There was an interesting discussion this afternoon at Council of Foreign Affairs with Lori Garver, John Logsdon, and Charles Miller. The Youtube is now available. Note that they touch on many of the themes in my upcoming paper, on how we have to stop trying to do Apollo again, that SLS is a jobs program, that propellant transfer is a game changer, the need for a competitive private sector, etc. Lori was quite harshly critical of NASA (and Congress).
Category Archives: Business
The New Commercial Space Bill
Stephen Smith has an analysis. While it’s nice that they slightly mitigated the idiotic language about using SLS/Orion for ISS missions in 2010, the most significant aspect of the bill, to me, is the extension of the learning period. I don’t think the language about mining is all that significant, legally. It simply makes explicit what’s always been customary law since the moon samples.
College Pays Off
“…on average. Your results may vary.”
What, exactly, are we getting for all the money we’re spending on college? “Helping students pay for college” sounds like a fine public policy goal. “Helping people to spend years of their lives taking on debt just to find out that they’re unlikely to get a high-paying job” … considerably less so.
Degree-blind loans are disastrous. They’d never happen if the colleges and banks had skin in the game. They survive only through well-meaning but mindless taxpayer largess.
Vizio Televisions
This is why they’re lower priced. The company makes revenue from selling your viewing habits.
Here’s the thing. I’ve got plenty of video input sources. I don’t want a “smart television.” I don’t even want to waste money on audio amp and speakers. I just want to pour all of my television money into a good-quality picture. But it’s very hard, if not impossible, to find just monitors in the large-screen class.
Space Property Rights
A story on the current state of play, at the WaPo.
StratoLaunch
…getting its wings clipped?
The program has never made any sense to me. And I weep when I think of the better ways Allen’s money could have been/could be spent.
PJMedia
Welcome to the new web site. It does seem to be a cleaner load.
ULA’s Shot Across McCain’s Bow
When they said they couldn’t bid GPS without RD-180s, they meant it.
Bill Nye
I’m completely unsurprised that he is clueless about the purpose of NASCAR. Does he really think that people would come to watch Prius’s toottling around the track?
Coddling The Snowflakes
An interesting interview with Jonathan Haidt on the victims and crybullies on campus. With a bonus Mars reference.
And “Microaggression, meet Ralph Waldo Emerson.” Yes, the modern progressives are the lineal ideological descendants of the Puritans. It’s the reason Massachusetts is so blue.
Also, the seductions of safety. [Via Glenn]
George Will weighs in: On campus, freedom from speech. And Ross Douthat says it’s a crisis our campuses deserve. Yes, they created this monster.
Ed Driscoll has more, related links.