Satire

Victims’ Relatives Upset By Presidential Campaign Ad

July 8, 1944

WASHINGTON DC (Routers)

Several relatives of those lost in the tragic attack on Pearl Harbor, two and a half years ago, have expressed shock and outrage over use of attack footage in a presidential campaign newsreel.

Just released to movie theatres in the wake of the recent nomination of New York Governor Thomas Dewey to run against President Roosevelt this fall, the ads were clearly intended to have a “morning in America” theme, playing up the Roosevelt administration’s accomplishments. These include ongoing success in the “war on Nazi terror” and against Shinto extremism.

The newsreels seemed designed to capitalize on the recent Normandy invasion, which has provided an allied foothold in France, and in the recent air/naval victory in the Phillippine Sea, which allowed the US to break the Japanese inner defenses with the capture of the Marianas. The administration believes that these events, along with the news that the Japanese are starting to retreat from Burma, provide an opportunity to frame a positive message before the Dewey campaign has time to define itself.

But not all view the newsreels positively.

“I lost a son on the Arizona,” said Lucille Whinehardt, in town from Sioux Falls to protest. “I was sitting in the theatre, waiting to see ‘The Song of Bernadette,’ when the campaign reel came on, and I had to relive his loss.”

“I go to the movies to escape, not to watch his ship sinking and burning over and over again.”

“It’s absolutely inappropriate,” said Marian Davis, who lost her brother, Ned Flewelling, and leads Never Again, a group for victims’ families. “There are certain memories and certain images that I consider sacred.”

Doris Kelly, of Bakersfield, CA, whose husband, John, died in the attack, said Roosevelt should not use the tragedy as “political propaganda.”

“Hundreds of innocent soldiers were murdered on President Roosevelt’s watch,” she said.

Media critics agree that the newsreel campaign is very insensitive to the feelings of the victims. In addition, the US Chamber of Commerce, which has endorsed Mr. Dewey, has passed a resolution demanding that the Roosevelt administration pull the newsreels immediately.

The Roosevelt campaign is defending the ads, however.

“December 7th changed the equation in our public policy. It forever changed the world,” said the White House press secretary. “The president’s steady leadership is vital to how we wage war on Japan and Germany.”

Some of the victims’ families agree.

“These images honor those whose lives were lost,” said Mildred Farnsworth, whose brother, James, died on the battleship Oklahoma. Proudly wearing her “Remember Pearl Harbor” button, she continued, “I guess some people just don’t want to be reminded that we are at war.”

Copyright 2004 by Rand Simberg

Satire

Victims’ Relatives Upset By Presidential Campaign Ad

July 8, 1944

WASHINGTON DC (Routers)

Several relatives of those lost in the tragic attack on Pearl Harbor, two and a half years ago, have expressed shock and outrage over use of attack footage in a presidential campaign newsreel.

Just released to movie theatres in the wake of the recent nomination of New York Governor Thomas Dewey to run against President Roosevelt this fall, the ads were clearly intended to have a “morning in America” theme, playing up the Roosevelt administration’s accomplishments. These include ongoing success in the “war on Nazi terror” and against Shinto extremism.

The newsreels seemed designed to capitalize on the recent Normandy invasion, which has provided an allied foothold in France, and in the recent air/naval victory in the Phillippine Sea, which allowed the US to break the Japanese inner defenses with the capture of the Marianas. The administration believes that these events, along with the news that the Japanese are starting to retreat from Burma, provide an opportunity to frame a positive message before the Dewey campaign has time to define itself.

But not all view the newsreels positively.

“I lost a son on the Arizona,” said Lucille Whinehardt, in town from Sioux Falls to protest. “I was sitting in the theatre, waiting to see ‘The Song of Bernadette,’ when the campaign reel came on, and I had to relive his loss.”

“I go to the movies to escape, not to watch his ship sinking and burning over and over again.”

“It’s absolutely inappropriate,” said Marian Davis, who lost her brother, Ned Flewelling, and leads Never Again, a group for victims’ families. “There are certain memories and certain images that I consider sacred.”

Doris Kelly, of Bakersfield, CA, whose husband, John, died in the attack, said Roosevelt should not use the tragedy as “political propaganda.”

“Hundreds of innocent soldiers were murdered on President Roosevelt’s watch,” she said.

Media critics agree that the newsreel campaign is very insensitive to the feelings of the victims. In addition, the US Chamber of Commerce, which has endorsed Mr. Dewey, has passed a resolution demanding that the Roosevelt administration pull the newsreels immediately.

The Roosevelt campaign is defending the ads, however.

“December 7th changed the equation in our public policy. It forever changed the world,” said the White House press secretary. “The president’s steady leadership is vital to how we wage war on Japan and Germany.”

Some of the victims’ families agree.

“These images honor those whose lives were lost,” said Mildred Farnsworth, whose brother, James, died on the battleship Oklahoma. Proudly wearing her “Remember Pearl Harbor” button, she continued, “I guess some people just don’t want to be reminded that we are at war.”

Copyright 2004 by Rand Simberg

Space

SubOrbital Day

It’s fitting that my first post on Transterrestrial Musings is on suborbital industry lobbying – it certainly won’t be my last on this topic.

The Suborbital Institute has announced that it will be holding an event on May 17-18 to lobby congress on issues affecting the nascent suborbital spaceflight industry. If you are in the DC area or are able to travel to the area please join us. I’ll be there, as will various folks from the alt.space crowd. The date is chosen so that people planning to attend the May COMSTAC meeting can just come a couple of days early. I’ve been involved with the SubOrbital Institute since the beginning, and it’s a good bunch of people. SubOrbital days are interesting and fun, though there’s no doubt that it’s real work. I’ll post more on the institute and its agenda in the coming weeks.

On the topic of suborbital spaceflight, X-Rocket has revamped their website and they have some very interesting news. They have a working operational demonstrator for their planned vehicle, and they have test flights. Congratulations to X-Rocket and Ed Wright (who is one of the founders of the SubOrbital Institute). Link via HobbySpace.

That’s enough for now. I’ll post a formal introduction when the current family crisis has passed. I probably won’t be able to post more than occasionally until then.

Uncategorized

Good News

Sometimes Congress isn’t totally clueless. The new launch legislation passed today.

It certainly sounds like Chairman Boehlert gets it:

“This is about a lot more than ‘joy rides’ in space, although there’s nothing wrong with such an enterprise. This is about the future of the U.S. aerospace industry. As in most areas of American enterprise, the greatest innovations in aerospace are most likely to come from small entrepreneurs. This is true whether we’re talking about launching humans or cargo. And the goal of this bill is to promote robust experimentation, to make sure that entrepreneurs and inventors have the incentives and the capabilities they need to pursue their ideas. That’s important to our nation’s future.”

Now on to the Senate. I hope they don’t screw it up too much.

Uncategorized

Apples To Apples

In this post, some have expressed skepticism about comparisons between marine hardware and space hardware. Fair enough (and amusing that such a minor item out of the post has consumed all of the discussion about it).

Here’s one that will be harder to argue with. XCOR Chief Engineer Dan DeLong has experience in both worlds, and offers this little tale:

In the mid 1960s, the U.S. Navy decided to upgrade its capability to rescue crewmen from a stricken submarine. The McCann diving bell had been in service for over 30 years and had severe operational drawbacks. A new program to develop a submersible that would perform far better was started. The Navy contracted with Lockheed Missiles and Space, and the two Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicles were created. The first DSRV was built for $41 million . The two DSRVs performed well in trials (they have never been called to do their primary mission) and are still in service today.

A decade later, the British Royal Navy decided it also wanted such a capability, but it did not have the money to commission copies of the US Navy boats. So the Royal Navy went to Vickers Oceanics (now part of British Aerospace) who were in the business of supporting North Sea oil drilling operations with manned submersibles. Vickers and the Royal Navy agreed to have a new boat built that would serve commercial purposes in everyday life and be reconfigured for the occasional Royal Navy rescue mission. (One could argue that such a dual-purpose boat would be more expensive than a simpler, single purpose boat.) Vickers contracted construction to a U.S. company that built commercial oil field submersibles, Perry Oceanographics. The boat performed well as the Vickers VOL-L1 for both commercial oil drilling support and occasional practice rescue operations for the Navy. Perry?s sale price was $750K including profit .

Why $41 million for DSRV-1 and less than $1 million for the VOL-L1? They perform the same mission, though details are different. DSRV is bigger and dives somewhat deeper, but these are small differences. I firmly believe the difference lies in the types of organizations that designed and built the boats. DSRV was started assuming a particular cost, and the program lived up to expectations. The government customer and its traditional contractors all agreed on the size and scope of the job before starting. The Perry boat came from a different world; a world of commercial profit and loss, a world where getting the job done is the primary requirement. Perry was in the business of building similar boats at the rate of about one per year for the previous decade.

I spent four years designing prototype and one-of-a-kind hardware for the U.S. Navy as an employee of Westinghouse Ocean Research and Engineering Center in Annapolis, MD. I then went to Perry Oceanographics and spent six years doing similar things for the commercial world. I believe that a similar difference exists between the current space launch industry and what could be done if cost and mission performance were the real priorities.

Uncategorized

Going Group

Partly due to a paucity of time in which to post, and partly out of a desire to broaden the opinion bases here, Transterrestrial is becoming a group blog. I’ll still be posting, but there should be more content here as a result.

The first two victims that I’ve signed up are Allen Thomson and Andrew Case. Unfortunately, Dr. Case has a family emergency that’s taking him out of internet range, so we may not hear from him for a week and a half or so, but in general keep an eye out for new talent here (better, in all cases, than your humble correspondent).

[Update on Wednesday evening]

A commenter asks if I can provide some background to the new posters. I could, but I think that they could do so much better than I, and I expect that they’ll do so in their initial posts. Just keep sitting on the edge of your seats, folks…

Uncategorized

So What About Tomorrow’s Announcement?

[Shrug]

Unless they say that Marvin wants to negotiate before we go up there and kick his scrawny Martian butt for sabotaging all of our probes, I’ve little interest.

I’ve been very busy (though I’ll have a little more time now), but even if I were posting at full speed, space science just doesn’t scratch my itch, and I hope that people don’t come here in expectation of either excitement or profound thoughts on the subject.

My interest is in getting earth life into space, not looking for non-earth life. If all they say manana is that there’s water on Mars, that’s not news. We’ve known it for years. If they say they’ve found amino acids, that’s more interesting, but no more so to me than, say, the discovery of some new form of life on the ocean bottom.

Uncategorized

So What About Tomorrow’s Announcement?

[Shrug]

Unless they say that Marvin wants to negotiate before we go up there and kick his scrawny Martian butt for sabotaging all of our probes, I’ve little interest.

I’ve been very busy (though I’ll have a little more time now), but even if I were posting at full speed, space science just doesn’t scratch my itch, and I hope that people don’t come here in expectation of either excitement or profound thoughts on the subject.

My interest is in getting earth life into space, not looking for non-earth life. If all they say manana is that there’s water on Mars, that’s not news. We’ve known it for years. If they say they’ve found amino acids, that’s more interesting, but no more so to me than, say, the discovery of some new form of life on the ocean bottom.

Uncategorized

So What About Tomorrow’s Announcement?

[Shrug]

Unless they say that Marvin wants to negotiate before we go up there and kick his scrawny Martian butt for sabotaging all of our probes, I’ve little interest.

I’ve been very busy (though I’ll have a little more time now), but even if I were posting at full speed, space science just doesn’t scratch my itch, and I hope that people don’t come here in expectation of either excitement or profound thoughts on the subject.

My interest is in getting earth life into space, not looking for non-earth life. If all they say manana is that there’s water on Mars, that’s not news. We’ve known it for years. If they say they’ve found amino acids, that’s more interesting, but no more so to me than, say, the discovery of some new form of life on the ocean bottom.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!