Space

Legislative Emergency

From Jeff Greason at XCOR:

As of 1:19 Pacific time, the compromise version of the commercial human spaceflight bill is expected to come to a vote in the House today under a new bill number, HR 5382. The compromise in this bill allows passenger safety regulation by AST — but only after a significant safety problem has been revealed in flight. The bill is currently opposed by a Representative who wants the FAA to have unlimited authority to regulate passenger safety. We encourage timely support for this bill. Text is available at:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3217961/

[Update at 5:25 PM EST]

Michael Mealing helpfully points out in comments that:

Oberstar’s number is (202) 225-6211
DeFazio’s number is (202) 225-6416

(these are the congressmen dragging their heels)

And here’s an email from Jim Muncy:

Continue reading Legislative Emergency →

General

One Hundred And Forty One Years Ago

In a small town in southeastern Pennsylvania, a war-weary president commemorated a new military cemetery, few of which’s first honorees had to travel far to final interment, having laid down their lives on that ground just a few months before. It’s useful to remember the words, in light of the recent election, and all the angry talk of Blue and Red, instead of Blue and Gray:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us–that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Space

It’s Alive!

Reports of the suborbital passenger launch legislation’s demise were greatly exaggerated, but it’s still on life support. According to Alan Boyle, here’s the problem:

Goldston said it was not clear to him whether the bill would be acceptable to Rep. Oberstar, the ranking Democratic member of the Transportation Committee. But Jim Berard, communications director on the panel’s Democratic staff, made Oberstar’s view quite clear to MSNBC.com: Oberstar believes the bill still does not go far enough to safeguard the safety of crew members and passengers on future suborbital spaceships, he said.

“If the bill is brought up under unanimous consent, Congressman Oberstar would most likely object, unless something can be done to address that particular language,” Berard said.

In a straight up-and-down vote, the opposition of just one member wouldn’t pose a problem. But so little time remains in this lame-duck session that congressional rules have to be short-circuited in order to approve the suborbital spaceflight bill. The easiest way would be through unanimous consent, and Oberstar’s objection would close off that avenue.

Rep. Oberstar apparently thinks that he has to destroy the industry (or prevent it from coming into being at all) in order to save it.

I hope that they can do a rules change to get around him, but I don’t think that they should capitulate to him. I have a feeling that no bill will be better than one worded the way he would want it.

Space

It’s Alive!

Reports of the suborbital passenger launch legislation’s demise were greatly exaggerated, but it’s still on life support. According to Alan Boyle, here’s the problem:

Goldston said it was not clear to him whether the bill would be acceptable to Rep. Oberstar, the ranking Democratic member of the Transportation Committee. But Jim Berard, communications director on the panel’s Democratic staff, made Oberstar’s view quite clear to MSNBC.com: Oberstar believes the bill still does not go far enough to safeguard the safety of crew members and passengers on future suborbital spaceships, he said.

“If the bill is brought up under unanimous consent, Congressman Oberstar would most likely object, unless something can be done to address that particular language,” Berard said.

In a straight up-and-down vote, the opposition of just one member wouldn’t pose a problem. But so little time remains in this lame-duck session that congressional rules have to be short-circuited in order to approve the suborbital spaceflight bill. The easiest way would be through unanimous consent, and Oberstar’s objection would close off that avenue.

Rep. Oberstar apparently thinks that he has to destroy the industry (or prevent it from coming into being at all) in order to save it.

I hope that they can do a rules change to get around him, but I don’t think that they should capitulate to him. I have a feeling that no bill will be better than one worded the way he would want it.

Space

It’s Alive!

Reports of the suborbital passenger launch legislation’s demise were greatly exaggerated, but it’s still on life support. According to Alan Boyle, here’s the problem:

Goldston said it was not clear to him whether the bill would be acceptable to Rep. Oberstar, the ranking Democratic member of the Transportation Committee. But Jim Berard, communications director on the panel’s Democratic staff, made Oberstar’s view quite clear to MSNBC.com: Oberstar believes the bill still does not go far enough to safeguard the safety of crew members and passengers on future suborbital spaceships, he said.

“If the bill is brought up under unanimous consent, Congressman Oberstar would most likely object, unless something can be done to address that particular language,” Berard said.

In a straight up-and-down vote, the opposition of just one member wouldn’t pose a problem. But so little time remains in this lame-duck session that congressional rules have to be short-circuited in order to approve the suborbital spaceflight bill. The easiest way would be through unanimous consent, and Oberstar’s objection would close off that avenue.

Rep. Oberstar apparently thinks that he has to destroy the industry (or prevent it from coming into being at all) in order to save it.

I hope that they can do a rules change to get around him, but I don’t think that they should capitulate to him. I have a feeling that no bill will be better than one worded the way he would want it.

Weird

Going Down (On) The Road

Here’s another piece that reads like it could be in The Onion, but it seems to be for real:

There are plans to extend the interstate from Indianapolis through southwestern Indiana all the way through Texas into Mexico in the coming years. While most believe this highway will be good for the state

Philosophy

A Profound Insight

…into Loony Tunes from a commenter at the Aussie Oppressor’s site:

Wile E. Coyote is a mythic fusion of Sisyphus and Tantalus. He is doomed to labor eternally at a task that he can never complete, tormented all the while by the presence of the sustenance he craves (the Road Runner) just outside his reach, but close enough to see, hear, and even smell. He is continually subjected to agonizing pain and massively crippling injuries, but he can never die; instead, he heals instantaneously and is forced to continue his hopeless efforts.

In short, Wile E. Coyote is in Hell — a Hell as cruel and sadistic as anything that Dante envisioned.

also,

You have to feel for Sylvester, too – once he finally gave up on the bird, he settles down, has a kid, then spends his declining years plagued by hallucinations about a giant mouse. Poor bastard.

and

The thing that REALLY steams Me about the RR cartoon is not just that the coyote always loses (though that’s annoying to this canine fan), but that he’s an engineer or at least a technician. You get the message that technology will never solve any problem.

I think the USSR had a cartoon which had a wolf chasing a rabbit, but the rabbit was the inventor and his inventions WORKED.

Why did the damned commies do something right that we didn’t?

Space

Not Unsafe At Any Speed

My promised (well, actually, hoped for) rebuttal to Alexander Tabarrok’s mistaken hit piece on the space tourism industry is up at TechCentralStation.

[Update at 10 AM EST]

I have to say that I’m underwhelmed by Professor Tabarrok’s response to my rebuttal. He seems to have read it, or at least glanced at it, since he complains about my use of the (admittedly overused, but appropriate in this case, I believe) word “paradigm.” However, he doesn’t seem to have comprehended it, or if he did, he chose not to provide a substantive response.

He is still apparently unable to discern the distinction between orbital and suborbital, and between reusable and expendable, and why such a distinction is important. He accuses me of relying on “faith,” when in fact I made a very clear and rational case as to why these new vehicles are different than the ones from which he mistakenly draws his misleading statistics.

In this last graf, he displays a fundamental lack of understanding of the economics of the space industry (disappointing–one would hope that as an economics professor, he could get that right, even if he doesn’t understand the technical issues):

What’s so great about space tourism anyway? Even though an increase in rocket safety of a factor of ten is not much when considering the safety of large numbers of people it is very significant when thinking about satellite launches or temporary low-orbit launches. A reduction of risk of this amount means much lower insurance costs that will open up space to new private development.

What’s so great about space tourism is that it is the only market, or at least the only one that doesn’t require some technology breakthrough beyond the development of low-cost vehicles themselves, that is sufficiently large to get us to the scale of operations necessary to reduce costs and improve reliability.

And if he believes that the high cost of launch insurance is the barrier holding back private space development, he understands nothing at all about the current launch industry, either technically or in a business sense.

David Masten isn’t impressed, either.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!