The growth in production of hybrid cars is resulting in shortages of rare earths. Well, I know where we can find some, but it’s not on earth.
Category Archives: Business
Goody
Health-care reform means even more power for the IRS.
A Useful Reminder
Clark Lindsey draws some parallels between early aviation and spaceflight.
The Hoyer Town Hall
Mark Hemingway has a report:
To his credit, Hoyer finally took questions via random lottery for almost the next two hours. What is not to his credit is how he answered those questions. I could pick apart the political objections to his claims some more, but Hoyer seemed bound and determined to sink himself by simply being tone-deaf.
When one woman on Social Security disability, and obviously sympathetic to the Democrats’ proposed reforms, explained that she had to drop her $400-a-month health insurance, Steny Hoyer (D-Math) explained that the current plan would help her because it would cap out-of-pocket expenses at $5,000 a year. Another sympathetic questioner wondered why he didn’t have a bipartisan Life Experience Panel, before asking a fawning question.
If his handling of positive questions was less than deft, his reponse to opponents was flaming-dirigible bad. After he repeatedly assured everyone that this bill was fiscally responsible, another questioner asked somewhat incredulously how this bill would save money. Hoyer responded, “I didn’t say the bill would pay for itself, I said it would be paid for.” The angry crowd didn’t like that bit of sophistry one bit. And when another questioner asked how he could assure the bill’s fiscal responsibility when Social Security and Medicare were bankrupt, Hoyer responded by saying, “Indeed, I don’t know if they are going bankrupt . . .” and had to wait to continue because of the riotous laughter that ensued.
Are they stupid, or do they think we are? Or both?
Occasional Transterrestrial commenter Chuck Divine also attended and blogged about it.
Space “Democratization”
Ferris Valyn has some thoughts on that WaPo editorial on commercializing LEO transportation.
It’s kind of amusing to see him arguing with some of the lefty anti-capitalist loons who populate Kos. This was a little less amusing:
Competitive markets (and I stress the word competitive) can be very good at lowering price points. Sometimes they can get too low, and we end up with things like Wal-mart, but this is an situation that desperately needs its price points lowered.
I doubt if the millions of lower-income people whose lives have been improved by Walmart think that their prices are “too low.”
Global Warming
…and the sun:
I applaud Meehl’s reluctance to go beyond where the science takes him. For all I know, he’s right. But such humility and skepticism seem to manifest themselves only when the data point to something other than the mainstream narrative about global warming. For instance, when we have terribly hot weather, or bad hurricanes, the media see portentous proof of climate change. When we don’t, it’s a moment to teach the masses how weather and climate are very different things.
No, I’m not denying that man-made pollution and other activity have played a role in planetary warming since the Industrial Revolution.
But we live in a moment when we are told, nay lectured and harangued, that if we use the wrong toilet paper or eat the wrong cereal, we are frying the planet. But the sun? Well, that’s a distraction. Don’t you dare forget your reusable shopping bags, but pay no attention to that burning ball of gas in the sky — it’s just the only thing that prevents the planet from being a lifeless ball of ice engulfed in darkness. Never mind that sunspot activity doubled during the 20th century, when the bulk of global warming has taken place.
What does it say that the modeling that guaranteed disastrous increases in global temperatures never predicted the halt in planetary warming since the late 1990s? (MIT’s Richard Lindzen says that “there has been no warming since 1997 and no statistically significant warming since 1995.”) What does it say that the modelers have only just now discovered how sunspots make the Earth warmer?
It says that there is some other agenda going on.
Five Bad Options
Actually, of them all I like Option 5 (no bill). An analysis of the health-care state of play by Keith Hennessey.
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.