Category Archives: Technology and Society

Business, History, Political Commentary, Technology and Society

Boeing And The FAA

18 Comments

This is not a good look. Looks like regulatory capture.

I’ve always thought it was a bad idea to let Boeing have a monopoly on American air transports, and this is probably one of the consequences.

[Wednesday-morning update]

Some aviation-safety experts have been predicting this sort of “automation surprise” for years.

I think part of the problem is that pilots don’t fly the planes any more; they manage them.

[Bumped]

Business, Economics, Law, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The SLS Saga

Over at The Space Review, Jeff Foust has the story on last week’s events.

[Update a few minutes later]

Also over there a sort of debate on the pros and cons of NASA’s approach to getting back to the moon. I’d note that Hedman’s objection to transpiration cooling is both weak (in the sense that even if Starship was expended, it would still deliver more payload for much less money than SLS ever will) and moot, since Elon has stated that with the steel and standard thermal protection, they may only use it in areas that are scorched when they return.