Here’s a list of projects in which Hollywood people who have defended the child rapist are currently involved.
Of course, I’ve been boycotting Hollywood for years, but not necessarily for political reasons — I just don’t find the cost or time worth going out to the movies for most Hollywood products. If I were dating, of course (as I haven’t for years), I might feel differently. But probably not. I’m creative enough to find other things to do on a date.
My piece on Sputnik and the X-Prize is up at PJM.
[Early afternoon update]
Related thoughts from Jeff Foust, over at The Space Review. I agree with him that, despite the five-year gap, we are now close to seeing the industry develop with some rapidity.
[Update a while later]
More thoughts from Matt Isakowitz at the Commercial Spaceflight Federation.
Ray, over at VSE Restoration, provides the subtitles:
Once the White House embraces a direction for U.S. human spaceflight, Stanley said NASA should then be allowed to conduct a thorough architecture study to include apples-to-apples comparisons of the cost, safety and risk of the Augustine panel’s options, as well as alternative scenarios the panel might not have considered.
May I use my cynical filter to translate?
Once the White House embraces one of the Augustine committee options, NASA human spaceflight management should then be allowed to do an “apples-to-apples” comparison of the Augustine committee options, as well as alternative options the panel might not have considered that happen to serve NASA interests really well. They should then be allowed to discard the selected Augustine option, and pick one that benefits certain portions of NASA rather than the people of the United States.
In addition, Stanley urged that NASA be allowed to determine the true cost and risk of commercial crew transport in low Earth orbit.
In other words, NASA should be allowed to ignore the potential of commercial crew transport in low Earth orbit, and instead continue to buy crew transport services from Russia while NASA spends decades and tens of billions of dollars to build a government-designed and government-operated crew transport “business” to compete with U.S. commercial space business, but that does nothing to address national needs like security and commerce.
There is no need for a NASA evaluation of “the true cost and risk of commercial crew transport in low Earth orbit”. We already know that such a generic NASA evaluation of “commercial crew transport” is sure to conclude that a NASA-designed and NASA-operated crew transportation system is by far safer, simpler, sooner, better, faster, and cheaper than any imaginable commercial crew transportation. Why even bother with the evaluation when you know its conclusion in advance?
Obviously, Dr. Stanley has a lot of ego (if not a lot else) invested in this mess, and it’s understandable that he’d want to do everything he can to preserve the status quo that he created. But if I were General Bolden, I wouldn’t let any of Mike Griffin’s former minions anywhere near evaluation or policy going forward.
[Update mid morning]
Speaking of Doug Stanley, he was one of the speakers at a half-day symposium on the Augustine results, held at the Space Policy Institute a week ago. Dwayne Day has an interesting report in today’s issue of The Space Review.
I’m struggling to understand the logic here:
According to Stanley, the architecture that emerged from ESAS was the result of a number of assumptions they made when they started their evaluation. Had some of those assumptions been different, their architectural design would have been substantially different. As an example, if the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV, now named Orion) had not been required to go to the International Space Station, then they would have produced a requirement for only a single launch vehicle rather than the Ares 1 and Ares 5 combination that they ultimately produced. On the other hand, if the requirement had only been for the CEV to go to the International Space Station, they would have selected an EELV (i.e. the Atlas or Delta). Stanley said that now that the assumptions have changed, it was entirely legitimate to question if NASA was developing the right architecture.
So, he’s saying that the concerns about “human rating EELVs” were bogus? That it was safe enough to send crew to ISS, but not to LEO on the way to the moon? And that if they were only going to the moon, they would have gone with a Saturn V-like architecture? But doesn’t that violate the (dumb) rule about not mixing crew and cargo? I’d like to see an elaboration on this.
I found Tom Young’s comments quite tendentious (that’s the nicest word I can come up with off the top of my head):
Young connected those past efforts at acquisition reform to what he considers the current claims that commercial crew is the way to substantially decrease costs to the government. “There is no magic,” he warned. “When someone comes along and says ‘I’ve got this new magic solution,’ my advice is to run for the hills.”
I’m aware of no one who proposes a “magic” solution. I am aware of a number of people who have proposed solutions based on solid engineering, and not driven or constrained by the need to maximize employment in Huntsville and other places. Now it may be that it requires political magic to make that happen, but if that’s the case, we should be honest and say that, instead of setting up straw men and denigrating people who propose it as technical and accounting charlatans.
Young took several questions that were focused upon his remarks about the lack of a credible commercial crew-to-orbit industry. How can such an industry become credible without government supporting it? “You really have to be careful about what you mean by ‘commercial’,” Young replied. “You cannot have government provide 100% of the funding and do no close monitoring.” The only way to do it is to put private money at risk. “The private sector invests in providing a service that somebody comes along and buys. I don’t see an industry that is investing the capital that is necessary, and to the extent. I’m also skeptical of providers where there is only one market.”
First, no one has proposed that government provide 100% of the funding for COTS-D or commercial exploration. Nor have they proposed that there be no government oversight. But the government oversight in this case comes from the fact that progress payments are based on achieved milestones, rather than cost plus profit. My mind is continuously blown by people who don’t seem to understand this concept, and think that the latter provides better value to the taxpayer than the former. As for not seeing an industry investing what is necessary, he needs to take off his blinders. Elon Musk and his other investors will be very surprised to hear that they haven’t been investing what is necessary. And the notion that there is only one market (as another panelist said as well) is nonsense on stilts. What is Bob Bigelow? And ISS? Not to mention Space Adventures? Chopped liver?
There’s a lot more to comment on from the other panelists, but that’s all I have time for right now.
…and accountability:
To be clear, this lack of accountability is not a feature on this specific administration but is, instead, a reflection of the inherent uncertainties associated with macroeconomics. The administration, however, has not been particularly forthright in admitting to this lack of accountability. Indeed, the act of releasing quarterly reports on how many jobs have been “created or saved” gives the illusion of accountability without the reality.
The country is in the very best of hands. If you like having it run by thieves and charlatans. The press certainly doesn’t seem to mind.
Jeff Manber has some thoughts on the upcoming (and inevitable) backlash against the upcoming Augustine report.
I’m not sure I quite agree on his taxonomy of the opposition. Or rather, the limited degree to which he describes and breaks it down. I absolutely agree that to oppose any policy change simply because it’s Barack Obama’s is senseless, just as opposing the VSE was senseless when it was based on nothing other than the fact that it was proposed by George Bush (though many did that, by their own admission). But the Ares defenders come in (at least two flavors): those who truly believe that it’s a great idea, or at least that nothing better is like to replace it, and those for whom it is a meal ticket. I have much more respect for the former, delude though they may be. I have little for the latter, though their actions are certainly understandable. But they should not pretend that they have anything to do with advancing humanity, or this country, in space.
In any event, nothing good will come from such a backlash. It will either result in a continuation of the current disaster, with not more money to pay for it, and just a postponement of the inevitable, or continued drift and policy infighting. My fear is that the private sector will be collateral damage, if not a direct target.
[Sunday evening update]
Jeff Krukin thinks that political inertia will reign. Sadly, I think he’s right. That’s bad news for the taxpayers, but it’s overwhelmed by other bad news for the taxpayers in general on other larger fronts. And I hope that the private sector will prevail, though I fear it will not. Either way, if he’s right, the government will continue to do little to open up space, and much to prevent it, while spending billions of taxpayer dollars on programs that purport to do so.
…for the defenders of child rape in Hollywood. I don’t think they have any concept of how much this kind of thing costs them at the box office.
Today, October 4th, is the fifty-second and fifth anniversaries of Sputnik I, and SpaceShipOne’s winning of the Ansari X-prize, respectively. I’ll probably have more thoughts up later today or tomorrow, at Popular Mechanics or Pajamas media.
[Update a few minutes later]
Some thoughts from Michael Belfiore on the X-Prize anniversary.
The most recent clown to enter that circus known as the US Senate says that Chicago didn’t get the Olympics because of Bush. Just as predicted.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Here’s a non-nutty explanation for the Olympics decision. Don’t expect the administration to learn from the experience, though — as a commenter notes over there, the president is far too intrinsically, almost pathologically narcissistic to change.
And then, of course, there’s also this:
A sense of stunned bewilderment suffused Air Force One and the White House. Only after the defeat did many advisers ask questions about the byzantine politics of the Olympic committee. Valerie Jarrett, the president’s senior adviser and a Chicago booster who persuaded him to make the trip while at the United Nations last week, had repeatedly compared the contest to the Iowa caucuses.
The country’s in the very best of hands.
…call for desperate tax reforms? If California would do something like this, I’d feel a lot better about moving back, and maybe even start a business. I can’t see it happening, though, absent a massive voter revolt that throws out the gerrymandered morons in Sacramento. And the gerrymandering dictates against that, absent some kind of proposition to blow up the redistricting system.
Over at Iowahawk’s place. I think that’s the best $33.18 he’s ever invested. On the (dubious) assumption that he ever actually pays, of course. It’s a nice demonstration of the leverage that prizes can provide.