The G8 is getting smarter about avoiding anti-globo whackos for their meetings. The next one is scheduled on Sea Island.

I wouldn’t make it illegal, but I think that men who would want to do this have some wiring problems, and I’d keep an eye on them.

[Update on Wednesday morning]

Snopes thinks it may be an elaborate hoax, but it’s still undetermined.

Jeff Faust has an interesting piece on what is, and isn’t the space industry:

When the space industry is defined in this manner, it becomes clear why it lacks influence in Washington: it?s very small. At just $37 billion in worldwide revenues in 2002, the space industry is smaller than many corporations. For example, US automaker General Motors records more revenue in a single quarter?an average of $47.5 billion per quarter in the last year?than the entire space industry made in all of 2002. Even if satellite service revenues are added into the space industry?s total, it still comes to less than half of GM?s total revenues for the year. In Washington, money talks, and the space industry is whispering. No amount of space industry organization consolidation can solve that problem.

There’s another point to be made here. In fact, though it’s small, it seems generally to get what it wants, by bribing powerful congresspeople with jobs in their districts. Unfortunately, for the most part, what it wants has little to do with space, and mostly to do with rent seeking from the taxpayer.

Consider one more point that Dr. Patrick Collins makes often. We have spent hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ dollars on civil space over the past four decades. Yet we’ve only managed to create an industry valued in the tens of billions annually (and much of that is defense contracts). Is such poor leverage typical, or are we doing something wrong?

I think you know my opinion on that subject.

[Update at 1:35 PM PDT]

Another sign of the incredible shrinking space industry. Boeing is pulling Delta IV out of the commercial market, which has a glut of launchers. They’re going to stick to government contracts.

Jeff Faust has an interesting piece on what is, and isn’t the space industry:

When the space industry is defined in this manner, it becomes clear why it lacks influence in Washington: it?s very small. At just $37 billion in worldwide revenues in 2002, the space industry is smaller than many corporations. For example, US automaker General Motors records more revenue in a single quarter?an average of $47.5 billion per quarter in the last year?than the entire space industry made in all of 2002. Even if satellite service revenues are added into the space industry?s total, it still comes to less than half of GM?s total revenues for the year. In Washington, money talks, and the space industry is whispering. No amount of space industry organization consolidation can solve that problem.

There’s another point to be made here. In fact, though it’s small, it seems generally to get what it wants, by bribing powerful congresspeople with jobs in their districts. Unfortunately, for the most part, what it wants has little to do with space, and mostly to do with rent seeking from the taxpayer.

Consider one more point that Dr. Patrick Collins makes often. We have spent hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ dollars on civil space over the past four decades. Yet we’ve only managed to create an industry valued in the tens of billions annually (and much of that is defense contracts). Is such poor leverage typical, or are we doing something wrong?

I think you know my opinion on that subject.

[Update at 1:35 PM PDT]

Another sign of the incredible shrinking space industry. Boeing is pulling Delta IV out of the commercial market, which has a glut of launchers. They’re going to stick to government contracts.

Jeff Faust has an interesting piece on what is, and isn’t the space industry:

When the space industry is defined in this manner, it becomes clear why it lacks influence in Washington: it?s very small. At just $37 billion in worldwide revenues in 2002, the space industry is smaller than many corporations. For example, US automaker General Motors records more revenue in a single quarter?an average of $47.5 billion per quarter in the last year?than the entire space industry made in all of 2002. Even if satellite service revenues are added into the space industry?s total, it still comes to less than half of GM?s total revenues for the year. In Washington, money talks, and the space industry is whispering. No amount of space industry organization consolidation can solve that problem.

There’s another point to be made here. In fact, though it’s small, it seems generally to get what it wants, by bribing powerful congresspeople with jobs in their districts. Unfortunately, for the most part, what it wants has little to do with space, and mostly to do with rent seeking from the taxpayer.

Consider one more point that Dr. Patrick Collins makes often. We have spent hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ dollars on civil space over the past four decades. Yet we’ve only managed to create an industry valued in the tens of billions annually (and much of that is defense contracts). Is such poor leverage typical, or are we doing something wrong?

I think you know my opinion on that subject.

[Update at 1:35 PM PDT]

Another sign of the incredible shrinking space industry. Boeing is pulling Delta IV out of the commercial market, which has a glut of launchers. They’re going to stick to government contracts.

Anticipating this coming Sunday’s anniversary, Mark Whittington has an editorial in the LA Times on space dreams deferred, if not lost altogether.

Be easy on him. Gary Cruse has started a blog.

Here’s an entertaining initial effort.

It’s blogspot, so the permalink is fubar. Scroll down to “Between Iraq And A Monica.”

…is devastated by Professor Volokh, at least with regard to homosexuality.

I’ve discussed this in the past as well. There, I also take issue with the notion of elevating the word “normal” as having some kind of moral or practical component.

That’s the title of a press release I received from the Space Frontier Foundation:

Los Angeles, July 14 ? The Space Shuttle system should be retired, and all further investments in the Shuttle ended, argued the non-profit Space Frontier Foundation today.

?A growing consensus in Congress and the space community affirms that the Shuttle system is hopelessly inadequate to our needs and cannot be made safe or affordable,? stated the group?s founder, Rick Tumlinson. ?It?s time for the venerable Space Shuttles to make way for the improvement in safety, innovation, and competitive pricing that would occur if the private sector were to be given the chance to do for space travel what commercial aviation has done for air travel.?

The Foundation points out that while NASA spends billions maintaining and flying the Space Shuttles, a new generation of privately funded commercial spaceship firms has sprung up to fly people on sub-orbital flights, conceivably for mere hundreds of thousands of dollars per ticket. Rather than continuing to waste taxpayer funds, the group believes an era of commercial orbital space flight could be in the making, if the government would nurture it using the money currently spent on government-only space systems.

?NASA should not be in charge of designing, building and operating what is essentially a glorified space truck/bus,? added Tumlinson. ?Imagine if the government had done the same thing with an airline. With no competition it would never get cheaper, better or more efficient?and no one would be able to afford to fly on it. That?s the socialist monopoly we have in space flight. It has not improved safety or access and wasted billions of tax dollars.?

To begin the hand off to the private sector, NASA should be banned from developing any replacements, and should be made to examine every alternative to safely end the Space Shuttle era, including ending Shuttle flights upon completing the international ?core? of the International Space Station (ISS); flying the Shuttle using its remote control systems in the meantime; and/or mothballing the ISS until commercial LEO transportation becomes available.

?None of the Shuttle?s capabilities are indispensable,? argued Tumlinson, ?and the ISS should not be used as an excuse to keep flying it at the risk of more astronauts? lives. If needed, the Russians can keep it going, or it can be mothballed until it can be taken over by a private Space Port Authority, and then operated, serviced and expanded by private spaceships and cargo vehicles. Now is exactly the right time for a change that can eventually open space to the people who have paid for it all.?

I agree generally, but as usual, I disagree with the part about the “risk to astronauts’ lives.” I’ve no problem with risking astronauts’ lives, nor do the astronauts, as long as it’s in a worthy endeavor. Shuttle and ISS, at this point, may or may not be, but the real risk of continuing to fly Shuttle is losing more orbiters, not losing crew. We somehow have to change this bizarre mindset that space can be made risk free.

Also, as Burt Rutan says, one of the reasons we don’t make much progress is that we don’t kill enough people (i.e., we aren’t pushing the envelope enough, and too much resources are going into safety, instead of cost reduction and performance).

I’m referring to the people who have signed up to be pioneers, of course, not third-party innocents on the ground, which is why I support AST’s launch licensing procedures (as long as they don’t attempt to get involved in certifying safety for crew and passengers).

Here’s a new blog. It’s not that new, actually–I’ve been meaning to blogroll it for a while, but its proprieter went on vacation, so I decided to wait until he got back, so as to not send folks to stale and static content.

As we all know, many law professors have been blogging, but this is the first blog that I know of from an aerospace engineering professor. It’s Spacecraft by Professor Chris Hall, at Virginia Tech in (I assume) Blacksburg. Hopefully, this is a start of a trend, because it seems to me like an excellent way to communicate with the students, as well as the rest of the world.

He’s off to a good start, with this post about timeless aerospace design laws (somewhat like Augustine’s Laws, though the latter are more about aerospace policy than engineering per se). Like him, I like this one:

6. (Mar’s Law) Everything is linear if plotted log-log with a fat magic marker.

He seems to specialize in spacecraft dynamics, orbital mechanics and general spacecraft design. A man (again, I assume, since the given name “Chris” isn’t gender specific) after my own heart (except I was more of a systems engineer than a designer, i.e., I was better at critiquing others’ designs than coming up with my own, other than in broad concept).

I had a lot of gripes about the aerospace engineering curriculum when I was in school, and I suspect that many of them still apply, so there may be some interesting back and forth in the future. Anyway, go check it out.