2 Comments

Not a question, but a list of suggestions for Hackwatch: With the news of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy taking up government efficiency, one potential subject’s hopes are being kept up: Samuel Hammond, of the Niskanen Center. (He said as much at an event with Jennifer Pahlka of Code for America in September.) Come to think of it, I would like to see RDP’s thoughts on the whole “abundance/bottlenecks” infosphere, and whether they are acting in good faith on the question of state capacity. The other potential subjects in the list are the Institute for Progress, James Pethokoukis and Eli Dourado.

Expand full comment

Also, I would like to suggest that the spaceflight market be a topic area to focus on. As starting points, last December, SpaceNews reported that NASA was having trouble with test data rights limitations imposed by SpaceX and Blue Origin on their Moon landers’ propellant systems; The New York Times reported in May on SpaceX possibly undercutting launch costs and blocking smaller entrants such as Relativity, Phantom and Rocket Lab in some contracts, while The Wall Street Journal reported in October that SpaceX requested that two of its satellite internet competitors (and launch customers) share RF spectrum with it. The DoD is starting to hedge against SpaceX with its NSSL Phase 3 program in the small launcher market; Congress already gave NASA its own hedge in the form of the SLS moon rocket.

Expand full comment