Category Archives: Popular Culture

Business, Economics, Popular Culture, Space, Technology and Society

Hyperloops And Tunnels

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So we went over to the pod competition yesterday. I may have some pics later, but some quick observations:

I saw a lot of innovation; as Elon said, of the 27 teams, no two concepts were alike. I was amused that almost everyone had an aeroshell, for a vehicle that’s supposed to operate in vacuum. As I noted to Gwynne (who I just happened to run into for a minute, meeting her husband for the first time), the primary functional purpose of the aeroshells seemed to be to provide real estate for sponsors’ names, like race cars. (I also saw and finally got to meet Sandy Mazza from The Daily Breeze, who has been having fun covering Elon’s antics).

The winners of the race were supposed to be announced at 4:30, but at that point, only the German team had actually run (we heard their pod rattle by behind us as we were eating a hot dog by the tube). Apparently, it took a long time between runs, because they had to evacuate the tunnel after the pod was placed in it, then repressurize to get it out the other end. To pump it down took half an hour. My question (which I didn’t get a chance to ask anyone): Why not have an airlock at each end? Evacuate the tunnel, put the pod in the airlock, evacuate the airlock (which could happen much more quickly, then open the door to the tunnel. Reverse the process at the other end. Seems like it would save a lot of both time and energy.

Finally, as we were walking to the event (we parked at Lowe’s, across the street from SpaceX), we saw a lot of activity in the adjacent SpaceX parking lot. Elon had (as he’s warned on Friday) apparently started digging a hole for his tunnel. As he said in his remarks at the event, they were just getting going, and were going to start trying ideas on better tunneling tech (he thinks it can be improved five or ten fold, in terms of time and cost), but that they didn’t yet “know what they were doing, (which reminds me of an old quote from von Braun, possibly apocryphal, “Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing). Anyway, interesting times in Hawthorne.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Trump And The Media

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…deserve each other:

And this has the effect of inoculating Trump against real scandals — and those are inevitable — down the line. So much so that I almost wonder if this wasn’t actually a Trump Organization “false flag” designed to discredit press attacks.

All I know is that I’ve done nothing to deserve either of them.

[Mid-afternoon update]

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Science And Society, Space, Technology and Society

Geoengineering, Space Tech, And Societal Risk

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Some interesting thoughts from Oliver Morton (who I unfortunately missed having lunch with in London last week, maybe next time):

AI worries people more, but geoengineering seems pretty well placed in second place. (Incidentally, what’s up with space as the top societal risk enhancer? If AI takes the laurels in terms of economy, geopolitics and tech, how come space outdoes it in the exacerbation of societal risks? A mystery for another time…)

Indeed. I have some ideas, and that some it arises from ignorance and too much bad SF in television and movies, but I’ll let the commenters have at it.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Moon Or Mars?

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The latest on the issue.

It’s a pointless discussion, because it presumes it’s going to be a government program: Apollo back tot the moon again, or Apollo to Mars. We need to be developing capabilities to go wherever we want, affordably. Then let the people paying for it decide.

Related: Howard Bloom says that NASA needs to get out of the rocket business, and start working on an actual superhighway in space. I’m not sure I want Marshall in charge of that, though. To put it mildly.

Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Science And Society, Space, Space Science, Technology and Society

A Useful Experiment

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I’ve been watching this Kickstarter project. I was talking to Jon Morse a couple weeks ago, and he didn’t expect it to succeed. He was right; it only raised a third of the million dollars it sought. But it’s a useful market test for private space exploration. Maybe if they shoot for half that. I do think we’re entering a new era of what I call “normal science,” before the Manhattan Project, the Cold War, and Apollo screwed everything up, and things like the big telescopes (the first high-tech astronomy programs) were funded philanthropically.