Category Archives: History

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture

Tom Hanks

36 Comments

Unhinged?

…the most disturbing phrase of all was Hanks’ suggestion that the Japanese wished to “kill,” us, while we in turn wanted to “annihilate” them. Had they developed the bomb or other such weapons of mass destruction (and they had all sorts of plans of creating WMDs), and won the war, I can guarantee Hanks that he would probably would not be here today, and that his Los Angeles would look nothing like a prosperous and modern Tokyo.

You’d have thought that someone who seems so interested in history, particularly of the space program and the war, would be better informed about it. But there just seems to be something in the water in Hollywood. America — racist and evil, America’s enemies — justifiable behavior as a reaction to our evil racism and imperialism.

This is, in fact, still the popular media narrative for the current war, in which if we’d just leave those poor Muslims alone, and apologize for fighting back in the Crusades, they’d stop trying to kill us infidels and establish a new caliphate.

History, Political Commentary

Twenty Years After The Fall

3 Comments

..of the tyrant. Michael Totten has an interesting photoessay of a visit to Romania.

I’ve always wondered what democrats who grew up in communist countries thought of communists who grew up in democratic countries. Hardly anyone in the West ever voted with their feet, so to speak, by moving to a communist country, but communist dictatorships created millions of refugees who fled their homelands for Western democracies. East Germans were willing to risk being shot to make a run over the wall, Cubans are still willing to risk drowning to reach Florida, yet once in a while I still meet Westerners who have a warm spot in their hearts for regimes like Castro’s.

“What do you think,” I asked her, “of people in the West who think communism is a good idea but haven’t actually experienced it? There are quite a few people who admire the system in Cuba. You know the types I mean. The people who wear Che Guevara t-shirts.”

“Ah, yes,” she said. “They are ridiculous. But somehow I can understand them. Let’s take the example of France. In France they were all socialists when they were young. Sartre was a close friend of Castro’s. Gerard Depardieu was a close friend of Castro’s. They believed in this ideal, but after they saw what Stalin did they couldn’t look to the Soviet Union. So they turned their hopes to Cuba. Then they saw what Castro did. The only one who still seemed to live up to the ideal was Che Guevara. So they turned to Che Guevara. I understand them. They were wrong their entire lives, and it is difficult to admit this.”

And they are wrong still.

Hit his tip jar.

General Science, History, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Iron Rush

10 Comments

Did a meteorite find drive the Inuit migration across Canada hundreds of years ago?

Nah, couldn’t be. Nothing that happens in space is relevant to what happens on earth.

For some reason, this reminds me of the global warming debate. Not to mention the difficulty that Alverez had in selling the dinosaur extinction theory.

[Update a few minutes later]

This is also an interesting example of how technology, or the desire for it, can influence human migration patterns. It may have some relevance to space policy…

History, Political Commentary, Space

Twenty-Four Years Ago

13 Comments

It was my birthday, and the Challenger was destroyed. I have some remembrances of the event, originally posted eight years ago. That was the beginning of the end of the Shuttle program, less than five years after it started flying, though we didn’t necessarily realize it at the time. It was certainly the end of the fantasy that it was going to fly many times a year, and do everything for everyone. In that respect, it was a necessary wake-up call, and it provided the basis for today’s commercial launch industry.

[Mid-morning update]

A lot of memories over at Free Republic.

I don’t recall being as emotionally devastated as many report being, but I think that’s because it didn’t really shock me as much as it did many, who had believed all of the NASA propaganda about how safe the vehicle was. Those of us working on it knew better. The only real surprise was the nature of the failure — we had been betting on either a main engine explosion, or loss of tiles on entry (which did happen sixteen years later). I remember mostly thinking about the policy and (for Rockwell) business implications, and speculating on exactly what went wrong. And of course, I didn’t personally know any of those lost, except for having met Judy Resnik once in the cafeteria when she was visiting Downey.

[Noon update]

Clark Lindsey has more anniversary links.

[Update mid afternoon]

Memories from Miles O’Brien:

At first, I thought it was a cloud. But it was such an odd shape. Kind of like a big “Y”. It was, in fact, the awful scar that loomed off the coast of Cape Canaveral – more than 150 miles away. It seemed to be asking us all a question that to this day offers no easy answers: “Why?”naive-shuttle-concept

As you know, the truth is painful and sad. NASA managers were determined to prove their shuttle fleet was truly “operational” – even commercially viable. If their dreams had become reality, 1986 would have been the busiest year ever in the history of the Space Transportation System.

Fifteen flights were scheduled over 11 months. One was supposed to be the first mission to launch from the new shuttle facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Nine communications satellites, three classified payloads for the Pentagon and two major unmanned probes were to be carried into space in the payload bay of an orbiter that year.

NASA managers were trying to live up to years and years of their own unrealistic expectations, fanciful claims, pure science-fiction, and outright lies.

So when they discounted and discarded the firm “no-go” admonitions of engineers at the Thiokol plant in Utah where the solid rocket boosters are made, mission mangers team were, in fact, lying to themselves.

In many ways, when they continue to defend the status quo, they still are.