Transterrestrial Musings

Comments

Whittington's repetitive rejoinder means a lot coming from someone who belongs to the:

Society of Amateur Aerospace Engineers With Bachelor's Degrees in History

Union of Unpaid Authors Without Publishing Houses

Dittohead Club of Rushmerica

Organization of Bloggers Who Make the Same Stupid Joke Over and Over and Over...

What a loser...

Posted by Whittington Is An Uninformed Idiot at December 1, 2007 01:01 PM

Rand, you have to educate us about this person. Some of your avid readers, such as myself, are at a loss to understand the context. Granted the man writes very poorly. That much is easy to spot.

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at December 1, 2007 01:38 PM

Some of your avid readers, such as myself, are at a loss to understand the context.

I can't really explain it myself, for anyone who hasn't been reading him over the years. He is threatening to attempt to, in the upcoming essay, but I suspect that you won't really be any more enlightened after he's done so.

He has come up with this fantasy called the "Internet Rocketeers Club," a secret society, apparently, whose members he never names, but who are somehow holding back progress in the great Fifteen Year Plan by criticizing NASA. I've never gotten the secret decoder ring, myself.

Posted by Rand Simberg at December 1, 2007 01:59 PM

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Membership requirements for the "Internet Rocket Club" are pretty straightforward: 1) Make a lot of money through Internet investments, and 2) use the money to build real flying hardware that will advance the cause of American spaceflight.

Along the way, of course, one needs to pick up some knowledge of space science, technology, history, politics, and economics.

Mr. Whittington has never done any of those things. He is neither a doer of deeds nor an informed observer. He does not dare greatly, or even dream greatly. Small wonder he cannot imagine any future that does not look like the 1960's.

Posted by Theodore Roosevelt at December 1, 2007 02:20 PM

How interesting that only Rand has the courage to post under his own name in the comments section under this absurd post.

Hint: If you tend to post garbage under a pseudonym or under the name "anonymous" you might just be a member of the Internet Rocketeer Club. (g)

Posted by Mark R. Whittington at December 1, 2007 09:37 PM

Mark,

The various remarks about you reflect a very different viewpoint from yours. You write like a sports buff that has a high appreciation for the capabilities of professional players. Many of the rest of us have more respect for the sand lot players that get dirty and make mistakes that no pro would ever do.

Who is going to be in better shape physically and mentally in 20 years, the sand lot players of the fans of the pros? One person wins event Olympic gold every 4 years, millions run local races anually. Participant or fan, your choice.

Posted by john hare at December 2, 2007 05:05 AM

"How interesting that only Rand has the courage to post under his own name"

That's because some of us (including Rand) are aerospace professionals who actually have a background in and know what the hell we're talking about when it comes to space systems.

"in the comments section under this absurd post."

Given your utterly uninformed, inaccurate, and poorly written blog space entries and self-published space "editorials", Rand's post is dead-on.

"If you tend to post garbage"

Like every one of your uninformed, inaccurate, and poorly written blog space entries and self-published space "editorials"?

"under a pseudonym or under the name "anonymous" you might just be a member of the Internet Rocketeer Club. (g)"

No, it means that some, probably most, of us are employed by NASA, the aerospace majors, or one of the start-ups and think that everything you post smacks of amateurish boosterism, idiotic peanut gallery antics, and ill-informed opinion mongering.

Educate yourself or shut the hell up...

Posted by at December 2, 2007 01:22 PM

"How interesting that only Rand has the courage to post under his own name"

That's because some of us (including Rand) are aerospace professionals who actually have a background in and know what the hell we're talking about when it comes to space systems.

"in the comments section under this absurd post."

Given your utterly uninformed, inaccurate, and poorly written blog space entries and self-published space "editorials", Rand's post is dead-on.

"If you tend to post garbage"

Like every one of your uninformed, inaccurate, and poorly written blog space entries and self-published space "editorials"?

"under a pseudonym or under the name "anonymous" you might just be a member of the Internet Rocketeer Club. (g)"

Educate yourself or shut the hell up...

Posted by Whittington Is an Uninformed Idiot at December 2, 2007 01:23 PM

How interesting that only Rand has the courage to post under his own name in the comments section under this absurd post.

This from the man who posts anonymous reviews of his own vanity-press novel on Amazon. :-)

Posted by Edward Wright at December 2, 2007 04:16 PM

"This from the man who posts anonymous reviews of his own vanity-press novel on Amazon. :-)"

And who also has no background in aerospace engineering or any other technical field (only a B.A. in history) that would qualify him to make an informed opinion on anything NASA- or space-related.

Internet Rocketeers Club?

How about Armchair Amateur Who Doesn't Know Squat About Rocketry Club? Membership: 1

Some of us have actually earned degrees in and worked in this field. It's insulting and aggravating in the extreme to have an amateur writer pen such utterly uninformed and wrong posts and "editorials" (which he has to self-publish) about our life's work. If he cared in the least about NASA's future and the future of space in general, he'd shut the hell up or go back and earn a relevant degree or two.

Blithering idiot...

Posted by Whittington Is An Uninformed Idiot at December 2, 2007 06:15 PM

Some of you guys are reeeealllllyyyy thin skinned.

You are letting this Rocketeer thing torque you into knots.

Perhaps you could come up with a Rocketeer Club theme song to unwind a bit ;p

Posted by Mike Puckett at December 2, 2007 07:22 PM

"You are letting this Rocketeer thing torque you into knots."

I agree with the majority sentiment. It is very hypocritical for Whittington to label others as Internet Rocketeers, when he himself has zero education, training, credentials, or experience in the field. A blog and couple handfuls of Associated Content editorials do not make one an expert, certainly not one that could capably assess the progress of highly technical development projects from the outside or judge similar assessments by others. Folks living in glass houses should not throw stones and all that...

The probable, sad truth is that most of the folks that Whittington smears with that label are actually proficient and highly informed NASA or contractor employees who are just very concerned about the current course of NASA's human space flight systems development. I (and several others that I know) fall into that category.

With just of modicum of technical background, one only has to read the recent independent GAO report in detail to understand how much trouble Ares 1 (and Orion) are in. Cheerleading a troubled program and smearing individuals with labels when you know nothing about them isn't going to fix that.

"Perhaps you could come up with a Rocketeer Club theme song to unwind a bit"

Per some of the earlier comments, I'd be up for it as long Whittington came up with his own "Amateur Armchair Aerospace Engineer" and "Unpaid Self-Publishing Author" theme songs.

Posted by NASACrat at December 2, 2007 10:11 PM

Um...I seem to have mayhap inadvertently started up a flame war.

I liked Mark's book. It was fun. Yeah, it was self published; but have you seen what gets *published* by "official" publishers? This is every bit as good (or as bad, depending upon your viewpoint I guess).

I am also, *unashamedly,* someone who Mark would probably label a member of the Internet Rocketeer's club on the basis of what I beleive to be the case with respect to space issues.

OK, then. So what?

So what, indeed.

I'm going back to work now. And I'll continue to read all sorts of books. (Currently reading: Can Democracies Fly in Space? -- a silly book, to be sure.)

Posted by Tim Kyger at December 3, 2007 11:55 AM

"So what?"

So, you've actually worked space issues as a Congressional staffer, have industry experience, and know that of which you speak. If you called somone an "amateur rocketeer", it wouldn't be hypocritical for you to do so.

Unlike Whittington, who is an absolute hypocrite in smearing others with such a label when it applies to him most of all.

Posted by NASACrat at December 3, 2007 09:14 PM

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