Category Archives: Technology and Society

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Why Haven’t We Built Cities In Space?

10 Comments

There’s a long piece over at Gizmodo, mostly about the NRC report. Sadly, the reporter didn’t seem to talk to anyone except Ariel Waldman:

The US has a plan for Americans to live in space. In 2012, the National Research Council was commissioned by Congress to roadmap the future of human space exploration. Last June, the team published its findings in a massive report, which called for several action steps to be taken immediately.

No, actually, the NRC report was not really a plan. It was a set of fairly vague and broad recommendations. There is no plan.

Statistically, China’s space program is a few decades behind the US, but consider these facts: Just in the last two years the country has sent ten people into space.

Really? No, not really. In the last two years, China has sent three people into space. Go back three years, and they’ve sent six.

The agency is currently working on a mission to Mars and a proposal for its own space station, which is planned for sometime in the 2020s. Soon, China will undoubtably surpass the US in its efforts for space colonization.

That’s ridiculous. China is using legacy Soviet-type hardware. No one is going to colonize space that way.

Thanks to a 2011 Congressional act that bars the US from collaborating with China’s space program, NASA is not allowed to work directly with the most quickly accelerating efforts to get humans into space. Thanks to a 2011 Congressional act that bars the US from collaborating with China’s space program, NASA is not allowed to work directly with the most quickly accelerating efforts to get humans into space. This is a huge problem. “There are only two places that are going into space,” says Waldman, referring to current crewed missions by Russia and China. “We’re not one of them, and we’re not in collaboration with the other one of them.”

This is delusional. China is not the place with the “most quickly accelerating efforts to get humans into space.” That is happening in Hawthorne and Mojave, California, and Seattle. We do not need to work with China or Russia to get into space, and we are not in a race with them.

So much of what seems to motivate any space exploration is the concept of flag planting, which the US pretty much invented: I HEREBY CLAIM THIS MOON FOR AMERICA. Take away these imperialistic aspirations and the goals of human spaceflight become unmeshed with these ideas of nation-building—and a lot more pragmatic.

Ummmmmm…no. We did not CLAIM THIS MOON FOR AMERICA. We “came in peace for all mankind.”

Anyway, you get the idea.

Space, Technology and Society

Mission To Mars Orbit

2 Comments

The FISO presentation from May has been released. I’ll definitely use this in the project, to show how it could be improved by dumping SLS/Orion.

[Update a while later]

OK, I’ve glanced through it. There isn’t much in the way of numbers (Isp, mass, etc.) to make it easy to come up with alternatives. I will note that they are looking at 17 or eighteen SLS flights over a two-decade period, or about once a year. That probably implies a couple billion per flight, ignoring all the money we’re currently wasting on development.

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

The Country’s In The Very Best Of Hands

13 Comments

OPM outsourced root to China.

Well, then I guess they do have a point that encryption wouldn’t have been very useful

Seriously, I think it’s time to completely overhaul the civil service system. We just had a cyber Pearl Harbor. Will anyone be punished? We know the answer to that one.

[Thursday-morning update]

The military-clearance OPM breach is an absolute calamity. And Obama can’t even bring himself to admit that the federal government screwed up.

Business, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society, War Commentary

John McCain

8 Comments

In which he is an idiot (sorry, behind a paywall):

The head of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) on Tuesday downplayed the potential national security significance of NASA
continuing payments to Russia to get astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS).

“I have a much bigger problem with the Russian rocket engine,” Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) told reporters at the Capitol. “I don’t see what the impact is, financially, of the Russian riding as compared with $300 million worth of rocket engines. There’s no comparison.”

But this is what I found interesting:

McCain’s counterpart in the House, Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), told reporters Tuesday that U.S. dependence on Russia for space-related items is a national security issue. But Thornberry also said the challenge with paying for Russian rides to ISS is much like the RD-180 scenario: one faced with limited options.

“It ought to be a lesson for all of us about letting key capability atrophy and becoming dependent upon somebody else whose reliability can be called into question,” Thornberry said. “That doesn’t mean you snap your fingers and solve it any more than you snap your fingers and solve the Russian engine issue.”

Actually, we could. All we have to do is be more accepting of astronaut risk.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The Kickstarter

16 Comments

There’s only about seven hours to go, and we’re still two thousand dollars shy of the goal. That’s about the same amount of money that NASA spends on SLS in three seconds. Between now and when the window closes, they will have wasted about one and a half million bucks.

I’d say, at this point, given the current trickle, that either we’re not going to get there, or it will come in close to the end, as people are perhaps holding back to see if it will make it without them.

[Update a couple hours before it closes]

OK, doing pretty well. We just need a little over $600 now before 5:30 Pacific. SLS spends that much every second. Thanks for all the new donors, and the upgrades.

[Update about 3:40 PM PDT]

We did it! Over $12,400, and still an hour and a half to go, for those who still want to support the stretch goal of a video, and get the reward. Thanks to everyone who made it happen. Suck it, Shelby.

Business, Culinary, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Federal Dietary Guidelines

…are based on “pseudoscience.”

I think that’s being kind. They’re based on junk science. And they’re deadly:

The confluence of self-interest, institutional inertia, and scientific incompetence has led us to where we are today. The federal government has massively increased spending on nutrition and obesity research over the past few decades, and now spends over $2 billion of taxpayer’s money per year. Unfortunately, the people that control that funding are the same researchers that use these anecdotal methods, train the next generation of researchers, and control the publication of scientific papers. As such, new methods and innovative research is stifled. The same researchers are getting funded to do the same research year after year after year. This inertia and self-interest are exacerbated by the exorbitant amount of grant funding established researchers receive. As with many things in life, follow the money.

Say, isn’t there another field of science with profound public-policy implications that operates under the same incentives and pressures?

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

Arguing About Destinations

9 Comments

…is getting us nowhere.

Yes, it’s pointless and distracting. We need to be developing capabilities to go wherever we want. But there’s not enough graft in that.

I should note that while my Kickstarter is about clearing the roadblock to Mars, it’s really about clearing the roadblock to everywhere, which is the false perception that we cannot go beyond earth orbit unless NASA builds a giant rocket. It’s all part of ending the old Apollo cargo cult.