Philosophy, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Don’t Shout

17 Comments

David Brin has a warning for irresponsible astronomers.

When in danger, most people in a group recognize the responsibility to be quiet, and not give themselves away to an enemy by making noise, sometimes to the point that a crying baby will be stifled, and even suffocated. I think that this is a similar case where people should be enjoined, by force if necessary, because we cannot know the consequences. I see very little potential benefit to this, and a great deal of risk. The apparent insularity of the SETI folks cannot continue–we are all on this planet, not just them.

General, Media Criticism, Popular Culture

Another Great Newsman Gone

2 Comments

Condolences to friends, family and colleagues of Tony Snow. I wonder if major television news people die in threes as well? Unlike Russert, this wasn’t as unexpected–he had been fighting the cancer for a long time, and his mother died of it. But I hadn’t been aware that he was near the end.

[Update in the evening]

Mark Steyn has a short tribute (not to imply that many others don’t, and I suspect that he’ll have a longer one in due time). This is a very interesting point politically:

He had a rare temperament in today’s politics, and the Administration might have been spared the vicissitudes of these last five years had he become press secretary earlier.

Yes, of the many failings of George W. Bush, one of them is loyalty to previous staff. Scott McClellan was completely out of his element as WH spokesman, yet he was allowed to blunder through during many of the worst years of the administration. Things might have gone much differently had Tony Snow been brought in earlier. He would have challenged much of the nonsense that the press was putting forward much earlier, without looking like a deer in the headlights. It just shows how important perception can be.

[Update a while later]

Here’s an encomium from Rick Moran.

It’s very hard to come up with anything negative about Tony Snow, though I’m sure that one or two of my regular commenters will make the attempt in the service of their vile political agendas. I hope that I’m wrong.

Humor, Political Commentary, Satire, War Commentary

Al Qality

1 Comment

Iowahawk has gotten a hold of the latest hirabi recruitment brochure:

As you have possibly heard by now, Team Satan and their subsidiary Iraqi Security Forces have made several key market acquisitions in the last few months. In order to meet Q3 Return-on-Mayhem targets and maximize stakeholder value, we need to refocus our client-facing resource model. As we are currently seeking a 17th round of venture funding, budgets are extremely tight, and this will require reducing our internal work team payroll load through adaptive right-sizing on a go-forward basis. Accounting estimates indicate that much of this will be achieved via natural attrition and Apache Hellfire missiles. Still, in order to achieve costing targets, we will need to engage in involuntary outboarding.

The Communications department will be most directly effected by this initiative, as we continue transitioning of our day-to-day public relations efforts to low-cost offshore service providers like Huffington Post, DailyKos, and Democratic Underground.

Hey, you get what you pay for.

Space

It’s The Assumptions, Stupid

1 Comment

Clark Lindsey has some thoughts on NASA’s latest attempt to justify Ares, including the usual red herring about “man rating” (a phrase that I would purge from the vocabulary, had I the power).

…the initial conditions are the real problem. Griffin insisted on absolutely minimizing in-space assembly and avoiding unproven technologies such as propellant depots, even when such technology is close at hand and would tremendously expand space access capabilities for less money. These requirements lead to big and heavy throwaway payloads for the lunar exploration architecture.

I don’t know who the maligners of small vehicles are that she refers to in the article but I remember that there was a lot of bias within NASA towards a Shuttle replacement, i.e., a vehicle with similar crew and cargo capability. I’ve always thought the Shuttle was far too big for a first generation attempt at an RLV. Starting small, learning what works and doesn’t work, and growing vehicles over time seems like the sensible development path.

Of course, today I don’t think NASA should develop vehicles at all. Instead it should do R&D on leading edge technology the way NACA did for aviation and DARPA does today for general aerospace technology. Let Lockheed-Martin, SpaceX, etc. battle to offer the cheapest space access services.

And he is correct, Shuttle was never man rated. Which is one of the reasons why it’s disingenuous to claim that the Ares first stage is man rated because it was a Shuttle component (particularly since, with the additional segment, it’s become a new motor completely).

I’m a little confused, though, by his citing me, when the link goes to Jon Goff. I think that I have in fact pointed to Mike Griffin’s flip flop on the issue, but it’s not in any of Clark’s links in the piece.

[Update early afternoon]

This was the last time I commented on the man-rating canard, a couple months ago.

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