Space, Technology and Society

The Problems With The Last Dragon Flight

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…weren’t as bad as originally reported. I found this interesting, though:

As for the engine shutdown issue, data analysis has yet to result in any definitive conclusions. Although the analysis will continue, the observation that this particular engine had undergone a comparatively high degree of pre-flight testing, may ultimately lead to the conclusion that the shut down was related to the accumulating fatigue of an engine firing more than its nominal mission requirements. If this turns out to be the case; it would prove to be both somewhat ironic, as well as easily addressed by limiting cumulative firings for flight engines. Ongoing analysis has likely pushed the likely date of the next Dragon flight to ISS into the early March time frame.

Wouldn’t “limiting cumulative firings for flight engines” have interesting and problematic implications for reusability?

If this is really a problem, sounds like they’ll have to have a more robust engine design (or perhaps downgrade performance) for reusable versions. And of course, it’s possible that the new engine to start being used next year will resolve whatever the issue is.

Education, General Science, Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary

Politicians’ “War On Science”

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Who said it, Rubio or Obama? It’s useful to point this kind of thing out, of course, and I’ve always thought that Chris Mooney’s theses were nonsensical — both parties have ideologies that are opposed to scientific reality.

But I disagree with this:

So Obama believes in evolution, and presumably he’d like to teach it in the nation’s public schools, while Rubio suggests that “multiple theories” should be given equal time. But even so, both men present the science as a matter of personal opinion. Obama doesn’t say, Evolution is a fact; he says, I believe in it.

Well, he shouldn’t say that, because evolution is in fact not a “fact.” It, like gravity, is a scientific theory. And it is perfectly philosophically legitimate to say that alternate theories should be taught in school, but it should be done not in a science class but in one on comparative religions (of which science is one). That there is an objective reality about which we can discover things through scientific methods is not a fact, or “truth,” but an axiomatic assumption. Science is a form of faith, but in terms of understanding the natural world, and forging new artificial creations from it, it is a very successful and powerful one.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

The Phrase The Media Won’t Use

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Hamas is engaging in war crimes (as have the “Palestinians,” for decades). Yet it is Israel being ridiculously and harshly criticized, despite the fact that it works harder, spends more money, and risks more of its own lives than any other nation (with the possible exception of us) to minimize collateral damage that is entirely the fault of the war criminals.

Disgusting.

Business, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Safe Is Not An Option

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I’ve belatedly launched my Kickstarter project to publish my book on our irrational attitudes toward safety on the high frontier. I’ve put a short fuse on it — just fifteen days to raise four grand. I’d like to raise a lot more, to really publicize the thing, but that’s the minimum I need to have a quality product, I think.

Everyone who contributes at least five bucks will get some form of the book. Please consider donating generously, if you want to see this get more attention in the new year.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, War Commentary

A Media-Caused War

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CNN, among others, has childrens’ blood on its hands:

By participating in this pas de deux, the media are complicit with Hamas in that killing and maiming because it is done for them. It happens so the media can report it. They might be shocked to hear it, but if they stopped to think for a second, the media would realize that the war, on Hamas’ part anyway, would not exist if no one publicized it. Without publicity, Hamas couldn’t be less interested. And the Israelis, unprovoked, would never send a single missile into Gaza. Everyone knows that.

So Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the others fight for the benefit of the media. That’s it. That’s their sole motive — to show Israel as brutal with the help of the press. They live for the Israelis to make a mistake — and if the Israelis don’t, they invent one.

By participating in this charade, the media are effectively racist, treating the Palestinians like “ignorant wogs” from the days of British imperialism, incapable of taking care of themselves or of making a decent society for themselves. The media portray the Palestinians as victims, therefore encouraging Palestinian victimhood.

They are also “objectively pro-fascist” in Orwell’s term, because Hamas is an Islamofascist organization and they are doing Hamas’ will.

CNN et. al. rarely report the obvious — that if Hamas devoted a tenth of the time and money to hospitals, schools, and other civic institutions that they do to amassing an arsenal of 12,000 missiles and whatever else, the Gaza Strip would flourish like a paradise.

Because that would be the wrong narrative.

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