Iowahawk has found an early draft of the Arizona memorial design.
Top Or Bottom?
I am increasingly running into problems with email communications. My normal posting style (as established by ancient Internet rules, and my email software configuration (Eudora)) is that the response comes above, and I reply below. Unfortunately, many people seem to have adapted the Microsoft/AOL/Morondujour standard of top responding. This becomes a mess when engaged with an extended email discussion between two people of differing protocols.
I find it very frustrating to do a top post, but if I don’t, then it becomes very difficult to find the history of the exchange, since they switch back and forth.
Is there a solution to this problem?
A New Space Blogger
Not to mention an astrophysics blogger.
I met Louise Riofrio last week at the conference in San Jose. She has a lot of posts, and pictures. And she likes to put herself in the pictures, for an “I was there” feel to it. Keep scrolling.
(Note to readers from the distant future–this is just a link to the blog, not a permalink, so you’ll have to dig into the archives for the date of this post.)
She’s also going on the blogroll.
Irreconcilable Differences
This is interesting news: if this story is true, OSC is pulling out of the deal. I’m guessing they pulled a bait and switch on George French. When they made the original deal with RpK, OSC wasn’t expecting a CEV win for Lockheed Martin, but now that they’re on the Orion team, the COTS deal doesn’t look as good to them, so I’m speculating that they tried to renegotiate it.
It’s not clear what this means for the overall COTS deal going forward. I don’t know to what degree having OSC in the proposal was a factor in the NASA award. But if they can’t raise the money, they’ll have to get out of the game, and NASA will have to award another COTS contract to one of the runners up.
[Update a little before 5 PM EDT]
Just to clarify, per the first comment. Why did things change when Lockheed Martin won the Orion contract? OSC was hungry, and they committed to a ten million dollar investment in RpK in order to get a lot of the work on COTS. Once they had their plate full with the Orion work, it didn’t look like such a great deal to them any more. They pushed too hard for a do over, and RpK pulled the plug (partly, no doubt, because they didn’t want to do business with someone who would renege on a deal).
[Late evening update]
Here is a semi-official statement from RpK:
- In June 2006, Rocketplane Kistler and Orbital Sciences initiated discussions regarding a strategic relationship in which Orbital would have both a significant role in the development of the K-1 and a significant financial interest in Rocketplane Kistler.
- Rocketplane Kistler has been very pleased with the programmatic and technical interfaces with the Orbital personnel.
- However, in recent weeks, Orbital has conditioned investment in Rocketplane Kistler on changes to the K-1 Program that Rocketplane Kistler does not believe are in the best interests of Rocketplane Kistler and would be inconsistent with the goals and objectives of NASA in entering into a Space Act Agreement with Rocketplane Kistler.
- As a result, Rocketplane Kistler and Orbital have decided to terminate their strategic relationship.
- As part of its planning processes, Rocketplane Kistler has anticipated the possibility that one or more of its contractors may elect not to participate in the K-1 program. While the company regrets Orbital’s decision, the decision will not impair the ability of the company to meet its obligations to NASA under the SAA. Among other things, we are increasing near term RpK staffing plans for conducting SE&I related activities that were previously planned for Orbital. RpK is also continuing discussions with several potential industry strategic partners who have recently approached Rocketplane Kistler about participating in SE&I and other development and operational areas of interest on the K1. We anticipate completing those discussions in the very near future and finalizing appropriate agreements that will provide the best strategic and economic value to Rocketplane Kistler.
How Do You Check Their Pulse?
A continuous-flow artificial heart:
Frazier and his team have implanted pairs of commercially available ventricular-assist de-vices* into calves that had their hearts removed. The researchers say the de-vices* were able to pump blood and respond to the animals’ needs based on their activities. “You put this in cattle and they stand up and moo and eat and wonder why everyone is looking at them so weird,” says William Cohn, a collaborator on the research and director of minimally invasive surgical technology at the Texas Heart Institute.
…Cohn hopes that in the future, artificial heart technology will become much safer and easier to use, broadening the potential pool of patients. “It wouldn’t surprise me if at the 2050 Olympics, there were standard and modified [competitor] divisions,” he says.
Ahhh, life in the twenty-first century.
* Note: misspelling deliberate. For some weird reason, MT won’t allow me to create a post with the word “dev i ces” in it. The script actually breaks.
Executive Jet “Liberals”
Debra Saunders writes about the sham of the environmentalist liberal glitteratti:
Last week, they flew to their Mecca, the Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York. For the left-leaning and loaded, this is the meet that has it all — the mega-rich paying to be seen caring about poor people and the environment, while posing for photos with former President Clinton.
You see, they care so much more about the environment than President Bush because they support the Kyoto global warming pact, which they believe would save the planet from greenhouse gases, if only Bush had not rejected it. (Never mind that Clinton never asked the Senate to ratify the pact, probably because senators voted 95 to 0 for a resolution rejecting any treaty that exempted China and India.)
Executive Jet “Liberals”
Debra Saunders writes about the sham of the environmentalist liberal glitteratti:
Last week, they flew to their Mecca, the Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York. For the left-leaning and loaded, this is the meet that has it all — the mega-rich paying to be seen caring about poor people and the environment, while posing for photos with former President Clinton.
You see, they care so much more about the environment than President Bush because they support the Kyoto global warming pact, which they believe would save the planet from greenhouse gases, if only Bush had not rejected it. (Never mind that Clinton never asked the Senate to ratify the pact, probably because senators voted 95 to 0 for a resolution rejecting any treaty that exempted China and India.)
Executive Jet “Liberals”
Debra Saunders writes about the sham of the environmentalist liberal glitteratti:
Last week, they flew to their Mecca, the Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York. For the left-leaning and loaded, this is the meet that has it all — the mega-rich paying to be seen caring about poor people and the environment, while posing for photos with former President Clinton.
You see, they care so much more about the environment than President Bush because they support the Kyoto global warming pact, which they believe would save the planet from greenhouse gases, if only Bush had not rejected it. (Never mind that Clinton never asked the Senate to ratify the pact, probably because senators voted 95 to 0 for a resolution rejecting any treaty that exempted China and India.)
Clinched
The Tigers are in the playoffs with today’s win against Kansas City–they’re guaranteed to at least get in as the AL wild card. But it could be a neck and neck race with the Twins down to the last game for the division title. Detroit is playing the Rangers, and then gets to beat up on the Royals again, but Minnesota gets to play the Royals for a while, then finish up with the White Sox. Detroit has an arguably easier final schedule, and they’ve finally started hitting again, so they’ve still got a good shot at the title. The good news, though, is that if they can keep hitting the way they have been (and hopefully it’s not all lousy Royals pitching) they might actually be able to acquit themselves well post season.
This is a big morale boost for the Motor City, which badly needs one.
Back
I was at Ames most of the day yesterday, with no net access, and then took a red eye back from SFO via LAX. Probably no posting today, because there’s a lot of stuff to catch up on around here.