…but head over to Space Transport News, and keep scrolling. Lots of good stuff.
OK, So Not Quite As Soon
Well, the “safe, simple, soon” launch vehicle doesn’t seem to be as simple or soon as advertised. I’m shocked, shocked, I tell you.
Whether or not it’s safe remains to be seen.
[Update on Thursday morning]
Chair Force Engineer has some further uncharitable thoughts:
It would be wise to ask the engineers behind the Exploration Systems Architecture Study, Was “The Stick” really better than Delta & Atlas, or did you just do what Scott Horowitz told you to do?
[Another update on Thursday afternoon]
Jon Goff isn’t impressed, either.
Sorry
I’m working in California, and I’m swamped during the day, with a lousy internet connection in my hotel (when I say lousy, I mean that it’s wireless narrowband–I could move the data faster by tapping out Morse code by hand, and I don’t know Morse code).
Preemptive Victimhood
Rather than digging up old Reuters pieces about past events, the Sanity Inspector seems to have found one about future events. In the future. Or something like that:
The D.C. Islamic Eternal Justice Endeavor against War and Stereotyping (DIEJEWS) yesterday issued a strongly worded statement condemning a rising backlash against Muslims following next month’s nuclear bombing of Tel Aviv, Israel by Iran. The press release warned against an increase in anti-Muslim discrimination, hate crimes, and government harassment following the destruction of the unofficial Israeli capital city next month, as announced by the Iranian government.
Two Years On
Saturday was a little-noted anniversary for the space program. Jeff Foust has some thoughts.
Governor of Outer Space Territory
FAA’s authority from Congress extends only to takeoff and landing. This is duly implemented in the new proposed regs. The Outer Space Treaty makes the US liable for damages caused by US spacecraft and citizens to other signatory’s people and stuff whereever they are. That includes outer space and the rest of the planets. These areas too should be considered and governed for every US citizen and corporation that wants a US flagged spacecraft. There are excellent opportunities for US (mobile home) colonies in unoccupied territory. It’s time to appoint someone whose job it is to make that happen. A new position should be created: the Governor of Outer Space Territory.
Like the Space Paidhi in C.J. Cherryh’s Foreigner series, there would be a need for bridging tremendous cultural gaps between political leaders and spacers, quick thinking about governance modes, and even some rough frontier justice.
Why stop there? We should have an Ocean Territory Governor, a Sky Territory Governor and (an underground) Crust Territory Governor.
Gee, I Can’t Imagine Why
…Joe Biden, usually a fixture on Sunday morning, wasn’t on any of the political talk shows. Maybe he’s figured he already said enough on television this week to last for a couple weeks. The questioning from Chris Wallace or Tim Russert would have no doubt been amusing, and not of much value to his presidential ambitions. I suspect he’ll lay low for a while, and hope that people forget.
Gee, I Can’t Imagine Why
…Joe Biden, usually a fixture on Sunday morning, wasn’t on any of the political talk shows. Maybe he’s figured he already said enough on television this week to last for a couple weeks. The questioning from Chris Wallace or Tim Russert would have no doubt been amusing, and not of much value to his presidential ambitions. I suspect he’ll lay low for a while, and hope that people forget.
Gee, I Can’t Imagine Why
…Joe Biden, usually a fixture on Sunday morning, wasn’t on any of the political talk shows. Maybe he’s figured he already said enough on television this week to last for a couple weeks. The questioning from Chris Wallace or Tim Russert would have no doubt been amusing, and not of much value to his presidential ambitions. I suspect he’ll lay low for a while, and hope that people forget.
“The Great Gulf War”
A frightening, and unfortunately plausible (given the inevitable insouciance of Europe, and much of the American electorate itself), future history:
The ideological cocktail that produced ‘Islamism’ was as potent as either of the extreme ideologies the West had produced in the previous century, communism and fascism. Islamism was anti-Western, anti-capitalist and anti-Semitic. A seminal moment was the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s intemperate attack on Israel in December 2005, when he called the Holocaust a ‘myth’. The state of Israel was a ‘disgraceful blot’, he had previously declared, to be wiped ‘off the map’.
Prior to 2007, the Islamists had seen no alternative but to wage war against their enemies by means of terrorism. From the Gaza to Manhattan, the hero of 2001 was the suicide bomber. Yet Ahmadinejad, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, craved a more serious weapon than strapped-on explosives. His decision to accelerate Iran’s nuclear weapons programme was intended to give Iran the kind of power North Korea already wielded in East Asia: the power to defy the United States; the power to obliterate America’s closest regional ally.
No, nothing like Munich at all.
As Dennis Miller once quipped (though it wasn’t really funny), “To believe the left, Bush is Hitler, Cheney is Hitler, Ashcroft is Hitler, Rumsfeld is Hitler, but the guy with the mustache who gasses people and hates Jews and wants to conquer the world isn’t Hitler. Go figure.”