This by itself should be reason enough to end it, because this type of corruption is almost inevitable.
The End Of Servants
The world has changed.
I know that if I were rich, I wouldn’t want them. I hate being waited on and like to do things for myself. It’s one of the reasons I don’t really enjoy dining out — I merely tolerate it.
If Not Mitt, Who?
Is he really inexorable?
I spent last night’s Republican debate trying to imagine scenarios where Mitt Romney loses the G.O.P. nomination for president. Rick Perry gets bitten by a radioactive Lincoln-Douglas debate champion and develops a sudden facility for public argument? A long-lost codicil to the Constitution is discovered, in which the Founding Fathers endorse the 9-9-9 tax plan? Utah renames itself the Republic of Deseret and secedes from the Union, forcing Romney to make a tragic choice between his religion and his country? Or, perhaps most unlikely of all — Jon Huntsman is embraced by the Tea Party and pulls off a surprise upset in Iowa?
Those scenarios aside, right now these debates feel like spring training for Romney: A warm-up period for the general election, in which he can stretch and exercise and experiment with his pitches with no fear of suffering a significant defeat.
A depressing thought. The only possibility of avoiding him I can imagine (short of something tragic), is if the anti-Mitters get so determined that they embrace Newt, with all his quirks. At least, that’s how desperate I am. Though I supposed I shouldn’t count Cain out completely. He does seem to be the Reagan in the race in temperament, if not foreign-policy acumen.
[Update a few minutes later]
On the other hand, maybe the conventional wisdom about what it takes to win is wrong.
A Real Jobs Plan
I don’t disagree with any of this, but it’s incomplete. Off the top of my head, where is repeal Sarbanes-Oxley?
Whittington Strikes Again
He has a typically ignorant opinion piece over at Yahoo News on SLS:
The proposal to stretch out the Space Launch System, crucial for plans to send astronauts beyond Earth orbit to the moon and other destinations, is an ill-advised attempt at predatory budgeting. It would increase the cost of developing the SLS while not addressing the reasons that the JWST has gotten into trouble.
SLS is not only not “crucial” for plans to send astronauts beyond LEO, it will be the death of any such plans, because even if it ever flies (unlikely) it will eat up all the available funding for the hardware and technologies needed to actually do that. We now know that NASA itself has identified several ways to send humans beyond LEO without SLS, and that all of them are much less costly, and can happen much sooner, than an SLS-based scenario.
…underfunding the SLS will disrupt a program that has finally gotten on track, which NASA insiders believe will be ready to finally take astronaut explorers beyond low Earth orbit before this decade is out.
In what way is the SLS “on track”? He doesn’t say. Which “NASA insiders” believe this? What pharmaceuticals result in such a belief? There have been no credible scenarios put forth for the SLS do a mission beyond LEO before this decade is out. Does he just make this stuff up?
[Evening update]
I hate to give his web site hits, but this is hilarious. What’s particularly hilarious is that after all these years, he still can’t get his permalinks to not have a double hash tag.
Rand Simberg really should get out more often and read more than just the latest press release from “Tea Party in Space.”
This is stupidity on a monumental scale. I don’t get my information from “Tea Party In Space.” They often, in fact, get info from me. I work on this stuff for a living, while Mark is too innumerate to even understand it. And note, he has no response to my question of who his “NASA insiders” are, or what drugs they are on.
What Is Blue Origin Up To?
Dave Mosher has been doing some detective work over at Popular Mechanics.
A Libertarian Hangs Out On Wall Street
A front-line report from Tim Carney:
While much of the occupiers’ anger at the “banksters” was typical talk about “greed,” the gripes almost always included something about undue influence. Anthony Hassan, an out-of-work construction worker from Norfolk, Va., sounded a common note, pointing out that bailed-out banks “take some of the money we’ve given them, and they hire lobbyists.” An organic farmer who traveled down from Vermont who called himself Mack (and would not give me his full name) said “we’re at a point where the people with the most money have the most influence.”
They’re right. It does undermine our democracy and harm our economy when hiring a former Senate majority leader, for instance, can be the best investment a company ever makes. Wealthy special interests do dictate policy too much, regardless of which party is in power. I don’t know who made the sign under which I slept Sunday night, but I agreed with its thrust: “Separation of Business & State.” The back read “I can’t afford a lobbyist.”
My agreement with these folks went no further, however, than a common diagnosis of the problem. Their proposed solutions — more campaign finance restrictions and curbs on the freedom of firms to lobby — showed disregard for the freedom of speech. They also don’t seem to understand that getting government more involved in the economy always gets business more involved in government. Outside the small minority of Ron Paul supporters at the park, none of the occupiers saw smaller government as the answer to cronyism and corporatism.
Hard for people who want handouts to be for smaller government. In that, they are diametrically opposed to the Tea Party.
Jesse Jackson Jr. Is A Pathetic Example
…of a pathetic political class.
Smuggled Libyan Weapons
…are flooding into Egypt.
Goody.
A Shocking Development
NASA has been fibbing to Congress about the SLS and propellant depots.
Bottom lines:
NEA Mission Observations – Mixed Fleet
* Costs $10s of billions less through 2030 over alternate HLLV/SEP-based architecture approaches
– Only $10B more than all Falcon Heavy approach
* Fits within conservative exploration budget through 2030 with extended ISS and budget cuts while allowing 3-4 NEA missions
* Breaking costs into smaller, less-monolithic amounts allows great flexibility in meeting smaller and changing budget profiles
* Allows first mission to NEA in 2024, potentially several years earlier than HLLV/SEP-based approaches, meeting President’s deadline and actual availability of NEA 2008EV5
* Launch capacity not much of an issue with two suppliers
– Availability risk also improved
* Use of two CLVs, similar to COTS, should reduce cost and risk through competition
* Integration of large CPS stage with multiple vehicles could reduce commonality and add complexityLunar Mission Observations -RP Depot/CPS
* Costs $10s of billions less through 2030 over alternate HLLV/SEP-based architecture approaches
– Only $2B more than LO2/LH2 Depot approach
* Fits within conservative exploration budget through 2030 with extended ISS and budget cuts while allowing 4-8 lunar missions
* Breaking costs into smaller, less-monolithic amounts allows great flexibility in meeting smaller and changing budget profiles
* Allows first lunar mission to in 2024, potentially several years earlier than HLLV-based approaches
* Launch capacity does not appear to be a major issue
* Dependence on a single CLV and provider likely unacceptable
* Integration of large CPS stage with small-diameter Falcon easier due to smaller stage size
* Integration of lunar lander on Falcon limits design options
* RP-based depot/CPS provides slightly higher LCC for lunar missions with lower risk
Just as I and others have been saying for years. But it doesn’t “save or create” the jobs in the right places.
[Update mid morning]
I’m looking through the briefing now. They have an interesting design reference mission to an asteroid that appears to use solar electric propulsion to get the departure propellant out to EML-1. If you look at the sandpile for the reference HEFT DRM-1, on chart 10, you can see how much the budget would be reduced if you forgo the development of the HLLV. It looks like about a third of the total, and doesn’t get you to the asteroid until eighteen years from now. Going with the depot approach saves tens of billions and accelerates the mission by half a decade.
For the lunar mission, they don’t do it they way I would — they have a LEO depot, and then do it Apollo style from there. I’d put a depot at EML-1, and send the lander up separately on a slow boat, to minimize the high-impulse delta vee necessary for the trip. Ideally, you’d have multiple depots and reusable space systems throughout the architecture. But the way they’ve done it gets the cost down to sixty billion through 2030 (presumably current-year dollars), with a lunar landing in 2024l with another mission every two years. So by my count, we get four lunar missions at a cost of fifteen billion each. Still very expensive, but a lot cheaper than with the SLS, and sooner. If you use Delta IV-H instead of Falcon Heavy, the price goes to $75B. Most likely one would use a mixed fleet for resiliency.
These architectures look an awful lot like the kinds we did at Boeing seven years ago for CE&I, that Mike Griffin never even looked at. All of their cost assumptions appear to be very conservative. And they probably don’t take into account the fact that you’d launch the hardware dry, which reduces structural weight.
[Update a few minutes later]
Wow. The cost comparison charts are devastating. In Chart 48, the heavy architecture is over twice as much in DDT&E as any of the others. If Dana was chairman, this would be the subject of a hearing, but he’s not, so it won’t be. But he can certainly issue a press release. I’m assuming that this is the briefing that he was asking for last month.
[Early afternoon update]
In finishing the briefing, I see that they have a lot of trade studies planned, and they haven’t done the risk comparison with the HLLV approach. The latter surely has to consider that anything that’s only flown once every couple years is intrinsically less reliable, because there’s no way to get the processing team in a rhythm. The SLS is such a monumentally bad idea that it could only have come from Congress.