Rand Simberg: That’s despite the fact that it’s a “Democratic” state, not because of it.

Really? The industrialized nation doing best in the world right now — Germany — is a high-cost state that keeps its companies small and focused, and exports its products, not its industries, taxpayer-funded inventions, and jobs. The nations doing worst are often those than follow what might be called the “US model” of playing with financial pyramid schemes, buying and selling companies to each other and to our competitors, and exporting manufacturing, rather than actually producing products or services that anyone wants to buy.

The evidence does not necessarily support the idea that our model of capitalism is the best one (nor the worst). Even here in the United States, the cities doing best are often high cost, high service cities like San Francisco, where companies locate because that’s where the inventive and creative employees want to live. Let us not forget that the world’s most inventive, successful, and valuable company — Apple — is choosing to do much of its expansion in Northern California. Again, the evidence does not really support the idea that the lowest cost bird always gets the worm.

XCOR can do what it likes, but I’d much rather take my chances with a great place to live that also has the main satellite factories of SS/L and Lockheed Martin, and the rocket facilities of Aerojet — not to speak of silicon valley, and, lest we forget, none other than SpaceX..

— Donald

That’s despite the fact that it’s a “Democratic” state, not because of it. I’m sure that XCOR would have preferred to expand its business in Mojave, but the business environment has chased it out.

“Please don’t tell me that W had a “keen interest in space”. His interest became decidedly less keen once he dumped VSE on Mike Griffin. Bush’s efforts to keep us from being stranded in LEO failed dramatically, largely at least because of his unwillingness to commit the funds his plan required, and remarkable disinterest he ended up having in it.”

Actually, we won’t know W.’s thinking until his presidential records are declassified. For that matter, we still don’t know what Griffin was thinking, and we have no idea of the total architecture Griffin had in mind.

I’m pretty sure that W. ended up spending a lot of his time dealing with major problems that he did not anticipate.

Once again, since you can’t buy away .7G combustion oscillations, we have to ask “What the hell was Griffin thinking?”. The sad part here is the incompetence, inability, or unwillingness of our current space journalists to provide use with answers.

Hi RGO –
Not just a good stick, but a great stick, maybe up there in the top 15 of all time. Of course, your list probably differs from mine.

Armstrong was first and foremost an aviator-engineer; a test pilot, in the best sense of the terms. And he was articulate. When Armstrong spoke, particularly on aviation and space matters, people listened. Whether they heard is another matter. He always placed his Apollo flight in the context of the evolution of aviation and much of his professional history with the Navy, the X-15, the NACA, NASA and post Apollo accomplishments can be easily researched. His authorized biography, “First Man” is an absorbing read as well.

It’s common knowledge that Armstrong shunned the glare of the public spotlight. And has always said he didn’t deserve the celebrity status today’s modern media tried to press upon him. Rather, he credited circumstances as affording him the opportunity to command Apollo 11 and carry the responsibility of being the first man on the moon. (Although recent memoirs by Apollo era brass note he was essentially chosen to be first out by crew assignment managers.) Nevertheless, the burden was real and the Lindbergh experience was a loose model for managing it.

Whenever asked, Armstrong always credited the general support of the American peopleas well as the 400,000 dedicated employees in government, industry and academia with making Apollo a success. And although it was spawned as another battlefront of the Cold War, Apollo remains one of the rare occurrences where a government project was accomplished ahead of schedule and under budget- albeit a big budget- roughly $25 billion in 1970 dollars– all of it spent right here on Earth. And it was not by accident that their Apollo 11 flight patch did not carry the names of the crew. Apollo 11 was, in part, for all mankind.

Most everyone has heard audio fragments of Eagle’s final descent to the moon from July 20, 1969. It’s a taut, tense stream of real time data relayed in a staccato style by Buzz Aldrin as Neil busied himself taking control away from an overloaded computer and manually steering the Lunar Module past craters and boulder fields to a safe landing. Fewer have heard the onboard audio loop, which is similar to an aircraft cockpit voice recorder. On that tape, Armstrong calmly describes his actions, flying past the danger, stating he sees a good looking area and with just seconds of fuel to space, cooly guides the Eagle to touchdown. It is the quintessential Right Stuff at work. And it was the challenge of this descent to the lunar surface, as Armstrong said repeatedly over the years, which was the high point of the flight for him. The moonwalk itself- not much more than two and a half hours long- televised by a simple b/w TV camera, may seem primitive by today’s stadards- but it is still a wonder to watch, particularly to those who remember a time when a voyage to the moon was thought impossible.

DCSCA and family were quite fortunate to have met the Apollo 11 crew at a reception in the United States Embassy in London back in October, 1969, less than 90 days after Apollo 11’s moon landing, when the crew was in the midst of their world tour. An affable and reserved Armstrong, dressed in a classic, ‘Mad Men-era’ business suit and narrow tie, had just arrived along with fellow crewmen Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins and their wives, from a meet and greet w/Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. It remains a high point of my life. The reserved and affable Armstrong dutifully shook hands with all, accept a plaque, chatted, presented a short NASA film about the flight to the assembled group and took the time to sign a photo for us. That photo still hangs in my home today. And I am sadden by Neil’s passing. but so very, very proud of his legacy for our country. Twelve men walked on the moon. All Americans. Yesterday there were nine left alive. Today, that number drops to eight. The first of them to walk there has left us.

Condolences to the Armstrong family, of course. And to the broader NASA family as well. The Armstrong family has asked that to honor Neil’s memory, go outside, take a look at the moon, and give it a wink. But before hand, take a look at this below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo11-LRO-March2012.jpg

Those trails are full of Neil’s footprints. And Buzz’s footprints. And they will be there for millions of years. Representing all our footprints, from generations past and generations to come who have and will look up at the moon, and wonder what it’s like.

Ad Astra, Neil. Ad Astra. =wink=

Godspeed!

“Mitt and Ryan will address it. Their immediate concern is to save the nation from impending financial ruin.”

Hard to see how slashing budgets and cutting taxes for aerospace CEO’s is going to result in more money for NASA…

Mitt and Ryan will address it. Their immediate concern is to save the nation from impending financial ruin.”

actually their immediate concern is to save themselves from being defeated in a landslide…

The problem with the point you make is that its well bogus.

A thriving space effort that keys commercial concerns and brings them into the economic equation of The Republic is part of what can fix the economy in the US…SpaceX is on the verge of starting (October just in time for the election) the first fee for service commercial product in the history of human spaceflight…this in turn will feed back handsomely into the US economy creating real good paying jobs with health care …and jobs which can sustain themselves outside the government dollar.

Meanwhile you and Whittington and others are stuck on SLS which is simply technowelfare.

Expect a 52 to 48 thrashing of the GOP this year…RGO