The John Batchelor Show

Friday 13 March 2020

Air Date: 
March 13, 2020

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Hour One
Friday 13 March 2020 / Hour 1, Block A:  Thomas Mobly, Acting Secretary of the Navy, in re:  Medical precautions for the fleet and port calls.  So far, no sign of anyone with virus. More concern about sailors on the ground.   Schools closings put pressure on parents; we're looking at technology tools to help.
Carriers and supercarriers. Tabletop exercises involve a 12-carrier fleet, which we may not have till 2060    We bought USS Enterprise & the USS Doris Miller last year, which saved billions.  Given us some breathing room as we needn’t make such a decision till 2028.  We’re thinking carefully about future force structure. Do we need 355? Perhaps more.  Have to see where the carrier fits in to that.
The USS Gerald Ford amplified abilities. In Future: would a smaller carrier free up capabilities for he whole fleet? Perhaps not nuclear-powered?  We may have a mix of types, incl smaller and lighter, specifically mission-tailored and at a lower cost.
When you change the matrix, and having only a few shipyards (Electric Boat and Newport News) . . .  Cannot turn purchases on and off like a faucet.  Over 10,000 jobs in Virginia, alone. Our adversaries are making significant investments.
New battle spaces: Arctic and Antarctic.  And China calls itself “a near-Arctic country.”
Ability to launch long-range attacks on the US; and of course, commerce. SecDef Esper.     Force-structure assessment.
Friday 13 March 2020 / Hour 1, Block B: Jeff Bliss, Pacific Watch, in re:  Disneyland closes temporarily. School systems across the state and along the coast are taking extra days off: LA, San Diego, Seattle; at least through March.  SF Muni and BART: almost-empty cars; canaries in the coal mine.  LA Councilman (nicknamed “Mr Clean”) is charged with corruption (federal investigation)  from spending: trips to Vegas, hiring escorts, and the like.  Nixing the bullet train.
Friday 13 March 2020 / Hour 1, Block C:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, in re:  After a tiny blip in sunspots last month, it came back to flat-lining.  May have to do with polarity of the next solar minimum.  Some think it’ll be a Grand Minimum, meaning no sunspots for many years.  Lots of uncertainty.  We have no understanding of the magnetic processes that related to sunspots.  In the last cycle, it reached its nadir in 2009-2010, corresponding with a Wall Street sell-off; same this time . . .   A new metric—the sunspot market crash!
European Space Agency is building a rover and the Russians are building a landing craft; but it’s clear that this all will be much delayed. Began in 2001, now twenty years in the making with repeated revisions; reminds me of SLS and the James Webb telescope. The delays this time are all in the ESA; e.g., glue that held the engines to the solar panels came undone.  For Pete’s sake.
ExoMars2020 now is 2022.  Dust Devils come and go (see photo on BehindtheBlack.com). 
The US West and Southwest have so much geology exposed that they’ve produced generations of geologists.
Iron rain! Spectroscopy of iron vapor; visible during early night: it condenses as rain in the evening.  Very alien.  An extremophile would have plenty of food in molten iron.
Friday 13 March 2020 / Hour 1, Block D: Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, in re:  Space engineering: SpaceX, Dragon, launches soon, although the coronavirus may delay it.  A May target date, and 21 launches for the year.  Vulcan is the United Launch Alliance new rocket. ULA, under pressure to reduce costs, has a new design in response to SpaceX competition.  Indian Space Agency intended first Indian-built manned mission, hoped for December 2021.  The legislature proposed a 70% cut, which is in negotiation. Bob Zimmerman early on thought ISA would be efficient—lean and mean—and was overall pleased with it, although now it seems that simply keeping people employed has intruded.   Russia. 
 
Hour Two
Friday 13 March 2020 / Hour 2, Block A:  Michael E Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, in re:  Deglobalization.  Two millennia ago romans invented civil war. ; 400-900 AD;  the Bubonic plague & Byzantium; 1913=1917
The vectors that push up to go apart: need more than one at a time.  Climate change and the bubonic plague + the rise of Islamism in the Mediterranean world. Took almost 200 years to repopulate after the plague. 
Two world wars in cliose sequence, then the Cold War.  Covid virus looks reminiscent of bubonic plague; and global warming tending to perpetuate deglobalization
  US-China competition: cyber crime and -war. China has pillaged US technology in civilian and defense.  Push against immigration will get worse ads global warming increased migration.
Friday 13 March 2020 / Hour 2, Block B:  Joseph Sternberg, WSJ, in re:  A blunt warning from the US: no European visitors except from the UK; this is a virus more severe than the familiar flu, so it’s truth-telling from officials. The UK won’t escape this, but it won't be as widespread there as elsewhere. In Europe, chronic under-investment in hospitals and hiring doctors.  UK and Italy are more dependent on financing directly from the govt; than, e.g., France and Germany; direct checks.
Friday 13 March 2020 / Hour 2, Block C:  Gene Marks, The Guardian, in re:  Small business America
Friday 13 March 2020 / Hour 2, Block D:  Gene Marks, The Guardian, in re: Small business America
 
Hour Three
Friday 13 March 2020 / Hour 3, Block A: Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War, Volume I: July 1937-May 1942, by Richard B. Frank  |
Friday 13 March 2020 / Hour 3, Block B:  Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War, Volume I: July 1937-May 1942, by Richard B. Frank  |
Friday 13 March 2020 / Hour 3, Block C:  Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War, Volume I: July 1937-May 1942, by Richard B. Frank  |
Friday 13 March 2020 / Hour 3, Block D:  Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War, Volume I: July 1937-May 1942, by Richard B. Frank  |
 
Hour Four
Friday 13 March 2020 / Hour 4, Block A: Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War, Volume I: July 1937-May 1942, by Richard B. Frank  |
Friday 13 March 2020 / Hour 4, Block B: Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War, Volume I: July 1937-May 1942, by Richard B. Frank  |
Friday 13 March 2020 / Hour 4, Block C: Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War, Volume I: July 1937-May 1942, by Richard B. Frank  |
Friday 13 March 2020 / Hour 4, Block D: Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War, Volume I: July 1937-May 1942, by Richard B. Frank  |