O’Reilly said there would be no formal announcement that the system was operational. He predicted the capability to defend against enemy missiles and to continue testing and development work would be achieved within a year.
“It’s just a matter of maturation,” he told reporters after a speech hosted by the George C. Marshall Institute, a public policy group.
On this week of anniversaries of space disasters, space historian Dwayne Day writes that we should display, rather than hide, the results of past tragedies, and allow not only NASA to learn from them, but the public as well. I agree.
Cecil Adams apparently never heard of the Wilkes Exploration Expedition, in which he suppressed a (probably justifiable) mutiny. Unless the question is about successful mutinies, but it doesn’t seem like he uses that restriction in his own examples. And of course, it’s also unsurprising that he’s unaware of it–it’s a little-known part of American history, at least until this book came out.
I’m going to DC for the weekend to celebrate my birthday with Patricia, sans computer. But because it’s my birthday, there are a couple of sad events to commemorate. Tomorrow will be the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 1 fire, which occurred the day before my birthday in 1967. And Sunday, people who were born the day the Challenger was lost will be old enough to drink adult beverages legally. It makes me feel old.