I only came into the top third. But that was on my first try. I’m sure with practice I could get a lot higher.
A Clue To My MT Problems
I’m getting this error on every page of my management site:
Use of uninitialized value in pattern match (m//) at website/extlib/I18N/LangTags.pm line 394.
I did a Google for that exact error, and only came up with one hit, which wasn’t very helpful (I’ve tried recopying the extlib files, and even wiping out the directory and copying them as new), but it still gives the error.
I will, say, though, that going from 4.01 to 4.1 has cleaned up some of my GUI problems. The big issue at this point is getting it to complete the publishing task without hanging (which is what’s causing the time outs when y’all comment).
The Weather Cooperated
The launch seemed to go fine. We looked for it from the house, but I’ve given up on seeing it from here. I think that the roof line is just too high above the trajectory, when it’s heading north up to the ISS. The only launch I’ve seen from here was an Atlas at night, and it was heading due east, so it wasn’t moving away from us as fast. It reminds me, though, that there aren’t going to be very many more opportunities to see it. I suspect that it’s the largest launch vehicle that we’re going to have for a long, long time.
No Ten-Year Plans
Ron Bailey has some thoughts on top-down government-driven technology programs:
The motivation behind the Apollo moon shot program was largely geopolitical. The Soviets had launched the first artificial satellite in 1957 and orbited the first man around the planet in 1961. As a NASA history explains, “First, and probably most important, the Apollo program was successful in accomplishing the political goals for which it had been created. Kennedy had been dealing with a Cold War crisis in 1961 brought on by several separate factors–the Soviet orbiting of Yuri Gagarin and the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion only two of them–that Apollo was designed to combat.” The Apollo program cost $25.4 billion (about $150 billion in current dollars) to land just 12 astronauts on the moon. It is curious that Shellenberger and Nordhaus cite the Apollo program as an example of transformative technologies since it was basically a technological dead end.
Yes, and one that NASA seems determined to repeat.
Best Wishes
It’s been rumored for several months that Burt Rutan has been under the weather. He certainly didn’t look great when I talked to him briefly in the hallway in Long Beach in September.
Without getting into details, I now have it on very good authority that he underwent (or is undergoing) surgery this morning in California. My understanding is that, if successful, the prognosis will be good, and he’ll be doing much better soon. If you’re the praying type, and think it does him any good, then you might want to do that. But if you do, it might be best not to tell him. Me, I’ll just hope for the best.
Off The Air Temporarily
I’ve shut down comments (I think) temporarily while I attempt an upgrade from MT-4.01 to MT-4.1, in the modest hope that it will straighten out some of the problems I’ve been having with timeouts. Hopefully not for long.
[A few minutes later]
OK, I’ve updated. Let’s see if we’re still having problems.
[Update a few minutes later]
Nope, still hanging up.
It’s A Done Deal
Looks like Romney is pulling out, with a speech at CPAC today. It’s probably looking pretty futile to him about now, and he probably doesn’t want to squander any more of the family fortune, at least this cycle. I think that the party is going to have to come to terms with the fact that McCain is the candidate, and at least be thankful that it is settled this early, while the Dems may go fighting all the way to Denver.
I also wonder if part of Romney’s thinking is that, if he gets out now, he can forestall a deal between McCain and Huckabee to put the latter on the ticket? If so, he is doing an immense favor to the Republican party and conservative movement. I would find it hard enough to vote for McCain. I’d find it impossible to vote for McCain-Huckabee. And I suspect that there are a lot of other people who would feel the same way. I think that McCain’s only real hope of shoring up the base at this point is to balance the ticket ideologically (and to make the appropriate conciliatory gestures at CPAC today). I think that a Fred Thompson in the number two spot would be very appealing to a lot of people, and he’d tear up whoever the Dems have as veep candidate in a debate.
[Update at 1:30 PM EST]
It’s official:
“This is not an easy decision for me. I hate to lose. My family, my friends and our supporters… many of you right here in this room… have given a great deal to get me where I have a shot at becoming President. If this were only about me, I would go on. But I entered this race because I love America, and because I love America, I feel I must now stand aside, for our party and for our country,” Romney said.
No word about preempting Huckabee but, then, there’s no reason to say anything about it. Let’s just hope that it happens.
It’s A Done Deal
Looks like Romney is pulling out, with a speech at CPAC today. It’s probably looking pretty futile to him about now, and he probably doesn’t want to squander any more of the family fortune, at least this cycle. I think that the party is going to have to come to terms with the fact that McCain is the candidate, and at least be thankful that it is settled this early, while the Dems may go fighting all the way to Denver.
I also wonder if part of Romney’s thinking is that, if he gets out now, he can forestall a deal between McCain and Huckabee to put the latter on the ticket? If so, he is doing an immense favor to the Republican party and conservative movement. I would find it hard enough to vote for McCain. I’d find it impossible to vote for McCain-Huckabee. And I suspect that there are a lot of other people who would feel the same way. I think that McCain’s only real hope of shoring up the base at this point is to balance the ticket ideologically (and to make the appropriate conciliatory gestures at CPAC today). I think that a Fred Thompson in the number two spot would be very appealing to a lot of people, and he’d tear up whoever the Dems have as veep candidate in a debate.
[Update at 1:30 PM EST]
It’s official:
“This is not an easy decision for me. I hate to lose. My family, my friends and our supporters… many of you right here in this room… have given a great deal to get me where I have a shot at becoming President. If this were only about me, I would go on. But I entered this race because I love America, and because I love America, I feel I must now stand aside, for our party and for our country,” Romney said.
No word about preempting Huckabee but, then, there’s no reason to say anything about it. Let’s just hope that it happens.
It’s A Done Deal
Looks like Romney is pulling out, with a speech at CPAC today. It’s probably looking pretty futile to him about now, and he probably doesn’t want to squander any more of the family fortune, at least this cycle. I think that the party is going to have to come to terms with the fact that McCain is the candidate, and at least be thankful that it is settled this early, while the Dems may go fighting all the way to Denver.
I also wonder if part of Romney’s thinking is that, if he gets out now, he can forestall a deal between McCain and Huckabee to put the latter on the ticket? If so, he is doing an immense favor to the Republican party and conservative movement. I would find it hard enough to vote for McCain. I’d find it impossible to vote for McCain-Huckabee. And I suspect that there are a lot of other people who would feel the same way. I think that McCain’s only real hope of shoring up the base at this point is to balance the ticket ideologically (and to make the appropriate conciliatory gestures at CPAC today). I think that a Fred Thompson in the number two spot would be very appealing to a lot of people, and he’d tear up whoever the Dems have as veep candidate in a debate.
[Update at 1:30 PM EST]
It’s official:
“This is not an easy decision for me. I hate to lose. My family, my friends and our supporters… many of you right here in this room… have given a great deal to get me where I have a shot at becoming President. If this were only about me, I would go on. But I entered this race because I love America, and because I love America, I feel I must now stand aside, for our party and for our country,” Romney said.
No word about preempting Huckabee but, then, there’s no reason to say anything about it. Let’s just hope that it happens.
Regulatory Issues For Virgin
When they made their announcement a couple weeks ago, I was interested to see that the interiors of the two fuselages of White Knight Two and SpaceShipTwo are identical. Virgin implied that they might be selling seats in WK2, either for passengers who just wanted a ride (with parabolas) or for future SS2 passengers. Which had me scratching my head. Had they considered the fact that WK2 is an airplane, not a spaceplane, and that it’s in a different regulatory regime?
The US Federal Aviation Administration has informed Flight that it will require WK2 to be certified before it is used for anything other than as a launch platform for SS2.
If it’s a launch platform, then it falls under the launch license process by FAA-AST, but if it is used for other purposes, such as crew training, it is in a different category, and has to be certified by FAA-AVR, the much larger part of the agency that deals with aviation.
I’ve long been on the war path to get people to use these terms properly, because they really do mean things.
Certifying an aircraft under (presumably) Part 121 (and perhaps even the more stringent Part 127) for commercial passenger transportation (think of it as the FAA equivalent of NASA’s elusive “man rating”) is a long and expensive process. It can increase the development cost of the vehicle by anywhere from one to two orders of magnitude. As an example, there was a small executive jet was prototyped by Scaled for a couple million a few years ago, but it was estimated that it would cost a couple hundred million to get it certified. Which is one of the reasons that you can’t buy one today. It never happened.
Now Virgin Atlantic Airlines is obviously familiar with FAA processes and procedures, and has an operators certificate. But they’ve never been involved with the development of an aircraft in the way that Virgin Galactic is now. My question is: does their business model account for estimated WK2 certification costs?
Which raises a second question. For this kind of market (informed passenger/adventure travel) is the current FAA certification regime overkill? This is the issue that prevented Zero G from going into operation much sooner–they had a certified aircraft (a Boeing 727) but it wasn’t certified for parabolic flight, and they had to spend years and a lot of money (I have no idea how much, but I imagine millions) to get a special type certification for this flight regime. So while we’ve made good progress in loosening the constraints for space flight, one wonders how much more progress we could have made (and how much less viable WK2 is from a business standpoint) because of our one-size-fits-all aviation regs?