Still “no one theory consistent with the data.”
[Update a while later]
Here are more details from Stephen Clark.
Category Archives: Business
The Decadence Of The Leftist Mind
What is happening in Greece was completely predictable, and predicted. What will happen to us is likewise if we remain on the current path.
Why SpaceX Will Be Flying Again Quickly
Some thoughts from Iain Thomson:
SpaceX doesn’t have those issues; it’s a single company that conceived, designed, built, and flies the Falcon rockets. Finding fault is going to be a lot easier under such circumstances because there’s a single data set and everyone knows everyone else.
The company is packed with highly motivated individuals and has a very flat management structure. Mistakes made are owned up to, and when the issue that caused the loss of the Falcon is identified, you can bet it will be dealt with quickly.
The current SpaceX resupply missions are on hold while this process is worked through. But you’re not going to see the kind of dithering that left the Space Shuttles grounded for 32 long months. If I were a betting man I’d guess the next Falcon will fly in 32 weeks, and maybe sooner.
Very likely sooner, I think. In fact, I think they’ll either figure it out quickly, or not at all. If they can’t figure it out at all, they have a huge dilemma, as I told Leonard David yesterday (he’s working on a piece with quotes from me and others).
[Update a while later]
Some thoughts (and links) from Bob Zimmerman on the media negativity about space.
SpaceX
Thoughts from Rick Tumlinson on the venality of Congress.
Chelsea Clinton Too Expensive?
For those who like to get the most for their money, here’s an itemized menu of what you can get if you hire me instead:
• Bargain basement price of $200 per minute (limit of three-hour event)
• $10 per person for a handshake (light grip but not limp)
• $15 per person for a photo with me*
• $20 per person for a handshake and a photo
• $25 per person for a photo in which I appear enthusiastic
• $30 per person for a hug**
• $5 per person for a minute of light conversation
• $10 per person for a minute of light, enthusiastic conversation
• $15 and speaker will call your mom on your cell phone
• $25 per person for a lengthy, deep conversation with your mom in which I tell her we’re best friends***
Seems like a much better deal to me. I like the a la carte plan, particularly the hug.
But as Ed Driscoll notes, that doesn’t allow them to contribute to the Clintons’ personal slush fund.
Legal Polygamy
Not that I care that much, but it’s probably inevitable now. But as noted there, Richard Epstein makes a great point:
In particular, Kennedy never explains why his notions of dignity and autonomy do not require the Supreme Court to revisit its 1878 decision in Reynolds upholding criminal punishment for polygamy, which is still on the books. Nor does he ask whether the dignity of workers could, and should, be used as a reason to strike down the full range of labor regulations on both wages and hours that make it flatly illegal for two individuals to enter into a simple employment contract on mutually agreeable terms.
That would require them to rule consistently, rather than just making it up as they go along based on stuff they like.
Telomere Extension
…turns back aging clock in cultured cells:
“This new approach paves the way toward preventing or treating diseases of aging,” said Blau. “There are also highly debilitating genetic diseases associated with telomere shortening that could benefit from such a potential treatment.”
Blau and her colleagues became interested in telomeres when previous work in her lab showed that the muscle stem cells of boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy had telomeres that were much shorter than those of boys without the disease. This finding not only has implications for understanding how the cells function — or don’t function — in making new muscle, but it also helps explain the limited ability to grow affected cells in the laboratory for study.
The researchers are now testing their new technique in other types of cells.
“This study is a first step toward the development of telomere extension to improve cell therapies and to possibly treat disorders of accelerated aging in humans,” said John Cooke, MD, PhD. Cooke, a co-author of the study, formerly was a professor of cardiovascular medicine at Stanford. He is now chair of cardiovascular sciences at the Houston Methodist Research Institute.
“We’re working to understand more about the differences among cell types, and how we can overcome those differences to allow this approach to be more universally useful,” said Blau, who also is a member of the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine.
“One day it may be possible to target muscle stem cells in a patient with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, for example, to extend their telomeres. There are also implications for treating conditions of aging, such as diabetes and heart disease. This has really opened the doors to consider all types of potential uses of this therapy.”
I wonder if there’s some political reason they won’t use the R word? Anyway, faster, please.
PoliticianCare
“A bunch of politicos got in on the ground floor of Obamacare’s $2 billion co-ops in 2011. Today, they are filthy rich cauz nobody’s been watching. Except Richard Pollock of the Daily Caller News Foundation. Tomorrow’s second part will make you even madder. I know, I’m his editor!”
It’s crony socialism all the way down.
NASA’s Upper-Stage Problem
The absurdity of this program knows no bounds. I feel terrible for the NASA and industry managers who have to go through the kabuki of pretending any of this makes any sense.
My Initial Project Status
For those not backers, but interested in what’s happening, I did a project update this morning:
I’m starting to spool up on the project (I expect to actually be funded this week — there’s a two-week delay after the close). Leonard David has a report today that the “Affordable Mars Strategy” report has been published and is available for free download [note: I haven’t actually been able to find the download — all I could find at Leonard’s link was Scott Hubbard’s op-ed — but I think I have the report]. I’ve also been in communication with the authors (specifically, John Baker and Nathan Strange at JPL), and received a lot of material from them last week (some of which may be redundant with the report). I’m planning a trip to Denver next week to (among other things) talk to folks at ULA about integrated vehicle fluids and propellant depots.
The JPL work will provide a foundation for my own analysis, and I’ll probably be discussing it with them. While I think they have a good solution for what they perceive to be their problem, I have fundamentally different top-level requirements.
I would characterize their approach as “Apollo to Mars”: A destination, a date, civil-servant boots on the ground, with a giant government-owned-and-operated rocket, except (unlike Apollo) it is budget constrained. I don’t think that will be any more economically and politically sustainable than Apollo was. I also think, bluntly, as a taxpayer and space enthusiast, that it would not be worth the money.
My approach is to get NASA completely out of the earth-to-orbit business, and to take the savings to develop the technology needed to build a scalable in-space reusable, resilient, affordable transportation architecture, that will enable not simply NASA, but anyone else who wants to, to go to the Red Planet.
And not just to Mars.