The foreign policy advisor to the Iranian president recognizes who his adversary is, but not its nature:
But it is not only the US that Abbasi wants to take on and humiliate. He has described Britain as
Extreme Pumpkins
[Via GeekPress]
The Hybrid Myth Continues
Michael Belfiore updates his previous post, to indicate that Rocketplane (as I was quite confident was the case) has in fact been in discussions with the FAA. But he persists in his misguided (in my opinion) fear of liquid propulsion:
I say a good healthy dose of skepticism never hurt anyone about to climb into a commercial spaceship fueled with explosive liquids.
While not denying that skepticism is always appropriate to some degree, he still seems to think that hybrids cannot explode. That would come as a shock to many (including me) who watched an Amroc 250,000-lb-thrust motor launch itself down the mountain up at the rocket lab in the early 90s, as a chunk of rubber got caught in the throat, blocking the flow and causing the internal pressure to build up to the point that it blew the bolts on the aft bulkhead, with spectacular results. Hell, even steam boilers can explode (this killed many people in the early days of river transportation).
It’s true that a hybrid can’t achieve total combustion in the same way that mixing liquids can, but it’s a big mistake to think of them as intrinsically “safe” (a term that is always relative, and never absolute). I would personally feel just as comfortable on a vehicle powered by one of (for example) XCOR’s rocket engines as by any hybrid, because I’d be confident that they would build adequate margins and safeguards into it to make it as safe as reasonably possible.
Sixty Minutes One Is Just As Bad
They never learn:
It was all from Wilson
Is It Easier?
…or harder to argue for regime change of a country that has been drummed out of the UN?
For those slow on the uptake, I’m asking whether it’s a good idea to toss Iran, given the circumstances.
Bushwhacked?
I don’t normally think that Harry Reid is smart enough for this sort of thing, but did he set Bush up by blessing Harriett Miers? I only ask because I’m listening to a DNC strategist saying that she’s disappointed that Bush didn’t “consult” with the minority leader on the latest pick.
Prescience
I just noticed a comment I made in this year-old post (a good read for those new to this site who enjoyed my other WW II reportage satires):
I should add that things are going to get worse in Iraq before they get better. The enemy is going to do everything he can to prevent the elections from occurring. I have confidence that he will fail, and that the Iraqi people, like the brave Afghans, will go to the polls in the face of the totalitarian monsters who wish to thwart their freedom.
Looks like it’s holding up pretty well so far.
Will There Be A Double Standard?
Given the potential jail time and fines for the charges, I’ll be very interested to see if Libby (assuming that he’s convicted or cops a plea) gets a harsher sentence than Sandy Berger, someone accused of not only lying to investigators, but destroying archived government documents that may have shed light on the anti-terrorism activities of the Clinton administration (or lack thereof)–crimes to which he has confessed. It would certainly shock my personal judicial conscience if he does.
Misleading Concerns
Michael Belfiore is concerned about Rocketplane’s business plan and technical approach:
These guys say they’ll fly paying passengers–and not just any paying passengers, but ones able to blow almost a quarter of a million dollars on a what amounts to a fabulously expensive roller coaster ride–in an experimental spacecraft built around a used business jet. Because its cheaper.
Well, there’s actually nothing wrong with that. It’s certainly an airframe with which we have a lot of experience (though not necessarily for this application). It’s not at all obvious to me that it’s better to use a new design from scratch. And the fact that it’s used doesn’t bother me, either. Many airliners are flying safely with aging airframes (and we now have B-52s flying some of whose current flight crews may have grandfathers who flew them). What matters is not age (or even cycles), but inspections.
And there’s more, unfortunately. Turns out the rocket engine is going to be preowned as well, of the highly explosive liquid fuel variety. That’s because the built-from-scratch engine they were going to use blew up on the test stand.
Without knowing more about this, I can’t really comment, but liquid engines are not intrinsically dangerous, marketing hype from SpaceDev aside. It depends on the design, and the margins.
And something for me to follow up on: a tipster tells me that Rocketplane hasn’t approached the FAA about certifying their hot-rodded Learjet–surely a requirement for following through with their business plan.
If they haven’t talked to the FAA at all, I’d be concerned (and surprised, if not astonished). But if the “tipster” is saying literally that they haven’t applied for “certification,” I wouldn’t expect them to, now or later. “Certification” has a very precise meaning in this context. The whole purpose of the new launch legislation last year was to allow passengers to fly without having to go through certification of a spaceplane (something that the FAA-AST doesn’t know how to do at all, and that FAA-AVR, the part that certifies aircraft, doesn’t know how to do it for spacecraft).
All that is needed is a launch license. Virgin Galactic may attempt to get their spacecraft certified (because that seems to be Burt’s druthers), but if they do, I suspect they’ll find out that it will throw a wrench into their business plans, cost them a lot more than they expect, and delay their entry into the market for years.
[Update on Sunday night]
Robin Snelson makes a good point in comments–Belfiore is comparing apples and orange. Virgin Galactic is a spaceline, whereas Rocketplane is a manufacturer. Better to compare the latter to the SpaceShip Company.
In The Limelight
Glenn Reynolds just mentioned this post of mine on CNN’s Reliable Sources. Roger Simon (the journalist, not the smart blogger), whined in response (and completely missed the point) that WW II was nothing like Iraq.
[Update in the afternoon]
Here’s the rush transcript (in which they manage to misspell my name in a new and unusual way):
KURTZ: Glenn Reynolds, is this 2,000 deaths just a bloody milestone that naturally was going to get some media attention, or is there an anti-war tinge to the sudden focus on 2,000 deaths, the press’s way of saying, see, this just isn’t working out?
GLENN REYNOLDS, INSTAPUNDIT.COM: Well, it’s more than that. It’s a manufactured event by a press that has largely been anti-war from the beginning, and I think is dogpiling on the Bush administration for as many opportunities as it can find.
Ran Siemberg (ph), who is a blogger, had an amusing parody from World War II of the media making a big deal out of another milestone, the 250,000th death. And I think that provides all kind of perspective, on the difference between the two wars, and the difference between the press’ treatment of the two wars.
Too often, war coverage now is just another opportunity to try to go after Bush, who the press has disliked from day one. And I think that’s very, very unfortunate.
KURTZ: Roger Simon, you are shaking your head.
SIMON: I just don’t find much comparison between World War II, in which we were fighting predatory fascism that was trying to take over the globe, and invading Iraq for reasons that the administration now admits were false.
“…predatory fascism that was trying to take over the globe…”
I guess he’s never bothered to read any statements of intent from Al Qaeda.
Which part does he think is untrue of the enemy? That they aren’t fascists? Well, admittedly, the term has lost much of its currency from overuse by much of the left to be applied to everyone who disagrees with them on almost any conceivable subject, so let’s call it totalitarianism instead (a term that I would hope that Mr. Simon would agree also applies to our enemies in the second world war). If that word can’t be applied to people who want to run every aspect of everyone’s daily existence, will brook no dissent, and have no apparent value for human life, as the Jihadis objectively do, then to whom does it apply? And even if you want to imagine that the “secular” Saddam didn’t support the “terrorists” (one would have to disregard the Salman Pak training camp and the bounties offered for attacks on the Israelis to buy that one), he was as totalitarian (and fascist) as they come.
And part of the totalitarian ideology of Al Qaeda is that there shall be no ideology before theirs–ultimately, all the infidels must convert or die. That we aren’t first on the list is a matter of political and military necessity, not an indication of any solicitude toward our ultimate fate. Does he really believe that it isn’t their goal to “take over the globe”? From the standpoint of the threat, if they (and Saddam) are not the Hitler of the MSM mind, it’s because they’re Hitler in 1935, instead of Hitler in 1941. But while he made many strategic mistakes (which were his ultimate undoing, as hopefully will be the case for our new totalitarian adversaries), he didn’t make the strategic mistake of attacking New York in 1935, as Osama did in 2001.
It would have been a lot easier to deal with Hitler in 1935, which is one reason why our casualties are counted only in the low thousands after over four years of war, instead of the large fractions of a million that it took to defeat our totalitarian enemies six decades ago, for all that the media would make of them.