Tag: capitalism

A failed fuel line in the upper stage has been pinpointed as the probably cause of the Russian Proton rocket failure on Tuesday.

8:37 am

A failed fuel line in the upper stage has been pinpointed as the probably cause of the Russian Proton rocket failure on Tuesday.

In related news, the Russian prime minister said today that he intends to name and shame the officials responsible for the rocket failure.

“I would like to hold a meeting on this next week. It will be prepared by the appropriate deputy prime minister and structures. They are tasked with reporting who should be punished and what to do next,” Medvedev told a government meeting in Moscow. He also said Russia’s space failures “could not be tolerated anymore.”

Do tell. With SpaceX’s cheaper prices looming over them, Russia’s government-owned commercial rocket business can’t afford rocket failures as well. If they don’t fix this soon, their business will evaporate, and Medvedev knows it.

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The scramble in Congress to head the House committee on Space, Science, and Technology after November’s election has begun.

9:28 am

The scramble in Congress to head the House committee on space after November’s election has begun.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) have begun to quietly campaign to replace Rep. Ralph Hall as chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology next year, according to Stu Witt, General Manager and CEO of the Mojave Air and Space Port.

If Rohrabacher gets the chairmanship it will be very be good news for commercial space, and bad news for the NASA-built and very expensive Space Launch System (SLS). He has been a strong supporter of private space, and will likely want to funnel money to it from SLS.

I’m not sure giving private space more cash is necessarily a good thing, as that will encourage these new companies to be less efficient, more expensive, and more dependent on the government. However, getting SLS shut down will certainly help the federal budget deficit.

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A Russian Proton rocket has failed to put two satellites into their proper orbit.

8:51 am

A Russian Proton rocket has failed to put two satellites into their proper orbit.

This failure of one of Russia’s more reliable rockets comes at a very bad time, as the competition with SpaceX and other competitors for commercial launches is right now heating up. As the article notes,

Moscow, which carries out 40 percent of global space launches, is struggling to restore confidence in its industry after a string of mishaps last year, including the failure of a mission to return samples from the Martian moon Phobos and the loss of a $265-million communications satellite. …

“The last failures to a certain extent undermine Russia’s position as a country that provides space launch services,” said industry expert Yuri Karash, a member of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics.

Such mistakes strengthen Russia’s competitors, such as Europe’s Arian rockets, Karash said, describing Russia’s space industry, struggling to recover after a generation of brain drain and crimped budgets, as “not in the best condition by a long shot.”

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Alan Boyle at NBC tonight reports that Boeing, SpaceX, and Sierra Nevada are the winning companies in the competition to provide human ferrying services to ISS.

6:20 pm

Alan Boyle at NBC tonight reports that Boeing, SpaceX, and Sierra Nevada are the winning companies in the competition to provide human ferrying services to ISS, to be announced officially by NASA tomorrow.

The report does not provide dollar numbers. This Wall Street Journal story says that Boeing and SpaceX will be the prime contractors, which suggests that Sierra Nevada will be getting a smaller award.

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Happy birthday Milton Friedman

11:30 am

Happy 100th birthday to Milton Friedman!

Go to the link to watch some wonderful video clips of Friedman clearly and with good humor explaining the benefits of freedom and capitalism. However, for me my favorite Milton Friedman quote is without question this one, on the real way to change Congress:

I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing.

Actual video below the fold.
» Read more

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The Marines have put in an order for 12,000 M1911 pistols, the iconic 45 caliber pistol designed by John Browning more than a 100 years ago and used by the American military for most of the first half of the 20th century.

1:17 pm

Comeback: The Marines have put in an order for 12,000 M1911 pistols, the iconic 45 caliber pistol designed by John Browning more than a 100 years ago and used by the American military for most of the first half of the 20th century.

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“The suspicions that the system is rigged in favor of the largest banks and their elites, so they play by their own set of rules to the disfavor of the taxpayers who funded their bailout, are true.”

9:27 pm

From the man whose job it was to police the $700 billion TARP bailout:

The suspicions that the system is rigged in favor of the largest banks and their elites, so they play by their own set of rules to the disfavor of the taxpayers who funded their bailout, are true.

The regulatory culture of the banking industry that this book describes possibiy explains why Jon Corzine has not yet been prosecuted. Regulators and prosecutors are afraid to proceed out of fear of hurting their careers.

Worse, Barofsky describes a banking regulatory system that is still in place, and is therefore ripe for another collapse. No wonder the tea party movement was born out of outrage over TARP and the bank bailout, and is still growing.

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Some spectacular images of galaxies from the new Discovery Channel Telescope.

9:26 am

Some spectacular images of galaxies from the new Discovery Channel Telescope (DCT).

Funded privately by the Discovery channel, the DCT has a primary mirror 4.3 meters wide, or about 170 inches, almost as large as the Hale Telescope on Palomar Mountain. This is a world class telescope which will do real research, and it was built the old-fashioned way, with private money donated to a private observatory in exchange for publicity and good will.

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