Random thoughts on politics, current events, popular culture, and whatever else interests me.
Wednesday, November 30, 2022
Tuesday, November 29, 2022
Monday, November 28, 2022
Sunday, November 27, 2022
NASA’s heavy lift Space Launch System (SLS) has certainly faced criticism. It is too expensive and too complex. The SLS is also not a sustainable rocket for sending people back to the moon.
All of those criticisms are valid. However, NASA’s monster rocket has just sent an uncrewed Orion space capsule around the moon. The launch of the Artemis 1 mission is an eloquent answer to the critics, at least in the short term.
Saturday, November 26, 2022
Friday, November 25, 2022
Thursday, November 24, 2022
Wednesday, November 23, 2022
Tuesday, November 22, 2022
Monday, November 21, 2022
Sunday, November 20, 2022
Recently, a group of divers looking for the wreckage of World War II aircraft in the Atlantic Ocean came upon some of the debris of the space shuttle Challenger. The discovery reminded us of the disaster that happened before the eyes of the world on Jan. 28, 1986. It also reminded us that the cost of space exploration is measured in lives lost as well as money spent.
Saturday, November 19, 2022
Friday, November 18, 2022
Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) is the latest left-leaning politician to become annoyed with Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, Tesla, and Twitter. The tiff started with a Twitter exchange. It may end with a blatant abuse of power.
Thursday, November 17, 2022
Wednesday, November 16, 2022
Tuesday, November 15, 2022
Monday, November 14, 2022
Sunday, November 13, 2022
NASA and a number of other federal, state and local organizations war-gamed an asteroid impact on Winston-Salem, North Carolina, according to Scientific American. The scenario depicted an asteroid measuring 70 meters in diameter being detected shortly before it entered the Earth’s atmosphere. The asteroid would explode eight miles above the city with a force of a 10-megaton nuclear bomb. The explosion would lay the city and surrounding areas waste, with casualties in the thousands.
The exercise presented a number of sobering conclusions.
Saturday, November 12, 2022
Friday, November 11, 2022
Thursday, November 10, 2022
Wednesday, November 09, 2022
Tuesday, November 08, 2022
“NASA generates $71.2 billion in total economic output, maintains 339,600 jobs across the nation and generates close to $7.7 billion in federal, state and local tax revenues,” cheers Mark Whittington at The Hill. Since its 2021 budget was $23.3 billion, that’s a “hefty return on investment.” But non-financial payoffs are bigger: In winning the race to the moon, the Apollo program hastened the collapse of the “Soviet Union because it spooked the Kremlin about American technological prowess.” Now a successful Artemis Alliance uniting US allies in a space exploration could create “a prosperous, peaceful world” and also prevent a “Chinese space hegemony.” Add the gains for science, and the benefit from supporting NASA “is the long-term increase of knowledge, prosperity and peace for the human race.”
Monday, November 07, 2022
Sunday, November 06, 2022
NASA recently released its second annual economic impact report, laying out how much money the space agency returns to the American economy. The three chief takeaways are that NASA generates $71.2 billion in total economic output, maintains 339,600 jobs across the nation and generates close to $7.7 billion in federal, state and local tax revenues. The economic benefit created by NASA is spread out over all 50 states. Considering that NASA’s fiscal 2021 budget was $23.3 billion, the space agency seems to have a hefty return on investment.
However, as impressive as these figures are, do they represent the true value of the part of the federal budget that NASA spends? That is only the case if one thinks of the space agency as a jobs program, something that may impress members of Congress but likely doesn’t excite the rest of us.
Saturday, November 05, 2022
Friday, November 04, 2022
Thursday, November 03, 2022
Wednesday, November 02, 2022
Tuesday, November 01, 2022
Kelly has a problem concerning space policy, especially the Artemis return-to-the-moon program, that speaks to his character. To put the matter bluntly, Kelly was against the Artemis program before he was for it.