Thomas James thinks that Elon Musk is trying to get Boeing and Lockmart to pay the development costs for the Falcon series.
The Hypocrisy Of Self-Righteous Leftists
…and the mainstream media that ignores it. An interview with Peter Schweizer:
I’m not sure that most people take Franken seriously, but the media most assuredly does…His vicious attacks against conservatives as racists are not meant to be funny. He really does think that we’re bigots. So questions about his absolutely abysmal record when it comes to hiring minorities should be exposed. (For those who want a hint, less than one percent of his employees have been black. That’s a worse record than Bob Jones University, which Franken claims is “racist.”)
There’s more there about Michael Moore, Barbara Streisand, and Noam Chomsky, among others. He’s written a book.
More Giggle Factor Erosion
The Guardian is talking seriously about property rights on the Moon.
A Notable Tenth Anniversary
And one that the mainstream press won’t even bother to mention, let alone celebrate, because he’d know that most people would cheer the event (to their dismay). Ten years ago, Rudy Giuliani tossed Yasser Arafat out of a concert at the Lincoln Center. For that alone, he’d get my vote if he runs for president.
Death Of An American Hero
Rosa Parks has died. Her bravery moved many Americans to the front of many buses, both literally and metaphorically.
I can imagine that the left wingnuts who think that all “right wingers” and “conservatives” are racists, will imagine that Free Republic will be saying things like “good riddance.” Defying the stupid stereotype, au contraire.
On The Record
Just in case anyone had any doubt from this post, I oppose the Miers nomination.
Space Roundup
The Chair Force Engineer has a lot of good stuff over the past few days, including commentary on the SpaceX lawsuit against BoLockMart, NASA’s architecture plans, and many pictures of the recent X-Prize Cup exhibition in New Mexico.
Helpless
I’m in California, watching a Cat 2 hurricane going right over our home in Boca, and there’s nothing I can do. I just talked to Patricia, who has been holding down the fort, and says it’s the worst she’s ever been through. She’s lost power, and will be in the eye shortly, then get beat up from the other direction. My heart and best wishes goes out to other Florida bloggers, and Floridians in general. This may be the worst hurricane for Florida since Andrew in terms of property damage, considering the large population in its path. No telling how long power will be out.
The Battle Lines Are Drawn
Jeff Foust has a good wrapup of the current state of play in the space activist community over the proposed exploration architecture, from this past weekend’s Space Frontier Conference, over at today’s The Space Review. Bottom line, to quote Bob Zubrin, is that it “sucks.” Those in the community who (unlike Space Frontier and Space Access) aren’t saying so officially are doing so only to be polite, and operating on the principle that if you haven’t anything good to say about it, say nothing at all.
Unfortunately, as Jeff points out at Space Politics, the sophistication of the debate on space policy in Washington is less than informed or reasoned. It’s very easy to confuse criticism of NASA’s chosen means of executing the vision with the vision itself. Nonetheless, if NASA has chosen a hopeless path for our goals (which in fact they have) we must state that. There’s little point in supporting a program that will once again end in tears, after many more billions of taxpayer dollars and more wasted years just because it is ostensibly a “space” program.
And speaking of debate style, Jeff was overtactful in characterizing Bob Zubrin’s as “contentious,” in which he repeatedly interrupted anyone who disagreed with him, shouting “stop, stop,” “it’s impossible!” “stop.”
This heavy-lift issue is one that needs a vigorous, informed (and civil) public debate, since it’s not at all clear that it ever received one in the workings of the exploration team at NASA. Cyberspace, and the blogosphere, would be a good place for it.
[Update a few minutes later]
Clark Lindsey points out an Aviation Week article that indicates that many are in agreement that the “all eggs in one basket” approach is potentially disastrous (and does little to advance our abilities as a spacefaring nation), and asks:
What is going to happen to the lunar program when (1) there is the inevitable long delay in the development of the HLLV and (2) when a HLLV fails and destroys a really big collection of lunar exploration hardware, and (3) the HLLV is then grounded for a long period?
Hey, Clark, didn’t you get the memo? We’re not supposed to ask those kinds of questions.
[Update at 7:40 AM PDT]
Clark has further thoughts:
…NASA’s plan is already under considerable stress due to budget restraints.
This further emphasizes the need for NASA to focus on lowering space transportation costs significantly rather than on getting to the Moon by a fixed date with a straight-forward but very costly and impractical system. With cheaper space transport, NASA can still reach the Moon within a budget that probably won’t grow and may even shrink.
Is This Justice?
While Walt Anderson did some really dumb and arrogant things, just glancing through this web site, this would appear to be less a prosecution, than a persecution.