Category Archives: Technology and Society

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Technology and Society, War Commentary

Political Correctness

2 Comments

Without it, we might not have a terror problem at all.

My confidence in the FBI is pretty much zero at this point.

[Update a few minutes later]

Speaking of the FBI, nothing that Comey says about the Clinton investigation makes any sense. Well, if you assume the fix was in from the beginning (as she told Brett Baier), it does.

[Update a few minutes later]

From (Democrat, AFAIK) Jonathan Turley:

Of all of the individuals who would warrant immunity, most would view Mills as the very last on any list. If one assumes that there may have been criminal conduct, it is equivalent to immunizing H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman in the investigation of Watergate.

Why, it’s almost as though there was no intent to seriously investigate.

This is gangster government, and it will only get worse if she gets into the White House. At least Trump will be more likely to be reined in by Congress (perhaps even impeached and removed).

[Update a few more minutes later]

Good question, from a smart prosecutor: “What more would she have had to do to get you to prosecute her?”

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The Safety Of SLS

8 Comments

I have no difficulty whatsoever believing this:

Most troubling of all, the internal assumption at MSFC is that the first SLS flight will have a built-in risk of failure of around 8%. This risk is being “baked in” to the design of SLS in part due to decisions being made at MSFC about software and avionics – decisions that are being made so as to not surface troublesome issues that no one wants to deal with. One can imagine that safety folks at MSFC are nervous.

This is no way to build a rocket folks.

Once you understand that (unlike at SpaceX) the goal is not to build a rocket, it all makes sense.

Business, Economics, Space, Technology and Society

SpaceX’s Announcement

96 Comments

A preview:

[Update a while later]

Here’s Nadia Drake’s story on the announcement. The Q and A ended up being sort of a goat rodeo.

[Update early evening, PDT]

Here’s the full presentation.

[Wednesday-morning update]

Here’s Eric Berger’s take, and Jeff Foust’s. And one from Casey Dreier at the Planetary Society.

[Update a couple minutes later]

And Chris Davenport’s.

[Update a couple more minutes later]

And Loren Grush says there’s still a lot to figure out. No kidding.

[Update another couple minutes later]

And Wayne McCandless is skeptical (with a plug of my book).

[Update a few minutes later]

Thoughts from Bob Zubrin.

[Update a while later]

Joel Achenbach says don’t pack your bags for Mars yet. And Ken Chang says Elon just needs to figure out how to pay for it. Well, I think there are other issues as well. Meanwhile, the National Space Society is gung ho (as they should be, it’s much more in line with the group’s stated objective than anything NASA is doing).

[Update a couple minutes later]

Miri Kramer’s five takeaways.

[Update late morning]

McCandless link was missing, but I fixed it.

In response to Dreier:

[Update early afternoon]

Here’s Alan Boyle’s take.

And Elon answered yesterday’s question about how they get down to the surface:

[Update a while later]

Bill Nye doesn’t buy it. But the Planetary Society doesn’t want “filthy meatbag bodies” on Mars, anyway.

Speaking of which, I’m pretty sure that this announcement will re-energize the SJWs.

[Update a while later]

An amusing take over at Wait But Why. And one of the first, but certainly not last takes on planetary protection and the Outer Space Treaty.