Author: Robert Zimmerman

Sarah Brightman’s visit to ISS in doubt.

8:49 am

Sarah Brightman’s visit to ISS in doubt.

Soyuz taxi flights normally visit the International Space Station for a period of about eight days. NASA and Roscosmos are considering extending a 2015 visit to one month, however. If that happens, Brightman would have to give up her seat to a scientific researcher, who would perform some short-term experiments aboard the space station.

Roscosmos manned space flight director Alexei Krasnov had previously indicated that Russia might consider carrying two paying customers on the 2015 taxi flight. So, it would be theoretically possible for Russia to fly Brightman and the researcher. It’s unknown whether Brightman would want to spend that long aboard the space station, however, and pricing policy to longer-duration stays have not been worked out.

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Visiting a nuclear missile silo

10:04 am

a fuel line for the Titan missile
A fuel line for the Titan missile.

Last week my oldest friend Lloyd and his wife Denise came to visit Diane and I here in Tucson. One of Lloyd’s requests was to visit the Tucson Missile Museum. This museum is built at the site of one of the now disabled missile silos built in the 1960s as a means for launching nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union. Fifty-four silos total had been built and operated, with eighteen of those silos scattered around the Tucson, Arizona area. When the U.S. signed a nuclear arms treaty with the Soviet Union in the 1980s these silos were then shut down and sold. Some became private residences. Others remain buried and abandoned.

One silo, however, was kept as intact as allowed by treaty and made into a museum in order to preserve this artifact of history. Because Diane and I happen to know Chuck Penson, the archivist at the museum, we were able to arrange an augmented tour of the facility. Below are some of my pictures as Chuck took us down into the deepest bowels of the silo.
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Physicians fight back against Obamacare.

9:11 pm

Physicians fight back against Obamacare.

Dr. Ryan Neuhofel, 31, offers a rare glimpse at what it would be like to go to the doctor without massive government interference in health care. Dr. Neuhofel, based in the college town of Lawrence, Kansas, charges for his services according to an online price list that’s as straightforward as a restaurant menu. A drained abscess runs $30, a pap smear, $40, a 30-minute house call, $100. Strep cultures, glucose tolerance tests, and pregnancy tests are on the house. Neuhofel doesn’t accept insurance. He even barters on occasion with cash-strapped locals. One patient pays with fresh eggs and another with homemade cheese and goat’s milk. “Direct primary care,” which is the industry term for Neuhofel’s business model, does away with the bureaucratic hassle of insurance, which translates into much lower prices. “What people don’t realize is that most doctors employ an army of people for coding, billing, and gathering payment,” says Neuhofel. “That means you have to charge $200 to remove an ingrown toenail.” Neuhofel charges $50.

Neuhofel is not alone in this. The article describes other doctors who have done the same. As the bureaucratic mess from Obamacare expands and becomes increasingly impossible for anyone to handle, we are going to see this happen more and more.

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NASA has clamped down on travel expenses, reducing it by 30 percent in the past year.

7:11 pm

My heart bleeds: NASA has clamped down on travel expenses, reducing it by 30 percent in the past year.

I’ve been to too many science conferences where there was a whole slew of NASA engineers and scientists from all across the country, there because they were getting a free ride from the taxpayer. Often it was absolutely worthwhile for NASA engineers or scientists to be there. More often, it was a complete waste of money that could have been used elsewhere to better effect.

In related news: NASA’s inspector general has suggested the agency could save a lot more money by closing many of its almost 5,000 facilities nationwide.

Here too I’ve visited many NASA operations and found the work being done there redundant, completely unnecessary, or there was no real work being done at all. In the last case a lot of what I’ve seen is featherbedding, this time imposed by Congress to keep the money flowing to their constituents as pork. Unfortunately this last fact will probably make it very difficult to shut any of these facilities, as our representatives, from both parties, appear completely uninterested in serving the country. They’d rather act as union reps for these government employees.

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The budget battle at NASA

10:49 am

Two stories today highlight not only the budget problems at NASA, but also illustrate the apparent unwillingness of both Congress and Americans to face the terrible budget difficulties of the federal government. In both cases, the focus is instead on trying to fund NASA at levels comparable to 2012, before the Obama administration or sequestration had imposed any budget cuts on the agency.

It is as if we live in a fantasy world, where a $16 trillion dollar debt does not exist, and where money grows on trees and we can spend as much as we want on anything we want.
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