My commentary on that stupid misfire at The American Spectator last week.
[Tuesday-morning update]
I have more thoughts over at Ricochet.
[Bumped]
Category Archives: Business
Whiny Harvard Professors
It’s a brave new world.
[Update a few minutes later]
We need transparency in health care (and government in general), just as we do with fast food.
How Deep Can A Space Patent Suit Go?
On the eve of SpaceX’s first barge landing attempt, some thoughts from an IP attorney on the status of Blue Origin’s fly-back patent.
A New Amazon Review
Robert Graboyes, of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, notes the similarities between spaceflight and health care.
Progressivism
Will this year be the year that history finally turns against totalitarianism?
I hope so, but fear it won’t.
The Detroit Lions
It almost looks like the fix was in.
[Monday-morning update]
Here’s a detailed analysis from ESPN. It’s really hard to see how anyone could consider being knocked down “minimal contact.”
Your Router
How to supercharge it.
I might try this, on both the router and the extender.
Gridlock
Why aren’t we thanking it for the economic recovery?
Because it doesn’t fit the narrative. But as Jefferson said, it’s a good demonstration that that government that governs least, governs best. If only we could roll back a lot of this crap.
It’s worth noting that things started to go to hell after the Democrats took over Congress in 2006, and didn’t really start to recover until the Republicans took the House back in 2010.
A Gravity Lab
A concept for doing it on the cheap.
One problem I see in the near term is that NASA plans to use Dragons as lifeboats, so I’m not sure when one would become available on orbit.
[Update a while later]
Actually, I think that a cargo Dragon meets the requirements for this much better than a crew Dragon. It’s an on-orbit mission only, so there’s no need for couches, which just take up room. It can’t be used for a lifeboat, because it has no docking adaptor (at least currently), so NASA wouldn’t miss it. Even a Dragon V2 would need an ECLSS upgrade, so might as well just put it in the cargo version. It would have a lot less value to NASA than a V2, so it would be easier to get it from them. All they’d be giving up is the cargo return (which they could even get when the mission was over, months later, if they wanted).
That Stupid Slate Article About Space Billionaires
I don’t know if I mentioned this foolish piece by Charles Seife last week (what would we do without “journalism” professors?). At the time, I merely tweeted that I didn’t understand why I was supposed to care whether or not Virgin Galactic and SpaceX were about “exploration.”
Jeff Foust commented that Slate editors must have taken the week off (which I think gives them too much credit during the non-holidays). Anyway he has taken it apart.
It’s difficult to imagine a student of Professor Seife’s turning in a class assignment with such factual errors and getting a passing grade.
Zing.
And speaking of “space exploration,” I’ve decided that this is the year I make all-out war on the phrase. It has held us back for decades in thinking about space in a sensible way.