The new calorie-labeling rules are counterproductive, both because people don’t pay much attention to them (appropriately), and because the whole notion of calorie counting as a means of weight control is nutritionally ignorant.
Category Archives: Business
Space Access Update
The latest is out, with thoughts on the recent commercial space setbacks, among other things, including the return of the Space Access Conference next spring.
A Crash In The Mojave
Thoughts from Bill Whittle. I’d note, though, that Siebold was actually unaware that Alsbury had unlocked the feathers. That information came from the cockpit camera, I think.
[Update a while later]
Commercial space setbacks, and why we need to move forward.
Someone should write a book about that.
Obama’s Immigration Speech
It was blatherskite:
As an act of rare semantic derring-do, this was a towering achievement. As a political speech, I don’t think it was very effective. It puts one in mind of the debate in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” which ends when one side manages to prove that black is white — and gets themselves killed at the next pedestrian crosswalk.
To be honest, it’s not clear to me that the president was trying to be persuasive. He seemed, rather, to be triple-dog-daring Republicans to jump off the bridge with him, and if history is any guide, they will probably oblige. But there’s a real risk that Democrats will come to regret having the president jump first.
Reportedly some of them already are. He may have created a wedge issue for his own party.
Gruber The Grifter
Why you don’t want to let “intellectuals” anywhere near power:
Unfortunately, contemporary Washington is calibrated to defer to experts who defer to politicians, providing an intellectual Praetorian Guard for the constant growth of a leviathan. As Denver University professor David Ciepley noted, “Starting in the First World War, and much more so during the New Deal and World War II, American social scientists became part of the autonomous state themselves, helping staff the mushrooming government agencies.” The closer that intellectuals get to politicians, the more weaselly they usually become.
Playing off Mr. Gruber’s derision of average Americans, one wag suggested a new acronym — L.I.E. — for Low Information Experts. Mr. Gruber and many other professors have gotten rich by pretending that government is far more competent than it actually is. Economist Robert Skidelsky, writing about the history of modern socialism, observed that “the collectivist belief system existed independently of the facts of modern life.” The same is true of the academic cadre who profit by vindicating endless government interventions that breed chaos and dependency.
I’d like to think that people will take a lesson from this (particularly with regard to climate models), but history doesn’t make me hopeful.
SLS Engines
They still have no idea what they’re going to do after thye run out of SSMEs.
As I noted on Twitter:
If a Martian looked at this program, it'd say, "Well, sure don't have anything to worry about from these lunatics.: http://t.co/JcChYaQSgG
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) November 21, 2014
[Afternoon update]
Contra Dan Dumbacher's crazytown Huffpo editorial, SLS is not a "highway" to the solar system. It's a dead-end railroad siding.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) November 21, 2014
Renewable Energy
Google engineers have given up on it:
At the start of RE
Anyone who understands basic math and physics knows that the notion it could replace fossil fuels was always insane.
Faith, Hope And Tragedy
Alan Boyle has an inside look at how VG employees are responding to the loss of Alsbury and the space ship. Note that the official schedule now is “ground testing” in the first half of next year. That’s a lot more realistic than past predictions, I think.
UK Spaceports
Here’s the final report from the CAA, for those who have time and interest. There seems to be quite a bit of enthusiasm. Of course, the Brits have been out of the space game, in terms of launch, for decades.
XCOR/ULA
An interesting milestone:
Mojave, CA, November 20, 2014 – XCOR Aerospace today announced it has completed the latest test series for the liquid hydrogen engine it is developing for United Launch Alliance (ULA). This is an important milestone in the long-running LH2 (liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen) program. It is also a step toward running the engine in a fully closed cycle mode.
In its most recent milestone, XCOR successfully performed hot fire testing of the XR-5H25 engine’s regeneratively cooled thrust chamber,with both liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen propellants supplied inpump-fed mode, using XCOR’s proprietary piston pump technology.
“This test marks the first time liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen have been supplied to a rocket engine with a piston pump,” says XCOR Chief Executive Officer Jeff Greason. “It is also the first time an American LH2 engine of this size has successfully fired liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen together in pump-fed mode. We are happy to be making solid progress on the engines. This will also bring us to a new phase in our plans for orbital flight.
“ULA has an ongoing effort to develop rocket engines for our next generation upper stage, and we are thrilled to see that progress continuing with XCOR,” added ULA Vice President George Sowers.
Upcoming test series will fully integrate the nozzle with the engine and piston pumps. Fully closed cycle testing will follow soon afterwards and will complete the sub-scale demonstration engine program.
The XR-5H25 engines are being developed under contract to ULA as potential successors to the Delta and Atlas series upper stage engines currently used. These engines will also help power orbital launches.
I suspect they’ll find it useful for their own launchers as well.