Randall Parker, on the newest dangerous addiction:
The texters would be less dangerous to themselves and others if they didn’t have to look down to see the screen. What is needed: Head Up Display Glasses tied to a cell phone. Then one could look ahead and see the text mixed in with sidewalk or whatever else is in front of you.
It’s all part of a larger problem as we become a multi-tasking society.
More on the “flight test” of Ares 1-X, which seems to be mostly for show. Though if it’s as risky as indicated here, it may be a more spectacular performance than they count on.
Unfortunately, the same folks who think a flight dynamics test of a four segment SRB with a different propellant, old-style grain design, and inert (that is to say, non-sloshing and stiff) upper pieces is a good idea also thought they could grab a bunch of used equipment (Atlas avionics software, Peacekeeper hardware, etc.), chewing gum, and duct tape (perhaps FEMA is helping the minions) and use it to demonstrate how something “like” ARES-1X might get off the ground after “the gap” has widened to its furthest extent.
And, like all of the shortcuts the Emperor’s minions have taken to date, this approach, too, is soon to come back and bite them. The list of critical components going into ARES-1X that are either beyond shelf life or being put to work in an environment for which they were not intended is astounding. And the risks that are being accepted, because of schedule and budget pressures, are equally marvelous.
Hey, it’s OK. That’s what waivers are for.
Jeff Foust talked to Burt Rutan at yesterday’s rollout.
Rutan confirmed that the investigation was causing “a lot” of design changes for SS2. “We have not worked on SpaceShipTwo in a year,” he said, “because there’s a possibility that the propulsion system would be markedly different and we’d be building things that we would have to scrap.”
So they’ve essentially lost a year due to the accident. I wonder if they’ll finally switch over to a liquid system? It would save them quite a bit in ops costs, I’d think.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here’s more on the subject from Rob Coppinger, who interviewed Burt.
A report from Michael Totten.
It’s a shame that we can’t wave a wand and make oil worthless. Perhaps the only other solution is to take it away from them. There’s something wrong with a system that gives people so much wealth who have done absolutely nothing to earn it or create it, and use it to subvert the rest of the world.
I agree that nukes aren’t necessarily the best way to deal with asteroids, but the notion that NASA is promoting them in order to justify nuclear weapons in space is more than a little nutty.
Tomorrow, the first demonstration of the rocket racer, in Oshkosh. There’s a picture of the taxi test on the front page of the site, but it’s not likely to be there for long.
The one within the Democrat Party:
…if the opposition to Obama reaches the match point and ignites, Obama could be embarrassed in Denver. After Clinton suspended her campaign, Obama thought he had a green light to run roughshod over her supporters. That has proven to be a mistaken view. Clinton supporters want to be heard in Denver. I was surprised a couple of weeks ago to see an advertisement in the Chicago Tribune demanding that Clinton’s name be placed in nomination.
My guess is that a very strenuous effort is going to be made to place Clinton’s name in nomination in Denver, forcing Obama into a roll-call vote.
I continue to think that people who believe that Hillary! has given up on the nomination are fooling themselves. I think that it’s going to be a hot time in the old town of Denver.
…that no reporter is likely to ask:
Does Obama believe equal treatment is inherently divisive? What benefits does Sen. Obama believe have been derived throughout history by allowing states to discriminate on the basis of race? Does he favor repeal of California’s Prop. 209 and the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative?
So writes Byron York:
Television comedy writers fretted that audiences didn’t want to hear anything even slightly negative about the Democratic nominee. The political press corps went nuts over a satirical New Yorker cover that wasn’t even directed at Obama.
And this was about a man who made up his own pretend presidential seal and motto, Vero Possumus; a man who, upon securing the Democratic nomination, said, “I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal”; a man who has on a number of occasions seemed to forget that he is not, or at least not yet, the President of the United States, who has misstated the number of states in his own country, who has forgotten on which committees he serves in the U.S. Senate. Professional comedians — and their audiences — couldn’t find anything funny about any of that?
The fact that the press corps doesn’t seem to be able to recognize Senator Obama for the pompous buffoon that he is, is the biggest indicator how deep in the tank they are for him.
White Knight Two will be rolled out for the general public today in Mojave. Scaled Employees had a private rollout yesterday.
[Late morning update]
Clark Lindsey has the Virgin press release.
I don’t understand why they say that this is environmentally friendly. Compared to what? If they’re still going with the hybrid, it presumably burns rubber, and has CO2 as a combustion by-product. What’s so friendly about that, compared to, say, LOX/kerosene? Just marketing hype, I guess.
[Update mid afternoon]
Clark Lindsey has a lot more links.