Category Archives: Philosophy

Media Criticism, Philosophy, Space

Mike And The Giant Carrot

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There’s been quite a bit of discussion in the space blogosphere about the former administrator’s latest shot at the Augustine panel and the very notion of questioning his plans and judgement, chock full of straw men and non sequiturs.

Clark Lindsey commented on it over the weekend, and Doug Messier and “Rocketman” had further critiques today:

While the Eminent Scholar and Professor should be developing course outlines, pop quizzes, and final exams, he is instead complaining about the ongoing review of the debacle he left behind. What he fails to comprehend is that he didn’t do what he said he claimed he would do within the established boundaries of dollars and time. Incremental progress would have been recognized and treated fairly. Spending profusely and having nothing to show for it is another matter altogether.

The absurdity starts with the very title of the piece — “Griffin Says Fear Of Risk Hurting Space Program.”

Huh?

The title is apparently based on this quote:

“We are less willing to take risks of any kind, whether it be financial risk, technical risk or human risk, or the risk of just plain breaking hardware,” he said. “Being adverse [sic*] to risk is not what made this country what it is. I’ll just say that. The willingness to take measured risks is what made this country what it is.”

Hey, that all sounds great. Who could disagree? But why in the world is Mike Griffin complaining about it? Is his irony meter busted again?

This coming from a man whose proposed solution was “Simple, Safe, Soon.” From a man who proposed nothing bold, or innovative, but instead decided to engage in cargo-cult engineering, and look back to the way the great gods of Apollo did it forty years ago. Is he saying that he was forced to come up with that solution because of our supposed “fear of risk”?

Whose fear of risk is he talking about? Because the only risk aversion I see is coming from Mike Griffin himself. He feared to risk serious money on COTS. He feared to risk a new and innovative approach that could have not only fit within the budget, but actually satisfy the recommendations of the Aldridge Commission. He feared to risk reliance on a private sector that has been putting payloads reliably into space for decades. And now he’s accusing us of risk aversion?

We didn’t ask him for “Simple, Safe, Soon.” He was tasked to come up with a plan that would fit within the budget profile, and hit some basic capability milestones. Admiral Steidle was well underway toward coming up with one when Dr. Griffin gave him his walking papers and substituted his own plan, uninformed by previous trade studies or Aldridge recommendations. One of the reasons that he is no longer administrator is that he failed that assignment.

This sycophantic interview is rich:

“If we do a review every four or five years to see if NASA’s on the right path,” he said, “we’re never going to get a product. I mean, you can’t grow carrots by pulling them up out of the ground to see how they’re growing.”

Last time I grew some, carrots grew in a few weeks. It didn’t take them five years. And in fact, you do pull one occasionally to see how they’re doing. But then, I always grew lots of them, so one could spare a progress check occasionally. And I was never dumb enough to attempt to grow a single, giant carrot, large enough to feed an entire family for a decade, and wait five years for it.

And you know, even in China, and the old Soviet Union, they thought that it made sense to check every half decade or so to see how the Five-Year Plan was working out. But no, Dr. Griffin’s plans shouldn’t be questioned that often. We must simply be patient, and trust him, the Supreme Rocket Leader, and let the carrot grow, for decades if need be.

“The need for the (current space study commission headed by Norman Augustine) is motivated solely by the public controversy over whether NASA got it right, if you will, in the architectural choices being made following the (explosion of the shuttle Columbia in 2003),” he said.

“I happen to think that NASA got it right,” Griffin said, “but if it isn’t exactly right and isn’t exactly perfect, I would argue, ‘So what?’ The question is not is it perfect? Is it good enough? Will it work? Is it one of the acceptable choices … if so, shut up and move on.”

…Griffin clearly admires the days when America needed big projects and simply got them done.

“When the country desperately wanted an ICBM 50 years ago to counter the Russians, they didn’t ask … what it would cost.”

“Shut up and move on.” Who, after all, are we to question the great Michael Griffin?

Of course when we needed ICBMs, or even when we went to the moon the first time, we didn’t ask what it would cost. We were in an existential conflict with a totalitarian enemy that would destroy us and our way of life had it been able to. But that was then, this is now. If we are going to have a program that is not a race, but is (one more time) “affordable and sustainable,” it is insane to think that we can come up with one without asking what it costs.

And of course he thinks NASA (i.e., Mike Griffin) got it right. What else would he be expected to think? Particularly when he “got it right” even before coming into the agency, and hired his own OSC buddies to perform a brief perfunctory study to validate what was a fait accompli once he was named administrator? This is why we don’t have people review their own work, or at least we don’t have only them review their own work, particularly when the stakes in national capability and taxpayer dollars are so high. And even more particularly when the results of the work are a budget that has exploded far beyond plan, a schedule that continues to slip to the right, and a product that will be a failure by the standards of the Aldridge Commission, even if it’s a success by its own internal, drinking-its-own-bathwater criteria.

We aren’t seeking a “perfect” plan, Dr. Griffin. We are seeking one that meets the criteria that you were given. It is not “good enough.” It will not “work,” if by “work,” you mean provide an affordable and sustainable infrastructure that will allow us to go beyond earth orbit with more than a handful of astronauts per year at a cost of less than many billions per trip. You failed.

It’s time, long past time, to “look under the hood.” That the White House didn’t do so long ago is a failure of the Bush administration as well. It shouldn’t have had to take a change in administration to review the glorious Griffin Fifteen-Year Plan. The fact that it is finally happening is one of the very few reasons (for me, at least) to be happy that we got an administration change.

Oh, and as for “shut up and move on”? I think that at this point a lot of people wish that Dr. Griffin, physician, would heal thyself.

*This is one of my pet peeves, as I note over at Clark’s place. The article says risk “adverse.” It’s not clear if the former administrator actually used the word, or a reporter transcribed it incorrectly and the editor didn’t pick it up. There is no such thing as being “risk adverse,” despite the wide-spread usage of the phrase. It is an aversion, or a desire to avoid risk, not a risk undertaken in adversity.

[Afternoon update]

Related thoughts over at Vision Restoration:

I would suggest that the most pressing problems with the current architecture are not of the “Will it work?” variety. There are a number of technical problems with the current architecture, and it remains to be seen whether or not these technical problems will be resolved. These are of concern.

However, the crucial problem with the ESAS-derived approach is that even if it eventually works in the sense of getting astronauts to the Moon, it will not achieve the goals it was supposed to achieve. I have gone into more detail in other posts on the goals of the Vision for Space Exploration that were later emphasized by the Aldridge Commission, and how the current architecture completely misses the point of those goals. However, one only has to read the charter of the HSF Committee to see some of the flaws with the current architecture.

None so blind…

Philosophy, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Things That You Think Will Make You Happy

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But won’t.

I’ve never wanted to be famous — it looks like a miserable life to me. But I would have no problem being rich. The problem with most lottery winners is that they don’t have any sort of higher purpose to life, and don’t understand how to handle sudden wealth. I have no interest in making people envious of my possessions. I’m not a very materialistic person in general. I buy things that will provide enjoyment to me, for practical reasons, and give very little thought as to what others will think about them. But the main thing is that I know exactly what I’d do if I became suddenly wealthy. I’d do the same thing that Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos did, but I’d do it right, because I already know what I’m doing, and wouldn’t have to hire other people to figure it out.

Oh, and the one about power?

The thing is, it’s the desire itself that’s poisonous. You find that need for power most in the type of person who hates having to obey all of society’s social contracts, particularly the ones that require them to not act like cocks all day. These are the people who are only nice guys because of fear of retribution if they do otherwise, so their main goal is to become strong enough that no retribution is possible (this is why sociopaths tend to seek positions of power, by the way).

Anybody who wants to be president badly enough to go through everything that it takes is intrinsically not to be trusted. I think that we’d be a lot better off with a search committee, who sought out someone for their competence and character, and who didn’t really want the job, but was reluctantly willing to do it. He’d probably still get corrupted eventually, but at least he wouldn’t start off that way right out of the box. Actually, I think that a Fred Thompson would be a good candidate in that scenario.

Mathematics, Philosophy, Science And Society

The Evolution Of Good And Evil

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As Joe Katzman says, it’s hard to know whether this should be comforting, or frightening:

Within fifty generations of this electronic evolution, co-operative societies of robots had formed – helping each other to find food and avoid poison. Even more amazing is the emergence of cheats and martyrs. Transistorized traitors emerged which wrongly identified poison zone as food, luring their trusting brethren to their doom before scooting off to silently charge in a food zone – presumably while using a mechanical claw to twirl a silicon carving of a handlebar moustache.

You might be upset by this result, scientific proof that those who say “Evil is utterly fundamental to human nature” actually understates the scope of the problem, there were also silicon souls on the side of the angels. Some robots advanced fearlessly into poison zones, flashing warning lights to keep other robots out of harms way.

This seems to be congruent with Axelrod’s work. I wonder if the successful ones use Tit for Tat?

So, do they have free will?

Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary

The Liberal-Leftist Mind Set

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One of Jonah Goldberg’s readers nails it, I think:

Political thought can be described as a straight line with communism occupying the far left position, fascism the far right.

While I’m in agreement with a lot of its positions I’m not a socialist. For instance, I think some income inequality is probably necessary. And while there are parts of communism that I agree with, there are also parts that I have significant misgivings about, like the relative lack of press freedom and free speech.

There is almost nothing I find appealing or I’m in agreement with when it comes to conservatism.
My own views are pretty centrist. I may lean a little to the left but there isn’t anything extreme about my politics, and besides most of the people I know have similar opinions so I must be pretty solidly in the center.

Conclusion:

If I’m in the center, and can find more common ground with communism than conservatism then conservatism must be pretty far to the right; if not exactly fascist very much in the same neighborhood.

Note the false premises that lead to the conclusion, starting with the very first one (which has at least two — the notion that politics is expressible on a single-dimensional axis, and that fascism is the opposite of communisim on such an axis). Another is that such views are “centrist” (a term that again implies that there is a single line to be in the “center” of).

But as Jonah says, their problem is that they don’t understand their own intellectual history, and most of them think that “progressivism” and “liberalism” (neither of which term really applies to their belief system) started in the sixties, when they think about it at all.