That’s what Jon Goff says that ATK should do with its “Safe, Simple, Soon” vehicle.
I agree. But we can bet it won’t happen, now that they have their own man running the exploration activities.
More Progress On The Prize Front
NASA has two new Centennial Challenges:
The space agency is challenging innovators to build an autonomous aerial vehicle to navigate a tricky flight path or robots capable of building complex structures with only limited guidance from their human handlers, NASA officials said.
I hope that a few of these start to pay off soon, to provide incentive to start spending a lot more money on them. Right now, by my count, they’re spending about a hundredth of a percent of the agency’s budget on them.
Leonard David also has a report on a recent space tourism roundtable in California. The giggle factor continues to dissipate.
Let’s Get Real
This is a few weeks old, but I hadn’t seen it before: “I want a realistic wargame.”
Speaking of innocents, I want a War Sim where native townsfolk stand shoulder-to-shoulder on every inch of the map and not a single bomb can be dropped without blowing 200 of them into chunks. Forget about the abandoned building wallpaper in Red Alert 2. I want to have to choose between sending marines door-to-door to be killed in the streets or leveling the block from afar, Nuns and all, with 30 carriers. I want to have to choose between 40 dead troops or 400 dead children, and be damned to Hell by chubby pundits from the safety of their studios regardless of which way I go.
[Via Jim Oberg, who adds,”I would have added, however, an accounting corps who hounded me every few days to provide precise costs of each engagement, including ammo expended.”)
Let’s Get Real
This is a few weeks old, but I hadn’t seen it before: “I want a realistic wargame.”
Speaking of innocents, I want a War Sim where native townsfolk stand shoulder-to-shoulder on every inch of the map and not a single bomb can be dropped without blowing 200 of them into chunks. Forget about the abandoned building wallpaper in Red Alert 2. I want to have to choose between sending marines door-to-door to be killed in the streets or leveling the block from afar, Nuns and all, with 30 carriers. I want to have to choose between 40 dead troops or 400 dead children, and be damned to Hell by chubby pundits from the safety of their studios regardless of which way I go.
[Via Jim Oberg, who adds,”I would have added, however, an accounting corps who hounded me every few days to provide precise costs of each engagement, including ammo expended.”)
Let’s Get Real
This is a few weeks old, but I hadn’t seen it before: “I want a realistic wargame.”
Speaking of innocents, I want a War Sim where native townsfolk stand shoulder-to-shoulder on every inch of the map and not a single bomb can be dropped without blowing 200 of them into chunks. Forget about the abandoned building wallpaper in Red Alert 2. I want to have to choose between sending marines door-to-door to be killed in the streets or leveling the block from afar, Nuns and all, with 30 carriers. I want to have to choose between 40 dead troops or 400 dead children, and be damned to Hell by chubby pundits from the safety of their studios regardless of which way I go.
[Via Jim Oberg, who adds,”I would have added, however, an accounting corps who hounded me every few days to provide precise costs of each engagement, including ammo expended.”)
More Bad News For The LA Times
Was the paper involved in a murder coverup?
If The Chinese Space Program
…is anything like their aviation program, we have nothing to worry about.
Take that, runway! Who’s your daddy now?
(“Ladies and gentlemen, please keep your seatbelts on until we’ve finished bouncing to the gate…”)
[From the Nav Log]
[Update at 2 PM EST[
A commenter says that it’s a fake. It’s still pretty funny, though.
By the way, perhaps Mark Whittington should apply for the job of running the Chinese Space Agency’s equivalent of the Public Affairs Office. Given the apparent umbrage he takes when anyone disses their space program, he should at least be getting paid for it.
[Update a little while later]
Mark is apparently as unfamiliar with the meaning of the word “ire” as he is with that of “affront.”
Hilarious.
Mark, the fact that you seem to have no sense of humor doesn’t mean that my comment wasn’t meant to be humorous. I have no “ire” toward the Chinese space program. In fact, that’s why you always seem to be so upset with me–because I don’t take it seriously enough to have “ire” toward it. I wish you’d make up your mind as to how I’m supposed to view it (or how you’re supposed to, for that matter). I also wish you’d quit fantasizing my views on things, and feebly attempting to propagate them to the world. I know that’s not going to happen, though.
Speaker Of The House Pence
Sounds like a huge improvement over the current leadership, to me. Here’s hoping.
Bad News For Shuttle Fans
More foam cracks on the PAL ramp.
At the current flight rate, if they get it off next fall, the cost per flight will be many billions. Either fly it, or retire it, but stop wasting all this time and money on trying (in futility) to make it safe.
Technical Difficulties
I can’t get to Space Transport News using the http://www.spacetransportnews.com URL (the one I use in the blogroll), but I can get to it through Hobby Space.
Is anyone else having this problem or is it just me?
[Update]
If anyone is having the same problem, please note your ISP as well, so we can eliminate that as the issue.