Glenn Reynolds writes an elegy to Mark Hopkins.
“For years, the phone would ring at random times, and when I’d answer it was always the same: ‘This is Mark Hopkins.’ (He always started exactly the same way.) Then followed some sort of problem, usually leading to either a request for advice, or for me to do something.”
Yes. I and many others had the same experience. Sometimes we would do them, other times not. But we always answered the phone.
Ed Driscoll reviews a new documentary about Apollo 8.
That event, not Apollo 11, is when we won the race, because the Soviets quietly threw in the towel at that point, pretending that they’d never been racing.
In spaceflight, it’s a necessity.
…is in big trouble.
My biggest fear is that if they can’t play in the sandbox, they’ll crap in it, which they are perfectly capable of doing. It’s always much easier to destroy than create, which is what they’ve been doing in Ukraine.
[Afternoon update]
Sorry, link is there now.
NASA was right not to do it.
On the other hand, I never thought it should have been named for him in the first place, and not because of the “Lavender Scare” thing. It just didn’t seem appropriate.
Hard to believe it’s been two decades now. Of the three tragic NASA anniversaries, this was the only one that occurred after I started blogging. Here‘s what I wrote about it at the time. Posts are in reverse chronological order, so scroll to the bottom and work your way up.
Thanks for the birthday wishes. Here is what I wrote in 2010 about Challenger.
[Update a while later]
On the thirtieth anniversary, there were still lessons to be learned. In fact, many remain to be learned today, on the thirty-seventh.
Wayne Hale has been reposting his remembrances of the loss of Columbia.
RIP.
He did a great service to the nation in Apollo 7, but less so in his opposition to commercial spaceflight.
[Update a while later]
Speaking of commercial spaceflight, John Krauss has some great photos of the Polaris Dawn crew at JSC.
The family has announced a memorial service at Arlington next month.