Moons of Saturn, taken from NASA’s Cassini probe. More awesomeness at Discovery Channel’s website.
Zoom-Zoom
If you’ve ever wondered what Mach 20 looks like, check out this video of last week’s test of the Hypersonic Test Vehicle, HTV-2.
This is the kind of the kind of technology that populates the world of Perigee. There’s still a long way to go before anybody’s selling tickets, that’s for sure.
In the “What Do They Know That We Don’t?” Department…
DARPA is dropping a half-mil on feasibility studies for an interstellar spaceship.
Half a million is chump change in federal-budget terms, the stuff they pull out from under the seat cushions on Air Force One. So if they were spending, say, a half-trillion instead, that would make me wonder what might be out there and heading our way.
And while I think this is all kinds of cool, in the current environment it’s probably not the best use of public money.
Not that any considerations like that ever matter, of course.
UPDATE: It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you! Here it is, proof of the massive Earth-destroying asteroid cover-up conspiracy thingy. Or not.
In the “About @$%! Time” Department…
It’s the 21st Century, and it looks like I’m finally gonna get my flying car. From Burt Rutan (I mean really, who else)?
A Sure Sign of the Apocalypse
…is when South Park episodes become reality. Also when smarty-pants eggheads with more education than sense think it’d be a great idea to create human/animal hybrids.
I mean, what could possibly go wrong?
Now, it’s important to take every single news story you read with a grain of salt. In this case, it may be worth using the whole shaker. There surely must be some finely-reasoned nuance they glossed over that would justify this epic weirdness. Or not. The news media ignore important contextual details all the time. But in this case, it’s really hard to get my head around any possible explanation besides “we could pull this off if only we could talk the government out of enough grant money”.
Let’s all repeat a useful cliche: don’t be so open-minded that your brains fall out.
The Chiles Files 
