Transterrestrial Musings

Alternate Views Of The Future

The love of chrome-and-glass modern restaurants is probably due to one place, which I've mentioned before - the Erie Jr. in Detroit Lakes, MN. It had a counter, a high ceiling, plastic booths in vivid hues, a roof that looked like it space ships could dock in the back, and it had that space-age vibe that shimmered off so many new things when I was very young. We had a keen sense of the future then; we knew the toys we had today would be the tools of the future. You know how you put your hand out the window when you were going fast, and undulated it up and down like a dolphin, riding the oncoming wind? The future felt like that. The future was a chrome-trimmed triangular window in the front of dad's car, and it had its own knob to open it up. The future was a hamburger under a light fixture that looked like an atom. The future was going to be awesome.

I still get impatient with people who insist that it can't be. Pessimists can be such bores, and it's lazy to believe the worst. What's the line about Scaramouche: he was born with the gift of laughter and the sense that the world was mad. I don't think that's the best modus vivendi, but it beats teaching yourself the curse of scowling and the sense that it's all a grind to be endured until the tomb gapes wide, and the only respectable intellectual pose is a Menckenian disdain for those who refuse to see how shallow, small, vacuous and contemptible they are.

I blame the boomers, of course. ;) If you're going to make a fetish out of the Authentic Values of Adolescence, with its withering critiques of humanity, then you're going to value the slouch and the sneer as signs of a Deep and Serious Person. The Boomers were handed a Utopian ideal - practical, technocratic, rational, with silver wheels in the sky tended over by engineers and scientists - and they abandoned it for a Dionysian version based on wrecking and remaking the world they'd inherited. Their patron saint: Holy St. Caulfield, who identified the greatest sin in the human soul: being a phoney. Better to be an authentic bastard than someone who cannot successfully convince a teenager that some ideas have an importance that transcend the ability of the individual to manifest them 24/7.

Of course they got sour; if you believe a Utopia is possible if we just retinker human behavior to eliminate greed and dress codes and football and anything else that reminds us of Dad, be it the specific one or the unseen National Dad that rules the boardrooms and bedrooms and cloakrooms of DC, then the failure of this world makes it a dystopia, the worst of all possible worlds.

Some suggest that the great disenchantment began with the assassination of JFK, and I see the point. But it's strange that it led to a loss of faith in us, given who shot the President. (Yes, I'm one of those lone-gunman wackos. I'm a freethinker! I refuse to accept concensus!) If Oswald had been a card-carrying Kluxer or a dead-ender Bircher or some sort of far-right-wing nutcase, I wonder if we would have accepted the Warren Commission and moved along. But no, he was a Communist. Well obviously there has to be more to it, then. Same with Sirhan Sirhan: his motivation will forever be a mystery, won't it?

Once you start to believe in the dark shadowy forces, you're done with the world. You're done engaging it, you're done enjoying it. There's no point. It's a sham, a shell, a shiny façade erected by the Jews / Bilderburgers / Trilateral Commission/ Council on Foreign Relations / Project for a New American Century / Masons / Knights Templar / Illuminati / Federal Reserve / Rockefeller-Royal Family Nexus / Bush Crime Syndicate / League of Grim Intent, and all you can do is post on the internet and call talk radio to argue with the hosts who think we're free people.

It's nice to see hope abroad in the land again, but I wonder who will be to blame when human nature asserts itself and the manna shipments fall behind. Someone has to be blamed, after all. It's not the task that's a fool's errand. It's the fools who refuse to believe in the task.

Hope abroad, and change. But not change I have any interest in believing.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:06 AM

Electoral Question

I heard yesterday that early voters in Israel went for McCain over Obama three to one. But how do expatriate's votes overseas get translated into electors? Do they have to provide a stateside address?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:45 AM

October 30, 2008
Another Libertarian For The One

Tom Smith capitulates:

Some long time readers may object that this endorsement represents a rejection of every principle I have ever stood for on this blog. This may be true. However, I would ask them to consider that standing up for principles against an enthusiastic mob is a good way to make yourself very unpopular. I'm also not sure I have ever been to a conservative or libertarian party that was not a rather sad affair, with people standing around talking about the money supply or the importance of traditional values. I mean, that gets old. I'm 51 years old and I'm tired of it. It just has to be the case that those redeemed by Obama are going to be having much better parties over the next several years, at least while the dollar holds out. This may be a case for making hay while the sun shines. Apres moi and all that.

I do admit I am a little worried about Ahmedwhatshisname getting nukes and Putin rolling into Europe, with only Obama's charisma to stop them. I had never really thought of let's all play nicely together as a foreign policy since it doesn't even work with kids. But hey, is that really my problem? He has like a zillion brilliant foreign policy advisers and I'm sure they'll figure something clever out. I can no longer afford a trip to Israel anyway and I assume pictures of it will be archived on the internet.

Yes, I have to admit a certain longing for the koolaid myself, industrial strength. Anything to get this damnable election over with.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:03 PM

Not A Financial Crisis

It's a moral crisis:

It was once the West that taught the world how to change its skylines through fast and furious efforts. One of the first examples was the Eiffel Tower, designed by engineering genius Gustave Eiffel (who also created the Statue of Liberty's internal structure). It was the centerpiece of the Paris Exposition of 1889. Using the principles of prefabrication, the 150 to 300 workers on the site put it up in only 26 1TK2 months.

Another example is the Empire State Building, which officially opened on May 1, 1931. Masterpiece of the firm of Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, the Empire State Building was completed in only one year and 45 days, a testament to business efficiency and the determination of the dedicated workforce.

We couldn't match those time frames today, despite the advances in technology, because the advances have been outstripped by an even more rapid growth in complex and idiotic planning procedures, bureaucracy, myopic trade unionism and restrictive legislation.

We have grown soft. And a Democrat juggernaut will just make it worse.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:22 PM

Government Space Programs

Clark Lindsey points out the inherent problem:

I've certainly always believed that NASA can get anything to fly with enough time and billions of dollars. The issue is cost-effectiveness. This vehicle, which is obsolete for the 20th century much less the 21st, is simply not going to pay off in terms of making space exploration cheaper or safer.

Ignoring its gigantic price tag for the moment, if Ares I were just one of several competing commercial rocket vehicle projects funded in a COTS type of program, I have no doubt that NASA would have been canceled it long ago just on technical grounds and missed milestones. Unfortunately, when a large project is developed internally, it becomes virtually impossible to stop, especially in a case like this where the top management is so deeply invested in it. The next administration might take another look at Ares but unfortunately the battle for Florida votes has left both candidates committed to it as a jobs program. Such is how a promising vision for space exploration finds itself hung by a boondoggle.

While I agree, I have to say that the last sentence sounds painful. And at least psychically, it is.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:09 PM

The Obama Campaign Music Video

McCain should be buying air time for this.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:34 PM

Sharing Toys

[Thursday morning bump]

What a stupid analogy Obama made today.

The McCain campaign's response should be, "No, Senator. If you shared your toys and sandwich in kindergarten, we'd call you generous and selfless. If you forced another child to share his toys, that would make you a communist."

[Update on Thursday morning]

John Hood elaborates:

...in this passage Obama revealed precisely why he is vulnerable to such charges: he can't seem to tell the difference between a gift and a theft. There is nothing remotely socialistic or communistic about sharing. If you have a toy that someone else wants, you have three choices in a free society. You can offer to trade it for something you value that is owned by the other. You can give the toy freely, as a sign of friendship or compassion. Or you can choose to do neither.

Collectivism in all its forms is about taking away your choice. Whether you wish to or not, the government compels you to surrender the toy, which it then redistributes to someone that government officials deem to be a more worthy owner. It won't even be someone you could ever know, in most cases. That's what makes the political philosophy unjust (by stripping you of control over yourself and the fruits of your labor) as well as counterproductive (by failing to give the recipient sufficient incentive to learn and work hard so he can earn his own toys in the future).

Government is not charity. It is not persuasion, or cooperation, or sharing. Government is a fist, a shove, a gun. Obama either doesn't understand this, or doesn't want voters to understand it.

I think he does understand it. He just hopes that we don't, at least long enough to put him in power.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:22 AM

Man Bites Dog

AP:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was less than upfront in his half-hour commercial Wednesday night about the costs of his programs and the crushing budget pressures he would face in office.

That's not news, of course--he's been doing that since the campaign began. What is news, and shocking news, is that the AP reported it. Better late than never.

[Update early afternoon]

Wow. Has something gotten into (or out of) the MSM water? CBS is criticizing The One's proposals as well.

If he closes every loophole as promised, saves every dime from Iraq, raises taxes on the rich and trims the federal budget as he's promised to do "line by line," he still doesn't pay for his list. If he's elected, the first fact hitting his desk will be the figure projecting how much less of a budget he has to work with - thanks to the recession. He gave us a very compelling vision with his ad buy tonight. What he did not give us was any hint of the cold reality he's facing or a sense of how he might prioritize his promises if voters trust him with the White House.

If he can't do what he promises, what will he do?

Not that McCain is a lot better in that regard, of course. But unlike Obama, who has a consistent leftist philosophy, McCain is ideologically incoherent, so there's at least a chance that he won't screw us over.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:29 AM

Fondling Balls

Iowahawk breaks out the calculator on poll reliability:

So if the sample size is 400, the margin of error is 1/20 = 5%; if the sample size is 625 the margin of error is 1/25 = 4%; if the sample size is 1000, it's about 3%.
Works pretty well if you're interested in hypothetical colored balls in hypothetical giant urns, or survival rates of plants in a controlled experiment, or defects in a batch of factory products. It may even work well if you're interested in blind cola taste tests. But what if the thing you are studying doesn't quite fit the balls & urns template?

What if 40% of the balls have personally chosen to live in an urn that you legally can't stick your hand into?
What if 50% of the balls who live in the legal urn explicitly refuse to let you select them?
What if the balls inside the urn are constantly interacting and talking and arguing with each other, and can decide to change their color on a whim?
What if you have to rely on the balls to report their own color, and some unknown number are probably lying to you?
What if you've been hired to count balls by a company who has endorsed blue as their favorite color?
What if you have outsourced the urn-ball counting to part-time temp balls, most of whom happen to be blue?
What if the balls inside the urn are listening to you counting out there, and it affects whether they want to be counted, and/or which color they want to be?

If one or more of the above statements are true, then the formula for margin of error simplifies to
Margin of Error = Who the hell knows?

I think that the disparity among the polls is pretty good evidence of this. A lot of it, particularly the weighting is guess work, educated or otherwise. There's only one poll that matters (though with all of the chicanery going on, even that one is going to be in doubt, particularly if it's close on Tuesday). What a mess.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:24 AM

All Sham, No Wow

The One's infomercial last night got panned by infomercial experts. Well, they would know.

No, I had better things to do than watch. I wonder how many others felt the same way?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:19 AM

October 29, 2008
Lessons For Space Transport Development

Henry Spencer has some useful thoughts (as always) on Armadillo's accomplishment, and failure.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:38 PM

Doing The Math

The Obama campaign has been lying about its donor base:

If, as Obama says, most donations are grassroots and in small amounts, the numbers do not match up. If this many people donated to his campaign he would be polling at well over 50%.

In a grassroots movement, you smell the green. He's raised $600 million, as you say, in small donations. So divide it by ten bucks apiece and there's 60 million donors. If 120 million people vote on Tuesday, and he gets 50% that equals ...60 million voters! Honestly, you cynical rightwing losers, what's so suspicious about that math?

On Fox Newswatch on Saturday, Jane Hall said that many of her (journalism) students couldn't even calculate a percent. Of course, in this case, they're not motivated to figure it out, even if they know how.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:59 AM

Aren't There Any Editors Left?

Sarah Palin is righteously demanding that the LA Times release the tape, but look at this transcript:

...she saved her hardest criticism for the newspaper that currently holds the tape, saying they was refusing to release it to aid Obama.

"It must be nice for a candidate to have major news organizations looking after his best interests like that," Palin said. "In this case, we have a newspaper willing to throw aside even the public's right to know in order to protect a candidate that its own editorial board has endorsed. And if there's a Pulitzer Prize category for excelling in cow-towing, then the L.A. Times, you're winning."

I'm pretty sure that the paper has never towed a cow. And she didn't say that it did. She said that they kowtowed. But I guess neither the writer or editor (if there was one) knew what that word meant or at least how it was spelled.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:55 AM

A Beautiful Math

John Tierney writes about an interesting television special on fractals.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:39 AM

Is Blue-Ray Dead?

This guy thinks so, and Sony killed it. I hadn't been paying much attention, as I rarely rent videos.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:25 AM

Meet The New New Deal

Same as the old New Deal.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:26 AM

Another One

Here's another woman Democrat (a speechwriter) whose party has left her.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:37 AM

A Duty To Not Vote

John Stossel says that there are a lot of people who shouldn't be voting:

Economist Bryan Caplan, author of "The Myth of the Rational Voter", points out, "the public's knowledge of politics is shockingly low."

He scoffs at the idea that "it's everyone's civic duty to vote."

"This is very much like saying, it's our civic duty to give surgery advice," Caplan said. "We like to think that political issues are much less complicated than brain surgery, but many of them are pretty hard. If someone doesn't know what he's talking about, it really is better if they say, look, I'm going to leave this in wiser hands."

Isn't it elitist to say only some people should vote?

"Is it elitist to say only some people should do brain surgery? If you don't know what you're doing, you are not doing the country a favor by voting."

Nope. You're only doing the demagogues a favor.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:27 AM

Prove Me Wrong, LA Times

OK, since we're apparently free to use our imagination, here's what I think happened at that party.

There are PLO and Hamas flags decorating the room, along with Che and Mao posters. Khalidi, Ayers and Obama are slapping each others' backs, raising their glasses and toasting the upcoming destruction of the racist Zionist entity, all the while laughing at the thought of the final Final Solution. Obama says, "You know, when I take over, the first thing I'll do is withdraw all aid from those fascist kikes, and I'll give the Palis a couple nukes." Then he turns to Ayers, and asks him if he's come up with any fresh schemes for mass murder of the millions of recalcitrant capitalists, so that they can be implemented in the first one hundred days. After dessert, they get out an American flag, crumple it up on the floor, and jump up and down on it, shouting "Death to Capitalism, Death to America."

No?

That's not how it went down? Well, prove me wrong, LA Times. Show the tape.

[Late morning update]

Doug Ross writes that he has gotten a tip from a person who claims to have viewed it:

Reason we can't release it is because statements Obama said to rile audience up during toast. He congratulates Khalidi for his work saying "Israel has no God-given right to occupy Palestine" plus there's been "genocide against the Palestinian people by Israelis."

It would be really controversial if it got out. Tha's why they will not even let a transcript get out.

Yes, don't want to have a little controversy disturb an upcoming coronation.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:53 AM

An Interesting Thought Experiment

Over at Winds of Change:

Stipulate that there is a small machine that I could put into your home or workplace that with absolute accuracy - I mean 100% accuracy - would send an alarm in the specific case that a person who had the true intent to commit murder was close to it. Yes, it's Minority Report territory. But accept it as true.

Would you - as an American - be comfortable having something like that in your house?

I would need a little clarification: what is "close to it" and what does "murder" mean? Does it merely mean killing someone? Would self defense count?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:47 AM

What Does Barack Obama Have Against Nazis?

In the furor (well, at least as much furor as could be expected, given how in the tank the mainstream media has been for Senator Obama) over his comments about the deficiencies of the Constitution (in regard for its lack of "positive rights") and the frustrating (at least to him) inability of the courts to deal with it, many have missed another snippet of that radio interview from seven years ago. In it, he also said, "There's a lot of change going on outside of the court. The judges have to essentially take judicial notice up, I mean you've got WW II, the doctrines of Nazism that we are fighting against that started looking uncomfortably similar to what's going on back here at home."

"...similar to what's going on back here at home."

What did he mean by that?

Well, most people know the characteristics of the Nazi regime (or at least imagine they do), so it's hard to imagine what he's talking about here, since he gives no specifics.

Was he referring to the fact that it was led by a charismatic man who gave speeches to mesmerized, adoring throngs in front of Teutonic war memorials?

Or is he talking about the Nazi policy of first registering, then confiscating weapons from private citizens, one of its first acts upon taking power?

Perhaps he was referring to the notion that work exhorted by the leader would set us free? That we need to have national service for all? And that the nation will be inspired by youth singing in patriotic uniforms?

Or was it demanding to see the papers of critics of the leader, and using the state apparatus to discover information that might expose him to ridicule?

No?

Well, was it the nationalistic racism? Or the plans to exterminate a large percentage of the citizenry after taking power?

OK, maybe I'm on the wrong track. Was he talking about the Nazi health care system, that so many here want to emulate? Or the need to spread the wealth around? I mean, isn't that what socialism is all about?

I just can't figure it out.

OK, maybe I'm just confused. Maybe this latest slur against Senator Obama of being a "socialist" is wrong. Maybe Senator Obama is something else.

Take away the genocide, and militaristic conquest of neighboring countries. Just what is it about Nazis that Barack Obama doesn't like?

It would certainly be nice if the Obama campaign would expand and elaborate upon his brief comments about Nazism in America a few years ago to the American people. He has another few days to do so before they have to decide who their next president will be.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:03 AM

October 28, 2008
A (Rare) Fit Of Sanity

On the part of Campbell Brown (which I've always thought a strange name):

Without question, Obama has set the bar at new height with a truly staggering sum of cash. And that is why as we approach this November, it is worth reminding ourselves what Barack Obama said last November.

One year ago, he made a promise. He pledged to accept public financing and to work with the Republican nominee to ensure that they both operated within those limits.

Then it became clear to Sen. Obama and his campaign that he was going to be able to raise on his own far more cash than he would get with public financing. So Obama went back on his word.

He broke his promise and he explained it by arguing that the system is broken and that Republicans know how to work the system to their advantage. He argued he would need all that cash to fight the ruthless attacks of 527s, those independent groups like the Swift Boat Veterans. It's funny though, those attacks never really materialized.

Yeah, funny about that.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:33 PM

Win Or Lose

McCain should be firing these people after the election:

McCain aides continue to go viciously negative--on their vice presidential candidate. Mike Allen has a McCain aide calling Palin a "whack job." This is part of the problem with Palin getting assigned aides with no loyalty to her.

There is no excuse for this kind of behavior--dishing dirt on background to a hostile press--in the last week of (or any time during) a campaign.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:52 PM

"One Week Until We Change America"

What if we don't want to "change America"? I agree that this is kind of creepy. I think that someone could make a good campaign ad out of it, juxtaposed with his zeal to spread the wealth around.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:55 PM

Freudian Typo

Michigan Democrats were accidentally given a number for a campaign hotline that was actually a phone s3x line.

Seems appropriate to me. Give the Dems a call to find out how they're going to screw you.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:11 AM

Rockin'

Barack Obama may be a better dancer than John McCain, but neither of them can hold a candle to sister Sarah rockin' out to Red Neck Woman in blue jeans. No more Niemann Marcus for her.

And Elaine Lafferty (yes, the Elaine Lafferty who used to edit Ms. Magazine) thinks that Sarah Palin is a "brainiac." Really:

...these high toned and authoritative dismissals come from people who have never met or spoken with Sarah Palin. Those who know her, love her or hate her, offer no such criticism. They know what I know, and I learned it from spending just a little time traveling on the cramped campaign plane this week: Sarah Palin is very smart.

I'm a Democrat, but I've worked as a consultant with the McCain campaign since shortly after Palin's nomination. Last week, there was the thought that as a former editor-in-chief of Ms. magazine as well as a feminist activist in my pre-journalism days, I might be helpful in contributing to a speech that Palin had long wanted to give on women's rights.

Now by "smart," I don't refer to a person who is wily or calculating or nimble in the way of certain talented athletes who we admire but suspect don't really have serious brains in their skulls. I mean, instead, a mind that is thoughtful, curious, with a discernable pattern of associative thinking and insight. Palin asks questions, and probes linkages and logic that bring to mind a quirky law professor I once had. Palin is more than a "quick study"; I'd heard rumors around the campaign of her photographic memory and, frankly, I watched it in action. She sees. She processes. She questions, and only then, she acts. What is often called her "confidence" is actually a rarity in national politics: I saw a woman who knows exactly who she is.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:35 AM

A Harbinger?

If these micropolling results are valid, Obama's in trouble in Pennsylvania:

These were conducted Oct. 23,24,25
Bucks County: O: 49 M: 43 2004 Results: K: 51 B: 48

Allegheny: O: 52 M: 42 2004 Results: K: 57 B: 42

Erie: O: 50 M: 43 2004 Results: K: 54 B: 45

York: M: 57 O: 39 2004 Results: B: 63 K: 35

Montgomery: O: 51 M: 39 2004 Results: K: 55 B: 44

John Kerry took Pennsylvania in 2004, but only by a narrow margin--51 to Bush's 49 percent. But these polls indicate that Obama isn't doing as well as Kerry did, except in York County (which seems to be going from red to blue). And between Murtha and the NRA, he's probably going to lose big in rural western Pennsylvania. Now maybe he can make it up in Philly, but Rendell might have to bring out the dead voters.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:10 AM

The Gadfly

A few days ago, I wrote that John McCain isn't the right candidate to put John McCain into the White House (i.e., he's an electable candidate, with his history and record, but he's unable to run a winning campaign). If he loses, it will be easy to blame the financial meltdown, but it was his response to it, and his incoherent inability to discuss economics sensibly, and his unwillingness to go after his colleagues in Congress, that will be the ultimate cause. I still think that it's winnable, though. And if he wins, I think that he'll have been saved by Sarah Palin.

In any event, Rich Lowry says much the same thing.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:42 AM

What's Wrong With The First One?

Does Barack Obama agree with Marcy Kaptur that we need a Second Bill of Rights?

U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D. Toledo) whipped the crowd up before Mr. Obama took the stage yesterday telling them that America needed a Second Bill of Rights guaranteeing all Americans a job, health care, homes, an education, and a fair playing field for business and farmers.

Sure he does. He already said in a debate that we all have a "right" to health care. No, I don't think that I, or anyone, has a "right" to stuff that requires taking from others. This is Eurosocialism.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:03 AM

Forty Bucks A Barrel?

It's certainly plausible to me. Given how much of an overshoot there was, it wouldn't be surprising to see it dip that low before stabilizing. As I've long said, over a hundred bucks was unsustainable. I would hope it won't stay that way for long, though. It's harder to justify shale and new drilling (and conservation) at those prices.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:51 AM

A Threat To Straight Marriages

This sounds like a straw man (and one that I often hear in the gay marriage debate):

The anti-gay-marriage argument that simply makes no sense to me is the one that says allowing gay folks to marry will mess up my marriage - my heterosexual marriage. I don't follow the reasoning that gay married couples will undermine the ability of straight married couples to form and sustain marital partnerships.

Perhaps someone has made that argument somewhere, sometime, but I've never seen or heard it myself. It would be helpful if she would provide a link to support the straw man. Of course it makes no sense to her. It makes no sense at all, which is why few people make such an argument.

I think that this may be a perversion of the real argument, which is that, for those uncertain of their sexual orientation, it will weaken societal pressures to have a heterosexual lifestyle and marriage. If society is no longer heteronormative, then a little boy might grow up thinking that it's OK to marry his friend Joey, instead of Sally. Actual homosexuals are going to grow up to be gay regardless, but it's not necessarily a good idea to encourage wavering where it exists. Now, one can argue whether it's a good or bad thing to do so, but that's the argument to be discussed..

The argument isn't about existing marriages--that's nutty. It's about future ones.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:36 AM

Not New Ideas

Just bad ones:

Obama plans to resuscitate the welfare policies of the Great Society, but by stealth. It will be the same thing-the dole-but it will be called a "tax credit," which has a more emollient sound than "relief," "public charity," "the dole."

What I find depressing about this-as, indeed, about the whole Obama juggernaut-is the extent to which it represents a return of bad ideas that have already been tried time and again, have failed and made people poorer and less stalwart, and yet seem poised to make a sorry comeback once again. I've written about the "déjà-vu-all-over-again" phenomenon before in this space. Bill Ayers? Haven't we done that? Jeremiah Wright? Haven't we done that, too? Haven't we tried Obama's "soak the rich," anti-business economic policies? Haven't we tried his "can't-we-all-just-get-along" foreign policy? Don't we know that economics is about the creation rather than the redistribution of wealth, and that low taxes and strategies that encourage productivity and investment are best calculated to make the entire society, including the less fortunate, more prosperous? Don't we know where appeasement and capitulation get us in foreign affairs? Don't we remember Jimmy Carter? Haven't we learned anything?

We'll find out on Tuesday.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:33 AM

October 27, 2008
Death Of A Blogger

Dean Barnett has lost his battle with cystic fibrosis. It's a shame that he couldn't last long enough for a cure. He was by all accounts a good man, and he was a great blogger, who faced his enemy with courage and equanimity. Condolences to his family and friends.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:37 PM

Don't Know Much About Launch Costs

The Space Review is up (a little late--it's usually available first thing Monday morning, but Jeff is probably recovering from his trip to New Mexico), and it has a couple interesting articles. The first one describes the benefits of amateur efforts toward space settlement. The second one is a relook at the economics of O"Neill's Island One space habitat. It's nonsensical, because the author doesn't understand much about the economics of space launch. Let's start with this:

O'Neill's expectations about launch costs (like those of other 1970s-era prophets of space development) proved to be highly optimistic, even given the disagreement about how these are to be calculated. A $10,000 a pound ($22,000 per kilogram) Earth-to-LEO price, almost twenty-five times the estimate O'Neill worked with, is considered the reasonable optimum now.

Considered so by whom? Not by ULA. Not by the Russians. Not by SpaceX. The only launch vehicle that has launch costs that high is the Shuttle, and that's because it flies so seldom that its per-flight cost is on the order of a billion dollars. In a due-east launch, it can get close to sixty thousand pounds to LEO, and if it cost six hundred million per flight (as it did before Columbia, when the flight rate was higher), that would be about ten thousand bucks a pound. But to call this "optimum" is lunacy. Other existing launchers are going for a couple thousand a pound (the Russians are less based on price, but its not clear what their costs are, and if they're making money). SpaceX is projecting its price for Falcon 9 to be about forty million, to deliver almost thirty thousand pounds to LEO, so that's a little over a thousand per pound. And that's without reusing any hardware.

But even these are hardly "optimum." The true price drops will come from high flight rates of fully-reusable space transports, and there's no physical reason that these couldn't deliver payload for on the order of a hundred dollars per pound or less.

Of course we aren't going to build HLVs for space colonies, as Gerry O'Neill proposed. If it happens, it will happen when the price does come down, as a result of other markets. But if the point is that Island One is unaffordable at current launch costs, it's a trivial one--most intelligent observers realize that. But it's ridiculous to think that lower launch costs can't be achieved, or even that his stated number has any basis in reality.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:22 PM

Transcending Race

Gateway Pundit has a 1995 video of Barack Obama blaming white executives in the suburbs for not wanting their taxes to help black children.

I'm sure he's changed his mind since, though, right?

[Late morning update]

Barack Obama's redistributionist obsession:

I suggest henceforth that every time readers hear the word "change" from Team Obama, they insert the work "redistributive" in front of it.

Indeed. He said those words in 2001. Why should we think that he's changed since? Particularly after his Freudian slip with Joe the Plumber?

[Update early afternoon]

Goody. Here's some more race transcendance: white people shouldn't be allowed to vote.

Whenever I hear nutty proposals like this, I always wonder, who will decide who is and isn't "white"? Does Barack Obama get half a vote?

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:36 AM

Worse Than I Thought

And I thought that card check was already pretty bad:

Under EFCA, the terms set by the arbitrator will be the furthest thing from a "contract." It won't be an agreement between management and labor. Rather, wages, hours and terms and conditions of employment will be dictated by a government appointed arbitrator. The mandate will be binding on the parties for two years. Neither the company nor the employees can reject it (At least when the Central Committee set the wages for tractor assembly workers in the Leningradskaya oblast there was always the possibility that the wages might change later that afternoon).

Currently, if employees don't like the tentative agreement negotiated between union leaders and management the employees can vote it down and instruct their leaders to go back to the bargaining table to get a better deal. Not so under EFCA. If the employees don't like the arbitrator's decree of a 2% wage increase, they're stuck. Similarly, if the company can't afford the arbitrator's command to pyramid overtime, the company's stuck. The consequences aren't difficult to imagine.

This is a small business owner's nightmare. As is the health insurance mandate. Obama will be a disaster, economically, at least if the Democrats get enough votes to block filibusters in the Senate.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Here's more on the job-destruction potential of Obama's health-care plans, from that bastion of right wingery, the New York Times:

the penalty in Massachusetts is picayune compared with what some health experts believe Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, might impose as part of his plan to provide affordable coverage for the uninsured. Though Mr. Obama has not released details, economists believe he might require large and medium companies to contribute as much as 6 percent of their payrolls.

That, Mr. Ratner said, would be catastrophic to a low-margin business like his, which has 90 employees, 29 of them full-time workers who are offered health benefits.

"To all of a sudden whack 6 to 7 percent of payroll costs, forget it," he said. "If they do that, prices go up and employment goes down because nobody can absorb that."

Writ large, that is one of the significant concerns about Mr. Obama's health plan, which like this state's landmark 2006 law would subsidize coverage for the uninsured by taxing employers who do not cover their workers. And it is a primary reason that so-called play-or-pay proposals have had an unsteady history for nearly two decades.

This is 180 degrees from the direction that we need to go. Most of the problems of the current health-care system stem from its being tied so much to employment, which is an artifact of wage controls during World War II. The first critical step in fixing it is to decouple it from the job, so that plans are portable, and people are more connected with choosing their provider. McCain's plan isn't perfect, but it's a big step in the right direction, and the demagoguery of the Democrats on this issue (as on most issues) has been shameful.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:04 AM

More Thoughts On Link Requests

A couple of commenters in this post (one of whom needed some lessons in logic and elocution) objected to my supposed "snobbery."

I have the same feelings as Warren. It does sounds a bit snobbish. I mean hell, just say no or ignore him. No need to humiliate the guy, even if it is anonymously. The guy knows he's being made fun of.

I have run technically oriented websites since 1996. Hell, I even ran a BBS back in 1986. We would always swap links (or data numbers) with each other. I honestly can't remember any time someone was lambasted like this, though I'm sure it happened back in the BBS days. A lot of kids ran those things, myself included.

Oh, for the BBS days.

My attitude has nothing to do with my self regard, or with my estimation of the value of the blog, or whether or not it's part of the "A list " (it's not). It is completely independent of the number of readers that I have. It is entirely dependent on the value of my time, and page space. In a follow-up email, the guy said something to the effect, "Well, I ran into that sort of thing from Hugh Hewitt, but who the heck are you?"

Sorry, but I consider my time just as valuable as Hugh Hewitt (and Glenn Reynolds) considers his, and for the same reason--it is ultimately our only finite resource. I find a little bizarre the notion that, any time someone sends me an email requesting that I spend some of it to go check out their blog, with no information as to why it might be of interest to me or my readers, and link to it, I should drop what I'm doing and do so forthwith, and if I don't, I'm a "snob."

Folks, there are literally millions of blogs out there. I could spend the rest of my waning life reading them, and linking to them, and I would end up accomplishing nothing pertaining to my own goals, and my blogroll would be so large as to be completely useless to my readers. "Link exchanges" may have made sense back in the BBS days, but they make no sense whatsoever in the blogosphere.

This humble blog is a publication--my publication. I have to balance my time against maintaining and enhancing its quality, and in fact, the fact that I'm not a top blogger with high hittage, and generate little revenue from it, and must spend most of my time actually making a living, restricts even more the amount of time I have to spend blogging and reading other blogs.

I don't think that it's unreasonable to expect that if someone wants you to read their blog, or link to it, that they invest a little effort to provide a minimal amount of reason to do so, other than "I think you'll like it." If I were a book publisher who received a manuscript with no useful cover letter, would I be expected to read it before one that came well presented? If I were an employer being asked to interview and potentially hire someone without a resume, should I prefer them to the applicant with one, and a good one? And if I don't do these things, am I a "snob"?

Of course, in this case, the problem is compounded by the fact that this was apparently a serial offender, according to other commenters, sending out minor variations of the same request to other people, both via email and comments. That, to me, is only one step removed from spamming (differing only in that it was somewhat targeted). The fact that I had to get around a spam filter to reply to his email was just the icing on the cake, and fraught with irony. I wish now that I'd had a filter to prevent him from emailing me. But maybe that would be "snobbery."

So no, I have no regrets or apologies. It was his behavior that was rude, even if he didn't/doesn't understand that, not mine.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:11 AM

October 12, 2008
The Hate And Rage From The McCain Campaign

...continues:

John McCain's bid for the Oval Office suffered another stunning blow yesterday when the Arizona senator referred to Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, as "my opponent." The campaign-shattering remark came during a vicious, Hitlerian speech before an audience of drooling right-wing drones in one of those states in the middle, possibly rectangular.

"I believe that we should do things one way," McSame sneered, his shrunken, twisted body and hideous visage producing overwhelming revulsion in all sane people who beheld him. "But my opponent feels we should do things a different way."

Yes, Treacher's ahead of the curve. My hat is off to him, because these people continue to get ever harder to satirize.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:37 PM

Irony Meter Meltdown

Joe Biden stood next to Hillary Clinton in Scranton, PA today, and said with a perfectly straight face that she never abused her power.

Tell it to Billy Dale. And that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:18 PM

And Now For Something Completely Different (Part Two)

Jeff Patterson conquers the solar system.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:50 PM

Hope, Change

...and Molotov cocktails. Will this get as much news coverage as the phantom cries of "kill him" at MCain/Palin rallies (of which there has only been one reported)?

[Update a couple minutes later]

Michelle Malkin has more leftist rage and hatred. Feel the love of the left.

As the first commenter notes, this is typical projection. They accuse others of doing what they are actually doing (lying, racemongering, hating).

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:56 AM

October 11, 2008
Egalitarianism

How it evolved?

Note that just because something is natural doesn't make it moral.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:01 PM

Well, At Least It Can't Get Any Worse

The Wolverines just lost to Toledo, at home. It's going to be an ugly season. Clearly the Wisconsin game was a fluke. And while it was expected to be a rebuilding year, I don't think that anyone expected it to be this bad. Probably alumni are already calling for Rodriguez' head.

[Update a little while later]

Unsurprisingly, it was a pretty ugly game for Michigan. And the first time they'd ever been defeated by a MAC team.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:28 PM

Is There Enough Makeup In The World?

I thought it was a gag (in multiple senses of the word) when I heard that Annette Bening was going to play Helen Thomas in a movie. But it's twue, it's twue.

On the other hand, it's probably a lot easier to make Annette Bening look like Helen Thomas than vicey versy.

[Via Driscoll]

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:12 PM

Rezko Is Singing

Is Obama sweating?

Probably not. Whatever happens won't happen until after the election, and at that point, he'll be untouchable, with the Dems in control of both houses. This is part of the point that I was making in my PJM piece yesterday. Because the media is covering for him, we're about to unwittingly (at least to much of the electorate--much of the rest, sadly, doesn't care) put another crooked but charismatic politician in the White House, just as we did in 1992.

And it goes without saying, of course, that if this were the Republican candidate, it would be headline news every day for the next three weeks. But it's not.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:01 PM

A Hundred And Ten

As Glenn says, we're going to see more people living to be this old. And as a commenter notes, there aren't very many people left who were born in the nineteenth century. My maternal grandmother would have been two years older, had she lived, but she died at the ripe young age of ninety eight, fourteen years ago (whereupon I became a full orphan, and next in line, having no longer any living ancestors).

Of course, I take these folks' recommendations for a long life with a healthy bag of salt. Particularly when they recommend a life of celibacy. I think that it's good genes, and good luck, more than anything else.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:14 AM

How Not To Get A Link

At least at this web site.

I just got the following email, subject : Hello from a republican blogger and Pajamas Media guy

Simberg,

I came across your site through the Pajamas Media site.

My blog is the [snipped to protect the guilty].

If you feel it is of a high quality, please consider a link or blogroll exchange.

Also, I get a decent amount (not Pajama-sized!) of traffic, in case you have anything
you would like to promote.

Respectfully,

[snipped to protect the guilty]

Let's start with the subject line. I'm not a "republican blogger," and anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time would know it. I'm guessing that if he came to the blog at all, it was only to get my email address. So it cuts no mustard with me to be informed that somone else is a "republican blogger."

Next, no one addresses me as "Simberg" except spammers and trolls. Either use the honorific, or my first name.

Now there are general rules for how to get a link, none of which this guy followed. One of them is to read the blog for a while, so that you know what the interests are. A second is to send a permalink to some particular post that might be of interest to that blog's readers, based on the prefatory reading. A no-no is to just say, "hey, here's my blog."

But here's where the real joy comes. Just to do the guy a favor, I googled and replied with a copy of the rules for getting a link from Instapundit (though they're generally applicable to other blogs, including this one) of which the two above are a subset.

And what do I get for my trouble? This:

I apologize for this automatic reply to your email.

To control spam, I now allow incoming messages only from senders I have approved beforehand.

If you would like to be added to my list of approved senders, please fill out the short request form (see link below). Once I approve you, I will receive your original message in my inbox. You do not need to resend your message. I apologize for this one-time inconvenience.

Click the link below to fill out the request:

[snip link]

So, he sends me an email, but doesn't bother to whitelist me to allow me to reply, instead expecting me to take the trouble to go to his site to do it myself, just so that I can provide him with useful information (while he's provided me with nothing except a clueless request for a link). I'm all for blocking spam, but if you're going to send someone an email and expect a response, I think it rude to make someone have to go through machinations in order to do so. Why isn't this stupid anti-spam software set up to do that automatically? Anyone you send email to should be automatically white listed.

Anyway, rather than doing that, I decided to simply document it here, on the off chance that someone else will be educated, and perhaps avoid such things in the future.

[Monday morning update]

I have a follow-up post based on some comments.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:15 AM

The Coming Thugocracy

If the potential economic disaster of a Democrat regime doesn't concern you, consider the implications for free speech.

As Mark Steyn comments, don't be surprised to see an effort to establish "human rights" commissions, a la Canada.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:51 AM

The Enigma Continues

Part of the Kennedy myth that propelled him into the White House was that he wrote a Pulitzer-winning book. Only many years later was it revealed that the actual author, or at least ghost writer, was Ted Sorenson.

Well, now we have an interesting question.

Who wrote Dreams of My Father?

A 1990 New York Times profile on Obama's election as Harvard's first black president caught the eye of agent Jane Dystel. She persuaded Poseidon, a small imprint of Simon & Schuster, to authorize a roughly $125,000 advance for Obama's proposed memoir.

With advance in hand, Obama repaired to Chicago where he dithered. At one point, in order to finish without interruption, he and wife Michelle decamped to Bali. Obama was supposed to have finished the book within a year. Bali or not, advance or no, he could not. He was surely in way over his head.

According to a surprisingly harsh 2006 article by liberal publisher Peter Osnos, which detailed the "ruthlessness" of Obama's literary ascent, Simon & Schuster canceled the contract. Dystel did not give up. She solicited Times Book, the division of Random House at which Osnos was publisher. He met with Obama, took his word that he could finish the book, and authorized a new advance of $40,000.

Then suddenly, somehow, the muse descended on Obama and transformed him from a struggling, unschooled amateur, with no paper trail beyond an unremarkable legal note and a poem about fig-stomping apes, into a literary superstar.

...In 1997, Obama was an obscure state senator, a lawyer, and a law school instructor with one book under his belt that had debuted two years earlier to little acclaim and lesser sales. In terms of identity, he had more in common with mayor Sawyer than poet Brooks. The "writer" identification seems forced and purposefully so, a signal perhaps to those in the know of a persona in the making that Ayers had himself helped forge.

None of this, of course, proves Ayers' authorship conclusively, but the evidence makes him a much more likely candidate than Obama to have written the best parts of Dreams.

The Obama camp could put all such speculation to rest by producing some intermediary sign of impending greatness -- a school paper, an article, a notebook, his Columbia thesis, his LSAT scores -- but Obama guards these more zealously than Saddam did his nuclear secrets. And I suspect, at the end of the day, we will pay an equally high price for Obama's concealment as Saddam's.

An interesting, and very plausible thesis. Much more so, in fact, than the official story. And if true, one more bit of evidence that Bill Ayers was more, much more, than "a guy in his neighborhood." It is also one more bit of continually accumulating evidence that Barack Obama is a fraud.

And as Andy McCarthy notes, given that Chris Buckley's insouciance about an Obama presidency is predicated on the intellectual brilliance evidenced by his books, he might want to reconsider, if his books are in fact those of someone else.

And no, don't expect the press to cover this.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:19 AM

October 10, 2008
Death Of A NewSpacer

I have heard rumors for months that Jim Benson had had a stroke. Apparently, it was a different problem, though whether a better or worse one is hard to say. In any event, he lost the battle, as will we all, ultimately.

I may have further thoughts later (de mortuis nil nisi bonum, and all that), but for now, my condolences to Susan and his children.

[Saturday morning update]

Clark Lindsey has several other links on the story.

Whatever else his legacy will be, he showed that a savvy businessman can start a successful commercial publicly traded space company from scratch (though admittedly, much of the growth was via acquisition).

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:18 PM

Concerned About An Obama Victory

Ilya Somin explains. I share them.

Needless to say, there is much dissension (from many who think themselves libertarians) in comments.

[Saturday morning update]

Well, IBD certainly thinks that the prospect of an Obama presidency has the market spooked.

What is that agenda? It starts with a tax system right out of Marx: A massive redistribution of income -- from each according to his ability, to each according to his need -- all in the name of "neighborliness," "patriotism," "fairness" and "justice."

It continues with a call for a new world order that turns its back on free trade, has no problem with government controlling the means of production, imposes global taxes to support continents where our interests are negligible, signs on to climate treaties that will sap billions more in U.S. productivity and wealth, and institutes an authoritarian health care system that will strip Americans' freedoms and run up costs.

All the while, it ensures that nothing -- absolutely nothing -- will be done to secure a sufficient, terror-proof supply of our economic lifeblood -- oil -- a resource we'll need much more of in the years ahead.

The businesses that create jobs and generate wealth are already discounting the future based on what they know about Obama's plans to raise income, capital gains, dividend and payroll taxes, and his various other economy-crippling policies. Which helps explain why world stock markets have been so topsy-turvy.

But don't take our word for it. One hundred economists, five Nobel winners among them, have signed a letter noting just that:

"The prospect of such tax-rate increases in 2010 is already a drag on the economy," they wrote, noting that the potential of higher taxes in the next year or two is reducing hiring and investment.

It was "misguided tax hikes and protectionism, enacted when the U.S. economy was weak in the early 1930s," the economists remind us, that "greatly increased the severity of the Great Depression."

We can't afford to repeat these grave errors.

Yet much of the electorate is determined to vote for the candidate most likely to make them. If he wins, what we consider to be a crisis in today's economy will be a routine affair in tomorrow's.

Someone needs to run some ads showing the similarities between Obama's proposed economic policy and that of Herbert Hoover.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:49 PM

A Shorter Christopher Buckley

Via Mark Steyn:

If we view Obama's past political alliances as mere cynical manipulation to advance his career and if we view his election policy proposals as just pandering to the electorate, then we can feel good about voting for him for President because of, ah , oh yes, his character.

The mental contortions one must put oneself through in order to justify voting for Barack Obama are truly amazing. It must be quite painful.

[Early evening update]

Jonah Goldberg expands:

Christopher invokes Oliver Wendell Holmes' famous line that FDR had a "first-class temperament" and so too Obama. Indeed, he suggests that Obama is a man of great character because he's a man of great temperament. Conceding for the sake of argument that Obama's temperament is first rate, are the two really the same thing? I don't think so (indeed, that would be a hard case to make about FDR himself, who could be deceitful, vindictive, petty -- even to his own son -- and adulterous. And let us note that Holmes himself was not a man many of us should be invoking as an authority on political virtue or general decency).
The story Christopher tells of McCain's great character has no real analogue in Obama. He may be in private a deeply honorable man, but his public record is one of accommodation, shortcuts, dishonest equivocations, serious leftwing sympathies and fellow-traveling with some awful people. Obama, let us recall, threw his own grandmother under the rhetorical bus in order to defend his relationship with Jeremiah Wright. That he sounded dignified doing it does not confer dignity on the act itself or the man behind it. That is surely not all there is to say about Obama, many of his friends and fans speak very well of him. But the scales Christopher uses to weigh one man against the other seem awfully rigged to me.

Everything in Barack Obama's public life (other than his campaign speeches and publications) indicate that he's a dedicated leftist (or else a very cynical man with no principles whatsoever). John McCain is, at worst, ideologically confused.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:52 PM

Driving Uninsured

Tom Jones, on the asteroid threat.

We really need to get moving on that spacefaring civilization thing. Unfortunately, it's not going to happen under current NASA management.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:46 PM

Did The Chinese Fake Their EVA?

I don't know, and haven't watched the video myself, but some Chinese bloggers think so:

Two seconds into the video from CCTV, bubble-like objects rose from the hatch as it sprung open. At 5 min 49 second, a bubble attached to the astronaut's helmet. At 6 min 42 seconds, bubbles swiftly came out of the cabin. On the left corner of the video, bubbles gushed out at an angle at 7 min 17 seconds into the video.

A blogger, who is a physicist, commented in a Chinese Epoch Times article that, assuming the operation was conducted in the water, the bubbles rose faster than they would have if the water was not propelled using a wave-blower. Wave blowers are commonly used in underwater space-training exercises to simulate the weightlessness of space.

It wouldn't shock me.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:03 AM

I Agree With The WSJ

Chris Dodd should be the one on the stand, under oath.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:13 AM

The Enigma Of Obama

I have a piece today at Pajamas media, on the lies and spin of the Obama campaign, and his enablers in the media.

[Update late morning]

I should note, of course (though shouldn't it go without saying?) that because I wrote this piece, like Roger Simon, I am a racist.

[Afternoon update]

I have to confess that I'm perplexed by the foolish comments that I, or John McCain, should be "going after" Walter Annenberg, or the Annenberg Foundation, or "charging them" with...something. What does that mean?

There is nothing illegal about funding leftist activities with philanthropy. I don't even think that it should be. But I do think that the voters are entitled to know when one of their presidential candidates is involved with it. If Walter Annenberg were running for president, and doing the same things that Barack Obama is, and has done, I'd be saying exactly the same things about him. But he's not.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:20 AM

October 09, 2008
Just For The Record

I made a crack in comments the other day that the market was tanking in anticipation of an Obama election. Some may have taken it seriously, but it was a joke.

I do think that markets react to potential election outcomes in general, but in this case, I suspect that there are much deeper issues going on, and given that John McCain has shown himself to be (as he has confessed in the past) as clueless on the economy and economics as Barack Obama, there's probably not much street preference one way or the other. The folks in the pits are probably not even thinking about the election at this point.

While I'm not a conservative, I sure wish that there was at least one in the race, in terms of the economy.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:29 PM

An Idle Question

How widespread is the voter registration fraud that ACORN has been responsible for? How much has it artificially boosted Democrat registration numbers this year?

There are two factors that have increased Dem registration this year. One is the efforts by ACORN and similar groups. The other is the significant numbers of Republicans who switched to Democrat so that they could vote for Hillary Clinton in the primaries. The first group isn't going to vote for Obama because they don't exist, to a large extent. The second group is going to vote for John McCain.

All of the likely (and even registered) voter polls are skewed to sample Dems more because of this perceived increase in Democrat voters. But if much of that increase is illusory, due to the factors described above, are the polls overstating support for Obama?

[Update late evening]

Iowahawk is on the case in defense of a truly defenseless minority: ACORN files suit on behalf of the voting rights of Imaginary-Americans:

"Whether we are obituary notices, hallucinatory giant rabbits, or strings of random keyboard strokes, it's time for the chimera community to stand up and claim our rights as citizens," said ASDFG. "We will no longer be silent and invisible. Okay, maybe invisible."

In addition to $3.2 jubajillion in damages and free federal mortgages for homeless spectres, the suit also seeks enforcement of the Americans with Dimensional Disabilities Act. The Act requires voting places to make accommodations for existentially-challenged voters who have trouble completing ballots written in standard 3-dimensional reality. The accommodations include multiple site registration, time travel, and allowances for alcoholics to cast ballots for dependent D.T. phantasms.

"Many of our community inhabit the Tapioca subluster of the 11th Dimension, and it's hard for them to find a convenient spacehole to make it to the local elementary school," explained ASDFG.

Classic. And one that I wish that I'd thought of. Though as always, Burge does a much better job with the concept than I would have, anyway.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:06 PM

ACORN

I don't know what the penalties under the law are, but with the stories about people being hounded to register multiple times, I'd like to not only see their funding cut off, but a lot of people do jail time.

[Update mid afternoon]

Geraghty has more:

So we have an organization that has been joined at the hip with Obama from the beginning of his career, whose members have been convicted in Washington state, Wisconsin and Colorado, and had various forms of reprimand, investigation, indictment, and other run-ins with the law and state election authorities in Virginia, Texas, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Ohio, New Mexico, North Carolina, Missouri, Michigan, Florida, Arkansas. Perhaps most disturbingly, the organization has repeatedly entrusted convicted felons with voters' most sensitive personal information, sort of a small business assistance program for aspiring identity thieves.
Is it time for Americans to tell ACORN to get out of their faces? Or perhaps for law enforcement to get into their faces? Or perhaps some media entity should get in Obama's face about why one of his longtime allies keeps coming up in investigations of vote fraud?

If people don't care about Bill Ayers, they should certainly care about this. It's happening right now, less than a month before the election, not when Barack Obama was eight years old.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:45 AM

New NewSpace Blogger

Though not a new space blog. Occasional commenter John Hare is now rocket blogging over at Selenian Boondocks (which has a new URL and look).

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:31 AM

October 08, 2008
Serve Them Right

Some tips to prevent campaign sign stealing.

Funny, but I haven't heard of any stories about Obama/Biden signs being stolen.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:08 PM

Wear Your Seatbelt

There's a reason that the flight attendant warns you to stay in your seat with belt fastened.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) today said an "irregularity'' in one of the plane's computers caused the dramatic altitude change yesterday that hurled passengers around the cabin.

I would have been all right, because I rarely get up during a flight. I probably would have had to change my undies, though.

But that's also a reason that I'm always a little nervous on Airbuses. When you have a fly-by-wire system, you're essentially putting control of the airplane in the hands (so to speak) of a machine.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:01 PM

Say It Ain't So, "O" (Part Three)

Is/was Barack Obama a member of Democratic Socialists of America? It sure looks like it.

No worries--they were probably just guys in his neighborhood.

Between these folks and Ayers and Dorhn (who are no doubt members as well, unless it wasn't radical enough for them), it sounds like a pretty bad neighborhood.

[Update a few minutes later]

Jonah Goldberg wonders if Senator Obama ever read his home-town newspaper.

And then of course there was Ayers' own autobiography, the profile in the NY Times in which Ayers casually said he'd wished he'd made more bombs etc.

I don't know Chicago well. But my sense of the place is that they take politics pretty seriously there. Young, very smart and hyper ambitious politicians like Obama tend to read the local paper (never mind the New York Times, which ran a couple dozen stories mentioning Ayers and his terrorist ties between 1990 and 2004). The political class in Chicago knows who everybody is, where they came from, what they believe. They tend to learn about people who give them jobs, money and political opportunities. And, people like Ayers don't exactly keep their views or radical past a closely guarded secret, particularly when they remain unreprentant.

In short, I think it's a lie -- and a pretty stupid one -- to say that Obama didn't know about any of this. The obvious answer is he just didn't care.

Yes, just like Reverend Wright's rantings. It was no problem. Until, that is,it became politically inconvenient to him. He is lying about his relationship with Ayers, which means that he was also almost certainly lying about not knowing what was being preached in his church of twenty years. Why should we believe anything he says?

[Update late morning]

It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood, with advice columns from Barack's and Michelle's neighbors:

Dear Mary Ellen: Your question is borne of bourgeois ignorance and manufactured consent. A violent revolution is coming, and the workers will throw off the chains of their oppression and rise up in a bloody revolt against AmeriKKKa's legacy of racism, genocide, and hegemonic corporatist empire. In the coming revolution, the state and its propagandist education apparatus will wither away, thus ushering in a new age of proletarian enlightenment. All education will be free, and all children, including yours, will be rescued from their bourgeois shackles and freed to join the vanguard for permanent revolution.

Bernadine has legal advice as well. Also, grooming tips from Rod.

[Afternoon update]

The memory hole doesn't work so well any more, what with web archives. Politically Drunk has found some pages that had been previously scrubbed that confirm Senator Obama's membership in the New Party:

From the October 1996 Update of the DSA 'New Party': "New Party members are busy knocking on doors, hammering down lawn signs, and phoning voters to support NP candidates this fall. Here are some of our key races...

Illinois: Three NP-members won Democratic primaries last Spring and face off against Republican opponents on election day: Danny Davis (U.S. House), Barack Obama (State Senate) and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary)."

Beyond the archived web page from the Socialist New Party is the recognition by the "Progressive Populist" magazine in November 1996 that Obama was indeed an acknowledged member of the Socialist Party.

"New Party members and supported candidates won 16 of 23 races, including an at-large race for the Little Rock, Ark., City Council, a seat on the county board for Little Rock and the school board for Prince George's County, Md. Chicago is sending the first New Party member to Congress, as Danny Davis, who ran as a Democrat, won an overwhelming 85% victory. New Party member Barack Obama was uncontested for a State Senate seat from Chicago."

Is there any record of Senator Obama demanding a correction to the publications?

Next, I expect him to say "that's not the Democratic Socialist Party that I knew..."

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:21 AM

Obama Stock up 2 to 72

As of press time, Obama is trading at $0.72 on Intrade up 2 from yesterday (stock pays $1.00 if Obama wins). It dipped as low as $0.66 last night.

Posted by Sam Dinkin at 04:10 AM

October 07, 2008
McCain Is Losing The Debate

Because he's an idiot. Which is why I didn't support him as the Republican nominee.

[After the end of the debate]

Well, if McCain is going to win the election, it sure didn't happen tonight.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:06 PM

Secession

Should American writers secede from the Nobel Prize for literature?

There was a brief moment, after World War II, when the Nobel Committee allowed that America might produce more sophisticated writers. No one on either side of the Atlantic would quarrel with the awards to William Faulkner in 1949 or Ernest Hemingway in 1954. But in the 32 years since Bellow won the Nobel, there has been exactly one American laureate, Toni Morrison, whose critical reputation in America is by no means secure. To judge by the Nobel roster, you would think that the last three decades have been a time of American cultural drought rather than the era when American culture and language conquered the globe.

But that, of course, is exactly the problem for the Swedes. As long as America could still be regarded as Europe's backwater--as long as a poet like T.S. Eliot had to leave America for England in order to become famous enough to win the Nobel--it was easy to give American literature the occasional pat on the head. But now that the situation is reversed, and it is Europe that looks culturally, economically, and politically dependent on the United States, European pride can be assuaged only by pretending that American literature doesn't exist. When Engdahl declares, "You can't get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world," there is a poignant echo of Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard insisting that she is still big, it's the pictures that got smaller.

Nothing gives the lie to Engdahl's claim of European superiority more effectively than a glance at the Nobel Prize winners of the last decade or so. Even Austrians and Italians didn't think Elfriede Jelinek and Dario Fo deserved their prizes; Harold Pinter won the prize about 40 years after his significant work was done. To suggest that these writers are more talented or accomplished than the best Americans of the last 30 years is preposterous.

Other than that I think Hemingway is vastly overrated, and ample fodder for parody, I agree. The Peace prizes have been a joke since Arafat and Rigoberto Menchu (not to mention Jimmy Carter), and I think that the literature prizes have gone the same way, decades ago.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:10 PM

Pants On Fire

CNN (of all places) essentially calls Barack Obama a liar:

Griffin also tells a somewhat nonplussed Cooper that Obama has lied about his "coming out party" at the home of William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn in 1995. Obama has said that Alice Palmer arranged the fundraiser and the venue, but Griffin spoke to two people who attended the event, who claim Obama lied. Palmer had nothing to do with that event outside of being invited to it. Obama and Ayers planned the event themselves.

The story never made much sense. Why would Ayers and Dohrn allow their house to be used for an event in which they had no role? I wonder how long he's been falsely fingering Palmer for it? I'm betting that he never told this fairy tale until recently, when it suddenly (and inexplicably, to him) became a potential campaign issue.

And of course, the next question is, if he's lying about this, what else is he lying to us about? After all, as Senator McCain pointed out yesterday, for a guy who has written two books about himself, his life hasn't been anything close to an open book.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:46 AM

SF For Voters

I've long thought that people who don't read, or haven't read science fiction are much more ill-prepared for the future. Well, in the near future, we have a presidential election coming up. Here are some suggestions for SF to read in preparation from some notable web pundits.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:19 AM

Is Usenet Dead?

Apparently not yet, but as far as my usage of it is concerned, it's on life support. As the article points out, it doesn't help that ISPs don't support it properly. I gave up on AT&T once I realized that they'd outsourced it, and basically didn't care whether it worked for their customers or not, and use GigaNews now.

Anyway, my biggest use of Usenet is sci.space.*, but I've cut way back on my participation there, because the signal/noise ratio has gotten so low, with many of the best long-time members of the newsgroups having gone to greener pastures (for example, Henry Spencer hasn't posted there in many moons, which is a little ironic, considering that whenever I used to point out that Usenet was dying, he would reply that people have been predicting the death of Usenet for decades). It's mostly loonytunes now, like Brad Guth and Ian Parker, and the Elifritz troll, with little substantive space policy discussion. I do think that the center of gravity of serious space discussion has shifted to the web, regardless of whatever else is still happening with NNTP.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:05 AM

The Bankruptcy Of Iceland

Thomas James has some space-related thoughts.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:57 AM

More Ayers Thoughts

From Mark Steyn:

The point is not that President-designate Obama is a "close friend" of the unrepentant Ayers, or that he was only eight when his patron was building bombs to kill the women of New Jersey. As Joe Biden would no doubt point out on his entertaining "This Day In History" segment, McCain was only six when Czogolsz killed President McKinley. But I doubt he'd let the guy host a fundraiser for him.

But, in the world in which Obama moves, it would seem absurd and provincial to object to partying with an "unrepentant terrorist." The senator advanced and prospered in a milieu in which men like Ayers are not just accepted but admired for their "passionate participation", and function as power-brokers and path-smoothers. This is a great country, and most of us (as Peter Kirsanow notes below) make it without having to kiss up to America-haters like Ayers and Wright. But not Obama.

Who is this man on course to be 44th president? Apparently, it's not just impolite but racist to ask.

Speaking of which, Sarah Palin apparently handled the racism nonsense from CNN pretty well yesterday.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Jonah Goldberg has some more thoughts on the ~~terrorists~~"passionate anti-war and civil rights movement" and the contradictions of the fascist left.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:38 AM

Clueless Space Commentary

Jeff Foust has a roundup.

And as I note over there in comments, the Kennedy myth persists:

"Not since John F. Kennedy, has a president truly understood the incalculable value of space..."

Not even then...

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:11 AM

Pre-Humans

Alan Boyle has a story on the latest thinking about Lucy, with a cool artist's rendering. And of course, no post like this is complete without the usual clueless comments by the creationists.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:06 AM

Hilarious

Mickey Kaus points out the foolishness of the press, in imagining that there was ever any possibliity that the media would be supporting McCain.

It's one thing to have pro-Democratic, pro-Obama media favoritism: That's just the way it is. Political reporters have opinions. Better blatant than latent.

It's another to have that very favoritism used as evidence that McCain is blowing it, losing his reputation for "integrity" and his "gold plated brand."

Yes, they only like McCain when he's running against Republicans. The NYT endorsed him in the primary. Does anyone imagine they'll endorse him in the general?

He also has a warning:

It might seem as if the MSM reaction against McCain's shift to negativism has "driven the final nail into his coffin," as Heilemann suggests. The Feiler Faster Thesis says no--given the speed with which the country now processes information, there's plenty of time for several dramatic twists and turns, including lead changes. Obamaphiles (in the press and elsewhere) are deluding themselves, I think, if they think they can ride the economic crisis and the reaction against negativity to victory in a month. Plus Obama's not that far ahead.

Nope.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:51 AM

About Time

UCLA economists have calculated how long FDR extended the Great Depression. Seven years.

Roosevelt's role in lifting the nation out of the Great Depression has been so revered that Time magazine readers cited it in 1999 when naming him the 20th century's second-most influential figure.

"This is exciting and valuable research," said Robert E. Lucas Jr., the 1995 Nobel Laureate in economics, and the John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. "The prevention and cure of depressions is a central mission of macroeconomics, and if we can't understand what happened in the 1930s, how can we be sure it won't happen again?"

..."The fact that the Depression dragged on for years convinced generations of economists and policy-makers that capitalism could not be trusted to recover from depressions and that significant government intervention was required to achieve good outcomes," Cole said. "Ironically, our work shows that the recovery would have been very rapid had the government not intervened."

Remember this the next time someone talks about a new "New Deal." The myth of Roosevelt is akin with the current idiotic nonsense being promulgated by Democrats that the financial crisis was a result of "deregulation."

[Update about 9 AM EDT]

Sebastian Mallaby has a nice corrective to the "deregulation" nonsense:

The key financiers in this game were not the mortgage lenders, the ratings agencies or the investment banks that created those now infamous mortgage securities. In different ways, these players were all peddling financial snake oil, but as Columbia University's Charles Calomiris observes, there will always be snake-oil salesmen. Rather, the key financiers were the ones who bought the toxic mortgage products. If they hadn't been willing to buy snake oil, nobody would have been peddling it.
Who were the purchasers? They were by no means unregulated. U.S. investment banks, regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, bought piles of toxic waste. U.S. commercial banks, regulated by several agencies, including the Fed, also devoured large quantities. European banks, which faced a different and supposedly more up-to-date supervisory scheme, turn out to have been just as rash. By contrast, lightly regulated hedge funds resisted buying toxic waste for the most part -- though they are now vulnerable to the broader credit crunch because they operate with borrowed money.

If that doesn't convince you that deregulation is the wrong scapegoat, consider this: The appetite for toxic mortgages was fueled by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the super-regulated housing finance companies. Calomiris calculates that Fannie and Freddie bought more than a third of the $3 trillion in junk mortgages created during the bubble and that they did so because heavy government oversight obliged them to push money toward marginal home purchasers. There's a vigorous argument about whether Calomiris's number is too high. But everyone concedes that Fannie and Freddie poured fuel on the fire to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.

As he points out, it's important to understand the actual cause, because if we misdiagnose the disease, we're likely to come up with nostrums that make it worse, just as FDR's "brain trust" did. And that's exactly the path we're on with Obama. McCain may make similar mistakes, but with him, at least it's not a sure thing.

[Mid-morning update]

Glenn Reynolds has some thoughts on the upcoming speculative bubble in regulation. I agree that we need to design the system to be much more fault tolerant.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:43 AM

Playing The Rubes

Jen Rubin:

...more than hypocrisy is at work here. It is not just far Left, American-hating radicals he now disowns. You get the sense that he believes everyone can be played. Rashid Khalidi can believe that Obama finds no one suffers more than the Palestinians. Jews can buy that he was moved by the Holocaust from a summer camp experience. Voters in his Congressional race in 1990 can be told that there is no difference ideologically between him and 100% ADA-rated Bobby Rush, but the rest of the state in 2004 (and eventually the country) can buy that he's a post-partisan reformer. Terrorists come to believe he shares their scorn for America, but Iowa voters hear him talk about his appreciation that only in America could his story have happened. Primary voters in Ohio are coddled with protectionist promises - and then privately scorned while he is talking to San Fransciso liberal donors.

There is no end to it -- everyone gets the version of Obama that perfectly fits his own world view. It is not hypocrisy. It's fraud. Whatever he told or shared with Ayers, Dohrn, Wright, or Pfleger counts for no more that what he told or shared with other now inconvenient groups and individuals. He's sold the same piece of political real estate to multiple buyers for multiple, conflicting uses.

Unfortunately, so far, he's been right, taking a page from P. T. Barnum, and the sucker production rate has increased quite a bit with the population increase over the past century. You can't fool all of the people all of the time, but unfortunately, you can fool enough of them to get elected.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:55 AM

As If We Needed One

Radley Balko has another reason to fear an Obama/Biden presidency--increasing federalization of crime:

Since the vice-presidential pick, Obama and Biden have embraced criminal justice policies geared toward a larger federal presence in law enforcement, a trend that started in the Nixon administration and that has skewed local police priorities toward the slogan-based crime policies of Congress, like "more arrests" and "stop coddling criminals."

Wonderful.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:52 AM

October 06, 2008
Space Weather

We're going to be hit by an asteroid tonight. The angle is such that it will just be a spectacular fireball. But it's nice that we're finally getting to a position from which we can predict these things. The next step is to be able to prevent them, if necessary. Too bad that almost nothing that NASA is doing is contributing to that, at least with the manned spaceflight program.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:21 PM

Space Power Beaming Concept Proof

On p.38 of this presentation, there's a breakdown of the contributions to the cost of Space Solar Power (SSP). Not surprisingly, the installation is more than half of the cost and another 20% is manufacturing cost of the solar array.

If we extract out the solar generation from SSP and instead of an antenna, have a passive microwave reflector, we can potentially get the cost of the reflector down to less than $1 billion. Let's say it's a flat spinning <8 gram per square meter perforated mylar single-mission heavy payload to GEO straw man.

If we spend $1 billion on a ground-based microwave antenna and another $1 billion on a rectenna, we have a 1 GW system that can function as transmission for a 40-year straight-line cost of 1.5 cents/kwh which is about 30% of the cost of SSP per watt with the viable scale of capital needed much smaller. (If you need a VC return, the price must be closer to ten cents per kwh.) The reflector would not be at capacity so additional transmission can be achieved for 2/3 of that. 1 GW beaming for $3 billion would be a pretty satisfying proof of concept.

There's plenty of power on the ground to beam to space that's cheap so the proof of concept can be economically viable at this scale. At Hawaii's buy price of more than $0.30/kwh and New Mexico's sell price of less than $0.10/kwh it would pay for itself pretty fast.

Space power beaming would therefore be shown to be economically viable without the space generation and thus be valuable as a proof of concept for transmission alone.

Posted by Sam Dinkin at 11:53 AM

Democrats Against Obama

I suspect that there are a lot more of these folks than there are Republicans against McCain. And they've connected the ACORN dots between Obama, the Dems in Congress and the housing meltdown.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:49 AM

Don't Forget Bernadine

Bob Owens notes that it's not just Bill Ayers. And he also points out the absurdity of thinking that one could be a member of the Weatherman at all, let alone a founder, and not have murderous intent:

BarackObama.com, the campaign's official website, offers up a "fact check" that Obama was just eight years old when the Weathermen were active in 1969. The Obama campaign has tried to use the founding date of the Weathermen as a touchstone, claiming that the acts of the group were something that happened "40 years ago" when Obama was a child. Far closer to the truth is the December 6, 1990, sentencing date of Weathermen Susan Rosenberg and Linda Sue Evans, when the last of the Weathermen were sentenced for their role in a string of bombings in the mid-1980s, including bombs that detonated at the National War College, the Washington Navy Yard Computing Center, the Washington Navy Yard Officers' Club, New York City's Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, the Israeli Aircraft Industries Building, New York City's South African Consulate, and the United States Capitol Building.

Barack Obama's ties to the Weathermen aren't ties that were 40 years removed from a child's experiences, but the conscious decision of a young radical to establish a relationship to an infamous terrorist because of shared ideology and interests.

Barack Obama never set any bombs. But he's never had problems with associating with those who did.

This talking point that Obama was "only eight years old" is stupid, as is anyone who buys it.

[Afternoon update]

Abe Greenwald has more:

Okay, let's go with that judgment thing, shall we. Barack Obama served on the board of an educational organization headed by a terrorist bomber. He launched his political career in said bomber's home. He then went on to serve two years alongside said bomber on the board of a "charitable" organization. Not quite done, Obama gave the bomber the gift of an enthusiastic blurb for the bomber's book jacket. Even if Obama's preposterous new claim about not knowing who Bill Ayers was was true in 1995, was it true in 1997 when Obama, then state senator, endorsed Ayers's book? Had he not yet found out the identity of his buddy by 2000, when he took the position serving with Ayers on the board of the Woods Fund? Did no one slip him a note over the next two years reading, "Don't indicate that you're reading this note, but the guy next to you is a terrorist"? Frankly, if Obama didn't find out that Bill Ayers is a terrorist until it came up during the primary, then there's more to worry about than the candidate's political leanings.

No kidding.

[Early evening update]

Here's a flash from the past. A 2001 piece by David Horowitz about the terrorist couple:

This is the banal excuse of common criminals - the devil made me do it. "I don't think you can understand a single thing we did," explains the pampered Weatherman bomber Bill Ayers "without understanding the violence of the Vietnam War."

I interviewed Ayers ten years ago, in a kindergarten classroom in uptown Manhattan where he was employed to shape the minds of inner city children. Dressed in bib overalls with golden curls rolling below his ears, Ayers reviewed his activities as a terrorist for my tape recorder. When he was done, he broke into a broad, Jack Horner grin and summed up his experience: "Guilty as hell. Free as a bird. America is a great country."

That would have been 1991. This was a man who would later be put in charge of millions of dollars, with Barack Obama, to propagandize and radicalize Chicago schoolchildren. Either Obama had no problem with his past, or he was unaware of it. I don't believe the latter. But either way, I don't want him to be running the country. For all we know, he'll appoint Ayers to be head of the Department of Education.

[Evening update]

"Bill Ayers has never hidden the fact that he was part of the Weather Underground, part of this radical group. In some ways it has made him somewhat famous in the South Side, Hyde Park, Chicago neighborhood where he lives."

I guess we're supposed to believe that he somehow only hid it from Barack Obama.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:07 AM

More Connecting The Dots

Steve Diamond (no Republican he, I'm guessing) has been doing an excellent job in pulling together the story of Barack Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers and other sixties neo-Stalinist radicals, and the shared agendas, particularly in the area of education. Just keep reading and scrolling.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:37 AM

The War On The Second Amendment

By Barack Obama. Unfortunately, the story doesn't lend itself well to a thirty-second ad.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:47 AM

Off To The Movies

I very rarely see a movie in a theater. I'd say it averages once or twice a year (though we did see Dark Knight a couple months ago--the last one before that was The Astronaut Farmer). But tonight Patricia and I are going out to see American Carol to boost its opening weekend ratings (plus, it looks like it should be pretty funny, and I think we can all use a good laugh right now, given current events). At this point, I'm all about promoting and encouraging alternate media/viewpoints, particularly from Hollywood. I may or may not review it tomorrow.

[Monday morning update]

Meh.

It was entertaining, and a good story, but not roll-in-the-aisles funny, at least for us. Of course, I've never been that big a Zucker/slapstick fan (e.g., I've never even seen any of the Naked Gun series). It's not the sort of flick that I would normally want to see in a theater, but I was happy to help boost the first weekend ratings. Of course, unlike the previous ones, there are some emotionally affecting moments in this one (quickly broken up, of course, by more crude slapstick).

So if you want to support this sort of politically incorrect movie (always a noble goal, in my opinion), spend a couple hours and spend the ten bucks. You'll have a good time, but don't expect too much.

[Note: this post has been bumped to the top, new stuff below]

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:42 AM

Simonyi's Announcement

There's going to be a press conference at 11:30 this morning to announce his return visit to ISS. Jeff Foust plans to live blog it.

[Afternoon update]

Here is the site for the live blogging. Unfortunately, he seems to be blogging it in lorem ipsum, and I've never learned to read that language. Maybe he'll have an English version up later.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:08 AM

Obama's Space Pro-Activity

The Obama campaign seems to have gotten way out front of the McCain campaign on space. The problem is that, like its domestic policy in general, McCain doesn't seem to have a coherent policy with regard to civil space. He's going to freeze discretionary, which includes NASA, and whether NASA will be exempt seems to depend on which campaign aide you ask. And regardless of how much money is spent, the campaign is equally vague on how it is spent, and what the near-term and long-term goals of the expenditure are. On top of that, the McCain campaign has lumped in the new Obama proposal to increase the NASA budget by two billion with a lot of so-called liberal spending proposals. As Jeff Foust notes, it's a little mind blowing, politically.

Obama, after having gotten off on the wrong foot with the initial idiotic proposal to delay Constellation to provide funds for education, seems to have actually gotten inside McCain's OODA loop on this issue. The McCain campaign really needs a smart political adviser in this area (as Obama apparently has now with Lori Garver, who seems to successfully jumped ship from Hillary's campaign), but there's no evidence that they've come up with one yet.

Of course, it's not an issue on which the election will hang, probably not even in Florida.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here's a little more at NASA Watch. It seems to be a disconnect between the McCain campaign and the RNC. Which, of course, doesn't make it any better, or excuse it.

[Another update a few minutes later]

Well, this would seem to clarify the McCain position:

Perhaps more important were McCain's remarks on Wednesday that only the Pentagon and veterans would see a budget increase in his administration because of the high price the proposed economic bail out. Everything else - including, presumably, NASA -- will be frozen or cut. Several space advocates in Florida and Washington DC expect the worst.

As I said, it isn't clear that space will be a key issue, even in Florida. But if the McCain campaign position is that the budget is going to be frozen, they should at least put forth a description of how they expect, and will require, NASA's priorities to change to accommodate it. So far, there's zero evidence that they've even given the matter any thought.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:38 AM

Seven Apollos

Alan Boyle has come up with a new set of science-project-based monetary units to get our heads around the costs of the bailout.

This sort of thing provides support for the politically naive argument for more money for one's pet project, e.g., "we could do seven Apollos for the cost of one Iraq war--surely we can afford at least one." But federal budget dollars aren't fungible, and the political importance of various choices isn't necessarily consistent, either, due to the vagaries of how these decisions are made. Note also that, at the time, getting to the moon in a hurry was important for reasons having little or nothing do to with space. It's unreasonable to expect those particular political stars to align again.

Not to mention the fact that because we were in a hurry, we chose an architecture and path that was economically and politically unsustainable. Just as NASA's current path is, which is no surprise, considering that they chose to recapitulate Apollo, rather than building an incremental affordable infrastructure that would provide the basis for true spacefaring.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:28 AM

October 05, 2008
October 4th

While I mentioned it in my Pajamas piece on Wednesday, I neglected to mention yesterday that it was the 51st Sputnik anniversary. More currently, and relevantly, it was the fourth anniversary of the winning of the X-Prize. Jeff Foust has some thoughts on the seeming lack of progress since then.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:34 PM

Dear Leader

There's a new Obama music video up.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:10 PM

Say It Ain't So, "O" (Part Two)

Illegal fundraising by the Obama campaign? Who would have thought?

I wonder how much of that foreign money comes from oil wealth.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:33 AM

Mrs. Grievance

I guess that being overambitious, and impatient with your current position isn't confined to Barack Obama. He and Michelle were made for each other:

At big firms, much of the work that falls to young associates involves detail and tedium. There were all sorts of arcane but important rules about what could and could not be said or done in product advertisements, and in the marketing group, all the associates, not just the new ones, reviewed scripts for TV commercials to make sure they conformed. As far as associate work goes, it could have been worse -- "Advertising is a little sexier than spending a full year reading depositions in an antitrust law suit or reviewing documents for a big merger," says White -- but it was monotonous and relatively low-level.

Too monotonous for Michelle, who, White says, complained that the work he gave her was unsatisfactory. He says he gave her the Coors beer ads, which he considered one of the more glamorous assignments they had. Even then, he says, "she at one point went over my head and complained [to human resources] that I wasn't giving her enough interesting stuff, and the person came down to my office and said, 'Basically she's complaining that she's being treated like she's a second-year associate,' and we agreed that she was a second-year associate. I had eight or nine other associates, and I couldn't start treating one of them a lot better."

White says he talked to Michelle about her expectations, but the problem could not be resolved because the work was what it was. He is not sure any work he had would have satisfied her. "I couldn't give her something that would meet her sense of ambition to change the world."

She and Barack are going to make us work. Arbeit macht frei.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:03 AM

Rockette Scientist

My smart, funny (and only slightly crazy) buddy from engineering school, Lynne Wainfan, has decided to torment the world with a new blog. The current top post relates her adventures in wing walking. She also has an iPhone review. But read all.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:50 AM

October 04, 2008
Even Deeper In The Tank

The New York Times continues to act as the propaganda arm of the Obama campaign:

Steve Diamond has made a powerful case that, whoever first suggested Obama's name, Ayers must surely have had a major role in his final selection. Diamond has now revealed that the Times consulted him extensively for this article and has seen his important documentary evidence. Yet we get no inkling in the piece of Diamond's key points, or the documents that back it up. (I've made a similar argument myself, based largely on my viewing of many of the same documents presented by Diamond.) How can an article that gives only one side of the story be fair? Instead of offering both sides of the argument and letting readers decide, the Times simply spoon-feeds its readers the Obama camp line.
The Times also ignores the fact that I've published a detailed statement from the Obama camp on the relationship between Ayers and Obama at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. (See "Obama's Challenge.") Maybe that's because attention to that statement would force them to acknowledge and report on my detailed reply.

Yup. Wouldn't fit the narrative.

[Mid afternoon update]

Instapundit has a roundup of links discussing this.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:07 AM

Irreproducible

It's that time of year again, for the (Ig)nobel prizes.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:20 AM

The Chinese Space Program Has Come A Long Way

Heh.

[From Bruce Webster, via email]

Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:56 AM

Justice, At Last

O.J. Simpson is finally going to do some hard time.

[Mid-afternoon update]

No smirking at this verdict. He's been getting away with bad behavior all of his life. He must be wondering what finally went wrong.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:25 AM

October 03, 2008
Leaving The Magic Kingdom

The workshop is over, and I'm heading down to Boca. More thoughts on space solar power later.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:20 PM

Presidential Stock Market Response to VP Debate

Obama is still trading as a 2-1 favorite on Intrade after the debate and has even moved up a point since yesterday's close to 66 cents (for a security that pays one dollar if he wins) as of press time. But Palin has earned her stripes. The "Palin to be withdrawn from the ticket" security has dropped from ten cents yesterday to 4 which is a penny less than "Biden to be withdrawn from the ticket". My opinion? Palin's the best of the four and should have been thrown to the media wolves so they could patronize her and have it backfire, so she could continue framing the debate, and so she could dominate the late-night talk shows and comedy shows. It's not too late for her to make a circuit of the late night TV shows. Parody is a high form of praise. CNN reported that she did less than five interviews to Biden's 100+. I don't see McCain changing that now. I hope she runs in 2012 and if necessary 2016.

Posted by Sam Dinkin at 08:27 AM

Friday Space Power Technology Session

Here's where I'll be picking up from yesterday, and blogging today's session, as I get time.

The first speaker this morning is Jay Penn of Aerospace (again) talking about laser power beaming demonstrators. He's describing the same apps as yesterday for the military, but also talking about space-to-space beaming for other spacecraft. Reviewing yesterday's talk with concept that can put 2.5 MW into the grid per satellite. Two solar panels, two laser transmitter panels on a deployable backbone. Providing more of a description of the "halo" orbits than yesterday, but I still don't understand it from an orbital mechanics standpoint. I'll have to read the paper or talk to Jay later.

He's showing several charts that demonstrate how inserting technology into the laser system can dramatically increase the power available per EELV flight (not sure how relevant this is, other than as a benchmark, because it's very unlikely that an economically viable system is going to go up on EELVs). Also shows that you don't save much money by scaling down the system to smaller power levels--R&D dominates the costs. His bottom line is that we could do a 125kW demonstrator on an EELV, that could scale up to 200kW with technology insertion. Laser appears to be the only practical means to provide acceptable small spot beams from GEO. Laswers have 10,000 times smaller spot for the same range and aperture compared to microwaves. In response to a question, he notes that the individual lasers are not phased, and they don't need to be. There is a question about maintenance/repair. They hadn't looked in detail but a quick look suggested that degradation wasn't a major issue. he makes one other point--the system was self-lifting from LEO to GEO using ion propulsion, to save mass.

Now another talk by Jordin Kare, on laser diode power beaming. Talking about the NASA beamed power Centennial Challenge. While it's about elevator climbers, it is essentially a contest to build a beamed-power system. Prize has almost been won, but not quite, and is now at $500K. None of the teams are using lasers. Laser-Motive (his company) was formed to develop laser power beaming technology, but the current focus is on winning the prize. Their concept uses a fixed set of laser diodes and optics, with a steering mirror below the climber. Operating on a shoestring. They are estimating 10% efficiency, but actually getting more like 13%. They have eight kW of laser power to deliver a kilowatt to the climber. Got good price on "seconds" for the lasers (a little less than $10/watt so about $80K) Didn't care about beam profile, as long as they got the power on target. Didn't do custom optics--used float-glass and amateur telescope mirrors, with old HP stepper motors to drive them. Lasers share (more expensive) parabolic mirrors. Bought some 50% efficiency cells that can operate at ten suns, with help from Boeing. Unfortunately they had some final integration issues (smoking a power supply) that prevented them from winning, but no on else won either.

The 2008 contest is a kilometer climb up a rope hung from a helicopter (the faster the climb, the more the money)--lasers are the only option. DILAS is offering to build a custom system ($35,000 for 2.5kW), and will set a new radiance standard. Can go to much more range with bigger optics and more power. deliver tens of kilowatts at tens of kilometers with this technology.

Laser-Motive is ready to build these kinds of systems tomorrow. Could be used for ground to aircraft or ground vehicles of mirrors on aerostats, or air to ground to simulate space-to-ground. ISS to ground is also a possibility. Next steps: higher radiance, coherent systems (e.g., fiber lasers), lightweight low-cost optics, and then operational systems.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:17 AM

October 02, 2008
Missed Opportunity

I'm watching the debate, but not attempting to live blog it. But I have to say that while Palin is doing fine in general, she missed a huge opportunity. When Biden kept going on about how he and The One were going to "end" the war, she should have said, "Senator, you, Senator Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid...you all keep talking about ending the war. But Americans don't want to just end a war. They want to win the war. Why can you not let the word "victory" pass your lips when it comes America and the Iraq war?"

[Update a few minutes later]

Well, she keeps saying "win the war" and he keeps saying "end the war," so maybe the point will come across subtly, but it would have been a big blow had she pointed it out.

I have to say that Biden has been surprisingly gaffe free. He's told lots of whoppers, but no big gaffes.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:06 PM

Sarah Biden's Gaffes

McCain should have dropped this idiot from the ticket weeks ago.

By the way, sorry for the light live blogging of the workshop, but I had some side meetings this afternoon. More in the morning.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:04 PM

Thursday Afternoon At The Space Power Tech Workshop

OK, it's after lunch, and we're about to watch a video about what the Army hopes it will be doing in space in the year 2035. We're being told it's not classified in any way. Nor does it discuss cost or difficulty of what we're about to see...

It seems to be a CGI movie depicting rapid redeployments of advanced satellites (using something that looks a lot like QuickReach). It shows convoy routes planning a "virtual corrider." Mobile user ground stations are deflecting attempts at GPS jamming. A "near-space platform" geolocates a terrorist unit. Noncombatants are identified, the house is surrounded, and the perps captured. The space vehicles depicted are dirty and gritty like the tanks. Like Serenity, in fact. Showing overhead imaging for battle damage assessment. "Understand First." "Act First." In other words, get inside their OODA loop.

Pretty cool.

Anyway, Jay Penn is up now, describing five different powersat concepts that Aerospace has been working on. This was work done for Joe Howell at Marshall and John Mankins at NASA. It consisted of a lot of system/subsystem level trades for comparisons and as inputs to technology roadmaps.

Showing several different concepts, the most different of which is called a "Halo", which has a central transmitter surrounded by what seem to be mirrors for light concentration. But he's going too fast for me to follow. A flurry of charts showing trade analyses and relative costs.

Some of these concepts imply flight rates of 5000/year. Notes that 40% of the global economy is energy. The best costs they could get to for kW-hrs was about eight cents, which isn't bad. One of their concepts is a laser system that is very scalable (480 satellites for 1.2 GW). It uses a layered approach, with pump-laser diodes, microoptics, and a radiator on the back. Output beam is about a thousand nanometer wavelength. He thinks it the most promising architecture of those considered.

Now Paul Jaffe is reporting on a study on space-based power that was performed by the Navy Research Lab. In the beginning, they encountered a lot of skepticism within the lab. Their approach was to look at it in the context of providing Navy/Marine power needs. Study looked at military applications only. They supported the AFRL requirements workshop in July, and are working with NASA on the ISS demo.

They had three findings. First, the concepts are technically feasible, they seem relevant to military needs, and safe power beaming is restricted to large immobile sites. Wireless power transfer is necessary for SBSP, but it's a research area in its own right. No consensus among experts as to best concept. Economics and political priorities will be important, but this wasn't examined by NRL.

They also found that NRL has some key capabilities in many of the technologies (I'm shocked, shocked...).

The third was that different operational scenarios will require different technologies. Large-area applications can use microwave, but applications requiring higher power density will need lasers. Delivery of energy directly to individual end users, vehicles or small widely-scattered nodes isn't currently practical.

They recommended continued NRL funding, but got the impression when they briefed the director that he still considers other energy areas more promising until more of the risk is retired.

A question from the audience brings up the point that DoE seems to be missing in action, considering that they're supposed to be interesting in, you know...energy. There needs to be more of an outreach from other agencies to them to get them involved, particularly if DoE is supposed to be putting together new positions for an incoming administrations.

Another speaker from NRL, Michael Brown, follows with a talk on space structures issues. We have a long way to go from seventy meters (the current longest structure) to kilometeres in scale. Showing examples of ultralight space deployable beams.

Sorry, my eyes are glazing over (also a little sleepy after lunch). Structural analysis is not my bag. Showing concepts for trusses. Showing concepts for automated orbital assembly.

A break, a break, my kingdom for a break...

[Update after the break]

I'm not paying much attention to the current talk which is about wireless power in a deployed base in environment. The speaker said, perfectly deadpan (and he was probably quite serious), "we can't introduce anything into a war environment that is unsafe."

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the War Room."

Jordin Kare (formerly of Livermore) is giving a talk on various space applications for lasers, some in space, some ground based with space relays. Optics are cheap, don't generate much heat, don't weigh much, none of which are the case for lasers, so keep lasers on the ground and put the optics in space.

Thinks that GEO is still the best place, for relay optics so that no tracking of moving satellites is necessary. Also less gravity gradient. But GEO implies big optics. He prefers diffractive optics, using thin sheets of materials with vacuum vapor deposition of metals to make a fresnel lens. It is insensitive to out-of-plane displacements, while mirrors are orders of magnitude more so. They can be lightweight, rolled up, folded. Shows a five-meter example made of panes of glass built at Livermore a few years ago. he thinks that a twenty-meter lens can fit on a Delta IV. Thinks that he could get by with six tons in GEO with relay system as opposed to thirty tons if the laser is place in orbit. Notes that NASA has looked at a similar system with a relay in L1 for powering a lunar surface base from the earth. Talking about using such systems to power electric propulsion vehicles, so they don't have to carry the mass of their power supply, both for earth orbit and earth escape missions. Agrees with Jay Penn on approach of using laser modules, if you really want the lasers themselves in orbit.

[Friday morning update]

I've continue here.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:28 AM

Back On The Air

Live, from the space solar power conference in sunny Lake Buena Vista, FL, under the ever-watchful eye of Mickey.

I have power, I have wireless, I've had my proteinless continental breakfast, which seems to be riguer at these aerospace conferences, and I'm ready to blog. Session overview will start in a few minutes.

[A few minutes later]

Omar Mendoza of the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) is keynoting. He is head of a new energy and environment office. One of the things that they're working is biofuel from algae, but they see space-based power as a potential breakthrough technology for meeting military power requirements in an environmentally friendly way. Purpose of this conference is to identify technology gaps that must be filled to make it a reality.

Anticipate that early next year the incumbent president will be asking what the military is doing in the way of energy, and they want to have a roadmap ready to present to the new CinC, whoever it is.

Lt. Colonel Ed Tovar of the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab now giving a history of the recent activities, including the space power studies performed last year by the National Space Security Office, and the interest that it seems to have aroused. Has gotten interest from environmental groups, energy companies, utilities, Congress, etc. Idea of tying energy to aerospace technology seems appealing. He tells people that this is something that justifies the exercise of due diligence to determine its potential. Talked about introducing John Mankins with a smart guy at NSSO, and had them get into a numbers battle over lift requirements, and that is the kind of activity that he wants to see continue. Two major thrusts: initiation/continuation of studies (much deeper and broader than NSSO report) and develop a roadmap for a demonstration strategy (space-space, LEO to ground, eventually from GEO). Terrestrial power beaming already happening as shown by the Hawaii test. Idea is to generate power in a permissive environment, and provide it in a "less permissive" environment. Wants to use structure and power available at ISS to do in-space demos, and has talked to people at NASA Ames and JSC about coming up with plans for a wireless power transmission demo at ISS.

Notes that Hawaii experiment didn't just demonstrate technology, but they flew aircraft through the beam to characterize it, determine environmental effects, density, efficiency, etc. See it as a form of "soft power" that can help avert conflicts in the twenty-first century. He wants to make this technology a "comma" in the national debate, when energy companies and presidential candidates talk about energy options. "wind, solar, biofuels,...energy from space."

Joe Howell of Marshall coming up next to talk about NASA's technology roadmap.

Oops. Nope. Neil Huber of Concurrent Technology Corporation (CTC) is giving a summary presentation of military requirements, based on a workshop in July. They gathed power requirements for military units at various levels (person, squad, deployed unit, base, etc.), and determining that 3-5 MW is a prevailing military need. Purpose of this workshop is to come up with a rough roadmap.

They also have intangible requirements (strengthen intel, protect critical bases of ops, etc.) Of eight of these, six of them could be satisfied by power from space.

SSP could support the joint force attributes required by strategy if energy can be provided to the force at relevant levels. Could be a game-changing capability. It would be nice not to have to carry batteries, or deploy diesel generators and their fuel.

Space-centric beamed power could provide stability of operations (no concern about having a fuel convoy intercepted and disrupt ops). Nice to be able to quickly redeploy power from one area to another. Could have been very useful after Katrina or Ike, or after the tsunami.

Services had an official requirement to reduce fossil fuel use, and this could play into that. Many DoD bases dependent on fragile and vulnerable commercial power infrastructure--this could make them more independent and robust. 2005 Energy Policy Act mandates that DoD installations transition to green technologies. needs vary from 3kW for a person to 9 MW for a brigade (varies among services). Giving a few examples. Watts for a soldier with his equipment, with heavy batteries, ranging up to 80 MW dedicated to propulsion for a destroyer. ONR testing 35 MW superconducting electric motor.

Air Force has more a better understanding of their requirements, but can't really keep up with the slides (this will be available later, probably on line). Notes that Marines have a very high AA battery requirement. Bottom line: could reduce deployment footprint and logistic footprint (reduced fuel convoying, which is also a dangerous activity). Could provide more stable, enhanced operations at all levels. 3-5 MW seems to be near-term critical number.

In Q&A, Colonel Paul Damphousse is relating experience from Iraq, where it was more dangerous to be on the road than in the air, and pointed out how nice it would have been to put down spot beams in remote areas rather than convoy fuel. In response to a question, Huber notes that fuel in the field can cost anywhere from $50 to $200 per gallon, after shipping it to the front (particularly by air). Makes this a much more attractive market for a high-cost (at least technology) like this.

OK, now Joe Howell is speaking about the NASA technology roadmap. His talk is based on work done in the last ten years (mostly from 1998-2002). Showing slide of classic reference SPS/Rectenna system from the 1970s DoE/NASA studies. Required huge launch capacity. Showing very complicated chart of complexity of all the factors that go into whether or not SPS makes sense. Topic seems to come up every fifteen years or so. Now showing potential requirement to get CO2 reduced--need 40 TW of carbon-neutral power generation to reduce and stabilize at twice pre-industrial levels. When "peak fossil fuels" will occur remains without consensus--how much energy R&D needed for insurance policy?

Now getting back to more recent studies. Still have rectenna farms and large structures in orbit, but much more thin-film concentrators, lighter structures. Showing X33/VentureStar as transportation paradigm of the era. Also showing hypersonic vehicles, two-stage reusables, smaller systems with high launch rates. Studies were based on $200/kg launch costs. Still couldn't close business model at that cost. Showing modular solar-electric concept to transport large space systems to GEO.

He has an eye chart of the technology areas that have to be advanced. Next chart focuses on state of near-term PV technologies--stretched-lens array, thin films, etc. Also showing solar concentrators that have actually flown in space (Deep Space 1). Need a much higher pointing accuracy for these types of systems, which makes the rest of the system more of a technical challenge.

Getting into microwave beam safety issues now (earlier had related the honeybee studies performed back in the seventies and eighties). Has the classic power density chart that shows it's not a problem, but people still don't believe it (just like the people who won't live near power lines). Showing roadmap of demos laid out to 2021, but funding dried up about 2003. Has a chart showing growth of spacecraft power requirements over last quarter century--steady increase up to tens of kilowatts. Needs doubling every five and a half years. Describing solar panel architecture trades.

Overall, this strikes me primarily as not a coherent story, or one put together for this meeting--just a lot of pre-existing charts with historical results from various periods. Probably useful for people unfamiliar with the field, though.

Future needs--sandwiched options, collect on the front, beam out the back, 50%+ conversion efficiency. 5 km transmitter 80%+ efficiency, ten GW system, installed cost $2/watt. Need self-assembly, higher strength/weight materials, higher-temp solid-state devices, need to look at lasers as well as microwaves, but as always, need much lower transportation costs.

In other words, nothing new.

Question: how do we map the NASA quick-look study to the military requirements we just heard? 3 MW isn't really practical for microwave systems because they don't work for the wavelength. SPS size wasn't drive by power requirements so much as aperture size. Wouldn't lasers be better, given recent advances in solid-state devices? Howell notes that a LEO demo could be scaled down considerably for microwaves, and that lasers have issues with clouds, etc. Trades still need to be done. He notes that all of the work presented was to address the need for baseload power, and hadn't considered these new military requirements. Bruce Pittman of Ames asking about potential applications for lunar bases. Could they beam from L1 to the lunar surface? Howell notes that Seth Potter (Boeing) will be talking about this later in the meeting. Competition for going into shadowed craters is nuclear. Jay Penn of Aerospace notes that he'll be going into the economics this afternoon, in response to Bruce's question about how close to closure they came.

Taking a ten-minute break now.

[A few minutes later]

Ron Clark of Lockheed Martin giving a talk now titled "Space-based Solar Power Gap Analysis--Solar Dynamic and Hybrid Launch Approach."

Key to SBPS: increase revenues and lower costs (duh...)

Has an alternate solution motivated by premium-priced power applications such as shale extraction, remote locations and forward basing. Whenever senior people are briefed, we can show progress, but they still say "it's still too tough," based on the technology gaps. Have to come up with compelling plan that closes gaps and changes perceptions. Have to raise revenue above the grid (need $0.20/kW-hr). Need launch costs of $500/kg, and need to reduce spacecraft manufacturing costs to $1000/kg.

Identified apps where current technology may be good enough: peak power, industrial power and forward deployment/nationbuilding.

Notes that emphasis to date has been on photovoltaic (I would note that Brayton cycles were considered in the seventies, but they weren't the reference baseline). He thinks it's time to take another look at solar dynamic. Thinks that cost of space hardware is coming down not only due to technology advance (mass/function drops by factor of two every eight years, which translates to reduced costs), but also from economies of scale, which would apply to a system like this. Iridium experience shows that cost can come down a lot, particularly when one works closely with suppliers and reduces supply chain friction. Cost/kg can drop from $100,000/kg for one-off, and a hundredth of that for thousands. Sees launch costs as coming down as well with growing use of reusability.

He's positing a "hybrid" launch system with reusable suborbital first and second stage, that meets with a medium earth orbit (MEO) electrodynamic tether as a skyhook. Reduces ETO delta V to 5.5 km/s. Identifying specific technology gaps associated with these systems. Looking at on-orbit assembly gaps. Not competitive with coal-fired power plants at current technology maturity level. Need system-level demos of specific technologies that would support SSPS assembly.

A lot of work has been done with a Closed Brayton Cycle (for topping, with Rankine for bottoming) that can have 50% net power conversion efficiency. Gaps here consist of long life, weightless operation, radiators, large inflatable collectors, and space-rated alternators. Thermal radiators are a particularly immature technology for this high-temperature application.

Also need efficient DC-RF conversion. Some new solid-state devices may offer very high (~90%?) efficiency. Need to consider orbits other than GEO. Trade and location will be driven by mission need. MEO might be the right answer for some applications. he sees highest technical risk in MEO tether and payload transfer, and on-orbit assembly cost reduction. Thinks that all risks are tractable, w

In questions, Keith Henson notes that shipping assembled satellites to GEO would be pretty hard on them, due to radiation and debris.

Now Mack Henderson from JSC (who I sat across from at dinner last night) is presenting a concept for a space-based solar power demo at ISS. Goal is to use existing hardware to do a demo in 2010. Have been coordinating with a number of organizations, at DoD (NSSO, AF Security Forces, AFRL, Army Research, NRL), DoE, academia, industry (Raytheon, L'Garde, Boeing,LMSSC/MDR/PWR and SAIC) and help from Futron. Still looking for a DoE liaison--they seem to be focused on terrestrial.

Goal is to provide measurable power from space to ground, have it safe, and show that it is scalable, within the budget and schedule. They want to validate efficiencies over several types of paths. Raytheon is working on a system with 6 K-Band traveling wave tube amps. They're expecting to receive power on the ground on the order of 20 milliwatts from 600 watts transmitted, using Goldstone for the receiver, though other options are being considered. Each beaming experiment will last about ten minutes with about a hundred seconds of maximum power. They're foreseeing a 27-month program for about $55M, hoping for a May 2010 demo.

Already a letter of intent from Gary Payton and Bill Gerstenmaier--NASA will do space segment, DoD will do ground, and help with money. Also provide TWTs, use of AFRL facilities and Tyndall, and help with roadmap. NASA fives a Shuttle ride, berth on ISS, money, use of DSN dish at Goldstone, and project engineering, with support from Raytheon and Texas A&M.

Benefits of concept are near-term launch capability, services available at ISS including humans present. Compared to doing a separate satellite on an EELV--would save hundeds of millions. Biggest risk is schedule. Asking for authority to proceed from NASA HQ next week.

Jay Penn is concerned about the low transmission efficiency of the proposed experiment, and suggests a laser for much better power transfer. It really is amazing that you can only get 20 milliwatts from 600 watts using that monster dish at Goldstone. It just shows how important aperture size is at that microwave frequency (2.45 MHz). It is being pointed out that there are already demos of low-power microwave power beaming from space--it's called comsats. It's determined to take this discussion off line.

Question: what will we learn from this demo and how will it help future designs and concepts? The answer wasn't clear.

Colonel Damphousse points out that there is DoD support for this, and he appreciates the comments. We shouldn't be focused on how many milliwatts or microwatts are being transmitted--beam characterization is important to allow us to scale up later demos. It has to be looked at as a first step, because we aren't going to get billions for a 10 MW demo right now.

Bruce Thieman of AFRL is talking now about spacelift costs, and the implications for space solar power. Currently at $4000/lb to LEO, are only going to get to $400/lb with what's currently funded. Current costs are high, vehicles are unreliable, with long call up. Goal is much faster turn around, much higher reliability and lower costs. Everything is currently horrendously expensive (a lot of dispute about his chart that has Shuttle costs at $450M--it's got to be closer to a billion per flight these days). Showing commercial launch systems--SpaceX, ULA, AirLaunch, Microcosm and others, including Kistler--old chart). Even COTS vehicles can't get costs below $1500/lb or so (Taurus 2 calculated to be $2000). EELV is in the $3400-4300 range.

Showing chart that says that reusable lower stage expendable upper stage hits a near-term sweet spot in cutting costs by about half. Still $300-$400/lb. Can't do better until fully reusable, and that needs launch rates of forty or more a year. The reusable first stage is designed for a 48-hour turnaround. Long-term goal for fully reuable systems is four hours. Want to eventually see a thousand flights per airframe.

Talking about suborbital now. Most important thing that they will do is drive up launch rate and learn about operations, and high turnaround rate. They are a very important community. Showing classic chart of that shows energy costs to orbit--translates into a ticket price to orbit of $76 (about 38 cents a pound). Question is how to bring launch rate up. If we can bring satellites down to $300/pound to build, we could build more and launch them more often, and refresh technology more often as opposed to GPS, which is a fifteen-year satellite, mostly driven by launch costs. Have to change the culture of the satellite community, which will require initial drops in launch costs.

Now Richard Fork (UA, Huntsville) is giving a paper called "Adaptive Network for Power and Information in Near-Earth Space."

His challenge was to come up with a way to use lasers for power, but not a weapon. Proposes a "quantum secure" laser-based network to support both power and information transfer from space. Looking into laser-based power and "intelligent cyber-secure adaptive networks." Have to figure out a way to keep people from "hacking" the lasers. Sees it as an enabler for space solar power.

OK, so he's talking about direct solar-laser conversion, and using lasers for launch (ablative). I don't see how it relates to his summary of the talk, though. Has a chart of bullet points, not particularly related to each other, including one on asteroid deflection with lasers, the last one of which is "Main need is for a well managed program.

All is lost.

Time for lunch.

[Update a couple minutes later]

OK, not quite. Now he's talking about quantum secure links again. Conclusions: need for both microwaves and lasers. Lasers alone offer highly directionsl efficent long-range power delivery. They alone offer a "quantum-secure" info network. And intelligent quantum secure power network can be designed an implemented within time frames of interest.

OK. Whatever.

[Update after lunch]

I've started a new post for the afternoon session.

Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:10 AM