In case anyone wondered why I haven’t commented (much) over there previously, and am probably not going to in the future, this thread is canonical. I can take the abuse, but that’s an hour or two of my life I won’t get back.
[Friday morning update]
Well, apparently I don’t have to worry about spending any more time over there — I seem to have been banned. I tried to respond to Jim’s latest nonsense, which was:
A orbital crewed rocket operating from US territory will have to meet all of NASA’s commercial crew guidelines or it won’t be allowed to launch. If SpaceX wants to launch from some other site, it can’t be stopped. It also will see its funding vaporize.
Also, don’t forget that, were there an accident on a non-NASA commercial crew rated launch, the launcher will be facing far more than civil fines, as will its leadership.
…and the comment didn’t show up. Fortunately, it wasn’t very long.
My response was something along the lines of “Jim, with all respect, you don’t know what you’re talking about. NASA has no authority to prevent a launch if it doesn’t affect NASA, and it has no “commercial guidelines.” Only the FAA determines whether or not a company gets a launch license, crewed or otherwise.”
This kind of ongoing and apparently irremediable ignorance is why I can’t take anything that Hillhouse writes seriously. He’s a perfect example of the old dictum about the problem not being what people don’t know, but what they know for damn sure, that is wrong.
[Mid-morning update]
Heh. Someone calling himself “Wolfgang Pauli” commented in response to Hillhouse’s nonsense: “Not even wrong.”
I doubt that either Jason or Jim will get the joke, though.