Elon has started a private school. I like the name.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Space Force
There’s been a lot of stupid talk about Trump’s announcement at the Space Council meeting. Here’s some smarter discussion.
[Noon update]
Here’s Eric Berger’s take. The bureaucracy will fight it.
[Friday update late morning]
Here’s a pretty good history and context, for those unfamiliar.
[Bumped]
Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity
If this new paper is correct, we should be firing up our SUVs.
[Friday update]
Thirty years on, how do climate predictions hold up?
Not well. [paywall]
[Bumped]
The Risk Of Spaceflight
A new paper assessing spaceflight mortality. Not sure how useful it is, given the admitted paucity of data.
[Update a few minutes later]
When a Mars simulation goes wrong. Yes, we have a lot to learn before we go to other planets, and even then, people will die, often in terrible ways. Part of the answer is that we have to be more ambitious about how many we send. Six simply isn’t enough.
SpaceShipOne
It’s the fourteenth anniversary of its first space flight. Here’s a blog post I wrote in Mojave the evening before.
And fourteen years later, not a single passenger has flown in this flawed concept. https://t.co/fi4iBuTH7b
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) June 21, 2018
[Update a while later]
The future ain’t what it used to be: Space tourism edition.
I do think though, that with Blue Origin getting ready to start test-passenger flights, it’s finally arriving.
No, Donald
You did not “reopen NASA.” You make yourself look like a fool to anyone who knows what’s going on, but that’s not your base.
Big Falcon Rockets
…are falcon big. This is a cool video to give you a sense of scale.
DNS Rebinding
This seems like a potentially huge Internet security problem. You have to scroll down a ways to see what to do about it, and the instructions are a little…sparse. I’d want to protect both my Frontier router and my Orbi mesh.
Mark Sundahl
He’s going to be on The Space Show in a few minutes (2 PM PDT), talking about space law and space property rights. I’ll be interested to hear what he has to say.
BTW, just turned in the proposal to NASA this morning, so I’m sort of decompressing.
[Update a few minutes later]
Welp, five minutes past, and so far he’s a no show.
[Update a couple minutes later]
OK, sounds like they’re about to start now.
[Update toward the end]
Nice to hear him endorse the multilat idea I’ve been (and will continue to be) promoting.
Freeman Dyson
An interesting interview of one of the most fascinating men of the 20th century. I saw him at ISDC, and he is holding up well mentally, though he’s been physically frail for decades.
[Wednesday-afternoon update]
Well, the comments have certainly drifted on this one.