This is a pretty extensive discussion. I don’t see hydrogen as the fuel, but when you’re a Reaction Engine hammer, every airplane looks like a nail.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Jerry Brownout
California’s disastrously stupid energy policy.
Orion
Official schedule just slipped to April 2023 for EM2. Like Constellation, it’s slipping more than a year per year. The program began in 2005. That would make it eighteen years.
Breakdown of Orion costs dating to 2005 ish: $5.8b under Constellation program, $4.5b since Constellation canceled, $6.77b through 2023.
— Stephen Clark (@StephenClark1) September 16, 2015
I weep when I contemplate the much more useful ways we could have spent that money. https://t.co/qaL2Tdqrhl
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) September 16, 2015
Public-School Child Abuse
Some morons in Texas arrested a fourteen-year-old kid for building a digital clock.
As far as I’m concerned, though, CAIR isn’t doing him any favors by getting involved.
Defying Darwin
A Colorado park stays closed because too many people are taking selfies with bears.
I think we should just let evolution take its course, myself.
Transhumanists
The Beeb checks them out.
Kind of funny that the reporter thinks that Aubrey de Grey is a woman.
[Update a few minutes later]
@Rand_Simberg oh wow, thanks for flagging. As you'll see from my film, I do know that! Not sure how that happened. Will change now.
— Benjamin Zand (@BenjaminZand) September 15, 2015
Probably an editorial error.
Paul Ehrlich
The man who has never been right about anything doesn’t like Mark Steyn’s new book.
[Via Ed Driscoll]
The Next President And Space
Another piece at The Space Review I missed last week was Jeff Foust’s assessment of the presidential field in the context of space policy.
Bottom line: None of them are going to be a JFK. Which isn’t surprising, because even JFK wasn’t the JFK of space-advocate fantasies. We live in a democratic Republic, and we’re not going to do Apollo again, to Mars or anywhere else. The best we can hope for is a president who recognizes the value of high-leverage space technology needed to reduce costs, and will fund those things necessary to support it during his or her term.
The Martian And Real Mars Missions
I’m a little behind on my reading of The Space Review, but last week, Eric Sterner cautioned (as Keith Cowing has been doing repeatedly) space enthusiasts not to imagine that the movie will somehow sell NASA programs or budgets. Note the discussion about lack of redundancy in comments. Weir’s scenario assumes that NASA is going to do Apollo to Mars. The purpose of my Kickstarter project is to show why that shouldn’t and probably won’t ever happen. And there’s also this:
Do people who support NASA's fake #JourneyToMars realize how few astronaut opportunities it entails? https://t.co/n4mugagjsr
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) September 14, 2015
Hillary’s Email Gap
Nixon had eighteen minutes. Hillary has five months.
But I’m sure she discussed nothing in those five months except wedding planning and yoga classes.
[Update late morning]
Now-classified emails are sitting on Google and AOL servers.
It’s almost as though the federal government is massively incompetent.