Sunday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Sunday, August 24, 2025
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20 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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BlueSky.
On this week’s solution to the Fermi Paradox: Solar lens telescopes are too hard and expensive.
TL;DR: massive objects deflect light passing near them (general relativity). The Sun is rather massive and nearby. Problem: the focal points vary according to what’s being observed, and lie far, far, far further out from the Sun than the Voyager probes have travelled.
But, really, in order to take full advantage of the Sun’s gravitational lensing potential, you’d have to surround it with probes that far out in order to be able to look in all directions. But if you do that, you’d block all the starlight with probes to observe starlight (neat!) So, compromises in viewing times and angles are needed. But you could still have multiple probes focusing light at different locations. moving them requires fuel and takes time.
So, the cost of sending probes that far out and resupplying them, and maintaining or replacing them, is just too high.
So no one is looking for anyone else in the best way possible.
I have been hoping that James would comment on the Pentagon’s announced disestablishment of the JCIDS* process and complete overhaul of the role of the JROC** and requirements process. While I am fonder of JCIDS in concept than in practice, I worry a lot about the return to “the Services can do whatever they want; they know best” with simultaneous gutting of oversight and reporting. At the same time, there is one feature of the new system that I have been calling for for literally decades, which is to introduce some actual budget awareness into the requirements generation and prioritization process. Since McNamara’s Systems Analysis group was neutered, and its successor PA&E downgraded to the current impotent CAPE, there has been no competent authority matching resource allocation to warfighting priorities for a long time.
*Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System — the complicated process by which DoD is supposed to figure out what it needs to do, and what it needs to develop and buy in order to do it, then do that.
**Joint Requirements Oversight Council — the very senior military leaders who set and prioritize military requirements (in theory).
I had a flash.
Someone should photoshop the Beatles at Shea Stadium in 1965. Replace John, Paul, George and Ringo heads with Putin’s and change all the adoring, crying fans faces with Trump’s face.
@DrDaveT:
Yesterday Dr. K posted an interview with Phillips O’Brien, author of How the War Was Won. O’Brien said,
He talks about how little Ukraine looks like the air/armor blitzkrieg everyone seemed to expect, and are still preparing for. Unsaid, by him or anyone I’ve read, is an implication that the defense has an advantage even greater than WWI. That the mismatch between the Russian and Ukrainian casualty figures may be real.
I should note in defense of the analysis community, we seem to be refraining from developing a new MBT to replace the M1A1.
It’s taking forever for this site to load.
@gVOR10:
It’d be interesting to know who expected this–trench warfare in eastern Ukraine conjuring up images of WWI, along with an escalating long-range terror campaign against the civilian population. And with 21st century weapons systems such as drones that may attack autonomously.
It seems the nazi’s launch company is anticipating another blown up rocket.
from the link:
That’s not exactly “we’re planning to blow it up,” but it’s close.
@becca:
Speaking of Putin’s adoring fan, he put on a pathetic, cringe-inducing display at the White House on Friday. Flanked by Vance and FIFA President Gianni Infantino, and with the golden World Cup trophy (or maybe replica) prominently displayed, he showed off a photo of Putin and trump and then prattled on about how Putin had sent it to him, how good he looked, and generally how great it was that this guy thought so much of trump as to send him the photo print.
@Kathy:
No one will care about the cost savings of booster rockets that can be refurbished/reused if an actual crewed spaceship blows up.
@Eusebio:
I may throw up.
@gVOR10:
I viewed that section of that long discussion as the worst part of the whole thing, which was otherwise pretty darn good. O’Brien indulging in a bit arrogance all that was. “All military analysts are terrible…except me!”
The military analysts judged Ukraine’s chances as very poor at the outbreak because they did not (and professionally could not) assume Putin would make the mistake if assuming there would be little to no resistance from the Ukrainians and completely structuring the op around that they would be “greeted as liberators!”
There was no reason to assume Putin is as dumb or dumber than Rumsfeld and Cheney, and Putin had that very recent historical example right in front of him.
On the coverage of the pin-prick nature of this war…well…what the hell else are the mil-bloggers supposed to talk about? That’s what this war is. He is right there is a rather constant looking for “big break throughs” by some…but to damn the entire world of bloggers with that was not an accurate depiction.
@Eusebio:
Looking back at the clip of FIFA president Infantino’s meeting with trump and others at the White House on Friday, I actually can’t tell who sent the trump-putin photo. Trump did say it “from somebody that…” (speaking of putin), but his comments were generally nonsense.
Infantino: “America welcomes the world. And, and I can relate from the collaboration that we have testifying for that. Absolutely.”
Trump: “And I just sent a picture from somebody that wants to be there very badly. Uh he’s been very respectful of me and of our country, but not so respectful of others. But he’ll uh, I’m going to sign this for him, but uh, I was sent one, and I thought you’d all like to see it. That’s a man named Vladimir Putin who I believe will be coming, depending on what happens. He may be coming and he may not, depending on what happens. We have a lot of things happening over the next couple of weeks. So, but I thought it was a nice picture of him. Okay of me, but nice of him. So, that was very nice that it was sent to me.”
Setting aside the obvious insanity of how trump speaks of putin with such admiration, the part about putin wanting to be there (the World Cup) makes no sense. Russia will not be participating in the World Cup–they were barred from the 2022 World Cup tournament after invading Ukraine, and they continue to be barred. They have not participated in the first three rounds of World Cup 2026 qualifying, which started in the fall of 2023.
@Eusebio:
Chelsea supporters are f@cking furious about this.
Chelsea wins the trophy, and they get a replica?
I’m no Chelsea fan, but this is well out of order.
Screw Trump, and screw FIFA for kissing jis orange arse.
@Kathy:
Surely it would be possible to deploy just a few hundred thousand massive telescopes out at the lensing zones, and shift them about as needed over a centuries timecale.
For a planetary civilisation even just a few thousand years in ahead of us, and with an action-scale of centuries to millenia (ie those likely to actually survive) that should be relatively trivial.
@gVOR10:
The thing is, NATO doctrine is based on armoured operations enabled by in-depth destruction of opponent communications, air defences, and logistics etc.
Paralyzing the victim, then slicing him apart.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine has been capable of that sort of operation.
Whether drones etc change that assumption base is possible, but not proven.
Neither side in Ukraine is operating with the equivalent to NATO in-depth strike capability.
See those arguing “The IDF cannot hope to achieve air superiority over Iran”
Yet they did.
Even in Ukraine, heavy armour is still regarded as useful.
But it’s bit similar to WW1 1918, or much WW2: you must neutralise the enemy artillery etc first, or your armour is just going to die, pointlessly.
Drones may make the neutralisation harder, and offensive operations more bloody.
But that they make them absolutely untenable is questionale.
@Eusebio:
Two very preventable fatal accidents did not stop the Shuttle program.
Of course, it was the only means NASA had of sending people to space…
@JohnSF:
We could do it with existing technology, but the cost would be very high.
I gather it would take more than one probe in any case, so consider 12. Each would need a nuclear power source that would last decades in peak condition. The Voyagers and others used radioisotope thermoelectric generators, which do last a long time but run down in time. More important, they depend on radioactive decay, so you can’t even dial them down or turn them off to conserve power.
Very few nuclear reactors have been flown in space. These last much longer, don’t run down as fast, and can be dialed up and down and even turned off. But there are lots of other problems, like an adequate coolant when there’s no water handy, and you’re surrounded by an insulating medium like vacuum.
The there’s travel time. The Voyagers haven’t travelled that far yet. Launching a faster probe should be possible, but then you’d need a means to slow it down at its destination. This means more fuel, more fuel to carry the fuel, and it would still take a very long time.
So, yeah, we’d need more advanced technology and much cheaper launch costs first.
Now, do we get there before we finish poisoning the planet or decide to have a massive nuclear war?
@dazedandconfused:
The initial Russian operation as a “decapitation strike” sort of made sense.
Though they obviously did not expect to be “greeted as liberators”.
You don’t send a full-on armoured corps offensive to secure an airborne “bounced” bridgehead if you are expecting just tea, biscuits, and bouqets of flowers.
The Russian f@ck up was based on optimistic expectations:
– FSB ops in Kyiv would decapitate command
In reality, they were “doubled”, and stomped.
– Air defence supression would enable Russia to achieve prompt air superiority.
In reality, they were incompetent, and the UAF were clever, recovered from the initial onslaught, and Russia never achieved that.
– Ukrianian defences north of Kyiv would collapse due to lack of prepartion, deployment of best units in Donbas, and shock and communications breakdown.
In reality, the local UAF formations, even absent orders, just engaged.
So they attempted a rapid decapitation air/armoured strike on Kyiv, and f@cked up, partly because of UAF tenacity, partly Russian army command stupidity: assuming the Hostomel operation must succeed, “because reasons”, and sending the assault corps down virtually a single sodding highway.
At the same time as sending in other attacks in Donbas, along the south coast, out of Crimea towards Odesa, towards Kharkiv etc.
If they’d focused solely on Kyiv, made multiple airborne landings, and got Belarus to accept full use of their territory, and mounted a drive on both sides of the Dnieper, they might have got it done.
They did not.
@Kathy:
I’m thinking of a reasonabbly rational planetary civilisation, centuries to millenia more advanced, with a “long time horizon” approach.
And a “post-scarcity” economics basis.
Launching telescopes over centuries, and moving them on similar timescales.
Perhaps glomming on a handy Oort Cloud cometary core for evaporative coolant?
Whether that be us, or whether the rats may make a better job of it, remains to be seen.
@JohnSF:
The Putinist autocracies assumptions are in fact evident in almost every step.
“The ruler has fallen, now the peasants must submit!”
If the Russian army had taken Kyiv in Feb 2022, they’d have been up to their necks in a urban battle, and with horribly vulnerable supply lines.
Even if they’d taken out Zelensky, the rest of Ukraine would still have fought on.
The Russian drive north from Crimea, and south towards Kharkiv, in Feb 2022 seems to have largely been stopped by local defence militia units, and UAF formations scraping up whatever they could to hold the river lines.
And the really ironic thing?
Most of those defenders in those areas were Russian speaking Ukrainians.
So much for Putin’s “Russian and Ukrainian brotherhood” bullshit
@JohnSF:
Some reactors that have been used in space utilized liquid metal cooling, sometimes an alloy of sodium and potassium, called NaK, which is liquid at room temperature and has a crazy high boiling point.
It also reacts violently with oxygen and with water. In space, though, that’s not a problem.
BTW, the chief nazi’s test flight was most successful: it was scrubbed. So, the missile didn’t blow up after all. but as per the Ivanova Principle: No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There’s always a boom tomorrow.