Whittington swings and misses

It was so predictable. Rand writes something that points out some of the shortcomings of NASA's implentation of the Vision for Space Exploration U.S. Space Exploration Policy and Mark Whittington, in his usual rebuttal, gets something completely wrong:

It is noted that no one who is having Internet vapors over the Ares is having the same over the Falcon. There seems to be, perhaps because of a double standard, more of an understanding that problems will occur in rocket development in the private sector than at NASA.

There is no double standard at work here. SpaceX used its own money for the Falcon-1 tests. NASA is using taxpayers' money for the obviously flawed-from-before-starting Ares. The difference is not subtle.

Update: An anonymous commenter (whom I am certain I have met before on Rand Simberg's blog) saw fit to use a scatological rhyme for Whittington's name in a comment on this post. The rest of the comment had some good points, but I simply will not tolerate such juvenile name-calling on my blog. Anonymous, if you choose to re-post your comment without the ad hominem, then I will allow it through moderation. Otherwise, not.