Category Archives: Business

Business, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

New York City

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…goes backward:

The heart sinks. It took so much effort by so many people to clear up the human wreckage that so many years of liberal ‘compassion’ had created in a dying New York. And to see it all—I can’t put it any better than the esteemed New York Post—’pissed away’ by a mayor not smart or perceptive enough to have learned one thing from the experience of the last 20 years, since his own personal demons have left him stuck in the politics of the 1950s and 1960s, is tragic. It is so hard to build; so easy to destroy.”

Morons with no cultural memory electing morons.

Business, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society, War Commentary

The F-35

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I haven’t been following the fiasco that closely, but Richard Fernandez has some thoughts:

The reality of modern day information combat is that China can win a war without killing a single person or disrupting a single reality TV show. What if America could lose World War 3 and not even know it, especially if it relies on its politicians to tell it an attack has occurred.

Sadly true.

Business, Political Commentary, Space, Space Science, Technology and Society

NASA Advisory Council, Day Two

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I’m going to switch from listening to NTSB meeting to hear the status on exploration systems at 9 AM PDT. Phil McAlister will be discussing Commercial Crew status later this morning. I would note that in this morning’s meeting in the House, Chairman Culberson was very enthusiastic (as expected) about the Europa mission, but he still insanely imagines that SLS is the solution to it.

Business, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The NTSB Meeting On SpaceShipTwo

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I’m listening in live now, but Leonard David already has a story up.

[Update a few minutes later]

Doug Messier has the executive summary. Full report won’t be available for a couple weeks.

[Update a while later]

Temporary adjournment to wordsmith final findings. Sumwalt wants to make clear that while it was pilot error (Finding 1), it was an institutional failure at Scaled that made it possible for such an error to be catastrophic. There also seems to be some (IMO, undue) criticism of FAA-AST, and talk of “political pressure” to prematurely issue licenses/waivers. People (including NTSB) need to understand that AST currently has no statutory authority to regulate safety of the spaceflight participants, including crew, and they are chronically under-resourced to carry out the responsibilities that they are authorized to do. In fact, George should be careful what he wishes for, because if the learning period expires this fall, he still won’t have the budget he needs to expand his authority.

One thing that’s not clear yet (to me): If part of the problem was inability to read instruments due to vibration under thrust. If there was a digital readout, that (and other critical information) should be replaced with an actual Mach meter.

[Late-afternoon update]

Here‘s Jeff Foust’s report.