Marina Koren has the story, with a quote from Yours Truly. It launches at 3:30 in the morning, not sure if I’ll have the gumption to get up to watch from Palm Beach (or worse, drive up to the Cape). On the other hand, if it’s clear, should be lots of Perseids visible then, since it’s a new moon.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Rocket Report
Eric Berger has a roundup of interesting news.
The ISS Commercialization Studies
Neither our proposal or the Space Studies Institute’s proposal for a gravity lab was awarded by NASA. It’s just the usual suspects, no newcomers allowed. As I noted on Twitter, they could have funded every proposal for less money than they pour down the SLS/Orion rat hole in a week. No one knows how much potential innovation they just avoided.
Elon And Mars
It appears that he’s getting more serious. I wonder if the topic of ability to gestate in partial gravity will be a topic?
Duck Duck Go
Why you should use it instead of Google.
Lions In The City
A new mountain lion has been spotted in the Verdugos. It’s interesting that LA is so big and geographically diverse that it can have not just parks within it, but a wilderness. Unfortunately, urban encroachment is going to make it harder and harder for these animals to make it there. They’re building a tunnel under the 101 to allow them to move back and forth between the Santa Monicas and the mountains above Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks, but I’m not sure if it will be sufficient, and it looks like they need one under the 210 to allow safe passage between the San Gabriels and the Verdugos.
Sarah Jeong
Her hire by the NYT editorial board seems to have become the story of the day. Thoughts from Robbie Soave.
[Friday-afternoon update]
The New York Times stands by its decision to hire Josef Stalin as part of its editorial board.
I have to say that the Babylon Bee is giving The Onion a run for its money lately.
[Bumped]
[Update a few minutes later]
No, it wasn’t just a few hateful tweets. She seems like kind of an awful person. And hey, NYT, you want more Trump? Because this is how you get more Trump.
[Update a couple minutes later]
And more thoughts from Andrew Sullivan. Yes, she is a racist, easily recognizable as such by anyone not insanely leftist. Or if she’s not, she certainly does a great impersonation.
[Update Saturday morning]
Jim Treacher: The NYT has the right to hire racists. Yes, they’re finally being more transparent.
[Sunday-morning update]
Sarah Jeong is a sign of something very wrong with the Left:
Jeong was just exploring the space of this privileged position, secure that she could say just about anything without fear of blowback. Indeed, she had many defenders who refused to even acknowledge the possibility of another point of view about what she’d said. When you start from the premise that one group of people can’t be offended, you naturally wind up at the conclusion that anyone who says otherwise is being dishonest.
And that, leftists, is how you get more Trump. I’ve observed for decades that white men, and particularly Christians, is the last acceptable form of bigotry. Except they’re not accepting it any more.
The Space Divide In Congress
The latest on the differences between House and Senate bills. I agree with moving OCST out of the FAA, but I’d prefer to see Commerce get the responsibility for regulation of orbital activity.
The New Astronauts
Tim Fernholz has the story of today’s announcement, which was a big “Meh” for me. Wake me up when they’ve decided that putting Americans in space on American rockets is actually important enough to start doing that.
Grow Your Own Organs
They’ve grown lungs with pigs, and it may only be five years away for humans.