Category Archives: Technology and Society

Business, Space, Technology and Society

Elon’s Announcement

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He’s going to say something about SpaceX at the National Press Club at 1 PM. Before I heard the venue, I was speculating on Twitter that it was about recovering the stage, but I don’t think he’d do that at the Press Club. Must be something big. Taking the company public? I thought he’d decided that he couldn’t risk losing control. Commenters are welcome to speculate here.

[Update during presser]

So far just announcing success of soft landing on the ocean. As I guessed last week, it was subsequently destroyed by the waves. Saying that it’s a very positive development for reusability. Next time he’ll get a bigger boat. In principle should be able to refly the same day.

[Update after the presser]

OK, the purpose of the press conference was to announce that SpaceX is filing suit to force the Air Force to compete the block buy for EELV that they just issued to ULA late last year. SpaceX didn’t find out about the contract until the day after last month’s hearing on the Hill. It will be interesting to hear what General Shelton has to say.

[Update a while later]

Oh, the other news: they are definitely planning to fly out of Brownsville, within a couple years. Bad news for Shiloh fans, I guess.

[Update a while later]

In response to the question in comments, yes they could probably launch in Texas and land in Florida with a good performance advantage, though it would slow down turnaround. But it just occurs to me that if they do that, they could probably just refuel there and self-ferry back, if the FAA lets them.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Technology and Society

California’s Bullet-Train Boondoggle

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…continues to collapse:

A lawyer familiar with the case mocked this argument as amounting to, “Damn the legal niceties, this mean judge is getting in our way.” – See more at: http://calwatchdog.com/2014/04/22/gov-browns-legal-strategy-to-prop-up-bullet-train-faltering/#sthash.Na3IFURm.dpuf

This is a problem that won’t be solved until California gets an intelligent electorate.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

The Pacific Salmon Are Back

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…and of course, the environmentalists hate it:

The point deserves emphasis. The advent of higher carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere has been a great boon for the terrestrial biosphere, accelerating the rate of growth of both wild and domestic plants and thereby expanding the food base supporting humans and land animals of every type. Ignoring this, the carbophobes point to the ocean instead, saying that increased levels of carbon dioxide not exploited by biology could lead to acidification. By making the currently barren oceans fertile, however, mariculture would transform this putative problem into an extraordinary opportunity.

Which is precisely why those demanding restraints on carbon emissions and restrictions on fisheries hate mariculture. They hate it for the same reason those demanding constraints in the name of allegedly limited energy resources hate nuclear power. They hate it because it solves a problem they need unsolved.

I hope this means a lot of cheap fresh wild salmon in the stores this summer.

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

Base Camps

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Derek Webber writes that in order to advance into the solar system NASA needs to take some lessons from Everest climbers.

Not to mention be willing to lose folks occasionally.

[Update a few minutes later]

Jeff Foust notes that there seems to be an emerging consensus that Mars is the goal, though none on how to do it.

Meanwhile, John Strickland says we need an integrated approach, with robots and humans. to get to Mars. He seems to be focusing on Mars surface water, though. I think we need to trade that with manufacturing propellants at Phobos or Deimos.

My take, as always, is that destinations are less important than capabilities. Put an off-planet space-transportation infrastructure in place, and the entire solar system (including Europa and Enceladus) is opened up to us. But Congress would rather build big rockets.