…that could sway the election.
I think they’re more than five. And his fifth one is more of an ongoing process than an “event.”
Gary Kasparov
“Hey, Bernie, don’t lecture me on socialism; I lived through it.”
LysisTrumpa
The problem with this idea is that we have secret ballots. So the men will just lie to get nookie, and vote for him anyway.
SpaceX’s Manifest And Schedule
Peter Selding has a good report on what Gwynne said earlier this week.
I don’t think sixteen more flights this year is overly ambitious. I’d sure like to see the heavy fly in November, the new announced date, but I also won’t be at all surprised to see it slip into 2017. And from what she said, I’m very encouraged about minimum refurbishment.
[Update in the afternoon]
Oh, isn’t this cute. Roscosmos thinks it can compete by cutting manufacturing costs on Angara.
More On Blue Origin
Eric Berger has more details from Jeff Bezos on flight-test plans. If I were to do a new edition of the book, I’d replace references to Armadillo with what we now know about Blue Origin. It’s an entirely different approach from XCOR and Virgin Galactic; “Look ma, no pilot.”
[Update a while later]
“To let space travel flourish, leave it to the cranks and crackpots.”
Yes. Let’s end Apolloism and NASA worship.
[Update a few minutes later]
I think that Loren Grush has a legitimate complaint about who was, and wasn’t invited to that tour. It’s not at all clear how Blue Origin came up with the list. Alan Boyle was obvious, because he’s in Seattle and has been covering this stuff for years, as were Eric Berger and Jeff Foust, but I think that they could have accommodated more, and more women.
Parabolic Arc
It’s hard to believe that Doug Messier has been blogging for nine years. But in order for him to continue, he needs some help.
Vulcan And AR1
Boeing and Lockmart still seem on board with the new rocket development, despite Congressional idiocy. Of course, they know that the only way to survive against SpaceX is to build a new rocket.
Outer Space
The manifesto of the committee to abolish it.
To be honest, I had never previously realized how terrible outer space is.
Great Moments In Socialism
[Late-morning update]
Related: Five economic myths that will not die.
A lot of economics is counterintuitive to many.
Luxurious College Apartments
When people ask why college tuition is so high, defenders of the higher-education system point to things like “Baumol’s cost disease” (costs in industries without much productivity growth tend to rise, because they have to compete for labor with more productive industries) and declining state contributions to public colleges. No doubt these play a part. But this cannot explain the vast upgrades in college residential amenities that have taken place in the 20 years since I graduated from college, when a student union and some ivy on the walls was about the best you could expect.
But of course, our parents were paying for it, and they didn’t care whether we had a swimming pool. A certain Spartan element was supposed to be part of the ritual of college attendance, just as it had been when they were in college. What changed? I suspect the answer is that rising tuition, and the increasing reliance on student loans, has placed more of the financial responsibility into the hands of students. And the students shop for colleges based on … well, about what you’d expect when you give tens of thousands of dollars to 18-year-olds and ask where they’d like to spend the next four years.
This is policy insanity.