History, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Learned Nothing, Forgotten Nothing

25 Comments

Andy McCarthy says that Barack Obama is the September 10th candidate:

The fact is that we used the criminal justice system as our principal enforcement approach, the approach Obama intends to reinstate, for eight years — from the bombing of the World Trade Center until the shocking destruction of that complex on 9/11. During that timeframe, while the enemy was growing stronger and attacking more audaciously, we managed to prosecute successfully less than three dozen terrorists (29 to be precise). And with a handful of exceptions, they were the lowest ranking of players.

When an elitist lawyer like Obama claims the criminal-justice system works against terrorists, he means it satisfies his top concern: due process. And on that score, he’s quite right: We’ve shown we can conduct trials that are fair to the terrorists. After all, we give them lawyers paid for by the taxpayers whom they are trying to kill, mounds of our intelligence in discovery, and years upon years of pretrial proceedings, trials, appeals, and habeas corpus.

As a national-security strategy, however, and as a means of carrying our government’s first responsibility to protect the American people, heavy reliance on criminal justice is an abysmal failure.

Obama is going to be pounded on his appalling historical ignorance throughout the campaign. “Auschwitz” was just the beginning.

[Update at noon]

Apparently the McCain campaign thinks that this is a major vulnerability for Obama:

As the war of words between the two presidential campaigns is escalating, McCain advisers and surrogates unleashed some of their harshest language yet in describing Obama.

On a conference call with reporters, former CIA chief James Woolsey and others said Obama’s policy regarding the handling of terrorism suspects would create an opening for more attacks like those on Sept. 11, 2001.

Randy Scheunemann, McCain’s foreign policy adviser, said Obama represents “the perfect manifestation of a Sept. 10 mindset.”

“If a law enforcement approach were accurate, then you wouldn’t have had Sept. 11,” Kori Schake, a McCain policy adviser, said.

I think it’s going to be 1972 all over again. The reason that the “superdelegate” concept was come up with was exactly to prevent this. It would seem that they’re not doing their job.

Of course, it’s still several weeks until the convention. If I were the McCain campaign, I wouldn’t actually be pounding Obama this hard until he is safely the nominee. It probably helps Hillary! more at this stage than it does them, particularly since the public has a short attention span, and isn’t necessarily going to remember this by November.

[Mid-afternoon update]

Another history lesson for Obama:

Yasin fled the United States after the bombing to Iraq, and lived as Saddam Hussein’s guest in Baghdad until the invasion. He is still free, and wanted by the FBI.

Picky, picky, picky.

Anyway, it can’t possibly be true. As everyone knows, Saddam had absolutely no connection to terrorism, or World Trade Center bombings.

Political Commentary, Science And Society

Hard Wired

14 Comments

There seems to be a clear link between brain structure and sexual orientation. This should put to rest any notion that it’s a “choice” for anyone but bi-sexuals (and this might imply that there are quite a few, since there could be a continuous variation between symmetric and how asymmetric one’s brain is). As I’ve long said, there are those who are clearly irretrievably heterosexual (like me) and homosexual, but the debate rages on among the bis, who assume that everyone is like them.

[Via Geek Press]

Space

Glide Back

17 Comments

Jon Goff has put up the fourth installment of his survey on space transport concepts. As he noted earlier, it could be the basis of a useful textbook on the subject, with a lot more work and analysis (and accompanying graphs and figures). When I was on The Space Show the other day, David got a chat from an aerospace engineering student about when he’d learn how to design low-cost launchers, because he hadn’t seen anything about that in any of his course work. This would be the text for such a course.

As Jon notes, TPS is a common thread in making reusable entry vehicles practical and cost effective. The Shuttle tiles are too high maintenance, and risky (as we saw with Columbia). However, a lot of these issues go away if the vehicle “swallows the tank” (as Rockwell and others proposed in their X-33 concepts). No external tank dramatically reduces the risk to damaging the tiles, and containing a hydrogen (or even hydrocarbon, though to a lesser degree) fuel tank makes the vehicle much more “fluffy”* on entry, considerably reducing the heat load. Because of the ET, Shuttle had unique TPS issues that future vehicles are less likely to have to worry about. And also, as Jon notes, XCOR is in the process of building exactly the type of “X-vehicle” that will be useful to start to prove out both trajectory and TPS concepts, something that NASA should have done years ago, and probably would have had it still been NACA.

[Update late afternoon]

Notwithstanding the silly microkerfuffle in comments, I should add that when I came up with the term “fluffy,” it didn’t occur to me to apply it to a vehicle. I really intended it to apply to something that actually is fluffy (i.e., homogeneously undense, e.g., liquid hydrogen), rather than something that has low average density, but very high local density with vast volumes of low or zero density. We should probably come up with some other word to describe a large empty tank, to distinguish between the homogeneous and heterogeneous cases.

*A word I came up with years ago at Rockwell to mean the opposite of “dense.” Others may have come up with it independently.

Political Commentary, Technology and Society

Guilt-Free Petroleum

11 Comments

Some thoughts from Thomas James:

…the amusing part is that it is theoretically a carbon-negative fuel source — the microbes take more carbon out of the atmosphere than what they excrete as a useable oil (if that doesn’t seem to make sense, recall that the microbes themselves require carbon for their own structure).

On the other hand, since this approach requires genetic engineering, the watermelons and luddites will no doubt put the kibosh on it regardless of its benefits — the only thing more intolerable than the idea of environmental-guilt-free petroleum sustaining the Western lifestyle of individuality, independence, and material happiness is the knowledge that that guilt-free petroleum comes from “frankenbacteria.”

They’ll hate it even without the bioengineering. As noted, it doesn’t require us to tighten our hair shirts, or depopulate the planet.

Space, Technology and Society

Thoughts On The Number Six

11 Comments

Over at Rockets and Such.

So, it goes from Ares 5 to Ares 6, and it still doesn’t satisfy the mission requirement. And now it has outgrown the MLP.

There’s a concept in the development of a space vehicle known as “chasing your tail,” in which the need to add something to the vehicle (like adequate structural strength, with margin) results in more weight, which results in the need for bigger or more engines to push it, which results in the need for more propellant capacity to accelerate the added mass, which results in…

And the design won’t close.

Now in fact, it is probably possible to get this design to close–bigger vehicles are easier in that regard than small ones. But regardless of the size of the vehicle, mission needs are always going to grow (and they still don’t really have solid numbers on the EDS/Altair/cargo requirements). So it won’t be able to get the mission concept (one and a half launch) to close, particularly as we move beyond the moon, even if it can be done for the moon.

The rationale for the heavy lifter has always been to avoid the complication of orbital assembly (apparently, the false lesson learned from our success with assembling ISS is that we should throw away all that experience, and take an entirely different approach for VSE). But it’s already a “launch and half” mission, needing both Ares 1 and Ares 56, so they’re not even avoiding it–they’re only minimizing it. And even if the lunar mission doesn’t outgrow the Ares 6, it won’t be able to do a Mars mission in a single launch. So if we need to learn to do orbital assembly (and long-term propellant storage) anyway, why postpone it? Why not take the savings from not developing an unneeded heavy lifter (and new crew launch vehicle), and invest it in orbital infrastructure, tools and technology to provide a flexible system that can be serviced by a range of launch vehicles, without the single-point failure of Ares? These are the kinds of issues that a new administrator will have to consider next year.

And don’t get me started on the Ares 1 problems:

The currently favored mitigation approaches – still undergoing a trade study – for thrust oscillation will add around 500 lbs to Orion for shock mounting on the crew seats and vital components.

So, because the geniuses behind this concept decided to put the crew on top of the world’s biggest organ pipe, they’ll add a quarter of a ton to an already-overweight vehicle with no margin, so that the astronauts will (might?) be able to survive watching the rest of the capsule being vibrated even more intensely around them.

There is a word for this. It starts with a “k” and ends with “ludge.” And then there’s this.

Thrust oscillation is now categorized as a 5×4 risk for the upper stage.

I’m not sure which axis is which in that formulation, but it either means that there is a very high likelihood of a catastrophic outcome, or that that it is probable that there will be a near-catastrophic outcome. And no mitigation has yet been found.

They really need to consider going from one and a half launches to (at least) two launches of a single medium-sized vehicle type. Two launches is two launches, it would save them a huge amount of development costs, provide much better economies of scale in operation and production, and get completely around the “stick” idea, which is proving to be a programmatic disaster waiting to happen, if it hasn’t already. Let us finally end the cargo cult of Apollo, and develop real infrastructure.

[Late morning update]

Here’s more discussion over at NASA Space Flight.

[Update a few minutes later]

In a post from a week ago, Chair Force Engineer has some related thoughts as well, on the wisdom of choosing solids at all:

The solid-liquid trade study is one that couldn’t have been adequately analyzed during the 60 days of the ESAS study, and will likely end up as an interesting footnote in the Ares story. The question is whether the Ares story will fall into the genre of historical nonfiction, or fantasy and tragedy. If the latter is true, perhaps liquids were the answer after all. But the decision to not cap the weight of Ares V (even at the expense of payload) is one that taxpayers shouldn’t forget if the massive rocket, and its shiny new infrastructure, ever get off the drawing board.

It seems pretty clear (as it did at the time) that the decision to build “the Stick” was pre-ordained, and that the sixty-day study was a rationalization, not a rationale, and that none of the CE&R recommendations were seriously considered. An Administrator Steidle would no doubt want to revisit it.

Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Seek, And Ye Shall Find

32 Comments

Another huge oil discovery in Brazil.

What’s amazing is not so much that Congress won’t allow us to pump oil, which we badly need to do. They won’t even allow us to look for it, especially if it’s in a “pristine” (aka barren coastal plain, frozen in the winter and a mosquito-infested bog in the summer) region, at least according to Senator McCain.

What are they afraid we might find?

Business, Humor, Technology and Society

Only Cat 5?

12 Comments

For that kind of money, I’d expect Cat 8, at least.

An audiophile and his money are soon parted.

[Update a few minutes later]

As noted, the Amazon customer reviews are hilarious.

[Update in the evening]

Stephen Dawson (from Down Under) has a defense (albeit pretty flimsy. as he admits) of Denon.

I have to admit my disappointment as well. I’d always respected Denon up until this. As someone in comments said, one hopes that the marketing person responsible will have a few of these cables run through them from one end to the other. Or be keelhauled with them.

Space, Space History

Len Cormier’s Final Flight Plan

I just got the sad news from Pat Kelley:

Len took his final journey this morning, passing peacefully. His family is going to have his ashes interred at Arlington cemetery, but I have no schedule. For those who wish to express condolences, you can reach his life partner, Anne Greenglass via email, [email me for the address if you want to do so–rs].

I tried to address this notice to all the people on my list, but I’m sure there are others I may have missed, so please forward this to anyone else you feel would want to know. I do intend to continue trying to get backing for Len’s last design (Space Van 2010) as a tribute.

Len was a truly unique man, and a rare breed these days. Always the gentleman, honest to a fault, and always ready to give credit where it was due (and sometimes even allowing the unworthy to take credit for his work, for the sake of an important effort). He is unreplaceable, and will be sorely missed.

Ad astra, cum laetitia, Len.

[Previous post here]

Space, Space History

Len Cormier’s Final Flight Plan

3 Comments

I just got the sad news from Pat Kelley:

Len took his final journey this morning, passing peacefully. His family is going to have his ashes interred at Arlington cemetery, but I have no schedule. For those who wish to express condolences, you can reach his life partner, Anne Greenglass via email, [email me for the address if you want to do so–rs].

I tried to address this notice to all the people on my list, but I’m sure there are others I may have missed, so please forward this to anyone else you feel would want to know. I do intend to continue trying to get backing for Len’s last design (Space Van 2010) as a tribute.

Len was a truly unique man, and a rare breed these days. Always the gentleman, honest to a fault, and always ready to give credit where it was due (and sometimes even allowing the unworthy to take credit for his work, for the sake of an important effort). He is unreplaceable, and will be sorely missed.

Ad astra, cum laetitia, Len.

[Previous post here]

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