Space

Synergy

Alan Boyle has scored a long and interesting interview with Bob Bigelow (yeah, I know it’s old news–I’ve been busy for the last few days), in which, among many other things, he discusses the prospects for American commercial launch providers for his needs:

Looking ahead, Bigelow plans two launches per year, moving up from the third-scale Genesis to a roughly half-scale prototype, and finally launching the full-scale, 330-cubic-meter Nautilus spacecraft by 2012. The time line targets 2015 for an honest-to-goodness space station, capable of hosting tourists or researchers, performers or athletes.

Bigelow hopes that the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will be ready to go in time for the Nautilus launches. If SpaceX founder Elon Musk is successful, “we are probably a multiple-flight customer for him,” Bigelow said.

But read the whole thing.

And I hope that I’ll get some of Mr. Bigelow’s thoughts myself, next week, in Vegas.

War Commentary

The Other Lone Star State

2 Comments

Don’t mess with Knesset…

…we have had the Yom Kippur War, the Attrition War, the Lebanon War, two intifadas and endless terror. Israel has not only survived, but has become stronger. It is a vibrant and prospering democracy, with robust economic growth over the last five years, the highest number of books published per capita in the world, and second place in the world in the publication of articles in scientific journals.

The Arabs, in the meantime, with all their aggression, have only brought on their peoples misery and poverty. President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and King Hussein of Jordan tower above this self-destructiveness as leaders who really served the best interests of their people by making peace with Israel.

Of course, that’s just a necessary, not a sufficient condition, as we’ve seen by the dismal state of affairs in both countries, but particularly Egypt.

[Credit for slogan and flag to “Dutchgirl” (who’s really a Dane–no shock there)–scroll down to the sixth post]

Administrative

Fingers Crossed

Since renaming my scripts, I have gotten zero, count ’em, zero spams on either comments or trackback. It won’t last forever, but it’s a nice breather. And I hope that they’re wasting a lot of time on the honeypots.

[Update on Saturday morning]

OK, got one ping spam overnight. But it’s still a huge improvement.

[Late afternoon update]

Still one and counting. I should have done this a long time ago. Even if I have to do it weekly, it would be a vast improvement over the time I spend dealing with these cretins now.

[Sunday morning update]

Oh, well. I knew it was too good to last. I got nine pr0n spams overnight. All from one domain, though. It’s still a lot better than it was. Hopefully, I can at least keep it down to a dull roar.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!