Postcards from the Bleeding Edge
Monday, December 05, 2005

  Space: Burt Rutan, Gene Krantz, Rick Tumlinson

After going to the Xprize last year, somehow I missed Burt Rutan's remarks. I'm loving The Space show podcasts. Yesterday I listened to podcasts of Ed Buckbee and of legendary flight engineer, Gene Krantz. Krantz has such a authoritative, reassuring voice - he could run my mission control anytime - and points to all the good things that happened on the flight test of the Discovery earlier this year:

Gene still believes NASA can do the job. Others don't. There's been a bunch of good op-eds in the space press this past week - Rick Tumlinson, full of vitrol:

And Jeff Bell chimes in with a detailed analysis that I'd link to if I could find it this morning. Bell has become something of a beta noir of the alt.space community, his articles spark debate (to say the least!). Jon Goff has a detailed counter-proposal...

And the Russians claim to be able to make the moon for $2b. Bravado?

Whatever the heck we do in space, let's make it right. I like the gathering support for a fuel dump as the next interim goal of interplanetary flight... and I wish all the rocketheads would pay more attention to momentum-exchange tethers...
 
Sunday, December 04, 2005

  Davy Crockett

I've had occasion today, as I figure out what charity to donate to this christmas season, to reflect on the words of Davy Crockett, regarding the use of public money. [...] I proposed to give a week's pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men-men who think nothing of spending a week's pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased-a debt which could not be paid by money-and the insignificance and worthlessness of money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $10,000, when weighed against he honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it."
 
David Täht writes about politics, space, copyright, the internet, audio software, operating systems and surfing.


Resume,Songs,
My new blog, NeX-6, My facebook page
Orgs I like
The EFF - keeping free speech in the world
Musical stuff I like
Jeff, Rick, Ardour, Jack
Prior Rants - Sharing your home network better in a time of covi... Designing for the disconnect Email lists going down the memory hole Instituting saner, professional source code manage... Wireless and Wifi in 2015 - not what I dreamed of Saving wifi! Fixing Bufferbloat! Fighting the vend... Virgin Media - Fixing the epidemic of bufferbloat ... 49... and trying to find my navel Wheels down on mars! Tracking the landing of Curiosity, from Seattle
Best of the blog:
Uncle Bill's Helicopter - A speech I gave to ITT Tech - Chicken soup for engineers
Beating the Brand - A pathological exploration of how branding makes it hard to think straight
Inside the Internet Mind - trying to map the weather within the global supercomputer that consists of humans and google
Sex In Politics - If politicians spent more time pounding the flesh rather than pressing it, it would be a better world
Getting resources from space - An alternative to blowing money on mars using NEAs.
On the Columbia - Why I care about space
Authors I like:
Doc Searls
Where's Cherie?
UrbanAgora
Jerry Pournelle
The Cubic Dog
Evan Hunt
The Bay Area is talking
Brizzled
Zimnoiac Emanations
Eric Raymond
Unlocking The Air
Bob Mage
BroadBand & Me
SpaceCraft
Selenian Boondocks
My Pencil
Transterrestial Musings
Bear Waller Hollar
Callahans
Pajamas Media BlogRoll Member

If you really want to, you can poke through the below links as well.

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