Not The First Time?

While I’m a harsh critic of NASA in general, I’ve been withholding criticism of the agency with regard to what happened to Columbia until the facts are out. This is partly because, well, I don’t know all the facts yet, and I actually want to provide some useful advice, but also because much of the criticism that they’ve sustained since February 1 has been (to put it as charitably as possible) uninformed and largely logic free. And basing policy decisions on flawed analysis paves a road to policy disaster (as we’ve seen with the space program down the decades).

My largest complaint, of course, is that people continue to whine about the loss in human life, and put forth ridiculous concepts like flying the vehicle unmanned, when that’s not the issue at all (the real issue is the high cost and fragile nature of our fleet, given its pathetically small size and flight rate).

The astronauts are grownups and, as I’ve said repeatedly, they knew the job was dangerous when they took it. However, what if they didn’t know quite how dangerous it was?

I’m not referring to the natural desire to not want to find bad news that seemed to prevail during the flight. I’m talking about the general state of knowledge about the system, even prior to the launch of that flight. Which is why I find this story quite troubling.

Shut Your Mouth And Plug Your Nose

…and come out with your hands up!

Let’s just quit messing around, and make breathing a crime.

That way, if police and prosecutors don’t think they have the evidence they need to put us away for something they “know” we did, they’ll always have a good backup.

Ayn Rand pointed out that the goal of the bureaucrats is ultimately to make it impossible to live without breaking some law, to maintain control over the populace. My modest proposal is simply jumping to the logical end of that process.

Governor Bustamante?

It seems to me that the smartest thing the Dems could do would be to get Grayout to resign, and hand the governorship over to Cruz.

There’d still be the recall election, but Bustamante would be running as an incumbent, and would be the obvious pick for Democratic voters. He could even pick up independents with a plea for “continuity.”

Of course, the hard part about this scenario is getting his Grayness to step down. And wouldn’t it be a kick in the pants if he did so, and then the recall failed?

Peaking Too Soon?

Howard Fineman thinks so.

Of course, unlike Mark Steyn, Howard Fineman, being a good Democrat, is scared to death that Dean will get the nomination, because he knows that while few Dems have the slightest hope of beating Bush, Dean has none.

Thus, we’re already seeing the schism within the Democrat Party (including the liberal media) over who’s going to carry their banner next year. We have those who either have no hope or are delusional, versus those who know the odds are low, but want to give it their best shot.

It will be fascinating to see who wins out. It may be almost as fascinating as Chicago in 1968…

Burt Wises Up

I guess he’s figured out, for whatever reason, that he’d better get with the program and apply for a launch license.

To help enable future space tourism, Rutan is willing to work with AST on developing certification standards for manned reusable spacecraft, which don’t exist today, he said.

Translation: I don’t want to deal with this new regulatory environment that I don’t understand, but my funding is based on winning the X-Prize, and they’re apparently so close minded that they’ll disqualify me if I won’t play ball.

He believes such vehicles should be certified like aircraft, to protect passengers and people on the ground.

Yes, that’s nice, Burt, but you don’t want to pay the costs of certification, and there’s no certification regime for space vehicles, so what are you gonna do…?

However, “our program has nothing to do with certification,” Rutan said. “We’re not going to be certifying SpaceShipOne and offering rides in it. I’m in the business of just doing the research and development flight testing.”

Oh, I see. You just want to continue to play your little game of having it both ways.

Anyway, I’m glad that you finally came to your senses, for whatever reason.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!