Business, Economics, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Jumping The Broken Windows Shark

22 Comments

OK, so according to Paul Krugman, Alderaan should be the richest planet in the galaxy:

People on twitter might be joking, but in all seriousness, we would see a bigger boost in spending and hence economic growth if the earthquake had done more damage.

Well, if he means that if Washington had been destroyed, as I (jokingly) suggested (and some anticipated) earlier, he might have a point, but I doubt that’s what he means. I really think he’s serious.

[Wednesday morning update]

Krugman is claiming that he didn’t write it, and it was a case of identity theft.

[Update a few minutes later]

The identity thief ‘fesses up.

General, Political Commentary

A DC Earthquake?

13 Comments

I’m seeing lots of tweets from DC folks.

Actually, while I have a lot of friends there, a Richter 10 would solve a lot of the country’s problems.

Seriously, there’s a lot of old unreinforced colonial masonry there. A good shake could do a lot of damage in Old Town Alexandria, and the district as well.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Wow, a 5.8 in Virginia, a few tens of miles from DC. Pentagon and Capitol being evacuated.

[Update a few minutes later]

Apparently people are reporting it from New England, including a Fox reporter in Martha’s Vineyard. Here’s a Free Republic thread, with a report from Cleveland. Instapundit has a report that they didn’t actually evacuate the Pentagon, but that some rapidly exited on their own. It’s been declared safe now.

[Update a few minutes later]

Hmmm…Obama is out of town, can’t blame him. Must be Bush’s fault.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Looking at the map, it’s just east of Charlottesville, toward Richmond. Let’s hope it’s not a foreshock.

Even if it’s not, it could still be a bad week. Irene seems to be targeting the same area, with an arrival this coming weekend.

[Update a couple minutes later]

I’ve heard that cells are jammed. Folks, text, don’t talk. That will free up bandwidth for the first responders.

[Update]

No, it’s not too soon. Quake humor: “Krugman says it wasn’t big enough.” Hey, didn’t I say that, up above? Stopped clock, I guess.

Also, social media is faster than seismic waves.

[Update a few minutes later]

See what I meant about unreinforced masonry? “The historic Smithsonian Institution Building in Washington has cracks in the interior walls by the earthquake.”

That’s the red stone “castle” on the mall, the original Smithsonian Building and now its headquarters. A bigger shake, closer to the DC area, would do a lot of damage, because it’s not designed for earthquakes (even the new buildings). East coasters are way too complacent about this. They think that because it hasn’t happened in their lifetimes, that it can’t happen.

[Bumped]

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Space

The SLS Debate

15 Comments

Continues ad infinitum at NASA Watch, with the usual illogic from the usual suspects. This is a good analogy:

SLS is like Columbus postponing his voyages to try to build the world’s largest ship, using all the funds available to him for many years to do so. Instead of outfitting three modestly-sized ships with the crew and provisions to set out as soon as he can, Columbus spends many years to build an enormous ship. Meanwhile, no exploration is done. And Columbus makes sure the shipbuilding employs lots of people in key cities in Spain for political reasons, instead of designing the ship as efficiently as possible. In the end, the English beat Columbus to the New World because by the time Columbus finishes his ship, he can’t afford the crew or provisions for it, and the costs of simply maintaining the ship while it sits in its harbor are too high.

It reminds me of the story of Don Miguel de Grifo.

This is another good analogy:

Building SLS is like re-creating Saturn V without doing the rest of the Apollo program at the same time. It would result in SLS being cancelled, just as Saturn V was, for cost reasons, but without ever flying anything useful, because we weren’t doing another Apollo at the same time.

The only programs that could possibly use SLS would be hugely expensive and take a long time to develop. So if we finished SLS without working on the programs that would use SLS at the same time, we’d end up with a hugely expensive SLS draining money for many years before the payloads could possibly be ready, even if by some miracle all that huge amount of money appeared from somewhere (the Apollo program budgets were far greater, as a share of GDP, than NASA’s current budgets).

But some people just can’t get it. I can understand why rent-seeking senators want to fund this jobs program, but I don’t understand why any sensible space enthusiast does. But then, I guess that question answers itself, doesn’t it?

Business, Space

Seven Suborbital Spaceships

3 Comments

Here’s the story that I pitched to Popular Mechanics last week, but Michael Belfiore beat me to it. Oh, well, he probably did a better job than I would have, anyway. I see now that Near Space isn’t really suborbital — it’s a high-altitude balloon ride. Good for extended upper atmospheric research, not so good for weightlessness.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!