Jews are fleeing France for Israel.
“In Israel, at least we know the government is on our side,” said Stephanie Ohana, a 34-year-old Parisian Jew, at a prayer service for her rabbi, who was stabbed. “It’s paradoxical, isn’t it? But we have the feeling we’d be safer in Israel.”
The Simpsons has been renewed for at least two more years.
China has announced that it will launch its own astronaut this year.
As I’ve said previously, I don’t find this either threatening, or meaningful. Until they do something innovative, rather than derivative, it’s pointless to me.
You know, I said that today’s Fox column was an exclusive, and that you hadn’t read it here, but a lot of it was regurgitated posts. Here’s one bit for my readers, who never made it to the Fox site, that wasn’t.
Today’s scheduled Shuttle launch carried, for the first time, an Israeli astronaut, Col. Ilan Ramon. Israel has long had their own launch capability, but they are constrained by their geography to only launch into retrograde orbits (that is, east to west orbits, against the earth’s rotation), and they don’t have a manned launch capability. So in many ways, this is a significant milestone for them.
It’s a poignant one as well.
Col. Ramon’s mother is a survivor of Auschwitz, and many of his other relatives died there. In commemoration of all of the victims of that grim chapter of the last century, he’s going to take some space art along with him. It’s a haunting picture, a moonscape, prescient of the pictures that the Apollo astronauts would take with cameras a couple decades later. It was drawn by a 14-year old boy, Petr Ginz, who died in the camp, never to see man walk on the moon, or even launch a satellite. It’s a tribute to the unquenchable imagination of a child, who could escape the unimaginable horror of daily existence with dreams of other, perhaps happier worlds.
And of course, as a reminder of the current times, as the article points out, some who are unhappy with Israel’s present actions in the Middle East (and perhaps unhappy with the very existence of Israel as a state, or who may even regret that Hitler didn’t finish the job), are equally unhappy with NASA’s decision (made several years ago) to take an Israeli into space. While no specific threats have been received, security for the launch remained high. Sadly, the demons in humanity that finally did quench young Petr’s dreams of space, permanently, continue to follow us into the 21st Century.
[And thanks to Mark Whittington for the tip]
“Prince” Ahmed says that the Saudi “Kingdom” will never fight Islamic trends.
If “Islamic trends” include continued funding of Wahabbism and terrorism, it sounds like a declaration of war to me.
And note the scare quotes. Following the honorable tradition of Reuters, I say that one man’s monarchy is another man’s organized crime syndicate.
Virginia (who still doesn’t have permalinks that non-geeks can figure out how to link with) has lots of good stuff up.
The European (read mostly French) space program is in big trouble.
The headline is misleading, though. Here are the nut grafs:
Especially worrying for Arianespace, and the global launch industry, is that the flight 157 accident review board identified significant problems in all versions of Ariane 5, not just the stretched version that failed in December 2002.
It was left to the head of Arianespace, Jean- Yves Le Gall, to tell his senior colleagues that Ariane 5, and Rosetta, should be grounded indefinitely.
This is bad news, not because I really care whether or not a bloated jobs program in Europe is doing anything for space, but because it continues to perpetuate the myths that Space Is Hard, and Space Is Expensive, and if well-funded governments can’t get it right, how can lowly entrepreneurs be expected to?
The European (read mostly French) space program is in big trouble.
The headline is misleading, though. Here are the nut grafs:
Especially worrying for Arianespace, and the global launch industry, is that the flight 157 accident review board identified significant problems in all versions of Ariane 5, not just the stretched version that failed in December 2002.
It was left to the head of Arianespace, Jean- Yves Le Gall, to tell his senior colleagues that Ariane 5, and Rosetta, should be grounded indefinitely.
This is bad news, not because I really care whether or not a bloated jobs program in Europe is doing anything for space, but because it continues to perpetuate the myths that Space Is Hard, and Space Is Expensive, and if well-funded governments can’t get it right, how can lowly entrepreneurs be expected to?
The European (read mostly French) space program is in big trouble.
The headline is misleading, though. Here are the nut grafs:
Especially worrying for Arianespace, and the global launch industry, is that the flight 157 accident review board identified significant problems in all versions of Ariane 5, not just the stretched version that failed in December 2002.
It was left to the head of Arianespace, Jean- Yves Le Gall, to tell his senior colleagues that Ariane 5, and Rosetta, should be grounded indefinitely.
This is bad news, not because I really care whether or not a bloated jobs program in Europe is doing anything for space, but because it continues to perpetuate the myths that Space Is Hard, and Space Is Expensive, and if well-funded governments can’t get it right, how can lowly entrepreneurs be expected to?
Jimmy Carter, Appeaser of Dictators, Subduer Of Killer Bunnies, Political Pawn Of Nobel Prize Committees, has offered to mediate a deal with North Korea.
Sure, why not? After all, it worked so well the last time…