Category Archives: Technology and Society

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

How Did Japan’s Bullet Trains Fare?

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Not all of them so well:

Clearly, some of the country’s slower commuter trains were caught in the tsunami. There are reports, again unconfirmed, that up to four of these trains were involved. Wading through photos on the Internet, I found at least three discrete shots of derailed trains, although it is possible the passengers survived.

If indeed a bullet train was lost, it will likely be the working of the law of unintended consequences. For the most part, bullet trains north of Tokyo run inland, so these were probably out of the tsunami’s range (see this map). However, there’s a small loop seaward to Sendai, among the hardest hit areas of the island. This is pure speculation here, but given the timing of the shock wave and the following tsunami, it is possible that safety systems stranded one or more trains in the path of the killer wave. Commuter trains follow a much longer stretch of coastline, and would have been particularly vulnerable.

…liberal planners just might want to reexamine their ideological yearnings for high-speed rail, namely their conviction that it is somehow “better” for people to live in concentrated urban clumps, connected by public transit, than in diffuse, sprawling suburbs. Densely populated Japan must rely on rails to get people to and from work. When centralized systems like these fail, they fail across the board and, as appears likely in Japan, will be out of commission for a long time; aside from the track damage, electrical shortages due to nuclear-plant shutdowns are forcing service reductions. Suburbs and cars, on the other hand, are distributed systems, with inherently redundant roads and vehicles that are more resistant to natural disaster. Rescue workers aren’t taking the train to succor tsunami victims, they’re driving.

This makes a lot more sense than rethinking nuclear power.

Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

AWOL

23 Comments

Where is Steven Chu?

Americans expect leadership from their leaders. Chu has the track record to provide it in this case, yet he is failing to do so. If he is being hamstrung by special-interest pressure within the administration, one would expect that to be a resigning matter. I fear it is more likely that he has succumbed to pressure from his erstwhile allies, the greens, and is simply displaying a lack of backbone.

Yet he should consider what this means for his own plans. The administration’s energy plan, based on the EPA’s draconian regulations against greenhouse gas emitters, depends on a hundred new nuclear power plants being built. The administration knows that that powering America by wind and solar energy is as likely as extracting sunlight from cucumbers, which is why nuclear figures so heavily in the plan. If that option is now off the table — and the Left has been so successful in its opportunistic framing of this issue that it might well be — then there is a massive gap in the plan that can only be filled by coal or natural gas. Secretary Chu will be forced to argue that, if there is a nuclear ban, then the EPA’s beloved greenhouse-gas regulations will also have to be taken off the table. This is a circle that simply cannot be squared.

But then, leftists generally have no problem with unsquarable circles.

[Update a few minutes later]

Since he’s not up to the job, here’s a simple explanation of Fukushima.

Space, Technology and Society

Bobby Braun

3 Comments

He’s NASA’s chief technologist. Very excited about the topic of this conference, and NASA wants to be a part of it and facilitate its success. His job is to reinvigorate a technology program at the agency. He wants to enable our future in space, and believes that technological leadership is the “space race” of the 21st century. Wants to support disruptive technologies that industry can’t. One of the reasons to have a federal government is to take those kinds of risks, and keep the nation at the cutting edge.

Space Technology is a budget line in the budget request (both 2011 and 20112). Includes partnership programs, cross-cutting technologies and exploration technologies. 2012 request is about a billion dollars. Formed three divisions: early-stage innovation, game-changing technology and cross-cutting capability demos. Includes CRuSR program for suborbital. Program acts as a “funnel,” taking broad range of ideas from industry/academia/government, filtering them to see if they will work, then filtering further to see if they’re ready to fly as demos. SBIR/STTR, space technology grants, Centennial Challenges and NIAC in early-stage division. Game changers focus on dramatic new high-risk approaches that can improve performance, decrease cost or create whole new capabilities. Part of it is a home for smallsat technologies. Cross-cutting demos is a processing of maturing technologies to flight readiness (TRL 7) includes flight opportunities on FAST programs and CRuSR, which were merged for management reasons.

Have already made awards to Masten and Armadillo for “engineering payloads” to characterize the environment for operational payloads. Goal is to continue to competitively procure development suborbital flights, with focus on payloads that reduce risk for technology infusion in future missions. Will expand to other platforms and test environments in 2013. There is an open call for payload opportunities that was released in December, though there are no funds yet for 2011. A number of Space Act agreements have been signed.

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

Jeff Greason

6 Comments

US government space efforts in difficulty if not crisis. Could be talking about almost anything in space — reconnaissance satellites, human spaceflight BEO. Long-time problem, growing in severity, and it’s a crisis because legacy systems being called on to do things that they were never designed to do in terms of lifetime, but every time we try to replace, go over budget or get cancelled or reduced in scope, so that they never serve as replacement for what we used to have. When you find time and again that goals exceed resources, you can either downscope goals, get more resources, or change the game. Human spaceflight is not a luxury — need a frontier, need a place to maintain dynamism, and find elbow room. DoD is definitely not a luxury when it comes to recon, but all replacements are not working. Scaling back goals is not an option. Financial crisis is now upon us. Non-defense discretionary is going to stay flat at best and probably go down. If NASA is going to even maintain flat budgets it will have to show more for the money (need more Buck Rogers for the bucks in order to get the bucks). Technology isn’t “ten times better this or stronger that”). It’s just a fancy word for knowing how to do something. One of the root causes of our current problems was the submergence of the NACA, and then Apollo, when NASA started to focus on technologies for its own needs rather than those of industry. ITAR has been another problem crippling our industry, and one of the more pernicious effects has been to starve the industry of funding for its own research. This conference is a small part of the problem, but it will play a key role in solving it. Suborbital vehicles will add a lot of technologies. Learned from Augustine that the addition of just a few key technologies can enable NASA to do a lot more with a lot less. Many of those technologies can be demonstrated suborbitally. Won’t get all the way where you need to be for human exploration, but can provide a critical foundation, and the more we can have had experiments on suborbitally, the more that the expensive orbital tests will be successful. Examples: cryo quick-disconnects, propellant acquisition and gauging in weightlessness, crucial for orbital propellant storage and transfer. Real pieces of hardware are sitting in real labs sitting at as far a level of maturity as there can be sitting in a lab, gathering dust, waiting for flights to mature in the environment. Frightening overruns in military satellites arise from untried tech in the satellite, but no ongoing efforts to mature those technologies in non-critical systems, and many of them can be tested suborbitally. ISS also provides excellent testbed (as will Bigelow) for longer-duration technology tests.

Pure science also important, but in doing science, they also push technology. At low flight rates, expendable launch systems are most cost effective, but as rate goes up, we want reusability. Shuttle demonstrated that a vehicles that requires so much effort to turn around have no advantage over and expendable. Suborbital flight is the “school” where we will learn how to do orbital reusable right. Most of those lessons will drive the recovery of a reusable upper stage. We have to return to the kind of environment we had between the Wright brothers and WW II, but it’s hard because of the government domination over the past half century. Have to develop environment in which many approaches are tried at hight rates. Science missions are a significant market segment for suborbital, and government is most substantial funding sources for science, so government policy is important. CRuSR important, but execution has been slowed with management changes and direction changes, and lack of current budget doesn’t help. Don’t expect to see the government become the lion’s share of an market segment, but it’s needed as an initial anchor to help overcome “wait and see” attitude from other customers. Availability of of government funds critical to prime the pump through transitional period. That’s the great value of government funding. Initial payloads can fly at considerable risk, and there should be no additional hurdles for this, and modest investments needed to encourage this industry could be the most important money spends in this decades in terms of technology payoff that allows us to open up the solar system.

Business, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

George Nield

Talking about managing risks of suborbital spaceflight.

Offers a lot of comparisons of perception of risky activities —

A lot of people have been saying that after Shuttle retirement NASA astronauts shouldn’t be flying on commercial vehicles until they have been established to be “safe.” But spaceflight is inherently a risky business. Shuttle has a fatal history of one in sixty-six flights. Commercial airliners ten thousand times safer (on the order of one in a million). Doesn’t mean that NASA isn’t doing a good job, but we can’t think that only NASA can do it well, and to say that commercial can’t operate safely is not only unfair but “flat-out wrong.” We have to work with industry to come up with better designs and approaches to getting to space. As with aviation, the only way to get safer, cost-effective space vehicles is to build a lot of them and fly the heck out of them. It’s been fifty years since the first human spaceflight, and what do we have to show? A lot of spectacular achievements, but a pretty pathetic record when it comes to diverse cost-effective spaceflight. Only half a dozen vehicle types and only 500 people. Compare to the first fifty years of aviation — hundreds of companies and thousands of flights, allowing us to learn what worked and what didn’t, what was important and what was not, and we created a save affordable transportation industry. Government has played important role in pushing state of the art, and establishing regulatory framework, but government didn’t specify designs or operate airlines in the early years. That’s why he’s excited about Commercial Crew. For first time NASA will be enabling industry to get people into LEO instead of just doing it itself, with competition, and a variety of spacecraft to get our astronauts to orbit. No more single string, not more sitting on the ground after an accident. The last thing we need after the next accident (and there will be one) is another presidential commission and congressional hearings. Just get the NTSB involved.

So he’s excited about orbital, but in the near term even more about suborbital. In 2010 there were very few orbital missions in the US, but by 2012, he expects to see hundreds of suborbital flights, with a high pace of learning and incremental improvement. And many of them will be applicable to the next generation of orbital vehicles.

FAA-AST has established a Center of Excellence for commercial space transportation, using New Mexico State as the administrative, but also including Stanford, Colorado, Florida Tech and others. Last year was the first year to give out spaceport grants. FAA gives out $3B per year in airport improvements, but now we’re doing the same thing for spaceports. Only $500K to start, used for Kodiak, Mojave, Spaceport America and Cecil Field (Jacksonville). Also getting $5M for an “access to space” prize in the 2012 budget request. Finally, there is a new FAA technical spaceflight center. Office needs additional help with ramp up of suborbital, so they’ve proposed it to be inside the gate at KSC, to allow the nation to continue to benefit from many of the skilled workers that will be seeking employment over the next few months as Shuttle winds down. Spaceflight safety, engineering, range operations and space traffic management. Will support about fifty people initially. Tremendous value to having FAA personnel co-located with operators rather than in an office inside the Beltway. Excited about writing a new chapter with suborbital space travel.