Bob Tisdale takes a deep dive into the data, which seems to indicate that NOAA is continuing to try to cook the books.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Today’s SpaceX Launch
…has been postponed. Elon tweeted that their Monte Carlo runs had indicated a slightly higher probability of landing success tomorrow, and Orbcomm said that they wanted to continue to analyze static-fire data and allow an extra day to pre-chill the LOX. Someone at NASASpaceflight indicated that it might be that, though launch conditions are slightly worse tomorrow (80% chances of good weather as opposed to 90% today), it might be less wind, with less convection to warm the oxidizer. as Jonathan McDowell points out, this may be the first time they’ve ever delayed a launch to improve the chances of a landing, but the customer seems fine with it. As I noted to him, every aircraft operator takes into account landing conditions prior to takeoff.
The US Air Force
Is it time to abolish it? This would help resolve things like the ongoing battle over the Warthogs. But he doesn’t address what to do with the space stuff. Or the missiles.
ObamaCare
We were told there would be no arithmetic. https://t.co/KBQddrglwx
— HealthCaliphate (@HealthDotGov) December 18, 2015
The Wright Brothers
Yesterday was the anniversary of the first flight, and I put up a post at Ricochet with links to my centennial essays from a dozen years ago.
Why Trump Is Leading
…and why he will ultimately fail. An interesting Boydian analysis of the race.
SpaceX
Chris Bergin has the latest on the next flight, which has been delayed due to issues with the slush LOX. I wonder if they’re running into problems at the Cape that they didn’t encounter in McGregor, due to the different environment.
Democrats
Thoughts from Bob Zimmerman on their increasing disconnect from reality on guns.
[Update a few minutes later]
Related: The Democrats’ compassion gap on terrorism.
They reserve their compassion for the enemy.
[Update a while later]
Here’s an example. Yes, the Obama administration nixed a probe into the California jihadis.
[Update a few minutes later]
And this: Whistleblower says Obama more concerned with rights of Islamists than with protecting the American people. That’s pretty obvious.
Scientology
I admire this woman’s sentiment, if not her approach:
After officers realized McMurtry was the hit-and-run driver, she admitted to her dangerous ride and asked if anybody was hurt, police said.
When cops told her there were no injuries and she smashed through the church’s lobby and nursery, McMurtry replied, “That’s too bad.”
McMurtry tried to justify her religious fender bender by claiming Scientology was evil because its members blackmail people, cops said.
You don’t say.
NASA’s Budget
The omnibus bill provides a boost, and full funding of Commercial Crew, for the first time ever. It also allows NASA to apply Soyuz payments for 2018 flights to the program, to get it flying in 2017 (I still think they could fly next year if they were serious about it). Loren Grush has more. Unfortunately, it also increases the SLS budget.
On the milspace side, it also lifts the restriction on the RD-180, which McCain is going nuts about on the floor right now, according to Twitter. He’s lambasting Shelby and Durbin by name.
[Update a while later]
The worst part of the NASA budget is that it overfunds SLS at the expense of (as usual) technology.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here‘s the McCain story. Nutty.