HOW MUCH OF WHAT WE’RE SAYING IS MISDIRECTION:  Also, Don Lemon is Still a loser:  Iran Strikes: Day 27.

OPEN THREAD: Because I love you and want you to be happy.

FLASHBACK: RANDY BARNETT ON LIBERTARIANISM’S FAILURES:

I see five distinct ways that libertarian theory needs to up its game.

First, the need for natural law ethics in addition to natural rights; second, the need to distinguish between libertarian ideal theory and second-best libertarianism in a world of governments and competing nations; third, the need for a libertarian theory of citizenship and civil rights; fourth, the need to separate the public-private binary from the government-nongovernment binary; and fifth, the need for a more refined theory of corporate power and corporate rights.

Let me offer a few words about each.

Read the whole thing.

NUKE THE FILIBUSTER, PASS A BUDGET AND THE SAVE ACT:

NUKES IN SPACE: Here is NASA’s plan for nuking Gateway and sending it to Mars.

The centerpiece of Gateway, called the Power and Propulsion Element, is closest to being ready for launch. NASA’s rejigged exploration roadmap, revealed Tuesday in an all-day event at NASA headquarters in Washington, calls for repurposing the core module for a nuclear-electric propulsion demonstration in deep space.

This is not the first time NASA has announced a nuclear propulsion demo. More than 20 years ago, NASA was working on a nuclear-electric propulsion initiative called Project Prometheus. It was canceled. In 2021, NASA and DARPA, the Pentagon’s research and development agency, started work on a nuclear rocket engine known as DRACO. NASA and the Pentagon canceled the DRACO program last year.

NASA will cannibalize the core module of Gateway for the SR-1 mission. The Power and Propulsion Element, or PPE, is under construction at Lanteris Space Systems in Palo Alto, California. The module will have the most powerful electric propulsion system ever flown in space, with three 12-kilowatt engines and four 6-kilowatt thrusters. The PPE would have originally relied entirely on solar power. Under NASA’s new plan, it will have solar arrays and a uranium-fueled fission reactor.

The goal for SR-1 Freedom is to “prove the US can build, launch, and operate a nuclear propulsion system,” laying the “foundation” for more capable missions to follow, said Steve Sinacore, NASA’s program executive for space reactors. Launch is just 33 months away.

There’s a lot of work to do in less than three years, but hopefully Isaacman’s reenergized NASA can pull it off.