We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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I ran across this item in a Jane’s Newsletter this morning:
US, Japan agree to diversify rare earth minerals. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara agreed on 28 October that diversifying sources of rare earth minerals was a priority in the wake of China’s freeze on exports to Japan. These minerals are indispensible to modern defence systems and see commercial use in mobile phones, wind turbines, televisions and hybrid electric drives
Rare earth elements, with names like Yttrium, Scandium, Lanthanum and Praeseodymium, are critical to a modern industrial society. They appear in lasers, high tech alloys, superconductors, and much else. China is applying Mercantilist practices to corner a larger share of the global market in high end electronics. They are the largest producer of the strategic REE’s and see this as an advantage in a geopolitical sense as well.
It will not work however. They may well be the current largest producer, but these elements exist all over the world. In the short term they will gain an advantage. Over the medium to longer term they will accomplish the same thing ITAR regulations accomplished for the United States. They will create a thriving industry elsewhere and it will eventually ‘eat their lunch’.
To paraphrase an old saw: “You can’t fool Mother Market.”
As I noted yesterday, Scaled Composities carried out the SpaceShipTwo drop test. Rand Simberg linked to their video.
She really looks lovely in flight and the pilot really did grease it in. I can tell from the closeup of the touchdown that the pilot had a bit of crosswind component and it did not cause any problems at all.
I have received notice that SpaceX will be running an engine test firing on the pad pretty soon. The second test flight of the Falcon 9 includes a full up Dragon capsule and they will be attempting their first test of the re-entry and recovery of the cargo (and later on passenger) capsule.
I suspect the political situation may have caused them to wait awhile on this, although the time since the first test flight is not overly long ago, only a matter of a few months. I am assuming that Elon would not want to risk a test flight failure during the time when the porkers in Congress were in a frenzy looking for any ammunition they could find to keep all funds flowing to the Ministries of Aviation rather than purchasing services from commercial space providers.
Since the House voted by a very wide margin to accept the Senate bill (which did not cut private space usage nearly as deeply), SpaceX can now risk a second flight.
I give the second flight about 90% chance of attaining orbit like the first flight and 50% chance of a successful re-entry and recovery of the Dragon capsule.
I will keep you informed as I hear more…. oh, and by the way. there was a successful drop test of SpaceShipTwo today.
I have been seeing a great deal of these folks lately.
6 km/sec aluminum slugs fired by a railgun built by a small company. Is that cool or what?
I just read the details on the SpaceX Dragon capsule drop test which occurred earlier this month.
Rand Simberg pointed out this article. The level of incompetence shown by ‘professional journalist’ Peter Fenn is simply breathtaking to those who know the subject matter.
When I read something like this, it lowers my already sub-basement level of trust in professional media. If they are this bad on things where I know what is going on, what might they be feeding me in areas where I lack such inside knowledge?
It is really quite scary.
Business partner Rand Simberg has this to say about the attempts of Congress to design pork propelled rockets. The only practical idea in the lot is the BFR from SpaceX, and that (in my opinion) only if a market of 500 Metric Tons or so a year materializes.
I have expected this to come along as it seemed an obvious market step for SpaceX. They have announced their plans to enter the Heavy Lift arena.
If you are familiar with the politics in DC right now, this really puts the cat amongst the pigeons.
Rand Simberg attended the Boeing press conference and has supplied some notes on their CST-100 plans.
I am glad to see there will be competition in the LEO cargo and business passenger field. As much as I like Elon and what he has accomplished, there is nothing like real competition to grow the market.
According to a Janes newsletter:
US Navy successfully tests laser with close-in weapon. The US Navy has for the first time in a maritime environment successfully destroyed four unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) targets with a laser, essentially proving the basic premise of adding a directed-energy weapon to Raytheon’s Phalanx close-in weapon system. The trial was sponsored by the US Naval Sea Systems Command’s (NAVSEA’s) PMS 405 Directed Energy Weapons programme office and used the navy’s own Laser Weapon System (LaWS) equipment, developed in conjunction with the Dahlgren Naval Surface Warfare .Center Dahlgren Division, combined with a Phalanx weapon mount.
The era of the ray cannon has arrived.
The Porkers are out to kill the US space program..
There really is not a lot of difference between Republicans and Democrats (with a few nasty exceptions) when you scratch the surface. Almost to a man and woman they are just Socialists with different priorities over what part of the economy and your life should come under State control first. Perhaps the bi-partisanship in the attack on New Space has more to do with the threat that an area once part of the Statist ‘Ummah’ might escape.
If you are an American and not a Socialist, call your congressman and senator and tell them off. Then join your local tea party and work to excise the Republican-Socialists from what once was a slightly (but only slightly) more freedom oriented party.
As the Commies used to say, you have nothing to lose but your chains…
I was driving past Duxford, the airbase near Cambridge, at the weekend and unfortunately, I was so busy with other things that yours truly did not have time to go to the airshow there. They were marking the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. Then, as now, the skies were a deadly clear blue – ideal for any bombers looking to find their targets at the time. We curse heavy clouds in Britain, but we should be grateful for them occasionally.
It is perhaps not surprising why this epic battle over the south and southeast of England continues to capture imaginations, even among those usually and rightly wary about military power: there is the fact that the battle was a largely defensive one, pitting a relatively under-strength air force up against a larger, and more battle-hardened, German airforce, although the UK had the great benefit of an integrated radar/fighter dispersal system put in place in the late 1930s and run with magnificent calm by Dowding. If there ever was a case of a relatively clear Good versus Evil sort of conflict, this surely was it. (That should get the peaceniks going, Ed). For us aviation nuts, there is, obviously, the aesthetic as well as emotional appeal of one of the most beautiful aircraft ever built. And whatever some revisionists might claim, there is little doubt in my mind that Britain’s decision to resist invasion in that year rather than agree some sort of grubby and easily-broken deal with Hitler was the right one.
Many of those who fought in the skies are no longer with us; soon, this conflict will be captured not in first-hand memories, but in books, films and TV documentaries. Here is a review of three books of that conflict.
The headline on this blog entry was taken from one of my favourite war films, The Battle of Britain. It was uttered by the great Ralph Richardson. The film does have some great one-liners. I must run that DVD again some time.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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