Tim Russert has apparently died of a heart attack. Condolences to his family.
I suspect that given how unexpected this was, it will shake up NBC news quite a bit.
Schizophrenic
Jeff Foust has a tale of two bills. As he notes, the language in the authorization bill is great:
It is further the sense of Congress that United States entrepreneurial space companies have the potential to develop and deliver innovative technology solutions at affordable costs. NASA is encouraged to use United States entrepreneurial space companies to conduct appropriate research and development activities. NASA is further encouraged to seek ways to ensure that firms that rely on fixed-price proposals are not disadvantaged when NASA seeks to procure technology development.
I wonder if the part about fixed-price contracts was in response to pressure from XCOR specifically, or perhaps from the Personal Spaceflight Federation?
Anyway, nice as it sounds, the only bill that really counts is the appropriations bill, which (again as he notes) cuts COTS funding.
More On ANWR Versus The Grand Canyon
From Jonah Goldberg, who has been to both:
This isn’t to say that the Grand Canyon isn’t a beautiful place; it inspires awe among those who visit it. ANWR (pronounced “AN-wahr”) inspires awe almost entirely in those who haven’t been there. It is an environmental Brigadoon or Shangri-La, a fabled land almost no one will ever see. That is its appeal. People like the idea that there are still Edens “out there” even if they will never, ever see them.
Indeed, if Americans could visit the north coast of Alaska, as I have, as easily as they can visit the Grand Canyon, the oil would be flowing by now.
[Afternoon update]
McCain’s attitude: Let them eat honor:
At a town-hall meeting in Philadelphia, McCain said he could no sooner drill in ANWR than in the Grand Canyon. This is like comparing a roadside flea market to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Five million people a year visit the Grand Canyon, whereas 1,000 visit ANWR. Why would anyone want to go? It’s a frozen wasteland during the winter and a mosquito-infested bog during the summer.
McCain opposes drilling off the shores of Florida and California as well, saying that the states should be able to decide. But Alaska desperately wants to drill in ANWR. Its opinion apparently doesn’t count. In an interview on the Today show, McCain ridiculously held out the prospect that advances in alternative energy might lower the price of gas by November. He’s touting fanciful revolutionary breakthroughs within months without acknowledging the real technological advances that make it possible to drill with minimal environmental impact.
He’s blowing a huge political opportunity.
Good Spacy Linkage
Over at the latest Carnival of Space.
Lileks Gets All Sarcastic
You’re probably shocked. I know I was:
I’m guessing the profit isn’t 51 cents. But whatever it is, it’s too much! I’ve heard some people yearn for a windfall profits tax that would reinvest the money in alternative energy, or rebate it back to the consumer. Fine. Apply that to your business. Here’s the acceptable profit level. You don’t get to make any more than that. If you do, the state will confiscate the property and divide it among your competitors, or give it back to your customers. Have a nice day. But oil is different. It’s necessary! So is food. Farmers are doing well. Let us therefore set the acceptable level for corn farmers, take away the excess profits, invest it new forms of sweeteners or biofuels farmers cannot yet produce, and give people rebates for Splenda to compensate for the price of high fructose corn syrup.
It’s not that we cannot produce any more oil; you suspect that some are motivated by the belief, perverse as it sounds, that we should not. We should not drill 50 miles off shore on the chance someone in Malibu takes a hot-air balloon up 1000 feet and uses a telephoto lens to scan the horizon for oil platforms. Also, there are ecological concerns. (The ocean is a wee place, easily disturbed.) There’s something else that may well be my imagination, but I can’t quite shake the feeling: high gas prices and shortages of oil make some people feel good. This is the way it has to be. Oil is bad. Cars are bad. Cars make suburbs possible. Suburbs are the antithesis of the way we should live, which is stacked upon one another in dense blocks tied together by happy whirring trains. So some guy who drives to work alone has to spend more money for the privilege of being alone in his car listening to hate radio?
Good.
The Top Ten
I’m sure that the Canadian Human Rights Commission will be weighing in any minute.
[crickets chirping]
A Hopeful Long Shot
Some interesting progress in polywell fusion.
“We’re fully operational and we’re getting data,” Nebel said. “The machine runs like a top. You can just sit there and take data all afternoon.”
So was Bussard correct? Will it be worth putting hundreds of millions of dollars into a larger-scale demonstration project, to show that Bussard’s Polywell concept could be a viable route to fusion power?
Nebel said it’s way too early to talk about the answers to those questions. For one thing, it’s up to the project’s funders to assess the data. Toward that end, an independent panel of experts will be coming to Santa Fe this summer to review the WB-7 experiment, Nebel said.
“We’re going to show them the whole thing, warts and all,” he said.
Because of the complexity, it will take some interpretation to determine exactly how the experiment is turning out. “The answers are going to be kind of nuanced,” Nebel said.
The experts’ assessment will feed into the decision on whether to move forward with larger-scale tests. Nebel said he won’t discuss the data publicly until his funders have made that decision.
Let’s hope it pans out. If so, Bob Bussard will be smiling from the grave, or wherever he is.
How To End The Shuttle Program
Louise Riofrio has an interesting idea, but I haven’t given it enough thought to have much of an opinion.
Sauce For The Goose
John McCain continues to justly call for Obama to visit Iraq, and talk to General Petraeus (without preconditions). Well, I think that if Senator McCain would visit ANWR, he might discover that it is nothing at all like the Grand Canyon. Of course, Obama is not in a position to call him on that, since he opposes drilling there (and everywhere else, as far as I can tell) as well.
[Update a minute or two later]
Here’s a great suggestion:
Another way McCain can move toward an ANWR solution is to educate himself on small-footprint drilling practices. He should talk to some oil company guys, get the facts, and then announce STERNLY that he will only support the exploration in ANWR if it strictly adheres to “environmentally friendly low-impact micro-drilling standards” and DEMAND that no more than .5% of the land in that area be compromised in even the slightest way.
Bingo. The oil companies can all drill within those parameters now and McCain can appear as the reasonable tough guy he wants to be.
Unfortunately, I think he’s too stubborn and fixed in his views to do such a thing.
Fighting Global Warming
With geoengineering. But the hair shirters don’t like it:
Stabilization can only be achieved by cutting current carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent. This means implementing highly unpopular policies of carbon rationing and higher energy prices. So some climate change researchers and environmental activists worry that the public and policymakers will see geoengineering as way to avoid making hard decisions. “If humans perceive an easy technological fix to global warming that allows for ‘business as usual,’ gathering the national (particularly in the United States and China) and international will to change consumption patterns and energy infrastructure will be even more difficult,” writes Rutgers University environmental scientist Alan Robock.
Well, boo frickin’ hoo.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Commenter Chris Potter has a pithy translation: “If there’s no good reason for people to do what I want them to do, they won’t do it.”