Here’s an emerging sci-fi technology that’s beginning to shed some of its giggle factor — enough so that a year ago last fall, Arthur C. Clarke felt comfortable saying the following in a London Times column:
The space elevator was the central theme in my 1978 science-fiction novel The Fountains of Paradise (soon to be a Hollywood [...]
Saturday’s Science Section of the New York Times had a colorful piece by William Broad on the problem of space debris complicated by the reckless destruction of one of its weather satellites by the Chinese. The gist is that a terrible problem in space navigation is getting catastrophically worse. There is no doubt the Chinese ASAT [...]
Extolling the virtues of strategy – its understanding and practice – is much easier said than done. Strategy is difficult, as generations of statesmen, generals and policymakers can attest, and those who are able to truly master it are few and far between. But because strategy is difficult does not mean that those charged with [...]
Many of those in the blog and MSM spheres feasting on the remains of William Arkin’s Jan 30th Early Warning column, “The Troops Also Need to Support the American People,” have unfortunately missed the crucial point of his argument.
Arkin’s thesis – clearly and unambiguously presented at the opening of his post – was this:
I hope [...]
aka: The Fastest Fat Man in the Air Force
Change is an arduous thing. In scientific theory and military strategy the process is similar, and exceptionally brutal. Established beliefs and practices are threatened by new ideas. Innovators champion the new paradigm while traditionalists circle the wagons. Thinkers are labeled heretics, and persecuted. Traditionalists stop thinking, and rely instead on dogma, rote learning, and a [...]
Major General Scales’ lament in “The Military Budget Pie” (Washington Times, January 10, 2007) is eccentric, if not discouragingly familiar.
Scales begins with a melancholic elegy; his beloved Army breaks whenever it is sent to war. I disagree, but were this true I would be hard-pressed to advocate, as does Scales, “a huge infusion of [...]
[A version of this editorial appeared in Space News]
No nation relies on space more than the United States, both for its economic well-being and its military security. For this reason, obliteration of a decrepit weather satellite in a successful Chinese weapon system test on January 11 is especially troubling.
I had intended to title this blog “the Narcissist,” but that has been taken. Dolmania gives the same sense of self-absorption, yet adds a bit of bipolar disorder befitting my personality (versus the continuous angst-ridden torment of most personal blogs today, akin to the boo-hoo-my-life-sucks genre of modern pop music). Still, it is not a large [...]