Live tweets from Hollywood.
I sent out a tweet to correct the one that said it was F-16s escorting. I’m pretty sure it was a couple of Dryden’s F-18s (at least that’s what it looked like when it flew over the house).
Category Archives: Space
Endeavour Over Santa Monica
My friend (and former webmaster — I say former because I wouldn’t want him to be blamed for the current mess), Bill Simon, made a video.
[Sunday morning update]
He’s re-edited a new version.
Endeavour
I just watched it overfly LAX from the balcony, with binoculars. I’ll also see it again later, when it makes its final approach to land.
[Update a while later]
Wow. It made a runway flyover at LAX, then a left turn over the ocean, and just flew right over the house before heading east to Downey. I’ll try to get some pics up later.
That’s Why We’re Here
A casual profundity from Lileks:
The sidewalk due to be replaced had a semicircle cut in one side, because once upon a time there was a stout tree on the boulevard. For decades the semicircle was the only sign the tree had been there at all. Now it’ll be replaced. There’s about a hundred years of history reflected in that process, and as far as the universe is concerned it’s the flutter of a hummingbird’s ventricle. That’s why we’re here: the passing of time has no meaning unless experienced by conscious beings. Better if they have imaginations, too: look at the depth of the cut in the sidewalk. Stout trunk, tall tree. An elm, probably. Whoever lived in that house in ’41 parked under the tree in the afternoon in July so the steering wheel didn’t feel like gripping a steam iron. Dad rued the leaves. The kids loved the smell when he burned them in fall.
“That’s why we’re here.” That’s also why we should go into space, whose vastness similarly has no meaning unless someone is out there to experience it.
Elon Musk
A long profile over at Business Week.
The Mad Tea Party
A justifiably harsh review of the latest space-policy antics on Capitol Hill.
The Apollo Program
The forgotten opposition. Most people don’t realize how close it came to not happening, which is why they foolishly insist on trying to do it again. Not also the implicit but false assumption that Apollo (and human spaceflight in general) was about science. It wasn’t then, and it isn’t now.
Space And The Election
Andrew Moseman (my editor at Popular Mechanics) interviews Jonathan Card of the Space Frontier Foundation.
Confused On Space Policy
Mark Whittington continues to foolishly confuse an off-hand off-teleprompter remark with policy. There is now, and never has been any “policy” for us to not return to the moon. Yesterday wasn’t the first time Lori has said we are going back, and it won’t be the last, and the White House doesn’t give a rat’s, either way. Nor will a Romney administration.
In Case You Were Wondering
I was at Space 2012 most of the day in Pasadena, sans laptop. In theory, I can blog from my phone, but it’s very clumsy (linking is a real pain). I did see Colin Ake there (among many others) and expressed my condolences on the Masten mishap. He told me their next vehicle (which is designed to go to a hundred kilofeet) is standing up on the floor in the shop, and might be able to fly in the next two or three months. I guess they’ll have more time to work on it now that they won’t be doing as much flight test for a while…