Carried Away

BLoMart EELV Rocket Monopology to be Approved

The Wall Street Journal has an article stating that the BLoMart EELV monopoly will be approved, with a carveout in case SpaceX is successful in its Falcon program.  In pertinent part...

After seven months of deliberations and some false starts, the companies have convinced the Pentagon of the venture's projected cost savings, these officials said. Now, the Pentagon is drafting language to provide the antitrust protection sought by Northrop Grumman Corp. and a fledging rocket maker, which contend that their respective satellite and launch businesses would be hurt by the Boeing-Lockheed monopoly.

Final federal approval is still at least weeks away, the officials cautioned, but an important hurdle has been cleared. Pentagon acquisition chief Kenneth Krieg, senior Air Force officials and Pentagon lawyers have agreed to recommend the proposed joint venture to the Federal Trade Commission, which has the authority to approve the deal.

The commission is expected to follow the Pentagon's recommendation, the knowledgeable officials said. Both Boeing, of Chicago, and Lockheed, of Bethesda, Md., have signaled their willingness to accept the competitive safeguards currently being drafted, industry officials said.

I can't believe the military actually bought BLoMart's line of argument.  Unless either the Delta or the Atlas program is discontinued, and meanwhile SpaceX is successful in its Falcon program, the cost savings argument seems bogus to me.

SpaceX Competing For Air Force Business

This morning, Space News has a good, detailed article about SpaceX's aggressive moves to compete in the EELV-class Air Force space launcher business.  Among other things, it reviews the SpaceX GAO bid protest against the EELV bid process, about which I posted before.  I was looking at SpaceX's actions through a straw, when in fact SpaceX is in a flurry of activity otherwise.  Protests, lawsuits, and appeals aplenty.

Economy Grows 3.8% Q-to-Q

According to the BEA's preliminary calculations, the economy grew at a 3.8% real rate in the July - September quarter compared to the April - June quarter.  There is a possibility of a significant revision due to hurricane Katrina.

This is budget season in Washington, so it is important to follow the nominal growth rate as well -- i.e., the growth rate including inflation.  So long as the federal government increases spending at a rate less than the nominal growth rate, the deficit as a percentage of the economy will decline.  The nominal growth rate last quarter was especially high -- 6.84% -- since inflation was high -- 3.06%.

I have been alarmed at the propensity of this Republican congress to increase spending and President Bush to go along with it.  Let's hope that this year the increase in spending is much more modest.  Otherwise, we'll have to throw this group of Republicans out of power next year.

SpaceX EELV Complaint

SpaceRef has the SpaceX Summons and Complaint in its lawsuit against Boeing and Lockheed-Martin.  One of the nice things about federal court is that most documents will be public and available electronically soon after filing.  Fresh-from-the-oven fun. :-)  One thing to keep in mind during this legal process is that complaints are first drafts and are amended and extended liberally.

The Complaint is run-of-the-mill, except that it seems very much like a political document written for public consumption -- not much legalese here.  The Complaint argues as if the Air Force has done nothing wrong.  Even Lockheed Martin is portrayed as the victim of Boeing's predatory behavior.

The political and legal ace card that SpaceX has in this suit is that Boeing was caught stealing bid plan documents from Lockheed-Martin on the EELV program several years ago.  Two Boeing employees pled guilty in the affair and Boeing has been in the Air Force's dog house for quite a while since.  Lockheed-Martin has an active lawsuit against Boeing on the subject and all of Boeing's dirty laundry is public from the proceedings and can be used in the SpaceX suit.  SpaceX plays this card very prominently in the Complaint and we should expect them to wield it at every available turn.

The underlying theme here is that the stench would go away for the Air Force, Lockheed-Martin, SpaceX and others, if Boeing were removed from the EELV business.

SpaceX Sues BLoMart

After SpaceX had its bid protests against government contracts to the newly forming EELV monopoly Boeing-Lockheed-Martin (BLoMart) dismissed by the GAO, I was waiting for Elon Musk's next move.  We didn't have to wait for long, as SpaceX has sued BLoMart under anti-trust laws to stop the merger.

This is a complicated maneuver, since the Federal Trade Commission has not yet ruled whether the merger can be consummated between Boeing and Lockheed-Martin's EELV businesses.  It is good to see SpaceX stick up for itself and the rest of us by suing to stop the merger, especially since Musk seems savvy enough to hire good attorneys.  However, I wonder if this will take Musk's eye off the ball of executing on launching rockets.  Also, I don't envy Musk as he empties his wallet to the legal profession.

Update:  There is one more complication that I have thought up.  SpaceX may be delaying maiden launch of the Falcon I until the FTC rules on BLoMart's proposed merger.  If the launch fails before the FTC rules, then BLoMart might well argue "see, we told you that these guys are pretenders, not real competitors!"

Mucho respect to SpaceX for navigating this mine field.

Infrastructure Costs

Mom writes and mentions that she talked with an old family friend DW.  DW has moved from Ohio to the D.C. area and has been commuting for a while from the Virginia suburbs into Washington, D.C.  Whereas his commute into the city used to take about an hour each way, now it takes 2.5 hours each way.  DW suggests that Metro be extended to the outer suburbs.  Mom asks what I think about this idea.  In short, I think it's a swell idea.  I'm a big proponent of good infrastructure spending.  However, DW and his neighbors should pay for the extension, not me and my neighbors in the city, and not the federal income taxpayers in rural Ohio.  DW might get sticker shock when presented with his tax bill.

Subway track for the type that Metro uses (heavy rail) costs between $175 million and $225 million per mile to lay, depending on whether the track is above ground or is underground.  Further, above-ground stations cost about $110 million apiece and underground stations cost probably double that.  In the suburbs, you would want one of those every 2 or 3 miles.  Once the extension has been built, the community has to pay for extra trains and operation costs.  These costs are substantial.  Hey, it's the Cadillac of subway systems -- you should not expect less.

As you approach a high population density, these costs become manageable, and in any event the Metro increases real estate values substantially.  But it sounds like DW is in the outer suburbs, where there may not be enough people among which to spread these enormous costs.  Perhaps a cheaper option might appeal to DW.  Virginia could extend the Virginia Rail Express commuter rail system.  VRE started operations in 1992.  At first, VRE only attracted about 1,000 riders a day -- much less than had been anticipated.  However, it slowly built over time to about 15,000 riders a day nowadays and is considered to be very successful.  Like MARC -- the better-established Maryland suburbs equivalent that serves about 30,000 riders a day -- VRE stops at Washington Union Station, which is convenient to any part of downtown D.C. through the Metro.

Of course, there's always the option of encouraging his government to require that his car be able to drive for him, drastically reducing the time to get into the city. :-)

Why Our Cars Should Drive Themselves

The DARPA Grand Challenge was won yesterday by Stanford (University) Racing Team.  Congratulations to Stanford University!  The Grand Challenge is a $2 million prize given to the autonomous vehicle that completes the 132-mile obstacle course the fastest.  The vehicle must complete the course without human intervention.  Stanford Racing Team's vehicle (the blue mini-SUV on the left) completed the course in a little under 7 hours, meaning that the average speed was roughly 19 miles an hour.  It looks like 4 other teams will complete the course within the allotted 10 hours:  Carnegie Mellon University's Red Team Too and Red Team, Gray Insurance's Gray Team (from Metairie, Louisiana), and Oshkosh Truck's Terramax.  It seems like a little discussion is in order about vehicles driving themselves.

(As an aside, I'm guessing that my brother-in-law Mike makes the axles for Oshkosh Trucks.  I believe that he works for ArvinMeritor, which is a co-sponsor of the TerraMax vehicle.  I'm not positive of this, as the factories have changed ultimate ownership a lot recently.)

Every year, over 40,000 Americans die from auto accidents and about 3 million are injured -- some very seriously.  This means that over a typical American's 80-year lifespan, at least 3.2 million people will die from auto accidents and 240 million will be injured.  In short, autos impose a huge cost on society by deaths and accidents.  Doing the Reaper's math, if an American's life is worth a half million dollars, then the cost each year to American society due to auto deaths alone is $20 billion.

Autos are great machines, but human nature's quirks are problematic when driving.  Washingtonians spend about 35 minutes in the car each way commuting to work.  As an old Gaithersburg to downtown D.C. driver, I guess that about half of that time is sitting in traffic on the freeway -- six lanes into the city, one big parking lot.  This is all because our human brains insufficiently optimize driving in heavy traffic from one point to another.  In addition to the fuel that is burned for no good reason, the lack of traffic flow costs about 35 minutes a day (35 each way x 2 ways / 2 for half time wasted).  If the marginal value of this 35 minutes in leisure time wasted is $10 an hour, then I guess the cost for sitting in traffic is about $5.1 billion a year in the Washington area alone (35 minutes wasted a day / 60 minutes in an hour x $10 an hour x 4 million commuters x 220 workdays in a year).  We could also say that the 35 minutes in driving time that is not wasted by sitting in traffic could be better spent reading the newspaper or drinking your morning coffee, but let's leave those costs aside for now.

Cars driving themselves could drastically reduce both of these problems caused by human foibles, so the question is begged of why we don't invest lots of money in making it so, as soon as possible.  Even spending tens of billions of dollars each year on developing the technology is well worth the expenditure, as demonstrated by simple math.  As the Grand Challenge shows, the technology to make it so is not exotic.  Rather, the technology is off-the-shelf and inexpensive.  In only a couple of years, and on a budget of small number millions rather than big number billions, these teams have integrated the technology to go 19 miles an hour on an obstacle course.

This seems like a no-brainer investment to me.  What do you think?

D.C. Mayor Tony Williams -- A Great Mayor

Yesterday, Washington, D.C. mayor Anthony Williams announced that he will not run for a third consecutive term next year.  Even though I am a Republican and Williams is a Democrat in this one-party government system, my hat's off to him for the tangible good that he has done for the city over the last 7 years.  He has been a great mayor and a proper steward of his office.  He has brought function and growth, where before him there was dysfunction and poverty.  Under Williams' tenure:

(1) Roads began to be maintained properly;

(2) Neighborhoods were refurbished and property values soared;

(3) Business began to feel welcomed in the city by the government;

(4) Crime, especially violent crime, plummeted;

(5) Corruption was punished and the culture of corruption receded;

(6) Development was encouraged and a very productive developer-government partnership formed;

(7) The city budget was balanced and tough spending decisions were made with dispatch in the face of entrenched, voracious special interests;

(8) Professional city management became the norm rather than the exception;

(9) City services became reliable and the government responsive; and

(10) The city ceased to be a laughingstock across the country.

As The Washington Post editorial board says,

When Mr. Williams took the oath of office, the District was being run by a congressionally created, presidentially appointed financial control board. The city was in financial ruin. Wall Street had withdrawn its welcome mat, and the local government was discredited both in the eyes of its residents and on Capitol Hill. Several city agencies were being operated by court-appointed receivers, and middle-class residents, fed up with crime and inferior basic municipal services, were abandoning the District in droves.

During Mr. Williams's tenure, the control board departed two years before deadline, court receiverships were lifted, the city's budgets were annually balanced, Wall Street upgraded D.C. bonds from junk status to an A rating, violent crime declined, homeownership rates rose and the D.C. treasury was filled with a healthy surplus, including a $300 million rainy-day fund. Doors are open to the mayor at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue NW. A city once shunned is now the place to be, during evening hours as well as during the day.

Some say [WaPo] that the city has become a very expensive place to live, and I would agree that this is evident.  Indeed, there is even a racial element to this, as some rich white people are supplanting some middle class and poor black people (to the tune of a couple percent of the population).  However, for me that is a measure of how much progress the city has made.  People with money and other options want to live here rather than elsewhere.  It's also true that the services to the poor haven't seen much increased funding, even if they now may be managed better.  For me, this indicates that the government understands that the city needs a better mix of rich to poor in order to be able to provide better for both.

There are a few criticisms that I have of the Tony Williams administration.  However, these few criticisms are the kind that you like to have when all else is good.  During the last year, the government has moved its spending focus away from infrastructure (roads, etc.).  I think this is unfortunate, as I think we have an opportunity now to cement the city as the center of the metropolitan area.  We need to build it our way before the suburbs build it their way.  This is a very long-term and expensive project.  Also, I would like to see lower tax rates.  Right now, our taxes are comparatively very high -- city residents are the most taxed in the entire country.  I would like to have seen a reduction in the income tax as the real estate assessments surged.

On the whole, I think it will be tough to fill the shoes of Mayor Williams.  But I hope that Mayor Williams' stamp on the city will last a long time after he leaves.

SpaceX Makes Move On Human Spaceflight

SpaceX has made its first public move on human spaceflight by signing a two year Space Act Agreement with NASA to "research strategies for future human spaceflight systems for exploration missions and commercial space access."  See the NASA Johnson press release.

Space Act Agreements are usually rather "flexible" in the best sense of the word and allow the private sector to benefit from the expertise of NASA personnel without money changing hands.  In turn, the private sector can use its strengths to get done what NASA wants done.  Bigelow Aerospace has signed 3 of them with NASA, through which the company is commercializing the concept of inflatable space stations.  Reading between the lines, it appears that SpaceX's Space Agreement will allow SpaceX to design and manufacture a crew capsule and build a mission control center that are able to interface with NASA's facilities in orbit and on the ground.

I am sort of surprised that SpaceX has made its move at this time, not least because, as stated in a previous post, none of its now-numerous job listings appear to be related to human spaceflight.  On the other hand, it is a formal relationship that ensures that SpaceX will have NASA's ear at the end of the Summer when NASA issues a request for proposals on International Space Station private-sector resupply and recrewing contracts.  SpaceX isn't letting any grass grow under its feet.

Ethanol, Corn Crop Yields, & Hay

Over the last several weeks, there has been a lot of talk in the press regarding a recent report by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory about the capacity for biomass in the United States.  I was intrigued by the references in these articles to the use of hay to produce ethanol rather than corn.  I've always viewed using corn to produce ethanol as something akin to burning the best topsoil -- wasteful and distasteful.  But you never till the ground for hay, you don't have to use pesticides or fertilizer for hay, growing hay is easy on the soil, and some very marginal farmland can grow hay.  If the scientists in the field can figure out how to produce more energy from ethanol from hay than is used in its production, then maybe I should set aside my objections and take another look at ethanol's virtues.

One astounding chart in the report gives average U.S. corn crop yields over time (see page 37, numbered page 28).  For 40 years prior to World War II, average corn crop yields were a steady 20 to 30 bushels per acre.  However, since that time, corn crop yields have grown quickly to over 160 bushels per acre.  From the year 2000 to 2003 alone, corn crop yields jumped by about 30 bushels per acre.  Amazing!  I can remember 80 to 100 bushels per acre being a bumper crop and I'm very young.

Take that, Malthus!