But hey, let’s keep giving them billions of taxpayer dollars for a launch system that is behind schedule and that no one needs except Boeing and its pet Congresspeople.
This seems relevant: Our crisis of institutional incompetence. Fortunately, SpaceX doesn’t suffer from this. Yet.
[Update mid morning]
Thoughts on Boeing and the defense implications from Jared Isaacman.
Some additional context: the headlines of stranded astronauts are unfair and misleading, but not necessarily clickbait, as I think the public has a genuine interest in the situation. My comments on Starliner are based entirely on what is in the public domain and has been… https://t.co/KDPd7yjMJS
A review of Greg Autry’s and Peter Navarro’s new book on China. Greg gave me a copy last Saturday at an event in downtown LA, but I haven’t read it yet.
[Update a while later]
“The book serves as both a wake-up call and a reminder of the importance of space exploration.”
I hate that phrase. It’s the importance of space development. Exploration is just a means to that end.
A federal appeals court has ruled that a takings lawsuit against the CDC on the eviction moratorium during covid can move forward.
Unfortunately, if the landlords win, it will be the taxpayers on the hook for this, not the bureaucrats responsible, so it’s not clear how this will create the proper disincentives.
I think it’s been well over a century since the last one died in California, but in a sense it was the state animal of the Bear Flag Republic. Though possibly it referred to black bears, which remain plentiful there.
In this 3 min video, I break down the real reasons why America divorced Britain, and it wasn’t over taxes. I recommend American citizens and British subjects alike listen, because history often rhymes. pic.twitter.com/2T2i119EYR
We’re flying to Miami this morning, then taking the Bright Line to Orlando for a few days. Tomorrow is my brother’s birthday, and Thursday is graduation for my niece (his daughter) who is becoming a physician’s assistant. Friday we have a tour of SpaceX at the Cape. So blogging may be light.
As NASA is working to balance all of these risks—the risk to crew on board Starliner, the risk of an uncrewed departure to the ISS, the risk to astronauts on board the space station, and more — Boeing has been lobbying to bring Starliner home with crew. Although NASA and Boeing engineers have yet to identify a root cause for the failure of the thrusters, Boeing has been urging NASA to accept “flight rationale” as a substitute. That is, Boeing believes it has provided enough data to NASA to be confident the thrusters will not fail in a catastrophic manner.
Boeing seems willing to risk the lives of the astronauts to save the vehicle. I don’t personally think it’s worth saving. I wonder what Boeing’s new CEO thinks?