I did an interview a few months ago for the upcoming documentary, even though I didn’t really know O’Neill (I met him once). He had a large indirect influence on my life. The last question I was asked was what single word came to mind when I thought about him. My answer: “Hope.”
[Afternoon update]
It’s important to understand that The High Frontier came out in the mid-70s, a time of doom and gloom. Paul Ehrlich and the Club of Rome were always banging on about overpopulation and running out of resources, and instead of global warming, we were supposed to be worried about a return of the glaciers. In addition to O’Neill’s book, Peter Vajk (himself inspired by O’Neill) came out with a book meant to be a palliative, titled Doomsday Has Been Canceled. Anyway, that’s the context in which I said that he brought hope.
I don’t think I ever eat any of these, other than getting ice from the fountain machine, for water. As I’ve noted in the past, eating out is bad for both your health and your budget.
We put it on the market a couple weeks ago, and we got an offer of $275K on Saturday (the asking price was $280K). We counteroffered to split the difference, and they accepted it. It’s a young couple who reportedly loved the place. It’s their first house, and we’re told by the realtor that she was crying in joy, so that made us feel good. According to the realtor, everyone who saw it liked it, but apparently many thought it was priced too high. Fortunately, this couple didn’t, at least not much.
Fifteen years ago, on the centennial anniversary of the Wright’s first flight, I wrote three separate essays on it. One was at National Review, a second was at Fox News (though I can’t find it; the original blog post can be found here), I think, and a third was at what was then TechCentralStation, but that one seems to have succumbed to link rot. If anyone can find it, I’d appreciate it (I think the title was “Airplane Scientists”).
I disagree about pre-existing conditions, though. That requirement completely screws up the insurance markets. We need a different solution for that issue.
Virgin Galactic just completed the first flight of SpaceShipTwo to space, if one considers the boundary to be 80 kilometers (it reportedly got to 82). At the Galloway Symposium last week, Jonathan McDowell made a good case that this, not the traditional Karman line of 100 km, is the right altitude. If one accepts that, it is the first flight of humans to space from American soil since the Shuttle retired over seven years ago. Here’s hoping that Blue Origin does the same thing next year (except they’re designed to get to 100 km).