Is the scandal finally about to explode?
If so, it’s way overdue. Everyone who’s ever handled classified material knows that they’d be sporting orange after all this, if they had some last name other than “Clinton.”
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Aging
I’ve always believed that there is no law of physics that makes it inevitable, that it’s a matter of learning how to continue doing the cellular-level repair that occurs when we’re young. But here is an article that says it is caused by thermal chaos.
Not sure I buy it (it still doesn’t take into account artificial techniques for doing error checking in transcription), but it’s an interesting read.
No, Senator McCain
The Delta is not a way to replace RD-180s.
I can’t figure out if McCain is stupid, venal, or both.
Hillary And The Aliens
She seems to be into the UFO conspiracy theories. Nadia Drake responds.
Let’s make her president!
(And remember, the Democrats are the Party of Science™)
Dick Shelby
It is theoretically conceivable that there have been chairs of the Senate budget committee more damaging to the future of spaceflight than him, but I don’t want to do the necessary research to determine it, and the thought itself is pretty frightening.
Kudos to Eric Berger for continuing to cover this like almost no one else in the media.
[Late-evening update]
Bad link, fixed now. Sorry!
It’s Up To SpaceX Now
I’m as shocked as everyone else to see that Boeing’s first commercial crew flight to ISS has slipped to 2018.
OK, not really.
In sort of related news, this assessment of Falcon reusability is amusing:
It’s easy to see why there’s such excitement about Falcon 9 and reusable rockets then. Except, of course, Falcon 9 isn’t really a reusable rocket. It’s still a two-stage launcher designed to deliver SpaceX’s Dragon craft into space, and only one stage is designed to be recoverable (rather like the space shuttle, only commercial) – something that Sadlier says would reduce costs by around 30%, not 99%. ‘It’s an amazing innovation, but it’s kind of a baby step.’
It will reduce costs by much more than 30%. He apparently doesn’t understand the difference between cost and price. And then there’s this:
not everyone is convinced that any of the space players are going to revolutionise 21st century life. ‘Since I entered the space business in 1983, I’ve been hearing claims about big money to be made in space tourism, the space launch business, space mining, space manufacturing,’ says Billings, who served on the US National Commision [sic] on Space under Ronald Reagan. ‘The longer I’ve been listening the more sceptical I’ve become about the more extreme of these claims.’
Others remain optimistic, whether about the likes of Falcon 9 or indeed about Reaction Engine’s Skylon space plane, a revolutionary British technology that delights enthusiasts but never seems to have enough funding for a prototype. As with any other futuristic technology, we’re just going to have to wait and see.
Linda completely ignores SpaceX’s huge commercial backlog. And it’s amusing to see an actual flown recovered vehicle compared with a non-existent vehicle that is unlikely to ever exist.
The Latest Book Review
Roger Launius has reviewed it over at Quest, but for subscribers only (I think it will become available when the next issue comes out). It was interesting, in that it was more of a good summary, with no value judgments, though in an email he did say it was “thought provoking.” And he had no criticism of facts or history, so that’s a good thing. It may be the first “peer reviewed” review I’ve gotten. FWIW
Presidential Politics And Space
This piece seems sort of clueless about how space policy works:
While 65,000 people have signed a petition asking NASA to send the Republican front-runner into space and leave him there, it looks far more likely that Trump will be in the position to decide how much money the agency will receive.
No, as they note earlier, it is Congress who decides how much money the agency receives. All the president can do is make a request.
It rather looks like Trump plans to continue Obama’s alleged gutting of the agency, and if that happens, the Mars mission would be in serious jeopardy.
Pro tip: With regard to this, and their later comment about Sanders, there is no “Mars mission,” and NASA’s inability to get to Mars has little to nothing to do with how much money it receives.
And they act as though Hillary maintaining the status quo would be a good thing.
Feh.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here‘s a smarter (not hard! But it is worth a read) from Stephen Smith on Elon’s Mars threats to maintaining SLS pork, with bonus commentary on the schizophrenia of planetary protection.
Collapse Proofing Our Society
Glenn describes the dangers of the complexity of the current sociopolitical structure.
It strikes me as a dangerous situation, what Perrow has described as a tightly-coupled complex system, that is vulnerable catastrophic collapse. He was describing physical systems, such as nuclear plants, but social systems can have similar failure modes.
Because Failure Is An Option
SpaceX can do stuff like land a rocket on a boat.
I was surprised at the success last night, because Elon had been downplaying chances. I think he may have been a little surprised, too.
Woohoo!! https://t.co/0P8n8VmFbr
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 6, 2016
Worth noting the trend here: SpaceX is getting better at this. As noted, the rapid deceleration of the three-engine retroburn will be useful experience for Mars.
[Update a few minutes later]
“SpaceX is incrementally moving towards making landings such as these mundane.”
Meanwhile, NASA is spending billions so they can throw a giant rocket away in a couple years.