Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Hating The Bullies

Some thoughts from Jeremy Boreing, on the anniversary of Andrew Breitbart’s death. Hard to believe it’s been a year.

[Update late evening]

Iowahawk remembers Andrew as well:

Despite the differences in our extroversion (the mere idea of appearing on camera sends me diving under the furniture) I considered him a kindred spirit – another guy who loved his wife and kids, happy despite being sick of the bullshit. Although I can’t claim to have known him as well as others here at Breitbart, I cherished him a friend whose passing is still personally painful.

With all the tributes and venom being churned out today it’s obvious he still looms large in the political conversation, and it’s hard to think of another figure in media or activism who would be a trending topic a year after their death. I think the reason why is that he represented a new kind of cultural/social conservative. Maybe not in the conventional sense (it’s still fun to freak my liberal friends by noting Andrew’s status as a pro-gay marriage, pro-pot decriminalization Jewish activist for women and minorities who loved of 80s New Wave), but on the value of honesty. I’ve heard him referred to as a “reactionary.” I suppose he as a reactionary – in the literal sense – against an increasingly contrived, vapid, narrative-driven news culture, one that attacks and marginalizes any non-conforming message. He studied the bullies’ playbook, called them out, and bloodied their noses. Hard as it may be for these bloody-nosed bullies to believe, it had nothing to do with their ‘liberal’ politics. If there was a parallel universe with a dominant right wing media culture as dishonest and conformist and thuggish as the left wing one here, Andrew would’ve been more than happy to rocket there and punch them in the mouth, too. If that’s what a reactionary is, then sign me up for the t-shirt.

Me too.

Humor, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Satire

A Dispatch From Sequesteria

5 Comments

It’s a report chock full of grue:

Some of us from NRO were assigned to a cluster of hovels and lean-tos that has come to be called Ezra’s Alley. Others of us are acres away, on a strip they call Boehner’s Run. Still others are unaccounted for.

There is word of potable water and even some fuel on the other side of the river. But all of the crossings are controlled by the warlords of Alexandria and their confederates. From the tales told of their depravity, you’d rather drown than be taken alive.

Oh, the humanity.

Business, Space

“All Systems Are Go For Launch”

34 Comments

Things are looking good at the Cape a couple minutes before launch of the Falcon 9.

[Update a couple minutes later]

A couple minutes into the flight, and everything is looking nominal, about to MECO.

OK, stage sep, ignition confirmed for second stage. Another six minutes to orbit.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Second-stage engine cutoff in a couple minutes, still nominal trajectory.

[Update a couple minutes later]

OK, engine shutdown and Dragon separation. It’s in orbit with a low perigee. I assume they’ll do a circularization burn at apogee. About to deploy solar panels.

[Update a while later]

I think that it’s safe to say that Dragon flights have become routine now. But the next one will have some pucker factor, because it will be a new version of the vehicle, stretched, with the Merlin D engines.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Oops, may have spoken too soon. Did they have a fairing problem?

If they can’t deploy the panels, I think that Gwynne said yesterday that they can attempt one berthing pass on batteries.

I assume that if there were a crew, they’d probably abort back to earth at this point, while they have batteries (assuming whatever went wrong didn’t interfere with the heat shield). And if they had a small crew, with suits for everyone, they could blow down the cabin and attempt an EVA repair, a la Skylab.

[Update a while later]

There’s going to be a press conference in a few minutes, so I guess we’ll find out more.

I personally blame the sequester.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Actually, now that I think about it, I wonder if they can blow down the cabin? I would have cold plated the electronics, but if they didn’t, it might need air pressure to keep things cool. Surely they designed for that?

[Update a couple minutes later]

For those unfamiliar, I describe the Skylab repair in the book:

before the program ended completely and after the last lunar landing, NASA did undertake one more hazardous series of missions with Apollo hardware, though not to the moon. In 1973, America’s first space station, Skylab, suffered a failure on its launch, when the meteoroid shield was torn off from the aerodynamic forces, taking with it one of the two main solar panels while partially deploying the other prematurely. NASA had to nurse the crippled facility in a “hold” position that resulted in an increase of heat within due to the loss of the shield. The temperature reached 125° F, and it was unknown whether or not the cabin atmosphere was breathable, due to potential toxins from outgassing of overheated materials. But the agency hastily planned a risky repair mission to be performed by the station’s first crew – Pete Conrad, Paul Weitz and Joe Kerwin.

After rendezvousing with the station, the repair started with an open-hatch spacewalk from the Apollo capsule, with Weitz leaning out with a pole, his legs held by Kerwin. However, his attempt to release the stuck solar panel was unsuccessful. The crew then docked to the facility after several failed attempts, and entered after verifying that the air was breathable, albeit hot. From inside the airlock, they deployed a parasol that shielded the structure from the sun, and the temperature finally started to come down, though the power remained low due to the missing and stuck solar arrays. A couple of weeks into the one-month mission, Conrad and Kerwin once again put on suits and went out the airlock to attempt to free up the array. This time they succeeded, but it was almost a disaster, as Conrad was flung by the sudden release of the system after he removed debris from the hinge that was holding it in place. Had he not been tethered, he would have died as the life-support systems of his space suit were depleted, with him unable to get back to the spacecraft. But he was, and the two made it back in. The station was now almost fully functional, and would go on to host two more crews, giving the U.S. valuable long-duration space experience unmatched until the ISS was permanently crewed almost thirty years later. But with the end of Skylab in 1974, and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Program in 1975, the Apollo program was finally over.

I wonder if we may see a repeat, if they can manage to berth it?

[Update a couple minutes later]

OK, apparently the panels aren’t the problem. They’ve got thruster issues, which are causing them to delay the panel deployment until they’re resolved. If they can’t fix that problem, they’re probably not even going to be able to abort and enter properly.

[Update a while later]

No press conference yet, but here’s the official statement from SpaceX: “After Dragon achieved orbit, the spacecraft experienced an issue with its thrusters. One thruster pod is running and two are preferred to take the next step which is to deploy the solar arrays. We are working to bring up the other two in order to plan the next series of burns to get to station.”

[Update a couple minutes later]

This sounds like good news: “thruster pod 3 tank pressure trending positive. Preparing to deploy solar arrays.”

[Update just before noon EDT]

“Solar array deployment successful”

Here’s the latest from SpaceX: “Falcon 9 lifted off as planned and experienced a nominal flight. After Dragon achieved orbit, the spacecraft experienced an issue with a propellant valve. One thruster pod is running. We are trying to bring up the remaining three. We did go ahead and get the solar arrays deployed. Once we get at least 2 pods running, we will begin a series of burns to get to station.”

Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

CBM Versus NDS

24 Comments

This is a post for manned space geeks, arising from questions in comments earlier. As I note there:

We’re going to be stuck with both CBM and NDS for a long time. The latter is much more flexible, (e.g., allowing docking to an unmanned facility), but the former will stick around for its ability to transfer large objects.

Note that Dragon can’t serve as a lifeboat currently, because it has to have someone in the station, with power, to unberth from the CBM, even though it’s functionally capable of doing so with a rudimentary life support system. One of the key changes for commercial crew will be adoption of the NDS. One more reason that we should be accelerating that capability, because a Dragon lifeboat would allow the addition of another crew member, doubling or maybe even quadrupling the science that could be performed at the station.

I discuss this issue in the book:

To get back to the bizarre (at least that’s how it would appear to a Martian) behavior with respect to ISS, what is it worth? Of what value is it to have people aboard? We have spent about a hundred billion dollars on it over almost three decades. We are continuing to spend two or three billion a year on it, depending on how one keeps the books. For that, if the purpose is research, we are getting about one person-year of such (simply maintaining the facility takes a sufficient amount of available crew time that on average, only one person is doing actual research at any given time). That would imply that we think that a person-year of orbital research is worth two or three gigabucks.

What is the constraint on crew size? For now, not volume, though the life support system may be near its limits (the US segment can supposedly support four, and the Russian segment three) – I don’t know how many ultimately it could handle, but we know that there is currently not a larger crew because of NASA’s lifeboat requirement, and there has to be a Soyuz (which can return three) for each three people on the station. If what they were doing was really important, they’d do what they do at Scott-Amundsen, and live without. After all, as suggested earlier, just adding two researchers would immediately triple the productivity of the facility. In fact, because the ISS has recently been unable to average more than twenty-seven hours per week1, adding one person for a forty-hour week would increase it by two and a half times, and adding a second would increase it by a factor of four. If what we’re getting from the ISS in terms of research is really worth three billion a year, then quadrupling it would be, at least in theory, a huge value.

That’s not to say that they couldn’t be continuing to improve the safety, and develop a larger life boat eventually (the Dragon is probably very close to being able to serve as one now, since it doesn’t need a launch abort system for that role – only a new mating adaptor that allows it to dock to or depart from an unmanned or unpowered station), but their unwillingness to risk crew now is indicative of how unimportant whatever science being done on the station really is.

I should note that last week, the station did manage a record seventy-one hours, but I don’t think they’ll be able to keep that up with current crew size.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Where No Man (or Woman) Has Gone Before

18 Comments

My thoughts on Dennis Tito’s press conference yesterday, over at PJMedia.

[Update a while later]

Hmmmm…the post seems to have disappeared. I’ll bug them to find out what happened.

[Update a few minutes later]

I’ve sent an email to find out what happened, but meanwhile, here‘s Marcia Smith’s (semi-skeptical) report.

[Update a while later]

OK, it seems to be back up now.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!