Business, Economics, Space, Technology and Society

Reusing Rockets

33 Comments

I love the opening of this piece from James Dean:

In more than 65 years of launches from these shores, a rocket landing anywhere near its launch pads meant something had gone terribly wrong.

Not anymore.

Nope.

[Update a few minutes later]

He quotes Elon as saying that the rocket “costs” sixty million, but isn’t that the price? It has to cost less than that for them to make a profit. And I don’t think they’d want to reveal the actual cost, for business reasons, but it would be nice to know just how much margin they have, and how much they can reduce the price if it’s fully reusable.

[Update a few more minutes later]

And here we have an article from Mike Wall, where he quotes Elon as saying it cost $16M to build (if true, that gives them a huge profit margin and room to drop prices in the face of any competition). I saw others reporting that on Twitter on Monday, but no one really clarified if he said “sixty” or “sixteen.” It would be nice to get the actual number.

[Update a while later]

Here’s Miriam Kramer’s take.

[Update a couple minutes later]

And Jessica Orwig’s.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Rounding the Cape of Bojador.

[Afternoon update]

Here‘s SpaceflightNow’s take on it.

History, Political Commentary

Avi Davis

1 Comment

RIP:

Avi Davis, president and founder of the American Freedom Alliance, passed away peacefully early Monday morning at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he was surrounded by friends and loved ones.

Davis suffered a heart attack 11 days ago while cycling. He was placed in an induced coma as doctors ran a series of tests to determine his brain function, but ultimately he was unable to recover. He leaves behind two sons, Mati and Amiad, both his parents, Betty and Jack, a sister Yvette, and brothers Yoni and Shimmi. He was just 57 years old.

Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon said: “Avi Davis was a good man. A fighter, a patriot, a man who understood the conservative movement first needs to win in the marketplace of ideas. The country lost a leader, Breitbart News lost a friend.”

Sad news. I met him last summer at the Magna Carta event he put together in Westwood. Sobering, because he’s younger than me.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

The Democrats’ Islamaphobiaphobia

12 Comments

Neo-neocon wonders what Hillary really meant:

…in Hillary’s “ISIS uses Trump to recruit” claim, isn’t Clinton really saying that all it takes to turn a significant number of Muslims into murderous barbaric ISIS recruits is the idea that a US presidential candidate might want to bar them from visiting or immigrating to this country? Isn’t that a powerful condemnation of the religion and its adherents—by Hillary? Are they so ready to kill that just a few words indicating they’re not allowed to come here would be enough to ignite them and inspire a lot of people to join the ranks of the murderous terrorists of ISIS?

Seems awfully Islamophobic to me, not to mention bigoted. And furthermore, does that mean she’s saying that we have to make nice to them and welcome them into this country, or more of them will want to kill us?

As I’ve often said, the Left’s unwillingness to grant moral agency to Muslims, saying that they have no self control and everything they do is a reaction to us, is profoundly racist.

[Update a few minutes later]

Related: Muslim women say to stop wearing the hijab in solidarity with us. The Left has a profound cognitive dissonance in talking about an imaginary Republican “war on women” while ignoring a very real Muslim one.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!