I just got the news: our friends in Massachusetts have received their Official Massachusetts Government Notification that their Initiative to Roll Back the Sales Tax from 6.25% to 3% is on the November 2, 2010 Ballot.
Carla Howell, I salute you!
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The Porkers are out to kill the US space program.. There really is not a lot of difference between Republicans and Democrats (with a few nasty exceptions) when you scratch the surface. Almost to a man and woman they are just Socialists with different priorities over what part of the economy and your life should come under State control first. Perhaps the bi-partisanship in the attack on New Space has more to do with the threat that an area once part of the Statist ‘Ummah’ might escape. If you are an American and not a Socialist, call your congressman and senator and tell them off. Then join your local tea party and work to excise the Republican-Socialists from what once was a slightly (but only slightly) more freedom oriented party. As the Commies used to say, you have nothing to lose but your chains… July 12th, 2010 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
 I am going to say naathing specific about this, but the best response to this sort of thing is for everyone to immediately make private copies of all the associated information and stash them somewhere. The Internet is Forever, but some folk are just too dense to figure it out. July 1st, 2010 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
Boeing has no intentions of being left behind in the commercial race for space. I have been hearing for some time about their CST100 capsule. They are doing this on their own dime. I always knew the Boeing guys would eventually get on the commercial bandwagon and the contract to launch and support the Bigelow Aerospace space station seems a key turning point. Once Elon Musk gets his divorce all worked out so that ownership is clear, I am pretty sure we will be hearing about an IPO at SpaceX. Take the success of SpaceX, Boeing entering the commercial manned space market and the pending IPO and the expectation I have of a flood of investment money following a big run up in the value of the placement and you have the recipe for a commercial explosion into LEO. First LEO, then the Moon, Mars… and beyond. Privately. June 26th, 2010 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
Now that the Falcon 9 has flown, the Falcon 9 Heavy is looking a lot closer. Perhaps the most amazing thing about the success of SpaceX is that they have designed and orbited multiple clean-sheet design engines; the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles; and a test article for a cargo/manned space capsule for about $500M. That’s comparable to the fully burdened (Not the incremental) cost of one shuttle flight. I believe it is less than the escape system development cost on the dead-on-arrival Ares I project. June 20th, 2010 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
Bob Bigelow, the operator of two inflatable test habitats in orbit, fired one back at the idiots who claim to be all for free-markets, capitalism and liberty… until their own socialist-space ox gets gored:
June 17th, 2010 | 19 comments - (Comments are closed)
SpaceX has signed a $500M deal to launch the next generation Iridium satellite system. The mammals are now getting big enough to go for the dinosaurian jugular vein. June 16th, 2010 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
I ran across this article on Thomas Paine tonight and thought our readers might also find it of interest. There is a great deal of detail here about his life that I had never known before. June 11th, 2010 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
This is one of the more hilarious spoofs of PETA I have seen in ages. It recently showed up in my Inbox and I simply must share it with you, our readers: Johnstown, PA (GlossyNews) – Local and state police scoured the hills outside rural Johnstown, Pennsylvania, after reports of three animal rights activists missing after attempting to protest the wearing of leather at a large motorcycle gang rally this weekend. Two others, previously reported missing, were discovered by fast food workers “duct taped inside several fast food restaurant dumpsters,” according to police officials. “Something just went wrong,” said a still visibly shaken organizer of the protest. “Something just went horribly, horribly, wrong.” The organizer said a group of concerned animal rights activist groups, “growing tired of throwing fake blood and shouting profanities at older women wearing leather or fur coats,” decided to protest the annual motorcycle club event “in a hope to show them our outrage at their wanton use of leather in their clothing and motor bike seats.” “In fact,” said the organizer, “motorcycle gangs are one of the biggest abusers of wearing leather, and we decided it was high time that we let them know that we disagree with them using it… ergo, they should stop.” According to witnesses, protesters arrived at the event in a vintage 1960’s era Volkswagen van and began to pelt the gang members with balloons filled with red colored water, simulating blood, and shouting “you’re murderers” to passers by. This, evidently, is when the brouhaha began. “They peed on me!!!” charged one activist. “They grabbed me, said I looked like I was French, started calling me ‘La Trene’, and duct taped me to a tree so they could pee on me all day!” “I… I was trying to show my outrage at a man with a heavy leather jacket, and he… he didn’t even care. I called him a murderer, and all he said was, ‘You can’t prove that.’ Next thing I know he forced me to ride on the back of his motorcycle all day, and would not let me off, because his girl friend was out of town and I was almost a woman.” Still others claimed they were forced to eat hamburgers and hot dogs under duress. Those who resisted were allegedly held down while several bikers “farted on their heads.” Police officials declined comments on any leads or arrests due to the ongoing nature of the investigation, however, organizers for the motorcycle club rally expressed “surprise” at the allegations.. “That’s preposterous,” said one high-ranking member of the biker organizing committee. “We were having a party, and these people showed up and were very rude to us. They threw things at us, called us names, and tried to ruin the entire event. So, what did we do? We invited them to the party! What could be more friendly than that? You know, just because we are all members of motorcycle clubs does not mean we do not care about inclusiveness. Personally, I think it shows a lack of character for them to be saying such nasty things about us after we bent over backwards to make them feel welcome.” When confronted with the allegations of force-feeding the activists meat, using them as ad hoc latrines, leaving them incapacitated in fast food restaurant dumpsters, and ‘farting on their heads,’ the organizer declined to comment in detail. “That’s just our secret handshake,” assured the organizer. June 7th, 2010 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
Webcast starts in a few minutes. Launch windows runs from 11:00 US East coast until about 15:00 today and the same tomorrow. You can watch here 1150 EDT: Hold is due to low signal on a Flight Termination System (FTS) antenna because of the hardback being in the way. If that is the problem, it will go away at launch. I expect they are studying the issue and will see if the USAF RSO (Range Safety Officer)will waiver them. 1200 EDT: I have heard a rumor that the issue might be with a transmitter belonging to the ETR (Eastern Test Range). 1226 EDT: A fishing boat with engine trouble is crossing the exclusion zone; They have tested the FTS problem by raising and lowering the hardback. No solid word on when they will continue from the hold or scrub. 1243 EDT: They tested the signal propagation by raising and lowering the hardback; the Reel Insanity fishing boat has been convinced to stay out of the exclusion zone. Waiting to hear if the clock is going to start running again. 1312 EDT: Coast guard is apparently chasing a sail boat away. Word is that it is a lovely Friday and lots of rank amateur boaters are out and not even listening or turning on their marine radios. This is about the 3rd one in a couple hours. I think a few Exocet’s would do, ‘pour encourager les autres’… 1318 EDT: They will be launching soon, going back into terminal count. 1325 EDT: 6 minutes to liftoff. Godspeed SPACEX! 1331 EDT: Terminal count abort. Waitting for word on whether there will be a recycle today. They have done this often on Falcon 1’s, even to the point of detanking and refueling on the pad. 1354 EDT: Still no word on a recycle. There is still time in the current launch window and they have the clock reset and frozen at t-15 minutes. 1357 EDT: They are going to recycle. Waiting for notification of when the count will restart. It was an out of limits event at the terminal count down checks that can be worked with. No word yet on precisely what it was, but I will guess it had to do with engine ignition timing being too tight. All engines are supposed to fire at the same time. Just my guess. There did not appear to be an ignition so it would be something to do with pre-ignition events obviously. Pressures, valve timings, etc. 1427 EDT: count is to resume at 1430 and launch at 1445 if all goes well. 1432 EDT: terminal count has resumed. 1456 EDT: Falcon 9 has had a flawless launch to orbit on the very first test flight. It has carried with it the aerodynamic test article for the first commercial crew capsule. I did not in my wildest dreams expect the first try to go this smoothly. I was here with the Executive Director of NSS and we were both screaming like mad men as each major risk area got ticked off. I’m just limp. We are in a new age folks. 1540 EDT: An initial congrats is out from NSS 1546 EDT: And SFF June 4th, 2010 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
Until the first annual Let’s Draw Mohammad Day!!! Can you outdo the humor of Danish cartoonists? Be sure to try your hand at this global effort to raise a scream of maddened agony from people with minds too small to comprehend anything outside of their circularly reasoned unreality. Be the first on your block to drive a Jihadi so berserk his head spins around and pops like a champagne cork! April 26th, 2010 | 82 comments - (Comments are closed)
I have been rather scarce lately and those who know me well enough probably know some of what I have been up to. Much has been either of little interest to our readership or has had me too busy to even talk about it. However, I have been up to a bit of aeronautical fun the last couple Saturdays which some of you might enjoy hearing about. For some years I have known about the F4F Wildcat which the Ulster Aviation Society pulled out of the lough where it had rusted in pieces for a half a century. I had no way to get out to the hanger where the restoration work has been going on until last weekend when I finally convinced someone to give me a lift. Once there, others decided they really could use my set of reasonably skilled hands… and the rest is history as they say. Actually all of it is history: this is a genuine British WWII veteran that ditched one winter’s day while out on a patrol from this very airfield.  It has taken them over ten years to get here, but she is beginning to shape up quite nicely. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved My first job was to install a small fitting between the outside and inside of the cockpit, so I had to contort myself into odd positions to ratchet in bolts to re-install a 65 year old part to the restored fuselage skin. I also learned that a 6mm metric wrench does quite nicely on a 1/4 inch bolt…  It is a good thing I got skinny again… I spent a good chunk of the day squeezed in here. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved After accomplishing that small task, the foreman, a retired ATC from Aldergrove (BFS), gave me a slightly bigger job. I was told to pull an aluminum fitting from the cockpit port side where the combination of new and old parts had been pressed in for a fit check, and then to do all the filing, cleaning and priming to ready the part for use.  This will eventually contain some controls near the pilot’s left elbow Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved The hanger is itself history. During WWII Shorts built Stirling Bombers here. The Stirling was a big airplane and stood high on its long undercarriage. If you have ever seen a picture of one you will never forget it. The Wildcat is not the only airframe in this ancient hanger. There is also a Blackburn Buccaneer, a Shorts Tucano, a number of classic helicopters, a Shorts 330, and a few other airframes that are only to be found here. There is even a recently retired RAF Canberra photo recon plane due to arrive any month now. My second favorite after the Wildcat however is the Suez War veteran Sea Hawk. Even just sitting there it seems to be telling me “I want to fly!!!” The office is quite comfortable but I could not convince them to move all those other aeroplanes out of the way and let me take it for a spin. Well, there is one other problem: someone built a large building in the middle of where the WWII runway used to be. Oh well…  Did you say catapult one or two? Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved April 25th, 2010 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
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