Space

Will The Shuttle Launch Tonight?

22 Comments

I wouldn’t bet on it. The weather at the Cape isn’t looking much better than it has been for the last few nights, including Friday night, when lightning strikes on the launch site caused a scrub for Saturday night. When the Air Force and NASA were choosing launch sites in the late fifties and early sixties, the Cape was an attractive location for many reasons, but one of the negatives was the fact that Florida is pretty much the lightning capital of the nation. More people are killed by strikes here than anywhere else (it helps to have a large population, of course). But at the time, it wasn’t truly appreciated what a problem this would be. The first major lightning issue occurred on Apollo XII (next flight after the one whose fortieth anniversary we’ll be celebrating, or at least remembering over the next few days), when lightning struck the vehicle during launch, and basically dazed the avionics. The crew had the presence of mind to do a reboot, and the mission ended up being a success.

The next major event was almost twenty years later, in the spring of 1987 (not long after the Challenger loss, and the Titan IV failure at Vandenberg that caused both systems to be shut down for some time). An Atlas-Centaur carrying a Navy comsat was destroyed by lightning that caused its control system to go haywire right after launch. The current commit criteria that kept the Shuttle from launching last night, and may do so again tonight, were derived from those events. If anyone is interested in the details, there’s an interesting paper on the subject from the Aerospace Corporation.

What I found interesting is the fact that the vehicles themselves induce the lightning. I think that this speaks to the utility of a two-stage vehicle without a long rocket exhaust plume that contacts the ground providing a conductive path. This wouldn’t be a problem for an air-launched system that could ferry. And of course, such a system wouldn’t be tied to a fixed launch site, like Cape Canaveral. As we remember Apollo, people in Brevard Country should understand and be proud that while their region played a key role in space history, and may have helped win the Cold War, geography will not always be destiny.

[Update about 8 PM eastern]

Did I call it or what?

Spacelaunch Falcon 1 attempt has been put off until 10:30 EDT.

History, Political Commentary, Space

The Folly Of Apollo

11 Comments

Some thoughts from Jerry Pournelle, in response to the Derbyshire piece a few weeks ago:

Years after Apollo I had a conversation with John R. Pierce, Chief Technologist at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. John said that we’d made a mistake. In Heinlein’s future history, we go to the moon in stages first developing sub-orbital capabilities, then satellites, and finally went to the Moon; and we should have done it that way this time.

At the time I get somewhat angry in my disagreement with him, but it’s pretty clear John was right. He really meant that we should have learned to build space ships, real reusable ships that could fly suborbital, then orbital, then be refueled in orbit — rather than developing a bit disintegrating totem pole that could only be used once. I think he was right, and we may have to do it all over again before we can become a space-faring nation.

This will be one of the themes of my upcoming piece at The New Atlantis.

[Monday afternoon update]

Paul Dietz notes in comments that the Pournelle response was actually to a different Derbyshire post, that I hadn’t seen. He says that Apollo wasn’t a mere folly, but a magnificent one.

[Bumped]

Political Commentary

Questions For Judge Sotomayor

1 Comment

From several legal experts, and Senator Cornyn.

[Update early afternoon]

The Seinfeld hearings:

Today we live in a legal world in which many progressives and conservatives share the legal realists’ preoccupation with results. So justices must be chosen who will reach the politically correct results or opposed because they will reach the wrong results. Judicial confirmation hearings are thereby turned into a game of gotcha, with questioners trying to trip up the other side’s nominees, and nominees quite properly refusing to reveal the only thing their inquisitors truly care about: how they would rule in particular cases that are likely to come before the Court.

But postures must be assumed and questions must be asked. So senators and nominees opine about two empty concepts. The first is “stare decisis” or precedent: Will the nominee follow the hallowed case of U.S. v. Whatchamacallit or not?

Of course, the legal realists detested precedent, which in their time stood in the way of their progressive agenda. Nothing has really changed. Both sides only want to respect the precedents that lead to the results they like. No one thinks justices should follow every precedent, so the crucial issue is picking and choosing which to follow and which to ignore. But how? Well, by the results, of course.

I’ve posted on this often in the past. One of the hardest concepts for many people to understand is that the Constitution is not designed to suit their preferences, and it is not the job of a judge to construe or misconstrue it to the preferences of themselves or others. Roe was a judicial atrocity not because it legalized abortion, per se, but because it found a non-existent right in the Constitution, and extended it to all fifty states, part of the obliteration of federalism that occurred in the twentieth century. One can think that abortion should be legal and still think Roe deeply flawed (the position of Judge Ginsburg, if I am not mistaken).

Accordingly, one shouldn’t choose a judge because one thinks that they will agree on the desired outcome, but for their willingness to follow the law (including the fundamental law expressed in the Constitution). This should be an argument not about results, but about process. But it never is.

He has a recommendation as to how to do it right, which, unfortunately, most Senators would be incapable of doing, even if they wanted to:Don’t ask how the meaning of these clauses should be applied in particular circumstances. Just ask about the meaning itself and how it should be ascertained. Do nominees think they are bound by the original public meaning of the text? Even those who deny this still typically claim that original meaning is a “factor” or starting point. If so, what other factors do they think a justice should rely on to “interpret” the meaning of the text? Even asking whether “We the People” in the U.S. Constitution originally included blacks and slaves — as abolitionists like Lysander Spooner and Frederick Douglass contended, or not as Chief Justice Roger Taney claimed in Dred Scott v. Sandford — will tell us much about a nominee’s approach to constitutional interpretation. Given that this is hardly a case that will come before them, on what grounds could nominees refuse to answer such questions?

Of course, inquiring into clauses not cases would require senators to know something about the original meaning of the Constitution. Do they? It would be interesting to hear what Sen. Al Franken thinks about such matters, but no more so than any other member of the Judiciary Committee. Such a hearing would not only be entertaining, it would be informative and educational. After all, it would be about the meaning of the Constitution, which is to say it would be about something.

Couldn’t have that.

[Bumped]

Political Commentary

The Jobs Surge

14 Comments

…that Obama can’t ideologically deliver:

Liberals are clearly getting nervous. Their Keynesian religious-like faith rests on the notion that government spending “creates” economic activity and wealth. So the answer must be: more stimulus!

Meanwhile, there is chaos on the Hill:

Commerce committee Chairman Henry Waxman has delayed the health care markup he had planned for this week, giving the administration and House leaders a chance to win over balky Blue Dog Democrats. Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel is also stymied, and says all he knows about agreements that the White House has struck with various health groups (pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, health maintenance organizations) is what he reads in the papers.

All this sounds like muddling by incompetents, but in fact these Democratic legislators are (mostly) highly competent and they are trying to do very hard things: restructure government regulation of — or establish government control over — one-sixth (health care) and one-tenth (energy) of the economy. And they’re dealing with a president who has shown a striking lack of interest in details and whose single legislative achievement so far — the $787 billion stimulus package passed in February — has visibly failed in its asserted goal of holding unemployment down to 8 percent.

This is all good news, of course, since most or all of what they want to do would be ruinous for the nation.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

More Munchausen By Proxie

2 Comments

Thoughts on the economy:

When I think about the economy I think about a plump man who has just been hit by a truck while crossing a street and is in severely critical condition with internal bleeding. Instead of just stabilizing his hemorrhaging, the doctor decides that while the patient is unconscious, he might as well also do a face lift, some coronary bypasses and a stomach-stapling to keep him from gaining weight while he is recovering (if he does recover). After all, a crisis is not to be wasted.

The problem is that all these ambitious operations create too much of a burden for the human body to bear.

Similarly, we have an administration that is simultaneously seeking to end the recession, discussing drastic changes to laws on foreclosures and energy use and completely changing the health care system. I respectfully question whether all of this makes sense.

It’s a good question. And I’m pretty sure of the answer.

Media Criticism, Philosophy, Space

Mike And The Giant Carrot

4 Comments

There’s been quite a bit of discussion in the space blogosphere about the former administrator’s latest shot at the Augustine panel and the very notion of questioning his plans and judgement, chock full of straw men and non sequiturs.

Clark Lindsey commented on it over the weekend, and Doug Messier and “Rocketman” had further critiques today:

While the Eminent Scholar and Professor should be developing course outlines, pop quizzes, and final exams, he is instead complaining about the ongoing review of the debacle he left behind. What he fails to comprehend is that he didn’t do what he said he claimed he would do within the established boundaries of dollars and time. Incremental progress would have been recognized and treated fairly. Spending profusely and having nothing to show for it is another matter altogether.

The absurdity starts with the very title of the piece — “Griffin Says Fear Of Risk Hurting Space Program.”

Huh?

The title is apparently based on this quote:

“We are less willing to take risks of any kind, whether it be financial risk, technical risk or human risk, or the risk of just plain breaking hardware,” he said. “Being adverse [sic*] to risk is not what made this country what it is. I’ll just say that. The willingness to take measured risks is what made this country what it is.”

Hey, that all sounds great. Who could disagree? But why in the world is Mike Griffin complaining about it? Is his irony meter busted again?

This coming from a man whose proposed solution was “Simple, Safe, Soon.” From a man who proposed nothing bold, or innovative, but instead decided to engage in cargo-cult engineering, and look back to the way the great gods of Apollo did it forty years ago. Is he saying that he was forced to come up with that solution because of our supposed “fear of risk”?

Whose fear of risk is he talking about? Because the only risk aversion I see is coming from Mike Griffin himself. He feared to risk serious money on COTS. He feared to risk a new and innovative approach that could have not only fit within the budget, but actually satisfy the recommendations of the Aldridge Commission. He feared to risk reliance on a private sector that has been putting payloads reliably into space for decades. And now he’s accusing us of risk aversion?

We didn’t ask him for “Simple, Safe, Soon.” He was tasked to come up with a plan that would fit within the budget profile, and hit some basic capability milestones. Admiral Steidle was well underway toward coming up with one when Dr. Griffin gave him his walking papers and substituted his own plan, uninformed by previous trade studies or Aldridge recommendations. One of the reasons that he is no longer administrator is that he failed that assignment.

This sycophantic interview is rich:

“If we do a review every four or five years to see if NASA’s on the right path,” he said, “we’re never going to get a product. I mean, you can’t grow carrots by pulling them up out of the ground to see how they’re growing.”

Last time I grew some, carrots grew in a few weeks. It didn’t take them five years. And in fact, you do pull one occasionally to see how they’re doing. But then, I always grew lots of them, so one could spare a progress check occasionally. And I was never dumb enough to attempt to grow a single, giant carrot, large enough to feed an entire family for a decade, and wait five years for it.

And you know, even in China, and the old Soviet Union, they thought that it made sense to check every half decade or so to see how the Five-Year Plan was working out. But no, Dr. Griffin’s plans shouldn’t be questioned that often. We must simply be patient, and trust him, the Supreme Rocket Leader, and let the carrot grow, for decades if need be.

“The need for the (current space study commission headed by Norman Augustine) is motivated solely by the public controversy over whether NASA got it right, if you will, in the architectural choices being made following the (explosion of the shuttle Columbia in 2003),” he said.

“I happen to think that NASA got it right,” Griffin said, “but if it isn’t exactly right and isn’t exactly perfect, I would argue, ‘So what?’ The question is not is it perfect? Is it good enough? Will it work? Is it one of the acceptable choices … if so, shut up and move on.”

…Griffin clearly admires the days when America needed big projects and simply got them done.

“When the country desperately wanted an ICBM 50 years ago to counter the Russians, they didn’t ask … what it would cost.”

“Shut up and move on.” Who, after all, are we to question the great Michael Griffin?

Of course when we needed ICBMs, or even when we went to the moon the first time, we didn’t ask what it would cost. We were in an existential conflict with a totalitarian enemy that would destroy us and our way of life had it been able to. But that was then, this is now. If we are going to have a program that is not a race, but is (one more time) “affordable and sustainable,” it is insane to think that we can come up with one without asking what it costs.

And of course he thinks NASA (i.e., Mike Griffin) got it right. What else would he be expected to think? Particularly when he “got it right” even before coming into the agency, and hired his own OSC buddies to perform a brief perfunctory study to validate what was a fait accompli once he was named administrator? This is why we don’t have people review their own work, or at least we don’t have only them review their own work, particularly when the stakes in national capability and taxpayer dollars are so high. And even more particularly when the results of the work are a budget that has exploded far beyond plan, a schedule that continues to slip to the right, and a product that will be a failure by the standards of the Aldridge Commission, even if it’s a success by its own internal, drinking-its-own-bathwater criteria.

We aren’t seeking a “perfect” plan, Dr. Griffin. We are seeking one that meets the criteria that you were given. It is not “good enough.” It will not “work,” if by “work,” you mean provide an affordable and sustainable infrastructure that will allow us to go beyond earth orbit with more than a handful of astronauts per year at a cost of less than many billions per trip. You failed.

It’s time, long past time, to “look under the hood.” That the White House didn’t do so long ago is a failure of the Bush administration as well. It shouldn’t have had to take a change in administration to review the glorious Griffin Fifteen-Year Plan. The fact that it is finally happening is one of the very few reasons (for me, at least) to be happy that we got an administration change.

Oh, and as for “shut up and move on”? I think that at this point a lot of people wish that Dr. Griffin, physician, would heal thyself.

*This is one of my pet peeves, as I note over at Clark’s place. The article says risk “adverse.” It’s not clear if the former administrator actually used the word, or a reporter transcribed it incorrectly and the editor didn’t pick it up. There is no such thing as being “risk adverse,” despite the wide-spread usage of the phrase. It is an aversion, or a desire to avoid risk, not a risk undertaken in adversity.

[Afternoon update]

Related thoughts over at Vision Restoration:

I would suggest that the most pressing problems with the current architecture are not of the “Will it work?” variety. There are a number of technical problems with the current architecture, and it remains to be seen whether or not these technical problems will be resolved. These are of concern.

However, the crucial problem with the ESAS-derived approach is that even if it eventually works in the sense of getting astronauts to the Moon, it will not achieve the goals it was supposed to achieve. I have gone into more detail in other posts on the goals of the Vision for Space Exploration that were later emphasized by the Aldridge Commission, and how the current architecture completely misses the point of those goals. However, one only has to read the charter of the HSF Committee to see some of the flaws with the current architecture.

None so blind…

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!