Jesse Helms is defending Trent Lott.

A missile interceptor test was a failure today. It followed several previously successful tests. This is a little misleading, however.

“We do not have an intercept,” said Air Force Lt. Col. Rick Lehner of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency.

He said it was “frustrating and disappointing” that a glitch that had little to do with advanced missile technology had doomed the eighth, $100 million, flight test of a key part of a planned U.S. layered defense against ballistic missiles.

The problem was a failure of the payload to separate from the booster. This is a surprisingly common problem with space launch, and the failure means nothing with regard to the viability of missile defense per se. In a real situation, there would almost certainly be redundancy (multiple interceptors would be fired at a single target), and the failure of one to separate wouldn’t affect the ability of the system to kill the oncoming missile.

It also highlights the continuing failure of not just NASA, but the Air Force and Pentagon, to adopt a new space-launch paradigm. One of the reasons that these tests are so expensive and unreliable is that they are performed with expendable launchers, which are intrinsically expensive and unreliable.

While it’s unlikely that reusable launch platforms would be used for actual missile defense (the response time on them would probably be too slow), and the unreliability of expendables would be acceptable for the actual mission, for reasons stated above, it would be nice to have a cheaper, more reliable launcher for testing. At least one company is working on reusable suborbital systems that could do this, but they’ve received very little government support or encouragement.

But until we have a more reliable way of getting the interceptor to the target, it will continue to be difficult to separate out the real technical issues of missile defense from the more mundane ones of the reliability of expendable rockets. And many, intrinsically opposed to defending ourselves against missiles, will continue to point to such incidents as failures intrinsic to the concept itself, with the help of a scientifically-illiterate media.

Pete Dupont is writing in the Wall Street Journal about new energy sources in general, and power from space in particular. (Thanks to Mark Whittington for the heads up.)

I haven’t blogged about this subject much, or perhaps even at all. That’s surprising, because I probably know more about it than almost anyone–I’m certainly in the top one hundred on the planet. I wrote a term paper in college about it back in the late seventies, I reviewed some of the DOE/NASA work when I worked at the Aerospace Corporation a couple decades ago, and I was the program manager for it at Rockwell about ten years ago, when the Clinton/Gore Administration came in, and we fantasized that we could sell it to Gore as a clean/green-energy solution. I also came up with some alternative architectures to the one that Dupont describes in the Journal piece (he’s describing the original DOE/NASA concept, which was almost certainly never practical or economically viable).

I don’t have time to post much on this right now, because I have to work on my Apollo 17 commemoration, but it’s probably worth expanding on, given that energy is such a critical foreign-policy issue right now (Kyoto and the Middle East). Maybe in a couple days.

Alan K. Henderson has a wrapup from the blogosphere.

[Update a couple minutes later]

I wonder if Lott is blackmailing other Senators and the Administration, by threatening to resign from the Senate entirely if forced to step down as leader? If he did so, the governor of Mississipi would appoint a Democrat to replace him, which would take the Republican majority back down to a…non-majority, with only Cheney’s vote to maintain Republican control.

Which would set up Mr. Chafee to follow Jeffords’ lead, and be the next turncoat. Though hopefully, he learned a lesson from Mr Jeffords’ experience…

Gray Davis says he won’t run for President in 2004.

In related news, it was also announced that Bozo the Clown, Osama bin Laden, Phil Donahue, Dennis Rodman, and the late Paul Wellstone, all of whom are viewed by savvy political insiders as having better prospects than Mr. Davis, won’t be running either.

My gums aren’t too sore, but I’m feeling generally lousy. I may be coming down with something.

Anyway, whatever minimal energy I have for typing and thinking has to be devoted to billable activities, what with Christmas coming up, and Tiny Tim and all…

Once again, over at Glenn’s site, someone confuses a court of law with the court of public opinion.

“Innocent until proven guilty” is an important principle in its place, which is in a venue in which someone is about to be deprived of life or liberty by the state. It is an absurd principle to apply to public opinion and opprobrium. OJ Simpson remains innocent in the eyes of the law (ignoring the civil suit). He remains obviously guilty to most thinking members of the public.

No one is “lynching” Mr. Lott. We are criticizing him, and some of us are asking him to step down as Majority Leader (not just for this gaffe, but because it was a final straw in a long and idiotic career built on many such). As Instapundit says, that’s not depriving him of his freedom of speech–it’s exercising ours.

I haven’t been blogging a lot lately for a lot of reasons (a combination of extreme busyness with billable activities, and slight burnout on things to say), but here’s today’s.

I’m still recovering feeling in my chin and nose from a major dose of lidocaine, and various items being inserted into and removed from my jaw. My gums are tender, full of sutures, and I suspect that I’ll be more swollen and painful tomorrow. I have reasonably good medication to deal with it (fortunately, my oral surgeon wasn’t put off by threats from drug warriors at the DEA into undermedicating me for pain).

End result, hopefully, in a few months–infection-free gums and teeth, and good replacements.

I saw the movie “Kate and Leopold” the other night. It’s entertaining, but I can’t imagine making a conscious and deliberate choice to go and live in a world of over a century ago, in which modern dentistry was unavailable…

OK, Lott has “apologized,” but he still hasn’t explained.

And note, as I pointed out in my previous post, that the Dems (at least the semi-intelligent ones, which doesn’t include Jesse Jackson) are not calling for his ouster.

One Democrat, Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, defended Lott on Monday, saying he had spoken with Lott and had accepted Lott’s explanation that he hadn’t meant for the remarks to be interpreted as they were.

“There are a lot of times when he and I go to the microphone and would like to say things we meant to say differently, and I’m sure this was one of those cases for him, as well,” Daschle said.

They live in fear of the day that the Senate Republicans elect a leader who isn’t a pushover, and an idiot.

[Update at 9 PM PST]

OK, I’ve been reading what the folks at Free Republic have been saying on this issue. Frankly, much of it is foolish.

There seems to be a visceral reaction among many Republicans and conservatives (many of whom populate that particular forum) of “my Senator, right or wrong.” Or “we can’t give the Dems the satisfaction of taking down a political leader.”

This is exactly the kind of emotional, brain-dead thinking (during impeachment) that destroyed the Democrats in 2000 and 2002. “He might be a corrupt bastard, but he’s our bastard, and we’re not going to let those uptight bible thumpers remove our President, no matter what he did.”

Had the Democrats stood up for principle in 1999, as the Republicans did in 1974, and asked their President to step down, it’s very likely that Albert Gore (shudder, and perish the thought) would be President today, having run as an incumbent in a campaign representing a morally-purged Democratic Party.

Instead, they stuck by their guy, in the face of overwhelming evidence of his corruption and guilt, because the stock market was up, and his polls were (temporarily) good. They did so not for tactical, or strategic reasons, but only because they followed the ancient principle of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” They defended him reflexively, idiotically, in a knee-jerk fashion, simply because he was being attacked by “right wingers,” and “bible thumpers,” and “Republicans.” Not because his behavior was defensible.

Now, because of their insouciance toward his venality, they’re out in the political wilderness.

The Republicans face the same danger, if they don’t take care of business. To defend Lott simply because he is being attacked by Democrats is foolish, and counterproductive.

Lott has been a liability for years. This is a golden opportunity for Republicans to both get rid of someone who has been undermining them by playing a hapless stooge to his Democrat counterparts in the Senate, but also to demonstrate that they aren’t the racist monsters (and apologists for same) that they’ve been painted by Democratic attack dogs and their allies in the press.

Where is the supposedly politically-astute Karl Rove?

Jim Bennett writes (regarding Turkey) that friends don’t let friends join the EU.

Given the upcoming turmoil and upheaval (badly needed) in the Middle East, it’s not too early to start thinking about desirable post-war scenarios. A useful one to think about, in terms of liberalizing both the governments and economies of the region, might be MEFTA–the Middle East Free Trade Association. We could help form it now, and invite others in as they become eligible, by dint of democratizing and rationalizing their economic policies. It might eventually be integrated into NAFTA, but just having such a stand-alone organization would be a vast improvement for the region. The charter members could be Israel, Turkey and perhaps Jordan.

Something like this would be a much better bet for the Turks, rather than harnessing themselves to European policies with the effect, if not the intent, of holding economies back. It would allow them to forge their own destiny, and help stabilize the dangerous region around them, rather than allying with a Europe that doesn’t really want them, while their borders remain bloody.

Once formed, a post-mullah Iran would also be a good candidate, and offering this as a carrot could hasten the day that such an entity appears. Afghanistan could be brought in as well, as a means of continuing to stabilize the latter, as well as Armenia and some of the other appropriate ex-Soviet ‘stans.

And obviously, we would want to restructure a post-Saddam Iraq, or whatever new nations emerge from the end of the Ba’athists, to perhaps be a key anchor for such an organization.

It would have another benefit. Ultimately, the only solution to the Palestinian problem is to create neighboring states in which they can go and prosper–states that will no longer encourage them in their hopes of destroying Israel, and instead welcome them in building new, freer societies. Creating democratic Arab states with growing economies can provide a demand “pull” to complement the inevitable Israeli push, as the Israelis come to realize that they simply cannot share a land with many of these people.

I wonder if anyone at Foggy Bottom is thinking along these lines?