Michael Mealling -- e/acc

Innovation At Speed: A Grand Strategy The goal isn't to "beat China"... The goal is for America to remember that it is an ambitious and fearless country eager to leap into the future. When we do that, "beating China" becomes a mildly interesting side effect. open.substack.com/pub/rocketforg…

That is one of the policy decisions Congress and NASA can make. If they do, it shouldn't preclude commercial companies attaching to it like the ISS did for many years. My preference is that it be commercially led and operating with NASA as an anchor tenant. But I don't always get what I want.

@mmealling @NASAAdmin @rookisaacman Why would it have to be built by NASA?

@NASAAdmin @rookisaacman If, for whatever reason, the Lunar base needs to be built by NASA, then let's please make sure that commercial additions are possible and that the 'campus' around it is open and ready for business.

@Jon_Alexandr @DrPhiltill I'm sorry, that was harsh... I do think space is big enough for any ideology. But I'm leaving specifically to get away from that particular one.

@Jon_Alexandr @DrPhiltill So you are asserting that the Enlightenment was a communist/socialist revolution?

Regarding Bernie Sander’s proposed moratorium on building data centers — I don’t think his argument works. He builds the argument around AI safety, both avoiding extreme societal disruption and preventing AI-caused extinction. But could you realistically get China and the US to agree on an AI safety pause with enough assurance that the other side isn’t cheating? Sure, both sides can monitor the construction of data centers from space, but 99% of progress in AI will likely come from better algorithms and better chips, not from more or bigger data centers, and you can’t monitor algorithm development and chip replacement from space. So I don’t think an effective AI pause is enforceable, so I don’t think geopolitical game theory allows it to happen. Putting a moratorium just on constructing new data centers, the only enforceable part of a treaty, would cause no more than a small and temporary slowdown in AI development and would therefore be mostly performative with respect to safety. I think the addressable problem with data centers is environmental, not safety, and the solution to that problem is putting them in space ASAP. For safety, I’m still of the opinion that the best path is not to asymmetrically hobble just one country but to keep AI development public where it can be monitored rather than driving it into secret labs without oversight. (I’m open to being convinced otherwise.)

@Jon_Alexandr @DrPhiltill Which is the fantasy that Tolkein warned about. Bernie wants everyone to be super-duper nice and then all good things and no bad things happen. But when someone actually has to do something (grow food, grow the economy, cure diseases, etc) you can't optimize for "nice" or "free".

@mmealling @DrPhiltill Literary allusions to fiction aside, Bernie is concerned about people, which is arguably quite different from what tech billionaires are concerned about.

@Pinboard @NASAAdmin NASA has been schizophrenic (by design) from its founding as a fig leaf for national security aims during the Cold War. That has always been its purpose. The science aspects are a national prestige, so the fig leaf helps to a certain degree. <insert "Always has been" meme here>

People are projecting a lot of wishful thinking onto @NASAAdmin, but much of what he's been doing is MAGA-fying the nation's space agency and aligning its public face with Trump

This kind of sucks... The delta between BEA's numbers and the various finance and sector analysts was always useful. "BEA will no longer regularly produce the Space Economy Satellite Account. BEA is focusing on producing core economic products."

@krisha880 @FUADH78666 @lippyent How do you get that? 1) universal healthcare guarantees lower quality healthcare; 2) water is a local issue; and 3) pollution is a tort. That's why open, uncoerced markets are the most Pareto-optimal. I suspect Pareto-optimal is NOT what you are optimizing for.

@mmealling @FUADH78666 @lippyent Me, myself and I, right? F everyone else, right? RIGHT?

Truth

@krisha880 @FUADH78666 @lippyent I have clean water. I don't want universal healthcare, and the bees are just fine. Honey bees aren't even native to North America.

@mmealling @FUADH78666 @lippyent Don’t you want clean water and universal healthcare for everyone, and a world with bees?

@ArsVampyre @Devon_Eriksen_ @fandompulse Oh I agree. Its lazy story telling, really. The quote from the event was "Well sure you would really use robots to do that ice mining, but who would watch a TV show about robots?" (the actual quote had an expletive or two in it)

@mmealling @Devon_Eriksen_ @fandompulse I believe you when you say they said it. I just think it's bullshit on their end. It's a shitty allegory for that, IMO. Stealth-ships and spacegoo creating a wormhole gate to another dimension. What's that supposed to be analogous to? Apologies for any misunderstandings.

Star Trek boss Alex Kurtzman claims science fiction is not about the future. "Science fiction is not really about the future. It's about now. It is the prism, the looking glass, the magnifying glass through which we examine ourselves..."

@ArsVampyre @Devon_Eriksen_ @fandompulse Well, that is what the authors intended and they have said so publicly at several events. At a space event here in DC Naren Shankar said so several times and even noted the oddity of using humans for mining given how we are already removing humans from mines down here.

@mmealling @Devon_Eriksen_ @fandompulse It's a retarded analogy; they use missiles and many other automated systems, and there are convenient excuses for why you'd use humans over robots that don't involve 'colonialism'. I call bullshit.

@MB_Trening @lippyent Agreed... that's why I can't live in Europe. But its also why we are developing all of the technology necessary to permanently leave the planet.

@mmealling @lippyent I live in Poland and by design we don't give a **** about general regulations en large. But it creeps in. Especially with economics and industries. No one asks you, it just happens.

@MB_Trening @lippyent Ahh... yes, you do have a problem. Though I suspect there are some EU countries that have exceptions for religious communities with strict rules against technology. We do have problems but if you want to live that kind of life here you are very free to do so. Many people do.

@mmealling @lippyent EU, but make no mistake, you have your problems too. Not better, just different.

Little known fact: ULA's Centaur nearly always flies with extra fuel so it can boost itself away into a harmless orbit. At one point ULA was 'selling' rideshare's for pennies where you could tell them were you wanted to go after the primary mission was over. If they had margin they would even add a bit more fuel.

The plan for Artemis III is a LEO mission to test HLS hardware. That means the ICPS upper stage has almost no work to do, it’ll reach orbit with almost full fuel. After separation it has enough dV to send its cubesats almost anywhere, even interstellar space. Where should it go?

@MB_Trening @lippyent Where do you live? I live in one of the furthest left counties in the US and we still cook with gas, buy raw milk, burn wood in our fireplace, etc.

who? are you blind? There is no choice. Everything becomes a mandate, the only way. I cannot cook on gas, because it's not available. That's what they mandated. Only electric. I cannot buy raw milk, only pasteurised. Fortunately I have a farmer. I cannot heat my house with wood, only electric. I cannot dig a well, only public water I cannot just build sun panels, I have to connect to the grid. I cannot just buy, water in glass bottles, I have to look very hard for it or order. I cannot buy a big TV that is dumb, it's smart and decides for me what I can install or not. I cannot buy a new washing machine that just washes, no, it weighs clothes and decides how much water it needs. I cannot own anything anymore, I lease and that can be taken away with one software update. and on and on. This didn't come by popular adoption but by regulations. There is no different products, just one product with different names.

@MB_Trening @lippyent Who is forcing you to do any of that? I live close to Amish country in southern Pennsylvania, and that entire area does exactly what you describe. They don't seem to be having any issues.

Yes, There is thin notion of - we must all use AI or die - drive teslas - eat that - believe this - speak like that - look like this How about, you just let me be, ok? How about, let people live their lives uninterrupted? You want change, that's fine, but do not force it upon me. Leave me alone. And the constant banning of things someone doesn't like. Don't like it? Don't use it. You do you and I will do me.

@FUADH78666 @lippyent So everyone on the planet must subsume themselves and their desires to your personal priorities?

@lippyent Reaching out to the skies and planets elsewhere is adventurous and pioneering. But let’s get down to earth and satisfy and protect earthly needs for all instead of just the privileged few.

@Devon_Eriksen_ @fandompulse A lot of SF authors use it as allegory. The Expanse is explicitly intended, by the authors, as allegory for 18th century colonialism. Which is why they use poor people to mine ice rather than robots like a sane person would.

@fandompulse Science fiction author here. And what the fuck is this retarded gibberish?

Lockheed seems to be only slightly better but even they blocked the first sale of ULA over the price. I honestly can't remember exactly who did the first talk that included ACES but I do remember Bernard discussing it at an ISDC and at SpaceCom in Houston. The IVF system was the most innovative part, really.

@mmealling @jabe8 The only thing the owners wanted was to squeeze every cent they could out of what they assumed would be a perpetual cash cow. PS Did Lockheed have any better attitude than Boeing? PPS I heard about ACES first at Space Access. Didn’t Tory give a presentation as well as Bernard?

I was thinking about this when I saw the tweet. Agree with 1st paragraph. 2nd paragraph not so much. Don't blame company.. blame politics/politicians ..SLS and policies to not touch the "Golden calf" prevented lots of innovation. The research canceled just wasn't with depots