dire threat that humans were to never again venture beyond low earth orbit, but that the public was not to know this, and to make sure that their successors were aware as well. If it were the case, how would space policy have been much different for the past four decades?”
[Update a few minutes later]
More thoughts from VDH:
Two thoughts: One, the latest Democratic idea of borrowing even more money is de facto proof that all the bailouts, borrowing, vast increases in unemployment and food-stamp monies, Obamacare, etc., have done nothing but terrify employers, who are holding off buying and hiring. And, second, when one adds in the National Labor Relations Board roguery, the presidential quips about the wealthy, the Chrysler creditor mess, the nonstop spread-the-wealth, already-made-enough-money demonization of those who make over $200,000, etc., we are witnessing a sort of psychological stasis in which millions of employers are shrugging and collectively sighing, “I think I’ll pass until this crazy outfit is out of here.”
It can’t happen soon enough.
Space Alien Invasions And Hollywood
if you’re going to cross vast distances to conquer humanity for the usual reasons, I doubt they would use guns and bombs. An EMP for starters, then gas. But it’s never gas. No, they walk around with guns and shoot, and in the case of “Fallen Skies,” they have stormtrooper aim half the time. In last night’s episode the aliens set a trap in a food warehouse, where they suspected the humans might go. Let’s imagine that conversation in the war room:
“Corporal Xxrtg, send a Mechabot 3bV to the trap, and wait for the humans to come for food.”
“Okay, but -”
“But what?”
“If they’re coming for food, they’re probably attached to a larger group. Why not just call in their appearance, and have the huntercraft look for their heat signature and vaporize them all at once?”
“Don’t ask me. Ask Commander Plrgb. It’s his call.”
“As long as we’re at it, why not just send in hush-snakes with the gas? They’d -”
“Again with the gas! It’s always the gas with you.”
“It’s just easier, that’s all I’m saying. Have you seen the reports? We have a 37% kill ratio because someone upstairs says we have to shoot them one at a time. And forget about the wide-radius heat ray, apparently.”
“I don’t make the rules of engagement. Now get on it.”
“Sure. And tell whoever assigned us the Mechabot 3bV that the men call it Old Stompy. It can’t take two steps without giving away its position.”
“Get moving.”
“Yes sir.”
There are two ways the series can end: humans win, or humans lose. “Win” is nice, rah us, but I have a hard time believing that the time-honored Ragtag Band of Scrappy Fighters can defeat a culture capable of space travel. It even makes “War of the Worlds” seem silly, because you have to imagine this conversation at HQ: did you remind the contractors to refit the ships with biofilters?”
(Panicked expression) “I thought that was your job.”
“Hell no. I TOLD you.”
“No you didn’t.”
Remind me to hire him for my next SF flick (which will also be my first).
[Update a while later]
This seems related, somehow: s3x with creatures from the future can be bad for your offspring’s health.
The Tea Party Platform For Space
Tea in Space has a press release:
June 23, 2011 — For Immediate Release
TEA Party in Space (TPIS), a non-partisan organization, today publicly released the TEA Party Space Platform. “This is our response to the vacuum of leadership in Washington, D.C., for America’s national space enterprise,” said Andrew Gasser, President of TPIS. “Whether it’s timidity from the White House or Congress’ earmark-laden ‘compromises,’ our space dreams will be stuck on this planet unless someone articulates a vision based on economic and technical reality, so that’s what we’ve done.”
Continue reading The Tea Party Platform For Space
The Roots Of Liberal Nostalgia
Michael Barone has an interesting article at the Journal today (subscription required, at least for now):
There’s a longing on the left for the golden years of the 1940s, ’50s and early ’60s. Income distribution was significantly more egalitarian than it is today, and Americans had far more confidence in big government, the wisdom of our elected officials, and the ability of Keynesian spending policies to stimulate economic growth.
Hence the search for policies that will somehow get us back to those golden years.
I would note that the current nostalgic longing among some for a big-government space program has its roots in that same “liberal” impulse, though many, perhaps most conservatives don’t understand what an unconservative project Apollo was. NASA was, after all, one of those big-government institutions in which so many had faith in the post-war, early sixties. If you take away the raw rent seeking on the part of those who don’t want to see their home-state pork going away, this nostalgia lies at the heart of much of the outrage over Obama’s sensible new space policy. But unfortunately for NASA, the current justifiable disillusionment with government institutions in general is bleeding over to them as well.