Space

More Happy Talk

4 Comments

From Jeff Hanley:

Hanley stated his belief that Orion 2’s Initial Operational Capability (IOC) test flight to the ISS will “remain” on track for March, 2015 – although the ongoing PMR (Program Management Review) budget review shows the first ISS crew rotation (Orion 4) will take place one year later (March, 2016).

How in the world can someone believe that a program with as many uncertainties–technical, political, budgetary–as this one has can be “on track” for a date seven years out? Particularly considering this:

No specific references are made to ongoing problems that face the Constellation program, such as Thrust Oscillation, mass and performance concerns, etc. Noting only ‘key technical challenges’ – whilst citing the workforce’s ‘hard work and dedication’ as key to a successful resolution.

OK, so they don’t even know if there is a solution within the constraints of the program, let alone what it is, yet he thinks they’re on track to a 2015 IOC? Sometimes “hard work” and “dedication” aren’t enough. Unfortunately, when one manages cost-plus contracts, it’s easy to fall into a Marxist “labor theory of value” mode of thinking.

This would be more credible if he would at least caveat it.

[Update a few minutes later]

Hanley says that more money won’t close the gap. That’s probably right, short of an Apollo-like crash program. You can’t get a baby in a month by putting nine women on the job. Some things just take a certain amount of time.

People who complain about this program’s schedule forget that Apollo had essentially an unlimited budget, in terms of hitting the schedule. More money could have been poured into it, but it probably would have been wasted, in terms of getting men on the moon any sooner. NASA is not in that position today–they are budget constrained, yet they’re taking exactly the same economically unsustainable approach that got us to the moon the first time, and not developing affordable or routine spaceflight capabilities.

Which is something to consider in terms of looking for asteroids. It’s not sufficient to find them–we have to find them soon enough to be able to do something about it:

Smaller rocks matter, too. Perhaps nowhere is that so evident as in central Siberia, where 100 years ago last week, something — presumably a meteoroid, most experts say — streaked across the sky and exploded at an estimated height of 28,000 feet with a force equivalent to 185 Hiroshima bombs, leveling some 800 square miles of forest. Simulations by the Sandia National Laboratories showed that object could have been just 90 feet across.

Which is why we have to develop the spacefaring capability now, and not wait until we spot something, at which point it may be too late to do so. And unfortunately, Constellation in its current planned form is not what we need for that job.

Humor, Political Commentary, Satire

Clarification

21 Comments

Iowahawk has found a draft of an Obama speech explaining the refinement of his positions:

Let me be crystal clear: if elected president, my first act will be to call for the immediate withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq. I have always been consistent and forthright in this position, and I want to reassure my supporters that my recent statement backtracking from it was just some bullshit my staff came up with to tack to the center for the general election. To win this election, it will be critical to appeal to the dwindling but stubborn group of idiots who cling to fantasies of American “victory” in this tragic disaster. It’s an unfortunate part of the complicated game of presidential politics, but let’s face it: I can’t stop this war if I’m not in the White House. However, you should know by now that whatever I may say from now until November, once elected I will immediately pull the rug from these gullible pro-war rubes.

Or will I? As is obvious to all but the most deluded HuffPo retard, the surge in Iraq has produced dramatic improvements in security throughout Iraq, and the roots of a stable pro-American democracy. We have the terrorists on the run, and it would obviously be crazy for us to pull our troops from the region just as we are on the verge of victory. And it is equally obvious that everything I said in the previous paragraph was designed to placate the naive hipster moonbats I brilliantly exploited to destroy the Clintons. (You’re welcome.) Now that the nomination is in the bag, I am finally free to stake out my genuine pro-victory Iraq position, and have a good laugh while the dKos morons screech like a bunch of apoplectic howler monkeys. Let’s face it: at the rate I’m heading right on national security, I’ll be raining nukes on Tehran by February.

Well, that should settle the issue.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture

Lileks On Keillor

5 Comments

James takes on, once again, his fellow Minnesota scribe:

Mr. Keillor feels he has done okay in the last eight years but has a hot collar and ground-up teeth thinking about what the Current Occupant has done to the country the little girl will inherit. He’s mad about spending – I’m with him there, although a bit perplexed to find Keillor coming down on the side of spending less – and he doesn’t approve of the war. It ruined his Rockwell moment.

Being unable to watch a kid play baseball because you are mad at George Bush does not necessarily mean you are a better person or a person more attuned to truth and the future.It might mean, at best, you are a person who writes run-on sentences stringing together predictable assertions; at worst, it might mean you’re anhedonic, and looking for scapegoats. I look at my daughter and consider her future, and I see possibility and peril as well. But that’s up to us, and while I’m sure Mr. Keillor anticipates the day where he is legally required to pay the taxes he heretofore feels he is morally required to pay, we can do fine without him. We’ve done fine without his money so far, and I think we can keep that up. Unless he’s been paying in at the pre-tax-cut level, of course. In which case: hats off! A principled man is rare in any era.

You know, I actually greatly enjoy Keillor’s books, but when you let him loose on an editorial page, he seems to go completely nuts. Bush derangement is a very real thing.

Political Commentary

Rules For Thee

7 Comments

…not for me:

The lavish dining arrangements – disclosed by the Japanese Government which is hosting the summit in Hokkaido – come amid growing concern over rising food prices triggered by a shortage of many basic necessities.

On the flight to the summit, Mr Brown urged Britons to cut food waste as part of a global drive to help avert the food crisis.

Maybe they could start by cutting the PM’s rations.

You couldn’t make this stuff up.

Political Commentary

In His Own Words

6 Comments

That’s not the Barack Obama that I knew:

In one excerpt from the audio book that Hewitt played on his show in March, Obama alters his voice to mimic Wright’s and repeats passages from a sermon decrying a society “where white folks’ greed runs a world in need.” Later Obama says of Wright’s preaching, “I found the tears running down my cheeks.”

If the Dems don’t think that this will be powerful stuff this fall, they’re deluding themselves.

Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time. They actually thought that Senator Kerry’s war record was a feature, rather than a bug.

Political Commentary

War And Indecision

17 Comments

I think that this is a legitimate criticism of George Bush and his management style, though it’s unclear how much the problem is of Bush’s vacillation, and how much is guerrilla warfare within the bureaucracy. But even for the latter, I fault Bush for doing too little about it, starting with leaving George Tenet in place. While I never had high hopes for his administration, I was disappointed nonetheless (particularly by Cheney, for whom I did have higher hopes). About the best that can be said is that he was still far better than either of his opponents would have been.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!