Administrative, General, Social Commentary, Space

Happy Thanksgiving

25 Comments

The turkey is brined and in the oven, the dressing is ready to go in, and friends are coming over. I’m thankful for my health at an age I always figured as a kid would be OLD, friends in the space community, and the fact that things I’ve been hoping for for decades in space may finally be on the verge of happening. I’m also thankful that Jared gets another shot at running NASA. Finally, I’m thankful for my faithful readers, some of whom have become old friends, in both senses of the word, and some of whom we’ve lost over the years, but I always welcome new ones.

I’m less thankful for the Lions, but they’re not completely out of it yet.

Disport yourselves cordially in comments.

25 thoughts on “Happy Thanksgiving”

  1. Thankful for the wisdom of people like you and Robert Zimmerman. I’m also thankful Jared is getting another shot.
    I’m 69, and I believe I will live to see people on Mars.

    1. I’m 74 and I hope I will live to see people on Mars. I like my chances better now than I did a few years ago. The concrete never sets on Elon Musk’s empire. Thankful for that.

  5. Happy thanksgiving to one and all my usual thanksgiving relatives sit down went practically no fireworks whatsoever. Trump only came up briefly something about he’s gonna gut social security (to pay for the whitehouse renovation!?); able to deflect that away. On a related point what makes you think that we won’t lift to see colonies on Mars and other places as well I’m? I’m north of 60 (66yrs) and I still hold out hopes of actuarial escape velocity by 2030.

    1. gut social security (to pay for the whitehouse renovation)
      I would have coughed up my potatoes on that one. Then probably been laughing so hard I couldn’t have meaningfully explored the perfect response: “Why does him doing that with private donations instead of taxpayer money enrage you so?” And maybe even gotten into the power washing of the EEOB.

      1. “I would have coughed up my potatoes on that one.”

        This was an older relative (my host mother-in-law) she is north of 80 so she may be a bit past it mentally. I gather there was some sort of remarks that Trump is made about reforming or doing something to social security probably having something to do with the problems that are believed to occur in the 2032-2033 time frame as far as meeting obligations poorly understood by said relative. Fortunately no one else present seemed to take it seriously so I rather diplomatically extricated myself from the conversation.

      1. At least they will get redundant solar windspeed stall indicators.

        Boeing will only supply a single solar windspeed stall indicator unless you pay extra.

        1. You don’t really need the stall indicator. The flight software will automatically push the stick forward whenever it detects the condition.

          1. A320? Push “the stick” forward?

            Does the sidestick controller even move, or am I thinking of the F-16?

            Seriously, I understand that if you pull back on the flight-control thingy in the A320, the flight control maintains optimal climb angle-of-attack, adds power and then flies the fine thing into the woods short of the runway.

            This happened at least once.

    2. Gawd am I glad I don’t fly anymore. Trusting one’s safety to Boeing quality control or French electronics is definitely a job for thrill-seeking youngsters and not creaky old crocks like me.

      1. But the French invented the Ada programming language, winning a U.S. DOD competition for One Language to Rule Them All, and they actually use it for their TGV (ultra high-speed) train.

        . . . never mind!

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  9. This is pretty amazing. They’ve completed another whole genome sequence (24-fold coverage) from Denisova Cave and dated it to 5400 generations older than Denisova 3 (65kya). If I’m reading it correctly they’ve got two related bits of remains separated by over 100k years from the same cave in northern Siberia.

    So some hundred thousand years ago two pre-modern humans got it on and 100 thousand years later one of their g^5400 grand kids died in the same cave. In northern Siberia. And the only reason we know about it is because it was northern Siberia. That kind of thing had to have been going on all over the place but only that type of climate preserves the evidence.

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