Space

Keeping Methane Propulsion Alive

1 Comment

Mark Whittington has an idea to solve the methane problem (no, not that methane problem–that one we’ll solve by burning down the rain forests):

If NASA feels that building a methane/LOX engine is too risky for the ESAS, there is a solution. Make such an engine one of the Centennial Challenges. Critics of the Vision for Space Exploration will be less unhappy because that would be another piece of technology developed by non traditional means. NASA will benefit because it gets the engine for the CEV and Mars Lander relatively cheaply.

Well, maybe. The problem is, I guess I don’t see LOX/methane engines as particularly risky, at least no more so than any other generic propulsion development. It’s not a technology risk (in the sense that there may be some unknowns out there that prevent it from being possible) so much as a programmatic risk, in terms of schedule delays or cost overruns. NASA has a lot of experience with these in propulsion programs, so they’re wary of new engine developments (though I suspect that XCOR has broken a lot of the conventional industry cost/schedule estimating models for propulsion system development). Our lack of methane propulsion isn’t because it’s a Hard Problem, but because no one has had sufficient requirement to date to fund it.

If we have unlimited money for prizes, I guess that a prize would be a good way to fund this, but prizes are better employed in those cases for which innovation is required to solve a really difficult problem that many have attempted and no one yet solved, not for a straightforward development program. Rather than offer a prize, I’ll bet that someone like XCOR (or the other companies working on the problem) would be happy to take a fixed-price contract to develop engines to NASA’s specs (they could use the technology contract they have from Marshall to develop a reusable cryo tank as a model), and it would be a lot cheaper than funding a cost-plus contract to Aerojet or Pratt. There are lots of other ways to do innovative procurement than offering prizes.

General Science

Alfred Hitchcock, Call Your Office

Apparently our ancestors had more to worry about than bears, snakes and sabre tooths:

…small human ancestors known as hominids had to survive being hunted not only by large predators on the ground but by fearsome raptors that swooped from the sky, said Lee Berger, a senior paleoanthropologist at Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand.

Apparently the Taung Baby was snatched and killed by an eagle.

I hate when that happens.

Political Commentary

Liberation For The Great White North?

Polls indicate that the Conservatives have a chance of getting a majority in the Canadian parliament. At the least, they may be able to get a governing coalition by peeling off just a few members, rather than having to do a grand deal with the Block Quebecois. As is the case down here with the Democrats, I’m less thrilled with seeing the Tories win than I am in seeing the Liberals lose big. Sic semper tyrannis corruptis.

I’ll bet Belinda Stronach is having a big-league case of buyers’ remorse now, for her thirty pieces of silver. What a difference a few months makes. Maybe she and fellow turncoat Jim Jeffords can start a club.

On the other hand, if it’s that close, she’ll no doubt be one of the MPs that they peel off to form their majority. She knows she doesn’t have much future with the current Liberals, and we already know what she is–it will just be a matter of haggling over the price. Simply letting her keep her current cabinet position would probably suffice, considering the alternative.

Science And Society

Stop Global Warming

Cut down the rain forests:

Keppler and his colleagues discovered that living plants emit 10 to 100 times more methane than dead plants.

Scientists had previously thought that plants could only emit methane in the absence of oxygen.

David Lowe, of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand, said the findings are startling and controversial.

“Keppler and colleagues’ finding helps to account for observations from space of incredibly large plumes of methane above tropical forests,” he said in a commentary on the research.

But the study also poses questions, such as how such a potentially large source of methane could have been overlooked…

Hey, I can answer that one–maybe because we haven’t come up with a way to blame it on the rapacious, capitalist, resource-scarfing western world.

Seriously, it really is amazing, given that living animals definitely emit a lot more methane than dead ones (particularly after a Mexican meal).

Political Commentary

Is Anyone Surprised

…that Ted Kennedy is satire challenged?

The 1983 essay “In Defense of Elitism” by Harry Crocker III included this line, read dramatically by Kennedy: “People nowadays just don’t seem to know their place. Everywhere one turns blacks and hispanics are demanding jobs simply because they’re black and hispanic…”

The essay may not have been funny, D’Souza acknowledges, but Kennedy read from it as if it had been serious instead of an attempt at humor.

“I think left-wing groups have been feeding Senator Kennedy snippets and he has been mindlessly reciting them,” D’Souza said. “It was a satire.”

Emphasis mine.

Well, I can understand why. I mean, the guy’s practically a walking (well, staggering) gasbag parody of himself.

War Commentary

A Horrible Choice And A Worse One

Victor Davis Hanson has some thoughts on what he views as the inevitable American air strike on Iran.

As I’ve said, this is our Munich moment. A world in which the mad mullahs have nukes is a frightening one indeed. Our previous totalitarian enemy in the Cold War at least had a keen sense of self preservation, that allowed MAD to work, at least for a while. We can’t bet on that from the Iranian government.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!