Rogozin is cutting off sales of RD-180s, and threatening to end ISS participation in 2020.
The former is much more concerning than the latter. 2020 is a long way off, and we have time to resolve that one way or the other. But Atlas V is out of business in a couple years if they don’t come up with a solution. Which is bad news for Boeing and Sierra Nevada in terms of commercial crew.
Looks like the little critter’s hibernation is coming to an end on Wednesday. At least that’s what I’m inferring, based on the fact that I just got a request for a Facebook like from Phil Eaton. Here’s the event announcement.
OK, there seems to be a Twitter panic going on, so I went and read Alan Boyle’s story about it. That was the first time I heard that (even if the models are valid) the problem is two hundred years off.
Isn’t there anyone out there who understands discount rates?
[Update a while later]
Here’s more detail from John Timmer:
Even in the short term, the new findings should increase our estimates for sea level rise by the end of the century, the scientists suggest. But the ongoing process of retreat and destabilization will mean that the area will contribute to rising oceans for centuries.
Sorry, but I’m not going to worry about “rising oceans for centuries” today. Even the end of the century is effectively discounted to zero. It’s economically insane to reduce economic growth now to prevent something that won’t happen for decades.
[Late afternoon update]
As I noted on Twitter earlier:
Not sure that the warm-mongers realize that the ice-sheet story completely obliterates their argument for CO2 reduction. #Inevitable
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) May 12, 2014
If the sea rise is really inevitable, then it makes no sense to mitigate carbon to prevent it, when we'll need the future wealth to deal.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) May 12, 2014
The top ones that prevent us from being rational.
“We have no solution.”
I’d go further, and say it’s not even clear that we have a problem that requires one.
Will they team up?
It belongs in the courts. It does seem like a quaint idea:
The lefty stuff always leads to the same place. But you’re crazy to go to these schools if you’re a man. And women don’t want to go to schools that men avoid. So I predict either an eventual equilibrium, or a collapse.
His predictions have been playing out pretty well, so far.
No, not of people this time, of businesses:
More businesses are failing now than are being created, a first for the American economy since the Carter era, according to a new study by the Brookings Institution. That has become even more true during the Obama “recovery” than during the Great Recession.
Also:
Another nugget in that Brookings paper: “older and larger businesses are doing better relative to younger and smaller ones”
The younger and smaller ones don’t have the financial resources to buy (or, actually) rent the grifters and grafters in DC.
[Update a couple minutes later]
This is probably related; how bad is the job market for 2014 grads? This bad:
Today’s crop of new B.A.s are staring at roughly 8.5 percent unemployment, 16.8 percent underemployment. Close to half of those who land work won’t immediately find a job that requires their degree, and for those stuck in that situation, there are fewer “good” jobs to go around. Welcome to adulthood, class of 2014.
A lot of them wasted borrowed money on their degrees, loans that are currently not dischargeable in bankruptcy. So they have that going for them, too.
Another with five stars, from Homer Hickam.
Thanks, Homer!
Yet another space property rights piece, at The New Republic. My take is here and here.
Nice to see that the latter is what you get if you’re feeling lucky on Google with “space property rights.”