I rarely link to Mark Whittington’s site, but I think that this is history making. He has finally revealed one of his previously imaginary friends in his “Internet Rocketeer’s Club.” In this case, finally, it’s not imaginary.
I don’t think I really deserve the honor though, unlike Mark, I do know something about rocketry, having actually done it for a living. I also know about launch costs, economics, policy, politics, history, grammar, spelling, HTML, and many other things of which Mark seems innocent. But I hope I’ll get a secret decoder ring soon.
Rand, dont’ be ignorent. Mark is truefully a famous and successfull old-space blogger.
Not to worry, Rand. Knowing a little something about rocket science is almost a requirement to be an Internet Rocketeer. Being a “recovering aerospace engineer” got you an early in (g).
Congratulations Rand! It’s a very select group.
Keep up the great work, Rand! It’s only a matter of time before Olbermann adds you to the “Worst Person in the World” club
Maybe I’m dumb enough to have just missed it, but where is the place on Mark’s site where Rand can snipe at Mark, the way Mark comes over and snipes at Rand?
Patrick, I don’t allow comments on my blog because I do not have the time to police comments. Associated Content and Yahoo News, which publishes many of my longer pieces, do allow comments so if you wish to stick pins in me, go right ahead.
By the way, I tend not to snipe at Rand unless he chooses to be insulting or wrong. In fact, I have actually praised him from time to time when I have found him right.
He also linked to Robert Zubrin’s article about the Falcon/Dragon flight, which was nice.
The New Sputnik
I don’t allow comments on my blog because I do not have the time to police comments.
I guess Rand can afford to allow comments because he has an army of thought police?
So, why is the Twitt able to post here? Has the army gone AWOL, or could they be another product of Mark’s fevered imagination?
Rand allows comments on his blog. Good for him.
Mark Whittington doesn’t. Fair enough. It’s his site, his content, and he’s providing it to readers free of charge. If he doesn’t want to police comments, that’s his call.
“content”, that’s a word for it.
Translation:
Rand believes in free speech, intelligent discourse, and open debate/exchange of information.
Twittington believes in the Internet as a megaphone for blasting his ignorant, uninformed opinions at the world.
I hadn’t cruised by Whittington’s site in a long long time (and then only once), and now I remember why.
Surprisingly, though, the Twitt has yet to utter the usual stupid defamatory remarks about the Dragon launch.
Perhaps there is indeed a limit to how stupid he is willing to make himself look in public. Even if that limit is far beyond the level of public embarrassment that wise people would willingly accept.
Ed, that’s what his sock puppets on Space Politics are for.
Is any of the name-calling helping anything?
Ed, Mark is beyond help..
Ed Minchau, it illustrates how some people react to principled disagreement. Ed Wright especially makes my point as to why I refuse to deal with a comments section.
@Mark: Just to be clear, exactly how does Ed Wright make the point for forbidding comments on your blog?
Prelsley, isn’t it obvious? Forbidding comments is the easiest way of preventing “principled disagreement.”
What do you expect from the big-spending Country Club wing of the Republican Party? Let the riff-raff in and pretty soon people will be listening to country music, voting for Sarah Palin, and traveling into space on their own nickel.
@Ed: Lmao, but surely Whittington meant something else.
Mark, I don’t want to stick pins in you. I happen to think you’re wrong and Rand is right, though. Your objections to commercial space and enthusiasm for Griffin’s disaster seem more prejudiced than principled. Your sneering putdowns of “Internet Rocketeers” don’t do you any good, either. They remind me of the honorable Senator’s “hobbyists in a garage,” an equally disengenuous insult.
I’m a conservative and registered Republican. Whatever accidents of history, or principled decisions, caused this particular Administration to loosen NASA’s death-grip on spaceflight, I’m all for it.
Your objections to commercial space and enthusiasm for Griffin’s disaster seem more prejudiced than principled.
In the words of Scott Adams, “When did ignorance become a point of view?”
None of us really know what we are talking about. And people who do, like Mike Griffin (who invented COTS as well as Constellation) do not waste their time arguing with dense people who stubbornly insist upon being misinformed.
Mike Griffin certainly knows what he’s talking about. He also certainly created and defended a bad plan. Wisdom isn’t just knowledge.
None of us really know what we are talking about.
That’s certainly true of at least one of us.
And people who do, like Mike Griffin (who invented COTS as well as Constellation) do not waste their time arguing with dense people who stubbornly insist upon being misinformed.
Napoleon was usually the smartest guy in whatever room he was in too. Didn’t help much at the end.
“hobbyists in a garage”
I live about three miles from Elon’s “garage.” Cozy little place. Just about the right size for hiding an aircraft carrier from overhead surveillance.
“Internet Rocketeers”
Elon is an “Internet Rocketeer” in pretty much the same way Howard Hughes was an “Oilfield Flyboy” – except for the fact that his stuff flies a lot better than most of Howard’s ever did.
Nelson Bridwell was a writer for MAD Magazine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Nelson_Bridwell). Interesting that he would be posting here, since he’s been dead 23 years.
It’s not exactly a common name, either. Is this “Nelson Bridwell” one of Mark’s sock puppets?
“Mike Griffin (who invented COTS as well as Constellation)”
Griffin did not invent COTS. The idea goes back to the Alternate Access Program, which was pushed on NASA by OMB in the late Clinton Administration. After SOMD repeatedly bungled the program’s formulation, Steidle’s team in ESMD rescued the Alt. Access and gave it form in COTS. Although he made a couple nice speeches to the STA on the topic, Griffin actually cut COTS in half (which is why it could only go after cargo initially) when he arrived to help pay for Ares I/Orion.
MW: Ed Minchau, it illustrates how some people react to principled disagreement. Ed Wright especially makes my point as to why I refuse to deal with a comments section.
I think this misses the mark, Mark. I stopped regularly reading CC a couple of years ago mainly because of the lack of comments. Blogging is not a pulpit, it’s a discussion.
I know you and Rand derive some sort of entertainment out of this years-running snarkfest, but is it helping either of you convince anyone of anything?
For instance, the Internet Rocketeers Club. What is that, really? Think about how many people can look up at the sky and pick out a constellation other than the Big Dipper or Orion. What percentage of the Anglosphere recognizes Jupiter in the night sky? Most people don’t give a damn about space. If only a small percentage cares about space at all, then it only a smaller subset of that group that does any work on space at all. The ones that do are your potential readers — the very people you dismiss!
And on the other side of the coin, things like “Twittington” and “beyond help” and so on are not helpful. What would be helpful is for people to address your specific arguments. However, since you don’t have comments on your blog, I either have to tell you why you’re wrong about something (or when I agree with you) on either my own blog or on another blog that links to you.
For instance, in the post linked above, you said:
In two sentences you inadvertently managed to present and rebut your own argument. The parenthetical is just plain wrong.
Apollo was a battle in the Cold War. The WWII paradigm of winners and losers certainly held — there were goals and timetables, yes, but the budget be damned, this was war. Your often-stated warnings of a future Chinese presence on the moon are based on another front in that same Cold War.
SpaceX certainly has goals, timetables, and most importantly a budget. The VSE was a set of goals, and the (likely Garver-penned) plan announced by Obama in April is a better set of goals. You know that there are specific milestones, specific technological stepping stones and specific research to be done to enable much more efficient utilization of space (and not incidentally tax dollars).
You just don’t like the goals. You want a replay of Apollo with the Chinese as the adversary instead of the Soviets, with NASA building a Gargantuan Rocket and a goal of a lunar base. Or something. As I said, I don’t read CC anymore and your overall position may have changed.
Do you not see how doing things like propellant depots in LEO and a variable-gravity research facility and other such stepping stones would enable a much more robust lunar base, while at the same time performing missions to asteroids and the moons of Mars and a myriad of unmanned probes? Do you not see a long line of failed Shuttle replacement concepts and recognize the same process at work in Ares? Do you think that accessing low earth orbit is still so close to the edge of the envelope that small companies cannot enter the market?
——————-
Now, if you had comments on your blog I could have responded to you directly there. Other people might have chimed in and the whole discussion would be in context. Look at this blog or Space Politics or Selenian Boondocks or Paul Spudis’s or Dennis Wingo’s or Wayne Hale’s blogs — 80 percent or more of the content is in the comments. Right now on CC it’s just you talking to people. If you want to actually convince people you’ve got to let them respond to you and you have to interact with them directly.
If you require some old html from the original blog template, I can help you out with that.
Ed, let’s call what you just wrote “help”. Let me know if you get any response at all from Mark which indicates he isn’t beyond it.