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The Latest From The Lexington Institute

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“Why is the USAF trying to destroy the launch industry?”

I may fisk this later, if I get time, but what a load of bull.

[Wednesday-afternoon update]

A response from Jim Knaupf:

Daniel Gouré’s op-ed “Why Does The Air Force Want To Destroy The Struggling U.S. Space Launch Business?” is inaccurate and misleading.

You don’t say.

[Bumped]

5 thoughts on “The Latest From The Lexington Institute”

  1. I was just reading a Popular Mechanics article on North Korea’s new submarine launched ballistic missile and was struck by this:

    The missile, known as Pukkuksong-1 (“Polar Star”), is based on the obsolete Cold War-era R-27 ballistic missile. Kim Jong-un says the test means North Korea is “now capable of hitting the heads of the south (sic) Korean puppet forces and the US imperialists anytime as it pleases.”

    Interestingly, North Korean media mentioned that unlike the R-27, Pukkuksong-1 is a solid-fuel missile. Moving from liquid to solid fuel makes a missile safer to handle and more reliable, and ready to fire much more quickly.

    From an aerospace engineering perspective, what was that discussion like? “No! We keep the pointy cylinder shape of the R-27 and use a different way to make it go up! We’ll call it the R-27A!”

  5. There’s a lot of baggage in that first paragraph to unpack. I could read this aloud at a comedy club and probably have people rolling in the aisle with laughter, it is that ridiculous.

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