The National Space Society has come out with a policy paper on it. I haven’t read it yet, but it should be a useful reference for those who continue to confuse it and the Space Corps/Force.
Category Archives: War Commentary
Venezuela
So God was Venezuelan. But the ruling class became corrupt, and wrecked the place. This was part of a disappointing global pattern, as many social democrats, many of whom had been active in the late Cold War fight against Communism, were corrupted, both in Latin America and Europe. The list of such leaders includes Nicaragua’s Carlos Andres Perez and European socialist anti-Communists such as Mario Soares (Portugal), Felipe Gonzalez (Spain), and Bettino Craxi (Italy), as well as Czech followers of Vaclav Havel.
Most of those countries have long since voted out the corrupt governments with which they were afflicted, but Venezuelans were not so fortunate. Not only was the economy ruined, but their rulers joined the ranks of a world-wide alliance aimed against the United States, Israel, and the West European democracies. Just look at the global lineup for and against Maduro today, and you can see it, just as General Mike Flynn and I wrote in our best-seller, The Field of Fight. Here is Maduro’s team: Cuba, Turkey, Russia, Iran, China, Nicaragua, and Hezbollah, Iran’s terror proxy. One will get you ten that North Korea is in there too.
That is the correct way to look at the turmoil in Venezuela. It isn’t just an internal affair; it’s part of a world war. You have surely noticed the reports of aircraft arriving in Caracas from Russia and other friendly countries. And you can bet that the Iranians and Russians are telling Maduro how to cope. You know what they’re saying: kill the ringleaders and arrest everyone else.
Yes, the war against communism never really ended with the fall of the wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. It just took on a new form. And now much (more) of the Democrat Party are on the other side.
[Saturday-morning update]
TSA
Long past time to privatize it. Same with ATC. It’s stupid to let the air industry be hostage to shenanigans in DC.
Venezuela
Who backs whom? If Cuba, Turkey, China, and Russia back something, I’m agin’ it.
You Don’t Say
Some Democrats are starting to think that Barack Obama was a lousy president. He shouldn’t have won either time, but (as usual) the Republicans ran lousy candidates.
Charles de Gaulle
…was a prophet on the EU and Brexit:
De Gaulle—the leader of the Free French resistance in World War II who went on to found the Fifth Republic under which France still lives today—understood the problem best. He thought Britain would never truly be at home in a European union. “England in effect is insular, she is maritime,” he said in his remarks blocking Britain’s entry into what was then called the Common Market in 1963. “She has in all her doings very marked and very original habits and traditions.” He added that “the nature, the structure, the very situation that are England’s differ profoundly from those of the continentals.”
Sadly, that’s not as much the case. One of the strongest drivers of Leave was to prevent further deterioration and Europeanization.
Should The FBI Run The Country?
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.”