A reminder, for those who (unlike me) are in or can make it to western Texas this weekend. I hope that perhaps something can be done in the LA area as well at some point.
Putin’s Biggest Lackey
No, it’s not Trump; it’s Barack Obama.
Spider Silk
Artificial spider silk.
Cool.
End Of An Era
Henry Vanderbilt is retiring from putting on the annual Space Access Conference. The good news is that it accomplished a lot of its goals, as we enter a new era of lower-cost launch, and likely destined to continue to see prices fall. I hope that someone else can take up the torch.
Nat Hentoff
Rest in peace to someone who wasn’t afraid to stand up to his fellow leftists on freedom of speech.
Judith Curry
…has resigned her tenured faculty position:
A deciding factor was that I no longer know what to say to students and postdocs regarding how to navigate the CRAZINESS in the field of climate science. Research and other professional activities are professionally rewarded only if they are channeled in certain directions approved by a politicized academic establishment — funding, ease of getting your papers published, getting hired in prestigious positions, appointments to prestigious committees and boards, professional recognition, etc.
How young scientists are to navigate all this is beyond me, and it often becomes a battle of scientific integrity versus career suicide (I have worked through these issues with a number of skeptical young scientists).
Despite the fact that she was protected by tenure, I suspect that she will be able to speak out even more effectively now.
[Update Thursday morning (London]
Thoughts from Mark Steyn.
Saturday-morning update]
Tucker Carlson interviews her.
[Bumped]
Back In The US of A
We just landed in New York from London, and have been up for 18 hours. The bad news: We still have a six-hour flight to LA, which gets in at 2 AM. The good news? We got upgraded.
[Update a few minutes later]
OK, the other bad news. The plane is late.
[Saturday-morning update]
OK, the good news is that the plane was just a few minutes late, and we got into LA pretty much on time. The better news is that with our business-class upgrade, which allowed me to fully recline, I actually slept on a plane for the first time in my life. I’m up at 8 AM in CA (it’s 4 PM in London), making coffee and getting my body on Pacific time, ASAP. Hopefully by Monday with a good night’s sleep tonight.
American seems to have
Moon Or Mars?
The latest on the issue.
It’s a pointless discussion, because it presumes it’s going to be a government program: Apollo back tot the moon again, or Apollo to Mars. We need to be developing capabilities to go wherever we want, affordably. Then let the people paying for it decide.
Related: Howard Bloom says that NASA needs to get out of the rocket business, and start working on an actual superhighway in space. I’m not sure I want Marshall in charge of that, though. To put it mildly.
My Lawsuit
Popehat weighs in. I haven’t read it yet, but even if I had, I’d be unlikely to comment.
The 2017 Launch Market
Bob Zimmerman has some prognostications.
I agree that it’s likely to be a banner year, with an even brighter future.