Though I'm not a conservative, I have to agree with this NRO editorial:
Conservatives have had plenty of cause to complain that “Republicans don’t deserve reelection this year.” But deserve has nothing to do with it. This election does not provide a cost-free opportunity to punish congressional Republicans for their many sins. A Democratic Congress will have real-world consequences for taxpayers, the economy, the judiciary, immigration, Iraq, and the War on Terror. No matter how disappointing the GOP has been, the country doesn’t deserve a Democratic majority.Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:04 PMAre we saying that the case for the Republicans largely consists of the fact that the Democrats are worse? Yes, actually. Every election presents a choice, and voters have to decide which alternative is better than the other. For conservative voters, that is not as hard a call as it has been made out to be.
I don't usually do deep political analysis, particularly when it comes to getting down and dirty with demographics, but I'm fascinated by this story, and it seems particularly appropriate on Halloween:
An analysis of state-wide records by the Poughkeepsie Journal reveals that 77,000 dead people remain on election rolls in New York State, and some 2,600 may have managed to vote after they had died. The study also found that Democrats are more successful at voting after death than Republicans, by a margin of four-to-one, largely because so many dead people seem to vote in Democrat-dominated New York City.
In light of today's holiday, on which, like Kwanzaa for blacks and Cinco de Mayo for Mexicans, this demographic is particularly celebrated, I'm going to ask the question that nobody seems to ever ask, and one that the Republicans have to be asking themselves: how have they lost that key demographic, the metabolically challenged?
Admittedly, the Dems don't have the dead vote locked up in the same way that they do the black vote (only four to one, rather than the ten to one they traditionally get from the African American community), but that's still a huge "fog a mirror" gap. And the implications have to be frightening for the Republicans. After all, this is the largest demographic group of all--there are many times as many dead people as there are living ones, and that's likely to remain the case for some time to come, and probably forever, unless we develop radical life extension technologies.
So far, the GOP has been fortunate, because, whether due to apathy, or barriers thrown up at the polls, the dead don't tend to vote at all, by and large. But perhaps, if they could not only get many of them to switch party affiliation, but also mount a huge GOTDV drive, they could actually take advantage of this huge potential voting block, and take away a traditional Democrat advantage.
So what is it about the Dems that appeals to the non-living voters?
It really is a mystery, at least at first glance. You'd think that dead people would be naturally conservative. What more static, unchangeable state can there be, after all, but the grave? And after all, it isn't the Republicans who want to tax the dead. You'd think that these people would be voting their pocketbooks, even if the leather in them is rotting away. And yet they still continue to pull the donkey lever.
It can't be the entitlements: they're all at a stage of their life at which they don't really need the Social Security and Medicare any more.
Is it abortion on demand? That wouldn't seem to be a life-or-death issue (so to speak) for people well beyond their prime child-bearing years. And state of health.
Is it the war? The dead have little to fear from war. Their stuff's not going to get broken, because their descendants have it now, and what they didn't pass on, the Democrats taxed away. As for the last measure of devotion, how much worse can it get than being dead? That can't be it.
How about gun control? Well some, perhaps even many, of the dead may be dead as a result of guns. But given all of the other frailties and diseases that come with being human, it seems unlikely that this is a significant number of them. I can't imagine that this is what appeals to them about the gun-control party.
Support for the UN, and immigration? Well, here's a good possibility. After all, most of the dead aren't American citizens. Of course, the ones that aren't, aren't eligible to vote, either. But then, neither are dead people, so this hardly seems to be a major barrier.
You know, I think we may have it.
The key for Republicans is to really tighten up on the voting rolls, and only allow American dead to vote, and actually require, you know, IDs and stuff. Of course, we can expect the Dems to scream in outrage, about "voter intimidation," etc., to such a policy.
You know, on second thought, maybe we should just put up a fence around graveyards.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:06 PMThere are probably more loathsome human beings, but it's hard to imagine one that came as close to becoming president as Senator John Kerry.
And you know, this insulting-the-troops thing has to be driving him nuts, because he probably was taking a slam at Bush, but it backfired. A smart politician would apologize, and say that he didn't intend any insult to the troops themselves, but Kerry's not a smart politician. I don't think that going on the offensive (and I mean that in more than one way, with his comment about Tony Snow and Rush Limbaugh) is going to play well with the independent and moderates, regardless of how much it gives orgasms to the net roots. In particular, when he talks about how he's always supported the troops, it just provides another opportunity for his opponents to remind people of the 1972 Senate testimony, in which he accused them of being war criminals.
And if this story develops legs like a centipede, and extends for another week into the election, and the Dems don't do as well as they are currently drooling for, guess who will get the blame? Not that he ever had a prayer, but that will be the end of any hope, even on his own part, that he will get the Dem nomination again.
[Update a few minutes later]
Kerry obviously never learned the first lesson of holes (i.e., when in one, stop digging). Now he's insulted the troops again:
I am a retired US Navy Senior Chief who spent 21 years serving in the nuclear navy. I read Kerry's statement and took it as an insult. I just heard his press conference and now take offense that he thinks I'm "crazy" because I was insulted by his remarks last night.
As others have said, like Howard Dean, he's a gift to Republicans that just keeps on giving.
You have to wonder just how powerful Rove's mind-control beams are to get them to behave this way.
[Update]
For those wondering what this is about, here's the video on youtube.com. And as one commenter pointed out, if he meant to insult Bush, that's kind of ironic, considering that the president has a degree from Yale and an MBA from Harvard, with better grades than Kerry got.
[Update about 4:37 PM EST]
Bush is going to make a speech shortly that had been previously planned, but he will now take the opportunity to respond to Kerry's remarks. Time to put on some popcorn.
[Update a little before 6 Eastern]
Austin Bay has further thoughts:
I’m listening to his latest statement (1:30 or so CST) and it is a re-hash of The Great Litany of leftish accusations. Reaction as I listen– this guy knows he made a mistake and he’s pedaling fast. Wait– now he says he is a real man. Yeah, he basically said he’s a real man. (Get a transcript!) If he’s a real man, he has the chance to prove it. Senator Kerry needs to debate his Swift Boat veteran critics. Man to man. Now. Not later.In the spare space of 24 hours Kerry has resurrected the Vietnam Syndrome –at least his and the left wing of the Democratic Party’s Vietnam (loser’s) Syndrome. This is stupid but particularly stupid in the last week of a national election. Doubly stupid in the midst of a long, grinding war. Kerry is trapped, in an odd sort of amber. He’s stuck on stupid and stuck in the past simultaneously.
Judith Weiss writes about the asymmetry between blue and red:
“People just assume you’re a Democrat." Boy do they.Another thing they do which Kornblat doesn't give an example of, but which we all have experienced: They always start political conversations. None of us do. We have learned that no one wants to argue issues on their merits, that the room gets very quiet and unfriendly, that people start screaming at you, or rant the most loopy beliefs and conspiracy theories. We just assume that is not a topic anyone can treat in a dispassionate manner.
But they always provoke political conversations. Well, not conversations, which would be enjoyable and enlightening. They make pronouncements. And look around the room to see if anyone not only doesn't agree, but doesn't agree enthusiastically. As a friend deep in the closet in the theater world put it, you can't just sit quietly and wait for the topic to change. No, you are suspect if you do not vocally endorse the official opinion of the group. You thought you were in a project meeting or a coffee klatch or a dinner party, and all of a sudden it has turned into the Communist Youth League Self-Criticism Session.
And then, after they have assumed, because no one in the room has fangs or horns, that a political support group is what everyone wants (and they do, except for you) - if you express your difference of opinion, they are offended that you spoiled the intimate feeling in the room by being other than they assumed, based on their superficial reading of you. In other words, they brought up politics, but they are the only ones who get to play. If you join in, you are the one who soured the conversation by bringing up politics. Because they weren't trying to start a political discussion, they just wanted to commiserate with friends. You party pooper.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:35 AM
The Chair Force Engineer continues to be unimpressed with the Ares program:
Of course, the problem here is that we are sticking with "shuttle derived" instead of pushing technologies that have been developed since the early 70's when the shuttle was finalized. The EELV programs have taught the industry how to reduce the marginal costs of added launches and how to streamline the processing of the Delta & Atlas rockets. And it's also clear that the shuttle hardware was never capable of meeting ambitious flight rates, which are the only way to make spaceflight more cost-effective.If Congress insists that NASA retain the shuttle workforce to the maximum extent in its moon launcher planning, the "Direct Launch" proposal is the smartest way of launching human missions to the moon.
Of course, it's that congressional insistence that's the real problem, and what will probably prevent the president's vision from being implemented. And don't tell me it's not pork, Mark.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:51 AMJeff Foust describes the current situation with Centennial Challenges. It's not quite as bleak as earlier reports, and the issue may be resolved in conference. But as Jeff points out, even it not, it doesn't affect any prizes currently funded; it just prevents NASA from initiating any new ones. That's still a bad thing, but not as bad as pulling money out of prizes that people are currently working toward.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:42 AMIndiana Jones has been denied tenure.
It hardly surprises me. In fact, it reminds me of this lawsuit.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:28 PMHere's a depressing story. The rape-condoning Aussie Imam retains support not only in his country (he's lived in Australia for almost a quarter of a century, but doesn't speak any English), but in Britain as well:
Al-Hilaly, in his sermon, also caused offence by saying women were mostly to blame for adultery. 'When it comes to adultery, it's 90 per cent the woman's responsibility,' he said. 'Why? Because a woman possesses the weapon of seduction.'Waleed Aly, a spokesman for the Islamic Council of Victoria, condemned al-Hilali and called for his resignation, saying his views sought to normalize immoral sexual behaviour.
'We would have liked to have seen some form of fairly strong censure just given the magnitude and the gravity of the comments,' Aly said.
But other prominent Australian Muslims refused to criticise the mufti. Imam Abdul Jalil Sajid, the chairman of the Muslim Council of Great Britain, who is visiting Australia, sprang to the mufti's defence. 'I know he is one of the greatest Muslim scholars on earth and Australia is blessed with him,' Sajid said.
This is a culture that is simply incompatible with a liberal democracy.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:33 AM...if Jack Kennedy had? That's an intriguing question that Dwayne Day is asking in today's issue of The Space Review. Unfortunately, the data isn't yet available.
And I'm continually amused by Democrat space supporters who still buy into the Camelot myth, and think that we'd be on Mars long ago had only Oswald (or whoever they may think actually did the deed) missed, when he clearly wasn't that big on space. In fact, based on the speech cited in Dr. Day's article, he would have been solidly behind the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which basically declares space off limits, at least philosophically, to exploitation and settlement, through its ban on claims of sovereignty.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:24 AM...to Dems and particularly to Nick Lampson if he loses the race for Tom Delay's seat to a write-in candidate? The Houston Chronicle says that it could happen. I'm assuming that whoever wins will continue to be a steadfast supporter of pork at JSC, including Orion.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:01 AMBut pretty funny. It's a Charlie Brown Jihad.
And Iowahawk got an audience with the rape condoner in Australia. Read, as he "asks the Aussie Iman"!
Imram M. of Jumbuck Springs, Victoria asks:Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:41 AMI am a taxi driver at the Melbourne Airport. The Taxi Directorate tells me I must give rides to blind kuffars and their filthy guide dogs, even when I tell him they are haram in the eyes of Allah! Even worse, I think the kuffars and their dogs have been drinking alcohol. Help me, I am at my wit's end.Sadly the dog-alcohol cootie issue has been a sore point for the many believers who work at the airport. We have long asked the Airport authority to exempt Muslim baggage handlers from touching luggage containing alcohol, and protect Muslim passengers from having contact with unclean bomb-sniffing dogs. Until we can correct this blatant discrimination, politely tell any fares who are potentially carrying alcohol or dogs that you will rape them.
...we're NASA.
Laura Woodmansee talks about some first-hand experience of the absurd prudishness of the space agency, and much of the space community.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:03 AMArmed Liberal has an offer for simpletons who think that fascism is descending on America, but things are great elsewhere.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:59 AMBut not quite, thanks to blogs:
..on July 19, 1958, several black teenagers, members of the local NAACP chapter, entered the downtown Dockum Drug Store (then the largest drug store chain in the state) and sat down at the lunch counter. They were ignored. They kept coming back and sitting at the counter, from before lunch through the dinner hour, at least twice a week for the next several weeks. They sat quietly, creating no disturbance, but refusing to leave without being served....They asked for help and support from the national NAACP, but the national organization refused to endorse or even acknowledge their actions. The confrontational tactic was against NAACP policy. The national newswires picked it up and the story ran nationwide, but quickly vanished.
On August 11, while the early arrivals were sitting at the counter waiting for their friends to show, a white man around 40 walked in and looked at them for several minutes. Then he looked at the store manager, and said, simply, "Serve them. I'm losing too much money." He then walked back out. That man was the owner of the Dockum drug store chain.
That day the lawyer for the local NAACP branch called the store's state offices, and was told by the chain vice-president that "he had instructed all of his managers, clerks, etc., to serve all people without regard to race, creed or color." State-wide. They had won, completely. Their actions inspired others, and the sit-in movement spread to Oklahoma City. By the middle of 1959, the national NAACP was losing disaffected members for refusing to endorse the scattered but spreading sit-in protests, gave in, and sponsored the Greensboro sit-ins.
Nineteen months before the Greensboro sit-ins that have been credited with being the start of the civil rights sit-in movement, it really began at a downtown drug store in Wichita, Kansas. The Dockum sit-ins were largely ignored by the NAACP in their archives, probably out of embarrassment, and were unknown even to many civil rights historians.
This is the kind of civil rights that everyone can get behind. No laws were needed to get the chain to do the right thing. The market did it, as a result of the demand of its customers. Jim Crow was evil, but most don't seem to understand, or remember, that Jim Crow was the government. When the government gets involved, in fact, history indicates (as evidenced by affirmative action, not even to mention much of the twentieth century in Europe, including Russia, and South Africa) that racial discrimination gets more, not less egregious, and that individuals take hindmost. And of course, the NAACP should be ashamed.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:44 PMYou know, I find it bizarre to read about fascism descending on America, when (as always) it always descends on Europe. Well at least of you consider the UK part of Europe, which the people behind these civil rights monstrosities would like to.
We live in a country where young boys - one was just seven - are taken aside and questioned for trying to knock conkers out of chestnut trees on public ground. Where a grandmother whose neighbour accused her of not returning a ball kicked into her garden was arrested, fingerprinted and required to give her DNA. The police went through every room in her house, even her daughter's drawers, before letting her go without charge or caution.Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:12 PMWhere two sisters can be arrested after a peaceful protest about climate change, held in solitary confinement for 36 hours without being allowed to make a phone call, then told not to talk to each other as a condition of their bail. As this paper reported, their money, keys, computers, discs and phones were confiscated, their homes searched.
There is much more, all of it enabled by Blair's laws and encouraged by a vindictive and erroneous contention that defendants' rights must be reduced in the pursuit of more and quicker prosecutions. Our prisons are full, problem teenagers are, by default, exiled to a kind of outlawry and every citizen becomes the subject of an almost hysterical need by the authorities to check up on and chivvy them.
Heh.
Tell the base their votes won't be counted, then wonder why they won't vote - I will never be smart enough to be a Dem strategist.Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:59 PM
The good news--we won't have to stay up late this weekend watching any more baseball games. Also, Patricia, being from St. Joseph originally, and still having a lot of family in eastern Missouri, including St. Louis suburbs, is happy.
And there's not really that much bad news. No one at the beginning of the season expected the Tigers to even necessarily break .500, let alone get into the playoffs, and if you'd told anyone that they'd be in the series, they'd have thought you were nuts. But you don't win a world series with eight errors, particularly when many of them come from the pitching staff. But, all things considered, there's always next year for Motown...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:03 PMI want to replace a bathtub. The existing one is a five footer, fourteen inches high. It's wedged into three walls.
I talked to a contractor about it yesterday, and he claims that if he removes the tile, that it can be lifted up at one end, stood up on its side, and then taken through the door. I guess that I can believe this is possible, since the diagonal is only about 61.6 inches, and there's probably enough slack and play in the drywall to scrape it by with tiles removed. What I have more trouble believing is that I'll be able to get the new deeper whirlpool in without major wall surgery. If I go with a depth of 21 inches, that makes a diagonal of 63.5 inches, which seems like too tight a squeeze to me. I'm trying to avoid having to (temporarily) remove studs and move it in through the closet on the other side of the wall.
Does anyone have any experience with this?
The other question is, how do I disconnect the drain without making a hole in the wall opposite? Or is that unavoidable?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:48 AMI've been a long-time reader (and a rare poster) over there. It's often a source for interesting news stories, and often quite amusing threads based on them. But Jim Robinson, the site founder and proprietor seems, to put it simply, to have gone nuts.
There have always been three topics that generate a lot of heat (and usually little light) over there: homosexuality, the War on (Some) Drugs, and evolution. It looks as though heretics who don't believe in creationism will no longer be tolerated over there. Too bad--it was fun while it lasted.
Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians are all facing deep schisms. The Libertarians have been splintered by the war, as have the Dems, but these social issues are breaking down the long-time useful alliance between small-government conservatives and libertarians, and social conservatives within the Republican Party. It's not clear whose split is worse, or what the long-term political consequences will be. I do think that it opens up room for a new political party of some type, perhaps by the disenchanted libertarians (e.g., me, Glenn Reynolds) who make up much of the blogosphere.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:14 AMIt looks as though there may have been a mid-air collision, but we'll have to await the accident investigation to know for sure.
The question in my mind is, why there were five people in a camera chase plane? Yeah, it's probably a fun ride, and I'd like to have gone along myself, but I suspect that they'll rethink who are and are not essential personnel on such flights in the future.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:51 AMOK, so due to some sloppy defense, the Tigers are looking down the barrel of an imminent loss of baseball's championship series. They can't lose any more games, either tonight in St. Louis, or this weekend back in Detroit, if they want to win their first series in twenty two years.
But this isn't the first time they've been in this position. Thirty eight years ago, they were down three and one to the same team (well, at least a team with the same name, in the same town--at least two generations of ballplayers have come and gone since then). They came back and won it all. Here's hoping they can do it again.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:32 AMOne of the arguments against space tourism as a long-term market is that as the VW technology advances, the real thing may actually be viewed as boring compared to the possibilities offered by programmable realities. I suspect that this will be true to some limited degree (particularly given the cost differential of doing things in cyberspace as opposed to meat space), but I'm sure that there will always be "Luddites" who refuse to hide in virtual worlds, protected from real consequences, but will prefer to go out and test their bodies and senses against the real thing.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:21 AMFirefox 2.0 has a spell checker built into its text boxes. Handy for blogging. It doesn't like the word "spellchecker."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:24 AMLileks imitates Andrew Sullivan discussing the weather with Hugh Hewitt. Of course, you have to suffer through Hugh's actual interview with Andrew to truly appreciate it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:26 AMJon Goff has a long, but interesting description of Masten activities at last weekend's X-Prize Cup. And rocket geeks may want to chime in the comments section with John Carmack about the theoretical and practical Isp of the Masten engines.
Jon's post reminds me that I forgot to mention this past weekend the tragic news that he notes about Ed Wright's company, which lost five personnel in the crash of a camera chase plane. My condolences to him and his coworkers. It's ironic, of course, because while we may expect to lose people in the development of new vehicles, an accident like that is always completely unexpected, and a shock.
One thing that strikes me is the behind-the-scenes look at the confusion of the operations people on the field, which was also apparent (but less so) from the press tent. Hopefully, they'll get better at this in future years, and be able to offer a better show.
Another is the continued and heart-warming camaraderie of the industry, with cooperation and well wishes between all the players. A sign of maturation may be when they start to feel more competitive, because there are real businesses going, with real fortunes to be won or lost.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:01 AMClark Lindsey notes that, despite the fact that the prizes haven't been won yet, Centennial Challenge is working. Which means, of course, that the Senate is now trying to kill it.
As Clark says, we'll have to mobilize to save (or worst case, if we can't win in conference) restore this funding next year. There are people spending a lot of time and sweat, and money, in the hopes of winning these prizes. It would be a tragedy if the prizes were snatched away now. Unfortunately, it would also be typical, and an example of why it's hard to make government-funded prizes work, given the fickleness of the governors.
And of course, it's one of the few really cost effective things that NASA is doing, in terms of advancing us in space.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:38 AMNo, not in Iraq (thought that may be the case). In France. Charles Martel spins in his grave.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:26 PMI know that this post will bring out the usual anonymous morons with their stupid and discredited "chickenhawk" argument in comments, but Michael Fumento isn't very impressed with the media performance in Iraq:
Most rear-echelon reporters seem to have studied the same handbook, perhaps The Dummies’ Guide to Faux Bravado. It usually begins with the horrific entry into Baghdad International Airport. Time’s Baghdad bureau chief, Aparisim Ghosh, in an August 2006 cover story, devotes five long paragraphs to the alleged horror of landing there.Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:42 AMIt’s “the world’s scariest landing,” he insists, as if he were an expert on all the landings of all the planes at all the world’s airports and military airfields. It’s “a steep, corkscrewing plunge,” a “spiraling dive, straightening up just yards from the runway. If you’re looking out the window, it can feel as if the plane is in a free fall from which it can’t possibly pull out.” Writes Ghosh, “During one especially difficult landing in 2004, a retired American cop wouldn't stop screaming ‘Oh, God! Oh, God!’ I finally had to slap him on the face – on instructions from the flight attendant.”
The Associated Press gave us a whole article on the subject, titled “A hair-raising flight into Baghdad,” referring to “a stomach-churning series of tight, spiraling turns that pin passengers deep in their seats.”
I’ve flown into that airport three times now; each time was in a military C-130 Hercules cargo plane, and each landing was as smooth as the proverbial baby’s behind. But Ghosh is describing a descent in a civilian Fokker F-28 jet, on which admittedly I have never flown. (It’s $900 one-way for the short hop from Amman to Baghdad, and therefore the transportation of well-heeled media people.) So I asked a reporter friend who frequently covers combat in the Mideast and Africa, and has also frequently flown into Baghdad on those Fokkers. “The plane just banks heavily,” he said. “It’s not a big deal.” He requested anonymity, lest he incur the wrath of other journalists for spoiling their war stories.
...Even journalists sympathetic to the Baghdad press corps admit they essentially just hide out. Here’s how The New York Review of Books put it last April: “The bitter truth is that doing any kind of work outside these American fortified zones has become so dangerous for foreigners as to be virtually suicidal. More and more journalists find themselves hunkered down inside whatever bubbles of refuge they have managed to create in order to insulate themselves from the lawlessness outside.” Unless you accept “insulation” as a synonym for “reporting,” this doesn’t speak well of the hotel denizens.
Other reporters have been less generous. The London Independent’s Robert Fisk has written of “hotel journalism,” while former Washington Post Bureau Chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran has called it “journalism by remote control.” More damningly, Maggie O’Kane of the British newspaper The Guardian said: “We no longer know what is going on, but we are pretending we do.” Ultimately, they can’t even cover Baghdad yet they pretend they can cover Ramadi.
At least according to this web site, which says that there are zero people with the first name Rand, and zero people with the last name Simberg, in the US.
This implies, of course, there are also zero people with both. I guess I'll just have to disappear in a puff of logic.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:10 AMAlan Boyle has an interesting interview on launch regulation with Marion Blakey and Patricia Grace Smith from last week's X-Prize Cup Executive Summit.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:33 AMRich Lowry nails Bush's biggest problem, and flaw:
For a president who talks so much about being a wartime leader and whose administration so emphasizes the prerogatives of the executive, Bush has been an oddly passive commander in chief. He often seems to be run by his government rather than the other way around. He rarely fires anyone. His deference to his generals is near total. He hasn’t acted at key moments to resolve debilitating bureaucratic battles within his administration. He might be the “decider,” but his deciding hasn’t reached down far enough to see that his strategic decisions are effectively implemented.Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:13 AM
John Carmack has a fascinating (at least to me) description of the lead up to the XPC and what happened there. And some thoughts about the future.
I’m not at all sure that holding contests like this as the main event of a show like the X-Prize Cup is a good idea. It came out well this year, but it was all just one mishap in testing away from not having any real meat in the show. If you know for sure that you have a real field of contestants it will probably work out, but if the field is “probably one”, it gets real dicey. My official bet is that there will be no more than one other competitor next year, and it may well just be Armadillo again. Masten is the closest, but they still need to fly their very first test vehicle, then design, build, and test a more potent vehicle to even be able to compete for the level 1 prize. We spent six months and about a quarter million dollars in direct pursuit of this, and we had a running start at it. For many things, time can be traded for money, but there are limits. One hundred thousand dollars cash out of pocket is probably the minimum amount that someone needs to be prepared to spend to be in the game next year, and that would be for a single vehicle, relying on luck to not have any mishaps.
And I want to, like the others he mentioned, extend my own congratulations. As I said, it was a good show, even if he didn't get any prize money.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:23 AMArnold Kling says that it's the nature of politicians.
We have to expect mediocrity from political leaders. They are selected by a very unreliable process. In general, I try to avoid contact with narcissists who spend their time pleading for money. Those are hardly the intellectual and emotional characteristics that make someone admirable, yet they are the traits of people who go into politics.Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:11 AM...The libertarian view is that private institutions, both for-profit and non-profit, are better at problem-solving than government institutions. Regardless of whether political leadership is wise or mediocre, our goal should be to limit the damage that public officials can do. Do not demand that they "solve" health care, "fix" education, or launch a "Manhattan project" for energy independence. Even for experts, those are impossible tasks. The harder we press our existing leaders to address these issues, the more trouble they are going to cause.
Mars Express has delivered a nice animation of the Cydonia region. Needless to say, Richard Hoagland's lunatic fans will be disappointed. Or rather, they should be, and would be if they weren't nuts. As it is, they'll probably, along with Hoagland, decry the conspiracy to hide the truth, and claim that now ESA has become part of NASA's cover up.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:23 PMThat's what it looks like the Australians have been doing with their gun buy-back program:
Although furious licensed gun-owners said the laws would have no impact because criminals would not hand in their guns, Mr Howard and others predicted the removal of so many guns from the community, and new laws making it harder to buy and keep guns, would lead to a reduction in all types of gun-related deaths....Politicians had assumed tighter gun laws would cut off the supply of guns to would-be criminals and that homicide rates would fall as a result, the study said. But more than 90 per cent of firearms used to commit homicide were not registered, their users were not licensed and they had been unaffected by the firearms agreement.
Yes, politicians assume all kinds of idiotic things.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:03 PMHoward Dean is still struggling to modulate his message for the Red States:
Despite what you may have heard on Fox News, we Democrats know what issues are on the minds of heartland conservatives like you. We know that your number one concern of is the safety of your children -- whether they are plucking their banjos on the back porch, speaking tongues to snakes at Jesus Camp, or torching crosses at your local Nascar racing contest. We also know that the number one threat to your children's safety is the scourge of international homo-ism. That's why we at the DNC have created "The Contract With American Hillbillies," a new multipoint investigation program to identify and root out conservative stealth homoism before it threatens you or your precious little inbreeds.Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:24 AM...And if their rampant homoism weren't enough, the GOP has further betrayed traditional conservatives by secretly nominating negros in races across the country. Yes, you read that correctly: actual negros. No matter how many times they try to hide the genetic truth from conservatives like you, GOP nominees like Michael Steele, Lynn Swann and Ken Blackwell are black as the ace of spades. Imagine the devastating impact on US property values if the world learns that more of those types have moved into the Congressional neighborhood.
...Are you fed up with the GOP's miscegenation and gay bathhouse shenanigans? I know we've had our differences in the past, but maybe it's time for conservatives like you to give Democrats a fresh new look. The Republicans like to talk about having a "big tent," but we at the DNC are actually taking concrete steps to bring conservatives back in the fold. Just look at our innovative Iraq quagmire withdrawal plan, which has earned the praise and endorsement of rock-ribbed, traditional American conservatives like Pat Buchanan, Fred Phelps, and David Duke.
Also in today's issue of The Space Review, Bob Clarebrough asks if the EU is capable of allowing a space tourism industry to develop in Europe:
...consider this: the Gettysburg Address ran to 264 words, the Declaration of Independence required 1,332, yet the European Union regulations on the sale of cabbages need 23,826 words. It’s hard to believe that commercial space operators will enjoy the light-touch regulatory approach adopted so far by the FAA. Call me intuitive, but my gut tells me that launching stuff into space might need even more complex rules than trading vegetables—or am I missing something?Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:04 AM...Gaining approvals and funding to construct a spaceport, transportation links, hotels, and housing for workers in a pristine wilderness will take forever. But the last word will come from Britain’s Health and Safety Executive. This government department recently advised the police not to pursue escaping criminals in case they endangered the felons’ safety! When the HSE writes the rules for space operations their weight will exceed any rocket’s lifting capacity.
Jeff Foust already has a piece up at The Space Review about this past weekend's X-Prize Cup, and the state of NewSpace:
Both the overall Cup and Armadillo’s efforts in the Lunar Lander Challenge illustrated one thing: the entrepreneurial “NewSpace” industry is in a particularly demanding phase of its development. The public’s expectations—and those of some in the industry—have risen because of past successes, like SpaceShipOne. Yes, most companies are still in the earliest phases of developing vehicles and related technologies, a phase prone to failures as new technologies and approaches are tried and often discarded. It’s a steep part of the learning curve, and even more difficult when it’s on public display.“It’s easier than the professionals think it is, but it’s harder than the amateurs think it is,” Carmack said between flights of Pixel at the X Prize Cup. “You just can’t expect everything to work the first time.”
Yes, space is hard. It's not as hard, and doesn't have to be as expensive, as NASA and conventional wisdom tell us, but it's also not as easy as some of the more facile commenters would indicate. The current "garage," "build a little test a little" approaches will work fine for exhibitions like this, but at some point, the players are going to have to start doing the unfun things, like systems engineering, requirements analysis, configuration management, if they want to have real businesses, with real customers, real insurers, major investors, and regulators. In fact, a little more time and analysis up front might have resulted in a success for Armadillo this past weekend. Structural analysis isn't rocket science--the vehicle legs should have been able to handle the landing loads. And speaking of systems management, Eve Lichtgarn has a review of what looks like an interesting book on that subject for the Apollo program.
Anyway, sometimes lessons learned from personal experience are taken more to heart than lectures from the old timers. I just hope that they learn the lessons before they start actually riding the vehicles, and congratulations to them for a good attempt, and a great show.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:50 AMPhil Carter has some recommendations for a new approach in Iraq.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:13 AMAs the US gets its 300 millionth resident, is Europe in one?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:08 AMKaus amusingly dissects some particularly stupid arguments against "the fence."
7. "[E]fforts to protect pronghorn sheep and encourage the jaguar to return to the United States could be seriously affected." We can patrol the whole border with high-tech cameras and "ground-based radar," yet we can't cut some holes for pronghorn sheep and patrol just them with cameras and "ground-based radar"? That would be something for the unionized border guards to do! But I guess we might have to give up the jaguar.... Oh wait, we don't have jaguars. We might have to give up re-acquiring the jaguar. OK. Which will it be: No new jaguars or no new illegal immigrants. Let's vote!Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:01 AM
Can't get any more full, in fact, than Jane Galt does.
Full disclosure: I met Malcolm at Harvard, where I used to cheat off of him in calculus exams. Now I have to invite him to my annual Christmas party, have dinner with him and his appalling wife three times a year, and say nice things about all his books. Kids, let this be a lesson to you.Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:28 AM
Sell "Miracle Whip Classic," at a higher price, and everyone can be happy.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:25 PMHow Lancet did it this time, according to Strategy Page.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:31 PMImagine someone in your neighborhood who was, shall we say, less than a model citizen.
He malnourishes his kids and allows them no contact with the outside world. He locks them up in the house, often chaining them in the basement, and if they attempt to escape, when he's lucky enough to have the neighbors return them to him, he beats them, often to death. Sometimes he even kidnaps the neighbors' children, and treats them similarly. Little justification is required for punishment, often brutal. Sometimes nothing more than disrespect toward him (which could merely of insufficient continual praise), or even looking out the window at the neighbors, brings down the blows.
He has no job. He makes a living by selling drugs and by counterfeiting. He also collects guns, and supplements his income by threatening the neighbors with bodily harm if they don't give him money and food, which he then eats himself, and uses the money to buy porn, while continuing to neglect his children, except those who are willing to join in the abuse and help protect him from the neighbors and police. He repeatedly promises to give up the weapons if he gets enough loot, but he never keeps the promises, and simply continues to accumulate them. He is obviously beyond rehabilitation.
What would we do with such a man?
Isn't it obvious? We would never have allowed it to even get this far. We would arrest him, and try and imprison (if not execute) him for his multiple horrible crimes, and take his children away.
But what if he had some of the older children standing at the window, behind armor, with guns and firebombs aimed at the neighbors, with threats to start killing them and burning their houses if such an attempt was made? What would we do then?
In case anyone hasn't guessed by now, I'm describing the government/thugocracy of the so-called "Democratic" so-called "Peoples" so-called "Republic" of Korea.
Why do we tolerate this regime? Why is it a member in good standing in the UN? Why, rather than negotiating with it, are we not coming up with plans to remove it?
Because the extortion works. The South Koreans fear the onslaught of artillery on Seoul that would result from a war, and both they and the Chinese fear the social and economic cost of supporting the regime's starving masses. But if ever there was a case for liberating a people this is it. While they didn't do it universally in Iraq (and of course, only people unfamiliar with the actual history claim that anyone thought they would), liberating the North Koreans would result in flowers being thrown at us. If they hadn't all ready eaten them, that is.
But a sadder reason is that we've elevated the notion of "national sovereignty" to too high a level. China fears that if the puppy eater is removed on the basis of his abuse of his people, they could be next. The UN has become a club to coddle dictators, because our entrance criteria are set so low. They will all protect each other, fearing that if they don't hang together they will hang separately. All of which, of course, points up, once again, the uselessness of the institution, at least in terms of maintaining the peace, or protecting human rights.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:22 AMArecibo can't find any ice on the moon.
I think we should be planning asteroid/comet missions, anyway. The private sector is more likely to do that, since they'll be more focused on the practical use of resources than science and symbolism.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:48 AMI'm back from New Mexico. I got home about 11:30 last night. During my layover in Dallas, I learned from Robin Snelson, and saw on my Treo, that Armadillo didn't get the job done. It was a good attempt, though, and I think that it's actually good that all the money is still on the table for next year. Hopefully, their efforts this year will make it easier for others to raise the money in time for next year, where we can have a real competition.
One thing I don't understand, though. How do they break ties? Suppose that there had been two successful contenders this year, in terms of meeting the minimum prize requirements? Anyone know?
[Update a little after noon Eastern]
Paul Breed has an answer, that I'll assume is reliable, in comments. Also, Jeff Foust has posted some pictures of yesterday's events over at Flikr.
I actually think that this is the coolest picture from the event, and a unique one.
But then, I confess to a bias. (And note the pants creases from too much sitting in the press tent...)
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:10 AMHave to leave for the airport. I'll check back in tomorrow, barring travel mishaps. Go over and read Clark and Jeff for more updates.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:47 AMJeff Foust says that Armadillo will try again about 12:45 MT. Unfortunately, I've got a 2:20 flight out of El Paso, so I'll be leaving here about 12:30. While I wish good luck to the Armadillo team, I have to confess some hope that the prize remains unwon, so there will be some real competition next year. But I guess I'll find out when I get home tonight.
But just as I type this, they're getting ready to start the clock again, and send the vehicle back out to the test site. So maybe, if things go ahead of schedule, I'll get to see it after all.
...
OK, the clock just started.
I like Mexican food (if it's good--too often, alas, it is not), but after all the catering I've had this week--at the Symposium, at the AIAA thingie last night, and in the press tent (e.g., bacon, cheese and egg burritos this morning, and now they're serving carnitos y arroz for lunch), I've had enough Mexicano food this week to last me a while. Which is good, since I'm going back to south Florida, the land of steak houses and Italian restaurants.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:32 AMYesterday, the University of Michigan team climbed the ribbon using a beamed-power system (lights below shining on solar panels). Today another team (a high school from Silicon Valley) just did it using solar power, with the arrays tracking the rising sun here mid morning. No word on their time yet.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:22 AMTim Pickens uses an asphalt-nitrous combination for both his rocket bike, and his rocket truck. Earlier, he had an igniter failure on the rocket bike. Just a few minutes ago, he was demonstrating the rocket truck (it's in the bed of his Chevy, pointing--no surprise--backwards). He has it chocked for a static engine firing--for some strange reason, he can't get insurance to actually propel it. This time, the igniter ignited, but there didn't seem to be any oxidizer flow. It may be a failure of a temperature sensor that allows the valve to open.
So he's 0 for 2 today.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:19 AMPixel will launch in two minutes.
...
First leg looked successful, but it did yesterday as well. Some talk that they may have missed the pad on landing. Now it's looking like the ship tilted on landing.
They'll definitely have to start over. The question is whether or not they damaged it, which will determine whether or not they have another chance today. If not, the prizes remain unwon for this year, giving hope to Masten and other potential contenders.
[Update a few minutes later]
I just talked to Ken Davidian, of Centennial Challenges. He says that as far as he knows, they could still go with Texel for Level 1, and perhaps for Level 2 as well, if they can get the parts back in her (him?). But if they don't win a prize today, they have to wait until next year. If so, it will give other teams time to catch up, and make for a more exciting event in 2007.
Just hearing that Tim Pickens will take another rocket bike ride in a couple minutes.
...
A failed ignitor. They may try again later.
Word now is that Pixel landed off the pad, on its side, but there are no fuel leaks. Still unclear whether or not they'll attempt it again today.
[Update about 10:25]
The Armadillo team just came by the press tent with the wounded Pixel on their way to the staging area from which they're required to start any next attempt. Still unclear if they're going to fly it again, or swap the parts back into Texel. I'll go over and see if John has time to talk.
[A couple minutes later]
"We're going to get a sandwich, dust it off, make sure the bolts are tight, and then try it again."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:00 AMThe wisdom of sports prognosticators. Note that not a single one predicted a series win by either of the two teams playing tonight.
I guess it's the old saying about the race to the swiftest, and battle to the strongest, and the way to bet. Or maybe it's just poor judges of who is swift and strong.
And now, of course, the conventional wisdom is a Tiger sweep, which makes me a little nervous. I suspect that the Cards will put up a good fight. But still, what a difference a few weeks makes. And I got my wish for a rematch from 1968 (not to mention 1934, which also went seven games).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:49 AMLiterally. Fifteen minutes until LOX pressurization on Pixel.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:44 AMHere's a post that the trolls can comment about to their black little hearts' delight. The lefty troglodytes once again display their fascist thuggish tendencies, and cognitive dissonance, in their threat to "take it to the streets."
One of the laughable things about the charge of Bush ’stealing elections’ is that on one hand, the majority of the left looks at Bush as a clueless wonder, and have done so from day one. To them, he’s inept in everything he does - yet somehow “Dumbya” knows how to mastermind ’stealing elections’! They’ve never been able to explain how on one hand he’s the world’s biggest idiot, yet on the other hand has managed to orchestrate election fraud on a widespread scale. Probably because this, like so many of their other inconsistencies, is something they can’t explain.Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:26 AM
Congratulations to Mark Whittington, who has managed to get a column about COTS and Bigelow into today's WaPo.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:22 AMYeah, I know, it's a mixed metaphor. Carmack and crew worked overnight to repair Pixel by cannibalizing Texel. Unfortunately, they also found a cracked combustion chamber on the engine that came down hard, and have also replaced it with a higher-life version, so John says that there's a slightly higher chance of an engine failure today.
If they succeed with the Level 1, they'll put the missing bits back into Texel and try for Level 2. But even if not, they may fly Texel anyway, just to beat the old DC-X flight duration record of 142 seconds.
And as I type this, there's about to be a dual Tripoli launch. Two minutes to launch.
...
And both flights were successful, about a minute apart. There were small sonic booms in both cases.
By the way, any more trollish off-topic comments like those yesterday will be deleted with extreme prejudice. I'll leave the ones from yesterday up, since others have commented on them, and they're a continuing testament to the putrid imbecility and vandalistic mentality of too many leftists.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:12 AMOK, one more post (really, I can quit any time I want).
I just talked to John Carmack. They'll have to cannibalize, but they can swap parts quickly, so they are planning to make another attempt to win Level 1 tomorrow with Pixel, using Texel parts. If they succeed, and have sufficient time left, they may move the parts back to Texel and go for Level 2. But as I said, even a recovery to win Level 1 is a great story.
He was pretty happy with the vehicle performance (other than the hard landing, which they'll fix by changing some of the parameters in the software), other than a small roll oscillation (~1 degree) that causes some ullage issues (I assume by "roll" he means the vertical axis). He'll try tweaking the software, but the only way to really fix it, which will occur in the next vehicle, is getting rid of the solenoids controlling valves, which are causing unacceptable lag, and going back to differential throttling. At least, that's what I think he told me.
Anyway, I'm really done now. Packing up computer, and heading into town. See you tomorrow.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:26 PMThat's what Keith Cowing says that Bill Nye is.
I disagree. He's a lot confused. But what do you expect when you get a "science guy" commenting on general policy?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:09 PMThey're chasing people out. I hate to leave--it's the best Internet I've had all week. Mainlining, man, it's the good stuff... But I can quit any time I want.
Off to the hotel for adult beverages and an AIAA reception.
[Update before packing up]
Clark Lindsey has some pictures of the Armadillo flight.
If they manage to work all night, recover, and win at least one prize tomorrow, that will be the story of the show. Even more if they win both levels.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:59 PMThere are reportedly twenty-five thousand people here today which, if true, doubles last year's reported attendance. It doesn't seem that crowded to me, but I think that it's because there's lots of room. Many busloads of children were here (presumably from local schools on field trips, and X-Prize reportedly bused in 5000), and Margaret noted that it gave the atmosphere a sort of Disneyworld quality.
I was just walking around, looking at the kids, and trying to cast my mind back decades. I've been doing this too long, and am pretty jaded, though I think that this is the most exciting thing going on in space right now, far eclipsing NASA's plans. But I know that if there had been something like this as a kid, I'd have been wandering in wonder, looking at the displays, playing in the simulators, watching the flyovers and rocket launches. And dreaming.
One sad thing about it is that the location doesn't lend itself to bringing in large numbers of people--it's simply not near enough to any major population centers. Perhaps the X-Prize cup people should consider doing more than one a year, in different locations that are more accessible to crowds, or combining rocketry with conventional air shows, like the Edwards Open House. It could provide more revenue for the struggling rocket makers, and spread the wealth of inspiration to much more of the nation's youth.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:25 PMAlan Boyle,, of MSNBC, has posted his first story of the day, giving a good flavor of events.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:16 PMThe Pixel landing was harder than it looked from here. They reportedly damaged a leg, and started a small fire that fried some electronics. They may be out for the weekend, unless they can do some cannibalizing of their other vehicle.
[Update a few minutes later]
John did an interview on the big screen, in which he noted what they had accomplished with a few hundred thousand dollars and eight people working part time, in a few months. "NASA and its contractors should be ashamed of how much their efforts cost."
Sadly, they have no shame, at least when it comes to that. Their number one product is jobs.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:26 PMWe're about to get a flyover from an F-18. It's ten miles south.
[Update]
He did a fast pass (though not supersonic) and then a slow one, flaps and gear down, nose up about ten or more degrees, in a high-alpha flyby. It was a NASA airplane.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:01 PMThe Polish Coast Guard has fired on a German cruise ship.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:00 PMArmadillo has been given permission to pressurize tanks for their first launch attempt. Not sure what the delay has been, but the judges have granted them an additional hour over their original alloted two and a half hours. And Rocketman is about to fly again.
[Update a few minutes later]
About a minute to ignition of Armadillo's "Pixel" vehicle.
[Update]
It looked like a succesful flight. It ascended smoothly, translated to the left (from my view), hovered for half a minute or so, then descended halfway to the ground, hovered again for a bit, then slowly descended to a soft landing.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:43 PMIt doesn't seem to be covered very well on the jumbo screens and program, but the University of Michigan tether team apparently had a successful climb in the Challenge. Go Blue!
I had heard earlier that two of the Canadian teams had dropped out. They didn't win the prize, though, because there was too much wind, and they couldn't meet the speed requirements with the tether jittering around. This scoop brought to you by my old...errrrrr, I mean long-time (she's actually my age, within a few days) friend Margaret Jordan, who just came over to the press tent to tell me.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:09 PMOne small rocket ride for a man on a bicycle.
Out on the tarmac, Tim Pickens of Orion Propulsion just demonstrated his asphalt-powered rocket bike (which, by the way, may have been featured on the Daily Show yesterday--Tim was telling us about his visit from Jon Stewart earlier this week).
It wasn't one of his better efforts. The burn seemed short. As he glided past the press tent, Robin Snelson yelled out, "That was punk!"
Sigh. When will the media discover that they're supposed to cover the news, not make it?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:54 AM...than mine can be found over at space.com, which is the official media for it. This has aroused some controversy, as Keith Cowing notes.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:46 AMClark Lindsey has gotten his connection going.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:40 AMWe just got a flyover from an F-117. I suspect from Holloman AFB, but not sure.
Back to rockets.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:33 AMTripoli is going to launch another rocket, supposedly in five minutes, at 10:30. Also, the Rocket Racing League and XCOR are going to unveil the first rocket racer about 10:45.
[Update]
Half an hour late. The first attempt fizzled, but they started the count again about a minute later, and then had a spectacular launch. It went straight up, out of sight, and came back down with a strobe and a streamer. The chutes opened a couple hundred feet off the ground. Looked nominal to me. Also, the crane picked up Armadillo's vehicles and started hauling them over to the launch pad for their Lunar Landing Prize attempt.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:53 AMI didn't report much on the symposium earlier this week, because I was too busy schmoozing to hear a lot of it and the wireless situation was so crummy, but here's an article at the New Scientist about etiquette in space. Most of it seems like common sense to me.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:43 AMI didn't follow up yesterday, because I never got a connection in the afternoon, but Armadillo does have FAA permission to fly today, as Alan Boyle reported. Their first attempt at the Level 1 is scheduled shortly.
People here are frantically looking for a rogue wireless network, which is interfering with Armadillo's ground-to-air communications. John controls it with a joystick operating on 2.4 GHz.
In the meantime, "Rocketman" (aka Don Schlund) is supposed to fly on a peroxide rocket belt in five minutes or so.
[Update a few minutes later]
He flew around on the tarmac for a little less than thirty seconds (that's how much propellant he has). Max altitude, probable thirty or forty feet. It was quite loud. I'm sure he wears earplugs, but there should probably have been some for the closer spectators as well.
Meanwhile, while we're waiting for Armadillo to do their Lunar Lander Challenge attempt, go read Jon Goff's account of getting to Las Cruces and setting up, with Masten Aerospace.
And Anousheh Ansari's plane just landed and taxied in front of us.
[Update at noon]
Jeff Foust has a picture of the Rocketman. He has other pictures (and a video, laready) as well. Check out the adjacent posts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:49 AMjeff Foust is on the case. More updates as I look around, at least for the usual suspects.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:36 AMI'm in the third row of tables--I didn't get here early enough to stake out something closer. I'm looking at the backs of Jeff Foust and Alan Boyle. Robin Snelson is up there as well, and Leonard and Barbara David have front-row seats.
I wandered around yesterday as they were setting up. Masten Space has a static display of the vehicle that they wanted to fly in the Lunar Landing Challenge, but couldn't ready in time. XCOR has a modest tent, with the occasional demo by Doug Jones of their tabletop rocket engine, when the crowd pressure builds up enough to justify it. Sort of like a little geyser.
Rocketplane Kistler has a static display of the XP vehicle. No mockup of the Kistler K-1.
NASA has a walk-through inflable Orion spacecraft, with an inflatable spacesuited astronaut inside, larger than life. Kind of scary for the kids, if you ask me. But no one did. Some people have inflatable girlfriends, others inflatable astronauts. Space geeks, what can you say?
I guess the inflatable spacecraft is the latest attempt to save weight. On the other hand, if they reduce the weight too much, they won't be able to justify the development of CLV. [VOICE="Homer Simpson"]In case you didn't realize it, I was being sarcastic.[/VOICE]
More later.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:16 AMI'm sitting in the press tent at the X-Prize Cup, with an ethernet connection. Woohow! Bandwidth, sweet sweet bandwidth...
Typing is a little slow--the temperature is still in the upper fifties or low sixties, but phalanges will wiggle faster and with more reliability as the sun continues to warm the field.
The first rocket launch was scheduled for 7:15. It was a replica of one of Goddard's rockets. It was a little over an hour late. Ascent was beautiful, in a cloudless windless sky. Unfortunately, as Gregg Maryniak pointed out, sometimes chute happens and sometimes it doesn't. In this case, after apogee, it nosed over and plummeted straight down into the field exactly like a feather wouldn't. No failure analysis as of this writing, though there was speculation by the Tripoli rep that the altitude-actuated system didn't work, perhaps with an altimeter failure due to condensation from sitting on the pad overnight.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:59 AMAt least until I get home and have some time to go in and do a script rename, I've had to disable trackback. I'd gotten several hundred of them over the last couple days, and don't have reliable enough connectivity to stay on top of them.
We have to come up with a general solution to comment and trackback spam. The blogosphere thrives on feedback and crosstalk, and will lose much of its value if we can't allow this due to vandals.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:20 AMThe big news of today, I think (since somehow my invitation to the Executive Summit for the X-Prize Cup got lost in the mail. Or something) is that John Carmack almost has a license to fly tomorrow for his attempt at the Lunar Landing Challenge? The catch?
He must answer these questions three. You know, like what is your favorite color?
Well, not really. Actually, the questions three are three successful flights today, when the crowds aren't present. I'm informed that if he can do that, then he'll have permission to fly with folks present. At least that's what I was told late last night. But Alan Boyle says that they only have to perform a single hover test.
Anyway, I'm heading up to the airport shortly to see how it goes. Or went, if I don't get there in time.
By the way, I see that Robin Snelson has been doing a good job of keeping up on what's going on here. Just keep scrolling.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:02 AMIt's been a disastrous couple of days as far as Internet connectivity goes. My hotel has wireless, but it's like a slow dialup. I can load static pages, but I get timeouts on getting mail. Worse, anything with a script times times. Which means no blogging. Worse yet (at least for me), it means that I can't fight the human offal that have been spamming me. I've gotten hundreds of spam pings in the last couple days, and I haven't even been able to blacklist them, let alone delete the offending graffitti. The connectivity at the symposium was flaky as well.
Anyway, I'm at a Barnes and Noble now, paying for an AT&T connection by the hour.
It's worth it, but I see that I have to get a wireless card, so I'm not dependent on the whims of hotels with false advertising about their Internet capabilities.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:55 AMThings worked out better than I expected. I managed to get an earlier flight from Dallas to El Paso, and when I got there, Advantage had a car (for the bargain price of only a hundred bucks a day, including all of the outrageous taxes and fees they put on rental cars these days).
I'm in my room now, and the broadband seems to work, sort of, though it seems more like narrow band.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:19 PMI put up a post over on sci.space.history, in which I had complained about the ancient joke about the Poles sending an expedition to the sun, in which they'd go at night to avoid being burned up.
I pointed out that jokes about ethnic groups that just point out how stupid they are are pointless, since the groups themselves are interchangeable, and have nothing to do with any actual characteristics or history of that ethnic group. In that vein, I provided an example of an appropriate (and I think funny) ethnic joke. I figured that, since I spent the time typing it over on Usenet, I might as well post it here as well:
A guy is walking down the street in Gdansk, and he sees a lamp. He picks it up, brushes the dust off it, and of course, out pops a genie.Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:16 PM"In reward for releasing me from my bondage, I will grant you three wishes. What would you like?"
The guy thinks about it for a while, then he says, "I'd like the Chinese to pillage Warsaw."
The genie scratches his head at the strange request, then shrugs and says, "OK, here you go."
The Chinese march in and pillage the Polish capital.
The genie says, "OK, now what's your second wish? Make it a good one this time."
The guy thinks about it for a while again, and then he says, "I'd like the Chinese to pillage Warsaw."
The genie is wondering if he hears him right.
"What do you mean? That was your first wish. They've been there, done that. Don't you want something else?"
The guys says, "No, I want the Chinese to pillage Warsaw."
The genie throws up his hands, and has the Chinese pillage Warsaw again. This time no woman is left unraped, no one is left alive, many of the buildings have been leveled.
"OK. You get one more wish. Don't waste it, like you did the others."
The guy thinks for a long time, and finally, he says, "You know, what I'd really like, is for the Chinese to pillage Warsaw."
Now the genie is about to have a fit.
"What are you talking about?! There's nothing left to pillage!"
"I don't care. I want the Chinese to pillage it anyway."
Well, the genie has to honor the wish, and this time, when all the festivities are over, the former Polish capital is nothing but a smoldering crater.
The genie says, "You know, we aren't supposed to ask these things, but I've just got to know. Why? Why, three times, you have the Chinese pillage your own country's capital?"
The guy says, "Look, they did it three times, right?"
The genie says, "Right."
"So, every time they do that, they cross Russia twice.
I stupidly made air and hotel reservations for this week, but not car rental. No one has anything. Which should have been obvious. I thought about the difficulty of staying in Las Cruces, and got a hotel in El Paso, but it didn't occur to me (as it should have) that everyone would be flying into El Paso and renting cars there.
Is anyone going there this week, and staying in El Paso, from whom I could bum a ride for five days? Including tomorrow afternoon, when I get in?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:02 PMI'm flying out to Las Cruces in the morning, and will be there all week. Hope I'll see some rocketry.
Assuming that my hotel was on the up and up about broadband in the room, I hope I'll have some updates from the X-Prize Cup festivities.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:42 PMUnlike (apparently) many who were in Hawaii yesterday, I've been through several significant earthquakes. But if our trip to Kona had been one week later, we'd have gone through the closest major quake in our lives, despite decades in southern California. It would have been only ten miles away, off shore. And if our itinerary had been the same, we'd have been in bed, on the fourth floor in a condo, above the beach, so it would have been pretty exciting. But there was never a concern about a tsunami, at least not there. It didn't have enough distance to build up a big wave, even if it was a big enough displacement to cause one (it wasn't). But we'd probably be stuck there for a couple more days, at least.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:26 AM"Fjordman" has some recommendations for the West.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:48 AMOne of the catch phrases of the Simpsons is when Reverend Lovejoy's wife, in response to some event requiring community action/some new law, is "What about the children! Won't anyone think of the children?"
Given human nature (particularly the maternal instincts of women, who are more often the target of such political tactics), it's an effective form of demagoguery. A very effective one.
For instance, it's often used by gun controllers, by using statistics talking about how many "children" are killed by guns in the inner city. Unfortunately for their case, the "children" killed by guns often turn out to be late teenagers (you know, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen?) and often people even in their early twenties, due to insufficient vetting of the actual ages of those killed in the gangland shootouts (no, tell me that it isn't so...).
Even more egregious is those who, like potential Nobel laureate (and the fact that she is even being considered for this is at least as devastating an indictment of the uselessness of that award as the actual awarding of it to the likes of Yasser Arafat and Jimmy Carter) Cindy Sheehan, talk about sending our "children" to fight and die in Iraq. This ignores the fact that no one goes into Iraq involuntarily--all who sign up for the all-volunteer military do so under the influence of their own will. (Note: If anyone can find a case in which someone delivered their "child" unto the evil maws of the Bushitler-Cheney-Rumsfeld war machine, with the infant kicking and screaming in protest, let me know pronto, so I can amend this post). Moreover, these "children" are old enough to drive, to vote, and (in many cases) to legally purchase alcohol. But it makes for much better anti-US (not anti-war--many of them are just on the other side) sound bites to bleat about the "children" that we are "sending" off to die.
So now comes the usually reasonable Representative, and aspiring Senator, Harold Ford, who reportedly said yesterday:
I'm just not going to take morality lessons from a party — the National Republican Committee is running it — from a party that took hush money from a child predator.
The usual morons in the comments section will continue to think that I am defending Republicans here, but I'm not. What Foley did was reprehensible, and he did the right thing by (at a minimum) resigning. But there is no evidence that he is a pedophile, or interested in children, and the continuing insinuations that he is says more about the desperation of Democrats than about him. He emailed and IMed young men, not children. Sixteen is an age at which it used to be common to marry. Looking throughout human history, it is only in our current infantilized, "failure to launch" society that such a person would be considered a "child."
It has gotten to the point with me that any time anyone uses the "for the children" argument on an issue, I now tend to assume that its proponent is pulling a fast one, and has no actual arguments in favor, and that it's probably something to therefore be opposed. I hereby call for a morotorium on the argumentum pro parvulis. Let it be heard no more in any political campaign.
Let's do it for the children.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:37 PMI haven't had much to say about the latest Lancet fabricationstudy, but Jane Galt has an interesting post, with a lot of comments.
Instapundit has a roundup of links about a story that students are actually being taught to defend themselves.
All of them seem to miss a critical point.
There are few instincts to any life form, let alone humans, more fundamental than those designed for survival. If we have to tell people (yes, even children) to defend themselves, we ought to be asking why such advice is necessary.
If children have to be told to not hide under desks, to throw things, to not be passive sheep, why is that? Why is it that, in contravention of their genetic heritage, they would be expected to act as a herd, and not a pack? Why is it that, in opposition to their fundamental nature, they would have to be instructed in basic survival techniques?
One can only conclude that, because one of one of the more modern traits inherent in humans, it is because we have trained them to be passive, to submit, to go along with whatever program whatever terrorist has planned for them, because after all, The Man will come and save them, if they can only survive long enough for the actual negotiators to come along and offer whatever submissive supplications that the terrorists will demand to spare the lives of the tots.
After all, we all know that the way to peace is submission. Appeasement. Surely their demands must be reasonable--else they wouldn't make them. Wouldn't they?
So, every day, we inculcate our young'uns in the culture of appeasement, to protect them. If they'll be nice to their captors, their captors will surely be nice to them.
Well, actually, we learned a different lesson on September 11th. More specifically, the passengers on UL Flight 93 learned that perhaps going along with the program wasn't the ideal course of action. But they'd have never known it from their pre-flight instructions, or the constant barrage of propaganda from the peacemakers in the media and their supposed protectors in government agencies. No, they had to learn it from forbidden cell phones, from which they learned, illegally, that other planes, just like theirs, had been hijacked, and flown into skyscrapers.
They were headed for Washington, where there were no skyscrapers. There were only national monuments. And a White House. And a Capitol Building, with many representatives of the people inside. And a Pentagon...
They had been told not to resist, but they did. They were adults, with the faculty of reason, and the ability to change their programming as events, and information about them, required.
But the thought that we have to teach children to defend themselves should give us pause. How did they know to defend themselves when we were living in caves? How did they know when under seige? How did they know when on the frontier, against the wolves, and the cougers, and the bears?
They knew because they were bred to know. It is only today that we have to reteach them things they already know, because we've previously taught them nonsense. Let us hope that the unteaching of nonsense is easier than the teaching of it, and more enduring.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:46 PMLiterally, from this medical breakthrough:
Composed of peptides, the liquid self-assembles into a protective nanofiber gel when applied to a wound. Rutledge Ellis-Behnke, research scientist in the department of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT and Kwok-Fai So, chair of the department of anatomy at the University of Hong Kong, discovered the liquid's ability to stop bleeding while experimenting with it as a matrix for regrowing brain cells in hamsters.The researchers then conducted a series of experiments on various mammals, including rodents and pigs, applying the clear liquid agent to the brain, skin, liver, spinal cord, and femoral artery to test its ability to halt bleeding and seal wounds.
"It worked every single time," said Ellis-Behnke. They found that it stopped the bleeding in less than 15 seconds, and even worked on animals given blood-thinning medications.
The wound must still be stitched up after the procedure; but unlike other agents designed to stop bleeding, it does not have to be removed from the wound site.
The liquid's only byproduct is amino acids: tissue building blocks that can be used to actually repair the site of the injury, according to the researchers. It is also nontoxic, causes no immune response in the patient, and can be used in a wet environment, according to Ellis-Behnke.
Is this a drug, or a de-vice? I hope that the FDA won't get in the way of immediate field use. We need it on the battlefields, both in Iraq and in the emergency rooms of the inner cities. It seems to me that if what's stated is true, unnecessary (e.g., for further animal or even human testing) delay in deploying it should be considered criminal negligence.
[Note: misspelling of de-vice necessary for some arcane reason known only to the creators of Moveable Type (if they know)]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:00 PMMichael Rubin makes a good point:
A McClatchy story yesterday read, “Nearly 2,700 Iraqi civilians were killed in the city in September.” Well, who killed them? Baathist insurgents or Iranian-backed militias? If the public read that Iranian-backed militias killed nearly 2700 civilians, we might be less willing to reward their murderers. From today’s New York Times: “Most of the 500 municipal workers who have been killed here since 2005 have been trash collectors.” Again, someone did the killing. Why hide it?Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:15 AM
A worth-repeating quote from Henry Spencer (a Canadian) over at sci.space.policy a few days ago:
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:56 AM>> Of course, I don't expect that this fact
>>will make the politics of launching
>> a nuclear engine much easier.
>
> Oh it will happen. It's just that manned space
> exploration is passing away from the
> democraciesthat are too narcissistic to care.Nonsense. What we've seen so far (and what NASA is trying to return to) is just incidental dabbling. The days of real space exploration by free men still lie ahead, and in fact are getting pretty close. The cartoons are ending, and the curtain is about to go up on the main feature.
If all this sounds bizarre and fantastic, you need to stop thinking in terms of the socialist dream -- spaceflight for the glory of the almighty state, the way NASA does it -- and start considering the sort of space exploration that free people might do for their own reasons. It's already possible to fly in space for any reason you think sufficient, if you've got the price of the ticket. It hasn't worked out quite the way we thought -- who would have *imagined* a world in which the only commercial spaceline requires you to learn Russian to get a seat assignment?!? -- and it's too damned expensive, but these nuisances will change soon, when real competition begins.
NASA will never, ever put men on Mars. Their target date for it is receding more than a year per year. But the first footprints on Mars almost certainly will be those of free men.
Moronic comment trolls aside, this remains an interesting topic. Peggy Noonan wonders why the left thinks that they are entitled to a monopoly on free speech:
What is most missing from the left in America is an element of grace--of civic grace, democratic grace, the kind that assumes disagreements are part of the fabric, but we can make the fabric hold together. The Democratic Party hasn't had enough of this kind of thing since Bobby Kennedy died. What also seems missing is the courage to ask a question. Conservatives these days are asking themselves very many questions, but I wonder if the left could tolerate asking itself even a few. Such as: Why are we producing so many adherents who defy the old liberal virtues of free and open inquiry, free and open speech? Why are we producing so many bullies? And dim dullard ones, at that.Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:11 AM
Apparently North Korea has come up with a way of developing a clean nuclear weapon. Radiation-sniffing planes have so far come up with nothing.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:29 AMJust as torturing helpless animals as a child is a good sign of a psychopath, corrupt politicans usually cut their teeth on land deals.
And in an email, Dennis Wingo explains what Harry Reid did:
First, Harry buys the land for $400k in 1998.Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:24 AMSecond, he sells it in 01 (before the Bush tax cuts) for $400k, with no net capital tax gain.
Third, he sells it again in 04 and pays personal capital tax gain at 15% the rate in 04.
This is a $165k tax on a $1.1M sale.
If that had been a sale through a company, the sale would have been taxed at the corporate tax rate of 35% or $385k. The difference is $220k in his pocket by the way that he accounted for the sale.
Number 13,765, and a continuing mystery. Why did Sandy Berger get off with such a light sentence from the Justice Department?
Frankly, I would love to see the Republicans lose power, because they deserve to. Unfortunately, there's no way to do that without having the Democrats win, which they don't deserve, and the country would suffer for it. And not fake, hysterical suffering like the fantasies of the Bush haters.
Oh, and if we had more Republicans like Dick Armey, who came down with both feet on idiotarian bully James Dobson, the party would be in a lot better shape. What we need is an army of Armeys.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:08 AMNuremberg-style trials for global warming skeptics?
Next time they call people fascists, some of these folks need to look in the mirror.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Jonah Goldberg (with whom I had the pleasure of chatting for a few minutes last night) has related thoughts.
So much of the demonization of conservatives from liberals in the last fifty years has worked on a formula which goes something like this: "I want use the state to impose my dreamy good intentions. Conservatives are evil. So, if they get ahold of government they will use government to do evil in the same way that we would do good."Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:19 AM
Several health reasons why s3x is good for you. Particularly as you get on in years.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:14 PMThe illustrator for The Flintstones, and many other classic Hanna-Barbera hit cartoons, has died. I'm dating myself, but I remember being allowed to stay up and watch, and if I was good, watching Jackie Gleason and Crazy Guggenheim.
Of course, back then, we didn't realize that Huckleberry Hound was so gay. But it seems obvious now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:09 PMIt would be a shame if the Republicans use this ad. It's so mean. It's valid, of course, but still...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:09 PMDave Kopel, who is apparently quite hot, writes about the folly that is the idiotic policy of making schools a free-fire zone for criminals.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:28 PM...a dud. Which gives, some, but not much, comfort. It's nice to know that neither their missiles or their bombs work. So far.
That doesn't, of course, mean that we should ignore it. I've always thought that a sincere attempt at murder, even if incompetent, would merit the same punishment as achieving one.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:46 PMThis isn't surprising, given human nature, and the evolutionary process that developed it. It's in our genes to distrust "the other."
But one of the features of the Anglosphere is its ability to build trust institutions, even in the face of physical diversity. I'd like to see some cultural cross comparisons. Any takers on further thoughts?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:30 PM...that Keith Olbermann is a lousy lay?
Boy, the Internet brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "kiss and tell."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:01 PMI'm off to DC for a couple days. I do plan to come up with some thoughts on the (sort of) new administration space policy, though, here or elsewhere.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:47 AMI'm back in Florida from Kona, and beat, after several airplane flights, some in miserable seating, since we went standby to get earlier flights. More tomorrow.
Meanwhile, marvel at the precognition of the ESPN prognosticators last week, all of whom picked New York over Detroit. Many of them did predict that New York wouldn't make it to the Series, but none of them imagined that it would be the Tigers who would knock them out.
[Update a few minutes later]
I should add that there was something poignant and weird about standing in a Honolulu airport last night watching (but not able to listen to) CNN announcing a possible nuclear weapon test by North Korea. Almost a Pearl Harborish feeling to it. Brought on partly by the fact that I'd visited the Arizona Memorial last week while talking to government folks there.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:01 PM"Grim" has some thoughts on the dismal state of the federal government. I agree with most of them, including repealing the Seventeenth Amendment, except for this suggestion:
I suggest the elimination of Congressional districts, so that all representatives are elected in a single statewide election. If a state were to have ten representatives, then, a hundred people could run -- the top ten vote-getters would take office. That would restore the force of electoral pressure to the House, where it is designed to be. It would increase turnover of Representatives, and cut down on the corruption in the government.
It would do those things, and those are good things, but it would have undesirable consequences as well. Like eliminating the electoral college, it would effectively disenfranchise rural voters, leaving them at the untender mercy of the voters in the big cities who would elect all representatives, and not just their own.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:31 PMAnd they get blown off in three straight in the playoffs by a team that lost 119 games three years ago. The Bronx Bombers got bombed.
So much for Jane Bernstein's subway series prediction.
And I suspect that, given the rampant Yankee hatred in most places outside Gotham, there was great rejoicing throughout the land last night.
[Update about 9 AM Hawaii time]
I'll be pulling for the Cards now, in addition to the Tigers. I think that it would be really cool if we could have a repeat of the 1968 series.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:03 AM
...and hotels for that matter, that advertise free high-speed wireless Internet access. You often get what you pay for, which is not in fact actual high-speed Internet access, but rather, simply a connection that might pass a packet or two, one way or another, when it can be bothered to get around to it.
We're on the fourth floor of a condo that has a wireless router in the lobby. In the afternoon, when everyone is out on the beach, it works fine. In the evening, when they're all home, checking email, browsing for dive sites, browsing for the latest news on the playoffs, browsing for pr0n, etc., it's...not. I can make no connection, and the wireless widget tells me that I have a low signal.
Now I'm not an expert on the 802 protocol, but I'm guessing that this is what's happening.
The signal strength is a minor factor. When it tells me it's getting a weak signal, what's really happening is that it's having trouble getting packets through, and interpreting that as a weak signal. When everyone is on line at once, those with the actual strongest signal (i.e., those nearest the lobby, which doesn't include those on the fourth fargin' floor) are grabbing all the opportunities to send/receive packets before my (relatively) weak signal can even get its boots on. The place needs more bandwidth, but doesn't realize it, or doesn't care. When there's plenty of available bandwidth, my "signal strength" is fine, because there's no competition.
For those who are wireless gurus, is that the deal?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:53 AMFrom Burt Rutan. I haven't had time to read the whole thing, yet (I'm still on vacation, and relaxing from a couple dives this morning), but when I do I may have some additional thoughts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:36 PM...to the school shooting problem. I predict it won't be adopted, though.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:08 AMOr economics. Clark Lindsey once again takes on John Pike. This wouldn't be necessary if reporters didn't continue to go to him for the "other side."
What's particularly frustrating is that John never actually addresses the rebuttals to his ignorance. He simply continues to repeat it, to any who will listen, which is far too many, particularly in the media.
[Saturday morning update]
This thread seems to have drifted a ridiculously long way from John Pike's knowledge of engineering, business, and physics. I'm quite upset about it, actually, because it never had anything to do with either Fox News, or wiretapping Al Qaeda. Some people just insist on bringing their political hobby horses to graffiti any opportunity they have. I'm partially guilty myself for allowing myself to be sucked into it. Forewarned: any more comments on either of these subjects in this post will be deleted with extreme prejudice.
Andy McCarthy writes about Democrat hypocrisy in the Foley matter:
Oddly, under circumstances where Foley is now gone because he could not last 30 seconds as an elected Republican once his conduct was revealed, we are now observing a frenzied call for Hastert's head for not doing enough to investigate behavior that actually pales in comparison to Clinton's. That frenzy, without a hint of irony or embarrassment, is being stoked by some of the very same people who affirmatively minimized conduct that was orders of magnitude worse than Foley's in order to close ranks around a much more consequential public official who, far from being gone in 30 seconds, was enabled by this support to cling to office for years, finish his term, and remain the Democratic Party's top star.
And as Dennis Wingo notes in comments, the irony abounds:
The Democrats say the Republicans should have done all the things Democrats won't let us do to al-Qaida — solely because Foley was rumored to be gay. Maybe we could get Democrats to support the NSA wiretapping program if we tell them the terrorists are gay.
I wish we had another party.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:14 AMIn a decision that left Boeing's once-mighty but now flailing manned spaceflight business reeling, Lockheed Martin has also thrown the so-called "NewSpace" community (those private ventures started up to dramatically reduce the costs, while increasing the reliability and frequency, of access to space) into a state of confusion, with its announcement a couple weeks ago of plans to investigate rating its Atlas V launcher to transport humans to orbit. To the consternation of some, this was announced in a joint press conference with Bob Bigelow of Bigelow Aerospace, in which he declared his intention to launch a small "space hotel" capable of three people by the end of the decade, with an expansion to nine guests within three years after that. Bigelow has always been considered a member of the new guard, and the move left many scratching their heads.
NASA is no doubt concerned (and some of its personnel perhaps infuriated) about Lockheed Martin's announcement. They are currently trying to justify the development of a new launch system, partially based on Shuttle hardware, for their new Orion lunar exploration spacecraft, the contract for which was awarded to Lockheed Martin only three weeks ago. Part of the justification for that new launcher was that it would be "safe, simple and soon," and that the existing expendable launch vehicles available from Lockheed Martin and Boeing would cost too much to "human rate" for the new crew system. Lockheed Martin's claims are potentially a body blow to this argument. After all, if Lockheed Martin is contemplating doing this with their own money for commercial purposes, it's hard to imagine that it costs the several billion dollars that it would have to in order to justify spending that amount on a whole new launcher. NASA will no doubt continue to argue that the Atlas doesn't have the necessary performance for the job, but Atlas performance improvements could probably also be included in the human rating process. NASA administrator Mike Griffin and Associate Administrator Scott Horowitz (whose former employer, ATK, is lined up to build the new vehicle) can't be pleased.
Why would Lockheed Martin take this action, sure to anger one of its biggest customers, so soon over the Orion award that many viewed as a surprise, when it toppled the expected winner and incumbent human spaceflight contractor, Boeing? One theory is that it is finally starting to take the new commercial space age seriously (something that Boeing, at least so far, seems to continue to fail to do), and are willing to risk NASA's wrath to take advantage of this new future market. Both they and Boeing had to dramatically increase their prices a few years ago when much of the anticipated market for the the new Atlas and Delta, whose development was heavily subsidized by the Air Force, failed to materialize, and there were too few missions to effectively amortize their fixed operational costs over each flight. So one consideration could be that they hope to increase their flight rate for the vehicle by finding new customers, which could reduce their per-flight costs considerably, providing some margin for future price reductions.
This is possible, but it seems improbable, given the company's historical aversion to either commercial space or investing its own bottom-line money in space. In order to determine whether or not it's true, we'll have to see a lot more than a press announcement over the next few months and years. There was, after all, no commitment to do anything except perform some studies of what might be needed technically, along with some business cases. If they actually start spending their own money to make the needed modifications to the vehicle, then this will look like a more tenable interpretation.
Was it instead a PR move to draw more support from potential users in the NewSpace community? Or a feint to somehow keep Boeing off its game? At this point, those outside the company's executive suites can only speculate, barring additional data.
Equally, or perhaps even more interesting, is Bigelow's motivation for this new arrangement. He had been long viewed as an informal partner and supporter of Paypal founder Elon Musk's new Space Exploration (SpaceX) company, which promises much lower launch costs than any of the existing American providers. He reportedly has contracts in place to use the company's Falcon launchers, upon achievement of operational capability, to launch his hotel prototypes, and the company planned to develop a crew module as well as part of its recent contract award with NASA under the Commercial Orbital Transportation System (COTS) program, to help provision the International Space Station after the Shuttle is retired in 2010.
But SpaceX's projected schedule continues to slip. Their first delayed launch attempt of their initial small Falcon 1 vehicle early last spring resulted in a launch failure shortly after leaving the pad in Kwajalein, and the months since have been spent in fixing the problem that caused it, as well as other potential issues. Their next attempt is scheduled for late November. Perhaps Bigelow, a shrewd businessman, is simply hedging his bets. Or he may be spurring competition among his potential providers. Either way, it would seem to indicate at least a reduction, if not a loss, of faith in the ability of SpaceX to deliver on Bigelow's part.
Some in the NewSpace community have expressed concern that the Lockheed Martin announcement could bode ill for the COTS program, by indicating that the company will have the capability to do the job without the need for NASA to invest in the two contractors. But like Bigelow, Mike Griffin was using the COTS program to hedge his own bets that NASA will be able to develop the new systems planned to get the agency out of low earth orbit, in the hope that a fledgling industry could perhaps pick up that slack, and this announcement would seem to do nothing to change his need to do that--he can't rely on Lockheed Martin either (particularly when they haven't yet actually taken any concrete action). For those concerned that this move could put that company in a position to take all the market of the NewSpace industry, this would seem to indicate little faith in that industry. The premise, after all, is that the "mammals" of NewSpace can do it cheaper and better than the old "dinosaurs" of old space. Lockheed is not developing a new vehicle, after all. It is still the expensive Atlas, and any modifications needed to allow it to carry humans can only make it more so. Increasing its flight rate will allow price reductions, but there is a floor on the price set by the marginal costs of throwing an expensive launch vehicle away with every flight (unless Lockheed is willing to operate at a severe loss to grab the market--something that it has never done before). Both SpaceX and Rocketplane Kistler, the two COTS awardees, with partially and fully reusable vehicles, respectively, should in theory have much lower marginal costs than the Atlas, since they don't throw their vehicles away. If this turns out not to be the case, then the promise of NewSpace was a false one, and they don't deserve the business anyway.
Either way, the future of human spaceflight just got more interesting in the near term, because regardless of whether Lockheed Martin is serious or not, Bob Bigelow has demonstrated himself to be. He is following the dictum of the movie, Field of Dreams, in the hope and expectation that if he builds it, they will come. With the latest private space adventurer docking to the only existing space hotel, the ISS, just a few hours before his announcement, it's looking like an increasingly good bet.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:34 AMCheck out the latest Christmas gift at Neiman Marcus.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:07 PMI know I'm a little behind here, but Clark Lindsey has some thoughts on Star Trek and real space, based on Dwayne Day's essay in The Space Review.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:40 AMI'm still alive. We're staying down at the Kona Waipolua Hilton, and I had to fly over to Honolulu today to talk about Hawaiian spaceports. And it looks like the Tigers are going to continue to blow their once-promising season.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:04 AMTime to fission. It's me, Sam, saying I am signing off for good over here at Transterrestrial. Check out my new blog at Decisive Win.
Au revoir.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 09:40 PMOK, I said we were going to Kona, and we did fly into there. But we are actually staying (at least this weekend) in a house in Honoka'a, on a hillside overlooking the ocean. The Kona side was hot and muggy. I wasn't impressed. It seemed like Florida, except much more scenic. But as we drove through Waimea, the landscape turned from lava desert to lush green hillsides, and it drizzled and cooled. So far, despite the clouds and rain, I like the northeast side of the island much better. We'll probably go down the coast to Hilo today, and perhaps up Mauna Kea. We won't be able to do that after we dive, so we'll probably get the high-altitude stuff out of the way.
Oh, and to the commenter in the other post who recommended Poncho and Lefties?
Why? I read a review in a guidebook that consisted pretty much of the phrase "If you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all." What's the appeal?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:00 PM