Welcome to Transterrestrial Musings. For those who've never been here before, it's not all space stuff, as you'll see if you scroll down a ways. Anyway, pull up a chair, relax, have an adult beverage, and come back often.
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Boy, you really have to think that the Dems would like to have a do-over. They will be wondering for years how they managed to screw up this election so royally. The answer is their identity politics, and arrogance. But that's not the lesson they'll take. Which is fine with me.
[Update a couple minutes later]
A good point over at The Corner. This won't just help with women--it will help with men. Who would you rather look at for four years: Joe Biden, or Sarah Palin?
[Update a while later]
Not that they've been high, but watch Bob Barr's poll numbers drop. McCain just brought a lot of libertarian Republican home, judging from what I read at Free Republic. Hell, I might even vote for him now.
[Update a little later]
A prediction. Sarah Palin, not Hillary Clinton, will be the first woman president. And the first black president will be a Republican as well (of course, I've always thought that the first black and women presidents would be Republicans).
Traditionally, the veep has had responsibility for space policy, as something to do besides waiting for the president to die and break ties in the Senate.
When it comes to space, she's got no track record at all, but an Alaskan would bring an interesting perspective to free enterprise and entrepreneurship.
We'll see if Governor Palin can close the deal with the PUMAs (assuming that the rumor is true--she's reportedly still in Alaska, with no way to get to Dayton by 11 AM--could be another head fake).
People will say that she's not ready to be CinC. Well, she's only running for Vice CinC. And she's at least as ready (with actual executive experience) as the Democrats' nominee.
[Update a while later]
It's looking more certain now, but we won't know for sure for another half hour or so. I wonder if she'll take Senator McCain on a tour of ANWR?
Bob Beckel looked very depressed on Fox and Friends this morning. He knows how badly the Donkeys screwed up a free lunch this year, even if many others are in denial.
I'm watching the Tavis Smiley show on KCET before I go to bed on the west coast. He has Julianne Malveaux and Cornell West on, whining that "brother" (and they used that word many times) Obama's speech was too white.
I'd have to go with Reagan (as long as it was the pre-Alzheimers version). Not that there's much to choose from. Second place would probably be Ike.
But it's hard to take presidents out of their historical milieu and have a good idea how they'd respond. For instance, what if we'd had a Reagan with a Newt-led Republican Congress? We'll never know.
[Later afternoon update]
I just went and actually took the poll. Reagan first, Ike a distant second, with everyone else in the noise. I always get suspicious when large numbers of people agree with me. It's so rare...
Wayne Hale explains why we should shut down the Shuttle.
Everything he says is true--much of the infrastructure and support contractors for the system are already gone. That's why it will be very expensive to resurrect them to the degree necessary to fly past 2010. That doesn't mean it's impossible, but as I wrote in my PJM piece, we have to decide how much ISS is worth to us. And if we want to keep the option open, and as least costly as possible, we need to stop terminating those suppliers and destroying tooling immediately. It's probably a prudent thing to do, until the next president can make a decision.
If the demonstrations in Oshkosh and Burns Flat were meant as a fly-off, the Armadillo team - led by millionaire video-game programmer John Carmack - came away as the winner.
"The Armadillo engine is going to be the primary engine for the Rocket Racing League," Whitelaw told me. He said five more planes will be built using Armadillo's propulsion system, which is a spin-off from Carmack's years-long quest to win the $2 million, NASA-backed Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge.
It sounds like the Armadillo engine has more thrust, though it's not clear how the T/W compares.
I wonder to what degree XCOR was constrained by a potential desire to maintain some legacy toward the Lynx engine? If they were building an engine purely for the RRL, would it have been a different design and fuel type?
Presumably, the business plan with which they raised their recent institutional investment considered this as a contingency. I'm sure they would have liked continuing business from RRL, though Whitelaw doesn't seem to rule it out for the future.
They really are setting up a replica of a Greek temple from which The One will give his speech tomorrow. I've heard the excuse that they're just trying to make it like the White House (as though that's a good excuse...one more time--you're not president yet). But even if true, it doesn't fly. Yes, the White House is of Palladian style, but it's neoclassical, and only the porticos have columns. It looks more like the Parthenon (at least as far as one can tell from the grainy camera photo).
And you know who lives in Greek temples?
Gods.
It will be amusing to see what the McCain campaign does with this one.
It just occurs to me that even if we continue to fly the Shuttle through "the gap" that doesn't really solve the problem of actually utilizing the station. We are currently planning on relying on dual Soyuzs (what's the plural of "Soyuz"?) for "lifeboat" capability to allow a six-person crew after completion. If the US is not purchasing Soyuz, we wouldn't be able to leave Americans on board permanently, unless we wanted to risk losing them in emergency. It seems unlikely that this would actually play out politically, but if there were only one Soyuz there while the Shuttle wasn't, it would be a Titanic situation, with only enough escape craft for half the crew. Would the Russians just say, "dos vedanya..."? The OSP was supposed to serve in that function, but it was cancelled when the VSE came along.
What a policy Charlie Foxtrot.
I'll bet that you could find volunteers in the astronaut office, though.
"He's a whiner who didn't get his way and went to the IG"
Not a terribly polite way to put things, but I suppose it is somewhat accurate. Of course "my way" which I was always advocating was a call to do a technical evaluation to determine what we really needed to do. You know, things like writing requirements, then making selections based on those requirements. Some people would call that good engineering. Some would call it federal law. It never happened. Had it happened then I wouldn't have had any arguments to make and would have been shut down a long time ago. Had it happened and there were real reasons for MSFC and Constellation making the decisions they did, then I could have supported them even if I was less then thrilled. You go to the IG to report waste, fraud and abuse. I was duty bound to report what I saw as both a taxpayer and a government employee. If there wasn't any meat to what I was saying, then the IG would have sent me away. They didn't. Those who want to do the search may also want to look up a letter from Senator Grassley to NASA. It was a very powerful letter and appears to have been soundly ignored. It takes a lot of chutzpah to blow off the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, but NASA got away with it.
Those who argue with me will trot out an "evaluation" that was done in 2002, except that that evaluation was based on a CM tool ONLY (not CAD management), and it was fatally flawed in how it was performed. And yes, all you're getting here is an opinion, and again my information has been documented and given to the appropriate authorities.
Was I asked to "stop working against management"? I guess that's one way to put it, if I was willing to ignore reality, give up on the vision of what NASA needs to succeed, and toe the party line.
It was wrenching deciding 3 years ago that my job wasn't worth the mess that I was seeing. I had basically decided that a NASA that could make a decision so badly (which is not quite the same thing as a bad decision, though in this case I believe it is the same), and not be able to correct itself was not a good place to work. So I committed to supporting good engineering practice and federal law, knowing that I might be forced out. 3 years later, I have given up, which was again wrenching for me. The politics are too overwhelming, and it is indeed not a good place for me to work.
Go read the whole thing.
All of the comments have to be very disquieting to fans of business as usual at NASA. It's not about CAD. It's about whether this is an institution that, despite the many talented people working for it, is capable of getting us into space in any serious way.
As I noted in my recent PJM piece, if we are going to continue to fly the Shuttle, decisions must be made almost immediately to keep key infrastructure in place, that is due to be dismantled. Several legislators, including the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, have sent a letter to the White House urging just such an action. It will be interesting to see the administration response.
He said: "Suppose you're a voter, and you've got candidate X and candidate Y. Candidate X agrees with you on everything, but you don't think that candidate can deliver on anything at all. Candidate Y you agree with on about half the issues, but he can deliver. Which candidate are you going to vote for?"
Then, perhaps mindful of how his off-the-cuff remarks might be taken, Clinton added after a pause: "This has nothing to do with what's going on now."
No, of course not. Just an irrelevant hypothetical.
Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Aug. 23-25, the first three-day period falling entirely after Obama's Saturday morning vice presidential announcement, shows 46% of national registered voters backing John McCain and 44% supporting Obama, not appreciably different from the previous week's standing for both candidates. This is the first time since Obama clinched the nomination in early June, though, that McCain has held any kind of advantage over Obama in Gallup Poll Daily tracking.
The real bad news for the Big O is that this isn't even "likely" voters. It's only registered voters, which generally overstate support for the Democrats (because Republicans tend to be more likely to vote than Democrat leaners). If it's tied among registered, t will be interesting to see what the likely voter numbers are.
Gustav is looking like it's going to be bad news for the upper Gulf Coast:
As long as Gustav is over water, it will intensify. Gustav is currently under moderate wind shear (15 knots) . This shear is expected to remain in the low to moderate range (0-15 knots) for the remainder of the week. Gustav is over the highest heat content waters in the Atlantic. Given these two factors, intensification is likely whenever the storm is over water, at least 50 miles from land. Expect the high mountains of Hispaniola to take a toll on Gustav. Recall in 2006 that Hurricane Ernesto hit the southwest tip of Haiti as a Category 1 hurricane with 75 mph winds. Haiti's mountains knocked Ernesto down to a tropical storm with 50 mph winds, which decreased further to 40 mph when the storm crossed over into Cuba. Expect at least a 25 mph decrease in Gustav's winds by Wednesday, after it encounters Haiti. Further weakening is likely if the storm passes close to or over Cuba. By Wednesday, Gustav will be underneath an upper-level anticyclone. These upper atmosphere high pressure systems can greatly intensify a tropical storm, since the clockwise flow of air at the top of the storm acts to efficiently vent away air pulled aloft by the storm's heavy thunderstorms. With high oceanic heat content also present in the waters off western Cuba, the potential for rapid intensification exists should the center stay more than 50 miles from the Cuban coast. Once in the Gulf of Mexico, Gustav is likely to intensify into a major Category 3 or higher storm. I give a 60% chance that Gustav will cause significant disruption to the oil and gas industry in the Gulf.
This will roil the energy markets (it may be doing so already). It may also be a test, and an opportunity, for Governor Jindal to show that the people of Louisiana were wise to replace his predecessor with him after her Katrina fiasco, which was largely overlooked by the media in their lust to bash George Bush.
There's little new in this piece at the Economist to people who have been following the issue. Well, there is one thing: some signs that the people who have been destroying the industry with this foolish policy may be starting to pay attention.
At the Tuesday-morning meeting with committee staffers, Biden launches into a stream-of-consciousness monologue about what his committee should be doing, before he finally admits the obvious: "I'm groping here." Then he hits on an idea: America needs to show the Arab world that we're not bent on its destruction. "Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran," Biden declares. He surveys the table with raised eyebrows, a How do ya like that? look on his face.
The staffers sit in silence. Finally somebody ventures a response: "I think they'd send it back." Then another aide speaks up delicately: "The thing I would worry about is that it would almost look like a publicity stunt." Still another reminds Biden that an Iranian delegation is in Moscow that very day to discuss a $300 million arms deal with Vladimir Putin that the United States has strongly condemned. But Joe Biden is barely listening anymore. He's already moved on to something else.
Didn't anyone point out to him that Iran is not part of the "Arab world"?
And we want to put this guy a heartbeat away from the presidency?
...and a depressing one, of the Vision for Space Exploration. There's a piece missing in the chronology, though. "Safe, Simple, Soon" was not part of the original vision. That was a sales slogan that ATK came up with to promote their particular means of implementing it. As noted, though, it seems to be failing on all three counts.
Note the comment that PDR has slipped into next year.
"...and what is the nature of it? An interesting post over at NASA Watch, but the comments are even more interesting. I have some thoughts, and they're related to my earlier thoughts on systems engineering, but I'm curious to see what commenters here think.
The good news (at least for Floridians, who are still recovering from Fay): it now looks like it's going to stay south of Cuba, and unlikely to hit the peninsula (at least soon).
The bad news (particularly for Jamaica and points west): it's going to stay south of Cuba, and given the upper level winds (i.e., not much shear) it's likely to become the season's first major hurricane in a very few days. Look out, Yucatan and/or the Gulf...
A handful of Clinton supporters also dogged MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews, calling him a "sexist pig" and booing him as he walked onto the network's set.
Was his leg tingling?
A group of about ten protestors joined the fray, holding up signs saying, "Clintons 4 McCain."
One woman holding a sign said, "We've been big Hillary Clinton supporters, we've been told to get over it... We want our party back."
Jeff Foust reports on last week's anniversary get together.
When we finally start flying affordable space transports, future historians will look back in amazement that policy could have been so screwed up for so many decades, and so stubbornly unamenable to being fixed.
I have to say that I particularly enjoyed the comment by "Dick Stroker." I'm sure he's just a naif.
Speaking of LA, I'm flying out there tomorrow for almost two weeks. Blogging may be lightened somewhat--I'm supposed to be working. Or so the folks who are paying me tell me.
[Monday afternoon update]
Arrived safely, with luggage, even with a change in Dallas.
Unfortunately, just as I leave, it looks like Patricia is home alone to shutter up for Gustav next weekend.
On the eve of the upcoming donkey fight, I just want to remind people again that Senator Obama is not the nominee until the delegates vote, and that the Clintons remain the Clintons. Don't think that there aren't a lot of delegates (and nervous superdelegates particularly) passing around recent polls showing Hillary outpolling Obama against McCain.
One could in fact speculate that the selection of Biden was an attempt by a desperate Obama campaign to hang on to the old guard of the party. I suspect that the coming week will be quite entertaining. It's good that McCain can wait until the end of the week to announce his own running mate.
[Update a few minutes later]
It strikes me that if the superdelegates vote to make Senator Obama the nominee, they will have failed in their intended purpose, which was to prevent candidates who were too far left, in the wake of McGovern. But as I've been saying for months now, they're in a no-win situation. They can anoint The One, and have him lose (and probably with negative coattails down ticket) or they can elevate Hillary! and tear the party apart, probably with race riots. Sux to be them.
Arthur Silber has some belated advice for the Obama campaign:
...it might be best if you took some time to study dramaturgy in addition to...well, everything else. One of the keys to a certain kind of dramatic structure is that the climax occurs at the moment of maximum suspense. The arrival and duration of that particular moment are determined by the ways in which the preceding conflicts have been developed until the opposing forces have reached the point where the conflicts must be resolved, at least in significant part. The climactic moment cannot be prolonged beyond what the accumulated weight of the dramatic structure will bear. If it is prolonged too much, drama and suspense begin to ebb. When it is prolonged far too much, then what had been rigid goes slack; what had been stiff hopes, if you will, begin to droop.
In such lamentable circumstances (which all of us have experienced; yes, you have too, don't deny it), instead of an ecstatic explosion, we are sometimes left with only a pathetic dribble. In this case, the pathetic dribble goes by the name Joseph Biden.
A Biden dribble just before the Democratic convention is a shocking failure of dramatic imagination. This exercise in digital manipulation was certainly not good for me, and I can't imagine it was good for anyone, probably including Obama. I very much doubt that even Barack wants a cigarette after this failure to achieve satisfactory completion.
