Business, Economics, Space, Technology and Society

SpaceX

7 Comments

This could be a momentous week for them. It looks like the number of flights this year will be 18. But a pad that can do a launch a week can do fifty flights a year, all by itself.

[Update a while later]

It’s also a big week for Rocket Lab, and Blue Origin. While I’m sure they’d like to get into business as soon as possible, I can’t help but think there’s a little extra pressure for Blue to fly the new New Shepard ahead of the suborbital conference next week in Colorado. They’re clearly now the leader in that market.

[Update a few minutes later]

Rocket Lab has scrubbed, and Doug Messier (who could use some financial support) has that and other stories, including a solution to the mystery of who Space Adventures was going to fly around the moon.

[Noon PST update]

Blue has scrubbed for the day as well, no word why yet.

Business, Education, Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Meaningless Words

9 Comments

Thoughts from Sarah Hoyt on the ideological incoherence (and, as always, psychological projection) of the left:

All I was doing was pointing out he had no proof of his statement and in fact, there was plenty of proof to the contrary. Where it got interesting was his tactic in the argument. He started by calling me a snowflake and saying I was obviously hurt by what he said. I told him I wasn’t in the least hurt, just amused at his lack of reasoning, and furnished him with another half dozen names of great/rich writers. He tried to call me snowflake again, and then told me to go copulate with myself but in more common words. When that failed, he said he was deleting the thread because he’d obviously hurt people. Note that in none of this had he hurt me, not even with the profanity, nor had I or any of the people who agreed with me on that thread implied we were hurt. Somewhere between amused and appalled is not hurt.

I was discussing this argument with a friend later, and he said I was making the mistake of interpreting the words as words. Or of thinking any kind of thought was behind first calling me snowflake, and then saying he’d hurt people’s feelings.

He said that the whole thing was more a reaction on the level of “when I’m called snowflake it hurts me, so I’ll call her snowflake and that will hurt her” and when we didn’t cave to his argument, he couldn’t figure out how to get out of it other than apologizing for hurting our feelings.

He – he’s an academic – pointed out this is the whole point of post-modern analysis, be it of literature or society: words have no meaning and can be assigned arbitrary meanings according to the emotions they elicit.

He says that’s why the left is more and more resorting to shouting random slogans and words until it gets them the reaction they want. Not because they don’t know the meanings of words, but because they reject the idea that words have inherent meanings.

Like “pedophilia.” Or “liberal.”

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Strzok

9 Comments

It occurs to me that the texts/emails likely reveal something much more serious than a simple love of Clinton or hatred of Trump. Perhaps they actually provide evidence of a conspiracy to help the former and hurt the latter. e.g., “Yeah, they fu**ed up, but I’ll make sure that none of Clinton’s people have any problems with this email thing.” Or “Don’t worry, we’ll come up with something impeachable on Trump.”

Either or both of these would both destroy the prevailing media narratives. The former would require the investigation into her server be reopened, and the latter would so taint the investigation that it would not be possible for it to be used against Trump. In fact, it would help him, bolstering his own claims of bias and double standards.

[Update early afternoon]

Kim Strassell writes that Mueller and the FBI are obstructing justice. And more from Byron York on the dossier.

And Kurt Schlichter writes that “liberals” (and by “liberals,” he means leftists) have turned the FBI into a disgrace.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The Mars Race

16 Comments

This is hilarious. Muilenburg thinks (or at least claims to think) that Boeing is going to beat SpaceX to Mars. With SLS.

[Update a while later]

Eric Berger’s take:

Boeing also isn’t going to land a rocket on Mars without near total funding from NASA, which has already paid more than $10 billion for development of the SLS and has no actual funding to implement a humans-to-Mars exploration plan. SpaceX will also need some government funding if it is to develop its “Big Falcon Rocket” to reach Mars, but Musk has laid out plans for commercial applications of his launch system that could offset some of its cost. (The SLS rocket has no known customers aside from NASA).

What is particularly puzzling to us is why Boeing and SpaceX are arguing about Mars. These two companies, who compete directly for NASA and other government contracts, are in a far more immediate and real race to reach the launch pad in the commercial crew competition. NASA has had to rely on Russia to get its astronauts to the International Space Station since the space shuttle’s retirement in 2011. Both Boeing and SpaceX are building capsules that will launch crews from Florida.

The companies have both seen slips in their schedules for the first crewed flights. They have launch dates now set for 2018, but there is a general expectation that further delays are likely—both due to development problems and changing requirements from NASA. Regardless, the company that eventually breaks NASA’s Russian dependence will win a public relations boon beyond compare for an aerospace company.

“Do it,” we say to Dennis and Elon.

Indeed.

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