Back in the early eighties, I had the privilege of taking a class from Krafft Ehricke at Cal State Northridge (arranged by sociology professor and space enthusiast B. J. Bluth). The course was called “The Extraterrestrial Imperative,” and it had a significant impact on my world view. I still have the class notes, which were extensive. For years, up to and after his death, there had been talk of publishing them in a book. Well, I just discovered, via my Amazon sales, that Apogee Books has done so
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Red Dawn, Take Two
While I’m sure that some of my more deranged readers fantasize that I watch it over and over, I’ve actually never seen the movie “Red Dawn
NASA’s Budget Options
Jeff Foust has a link to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office. It doesn’t paint a pretty picture. I have to agree with “Red” in comments:
…if you consider that the goal of the Vision for Space Exploration was contributions to science, security, and economics in the context of strong commercial and international participations, none of these options will carry that out. They all involve Constellation/Ares, which is more or less the opposite of those goals. One aspect of this opposition is that the options that don’t postpone Constellation involve reducing science and aeronautics missions that actually do contribute to science, security, and economics (eg: using similar launchers and satellites to those used by defense and intelligence agencies)…
…With Science and Aeronautics already having taken huge reductions due to Shuttle and Constellation in recent years, and Obama’s push for Earth observations, fuel-efficient planes, NASA education, etc, I doubt that the science/aeronautics cut scenarios will happen. With such huge Federal debt/deficits and many agencies enjoying tons of money and sure to want to keep it that way, I doubt NASA will get the big budget boost scenario, either.
Basically, the numbers don’t work without major commercial participation, and getting control of out-of-control NASA areas like Constellation, Shuttle, and some larger science mission plans.
Emphasis mine. Unfortunately, there’s no sign that any of that is happening. The Ares zombie continues to plod forward at the cost of billions, and commercial participation remains minimal. And it’s unlikely to happen as long as becoming spacefaring remains politically unimportant, and in an environment in which pork dominates progress.
[Evening update]
Clark has another comment:
NASA needed innovative hardware architectures and mission designs to make Constellation “sustainable and affordable” as instructed in the VSE. Instead it chose Ares I and Orion and now all the budget scenarios are bad.
Funny, that.
“Unsubstantial”
I know you’ll be as shocked as I was to hear that the White House (and US media) overhyped the success of the president’s trip to Europe.
Mr Sarkozy is pouring cold water on President Obama’s efforts to recast American leadership on the world stage, depicting them as unoriginal, unsubstantial and overrated. Behind leaks and briefings from the Elysée Palace lies Mr Sarkozy’s irritation at the rock-star welcome that Europe gave Mr Obama on his Europan tour earlier this month.
The American President’s call “to free the world of the menace of a nuclear nightmare” was hot air, Mr Sarkozy’s diplomatic staff told him in a report. “It was rhetoric – not a speech on American security policy but an export model aimed at improving the image of the United States,” they said. Most of Mr Obama’s proposals had already been made by the Bush administration and Washington was dragging its feet on disarmament and treaties against nuclear proliferation, the leaked report said.
“Unsubstantial.” Sarkozy is apparently more perceptive than 53% of the US electorate.
[Afternoon update]
But wait! There’s more!
On the US President, Mr Sarkozy said: “Obama has a subtle mind, very clever and very charismatic. But he was elected two months ago and had never run a ministry. There are a certain number of things on which he has no position. And he is not always up to standard on decision-making and efficiency,” he said.
The US President had underperformed on climate change, said Mr Sarkozy: “I told him: ‘I don’t think that you have quite understood what we are doing on carbon dioxide’.”
In another swipe at the American leader, Mr Sarkozy was quoted today making a dubious joke about the Obamania sweeping the European media. According to L’Express news magazine, Mr Sarkozy talked to another set of visitors about Mr Obama’s planned visit to the Normandy beaches in June, Mr Sarkozy said: “I am going to ask him to walk on the Channel and he’ll do it, you’ll see.”
He also implied that Spanish PM Zapatero isn’t the brightest bulb on the string (which wouldn’t surprise me). And you have to admit, he sure looks like Mr. Bean.
Anyway, I’m glad to see that The One has so restored respect for America and the presidency with our allies.
Low Self Esteem
Frank J. says that we should pity the pirates, and ask ourselves why they plunder us:
…for a change, let’s really look at pirates. You may just see how they are the victims in all of this. That may seem ridiculous to you. After all, aren’t they the ones taking hostages? But ransoming hostages is just how they make their living. Do you get angry at an IRS agent or a lawyer for just doing his job? The issue is why pirates find pillaging and plundering their only options.
It’s not going very far out on a limb to say that pirates suffer from low self-esteem. They often have inferior prosthetics, such as hooks and peg legs, and that alone makes them feel disconnected from “normal” people. Then there is the scurvy and the inevitable depression that comes with it. Throw in the addiction to rum, and it’s obvious to anyone that we have individuals in severe need of help. Just look at a pirate’s choice of a pet: the parrot. It’s an aloof animal that does nothing but repeat the pirate’s own words in a mocking tone. If that were not enough of a cry for help, there is also their habit of burying treasure. It’s like they don’t even feel they are worthy of the fruits of their plundering and murder and thus deny it for themselves.
We have to help them. Do it for the children. As one commenter notes, pirates are people, too.
I Wish It Were True
Ed Driscoll thinks that the seppuku of the MSM is complete. I doubt it. For one thing, to perform seppuku requires that one have some semblance of a sense of honor. I agree, though, that the CNN reporter’s behavior was shameful:
Roesgen didn’t bother angrily confronting that protester who compared the President to Hitler when Bush was in office. No, she used them as a prop to illustrate her story. Double standard much?
But that’s all right because, as we all know, Bush really was just like Hitler, if not much worse.
[Afternoon update]
Here’s a video of the righteous reaction of some of the protesters to Roesgen’s hackery.
[Another update]
The Boston Globe is amazing:
When the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz reported that the Boston Globe-Democrat hadn’t run a single story on the national “Boston Tea Party” movement (key word: Boston), I’ll admit I was surprised. Their blatant political bias is obvious, and every rational reader knows their “news” coverage is driven by their politics. But not one story? From a journalistic standpoint, it’s utterly indefensible.
So I shouldn’t have been surprised when I picked up the BG-D this morning–the day after thousands of BOSTON-are citizens gathered at BOSTON Harbor for a BOSTON Tea Party to protest (in part) the taxpayer abuse by our BOSTON-based state government…and found a single local story in the BOSTON paper. Buried on page A16 there was a small AP story with the dateline “Frankfort, KY.”
I guess the Boston Globe-Democrat staff just couldn’t resist a “KY” reference…
To add ignorance to incompetence, the AP story spreads the canard that our Tea Party was part of some national Republican effort. They link it to FreedomWorks and the GOP–neither of whom had anything to do whatsoever with our event…though I’d be happy to send them the invoice for our expenses.
Here’s the Boston Globe-Democrat’s model for journalistic success:
1. Ignore a national story inspired by local Boston history for as long as possible;
2. Refuse to cover the story when it becomes local;
3. Misreport the story with a wire report from Kentucky;
4. Then wonder why you’re losing $1 million a week.
Or blame it all on Craigslist.
More SPS
Technology Review has a story about the Solaren/PG&E deal, which answers questions some have had in comments about beam intensity and aiming.
“The Meeting Was Really Kind Of Creepy”
Nope, no fascism to see here. Move along, people, move along.:
One topic under the microscope, our insider said, was on-air CNBC editor Rick Santelli’s rant two months ago about staging a “Chicago Tea Party” to protest the president’s bailout programs — an idea that spawned tax protest tea parties in other big cities, infuriating the White House. Oddly, Santelli was not at the meeting, while Jim Cramer was, noted our source, who added that no edict was ultimately handed down by the network chieftains.
As he notes, that’s the same White House that pretended yesterday that it was unaware of any of the tea parties.
Yeah, That’s My Attitude
A sign at one of the tea parties yesterday:
A sign near the center of the crowd summed up the sentiment succinctly: Above side-by-side pictures of President Bush and President Obama were the words “Dumb & Dumber.”
And not much hope for smarter, at least until November 2012.
President Of The World
He is beginning to mention the novelty of his racial heritage a lot, usually in the context that we are now in a new world of Obama, and that his very presence is a rejection of the old and illiberal America.
That the veteran Colin Powell and Russian-speaking Condoleezza Rice ran American foreign policy the last eight years, in a way unthinkable in Europe, is never voiced. Suggesting that China would have an Uighur foreign minister, that Saudi Arabia would have a Christian foreign minister, that France would have an Algerian foreign minister, that Germany would have a Turkish foreign minister, or that Russia would have a Chechen foreign minister is as absurd as suggesting that a Powell or Rice was never a big deal.
So what Obama leaves out about America is telling. He touches on slavery, lack of voting rights for blacks in the South (although he conflates this issue and implies to foreigners that African Americans could not vote in the North as well), our past treatment of Native Americans, and the dropping of the bomb against Japan.
These transgressions are rarely put in any historical context, much less referenced as sins of mankind shared by all of his hosts (the pedigree of murder, exploitation, and rapine of his foreign interlocutors is quite stunning). We don’t hear many references to the American Revolution, or the great tradition of American ingenuity embodied by Bell, Edison, or the Wright brothers.
We hear nothing about our Gettysburg, or our entry into World War I. Iwo Jima and the Bulge are never alluded to. Drawing the line in Korea and forcing the end of the Soviet monstrosity are taboo subjects. That we pledged the life of New York for Berlin in the Cold War is unknown. Liberating Afghanistan and Iraq from the diabolical Taliban and Saddam Hussein is left unsaid. The Civil Rights movement, the Great Society, affirmative action, and present billion-dollar foreign-aid programs apparently never existed. Millions of Africans have been saved by George Bush’s efforts at extending life-saving medicines to AIDS patients — but again, this is never referenced.
This is how far you have to go to parody the guy.