It's not rocket science
OK, so I’m not that old to remember when people treated air travel like it was a big deal. But doesn’t it all look cool now?
Like so many other things, I sometimes feel like I was born too late. It would’ve been awesome to work for Pan Am back in the glory days.
(Hat tip: Instapundit)
I’d hoped this New York Times story on warp drive research contained was actual news, but it’s just a rehash of stuff I linked to last fall so apparently there’s been no actual progress. That’s what happens when you let the NYT get your hopes up:
Dr. White likened his experiments to the early stages of the Manhattan Project, which were aimed at creating a very small nuclear reaction merely as proof that it could be done.
They tried to go through and demonstrate a nuclear reactor and generate half a watt,” he said. “That’s not something you’re going to market. Nobody’s going to buy that. It’s just making sure they understood the physics and science.”
While I think this is way cool and exactly the sort of ragged-edge R&D that NASA should pursue vigorously, my enthusiasm is curbed by the thudding crash of lumbering reality. In particular, this stuck out like a sore thumb:
For NASA, Dr. White’s warp speed experiments represent a rounding error in its budget, with about $50,000 spent on equipment in an agency that spends nearly $18 billion annually. The agency is far more focused on more achievable projects — building the next generation Orion series spacecraft, working on the International Space Station and preparing for a planned future mission to capture an asteroid.
Emphasis mine.
What, exactly, has NASA “achieved” in terms of new vehicle development since barely dragging the Shuttle across the finish line thirty-odd years ago? It’s an easy answer: think of a whole number that falls between 1 and -1. Null. Nil. ZERO. And the amount of money they’ve spent on all those cancelled projects? Well, it’s something approaching the exact opposite of zero.
So yeah, this would all sound a lot more impressive if I had more confidence in the guvmint’s ability to see any high-tech project through to completion, much less on time. Or on budget. Of course, they’re real good at stuff like tapping our cell phones or reading our e-mails (“Yes, Verizon? I’m interested in your ‘share EVERYTHING’ plan…). But when it comes to next-level tech projects that don’t involve violating their constitutional limits? Yeah, not so much.
Having sold the fusion facility in its current incarnation as a device for testing the reliability of nuclear weapons, the lab’s leaders now are back to selling it as an energy machine. The lab’s director told CBS’s “60 Minutes” earlier this year that NIF’s aim is to generate “clean, limitless power.” He said that would free the United States of greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on Mideast oil, and that commercialization of the technology could begin in ten years.
Good grief. Sounds like they’re setting up a plot device for the next Marvel Avengers movie. Come to think of it, NIF wasn’t a total waste since it made for a really cool set in the new Star Trek movie. So there’s that.
It’s all fun and games until someone has to climb inside the warp core.
It’s looking less like comedy and more like prophecy.
Speaking of prophecy, Ayn Rand was on to something. Tell me, does this sound familiar?
A few houses still stood within the skeleton of what had once been an industrial town. Everything that could move, had moved away; but some human beings had remained. The empty structures were vertical rubble; they had been eaten, not by time, but by men: boards torn out at random, missing patches of roofs, holes left in gutted cellars. It looked as if blind hands had seized whatever fitted the need of the moment, with no concept of remaining in existence the next morning. The inhabited houses were scattered at random among the ruins; the smoke of their chimneys was the only movement visible in town. A shell of concrete, which had been a schoolhouse, stood on the outskirts; it looked like a skull, with the empty sockets of glassless windows, with a few strands of hair still clinging to it, in the shape of broken wires.
Beyond the town, on a distant hill, stood the factory of the Twentieth Century Motor Company. Its walls, roof lines and smokestacks looked trim, impregnable like a fortress. It would have seemed intact but for a silver water tank: the water tank was tipped sidewise.
If you’re less inclined to read her otherwise turgid prose, there’s always RoboCop. Better Half and I lived briefly (very briefly) outside Detroit back in the ’90s when it was already a well-known $#!+hole, pretty much the big-city hell this Southern boy imagined it would be. We were quite happy to leave it in our rear-view mirror one snowy morning.
So is this an isolated incident? Doubtful. Despite the insane blatherings of certain MSNBC hosts (whom I refuse to link), this was not a result of Republican meanies. This is what happens when unsustainable policies are left to run their course in the hopes that they can keep squeezing blood from a stone.
“Bin Laden is dead, and Detroit is alive.” It was a laughable line then to anyone who was paying attention. Now it’s just sad.
In case you missed it, last weekend we were all in a position for a rare family portrait from Saturn:
‘Merica.
It would be neglecting my space-nerd cred if I failed to recognize a little event that happened 44 years ago today. It’s fitting that just this week, Jeff Bezos confirmed the Saturn V engines they recovered from the bottom of the Atlantic a few months ago are indeed from Apollo 11. No word on what they’ll be going for on Amazon.
I was five years old and hopelessly obsessed with the whole space program. My parents let me stay up late to watch the first moonwalk, something I am grateful for to this day because I remember all of it. Sadly there aren’t enough people who can say that, not to mention the men who went there who are no longer with us.
A precious few are left – and I wouldn’t recommend trying out any ridiculous moon-hoax theories on them:
That’s how old fighter jocks roll.
UPDATE: Here’s a fantastic shot of Buzz stepping out onto the LM’s porch 44 years ago. Note the Star Trekky lens flare!
Sorry to disappoint, but this isn’t a drinking thread. Via io9, the Pacific Rim website has a design-your-own-big-@$$-robot app that kills. And it didn’t take long for people to start bringing the funny:
It’s easy to do, and fun for the whole family (if you’re twisted like mine, that is). Here’s my first crack at it:
Want to make your own? Here’s the website, plus an epic collection on tumblr.
Saw this pic at Ace of Spades and couldn’t resist reposting:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
So I’m on the first grocery run with Better Half in a couple of weeks and run into this on our way out:
Pretty sure that Laughing Wimpy next to him already knew how my attempts to use the magic claw to apprehend Khan would turn out.
Wow. Just…wow.
In nearly two weeks at the Philmont scout ranch, I hiked over 90 miles (most of it uphill – even the downhill parts felt uphill) with a gaggle of grabasstic teenagers and managed to not strangle any of them in their sleep.
But really, the kids were great. Mostly. Funny as you-know-what. And man, what a trek. Truth be told it was probably at the ragged edge of our collective abilities, which I suppose is kind of the point. Anything less would’ve been boring, and the important thing is 100% of our crew toughed it out to march triumphantly into base camp last Friday.
There was so much to do and so much to tell that I don’t even know where to start, but the important thing about Philmont is that it’s a lot more than just hiking. Each day has a purpose, some program or other where the boys (and dads) can do things they may not have ever done before: panning for gold (hint: no early retirements in our future), trap shooting, burro racing, pole climbing, rock climbing, and rappelling. So it’s kind of like Scout boot camp.
The feeling at the end was in fact reminiscent of marching in from the field at Parris Island, knowing the end was in sight and laughing at the noobs getting ready to head out for their own adventures. We found their obnoxious cleanliness amusing – conveniently forgetting that we were exactly the same just last week – because 10 days on the trail leaves one kind of filthy. While we waited to check in, an outbound crew was prepping their tents and getting chewed out by one of the moms for getting that nice clean tent in the dirt. Boy, was someone about to get schooled.
I’ll be writing about it in more detail over the next few days, in between getting reacquatined with civilization and selectively ignoring the news. Let’s just say my mind is clear and I’d like to keep it that way. If nothing else, this experience reminded me of how much BS we allow ourselves to become burdened with. We suffer collective ADD from the onslaught of meaningless crap blared at us every day until we are left numb to it all. Right now, I view current events as meaningful only to the extent that they affect decisions I need to make in my own life.
What matters is that my son and I climbed a freaking mountain last weekend. After a full day of continuously hiking uphill, we finally made it to the saddle in the afternoon, barely in time to make the final climb up the summit. My late uncle was an avid climber, and for the first time in my life I truly understood why he did it. Hours (or days) of pushing yourself to the limits of your own endurance, each step up made that much harder by the thinning air, to finally reach the top in a combination of exhaustion and euphoria that I’m still having trouble putting into words.
On a side note, I have to say that e-readers may be the single most unappreciated technological advance for backpackers. A lot of ‘packers traditionally would just get a paperback and maybe tear it in half, taking only the sections they figured on reading to save weight. When every single ounce counts, being able to carry a whole library in something that weighs less than a paperback is a Godsend. We didn’t have much down time, but when we did it was sure nice to be able to pull out the Kindle. And the book that kept me company was simply fantastic: Leviathan Wakes, a bit-beyond-near-future space adventure that is as close to pitch perfect as anything I’ve read. Fittingly, I finished it on the flight home from Denver.
More on all of this later. For now, it’s just great to be back.
The Chiles Files 