Chasing the Dragon

[9:19 PM, 5/17/2012] Provided that nothing silly happens, in the wee hours on Saturday morning SpaceX will be launching a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon cargo spacecraft up to a rendezvous with the International Space Station. My intent is to live-blog the launch, starting at about 3:00 AM or so on Saturday morning. Unless my alarm doesn't wake me up. Or, unless something happens and the launch is cancelled.

It's a non-trivial possibility. The launch window is very tight. The Dragon doesn't have much in the way of out-of-plane fuel reserves, so they have to launch straight into the right orbital inclination. Which means they have one chance to get this right.

I'm fairly confident that they will. Until then, some music while we wait:

[5:33 PM, 5/18/2012] For those of you following along from home, there's a press release from SpaceX here. (Hat tip: Next Big Future.)

[7:16 PM, 5/18/2012] So far, so good. For those tuning in live overnight, SpaceX will probably host a live feed here. Until then, this is what we expect to start happening early tomorrow morning:



[3:13 AM, 5/19/2012] OK, we're up and running. The webcast will be here at about 3:15 or so.

[3:19 AM, 5/19/2012] Nothing out of the ordinary so far. Weather looks good. The initial indications from the webcast are good. According to the timeline, the vehicle was powered on at about 8:30 PM last night. Just before midnight, they began fueling the rocket, which was complete by about 12:30 AM or so. Now, they're running down the clock to the planned 4:55:26 AM EDT launch. That's 3:55:26 AM CDT, or just about 35 minutes from now.

[3:27 AM, 5/19/2012] T-30 minutes and counting. Looks good so far!

[3:28 AM, 5/19/2012] Ha. "Instantaneous launch window," indeed. As I said earlier, Dragon doesn't carry much in the way of out-of-plane capability. They get one chance to launch. If the weather doesn't co-operate, or if there's a hardware glitch, they'll have to scrub, and get a new date from NASA. Which means, by 4:45, they'll either have a go for launch, or an order to start off-loading their fuel.

[3:31 AM, 5/19/2012] And that's a good point ... being the wee hours of the morning, the on-board camera video probably won't be very fascinating once we get up away from the pad. We'll see about that when it happens.

[3:41 AM, 5/19/2012] Some of you might be wondering why rendezvous isn't until Flight Day 4. That's a pretty good question. First-orbit rendezvous isn't impossible, but it imposes so many constraints on your launch time that it's just about never done. They did it on Gemini 11. But you not only have to inject into the right orbital plane, but the target has to be exactly in the right place for you to slide up right alongside it right after orbital insertion. That just about never happens. You get one launch window per day as it is. You'd wait months, if not years, for a direct-ascent rendezvous. So, what you do is inject into an orbit slightly lower than your target, and let the "magic" of differing orbital rates "walk" your way around into proximity over the course of two or three days. Which is why I say that spaceflight is a lot like baseball, in that the participants spend most of their time waiting for something interesting to happen...

[3:43 AM, 5/19/2012] T-15 minutes and counting.

[3:43 AM, 5/19/2012] Latest poll of flight controllers is a GO for launch.

[3:47 AM, 5/19/2012] GO for terminal count. Falcon 9 auto-sequence start. T-10 and counting.

[3:53 AM, 5/19/2012] T-5 minutes and counting. Vehicle is venting LOX. I think I heard that Falcon 9 is on internal power?

[3:53 AM, 5/19/2012] No, I misheard. Now it's on internal power.

[3:54 AM, 5/19/2012] T-4 minutes and counting.

[3:55 AM, 5/19/2012] Interestingly, it looks like they don't switch all of the systems on internal power all at once. Probably a good idea. T-3 minutes and counting.

[3:56 AM, 5/19/2012] Launch Director is GO for launch. T-2 minutes and counting.

[3:57 AM, 5/19/2012] T-1 minute and counting.

[3:58 AM, 5/19/2012] And, terminal launch abort. Why, not exactly clear just yet.

[4:04AM, 5/19/2012] There was a shut-down just after ignition. Which means that, given the tight launch window, no launch today. What's happening on the live feed now is that the launch control team is executing the steps required to "safe" the vehicle, and begin off-loading the fuel. And, I just heard that the abort was due to Engine 5 chamber pressure high. That's a good thing to know while the vehicle is still locked down to the pad, rather than in-flight. And with that, I'm back to bed. I'll check back in later to see if there's more information.

[6:30 AM, 5/19/2012] In hindsight, slamming down an energy drink at 3AM was probably a grievous error. That said, we've got a few updates. First, to expand on what I said above at 4AM: the Falcon 9 launch procedure is to bring the engines up to full thrust, perform a complete engine checkout, then release the vehicle for flight. If anything funky happens during the checkout, the on-board controller automatically shuts the engines off. This way, you know that you've got nine healthy engines when you leap up off the pad. The fact that it shut itself down is a feature, not a bug. We don't know yet exactly why Engine 5 had a slightly high combustion chamber pressure. The actual pressure value might have been just fine, but the software limits had been exceeded. Or that might have been a precursor of something more serious. Something that you don't want to find out about five miles up at Mach 2.

Elon Musk said that they'll "adjust the limits" and try again on Tuesday morning. Why Tuesday? Dunno. There are a lot of possible reasons, from weather forecasts to labor issues, but by far the most likely scenario is that you just can't offload the fuel, do a complete checkout on the vehicle, then re-load the fuel in just 24 hours. Or even 48 hours. Tuesday morning isn't official yet, they'll have to get buy-in from range safety and everyone else, but that's the way to bet.

This is a hard, complicated business to be in. It really is rocket science. The amazing thing is that we can do it at all.

Anyway, no live-blog on Tuesday, since I have to report to my day gig. We'll keep our fingers crossed, though, and probably have a wrap-up report Tuesday evening if all goes well. Until then...



... just remember, it could have been worse.

[8:50 PM, 5/19/2012] And here's the final postscript: SpaceX engineers found a faulty check valve on the #5 engine, which they've replaced. The next attempt will be on Tuesday at 3:44 AM EDT, 2:44 AM Central.

[10:00 AM, 5/26/2012] Launch through docking continues here.

Sesquicentennial, Part XXI: East and West

--FIRST -PREV NEXT-

When I began this project, there were a few people that I thought that I'd have a lot of fun roasting over an open fire, figuratively speaking. What I did not anticipate is the degree to which I would come to sympathize with them, once I began studying their positions more closely. To my surprise, one was President James Buchanan. And yes, I have raked him over the coals for his inaction while the Union was disintegrating during the winter of 1860-1861. But what else was he to do? What else could he have done? The Army was too far spread out for him to do much reinforcing -- his Secretary of War had seen to that. And he was morally convinced that he had no right to commit his successor to a course of action that he might not agree with. I still think he was wrong in this, and deserves the dubious honor of Worst President Ever, but he was at least honestly wrong.

Another one who has surprised me is General George McClellan.

It's unfair to judge him by his late record alone. He was a very able officer. He had a first-rate organizational talent. And, in the opening months of the war, he had shown a capability for bold, decisive action. He looked every inch just the man to replace Winfield Scott as overall Union Army commander. And initially, he did not disappoint. He took that dispirited rabble that had been so ignominiously routed from Bull Run, and drilled them back into a proper Army. He built a ring of defenses around Washington City so strong that the Rebels never even dreamed of testing them. He saw to every detail, making sure that his soldiers were housed, fed, and clothed properly. When the spring of 1862 rolled around, everyone expected General McClellan to take to the field, and win a glorious victory.

It was here that his tragic flaw was revealed. Some would call it timidity. Others might say cowardice. Once, I might have agreed with them, but now, I have to say differently. McClellan succumbed to what we now call "Analysis Paralysis."

Information traveled far faster in the 1860s than it ever had before, and in a sense, army commanders had far more information at their fingertips than they had ever had before. George McClellan had recruited Allan Pinkerton as his intelligence chief. You may know the name from the famous Pinkerton Detective Agency. An extensive network of spies and informants wormed their way through both the North and the South, working both ways. Sometimes this gave a commander good, timely information. Other times, it gave a man with a tendency to over-think things far more information than he really needed. McClellan, therefore, developed a tendency to far over-estimate his enemy's actual strength.

And looking at it from his point of view, if you grant that his information was correct, McClellan's caution was in every sense justifiable. But it wasn't correct. And so, General McClellan fought a campaign in the East that spring that ended up being fairly pointless, except for one thing.

Emancipation, you see, did not begin in the halls of Congress. It did not begin in the debating societies. It began on the front lines, when some runaway slaves sought refuge with Benjamin Butler, a Union commander. Later that day, a Southern officer approached under a flag of truce, requesting the return of the slaves, according to the law. Butler declined. Seeing a way to not only jab a sharp stick in the Rebel's eye, but also to make his abolitionist-leaning soldiers happy, he impounded the slaves as contraband of war. He reasoned that denial of their labor to the Rebels was a valid tool of war. Very soon thereafter, that became standard procedure throughout the Union Army. So, the spring campaign of 1862 in the East wasn't a complete waste of time.

Out West, it was another matter entirely. General Grant was driving down the rivers that the Confederacy needed for commerce and resupply. They could not allow him to do this with impunity. Confederate Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard marched to intercept Grant's force. On the morning of April 6th, Grant's army was encamped along the Shiloh Branch, near the Tennessee River. They weren't expecting an attack. Johnston and Beauregard took them by surprise. What followed was pure horror.

Armies of the era were still drilled, and still maneuvered, as they did in Napoleon's day, fifty years earlier. Such tactics made sense in an era when soldiers carried breech-loading muskets. With one of those muskets, hitting your target was as much a matter of luck as of skill, so they were only effective when firing in a line, all at once. Some of that volley of lead would find a mark in the opposing force. But something important had happened in the last fifty years. The soldiers meeting one another on the banks of the Shiloh weren't carrying those old muskets. They were carrying rifled muskets.

Claude Minie hadn't been looking for a way to make a more accurate rifle. What he was looking for was a rifle that wouldn't foul so easily. A rifle that could be loaded more rapidly. The new bullet he designed had a hollow base that would expand to grip the rifling, scouring the sides of the barrel as it went down. This did reduce fouling. But it also imparted a spin to the bullet, making it much more accurate. A soldier with a rifled musket using Minie ball ammunition was capable of six aimed shots every minute.

Six aimed shots. Not six shots in random volley. Six aimed shots.

Infantry armament had become orders of magnitude more deadly. And no one realized the horrifying implications of that, yet. No one realized what would, what must happen when men march in formation towards a position held by other men who can fire six aimed shots per minute.

The initial surprise attack startled the Union defenders, and they fell back. But they rallied at a position that became known as the "Sunken Road", and then retired to defensive positions around Pittsburg Landing. Casualties on both sides were appalling. While leading the assault on the Sunken Road, General Johnston was mortally wounded. One of the Union generals in the same fight, W.H.L. Wallace, was also mortally wounded. Troops marching in a line towards a prepared defensive position would expose themselves to murderously accurate fire. The Confederates managed to bring up enough artillery to reduce the salient at the Sunken Road, but by the time they broke through, Grant had already established a new defensive line in front of the docks at Pittsburg Landing. Day was giving way to nightfall, and the fighting ended. P.G.T. Beauregard was confident of a swift and complete victory, come the dawn.

General Sherman found General Grant smoking a cigar underneath a tree that night. "Well, Grant," he said, "we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?"

"Yes," Grant replied. "Lick 'em tomorrow, though." Grant knew something Beauregard didn't. General Don Carlos Buell was waiting on the other bank of the Tennessee River, for enough light for his men to cross.

Beauregard, unaware that he was now outnumbered, gave orders that he thought would push Grant back into the river. To his surprise, his attack met a Union counter-attack already underway. Sherman would later describe the sound as "the severest musketry fire I ever heard." The fighting was brutal, and fierce, and brief. Numbers told. Beauregard's men could not keep up the advance, and had to yield ground. By noon, they were back where they had started the day before, and still losing ground. A counter-attack gave Beauregard a bit of breathing space. He realized that he had lost the initiative, and that over a quarter of his force was either killed or captured. He ordered a retreat, leaving a blocking force to delay a Union pursuit. But there was no pursuit -- Grant's army was mauled almost as badly.

It was the bloodiest battle in American history, up to that point. The horrifying list of casualties seared a nation's conscience. There were many, then, who put pressure on Lincoln to relieve Grant, but Lincoln refused.

"I can't spare this man," Lincoln said. "He fights."

But the Union had won one key victory at Shiloh: they retained command of the Tennessee River, and continued to threaten the Mississippi. By the end of April, Admiral David Farragut would seize New Orleans in a daring assault, closing off the river at the other end. If ever the two met, the Confederacy would be cut in half.

The scorned, much-derided Anaconda Plan of General Winfield Scott was coming to fruition, slowly but surely.

Enter The Dragon

The Space Shuttle may be retired, but America's not out of the space business. Not yet. A week from Monday, on April 30th, a SpaceX Falcon 9 will lift off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carrying a loaded Dragon spacecraft bound for a rendezvous with the International Space Station. Here's a summary of what's planned:

 

If everything works as planned, Falcon9/Dragon will begin regular cargo flights. The next step? Well, they're building a model with seats, aren't they?

 

The obvious difference between the two is that the cargo version has a wider front hatch that uses the passive berthing mechanism, where the manned version has the active docking mechanism. The manned version also has some pretty beefy descent engines. Of course, the planned tests have to work. Things could still go horribly pear-shaped. But they've got a good track record so far. We're beginning to see a transition that I've been expecting for about ten years now. Then, the government was the sole source for space flight. Now, that is moving into private industry. It's too early to tell if that's a good thing or not, but I strongly suspect that it is. We'll see lower costs, and more innovation, as more private players get into the market. Bend the cost curve down far enough, and some really interesting things can begin to happen.

A week from Monday, we'll take a big step down that road. Cross your fingers.

Election 2012: Primary Post-Mortem

And, that's a wrap. (Warning: Strong Language, last lines from Burn After Reading)



So, what did we learn, if anything, from Primary 2012? For one, we learned that the Old Guard of the Republican Party, even though it's not near as strong as it used to be, is still alive and kicking. The Tea Party candidates surged and floundered in their turns, but Romney somehow churned through it all and came out on top anyway. The cachet of being "Not Mitt Romney" never gleamed brightly enough to attract enough voters. Even in the midst of their burgeoning ideological rigidity, electability still matters. And for another, we learned that "It's His Turn" is a very powerful thing within the Republican Party. That may come as part of the first point, but it still bears some mention. Since Nixon, the majority of Republican candidates seem to have been the strongest challenger from the previous primary. In 1980, Reagan was the nominee, who ran a strong second in 1976. In 1988, Bush was the nominee, who ran a strong second in 1980. In 1996, Dole was the nominee, who had been a perennial contender since the last Ice Age. Bush the Younger in 2000 was an anomaly. But McCain in 2008 was not, and neither is Romney in 2012.

This, of course, sets the stage for Santorum in 2016. But, as much as I might like to savor the bowel-freezing horror that portends, we have another important event to consider. The General Election is now on like Donkey Kong. (As always, the numbers are courtesy of Intrade, current as of Friday evening.)

Barack Obama, 60.8%: His probability took a big hit last summer during the debt crisis, but has since recovered to the 60% level he's enjoyed for most of the last year and a half or so. This is looking like a modestly incumbent-friendly year so far. We're in a recovery -- not a booming recovery, but still, a recovery. Unemployment is down. GDP is up. Stocks are up. We've wound down Iraq, and we're winding down Afghanistan. If these trends continue, and there's no major shock event, the public's general tendency has been to re-elect the incumbent. Incumbent Presidents standing for re-election have generally won, unless the economy had been trending downward. Carter was turfed for a sour economy, and the Iranian situation. Bush the Elder was turfed for a sour economy. Reagan, Clinton, and Bush the Younger all had rising economies to buoy their re-election bids. Currently, it's looking to hold true for Obama as well.

Mitt Romney, 38.0%: This is a fact that Romney understands about as well as anyone else. So, he has to paint a picture that highlights a sour, lackluster economy. On top of that, he still has to contend with the fact that the base isn't all that fired up about his candidacy. The biggest thing to watch for in the Romney campaign will be his Vice-Presidential pick. Right now, the four top contenders are Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Bob McDonnell, and Paul Ryan. But we may well see someone not on that list. The safe pick for Romney would be someone well-loved by the Republican base, someone who would solidify his right-wing street cred. But it's far from clear to me who that might be. The second biggest thing to watch for is whether or not Romney continues to tack to the right, both leading up to and after the Republican National Convention. Obama has enjoyed the incumbent's luxury of not having a serious primary challenger. The main advantage of that is that he's been able to command the center, at least so far. If Romney begins to tack to the center, he might be able to carve out some of Obama's softer centrist support ... but if he has to keep running to the right to tack down a slightly disgruntled base, he concedes the center to Obama, and with it the election.

And The Winner Is... I'd still take 3-2 odds in favor of President Obama's re-election. That probably won't change until convention time.

Speaking of which: the Republican National Convention begins on August 27, and the Democratic National Convention begins on September 3. The fun begins for real the weekend before August 27, which is when Governor Romney will probably spring his VP pick on us. Until then, vote early, and vote often!

Video Del Fuego, Part LIV

The history of Man can be read as a long litany of rage against Evolution's iniquities. Evolution didn't give us gills? Well screw you, Mr. Evolution, we're going to go diving anyway. Didn't give us wings? Up yours, we're going to go flying despite that. Can't breathe vacuum? So what? We'll bring air along in bottles.

The last few weeks have taken us from one extreme of Earth to the other. Last time, we saw an intrepid adventurer seeking to skydive from the edge of space. This time, James Cameron got it into his head to go somewhere only two other human beings have ever been before: the bottom of the Mariana Trench.



Water, you have to remember, weighs in at just over a ton per cubic yard. And the pressure of that column of water is equal to the density (62.5 lbs/ft^3) times the depth. At the bottom of the Challenger Deep, 35,814 feet below the surface, the pressure is a staggering 1100 TONS per square foot. There's a damn good reason this has only been done twice. You basically have to design a submersible that can take a near-miss from a tactical nuke.



And, it goes without saying, he took cameras with him. And why not? Making movies is what the man does, after all. I have to admit, I skipped both Avatar and Titanic when they came out. But, I'm absolutely going to see this in 3D on opening weekend. Maybe even more than once.

Inveniam viam aut facium, reads an inscription on one of the memorials to Robert Peary. "I shall find a way or make one." It's a fit motto for any explorer, and one that James Cameron can now proudly claim. Well done, sir. Well done, indeed.

Election 2012: March Madness

Monopoly is one of those weird "family" games that just about everyone's played, but hardly anyone's ever actually finished. One problem with it is that it's a brutally long game, especially if you have six to eight players. Another is that, given that your goal is to drive all the other players into bankruptcy, it tends to be a fairly harsh game to play to completion. Once one player gets a solid lead, everyone else starts saying, "Screw this, let's find something else to do." But anyhow, there are several winning strategies. Some involve getting key color groups early. Another method involves first making sure that no one else can win. How do you do that, you ask? Well, first, you have to get one property in every color group. That ensures that no one else can develop a monopoly. Then, get one monopoly. It really doesn't matter which one, so long as you can afford to build it up. Then, it's a long slog of attrition.

Electopoly, the fine game the GOP is playing right now, is actually very similar. What brought Monopoly to mind is a new feature over on Nate Silver's site, the Romney Magic Numbers Calculator. Because the path to winning the GOP nomination -- indeed, any party's nomination -- entails doing three things. First, you must win enough delegates to ensure that no one else can gain a majority on the first ballot. Second, you must win enough delegates to ensure that you will win a plurality of delegates on that first ballot, thus making your case that much stronger on subsequent ballots. And here's the clincher -- the final goal is to win enough delegates to ensure that you win on the first ballot.

The race for the GOP nomination is just about over. Nate Silver estimates that Romney has a 100% chance of sewing up enough delegates to keep anyone else from a first-ballot victory, a 99% chance of guaranteeing himself a plurality of delegates, and a 91% chance of winning outright. It's taken three months, and we'll probably go through two more of going through the motions, but it's just about over at this point. And now, the numbers from Intrade, current as of 6PM Friday evening:

(By the way, Intrade has a spiffy new feature for primary-watchers: a scoreboard. This would have been nice to have three months ago, but still, better late than never. Hope they keep it for the general election...)

Mitt Romney, 93.1%: Sometimes, I wonder if the man truly wants the job. He does the damnedest things. Every time he gets ahead, he says something truly astounding to alienate either part of his base, or part of the electorate. "I was a severely conservative governor ... and by the way, I drove 1,200 miles with my dog in a box on top of my car. I'm against the individual mandate ... but you know, it's all like an Etch-A-Sketch, I'll just shake it up after the convention." I mean, what is this dude's major malfunction? Whether he wants it or not, he's liable to be the Republican nominee, try as he might to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. His opposition is so sad and pitiful that they won't be able to get out in front of him, no matter how hard he tries. He may as well get used to the idea.

Ron Paul, 1.1%: And it's a signal of just how sad and pitiful that they've gotten that Ron Paul is now in second place, probability-wise.

Rick Santorum, 1.0%: And here's the man who puts the "sad" in "sad and pitiful". Even if you gave him all of the delegates from the "pitiful" side of the race for Not-Romney, he still wouldn't be ahead. Both the "sad" and the "pitiful" sides of that race are pinning their hopes on a brokered convention. But first, they somehow have to pull enough delegates to keep Romney from winning outright, something I no longer believe either of them can do. Brokered conventions are to politics as bunch sprints are to professional cycling, and both tend to happen only when someone's screwed up. As much as Romney seems to keep trying to throw the race, no one seems to be able to capitalize.

Newt Gingrich, 0.3%: That's partly because Newt's kind of mailing it in at this point. Theoretically, he's also counting on a brokered convention. He's still touting his "debating" skills against Obama, which has always sounded kind of bizarre to me. Because, you see, the debates? They're not really debates. They're a weird kind of dual press conference where both guys have to answer the same questions put to them by a moderator. The rules of engagement don't allow them to speak directly to one another. So how do mad debating skills get you anywhere? Beats me. But Gingrich has always been full of strange ideas.

Veep Watch: I don't put much stock in Veep-guessing. But that's an important thing to watch. Once Romney has it well and truly sewn up, he'll start canvassing for a running mate, and he'll probably spring that on us the Friday before the GOP convention opens. As I've said before, it's important to watch because that's his first Presidential decision, and that will give us a huge window into his thought processes. Who he chooses, and why, will give us a better measure of the man than anything he's said so far.

And The Winner Is: The percentages are running 60.8% that the Democrats will keep the White House, versus 38.8% that the Republicans will take over. These have held steady for a while, and will probably stay there until the conventions. I'd still take 3-2 odds on Obama/Biden for the win.

Primary season isn't quite over, though. Lots of states haven't voted yet, and even if the Presidential nominee is just about a foregone conclusion, there are plenty of other races on the ballot. And if you've never attended a precinct caucus, this is as good a year to go as any. Remember, vote early, and vote often!

Video Del Fuego, Part LIII

(or, Crazy Austrian Watch)

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the U.S. Air Force was developing aircraft capable of flying at extreme altitudes. While some of the aircraft had already been built, such as the U-2, and others were in production, the ability of a pilot to eject safely at such incredible operational altitudes wasn't yet firmly established. So, the Air Force undertook Project Excelsior. And on August 16, 1960, Captain Joseph Kittinger rode a helium balloon up to 102,800 feet above the desert, and then stepped out into the abyss. It was the longest distance a man had ever fallen, and lived to tell about it.

Now, an Austrian skydiver named Felix Baumgartner wants to kick it up a notch.



Why? Kittinger, who is a technical adviser to Baumgartner, says it's about building a better space suit. I'm thinking that's hogwash. Baumgartner wants the record, and the bragging rights that go with it. And Red Bull wants the publicity that will go along with nailing said record. They've built the suit, the chutes, and the balloon. Now, they're testing them out.



On March 15, 2012, Baumgartner made the first test jump from 71,000 feet. There will be another test jump from about 90,000 feet, before the Real Thing from 120,000 feet. While Baumgartner is known for risk-taking, he's not known for stupid risk-taking. Unless something weird happens, the record is liable to be his sometime this summer.

One thing is certain, though. The view on the way down is going to be spectacular no matter how it ends. And, maybe, that was the point all along.

Sesquicentennial, Part XX: The Tides Of Change

--FIRST -PREV NEXT-

It's a fairly common misconception that wars are times of rapid technological change. You'll often hear someone say that the submarine came out of World War I, or that jet engines and atomic energy came out of World War II, but that's not entirely true. Submarines and aircraft had been around for years prior to World War I. Jet engines had been invented immediately prior to World War II, and they had a fairly good idea of what atomic power could do, even if they didn't know exactly how to go about doing it.

There is one thing wartime does do, though: it greatly reduces institutional inertia. An active enemy tends to focus your attention closely. New ideas that had once butted up against an obstinately conservative Quartermasters' Corps would now fall on far more sympathetic ears. A case in point: ironclad warships.

Three technological trends were converging: steam power, high-power naval guns firing explosive shells, and iron armor. The first ship that combined all three was a French ship, La Gloire, launched in 1859. The new high-power guns proved to be a huge problem for purely wooden-hulled ships. This had been proven at the Battle of Sinope where a numerically-inferior Russian force annihilated a Turkish squadron, using their superior gunnery. Explosive shells could turn even the stoutest ship into kindling in fairly short order. The obvious answer would be to bolt iron armor onto the ship's exterior ... the problem being, sails couldn't move such a heavy ship very easily. Enter our third element, steam power. With the invention of the screw propeller in the 1840s, steam power became a practical method for warship propulsion. Coal-fired boilers could easily provide the raw power to shove hundreds of tons of iron plating through the waves.

But, as I mentioned, these were slow coming to the Western shores of the Atlantic. The U.S. Navy had adopted steam power, but was slow to combine all of the elements together. The secession of Virginia, and with it the loss of the Norfolk Naval Yards, began to force a re-evaluation of affairs.

Upon the secession of Virginia, orders were issued to destroy all useful items at the Naval Yards lest they fall into secessionist hands. Unfortunately, the orders were bungled, and the USS Merrimac partially sank into shallow water before she had burned completely. The Merrimac was salvageable, and could be put back into service. It was decided to rebuild her as an ironclad warship, the CSS Virginia. It would be an expensive undertaking. But the combination of steam propulsion, high-power guns, and sloped armor would make the Virginia more than a match for her blockaders.

Word of this conversion reached Washington in early summer of 1861, and was not received happily. The Union could not afford to fall behind in this kind of arms race. But, as I have said before, the Union was far more able to keep pace in this kind of competition than the Confederacy ever was. The Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, issued an order for a review of ironclad designs, and three were accepted. One of these was a ship designed by Swedish-born inventor John Ericsson, the USS Monitor, laid down on October 25, 1851, and completed 118 days later.

This would not be a day too soon.

On the 8th of March, CSS Virginia sallied forth to break the Union blockade. Ordinarily, it's foolish to think that a single ship can break a blockade ... but this was not an ordinary situation. The guns of the Union blockade squadron had almost no effect. The Virginia rammed and sunk the USS Chesapeake, and had forced the USS Congress to beach itself prior to hammering it into surrender with her own guns. The Virginia was not entirely unhurt, sustaining significant damage to her smokestack, and having several armor plates loosened. But her appearance had thrown the entire Union blockade into disarray. The first day of the Battle of Hampton Roads was over, and it looked like another Confederate victory was in the making.

During the night, the USS Monitor arrived from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and the odds were evened out.

On paper, the Virginia had more guns than the Monitor, but that doesn't tell the whole story. While Virginia's guns were laid out in a standard fixed arrangement, the Monitor's guns were mounted in a turret. That meant that while Virginia would have to maneuver carefully to bring her guns to bear, the Monitor could fire upon anything she could see. This day's battle, the very first of ironclad-on-ironclad, would show which was better: more guns, or more easily aimable guns.

And the answer was a resounding "Beats Me."

Neither ship could get a conclusive advantage on the other. While either ship could reduce a wooden ship to kindling, neither one could score a telling hit upon the other. They pounded one another unmercifully for hours, to little avail. Hit after hit glanced off of stout iron plating, doing no real damage to the ship underneath. Virginia scored a brief advantage when a lucky turret shot temporarily blinded Monitor's captain, forcing Monitor to briefly withdraw. The day had already worn on towards late afternoon, so Virginia took this as an opportunity to withdraw, herself. She returned to her base, for badly-needed repairs.

On the one hand, the results of the Battle of Hampton Roads were inconclusive. The Union suffered far heavier losses and casualties, owing to Virginia's rampage on that first day. But on the other hand, the blockade wasn't broken. Within a month, two more Union ironclads would join the blockade, and within a month after that advancing Union troops would occupy Norfolk itself. But the conclusiveness or lack thereof was beside the point. Ironclad had fired upon ironclad, and naval warfare would never again be the same. Sailors had seen the future, and it was full of metal.

The days when "the ships were wood and the men were iron" were over.

Election 2012: Spring Is Coming

The second month of the 2012 Presidential primary season has drawn to a close, and we've narrowed it down to a four-man race on the Republican side. As much as everyone's saying that this primary is dragging on far longer than it should, I have to remind them of that one salient fact: This IS only the second full month of voting. Most states haven't even weighed in yet. Now, if we get into April and it's still a three- or four-man race, things could get ... interesting. I expect a bit of a down-select to happen come Super Tuesday. (As always, figures from Intrade.com, current as of Friday afternoon.)

The Year Of The Super-PAC: The various Super-PACs aren't a party per se, but they're having a huge effect on this campaign. It's difficult to over-state the effect that they're having this year. Without Super-PACs, Newt Gingrich would have sank without a trace months ago. Without Super-PACs, Rick Santorum might well have done likewise, or would at least be struggling for support. With Super-PACs, both candidates are struggling for the coveted "Not-Romney" spot ... and don't forget that Romney has that particular card up his sleeve, as well.

There are both good things and bad things associated with this. On the positive side, it's going to cause the campaign to go on longer than it might have otherwise. That's a good thing, because it gives the voting public more time to get to know these men, and to examine their strengths and weaknesses in some detail. But that also touches on a down side ... maybe the voters get to know them a little too well. The longer and more negative the campaign becomes, the farther to the right the candidate has to shift to win the nomination, and the harder it becomes to tack back to the center for the general election. That's going to be a hard pivot for the Republican nominee, whoever that ends up being. That's going to be more like a slight veer for the Democratic nominee, who will be ... well, let's just get on with it:

The Democrats: Yes, we all know it's over. It's just about official, now. Over here, Megan McArdle has an article about an upcoming Obama fundraiser. Said fundraiser's promotional e-mail has this picture as a logo:



That sure seems to settle it. Vegas seems to have caught up, giving Barack Obama a 96.7% chance of re-nomination, with only a handful (3.0%) of holdouts backing Hillary Clinton. And for the VP spot, Biden isn't quite getting that much love, with only an 91.0% chance. A full 10.0% are still betting on Hillary Clinton for VP, even though we all know that ain't gonna happen. Biden's on the campaign literature, people. It's a done deal. As I've said all along, unless one of them takes a ride on a tornado, it'll be Obama/Biden in November for the Democrats.

The Republicans: But on the other side of the aisle, the four-way knife-fight in a phone booth continues in full force. Only one man will be left standing, but he cannot fairly be said to have won, only to have lost less severely than his opponents. They're running to the right so fast, the winner will have a very hard time tacking back to the center for the general election.

Mitt Romney, 83.0%: Vegas still loves him, although he's got some hard sledding between here and the acceptance speech. And, some sources are hinting at money problems for the Romney campaign. It turns out that there's a disadvantage to hitting up the deep pockets first, for the maximum amount ... once they're tapped, they're tapped. If you draw less than the maximum from a broader pool, you can hit them up again later. Plus, as I've said before, Romney has a pair of serious problems that stand between him and the nomination. First, health care reform. I'm not saying Obama swiped his plan ... actually, I am. When someone does have a good idea, you should steal it shamelessly. The problem is, the GOP electorate remembers this, and will probably hold it against Romney to some extent. Also, there's the problem that a fair number of Southern Evangelicals aren't entirely convinced that Mormons are Christian. That will also come into play down South. Still, Romney still has money and organization, and those are two nice friends to have.

Rick Santorum, 6.1%: I was spectacularly wrong last time about Santorum's prospects. He has indeed found traction with the religious fundamentalist wing of the GOP, and is the current front-runner in the "Not-Romney" subclass of this year's Republican primary. He's not doing too badly on the fundraising front, either. As I mentioned above, if you collect smaller amounts from a larger donor pool, you can go back to that well again and again. That was a good strategy for Obama in 2008, and it's proving to be a good one for Santorum in 2012. The betting public isn't sold on his nomination prospects, but that could easily change with a strong showing down South. He could hit it big on Super Tuesday. If he does, then the fight could go all the way to the convention floor.

Newt Gingrich, 3.6%: While Romney has both money and organization, and while Santorum is finding lots of funding, Newt Gingrich has neither. His campaign has rather spectacularly deflated since his early surge. He's pinning his hopes on a big Super Tuesday showing, especially since his biggest base of support is in the South. But he's failed to get on several ballots, including Virginia's, so his organization's basic ineptitude is liable to do him in, if his mouth doesn't beat them to it. Right now, I'd lay odds that Gingrich punches out after Super Tuesday, but I'm not sure I'd put money on it.

Ron Paul, 2.3%: Now, I'd bet an arbitrarily large amount on Ron Paul's candidacy going all the way to the convention. Dr. Paul isn't leaving the race until they pry his candidacy from his cold, dead fingers. The thing I like about Ron Paul is that he's not running to the right like the other candidates. He's saying the same things he's said all along. There are plenty of reasons not to like him, but you know where he stands. He's stark staring blazing-midday-Sun-on-Mercury crazy, but at least he's dependably consistent about it. To an extent, I respect that.

And The Winner Is... As of Friday afternoon, they're giving the Democrats a 60.1% chance of keeping the White House, versus the Republican Party's 38.8% to take it away. If you can find someone willing to give you 3-2 odds, Obama/Biden for the win would be a good bet.

Remember, kids, vote early, and vote often!

Sesquicentennial, Part XIX: Man In Motion, Cont'd

--FIRST -PREV NEXT-

From antiquity, prime campaigning season has always been from the spring thaw through harvest time. It is by no mere coincidence that the first month of Spring was named by the Romans for their god of war. March was the month in which the Legions would take up their implements and, well, march. As technology improved, the "season" broadened somewhat, but not by much. You still had to keep your troops fed, and marching troops around in the winter snow wasn't the easiest thing in the world. Major winter campaigns were very rare indeed, and the successful ones were successful mostly by virtue of surprise. So, not a whole lot happened between November and February.

"Not a whole lot" didn't mean "nothing", although it wasn't immediately obvious to a casual observer. The United States Navy was slowly extending its blockade southward down the Atlantic coast. By December 1861, the blockade had been extended down past the Carolina coast. By the month, the Confederacy had fewer and fewer ports with which to receive and ship foreign goods. And while the blockade inched its way down the Atlantic coast, the Union Army was making its way down the Mississippi River.

Which brings us back to Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant, encamped in Cairo, Illinois. When we last left General Grant, he had been preparing to sally forth to meet the Confederates at Belmont. It was an inconclusive affair. While General Grant was able to take the Confederate fort, he did not have enough men with him to keep it. When General Gideon Pillow arrived with reinforcements, Grant was forced to retire back to his base of operations at Cairo. But this was only a temporary setback. The battle had given Grant and his volunteer force a much-needed jolt of confidence. Plus, Grant had gotten some reinforcements of his own. Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote had shown up, with some brand-new U.S. Navy gunboats, and Grant decided that this was a good time to introduce the Confederates to what combined arms could do.

Basically, when asked "Shall we attack by land, or by sea?" Grant answered, "Why not both?"

It was with this in mind that, in early February, General Grant set forth out of Cairo, and marched down the Tennessee River, towards the Confederate-held Fort Henry. Fort Henry had eleven guns trained on the river to prevent unfriendly traffic. Only six were positioned to guard against a landward assault. Although hastily constructed, Fort Henry could probably have withstood one or the other. Grant gambled that they couldn't handle both. On February 4th, he landed his troops about three miles downriver, and deployed to prevent the garrison's escape, and also to prevent its reinforcement. Within two days, he had all the approaches covered, and his main attack began on the 6th, with a sustained bombardment by the Union Navy gunboats. The battle lasted a little more than an hour before the Confederate garrison surrendered.

The fall of Fort Henry opened up the Tennessee River to Union shipping and gunboats all the way into Alabama. But that wasn't all that Grant had in mind for this campaign. Nearby, on the Cumberland River, was another Confederate stronghold, Fort Donelson. He marched his troops twelve miles overland, while Flag Officer Foote sailed his gunboats down the Tennessee River, then up the Cumberland, in order to fire on the fort. Fort Donelson's gunners had better luck, or better aim, than their counterparts at Fort Henry, and Foote's gunboats had to withdraw. But the real damage had been done. Grant had Fort Donelson surrounded, by the evening of February 14th. The next day, on the 15th, General Floyd made a breakout attempt that was almost successful. Only almost. This left General Floyd in a bit of a pickle.

Because, you see, General Floyd is a man we've met before. John Floyd, you may remember, was President Buchanan's Secretary of War. The Union might just want to have a few words with him about some of his deployment orders, two years or so ago. So, General Floyd resigned his command, and handed things over to General Pillow. General Pillow, in turn, handed his command over to General Buckner, for reasons that aren't entirely clear to me. General Buckner remained, and attempted to negotiate surrender terms with General Grant.

I say, "attempted." Buckner's request for an armistice, and terms for surrender, prompted this reply from Grant:

Sir: Yours of this date proposing Armistice, and appointment of Commissioners, to settle terms of Capitulation is just received. No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted.

I propose to move immediately upon your works.

I am Sir: very respectfully
Your obt. sevt.
U.S. Grant
Brig. Gen.

Buckner was left with the unappealing choice of either accepting unconditional surrender, or attempting to defend his now-undefendable position. Buckner chose the former. Fort Donelson surrendered to the Union on February 16, 1862.

The news of this victory shot through the Union like a lightning bolt.

On the one hand, it's easily understandable: this was, after all, the first major victory by Union forces against the Confederates. It went a long way towards erasing the sting of the ignominious defeat at Bull Run. But on the other hand, it was a very small matter, far away from what most people thought was the more important theater of war, back in the East. But on the other other hand, a very important goal had been achieved. Union gunboats, supply boats, and troops could now freely navigate the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. Free navigation of same had also been denied to Confederate forces, whose transportation network wasn't all that good to begin with.

And, overnight, Ulysses S. Grant had become a national hero. His victories at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson won him not only fame, but a promotion to Major General. He wouldn't rest on his laurels, though. He wasn't quite finished in the Tennessee River valley just yet. He aimed to push his troops as far up the Tennessee River as he could possibly go.

Up ahead was a sleepy little town that few had heard of yet, called Shiloh.