The manned space program, entrenched as a sacred cow, has deflected critical examination for decades with promises and visions of utopian attractiveness. Since the end of the Apollo program, there has been little evidence of tangible scientific benefit. Yet it remains uniquely popular, enjoying the personal pronoun “we” for hopefully exciting vicarious adventures. “We” do not have car accidents. “We” go to Mars. Sharing a religious vocabulary, space mania evokes the unreasoning beliefs of the “Electric Monk” of writer Douglas Adams. Quoting Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency,

The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.

I propose that you believe too much. Readers will search this post, and prior, for unreasoning signs of anti-scientific prejudice or  political agendas.. You will be more receptive to my arguments if I tell you a little bit about my beliefs:

• Climate change is real, and largely anthropogenic.
• I am a fan of Dr. Anthony Fauci and RNA vaccines. Though I did warn against vaccine mandates, and  was skeptical prior to proofs of effectiveness and safety, I’ve had about 10 shots and hope for another.
• I am a fan of the scientific method, and horrified at the politicization of science. There is bad science, but it does not discredit the whole. If there is to be a future, it must be a collaboration of man, his knowledge, and his inventions.
• I am a fan of unmanned, robotic space probes, and the great space telescopes. I am an enthusiastic backyard astronomer, and not entirely skeptical of UFOs.
• I want to know.

Science has on many occasions been co-opted for political goals. Some have been as narrow as ending World War II. Others have been as broad as nurturing the national spirit. On September 12, 1962, JFK gave the “Moon  Speech” at Rice University (text). Quoting,

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

My eyes get a little wet, as I remember some of my older engineer friends, as they began what they would later call the best years of their lives.  They were not hard to find; the Apollo program had 100,000 subcontractors, at a time when making things smaller, faster, more powerful, and more reliable was the secular religion of this country. They were making the modern equivalent of a national myth: We can do damn near anything.

They say that “we” went to the moon on slide rules, which is not literally true, but what they did, with what they had, is an epic that surpasses the Odyssey by many powers of ten. My view was not of The Right Stuff riding the rocket, but of unsung heroes, of how a balding, pudgy nondescript man and his buddies, called by NASA to solve an emergency, managed to reduce the astronaut’s life support monitoring electronics, without which Apollo could not fly, from the size of several bricks to a few cubic inches. They did it with things just out of the lab called PMOS, and Bunker-Ramo Planar Coax. They had to build a hundred for every one that worked, but there was never a failure in service. Countless advances like this one gave rise to the term spin-off, which provided the U.S. with a technological  lead that endured into the 90’s.

Then, in August, 1971, Nixon’s commitment to the program wavered.  Apollo 18, 19, and 20 were cancelled. Quoting Canceled Apollo missions,

John Young, who flew on Apollo 10 and 16, believed that fear of losing astronauts was a reason why NASA canceled Apollo 18, 19, and 20.^[14]

Consider: The largest conventional bomb in the U.S. arsenal weighs 15 tons. The Apollo rocket contained 2700 tons of explosive fuel. Accidents will happen. Suddenly, the dream was over, for 100,000 companies, and for the engineers, the best years of their lives.  I felt a personal void. Yet the end of Apollo was inevitable. The myth was too costly, requiring 5,400,000 pounds of explosives for what the Greeks did with poetry.  New spinoffs would not occur with repetition.

***Next: The Big Tent Revival***

What follows is informed fiction, in which Putin conveys to Trump an assessment and a persuasive alternative alignment of powers. Despite some missteps of U.S. policy post the 1991 breakup, and  of NATO immediately prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,  I am not in sympathy with any of it:

Putin:  Look at this brief, prepared by our general staff. The Ukraine manpower pool continues to decline. Their stockpiles continue to decline. According to this assessment, see these front lines. We will have Kherson by October, Kharkiv by December, Odessa by February. Once we cross the Dnieper, their lines will no longer be lines.

With your cooperation, we  will leave a small rump state  around Lviv. Maybe we will not hang Zelinksy in Maidan Nezalezhnosti — I’m joking, of course.

Trump: What about all the Russian casualties? With all the land you already have?

Putin: A mere speed bump. Our technology may not be quite your equal, but we know how to suffer for Mother Russia. We suffered much, much more in the Great Patriotic War. Do you know how to suffer, if war comes to you?

beat

The land is more than part of Russia. It is Russia.

Trump: Let’s keep the World safe between us.

Putin: Between us, not under American domination, where America imagines it runs the whole world. I would rather talk about business deals, where you and I run a part of it together.

Trump: We have partners. No one is excluding you. And from what I’ve been hearing lately, China wants a piece of you.

brief silence, as Trump enjoys the dig

Putin: Your main and worthless partner is NATO, who started this war to prepare the inclusion of Ukraine, who have this convenient fiction, dare I call it a lie, that they are not allied against Russia.

Trump:   Let’s not talk about who started this. Let’s finish it.

Putin:  It’s not too early to talk about what America needs. The only country that aligns with your need to secure raw materials  is Russia. Or do you consider Beenie Babies from China strategic raw materials?

Trump: We’re looking for other partners now. We’re looking for a balance.

Putin: Then why not Russia? Why do you necessitate our Navy’s participation with China against a nation we should not perceive as a threat?

Trump: What about guarantees, like boots from other countries on the ground to keep a peace?

Putin: NATO in disguise. We have a saying, Trust but verify. Trust comes first.

An attempt has been made to make this imagined conversation amenable to analysis. Your first tool is a lawyer joke:

How can you tell when a lawyer is lying?

Your answer?

You may wish to look at Crime Deterrence; Our Groundhog Day of Slaughter, Part 1.

(CNN) Trump holds news conference and announces mobilization of National Guard troops in DC. Quoting,

Despite Trump’s claims Monday that crime is “out of control,” data shows violent crime in Washington, DC, has been declining since its 2023 spike, with two years of sustained improvement.

The math is bolstered on the CNN mobile site by a short form video with unlabeled axes and pleasant music that does not allow the viewer to index along the time axis. CNN does better  with Fact check: Violent crime in DC has fallen in 2024 and 2025 after a 2023 spike. Quoting,

Of course, one homicide is too many, and it’s a matter of perspective whether one chooses to focus on the startling number of homicides or the decline in that number. But it’s just not true that the number is getting worse.

Unfortunately for our state of mind, humans do not measure hazard on a linear scale. It is more likely logarithmic, requiring a change of X10, or 1/10 to  register as twice as bad or twice as good. There might be eight perceptual categories of crime:

• Statistical; the victims are nameless.
• Victims are known through the media.
• Victims inhabit the same social structure. Ie., you’re a politician and the victim is a politician.
• The crime  is notorious.
• You can identify in some way with the victim; “It could have happened to me.”
• The victim is someone you know.
• It happened to someone you love.
• It happened to you.

This is the truth of  “One homicide is too many.” The political divide is largely along three issues:

• Trend of public perception. Democrats say things are getting better, while Republicans say things are intolerable. They are not talking the same language, because they are not feeling in the same way.
• Culture. Post World War II, the crime rate has fluctuated around a higher mean than prior, subject to random stresses in our society. Sadly, our culture breeds criminals.
• Remedy. Reform the criminal, or punish more harshly? The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, challenging the practicality of the traditional remedy for crime — punishment.

The two parties offer for our consideration approaches most in concert with their political philosophies. Republicans offer punishment. Democrats offer reform.  Republicans are concerned with the victim; Democrats are concerned about  the cycle of poverty that breeds crime. Neither approach has sustained long term political viability, which is limited  by the tenure of party dominance. Neither approach has reduced violent crime to levels typical of other First World countries.

The absence of a viable strategy to make the U.S. a low crime country is an opportunity for both parties. The potential for Republicans is limited, due to their inflexible devotion to the tradition of crime and punishment. The possibilities for Democrats are wide open, though possibly in conflict with their tradition of concern for the dignity of man.

To both, which will it be? Punishment, compromise of dignity, or something new and novel? Both sides must embrace aspects of the other. There is no logic in automatic release of violent offenders, or incarceration without prompt justice.

While you debate, someone is bleeding out.

Dear President Trump,

Don’t fall for it. Despite the fact that Vladimir Putin wears finely tailored business suits, there are no shared values. He is not a Western man in disguise; he is a traditional Russian potentate, the last Tsar. Points of difference:

• Putin does not value human life.
• He does not honor agreements, commitments, or promises, which he makes with intent to violate, as a fourth force additive to coercion, subversion, and military force/threat.
• Putin’s immutable goal is restoration of the Russian Empire, with a follow-on of turning the whole of Western Europe into a weak vassal state.
• With the loss of Western Europe we would lose the greatest concentration of brainpower the world has ever seen, the only counter to the rising intellectual dominance of China. The modern world was invented in Europe; the U.S. technological contribution is not historically proportionate. The manufacture of the most advanced computer chips depends worldwide upon equipment supplied by a single Dutch company.

Was Putin always this way? There is a spread of opinion. My own is that there was an evolution, partly a result of errors of  Western policy after the breakup of the Soviet Union, which does not diminish the current danger. These errors cannot be corrected by conciliation now.

The Russian Apartment Bombings of 1999 are thought by some as affecting him deeply.

Others may point to the gradual deterioration of his relationships with politicians, finalizing in the criminalization of dissent.

The ease with which Russia seized Crimea in 2014, with tepid reaction in the West, may have convinced him of loss in the West of “manly values” of  combat, leaving Russia as the only power capable of waging war. Perhaps he read H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, in which the degenerate Eloi are farmed and eaten by the subterranean Morlocks.

From the very start Putin’s  rule relied on co-opting corrupt elements, oligarchs blending into mafia. His reliance on skilled balancing of these forces made personal rule indispensable, and unlikely to survive without him. When Putin began to suffer from diseases that will eventually end his life,  he sought a replacement power structure, turning to Russian nationalism. This was marked by the (Aljazeera) firing of the entire “Russian government.” Some assert he actually became “religious”, seeing himself as “preserver of the realm”, the last Tsar. Or perhaps the religious element is a simple scheme to meld nationalism with the state religion.

This explains Putin’s indifference to loss of human life. He is God’s Russian messenger. It also explains why you can’t bargain with Putin. You can’t bargain with the Divine.

By 2004, Iran had  developed a detailed, complete, sophisticated design for an implosion weapon at an installation in Parchin. See (NPEC) Lessons from China: How Soon Could Iran Get the Bomb? The design closely follows early Chinese weapons, suggesting proliferation sources other than Russia. The design underwent “cold testing”, with dummy  non-fissionable pits, with translation to a functional device enabled by knowledge and technique also subject to proliferation. Virtually all of the obstacles asserted to challenge Iran’s final steps were addressed by 2004.

Those who have advocated restraint prioritize the apparent reluctance of Khameini to approve the final steps of the program. Those who prioritize the existence of the design, and possibly bombs sans fissionable pits, note that if 90% uranium 235 were available, the bomb could be assembled almost instantaneously on the advent of the political decision. An untested bomb might not work, or it might fizzle, but the closely similar Chinese design worked the first time, as did the American Fat Man design. The Iranian implosion weapon is likely to work without testing.

An implosion bomb requires 90% uranium because it relies on compressing the pit to a fraction of its volume. The critical mass of  uranium or plutonium is roughly inversely proportional to the square of the density. When the pit is compressed, the density goes up, the pit becomes super-critical, and the chain reaction of fission proceeds for a few microseconds until the pit flies apart.

Uranium is a strong metal. Imagine compressing the steel in an I-beam to half the original thickness. This does not occur in the world we know. In an implosion  weapon, this is accomplished with very powerful and precise conventional explosives surrounding the pit, generating a spherical shock wave that converges on the pit with accuracy better than a microsecond. The precision required is so great that some method of focusing the shock waves is required. Here the Iranian weapon follows a Chinese innovation.

If the timing fails, the bomb fails. This is why implosion weapons are hard to build. With 60% uranium, the greater compression required to compensate for the reduced concentration of active material is impractical or extremely challenging.

Post-strike assessments have  not determined whether the infrastructure required to enrich from 60% to 90% has been disrupted.  We continue with the assumption that it has. What is the weapon potential of the  60% stock, if, as some think, it is hidden in the tunnels of Isfahan?

The first atomic bomb dropped on Japan, Little Boy, was not an implosion design. It was so inefficient and dangerous that only one was ever built. The design is so simple, it was used without testing. It is simple because it does not rely  on implosion at all. It was built around a surplus artillery barrel. At one end is a fixed spike made of 80% uranium-235. At the other end is the projectile, a cylindrical doughnut also made of uranium-235, which is fired at the spike by several bags of smokeless powder of the kind used in naval guns. When the spike fills the hole in the doughnut, super-criticality occurs. Even if the gunpowder ignites accidentally, there will be a nuclear explosion. This is what makes it so unsafe; a damaged gun-type weapon can still function, while an implosion weapon would likely fail.

The gun-type weapon is too heavy to fit on a missile, but it  can fit in a dhow, shipping container, or cargo aircraft. There are some circumstances in which it might be used in the Gulf against American interests without risk of massive retaliation, such as the sinking of an aircraft carrier.  Compared to plutonium weapons, uranium emits practically no radiation, making it undetectable by purely passive means, such as a Geiger counter. Active probes and close inspection are required to protect port facilities.

Of interest is how many gun-type weapons could be manufactured from Iran’s stockpile of 60% uranium. The IAEA states that Iran has a minimum of 408 kg. The original Little Boy was constructed from 80% uranium-235, and contained two critical masses. To achieve two critical masses with 60% uranium-235, more must be used.

The actual amount of 60% uranium-235 required for two critical masses is not available to open source. A napkin calculation has been performed. The short answer is that the amount of uranium must be doubled. Three gun-type weapons can be constructed from the IAEA stockpile estimate. If enrichment resumes, the metal can easily be reclaimed and converted to uranium hexaflouride. 

The napkin calc is not complicated. It piggy-backs on public knowledge about Little Boy, critical masses for various  enrichment levels, and the relationship between criticality and density. There is a mathematical trick. Since it is “techies-only”, it will be presented in a following post.

(CNN) Trump announces air strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran.

The elements of deception in this operation were impressive. You don’t always have to telegraph a punch.

Iran’s Next Move? The SAM Trap was an attempt to identify a form of retaliation not unavailable requiring resources. Events have probably moved beyond that.  One commentator has stated that, due to the inability of Iran to project air, other than missiles, or ground forces,  Israel has escalation dominance.

As far as direct confrontation with Israel, this seems reasonable. While we hope for regime change, and events that enable it, there may instead emerge a revised version of the current regime, in which overt expansionism is replaced with stoicism.  Expansionism  would become a revanchist myth, without overt repudiation. If this occurs, Iran’s goal may shift from overt obsession with Israel to regaining relevance in the international community.

Iran’s relevance has, since 1979, taken the form of making trouble for the West and Western allies, creating domestic political pressure that would undermine support for Israel.

Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz if Iran’s own oil exports are halted. Years ago, the threat was actualized as Chinese Silkworm missiles embedded in cliffs. Iran may have since added capability to this threat. Nevertheless, it does not seem feasible for a weakened Iran to halt traffic through the Strait via missile attacks for an extended period.  This problem has been war-gamed to the max.

The reader is challenged to devise a method for Iran to halt or greatly diminish traffic through the strait that is more resistant to military reversal than missiles or other elements vulnerable to air attack. From the p.o.v. of the problem, reversal of the blockade should require land invasion or diplomatic concessions.  Extra points if the Iranians can still transport their own oil.

I have an idea, but I’m not spilling the beans. Have fun, but don’t tell the Iranians!

(Youtube IsraeliPM )  Statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu;  Ayatollah regime was planning to give nuclear weapons to proxies.

This was anticipated in (CNN) Israeli foreign minister: Trump admin. didn’t force Israel into accepting ceasefire ; Future Trends of M.E. Terrorism. Quoting,

One of our secular givens is that these terror groups are basically fighting for a life on earth. This implies that the land of Israel must be regained as a habitable place. This negates the possibility of a completely religious motivation, the land now a mere symbol of possession, regained as a completely sterile wasteland, incapable of human habitation. The reservoir is Syria; see After Assad; a Terror Nation-State.

This implies that non-state actors will attempt the use of weapons of mass destruction without regard for the populations for which they presumably advocate.The use of Gazans as human shields is an early form of this meme, which will evolve with greater virulence.

Israel and the U.S. possess complimentary capabilities, which is why  Trump said “it might actually help”:

• The U.S. has superlative technical intelligence and unique strike capability against hardened targets.
• Israel has unparalleled HUMINT (human intelligence) bolstered by the Jewish Diaspora and widespread dissonance in Iran.
• Israel’s strike capability against soft targets is similar to U.S. in quality, though not in quantity or reach. It is bolstered by on-the-ground damage assessment.
• This results in a well defined target dichotomy. Israel’s target is human capital, intellectual property and research facilities. The U.S. target would be industrial base.

The timing was forced by the tendency of HUMINT to go stale. Top generals are easily replaced, scientists less so. Depending upon the depth of intelligence, the strike may impede Iran’s program for a year or two.  However, it is relatively easy to cache this kind of property, both intellectual and technical, in multiple locations, not all of which may be known to Israel.

It is doubtful that the underground centrifuge halls of Natanz can be   penetrated by Israel, though above ground support structures are vulnerable. Entrance portals may be vulnerable to specialty weapons.

The regional trajectory  is unlikely to deflect by much. The inability to  extirpate Hamas should  give pause for a much larger target. Quoting from Iran’s Options for Retaliation,

The leaders and  senior politicians of Israel have all lived through  the unsuccessful attempt to influence Lebanon’s trajectory, to deny terror a sanctuary in Lebanon by skilled military intervention. Despite calls to “finish off Hezbollah”, their inner thoughts must span a range, from doubt of the achievable to realistic buying of time, time of relative security. When the enemy has 200,000 missiles, you have to do something. Perhaps time is all you can buy in the Eternal City._*

Quoting from Iran history II: two societies,

It is the living embodiment of a Plato’s Republic, incongruously set against a secular majority that pretty much does what they please — in private. The dichotomy is so severe as to seem institutionalized hypocrisy.

This culture of centuries resulted from  the melding of Abbasid and Persian cultures. It has produced Iranian negotiators rich in verbal expression and nuanced meaning, delaying  the  onset of “Haven’t we been here before?”,  entrapping Trump’s negotiators in an endless circle of words.

The above should not be construed as an opinion on military strikes. History is  a mighty river that just carries us along. Iran might buy North Korean nukes, which are much more advanced than what they are trying to build.

Dear POTUS,

No doubt you wish the mass expulsion of illegal aliens to be one of the positive aspects of your legacy. This is not about the politics of that goal.

The police, guard and marines personnel share the desire to serve.  It takes better than average people to serve well. But they, like most of us, are not mental giants. The capability to make split-second decisions is enhanced by their training, specialized to the scenarios they are expected to encounter.

A policeman is not trained to storm an objective requiring lethal force from the get-go. The training of a cop involves a very careful sequence of escalation: request,  demand, compel. Execution of this template,  switching almost instantaneously to deadly force according to the regulations of a department, is the hallmark of superior training and ability.  The ability to persuade a suspect to comply with minimum force, or any force at all, is far more complex than the use of deadly force. This is what makes the career of law enforcement rewarding. It maintains the consent of the governed, without which civil government loses all meaning. A cop practices his skills every day.

The training of the national guard  in police work is occasional and rarely practiced.  The Guard is not a law enforcement agency.  Training for civil unrest is combined with the training of a combat infantryman, which is almost entirely occupied with perfection in the use of lethal force.  This combination leads  to the possibility of horrendous error, when a unit of guardsmen  spontaneously switches from civil policing to the massive application of lethal force.

The U.S. Marines train hard to kill. “No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy”  is a valiant motto, full of honest intent. But the potential risk of misidentification of a civilian as an enemy combatant, and the resulting application of lethal force, remains. It is impossible to guarantee that a Marine in a civil situation will suppress reflexes developed for combat.

History is replete with unfortunate examples:

William Calley was by all accounts a decent guy, who regretted the My Lai massacre for the rest of his life.

The Kent State shootings were committed by 28 frightened guardsmen.

The 2005  Haditha massacre in Iraq was committed by Marines enraged by a  lethal IED. While the participants have been partly excused by the character of the war zone,  a domestic response would be unforgiving.

The risk exists of unintended death of of civilians, in confrontation with soldiers lacking the trained finesse of  professional police officers. The event is not a desirable legacy.. It makes political sense to avoid fatalities committed by federal forces. The best way to avoid this is to use the Guard and Marines strictly in a defensive capacity. Powers of arrest and detention should remain the province of DHS and other federal agencies with experience  in law enforcement.