Category Archives: War Commentary
Disagreeing With DC Conventional Wisdom
…isn’t a crime, let alone an impeachable offense. It is time to rethink NATO, perhaps past time.
NATO and the EU have been free riding for a long time. It was an organization for a different era and power structure. Putin’s Russia doesn’t have the resources to conquer Europe, especially if they start getting serious about their own defense.
[Sunday-afternoon update]
Yes. Europe was never a true partner in its own defense. They had a (brief) excuse in the midst of the Marshall Plan, but we’ve been indulging them in their own socialism and unwillingness to spend on their own defense for the decades since recovery. Time to rethink it.
And for those who think that Trump is Putin’s “stooge,” did Putin order him to insist that Europeans spend more on their own defense and live up to their NATO obligations?
[Bumped]
Missile Defense And Launch Costs
I did a thread on Twitter this morning.
It's worth noting that one of the reasons we never got space-based missile defense was that it was only recently that we've finally gotten launch costs down sufficiently to make it financially feasible, due to an almost demented policy failure for the past three decades. [1/n] https://t.co/ouaaIS9eUk
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) January 18, 2019
The first serious proposal for space-based missile defense was Lowell Wood's concept of "Brilliant Pebbles": Kinetic interceptors in orbit. But in order to implement it, launch costs had to be reduced far below those of the Shuttle and conventional USAF expendables.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) January 18, 2019
The purpose of the DARPA DC-X program was to demonstrate the potential for reusable Single-Stage-To-Orbit, which many viewed as a requirement for low launch cost (SpaceX has since proven this to be mistaken).
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) January 18, 2019
DC-X did demonstrate vertical take-off and landing of single vehicle in an atmosphere (the Apollo LEM was two stage in a vacuum). It also demonstrated relatively rapid turnaround of a LOX/LH2 propulsion system. But then NASA took it over.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) January 18, 2019
On one of the test flights of the NASA-modified vehicle, someone left a pneumatic hose off one of the legs, and it crashed and burned at White Sands, ending the program.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) January 18, 2019
Another thing that the DC-X program demonstrated before its demise was that traditional cost models for new concepts were utter crap. SpaceX has since validated that. NAFCON cost model has been shown to be worse than worthless for non-traditional activities.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) January 18, 2019
One of the biggest launch-policy errors of the 90s was to confine the military to expendables, and assign reusable space transports to NASA. It was nothing short of disastrous, setting us back over a decade.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) January 18, 2019
After the X-33 debacle, which no one saw coming except anyone who understood how to do X programs, the idiotic lesson (fallacy of hasty generalization) drawn from it by NASA was that reusable launch systems weren't practical. Tell it to SpaceX.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) January 18, 2019
X-33 should never have been awarded to Lockmart (their proposal wasn't compliant, in that the business plan was nonsense, but no one at MSFC would recognize a business plan if it kicked them in the ass). Also, should never have been a single award.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) January 18, 2019
A key rule of X programs is that a vehicle only tests one new technology, on a platform that is otherwise well understood. VentureStar was testing single-stage to Montana, with a linear aerospike engine, and a conformal composite hydrogen tank. Huge and obvious tech risk.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) January 18, 2019
X-33 was an example of NASA's Wile E. Coyote approach to technology development: Try some crazy thing, then when it doesn't work, don't try to figure out why and improve it, just assume it can't be done and go on to the next crazy thing.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) January 18, 2019
And so we entered the 21st century with no one, neither USAF or NASA, even attempting to get launch costs down. Former was focused on mission assurance of expendable EELVs, and latter had devolved into a jobs program for giant expendable rockets.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) January 18, 2019
But now, having done that, it's useful to go back and re-examine concepts for space-based missile defense that were financially infeasible with traditional launch costs of many thousands of dollars per pound. Cubesats are also a game changer.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) January 18, 2019
[Update a couple minutes later]
Trump’s missile-defense strategy.
As I noted above, if the space segment is now feasible, it’s despite, not because of government launch policy for the past three decades (except possibly for COTS).
Toxic Anti-Masculinity
Thoughts on the need for both masculinity and femininity from a (female) psychotherapist.
And Kurt Schlichter writes that we need to retoxify it.
[Update a while later]
Heh. Least masculine society in human history is concerned about “toxic masculinity.”
And this will be fun: Harvard could be sued under Title IX for calling traditional masculinity “harmful.”
Glenn Miller’s Plane
One of the mysteries of the war may be about to be solved. It still wouldn’t explain what caused it to go down, though.
The FBI And Its Media Accomplices
Are the walls closing in? I hope so, but I’ve been disappointed before.
[Update a couple minutes later]
More from Debra Heine:
Most people, except a few paid trolls and Democrats with political axes to grind, have figured out there is no “there” there. Mueller is reportedly preparing to show his hand, and it’s almost certain to be “anti-climatic,” sources close to the investigation say.
It’s all over but the crying.
And liberal tears will indeed flow if Mueller’s final report comes out and it contains no bombshells and is unable to prove that President Trump colluded, conspired, schemed, or plotted with the Russians to win the 2016 election. It’s also unlikely that he’ll be accused of obstruction for firing Comey, an absurdly weak pretext for an investigation if ever there was one…
…Meanwhile, the inspector general’s investigation looking into the deep state’s surveillance abuse before the election continues apace, and a secret grand jury has been investigating former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe for months. The OIG revealed last month that it was unable to recover a number of vital Strzok/Page text messages from the special counsel’s office because Mueller’s records officer had scrubbed them. That almost looked like a warning shot from the OIG to the special counsel.
Again, let’s hope.
Trump’s Base
Mike Griffin
For Secretary of Defense?
I agree that we need someone who understands the technology threat at the helm of the Pentagon. But I wonder how familiar Goldman is with Griffin’s actual record when I read “praise” like this:
The overriding strategic risk to the United States is the loss of our technological edge, and the Defense Department needs a leader with the vision and expertise to restore it. Michael Griffin would be an excellent choice. A first-rate physicist, Dr. Griffin headed NASA under the Bush 41 administration.
First, Mike knows physics, but I wouldn’t call him a “physicist.” He’s first and foremost an aerospace engineer (not that there’s anything wrong with that). The problem is that, during his tenure at NASA, he devastated the space R&D budgets and promoted Constellation, an attempt not to develop needed new technology, but to repeat Apollo (except this time “on steroids”) with decades-old technology based on Saturn and the Space Shuttle.
At the time he left the agency (unwillingly) in 2009, all that was being developed to get back to the moon was a rocket designed to carry a capsule into low earth orbit, with no serious plans for things like a lunar lander, and those items were far over budget, and slipping more than a year per year (one of the reasons that, almost a decade later, we remain dependent on the Russians for access to our own space station). Even if they’d succeeded, the planned flight rate would be very low, at ridiculously high cost.
Now, in theory, he could argue that he is now older and wiser, and learned his lesson from that, but that’s negated by the fact that he continues to support their successors, the SLS and Orion. So, if we need someone to restore our technological edge, it’s hard to make the case that he’s the right guy for the job.
[Update a while later]
OK, if Mike Griffin were SecDef, just what would he do, going on past performance? Would he propose a giant expendable combat aircraft, based on parts from F-15s and F-16s, that would fly once a year, and each service could take a turn?
They Shall Not Grow Old
This looks like an amazing documentary.
My paternal grandfather immigrated to New York from Poland, and was almost immediately drafted and sent back to Europe to fight in the American trenches. I never learned any details.
Carter Page
Ten pieces of evidence he’s the most diabolical Russian spy evar:
As of now, Carter Page hasn’t been charged with so much as lying to the FBI or filing a faulty tax return, let alone Russian spying. He endured the most intrusive, intimidating methods the government has at its disposal. He was the subject of media leaks. His reputation was destroyed. If he’s never charged with being a Russian spy, he’s either that slippery … or it would suggest that the top intelligence officials who targeted him were either incompetent or corrupt. It would seem to border on criminal.
I don’t think it “borders” on criminal.
[Update a few minutes later]
The results of the second interview of the corrupt James Comey. I’ve never seen such a disgusting display of arrogant sanctimony. And no, “Republicans” did not pay for the dossier. They initially hired Fusion GPS, but it was the Clinton campaign who paid for the dossier itself. I wonder if Comey really doesn’t know that?
[Noon update]
More thoughts from Neo-Neocon:
Here Comey is repeating MSM and Democratic talking points about Fusion which have been shown to be untrue. Republicans had zero to do with the funding of the dossier, as Comey either knows or should know if he’s at all competent. What he probably does know, however, is that Republican involvement is the fiction the MSM was pushing and that many many Americans probably believe that to be the case, so Comey’s answer will appear to make some sense to those people even though it is based on a falsity.
Comey’s lack of specific interest in who funded the dossier (if he really didn’t know and didn’t ask, which may or may not be the case) would have come from his need to get that investigation going and to use the dossier to jumpstart it no matter what. Why question its provenance if you’re already dedicated to using it despite the fact that Trump’s enemies paid for it, which should have made it highly suspect as a source?
Of course, it turns out that Trump’s oppponent’s campaign funded it, which if anything would make it even more suspect than if other Trump enemies had funded it. But to Comey, all of that was irrelevant (or at least he’d like us to think it was irrelevant). In his previous career, had he really lacked curiosity to that degree? I doubt it very much. But he’s a clever enough lawyer to use it as an excuse now. He’d prefer that we think him a fool rather than a knave, if he has the choice of shaping our opinion.
I say “knave.” The man is no fool, not by a longshot.
Knave indeed.