Iowahawk (who else?) says that Naomi Wolf has a sexual harassment past of her own.

Don’t read while drinking, unless you have a keyboard protector, and you’ll never look at plumbers the same way again.

Iowahawk (who else?) says that Naomi Wolf has a sexual harassment past of her own.

Don’t read while drinking, unless you have a keyboard protector, and you’ll never look at plumbers the same way again.

Iowahawk (who else?) says that Naomi Wolf has a sexual harassment past of her own.

Don’t read while drinking, unless you have a keyboard protector, and you’ll never look at plumbers the same way again.

This was depressing. When I decided to do a little research on the venue of Friday night’s festivities, I discovered this little gem (actually, lump of coal):

Q: Is there an outside “Observation Deck”?

A: Actually, there is. But, unfortunately it has been closed to the public since September 2001 by airport officials for security reasons.

I place the blame firmly on the local police department, who should have anticipated, and prepared for, the feelings on the street in the wake of the verdict.

…corrections officials have tried to dispel the myth that white collar prisons are cushy.

“The sheets are 130 thread count un-ironed cotton, and the lack of windows results in almost no natural light whatsoever,” said Donna Buhmper a guard at Camp Elgin in Walton Beach, Florida. “For Ms. Stewart, this could be the closest thing to hell she ever sees- until she dies, of course, and goes there for real.”

Protein Wisdom is back after all these years, with (like your humble blog here) a new URL. Something must be going around.

Today, Mr. (Dr.?) Goldstein seems to be indulging in a little schadenfreude over Mr. Rall’s well-deserved travails.

I haven’t found anything on line about it yet, but I heard on the television today that in analyzing the Yucatan crater, they’ve determined that the impact occurred hundreds of thousands of years before the dino extinction, so the original Alverez theory may not be true.

On the other hand, much closer to home, both in distance and time, a paper presented at last week’s planetary defense conference speculates that a comet may have caused the Chicago Fire.

Well, that would let Mrs. O’Leary’s cow off the hook. Bossy may be exonerated after all these decades.

Either way, it would still be prudent to keep looking for them and to quickly develop the technological capability needed to deal with any that appear to have our number.

Clark Lindsey points out that the SpaceX Falcon is making steady progress toward first flight. Among all the other milestones noted, I found this one little bit extremely significant:

Regulators gave them “approval to fly the rocket with only thrust cutoff, rather than explosive termination.”… “[This] improves hazardous procedures in transportation, on the launch pad and particularly on recovery of the first stage.” This [was] allowed “due to the all liquid fuel configuration and six-fold valve redundancy.”

As far as I’m aware, the only previous launch system that received permission to fly without range-safety destruct was the SET-1 launch by the American Rocket Company in 1989. The general philosophy has always been that range safety must be able to not only terminate thrust, but destroy the vehicle, should it go out of control. Rockets have always had such range safety devices, and are unique among all other transportation systems in that regard. No ship, train or plane has had devices on board every trip whose sole purpose is to destroy the vehicle.

If SpaceX has gotten permission to launch without it, with only thrust termination, this may be a first for a liquid-fueled rocket (the American Rocket vehicle was a hybrid, with solid fuel and LOX). The big advantage, as it points out, is that there are now no pyrotechnic (explosive) devices on the vehicle, at least not for that purpose, which eliminates some of the steps in launch processing, and post-launch safing, and reduces one of the hazards associated with ground handling (not to mention greatly enhancing the probability of getting the first stage back, even in the event of a mission failure).

Getting such permission is obviously much more important for a reusable vehicle, which the Falcon first stage is advertised to be. They don’t want to have to destroy the vehicle just because it isn’t following the prescribed trajectory, if they continue to have control over it, because they want to get it back.

This is a key breakthrough in reducing launch costs. Let’s hope that it presages the future.

Clark Lindsey points out that the SpaceX Falcon is making steady progress toward first flight. Among all the other milestones noted, I found this one little bit extremely significant:

Regulators gave them “approval to fly the rocket with only thrust cutoff, rather than explosive termination.”… “[This] improves hazardous procedures in transportation, on the launch pad and particularly on recovery of the first stage.” This [was] allowed “due to the all liquid fuel configuration and six-fold valve redundancy.”

As far as I’m aware, the only previous launch system that received permission to fly without range-safety destruct was the SET-1 launch by the American Rocket Company in 1989. The general philosophy has always been that range safety must be able to not only terminate thrust, but destroy the vehicle, should it go out of control. Rockets have always had such range safety devices, and are unique among all other transportation systems in that regard. No ship, train or plane has had devices on board every trip whose sole purpose is to destroy the vehicle.

If SpaceX has gotten permission to launch without it, with only thrust termination, this may be a first for a liquid-fueled rocket (the American Rocket vehicle was a hybrid, with solid fuel and LOX). The big advantage, as it points out, is that there are now no pyrotechnic (explosive) devices on the vehicle, at least not for that purpose, which eliminates some of the steps in launch processing, and post-launch safing, and reduces one of the hazards associated with ground handling (not to mention greatly enhancing the probability of getting the first stage back, even in the event of a mission failure).

Getting such permission is obviously much more important for a reusable vehicle, which the Falcon first stage is advertised to be. They don’t want to have to destroy the vehicle just because it isn’t following the prescribed trajectory, if they continue to have control over it, because they want to get it back.

This is a key breakthrough in reducing launch costs. Let’s hope that it presages the future.

Clark Lindsey points out that the SpaceX Falcon is making steady progress toward first flight. Among all the other milestones noted, I found this one little bit extremely significant:

Regulators gave them “approval to fly the rocket with only thrust cutoff, rather than explosive termination.”… “[This] improves hazardous procedures in transportation, on the launch pad and particularly on recovery of the first stage.” This [was] allowed “due to the all liquid fuel configuration and six-fold valve redundancy.”

As far as I’m aware, the only previous launch system that received permission to fly without range-safety destruct was the SET-1 launch by the American Rocket Company in 1989. The general philosophy has always been that range safety must be able to not only terminate thrust, but destroy the vehicle, should it go out of control. Rockets have always had such range safety devices, and are unique among all other transportation systems in that regard. No ship, train or plane has had devices on board every trip whose sole purpose is to destroy the vehicle.

If SpaceX has gotten permission to launch without it, with only thrust termination, this may be a first for a liquid-fueled rocket (the American Rocket vehicle was a hybrid, with solid fuel and LOX). The big advantage, as it points out, is that there are now no pyrotechnic (explosive) devices on the vehicle, at least not for that purpose, which eliminates some of the steps in launch processing, and post-launch safing, and reduces one of the hazards associated with ground handling (not to mention greatly enhancing the probability of getting the first stage back, even in the event of a mission failure).

Getting such permission is obviously much more important for a reusable vehicle, which the Falcon first stage is advertised to be. They don’t want to have to destroy the vehicle just because it isn’t following the prescribed trajectory, if they continue to have control over it, because they want to get it back.

This is a key breakthrough in reducing launch costs. Let’s hope that it presages the future.