I have a piece up today on the end of the Shuttle (and big-government-space) era. Unfortunately, so does Christian Adams. Every paragraph of it seems to have been posted from an alternate reality. I may fisk it later, if no one else does.
[Mid-morning update]
Clark Lindsey has responded to Adams’ piece in comments over there.
Thank goodness Rand has an article up. Almost burst a vessel reading Adams’.
Adams should stick to his area of expertise – he’s got many well-written and thoughtful pieces but this sure isn’t one of them.
Yes, for a space policy analyst, he makes a good Justice Department whistleblower. It’s kind of sad, because if you actually understand space policy, this makes you question his credibility on other stuff.
I tried to read it, but you’re right — it hurt my head. I don’t know if it’s fiskable. From the first sentence (“America belongs in space”) you know it’s just going to be a collection of the usual mushy-headed sentimental drivel: “America!” “My daughter!” “Movies!” You know what, patriotism, wanting your daughter to be optimistic about her future, and science fiction films are all fine things, but they have nothing to do with going into space.
Useful for us, though, as it demonstrates what people believe and how much traction some of the other memes are getting. Apparently, a good amount.
If there is anything good to take away from it, it is that people do care about our role in space. This should translate into being open to be educated.
Perhaps his reasoning is why NASA hasn’t yet launched the Orion MPCV. If they do then they’ll have launched an unmanned capsule and will be right back to where they were in 1960, and who would want that?
How come the Russians can launch an unmanned Progress supply capsule without resetting to the pre-Gagarin era every time?
It’s like he’s been reading Whittington’s blog.
Adams has been getting quite a bit of pushback in the comments, perhaps thanks to this post.
I was even able to leave a comment there; the first time I’ve been able to comment at PJM in a couple of months.
Wha?
Mein Führer! I can comment!
/strangelove
For whatever reason, I lost the ability to comment here, at PJM, and some other places a couple months ago. It seems to have had something to do with my IP address, but I have no idea what. Since then, I’ve tried to make a comment every few days. They disappeared without a trace.
My PJM comment and my 4:04 pm comment here were more such experiments. Whatever the problem was, it seems to be fixed now. It’s good to be back.