Category Archives: Technology and Society

Business, Economics, Space, Technology and Society

Ariane 6

10 Comments

It’s been a dead rocket walking for many months, but with the new merger in Europe, it’s almost certainly in for a design change.

But they’re still betting that SpaceX won’t get reusability, which I think is a bad bet.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here’s more from ExtremeTech:

Curiously, despite Airbus and Safran announcing a partnership to develop a new line of launch vehicles, there’s no explicit mention that these launchers will be reusable. It’s also worth noting that Airbus/Arianespace is already fairly far down the path towards developing its next-gen Ariane 6 launcher, which will be smaller than Ariane 5 (and thus cheaper), but still eschewing any reusable elements. SpaceX has a sizable lead in the field of cheap, reusable space launch vehicles, and in the next few years we will hopefully see it drive that advantage home.

Yup. Looks to me like it’s still too much of a jobs program to be competitive.

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

SpaceX

3 Comments

A good article at CNBC about how it’s disrupting the entire space industry:

“It’s not just the launch vehicles themselves that are disruptive,” Jurvetson said. “It’s the known, low price of launch and the fact that it could go lower still. It’s motivating entrepreneurs on the satellite side. You have everything from start-ups to nonprofit organizations that are thinking and executing on plans for space. That was unthinkable just a few years ago.”

Yup. Gonna start a revolution.

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

The Augustine Panel

2 Comments

Five years later, what does it think about SLS?

The country, with NASA’s budget, simply can’t afford to build a large rocket that will fly infrequently and cost as much as $2-$3 billion a year to maintain, Greason said.

“It’s hard for me, I personally haven’t been able to find a scenario in which a government funded and operated launch system, for which the government is the only customer, is a rational approach given the current budgets.

“Is that because I’m against big rockets? Of course not. But maintaining rocket production lines is a very expensive proposition. Trying to open another production line for a rocket that has almost no customers is a difficult thing for me to explain. The one argument I have heard that, if it were true, I would buy, is that there are no other ways to explore. I would buy that, but I don’t think it’s true.”

It’s not true.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society

The IRS’s Latest Fairy Tale

101 Comments

Now they say they recycled the backup tapes.

Meanwhile, Cleta Mitchell has some serious questions. As she notes, the agency is in clear violation of several federal statutes.

And of course, we know what some Dems will say:

[Tuesday-morning update]

In an odd coincidence, the emails of other people involved in the “phony IRS scandal” have also disappeared.

Huh.

[Bumped]

[Update a while later]

“…the documents showed Lerner wanted to make an example out of someone with charges in order to chill all of the groups in the tea party movement.”

Sort of like this guy:

“It was kind of like how the Romans used to, you know, conquer villages in the Mediterranean,” he said. “They’d go in to a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw, and they’d crucify them.

“And then, you know, that town was really easy to manage for the next few years,” he said.

Because, you know, free Americans should be “easy to manage.”

[Afternoon update]

Gee, why would the IRS lose all of these peoples’ emails? All they were trying to do was trump up charges against innocent people and throw them in jail.

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

No Trampolines For The Astronauts

3 Comments

Citing my Reason piece, the Washington Times comes out against the rocket to nowhere.

[Update a while later]

Dick Shelby is a uniter, not a divider:

It’s rare to get the Obama Administration and the conservative editorial page of the Washington Times in agreement on something. Yet, both have spoken out in opposition to report language in the Senate’s Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) appropriations bill—due to be considered by the full Senate this week—regarding cost and pricing data for commercial crew and cargo providers.

Well, it’s not like he has any political principles other than what will get him reelected.

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

The Human Spaceflight Report

8 Comments

Dale Skran has a review, that mirrors a lot of my own concerns with it:

There is no discussion at all that the prospect for increased traffic to LEO for all purposes, including tourism, might lead to significantly lower costs; or that it may lead to reusable spacecraft with superior operational characteristics relative to existing vehicles or the SLS. This glaring absence seems remarkable given the stated goal of SpaceX to develop just such lower-cost, reusable craft, as well as their considerable progress in this direction. Of course, the efforts of SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, XCOR Aerospace, and others to greatly reduce launch costs may all fail. However, the NRC report is based on the unstated assumption that over the entire period considered, all the way out to 2054, there will be essentially no progress in rocketry other than that funded by NASA exploration programs, and that for the entire period the SLS as currently envisioned will remain the preferred method for Americans to reach space. It is difficult to imagine a more unlikely foundation for the planning of future space efforts than this.

It is extremely myopic, and therefore of little value, but it was probably doomed to be so by its charter.