Bin Laden May Be Dead

Well, here’s a big, juicy DUH! for whoever wrote this story and headline.

What really bothers me about this is the apparent inability to exercise the faculty of logic, whether on the part of the intelligence agency spokesman, or the reporter:

The officials all cautioned that it’s impossible to draw any firm conclusions from the tapes, but they said the new material has strengthened the belief that bin Laden is ailing and that Zawahri may now be running al-Qaida or preparing to succeed a weakened bin Laden.

“I think there’s a pretty broad consensus that bin Laden’s probably alive but not well,” said one senior official.

And the basis for such a “consensus” would be? There’s certainly no evidence in this story that he’s alive. None, zero, nada. Is this consensus based on some other evidence that isn’t revealed here? I’ve seen no evidence whatsoever that he’s alive. I know that absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence, but in his case, considering what a camera hog he was prior to the Afghan liberation, and how important it would be to demonstrate to his followers that he was at a temperature warmer than ambient, I can’t believe that if he were able to do so, he wouldn’t.

I think that he’s been fertilizing a cave in the Afghan mountains for almost two years. I wish that these dumb stories implying otherwise would tell us why they do so.

Cheap Satellites Follow Up

Rocketman has a post on the X-Prize and related subjects that’s worth reading, but there are a couple problems with it.

This is the most egregious:

The difference in energy required for a vehicle to reach the 100 mile altitude necessary to achieve orbit is ~25 times greater than the energy necessary to reach an altitude of 50 miles (I leave it as an exercise for the readers to figure out the difference in energy necessary between 62.5 and 100 miles).

This makes no sense at all. The difference in altitude between 50 and a hundred miles is, well, fifty miles. It’s merely doubled, so it makes no sense that it would be twenty five times the energy.

The problem of course, is that there are two components to energy–the specific potential energy as represented by the altitude (approximated as gravity times the altitude), and the kinetic energy, corresponding to the velocity (half the velocity squared). By ignoring the latter, this statement comes out completely garbled (and the exercise left for the readers is utterly meaningless, and would be frustrating to any who attempted it). Energy is a combination of both altitude and velocity, and the big problem in getting into orbit isn’t the former, but the latter.

Orbit is harder because it has go faster, not because it has to go higher. X-Prize is probably achievable at Mach three or four (say, a couple thousand miles an hour), and getting to a hundred miles wouldn’t require much more energy. Orbit requires seventeen thousand miles an hour–that’s the real killer.

He makes another point that’s more arguable (as opposed to physical nonsense), and I’ll argue it, as I did in last night’s post and today’s Fox column.

The statement that the “‘harsh environment’ of space was less harsh than that imposed by the ocean on the submersible” is just silly. Deep Rover operates in the ocean at a maximum depth of 1000 meters (3280 ft). At that depth, you are surrounded by water that is at ~40 degrees F and ~120 PSI. In space you are in a vacuum and your vehicle is exposed to direct solar energy that heats up one side of the vehicle and the vacuum of space that cools off the other.

The temperature extremes that exist in space create some difficult engineering problems because of the differences in thermal contraction and expansion that occurs between dissimilar materials. I have had to deal with these problems in my designs, and it is not trivial to engineer effective solutions.

Unlike vehicles that operate in salt water, the choice of materials that can be used in space is extremely limited. Most common materials get brittle at cold temperatures, and they also outgas in a vacuum, which changes their material properties. Some materials have problems with salt water, but there are many common materials that can be used under the conditions Deep Rover operates at.

But the biggest difference between a submersible and a spacecraft is that submersibles do not have to fly. You can afford to have relatively large factors of safety and, if necessary, redundant components in a submersible because weight is not a big issue. Also, spacecraft are subjected to tremendous dynamic and acoustic vibrations during launch, vibrations submersible never see. Designing and testing components to handle the vibrations of launch is again not a trivial problem (I speak from experience on this as well).

No matter what Maryniak would like to believe, space is an extremely harsh environment to design for. It also is not cheap to test components to determine how they will handle that environment. You cannot just sail out to deep water and drop your vehicle in the ocean to test it like you can with a submersible. Environmental chambers with liquid nitrogen ?cold walls,? large halogen lamps and huge vacuum pumps are needed to conduct these tests. And even the largest of these chambers is incapable of testing a complete launch vehicle, so components have to be tested individually.

They’re both harsh environments–but they’re different kinds of harsh. The marine environment is extremely corrosive, and it’s much more difficult, from a structural standpoint, to deal with many atmospheres of positive pressure (the deep sea) than a single atmosphere of negative pressure (the vacuum of space). Yes, space has radiation and temperature extremes that the ocean doesn’t, but both environments are harsh. For example, the choice of materials that can operate in salt water are limited as well.

Many of the implications of expensive launch are subtle, but they validate Gregg’s (and my) point.

Every objection that he has would be obviated by cheap launch, a point with which even he agrees at the end. If launch were cheap, you could afford heavier satellites, because the additional mass wouldn’t be so expensive. If launch were cheap, you could afford more redundancy. Cheap launch systems will have relatively smooth rides (because they’ll have to in order to be reliable and affordably reusable) so the launch environment won’t be an issue. Cheap launch implies affordable test facilities on orbit, so the components can be tested more easily.

So I’m not sure what his point is in arguing with Gregg on this issue.

Maybe General Clark Was Right

I’ve been digging around, and found some quotes to back him up. I can’t find any actual cites for them, though…

“GIVE me a progressive, achievement-punishing income tax, or give me death!”

— Patrick Henry

“HAPPINESS, moral duty, and a progressive income tax are inseparably connected.”

— George Washington

“I only regret that I have but a small percentage of my income to give for my country.”

— Nathan Hale

“WHEN in the course of Human Events, it becomes necessary to fund a Welfare State, he that has the most to give, should provide the greatest proportion of his Income.”

“THE Tree of Liberty is a fragile one. Its Roots must occasionally be watered by soaking the Rich.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The wealthy summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country, by refusing to pay their fair, high share of taxes.”

— Tom Paine

“THE advancement and profusion of an extremely progressive income tax is the only guardian of true liberty. ”

— James Madison

And of course, they all inspired that other great philosopher in the next century, who said “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

My Own Postrel Moment

I went out last night with two delightful young ladies–sisters, nineteen and twenty years old.

OK, get your minds out of the storm sewer–they’re nieces, attending USC.

It was at the Beverly Center, and afterward, with another of their uncles, we wandered the mall. There was only one store open–Victoria’s Secret.

They took us in and showed us the latest thing (at least it was a latest thing to me). Custom-designed underthings. And it’s not just for teeshirts any more.

You pick out the color, and then you pick out a typeface and font and style and hue and sparkle quotient of letters, fill out the form in block letters in the boxes, and they apply them to the derriere upholstery in the proper order, to convey the intended message to your amour du jour.

Has Virginia heard about this?

[Update on Friday]

I should hasten to add, in defense of their honor, that I didn’t mean in any way to imply that my nieces have amours du jour. As I said, we were in that particular store only because it was the only one open at that hour.

[Another update, spurred by another comment, an hour or so later]

Sigh…I should also point out that they showed them (i.e., pointed them out to us on the shelves). They didn’t model them.

Didn’t I already warn you folks about the locale of your minds?

Lileks

…accidentally slipped a screed, dripping with fury at the hypocrisy of the war whiners, into a bleat.

In short: the same people who chide America for its short-attention span think we should have stopped military operations after the Taliban was routed. (And they quite probably opposed that, for the usual reasons.) The people who think it’s all about oil like to snark that we should go after Saudi Arabia. The people who complain that the current administration is unable to act with nuance and diplomacy cannot admit that we have completely different approaches for Iraq, for Iran, for North Korea. The same people who insist we need the UN deride the Administration when it gives the UN a chance to do something other than throw rotten fruit.

The same people who accuse America of coddling dictators are sputtering with bilious fury because we actually deposed one.

Complain, yes! Carp! Criticize! Bitch! Moan! But there’s a difference between criticizing the particulars of the Normandy invasion, and insisting that Hitler can be contained with bauxite sanctions. (Imagine if these people had been running papers in the 40s: enough troops? Supply line problems? Plans in place for getting the Berlin power grid up? Oh no! Battle of the Bulge! Quagmire! Bastogne is a mess! Roosevelt lied, Private Ryan died!) To those who sniff ‘this isn’t World War Two,’ I’ll agree: it’s worse. It’s going to be longer, meaner, and it sprawls across every map. Its ultimate severity won’t be apparent to some people until a band of god-bothering raisin seekers sneaks a nuke into Baltimore on a cargo container.

Go read it.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!