Thoughts on Judith Curry, from Matthias Shapiro.
[Friday-morning update]
The post seems to have disappeared. I’ll ask him what the deal is.
NASA And LEO
NASA Watch has a draft of the NAC statement on LEO operations and ISS transition. It’s as though it’s posted from an alternate reality:
Even after a shift of focus to cis-lunar space and beyond has occurred, NASA may need to maintain some capability to get astronauts into low Earth orbit. If the Agency concludes that such a capability is necessary, it would be unwise to assume the existence of commercial demand for human access to LEO that may or may not materialize. Taking steps to encourage commercial activity in LEO may not be adequate to guarantee a successful transition.
So WTF is this supposed to mean? By NASA “maintaining some capability,” do they mean on a NASA owned/operated rocket? When Commercial Crew is operational (and there is zero reason to believe that won’t happen, regardless of how much Congress attempts to delay it with budget cuts), that will be how NASA gets its astronauts into LEO. Even in the very unlikely event that no commercial demand emerges, that capability will remain in place for as long as NASA wants to use it, at a much lower cost than NASA has ever gotten anyone into space. So can someone on the NAC explain to me what this word salad means? What are they proposing? Because if they’re proposing SLS/Orion, that’s economically insane.
Climate Change: Data Or Dogma?
This looks like an interesting (and likely very entertaining) Senate hearing:
Witnesses:
Dr. John Christy
Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science and Director of the Earth System Science Center, University of Alabama in HuntsvilleDr. Judith Curry
Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of TechnologyDr. William Happer
Cyrus Fogg Bracket Professor of Physics, Princeton UniversityMr. Mark Steyn
International Bestselling Author*Additional witnesses may be announced
Stock up on popcorn.
The Latest Hillary Emails
It looks like she was an architect of the Benghazi lie.
I’m sure you’re as shocked as I am.
Embracing The RLV Evolution
Comparing and contrasting NASA and private industry. I prefer the term “space transports” to RLVs, though.
Social Justice In Gaming
“Oops, I joined a cult.”
The Mann Defamation Suit
There Is No #JourneyToMars
The NASA Advisory Council is pretty remarkable to listen to today, particularly Bill Ballhaus. They’re essentially telling NASA it doesn’t have the technology or a plan. Which has always been the case. As I tweeted, the NAC needs to speak truth to Congress about SLS.
The 25th Amendment
I was thinking exactly the same thing yesterday, listening to Obama’s delusional ramblings:
Without the use of the teleprompter, his speech can be described only as “halting.” It was impossible to count the number of times he seized up, able to deaden the silence with only a drawn-out “uh,” “um” or “ahhh.”
The White House dutifully scrubbed all the halts and stutters from the official transcript, and it was impossible to count them in real time. But a sample of his incoherent word salad found him stuttering about every 15 words, which comes to more than 330 “uh-um-ahhs” in a single appearance.
This is not the same soaring speaker who inspired so many in 2008. This is a broken-down man who has lost the only gift he ever had.
Unfortunately, there is no more 2/3rd of the Congress to act on this than there is for impeachment in the Senate.
I’d also note that I don’t think he ever had a gift for extemporaneous speaking. He was always Candidate, and then President Teleprompter.
[Update a while later]
A Democrat says that Obama’s fecklessness could drag us into a nuclear war.
The Christian Terrorism Problem
No, America doesn’t have one.
Sure are a lot of Christophobes out there.