If you want to provide input to the committee on human spaceflight, you can tweet it to them tomorrow.
Not sure that you can have a useful policy discussion in 140 characters…
Can This Web Site Be Saved?
So am I. As I noted last week on Twitter when the new launch date was announced, it’s based on when it has to be ready, from a political standpoint, not when it can be ready from a technical one. It’s not a case where you can get a baby in a month by putting nine women on the job. And in fact, it has a lot in common with October 1st in that regard.
[Update a while later]
Big-government project, big failure:
The 1960s space program, of course, is a classic example of big government doing something successfully: Promising to put men on the moon within a decade, and doing it. But there are others.
Not far from me is Norris Dam, the very first dam built by the Tennessee Valley Authority. It was filled in 1936, less than three years after the Tennessee Valley Authority Act passed Congress. Note that it was not less than three years after construction started, but less than three years after the act creating the agency that built it passed Congress. Norris Dam worked, and it’s still there today, more than 70 years later.
The Obamacare website — which took longer to create — doesn’t work, and certainly won’t be around in 70 years. And if you think about it, it seems like the moon landing was one of the last times the federal government delivered a big successful program ahead of schedule. I can’t think of many others since.
Unlike Norris Dam, the Olmsted Dam and Locks on the Ohio River were authorized by Congress in 1988, but a quarter-century later the project is only half-done. It has also overrun its budget by a factor of four.
Meanwhile, most of the interesting stuff being done in outer space is being done by private companies. (In fact, President Obama’s space policy approach, which emphasizes private enterprise, is one of his greatest policy successes.)
As it’s gotten bigger the federal government appears to have gotten less competent. Apollo was a success on its own terms, but the big government policies that followed — the War On Poverty, the War On Drugs, the War On Cancer — have all been pretty much failures, sometimes disastrous ones.
And that was when people running the government weren’t as glaringly incompetent as the current circus of clowns.
Falcon 9 Heavy
An ominous first flight, by a major SpaceX investor.
The Latest Front In The War On Women
Now the cruel patriarchy (if by “patriarchy,” you mean Emily Yoffe and Ruth Marcus) is suggesting that maybe getting plastered at college parties isn’t the greatest idea:
If two people rush into a lion’s den and one decided to wear a dress made out of thinly sliced prime rib, she’s probably the one who is going to get eaten. This isn’t blaming the girl… it’s teaching her not to be the one wearing the Lady Gaga meat dress. But apparently offering any sort of parental advice on risk avoidance and minimization is crossing a line for some people. Maybe it’s a tacit admission there are parents who fail to do a good enough job preparing their children for the world. Perhaps it’s viewed as depriving their young freshmen offspring their “rights” to go out for the “fun” of “having a few too many” which is a “right of passage.” (I actually saw that one in one of the comments. I couldn’t make that up if I tried.)
This is obviously even more outrageous than not forcing Catholic law schools to give their students free contraceptives.
Hoovering
The Racists At 60 Minutes
They’re reporting, a year later, that Fox News had the story right in the first place.
The Lions
That was a pretty amazing game today. The old Lions would have lost it, for sure.
Coder-In-Chief
Hey, I’ll bet Obama knows as much about coding as he does about governing.
Dream Chaser
Ouch:
…the Commercial Crew prospect – after enjoying a perfect flight in the air – suffered a mechanical failure during landing, resulting in her flipping over on the runway.
Hopefully it’s repairable.
[Update mid-afternoon]
Here’s the official statement from Sierra Nevada, trying to put the best face on things. And Alan Boyle is reporting that preliminary reports indicate that it will be fixable. “The pilot would have walked away.”
It’s interesting that they did the test on a Saturday. I wouldn’t have thought that Dryden employees would be thrilled about working weekends. Though maybe it’s a better day for getting airspace clearance. We used to do a lot of weekend flying with the T-39 for parabolic flight out of Mojave, because the Air Force was more flexible in terms of giving us a big box of air to work with.
Ozymandias
I met a traveler from a fallen land
Who said: A trashed and useless interface
Sits on a website. And linked on the page,
ne’er clicked,, a tattered image lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its artist well those passions read
Which yet survive, displayed on the useless screen,
The man that mocked us and the heart that bled:
And under the picture these words appear:
“My name is Barack Obama, President:
Look at my prices, ye insured, and despair!”
Nothing aside remains. From the decay
of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The sick and desperate souls stayed far away
As well they should.