Lou Friedman, like most sensible people, wonders why the Congress is insisting that NASA waste billions on a heavy lifter with no payloads. Of course, the real problem being solved here is job losses, nothing else.
Missing The California Of My Youth
This guy is probably just a racist.
Talk about a human-caused disaster.
A Scientific Theory
…is judged by its predictive powers. Unless it’s climate change, of course. Because there, the issue isn’t the issue. It’s about power, and forced wealth redistribution.
The Business Case For Iridium Servicing
Jon Goff has a very interesting post about the potential for justifying the private development of a LEO tug.
This is a key element of a LEO (and cis-lunar) infrastructure that NASA has ignored ever since the ignominious end of the disastrous Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle (OMV) program in the early nineties (another wonder of management from Marshall). We should have had one decades ago, but it looks like the private sector is going to have to make it happen. Once in existence, it has a number of other useful (and money making) applications, if NASA can start to be a good customer.
What Is Going On With Boeing?
The Dreamliner program looks like a real mess. I wonder how much of this is a result of labor issues?
The Perils Of Constitutional Ignorance
Thanks to congressional incompetence, the food-safety bill is dead. Sometimes, perhaps more than not, given how evil most of what they want to do is, I’m glad that Congress is incompetent.
Space Cheese
…and other breakthroughs. Katherine Mangu-Ward reports on last week’s SpaceX success. Yours truly is cited. FWIW.
[Update a while later]
107 Since Kitty Hawk
The Wrights first flew a controlled heavier-than-aircraft over a century ago, on this date in 1903. On the hundredth anniversary, I wrote three articles that are still worth reading if you haven’t, or rereading if you have. They contain a lot of lessons for spaceflight development.
[Update a couple minutes later]
I notice that the TCS Daily link from the old Instapundit post is busted. Here‘s another one.
A California Bankruptcy
Some legal thoughts. I don’t know if it would be constitutional, but I would condition a federal bailout on reversion of the state to territory status, with an opportunity to reenter the union after it gets its fiscal act together, possibly as multiple states. For instance, if some of the eastern and/or northern counties wanted to band together to form a new government independent of Sacramento (or even including Sacramento, but independent of the coastal megalopolises) they could do so and apply for readmission. Alternatively, they might want to apply to be annexed to (say) Nevada, or Oregon.
Same thing for Illinois and New York, though the impetus to break them up would be much less in those cases.
Michael Vick’s Ant Farm
On Hannity last night, Jim Geraghty reportedly (according to Jim, in his daily email) said that if Michael Vick was going to be allowed to have pets again, he should have to start small — give him an ant farm, and see if he started up ant-fighting rings. I’d also not allow him to own a magnifying glass. If that works out, he could move on to guppies, and then gerbils.