Asking the important questions: whence the arrival of the phrase?
Short answer — blame Frank J.
Old Blighty
Maybe it’s not yet time to consign England to the dustbin of history. I hope that UKIP takes advantage of this — the Tory squishes probably won’t.
What We Need To Get To Mars
Over at Wired, Adam Mann has a piece on the technical requirements. I’d take issue with this:
NASA estimates it would need to fire at least seven of its new SLS rockets to deliver to orbit the people, supplies, and ships necessary for a Mars mission. While no cakewalk, that’s a great deal easier, faster, and cheaper than what we could do today.
There is no evidence to substantiate this statement, and a great deal of counterevidence, from NASA’s own internal studies.
The Climate Campaign
How it plans to get its groove back:
Look for this to be the headline of the next IPCC report, due out in September. The report will walk back previous estimates of climate sensitivity, but will affirm that we’re still doomed unless we go ahead with the previous program of handing over power to bureaucrats to control our energy supply. You read it here on Power Line first.
The interesting part will be to see whether climate orthodoxy proposes a new, and theoretically more plausible, GHG emissions reduction target and timetable, like a 50 percent cut by the year 2060. I doubt it. Hatred of “fossil fuels” is the categorical imperative of modern environmentalism, and it long predates the arrival of global warming as an issue. The original complaint was that that hydrocarbons produced too much conventional air pollution, but once we solved that problem global warming became the fallback position. Nothing will deter environmentalists from this wisp—certainly not facts or progress. I’m betting they’ll stick with the previous 80 by 50 target. But if they come in with a different one, I’ll do the math to figure out what year in the past it will take the U.S. back to: I’ll bet it will still be something like 1925. Stay tuned.
It was never about science. It was always about control, and political power.
Elon’s “Hyperloop”
Is this what he’s proposing?
A US Lunar Colony?
New legislation is being introduced in the House:
The Reasserting American Leadership in Space Act (H.R. 1446), introduced by Rep. Bill Posey (R-Florida), would direct NASA to come up with a plan to return to the Moon and “develop a sustained human presence” there by 2022.
…But Houston, we may have a problem passing the Reasserting American Leadership in Space Act, considering that in September 2009, President Obama’s blue ribbon Human Space Flight Review Committee concluded that any plans on the part of NASA for future human exploration of space beyond low-Earth orbit would be “perpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources.” In other words, further exploration of the Moon would require money that NASA just does not have and is unlikely to get from Congress.
That’s not the problem. NASA has plenty of money to establish a lunar base. What they don’t have is the discretion to spend it intelligently toward that goal, instead being forced by the same people proposing this bill to waste billions on a launch vehicle it doesn’t need to do so. Someone needs to tell them that, if NASA won’t.
For Mad Men Junkies Only
Is Megan Draper Sharon Tate?
Midland, Texas
It ain’t pretty, but it works:
Among the non-energy businesses setting up shop in Midland, the city is particularly proud of XCOR, a private aerospace firm specializing in suborbital flight and rocket-engine development. Both its headquarters and its R&D facilities are relocating from their original location in Mojave, Calif. In addition to the obvious economic benefits, the move will confer a unique distinction on the city: Midland International will be the only facility in the United States that is both a commercial airport and a designated spaceport.
Spacecraft and oil rigs might seem to be miles apart, but in truth the two high-tech industries have a great deal in common: a constant need for engineers, technicians, and scientists, a focus on materials development (XCOR has a line in developing non-flammable plastics), and shared environmental concerns.
They don’t have their spaceport license yet, but when they do, they’ll be the first dual-use facility, from a commercial standpoint.
Real Health Care Reform
What it looks like. Health insurance is not health care, and vice versa.
[Update a few minutes later]
And contrary to earlier reports, California insurance rates are set to skyrocket next year.
It will be quite amusing if Democrats are running scared enough a year from now that they repeal the legislative atrocity with a veto-proof margin.
Bill Gates Attacks
Dambisa Moyo responds.