Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Mark Whittington

9 Comments

Isn’t this cute? He still imagines we can (or should) do Apollo again.

[Update a while later]

Interesting timing on that Whittington piece. I just got off the phone with David Livingston, and one of the things I told his listeners was to stop trying to do Apollo again. Particularly because the Apollo they imagined, in which the nation was united behind a big goal in space, never happened.

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Remembering 911

17 Comments

Yes, I wouldn’t have predicted this, either:

One thing I guess I didn’t believe 14 years ago is that America would elect such a feckless President in 2008, and stand idly by while he flushed our global position, and security, down a left-wing toilet. But we did, and we’ll be paying the price for a long time.

Yes. But I have to say, while it’s a cliche, for this I do at least partially blame George Bush. I expected more competence and strategic thinking in the wake of the removal of Saddam. In fact, the real disaster began with the Democrat take over of Congress in 2006.

I’ve mentioned that I was in Puerto Rico when it happened, getting ready to head to the airport to fly to CA. When I saw the second plane hit the second tower, I knew there was no point in going.

What I’ve never mentioned, I think, was that we had a going-away party a day or so later (we had a place on the beach in Isla Verde with a nice veranda) for one of Patricia’s co-workers. He was about to take a job in Saudi Arabia. He ended up changing his mind in light of recent events, but one of the topics of discussion was the reaction of many of the Puerto Ricans. Many attending had tales of glee. “The Americans had it coming.”

I saw this tweet from Xeni Jardin this morning:

This is delusional. There were cheers and ululations in Gaza and the West Bank, and handing out of candy.

We are not at war with Muslims (just as we weren’t at war with the Russian people during the Cold War), but Islam is at war with us (and has been pretty much since its founding). As I said on Twitter this morning, in the Cold War, our national leadership largely understood that we were at war with a totalitarian ideology that wanted to destroy our way of life. We still are, but the president wants to delude himself that we are not. And the most recent flare up of that war started not fourteen years ago, but thirty-six years ago, when Iran went to war with us, and we pretended that they had not. And they’ve been killing us ever since, every chance they get. With the president’s “victory” in ramming through this disastrous “deal” with them yesterday (a defeat for America, as most of Barack Obama’s “Victories” are) this has to be the major foreign-policy issue in the upcoming campaign.

[Early-afternoon update]

Fourteen years ago, Glenn Reynolds “made his bones and invented the blogosphere.”

I started this blog a few weeks later as a result.

Culinary, Health, Media Criticism, Science And Society, Technology and Society

More Nutritional Junk Science

2 Comments

Oh, FFS:

After a week of eating 6,200 calories a day — with a diet rich in carbohydrates and fat that included foods like hamburgers, pizza and cookies — the men gained nearly 8 lbs. (3.5 kilograms), on average. All of this added weight was fat.

Emphasis mine. Hey, guys (and/or gals). There are these things called “controls.” They’re all the rage among real scientists, I hear.

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

Aerojet Rocketdyne ULA?

12 Comments

This seems like a really weird story:

Rocket engine maker Aerojet Rocketdyne has offered to buy launch services provider United Launch Alliance from Lockheed Martin and Boeing for at least $2 billion, an industry source told SpaceNews Sept. 8.

The unsolicited bid is the latest twist in what has been a topsy-turvy year for ULA, the primary U.S. government launch services provider.

First, this begs the question of whether the parents would be willing to sell. I’m not sure they’d want to give up control, given the strategic issues involved. An unfettered ULA could be almost as disruptive to their government business (particularly SLS) as SpaceX has been.

Of course, a purchase by AJR would probably pretty effectively fetter them in other ways. The only reason for the company to do this is pure desperation. If Tory gets his way, and they build Vulcan/ACES, and end Atlas, Delta and Centaur, and phase out use of the RL-10 as well (which they’ve been wanting to do for years), AJR is pretty much out of business. But it would be acquiring and preserving launch systems that are already known to be uncompetitive on the future market, and it still needs money to build the AR-1, the RD-180 replacement. Congress seems willing to throw them money for that. But the problem is, even if the taxpayer pays for development, the vehicle itself will remain uncompetitive against SpaceX, since even with the development subsidy, manufacturing costs will be higher than the current price for the RD-180 from Russia.

Which makes this story at Engadget pretty funny:

United Launch Alliance is a joint-venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing that launches spy and navigation satellites for the Pentagon and Air Force. Now, the firm is the subject of a $2 billion bid from engine business Aerojet Rocketdyne, a company that’s been snubbed in its attempts to power the Atlas V. If the government’s shadowy army of intelligence analysts and accountants approve the deal, it could create a new aerospace behemoth that could leave Elon Musk shivering out in the cold.

Say what? If I were Elon, I’d be cheering this on, for reasons stated above. What I’d be worried about would be a counteroffer from Bezos, because this deal leaves Blue Origin out in the cold, in terms of suddenly having to develop their own rocket for the BE-4. I’ll bet he’s thinking about it. Of course, as I said above, this all presumes that Boeing and Lockmart are willing to sell. It was reportedly an unsolicited bid.

[Update a few minutes later]

Yes, as noted in comments, it’s a third higher than their market cap. And it’s just an opening bid, no way they’d get it for that price. It might be possible to do some kind of mezzanine M&A deal, but it sure looks like a bad bet to me.

[Mid-afternoon update]

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!