In which Drew Johnson doesn’t know WTF he’s talking about.
#ProTip, Drew. If you’re worried about taxpayer money being wasted on space progress, go dig into SLS/Orion.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Nashville
Gee, who might be motivated to set off a bomb on Christmas morning?
[Update a while later]
Police swept apartment buildings before the explosion, perhaps saving many lives. I wonder if there was a tip?
[Update a couple minutes later]
Steven Kruiser is collecting links.
[Late-afternoon update]
Thoughts from Glenn Reynolds.
Yes, it does look like a rehearsal for an infrastructure attack. Or was it AT&T that was the target?
[Saturday-morning update]
A speculative Twitter thread.
A Match Made In Hell
Apparently this is a real commercial for match.com.
Biden And Climate
He’s not fixing a crisis; he’s creating one.
The notion that the Democrats are the “party of science” is ludicrous.
Space Resources
A new player, from China.
I wonder to what degree the CCP is involved?
Growing Organs
…for human transplantation. Fortunately, I’m not currently in need of any, but faster, please.
SPD-6
Enabling space nuclear systems.
I think history will record that Trump had a much greater effect on space policy than any president since Reagan.
SLS Safety
Some thoughts from Bob Zimmerman.
I’d be concerned if I thought that NASA was really going to use this vehicle for anything serious.
Space Transports
Clark Lindsey has the latest roundup, featuring SN8.
Orion
Six years after its maiden (and only) flight, Eric Berger has some thoughts.
[Update a few minutes later]
From a comment over there:
Probably the most salient points:
A mockup lacking many critical systems flew into space once, six years ago.
The next test flight is basically another mockup, lacking even life support systems.
The first full-up complete vehicle launch is supposed to be with crew trusting their lives to a vehicle which has never been flight tested with systems complete, and also a similarly never-flown service module. Because for all the expense and mass, Orion doesn’t have much duration without a service module.
NASA safety culture at work. Mountains of paperwork instead of actual testing on actual hardware.
Just getting this far on Orion has been 15 years and $24B.
Ridiculous pork capsule to match a ridiculous pork rocket in the SLS.
Yup. It’s a Potemkin space program.