Category Archives: Technology and Society

Business, Economics, Space, Technology and Society

ULA Versus SpaceX

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An interesting report by Peter Selding of a talk by one of ULA’s execs. It seems remarkably candid. Tory has really brought big changes to the company. But I don’t get this thinking:

“Don’t get me wrong: SpaceX has done some amazing stuff,” Tobey said. “The landing [in December] of that [Falcon 9] first stage at the Cape was nothing short of amazing. My wife and I were at Best Buy and watching it on my iPhone and I just got goose bumps. It was cool.

“Watching them smash it into the barge was fun, too,” he said of previous, and a subsequent, SpaceX attempts at landing the first stage.

“It’s getting tons of press. It’s extraordinarily, engineeringly cool – but it’s dumb,” Tobey said. “I mean: Really? You carried 100,000 pounds of fuel after deployment of the SES satellite [SpaceX’s March launch of the commercial SES-9 telecommunications satellite, to geostationary-transfer orbit] just to try to land on the barge.”

Let’s see. Propellant costs less than a buck a pound. So for less than a hundred grand, you get an entire stage, worth tens of millions, back intact. Doesn’t sound dumb to me.

[Update a few minutes later]

Some discussion on Twitter, including with Jeff Foust, indicating that perhaps he didn’t intend for that talk to be on the record. If so, that would account for the unusual candor.

[Update a few more minutes later]

OK, majority of upset on Twitter seems to be the analogy of having two fiances. And I can’t imagine that Eileen will be happy about that talk.

[Update a while later]

Oops.

[Afternoon update]

Tory has to clean up the mess.

[Thursday-morning update]

Aaaaaaand, he’s outta there.

Apparently, he’d only been in the job since September. He’d come there from Lockmart. Not sure if we should draw any conclusions from that.

[Update a few minutes later]

More from Peter Selding. Tobey was canned for a Kinsleyan gaffe — accidentally telling the truth in public. It’s the first time (and probably last) that I’ve ever seen anyone from ULA call the parents “dysfunctional.” But everyone in the business knows it’s true.

[Mid-morning update]

And now McCain is sticking his idiot nose in.

[Update a while later]

Here‘s Tim Fernholz’s take.

Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

The War On Cars

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Thoughts from Lileks:

I share many of the New Urbanist ideas for cities, but I can’t cast my lot in with the group because they are screwball-daft when the subject of cars comes up, and will entertain any inconvenience as long as it’s anti-car. I don’t want to ride a got-damned bicycle to work. Most people don’t. Period. So you have to force them out of their cars into something else. If a neighborhood is made sufficiently inconvenient for cars, some will adapt, and some will find a home in a placewhere they can have a car. That’s your choice. If you stay, fine; glad you’re happy. If you go out into the far-flung exurbs because you want to drive, and are willing to endure a few inconveniences, then fine; that’s yhour choice. You’d think the Critics of Everyone Else’s Choices would be happy that people are living far out and taking the train in, but no, a fresh new horror has revealed itself as people continue to show the depthless roiling stinky-pitch of their hearts:

While city planners generally welcome transit hubs to their community, they are concerned that, if improperly located, the stations will actually increase sprawl by encouraging people to drive to rail stations instead of walking, biking or taking the bus.

People are driving to the train.

And PARKING.

The monsters.