Test your knowledge of collectivists.
It’s just as much of a challenge as trying to distinguish between passages of the Unibomber’s manifesto and Earth In The Balance
Size Does Matter
Half of UK men would give up sex for six months for a fifty-inch television.
You know, if that’s the deal, considering the first twenty years of my life, someone owes me a screen the size of a drive-in theater.
Then And Now
Who’s got it right, the Mike Griffin of today, or the Mike Griffin of five years ago?
In the 1950s and 1960s, the term “man rating” was coined to describe the process of converting the military Redstone, Atlas, and Titan II vehicles to the requirements of manned spaceflight. This involved a number of factors such as pogo suppression, structural stiffening, and other details not particularly germane to today’s expendable vehicles. The concept of “man rating” in this sense is, I believe, no longer very relevant.
Does he still agree with this congressional testimony?
Now to be fair, he may not be saying that Atlas isn’t safe enough–he expresses interest in using it for COTS. The problem, as Jon Goff points out at the Space Politics thread, is that he’s chosen an architecture that replicates Apollo, which requires a large CM and SM on a single launch. If one is willing to break these up into separate launches, an EELV can handle it easily. But instead of spending his budget getting flight rate up and launch costs down, and doing the R&D necessary to learn how to truly become spacefaring (e.g., space assembly, docking/mating, propellant storage and transfer), he wants to relive the days of von Braun.
If This Isn’t Fascism…
…what is it?
Toward the end of his speech, Dr. Suzuki said that “we can no longer tolerate what’s going on in Ottawa and Edmonton” and then encouraged attendees to hold politicians to a greater green standard.
“What I would challenge you to do is to put a lot of effort into trying to see whether there’s a legal way of throwing our so-called leaders into jail because what they’re doing is a criminal act,” said Dr. Suzuki, a former board member of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
[Afternoon update]
Apparently, such is the threat from global warming that we’ll have to sacrifice democracy on its altar:
[T]he authors conclude that an authoritarian form of government is necessary, but this will be governance by experts and not by those who seek power.
Well, that’s a relief.
Actually, there’s a bunch of good stuff like this over at Jonah’s Liberal Fascism blog today. Just keep a scrollin.’ Including Joshua Lederberg’s thoughts on letting scientists run things.
If This Isn’t Fascism…
…what is it?
Toward the end of his speech, Dr. Suzuki said that “we can no longer tolerate what’s going on in Ottawa and Edmonton” and then encouraged attendees to hold politicians to a greater green standard.
“What I would challenge you to do is to put a lot of effort into trying to see whether there’s a legal way of throwing our so-called leaders into jail because what they’re doing is a criminal act,” said Dr. Suzuki, a former board member of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
[Afternoon update]
Apparently, such is the threat from global warming that we’ll have to sacrifice democracy on its altar:
[T]he authors conclude that an authoritarian form of government is necessary, but this will be governance by experts and not by those who seek power.
Well, that’s a relief.
Actually, there’s a bunch of good stuff like this over at Jonah’s Liberal Fascism blog today. Just keep a scrollin.’ Including Joshua Lederberg’s thoughts on letting scientists run things.
If This Isn’t Fascism…
…what is it?
Toward the end of his speech, Dr. Suzuki said that “we can no longer tolerate what’s going on in Ottawa and Edmonton” and then encouraged attendees to hold politicians to a greater green standard.
“What I would challenge you to do is to put a lot of effort into trying to see whether there’s a legal way of throwing our so-called leaders into jail because what they’re doing is a criminal act,” said Dr. Suzuki, a former board member of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
[Afternoon update]
Apparently, such is the threat from global warming that we’ll have to sacrifice democracy on its altar:
[T]he authors conclude that an authoritarian form of government is necessary, but this will be governance by experts and not by those who seek power.
Well, that’s a relief.
Actually, there’s a bunch of good stuff like this over at Jonah’s Liberal Fascism blog today. Just keep a scrollin.’ Including Joshua Lederberg’s thoughts on letting scientists run things.
Amazing Photo
Unlatched
I was having a pretty good day, just having finished a successful auction, found my missing coat that I left at a restaurant, narrowly avoided a parking ticket, and was passed by a highway patrolman who was after someone else. I got the last seat on an early flight home to Austin on American from Bradley Airport through Dallas.
About 45 minutes out from DFW, the captain explained that the luggage door in the back of the plane was unlatched. The captain said, in effect, “While this isn’t a problem now due to the pressurization holding the door in place, it will be once the plane is about to land.” So we were told to expect some emergency vehicles on the tarmac to spot any luggage so it wouldn’t get in the way of other planes.
I never trust pilots to tell the truth to passengers in an emergency-landing situation so I called my wife to tell her I loved her just in case (I did this before it was fashionable on one other emergency landing due to a tail screw problem about 10 years ago). No one else seemed nervous. The flight attendants seemed pretty upbeat. I pondered the seat back that was not upright in front of me, but I would rather die than commit a faux pas, so I waited for the flight attendant to attend to it.
When we landed, I counted 9 emergency vehicles on the right side of the plane. We stopped on the tarmac for about 5 minutes and they circled us. Then we headed for the gate. When we made a turn, I could see about six of them following behind the plane. We arrived at the terminal safely. We had probably delayed all of DFW traffic for a time.
On my flight to Austin, the next pilot missed our gate and had to do a 360 turn to get back to it. That was a pretty weird trip.
Clean Ascent
Looks like there were no tile problems yesterday, and the ECO sensors performed as advertised.
It’s kind of ironic that they seem to have finally wrung some of the last bugs out of the system just before they’re going to retire it.
You know, given what a technical and economic disaster ESAS is turning out to be, I could be persuaded to extend Shuttle past 2010 at this point, and just wait for the private sector to take over its duties, particularly if the money would go toward a propellant depot and the development of lunar injection and landing hardware. I don’t know what it would take to resurrect the contracts and production lines that have been shut down, though.
Blogging The Chicago Auto Show
…as only Iowahawk can.