Business, Political Commentary, Space

A CommercialPrivate Lunar Base

17 Comments

Well, this is intriguing:

…source information acquired by L2 this week revealed plans for a “game-changing” announcement as early as December that a new commercial space company intends to send commercial astronauts to the moon by 2020.

According to the information, the effort is led by a group of high profile individuals from the aerospace industry and backed by some big money and foreign investors. The company intends to use “existing or soon to be existing launch vehicles, spacecraft, upper stages, and technologies” to start their commercial manned lunar campaign.

The details point to the specific use of US vehicles, with a basic architecture to utilize multiple launches to assemble spacecraft in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The details make direct reference to the potential use of propellant depots and fuel transfer technology.

Additional notes include a plan to park elements in lunar orbit, staging a small lunar lander that would transport two commercial astronauts to the surface for short stays.

The architecture would then grow into the company’s long-term ambitions to establish a man-tended outpost using inflatable modules. It is also understood that the company has already begun the design process for the Lunar Lander.

If this is true, it’s going to make it harder for NASA to justify SLS. Or even being in the human spaceflight business at all. We’ll soon see, perhaps. December isn’t far off.

[Update a while later]

I decided to change the post title, because it isn’t clear that this is intended as a money-making venture.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Silencing Petraeus

The official government version, like the official government story on Benghazi, makes no sense:

In the modern era, office-holders with forgiving spouses simply do not resign from powerful jobs because of a temporary, non-criminal, consensual adult sexual liaison, as the history of the FDR, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, and Clinton presidencies attest. So, why is Petraeus different? Someone wants to silence him.

If there were national security implications to Petraeus’s affair, they existed when it remained unknown, and he wanted to keep it that way. That is when the president should have been informed as soon as Holder knew, not after he’d been outed, and was no longer blackmailable. It’s very simple, really.

But of course, I don’t believe that the president didn’t know from the get go. It’s a shame that no one asked him in the press conference yesterday when he found out.

My question: who will be the John Dean of this administration?

[Update a few minutes later]

Related thoughts from VDH:

…anyone in these circumstances would also be advised that any future testimony had the potential to be at odds with past testimonies and statements, which might argue for a darker scenario in which after the election someone in the administration felt that Petraeus could now safely resign and fade quietly into retirement — all of which makes the role of any future statements by Ms. Broadwell quite dynamic.There are all sorts of different speculations, but the above is perhaps the most generous explanation we are hearing and reading and it must be dispelled by the Congress and administration as quickly as possible. It does no good simply to cry “conspiracy theorist” when these speculations are natural and logical.

There are all sorts of important ramifications: from the proper role of the FBI stealthily examining the private e-mails of top officers, to the issue of what exactly does the FBI do with the results of these probes and who oversees its findings, to the coordination of the State Department, administration, and CIA — and of course, most importantly, the question of why and how did our government put Americans in unsafe conditions, refuse pleas for increased security, not lend assistance in extremis, and then mislead the country about the circumstances of their deaths — and why were so many Americans in Libya in the first place and what were they doing that was worth putting them in such grave danger and from whom?

For some reason, I don’t think that the White House wants us to find that out, even with the election safely behind them.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

The Discussion That’s Been Lost

This:

Memo to the New York Times, New York publishers, and other morally clueless individuals scratching their heads over the Petraeus scandal: If you are writing a biography and either you or your subject are married to a third person, and you have sex, you have done something wrong. No mystery, no dilemma, no agonizing introspection needed.

Of course, knowing what is right is the easy part. Doing it can be hard. But if you are genuinely confused about the morality of what presumably happened in this relationship, it’s time to get your moral compass reset.

The problem is that we’re not allowed moral compasses any more. It’s too judgmental.

And of course, what they did was wrong even if there was no biography involved. But we’re not supposed to talk about that, just as we’re not supposed to criticize women who have children out of wedlock. Because, you know.

Business, Economics, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Cost Of ObamaCare

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It will be $1.79/hour/employee:

These changes are spelled out in the 2,572-page law, but many more changes will be imposed by regulations yet to be written. The Obama administration is adding federal workers at a rapid pace to churn out and enforce new rules. The government’s own projections say the cost of health-care administration — bureaucrats telling doctors and patients what to do — will soar from $29 billion when President Obama was first elected to $71 billion by 2020, some $40 billion dollars a year more in bureaucracy.

What a shame: That’s enough money to buy private health plans for fully half of all Americans who are now uninsured because they can’t afford it.

Don’t be silly. That wouldn’t grow Leviathan, and give the government control over our lives.

That crashing sound you hear is people being dropped from coverage, and having their hours reduced, in some cases to zero.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!