Actually, of them all I like Option 5 (no bill). An analysis of the health-care state of play by Keith Hennessey.
Category Archives: Business
Was The Bailout Successful?
A debate.
Just To Clarify
I just posted this in comments over at NASA Watch, in response to a foolish comment there:
Space X boosters need to become reliable cargo transports before they can be trusted with manned space craft. And with only a 2 out of 5 success rate, they have a long way to go!
I guess this is the new mantra of the simple-minded commercial space bashers — the implication that Falcon 1 is only 40% reliable because of its “2 out of 5 success rate.”
Here is the real story. The vehicle had a flight test program as part of its development. The purpose of flight test programs is to wring out design issues, and it shouldn’t be surprising to have some failures in that process.
The first flight barely got off the pad. They figured out what was wrong, and did a second flight. That one had some slosh dynamics issues. They figured out how to fix that and had a third flight. It had a separation problem because they hadn’t accounted for the longer thrust tail-off of the upgraded engine. They fixed that with a minor software change, and the two flights since were perfect.
In other words, they had some teething problems, but have solved them, and now have a reasonably (certainly more than 90%, and probably high nineties) reliable vehicle.
Remember this as you see these morons continue to say “2 out of 5.”
[Afternoon update]
Clark Lindsey has further thoughts.
Lynx Propulsion
XCOR is reporting significant progress on the engine for the Lynx:
“Like all of our rocket engines, this engine has demonstrated the ability to be stopped and re-started using our safe and reliable spark torch ignition system”, said XCOR CEO Jeff Greason. “The basic cooling design has also been completed and the engine is able to run continuously at thermal equilibrium. With those milestones reached, the 5K18 test program is now moving forward into a second phase of tuning and optimization, in which we will also greatly increase our cumulative run time.”
Here’s hoping for continued progress.
[Update a few minutes later]
Clark Lindsey has more, with videos.
Delusional
Dana Blankenhorn misinterprets history:
The problem here for Republicans is their own past success. President Clinton failed to get a health bill through in 1993 and Democrats were hammered the next year, especially their more conservative members. It took them over a decade to win back the majorities they had then.
This may make threats to wreck the careers of those voting “aye” less potent, with conservative Democrats figuring that if they can’t win they might as well stand for something.
The bottom line. If Democrats can’t agree on a proposal given their substantial majorities in both Houses of Congress, they face a generation’s exile in the political wilderness, no matter how many crazy pills some Republicans take.
Emphasis mine. If the last graf is true, then they’re damned either way, because if they ram through a bill that all the polls show is very unpopular, they’ll be hammered like they were in 1994 by angry voters. The key that Dems (and I think that the Blue Dogs) understand it is in the false causation implied in the highlighted statement. Yes, the Dems failed to pass health care in 1993 and yes, they got hammered in 1994. But one didn’t cause the other. What happened in 1994 was due to several things — “don’t ask, don’t tell” as one of the first things out of the box, the mishandling of health care, with Hillary (the most brilliant woman in the world) sent off to draft a big-government bill behind closed doors, passing the “assault weapons” ban, a failure to pass the promised “middle-class tax cuts.” Failing to pass the health-care monstrosity wasn’t the cause of them losing the Congress — it was the very attempt to pass it. Actually passing this bill will be disastrous.
Oh, and the fact that “conservative Democrats” lost seats disproportionately simply means that they were in marginal, unsafe districts. It certainly wasn’t because they failed to vote for a big-government bill. The Dems don’t have any good choices at this point, but passing a Dem-only bill will be Armageddon at the polls for them next year.
A New Space Race
Will Boeing or Lockmart do anything to address the growing gravity-tractor gap? Let’s get some competition going here.
Good News, Bad News
The good news is that the editorial board at the WaPo seems to recognize the potential for commercial space in addressing NASA’s needs, much more so than NASA has to date. The bad news is that they remain incoherent on the purpose of sending people into space. They also (like FL Today) seem to think that the problem is simply not enough money:
If the committee’s public comments are any indication, its findings will be grim: NASA’s recent budget cuts render the current manned mission plan impossible. This is not the first time NASA’s plans have suffered from lack of fiscal foresight: Once the international space station is completed next year, the current budget calls for deorbiting it by 2016. Maybe it’s time to take a step back to assess the right role for a manned space program that requires billions of dollars annually — and for what? Certainly, boldly going where no man has gone before is an American creed. But with the advent of increasingly complex and precise instruments, science in space requires less and less input from astronauts. Groundbreaking research can occur without humans — witness the Mars Rover and Hubble telescope. NASA should not have to sacrifice programs that are truly ground-breaking — researching dark matter, black holes and gravitational fields of space objects — to keep the international space station manned and supplied.
So they have a recommendation:
Now that the station is nearly complete, this might be an optimal time to open space to entrepreneurs. Many companies claim they possess the capacity to transport humans and payloads into space; the review committee found their reports convincing enough to suggest that these space entrepreneurs could take over the transport of astronauts and supplies to the space station after the shuttle program ends.
The problem is that they seem to have no vision for space beyond LEO, or a commercial role in it. Partly because they fall into the standard mental trap of thinking the primary purpose of human spaceflight is science. So we still have a lot of persuasion to do. But hey, even if it’s for the wrong reasons, if they have some good advice, why complain? After all, when government occasionally makes a good decision, it’s often for the wrong reasons. You take what you can get.
[Update mid afternoon]
The Commercial Spaceflight Federation piles on. Is Congress listening?
Paths To Space Settlement
Al Globush has a paper on the subject. I’m a lot less sanguine about the prospects for space solar power than he is, but I think that personal space travel is a good enough market in itself.
Another Anniversary
And a happier one that this one. I’m reliably informed that XCOR Aerospace is ten years old today. Has it really been that long? I guess so — Rotary Rocket collapsed in the spring/summer of 1999, and XCOR (among others) arose from the ashes.
More On Rationing Confusion
(Dr.) Paul Hsieh: The free market is not another form of rationing:
Supporters of the free market should not allow opponents to characterize the marketplace as a form of rationing, let alone an unjust one. Instead, supporters should defend the free market as morally just because it respects individual rights.
Respect for individual rights is in pretty short supply in Washington these days.