Space

Interview with Charles Miller

My Lunar vendor CSI just got a Space Act Agreement with NASA for their LEO Express system.

Sam Dinkin, Transterrestrial Musings:
Any reason other than testing that this system can’t be used for human passengers?
Charles Miller, CEO, Constellation Services, Inc.:
Yes. Unless the passengers plan to take up permanent residence in orbit, we would need to provide a way to return the passengers to Earth. In addition to a safe re-entry system, we would need to add some other systems that people tend to like, such as air and water and seats. There is a significant hit in terms of mass and financial cost to add all the systems are necessary to carry passengers. Nothing that has not been done before, but the canister that carries passengers will be much less cost effective for delivering cargo.

CSI studied concepts for recoverable canisters for NASA under in Phase 1A of our Alternate Access to Station contract in 2003-04. We have also looked at placing our canister inside RLVs, such as the Kistler K-1, for return to Earth. We received high marks from NASA’s AAS program for our ability to adapt our system to include a recoverable cargo capability.

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Social Commentary

“Get Off The Computer”

Here’s an article at the WaPo on nature deficit disorder.

I wasn’t that big on playing outside as a kid, myself, though I do remember messing around in a small woods near our house. I also used to fish at our cottage up in northern Michigan in the summer, and pick berries. But I always preferred to read.

But I enjoy nature now, as an adult, particularly when I lived out west, and there seemed to be so much more of it.

[Afternoon update]

Lileks has some related thoughts:

The reasons for the decline seem fairly obvious. The fewer kids growing up on farms or in small rural communities, the less hunting you have. The more expensive cabins get, the less access the middle-class has to the lakes, so kids don

Social Commentary

“Get Off The Computer”

Here’s an article at the WaPo on nature deficit disorder.

I wasn’t that big on playing outside as a kid, myself, though I do remember messing around in a small woods near our house. I also used to fish at our cottage up in northern Michigan in the summer, and pick berries. But I always preferred to read.

But I enjoy nature now, as an adult, particularly when I lived out west, and there seemed to be so much more of it.

[Afternoon update]

Lileks has some related thoughts:

The reasons for the decline seem fairly obvious. The fewer kids growing up on farms or in small rural communities, the less hunting you have. The more expensive cabins get, the less access the middle-class has to the lakes, so kids don

Social Commentary

“Get Off The Computer”

Here’s an article at the WaPo on nature deficit disorder.

I wasn’t that big on playing outside as a kid, myself, though I do remember messing around in a small woods near our house. I also used to fish at our cottage up in northern Michigan in the summer, and pick berries. But I always preferred to read.

But I enjoy nature now, as an adult, particularly when I lived out west, and there seemed to be so much more of it.

[Afternoon update]

Lileks has some related thoughts:

The reasons for the decline seem fairly obvious. The fewer kids growing up on farms or in small rural communities, the less hunting you have. The more expensive cabins get, the less access the middle-class has to the lakes, so kids don

Political Commentary

In Denial

Did American liberalism die with JFK? It’s an interesting thesis, that so many so-called liberals want to delude themselves that he was a victim of the right wing and homegrown reaction, rather than of a communist and the Cold War.

War Commentary

The Battle Of Baquba

It has begun, and Michael Yon writes about it, and the general state of the war, and the abysmal state of reporting about it:

Northeast of Baghdad, innocent civilians are being asked to leave Baquba. More than 1,000 AQI fighters are there, with perhaps another thousand adjuncts. Baquba alone might be as intense as Operation Phantom Fury in Fallujah in late 2004. They are ready for us. Giant bombs are buried in the roads. Snipers

Humor

Why I Read Lileks Every Day

For things like this:

The rain began. Ten, twenty tentative drops on the windshield, then whoa: angry pounding sheets. All over town, a million ant colonies suffered their own Johnstown flood. Imagine if they were capable of putting up small historical markers. There would be billions of them. They

Media Criticism

Disecting Supreme Court IPO Decision

In today’s Wall Street Journal, an editorial applauded the Supreme Court for ruling in Credit Suisse v. Billing that investors could not sue investment banks under anti-trust law. They like Justice Stevens’s concurring opinion:

After the initial purchase, the prices of newly issued stocks or bonds are determined by competition among the vast multitude of other securities traded in a free market. To suggest that an underwriting syndicate can restrain trade in that market by manipulating the terms of [initial public offerings] (IPOs) is frivolous.

This is a red herring. If the underwriting syndicate can get super normal profits through commissions during the IPO, subsequent trading is moot.

The main finding in the Breyer Opinion (6 joining, 1 concurring, 1 abstaining and 1 dissenting):

In sum, an antitrust action in this context is accompanied by a substantial risk of injury to the securities markets and by a diminished need for antitrust enforcement to address anticompetitive conduct. Together these considerations indicate a serious conflict between application of the antitrust laws and proper enforcement of the securities law.

I agree that there is a fundamental conflict between Justice and/or FTC pursuing anti-trust claims and SEC regulating securities. But this is not saying that there should be no anti-trust enforcement. SEC should enforce anti-trust laws.

Here’s what they can expect to reap.

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Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!