Building Our Soup Bowl*

Recently, Elon Musk announced that SpaceX will begin building "floating superheavy-class spaceports" for its launch and recovery of spacecraft; IOW VTOL aircraft carriers. One presumes these vessels will include repair and re-condition capabilities for Falcon and Starship vehicles as an initial minimum standard, with all that that includes engineering-wise.

It probably shouldn't go without saying that the usual run of blue-water vessel crewing requirements will also be necessary; Captain, bridge watchstanders, communications and radar operators and maintenance workers, both ship and flight deck engineering and maintenance personnel, culinary and other human support crew ... it's a long list of ship handling and maintenance specialties whose tasks have to be provided for both in personnel and in logistic support, along with all of the financial commitments doing that entails. I presume Mr. Musk will operate these ships under Texas registration and regulations; if so he might want to strongly consider creating a Texas-based security company which employs Level III licensed guards trained to function in a nautical environment (trained EMT's/Paramedics and maybe rescue swimmers combines several potential requirements), particularly in light of the threat potential such a complex investment seems almost certain to attract. (See: Update below)

There is plenty of existing commercial experience to draw upon to develop a shore support effort (all those oil well platforms in the Gulf and elsewhere); and let's face it, aircraft carriers have been in existence for a century now, as has replenishing them logistically underway - hardly cutting edge science there. A lot of additional features to develop of course; making sure your boat doesn't catch fire and explode every landing and launch understandably being high on that list. Mr. Musk and his team will be fully occupied for some years getting all of this underweigh.

A technology I think Mr. Musk should look into is Life Proof Boats (I don't have any connection to the company, I'm just impressed with what I've seen so far) . They don't heavily advertise them, but they do offer a 48' version that at first look seems a useful platform to economically provide logistic support to a vessel operating within a few hundred miles of harbor, as well as fire fighting support and crew escape (one of these could easily tow one or two standard 20 person life rafts) while the carrier is on station. Hanging some Oxe Diesel Outboard Engines off the stern would permit an economy of performance hard to beat, I think (no connection to this company either, but one fuel for all vessels just seems a better option to me). Additionally, I can't help believing that Star Link provides a platform by which much of the work involved with one or a fleet of space launch and recovery ships can be equally well performed remotely by operators on shore.

Additionally, I find myself attracted to the idea that, much like commercial yachts hiring their Captain and Chief Engineer to be involved in the vessel build process, potentially being able to watch the development of the procedures and technologies used to achieve the SpaceX fleet logistics requirements during their development strongly attracts me. In part because I served on a USN carrier back at the tail end of the Vietnam war, in part because I like the challenge of small boat handling (on and off the boat), and in part because I worked 15+ years in some aspect of logistics that didn't involve a desk.

We'll see ... and that's the best part of all.  :)

*Jerry Pournelle famously coined the phrase, "It's raining soup in space, we just need to build a bowl and go get some."

Update 6/21/2020: A security force - importantly, one that works for you - that is trained in repelling, investigating, and documenting (to appropriate legal standard) criminal acts both on and off the high seas isn't a needless cost; see: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/world/americas/gulf-mexico-pirates-ships.html

He said, He said.

Kim du Toit posts an argument on the practical necessity to occasionally modify the rights Americans are recognized to possess by our national Constitution, which I have linked to below. It's a well-written argument, as is his usual fashion, which I urge you to read in full, as otherwise what follows won't make a lot of sense. Below is my comment to Kim's post in full (and you probably ought to go read his post first):

File this comment under: Bone; picking thereof.

Your post is quite well argued, Kim, as is your usual. However, in this case, I think you overlook a necessary distinction.

Numerous US courts have ruled that rights cannot be restricted or denied, even temporarily, so your basic premise is flawed as both a practical matter and as a point of law. It is further well established that the mutual exercise of immutable rights can, and routinely are, subject to lawful constraint, so as to provide the maximum opportunity for all citizens to exercise their rights without violating other’s exercise of their rights.

The distinction between possessing rights and exercising rights is not just a pedantic one, I submit, as your post makes clear.

There already is a substantial body of law regulating the exercise of rights by US citizens and residents. Whether, how, and to what extent those laws should be modified (or removed) ought to be a routinely ongoing topic of discussion at all levels of social and political discourse in our country (and any reader of this blog knows that to be the actual case). Framing discussion about emergent or transitory circumstances threatening human existence (or even only general welfare) in terms of specifically limited exercise of rights, which would necessarily include return to the status quo, avoids the question of infringement upon, or denial of, rights entirely.

How you frame an argument is often more than half the battle of winning it, and I suggest you’ve framed this particular argument poorly. Preempt the concept of denying rights by confining the discussion to ways and means of temporarily adapting existing regulations on the mutual exercise of rights between citizens.

http://www.kimdutoit.com/2020/06/11/rocks-and-hard-places/

2nd Amendment anyone?

Famously, the M-16 battle rifle is a development of the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. The fully automatic/semi-automatic difference seems to be the dividing distinction between military rifle and civilian rifle. At the link below a fully automatic turret-style heavy machine gun system is (deliberately) generically described, along with a brief history of its development.

Question: since Gatling type guns are covered by the 2nd amendment as not requiring a special license for a citizen to own, how soon can we expect a privately developed civilian version of the weapon system described in the linked article? Bonus question: what relevance does such a development have regarding civil unrest, or even military invasion, here in the US?

https://strategypage.com/htmw/htweap/articles/20200607.aspx

Given: There WILL be cops ...

... and by cops, I mean organized efforts to impose legal restraint upon everybody.

The inescapable failure inherent to this whole "defund the cops" idea is that it completely reverses the problem. Cops enforce the laws of the legal jurisdiction that employs them. If you want cops to enforce laws differently, change the laws cops are required to enforce. Change the training cops receive so as to change the ways and means they are trained to use to enforce the laws. Change the courts so as to remove the unlawful separation of responsibility from actions taken ("qualified immunity" has no basis in written law, but is instead the intended result of the US Supreme Court ruling in  Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 (1982)  ,and is generally defined as follows:

"Specifically, qualified immunity protects a government official from lawsuits alleging that the official violated a plaintiff's rights, only allowing suits where officials violated a “clearly established” statutory or constitutional right. When determining whether or not a right was “clearly established,” courts consider whether a hypothetical reasonable official would have known that the defendant’s conduct violated the plaintiff’s rights. Courts conducting this analysis apply the law that was in force at the time of the alleged violation, not the law in effect when the court considers the case.

Qualified immunity is not immunity from having to pay money damages, but rather immunity from having to go through the costs of a trial at all. Accordingly, courts must resolve qualified immunity issues as early in a case as possible, preferably before discovery.

Qualified immunity only applies to suits against government officials as individuals, not suits against the government for damages caused by the officials’ actions. Although qualified immunity frequently appears in cases involving police officers, it also applies to most other executive branch officials. While judges, prosecutors, legislators, and some other government officials do not receive qualified immunity, most are protected by other immunity doctrines."  See: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/qualified_immunity

 IANAL but "qualified immunity" seems to be an obvious extension of "judicial immunity" by the Supreme Court which itself is a matter of written law (see: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1983).

Is this a desirable condition of American jurisprudence? Call or write your state's Attorney General's office, call or write your state's Governor's office, call or write your Member of Congress and your state's Senator's offices, register your opinion and legislative desires with them. Make your voice heard, agitate with those who have the ability to make the needed change(s). But do so from an inescapable minimum condition of existence; there will be cops, because we need cops - preferably one's determinedly working from a clearly delineated position of neutrality between the generally conflicting interests of members of US society.

The assertion that "the law is what it is" is probably made only slightly less frequently than is "the law is an ass", but equally inescapably, the law is ... and in some form or another will continue to be. That being so, it is desirable and necessary to frequently review the law, and those who are employed to enforce it. Not just cops, prosecutors, and judges either; there is a serious argument being made that the US (at all levels of governance, not just federally) has too many laws, too many of which are already part of previously existing legislation (which is how a law is legally made - executive orders that do not specifically reference an enabling act of legislation do not have force of law no matter how hard or often a Governor or President says otherwise).

Changing the laws of the US (again, at all levels of governance) would be the most certain means of reforming police interactions with the general public. Changing police training to reflect the enforcement requirements of the law would complete the reform process. Doing all of that at the federal level would almost certainly be necessary to achieve at least some degree of national uniformity of enforcement (and achieving that degree of uniformity would itself be a drawn out process, if only due to the complexity of competing interests inherent to the multi-level nature of US legal and political structure). While a dramatic performance before the House Ways and Means Committee demonstrating the sheer volume of federal legislation (and how much less is actually required to achieve the same - arguably better - levels of public protection) would certainly be entertaining, the reality is this will be a long and contentious effort requiring multiple iterations of change.

Personal note: I lived in S. California during 1991 and '92. I'm quite familiar with the events surrounding the arrest of Rodney King and the prosecution of his arresting police officers (I lived roughly a mile away from the arrest scene). I fully expect that the essentially identical legal process will play out in Minnesota, probably during the 2020/21 winter months (for what I regard as obvious reasons). The officers will be found "not guilty" by reason of qualified immunity in state court, and in very short order thereafter found "guilty" in federal court of violating George Floyd's civil rights, for which they will be imprisoned for a number of years. It goes without saying that Floyd's family will receive a financial settlement from Minnesota.

If we are going to achieve this change in US laws and how they are enforced, and I agree that we should if we wish to continue as citizens of a recognizably USA, then we must begin to organize the mechanisms necessary to doing all of that.

Or, we can just go ahead and form the national circular firing squad and do it that way.

Smile for the Birdy!

Much has been made in recent days about President Trump's visit to the St. John's Church National Monument on the evening of Monday June 1st following his speech from the White House Rose Garden. Below is a quote from the US Park Police regarding that department's actions that same evening (quoted in full):

"The United States Park Police (USPP) is committed to the peaceful expression of First Amendment rights. However, this past weekend’s demonstrations at Lafayette Park and across the National Mall included activities that were not part of a peaceful protest, which resulted in injuries to USPP officers in the line of duty, the destruction of public property and the defacing of memorials and monuments. During four days of demonstrations, 51 members of the USPP were injured; of those, 11 were transported to the hospital and released and three were admitted.

Multiple agencies assisted the USPP in responding to and quelling the acts of destruction and violence over the course of the weekend in order to protect citizens and property.

On Monday, June 1, the USPP worked with the United States Secret Service to have temporary fencing installed inside Lafayette Park. At approximately 6:33 pm, violent protestors on H Street NW began throwing projectiles including bricks, frozen water bottles and caustic liquids. The protestors also climbed onto a historic building at the north end of Lafayette Park that was destroyed by arson days prior. Intelligence had revealed calls for violence against the police, and officers found caches of glass bottles, baseball bats and metal poles hidden along the street.

To curtail the violence that was underway, the USPP, following established policy, issued three warnings over a loudspeaker to alert demonstrators on H Street to evacuate the area. Horse mounted patrol, Civil Disturbance Units and additional personnel were used to clear the area. As many of the protestors became more combative, continued to throw projectiles, and attempted to grab officers’ weapons, officers then employed the use of smoke canisters and pepper balls. No tear gas was used by USPP officers or other assisting law enforcement partners to close the area at Lafayette Park. Subsequently, the fence was installed.

Throughout the demonstrations, the USPP has not made any arrests. The USPP will always support peaceful assembly but cannot tolerate violence to citizens or officers or damage to our nation’s resources that we are entrusted to protect."

As you can read for yourself, the Park Police discovered a cache of weapons while installing a temporary fence in Lafayette Park, and were subsequently attacked by "protestors". "At approximately 6:33 pm" Park Police began clearing Lafayette Park in response to rioters attacking them.

Was this action by US Park Police unlawful, or only just undesirable? These are questions that US courts are designed to determine answers to. Anyone lying about the events cited above (which would seem to be just about everybody "reporting" or commenting on them heretofore) would do well to stop undermining their efforts at influencing public opinion, and simply do so by reporting on actual events instead of fantasy ravings. Tired of the #fakenews hashtag? There's a simple fix. Simple, not easy* * No, I was never a SEAL, but I can read like one. :).

NPS.GOV

Statement from United States Park Police acting Chief Gregory T. Monahan about the actions taken over the weekend to protect life and property - United States Park Police (U.S. National Park Service)

The United States Park Police (USPP) is committed to the peaceful expression of First Amendment rights. However, this past weekend’s demonstrations at Lafayette Park and across the National Mall included activities that were not part of a peaceful protest, which resulted in injuries to USPP office...