Knight26

WTF A1?

Forwarded to me by a friend: Eugene F. Kranz, author of "Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond," is a former Apollo flight director. By Eugene F. Kranz TO read and listen to the coverage of the ongoing mission of Space Shuttle Discovery, you would think NASA's mission team have taken careless risks with the lives of the seven astronauts who went into space last Tuesday. During the launch, foam fell off the external tank. For the risk-averse, the only acceptable thing to do now is retire the shuttle program immediately and wait for the divine arrival of the next generation of spacecraft. I am disgusted at the lack of courage and common sense this attitude shows. All progress involves risk. Risk is essential to fuel the economic engine of our nation. And risk is essential to renew American's fundamental spirit of discovery so we remain competitive with the rest of the world. My take on the current mission is very straightforward. The shuttle is in orbit. To a great extent mission managers have given the spacecraft a clean bill of health. Let us remember that this is a test flight. I consider it a remarkably successful test so far. The technical response to the Columbia accident led to a dramatic reduction in the amount of debris striking this shuttle during launch. Mission managers have said that the external tank shed 80 percent less foam this time than on previous launches. Only in the news media, apparently, is an 80 percent improvement considered a failure. Rather than quit, we must now try to reduce even more greatly the amount of foam that comes off the tank. The instruments and video equipment developed to assess the launch performance and monitor debris falling from the tank worked superbly. For the first time, the mission team knows what is happening, when it is happening and the flight conditions under which it occurred. This was a major mission objective, and it is an impressive achievement. Having spent more than three decades working in the space program, I know that all of the flights of the early days involved some levels of risk. Some of those risks, in hindsight, seem incomprehensible by today's timid standards. If we had quit when we had our first difficulties in Project Mercury, we would have never launched John Glenn on the Atlas rocket Friendship 7 in 1961. Two of the previous five Atlas rockets test-fired before Friendship 7 had exploded on liftoff. On Gemini 9, 10 and 11, all in 1966, we had complications with planned spacewalks that placed the astronauts at risk. Rather than cancel the walks, we faced the risks and solved the problems. These set the stage for Gemini 12 later that year, during which Buzz Aldrin spent more than five hours outside the capsule and confirmed to NASA that spacewalks could be considered an operational capability. Eventually, this capability enabled astronauts to retrieve satellites and repair and maintain the Hubble space telescope; and during the current mission, spacewalks were used to repair a gyroscope on the International Space Station and will allow the crew to fix some of the damage on that occurred during the launch. These are the rewards for the risks we took on those early Gemini flights. I understand the tragedy inherent in risk-taking; I witnessed the fire aboard Apollo that killed its three crew members. It filled us with anger at ourselves and with the resolve to make it right. After the fire we didn't quit; we redesigned the Apollo command module. During the Apollo missions that followed, we were never perfect. But we were determined and competent and that made these missions successful. I see the same combination of anger, resolve and determination in the Space Shuttle program today. These people are professionals who understand the business of risk, how to reduce risk and making that which remains acceptable. Most important, the current mission has demonstrated the maturity of the shuttle team that went through the tragedy of Columbia and had the guts to persevere. This is the most important aspect of the recovery from the Columbia accident, and is a credit to the great team NASA now has in place, headed by its administrator, Michael Griffin. There are many nations in the world that wish to surpass us in space. Does the "quit now" crowd really believe that abandoning the shuttle and International Space Station is the way to keep America the pre-eminent space-faring nation? Do they really believe that a new spacecraft will come without an engineering challenge or a human toll? The path the naysayers suggest is so out of touch with the American character of perseverance, hard work and discovery that they don't even realize the danger in which they are putting future astronauts. Not to mention our nation. $

What the DVD has the unaltered launch footage, man now I may actually have to buy it. Of course it is a fun movie, with some total hotties, just really bad science.

How about this: Basara is Shin and Sara's (from Mac-0) son. It kind of fits if you think about it.

Far too many to list, but here a few of my top guilty pleasures: Cube, Tremors, PCU, Super Troopers, Last Starfighter, Wing Commander, Behind Enemy Line. I know, nothing great, but I like them, they are fun.

Very nice for a first attempt, you have some obvious skills.

thanks for the advice guys, I like the look of the Treo-650 but I don't want an intigrated cell phone, primarily because I am rough on my cell phones. The Dell Axim looks good to, I will look at those this weekend.

I'm a windows user, I really don't need to do anything super fancy with it, watching movies is probably well beyond what I need. In fact beyond the basics, and office, the only function to it that I can think of that I might really want is GPS, but that need not be built into the unit.

Maybe it's just me but someday I would love to find a just beat to all get out, needs to be restuffed valk plush. WHy, you ask? Easy, then I would have no problem with pulling the stitching and making patterns out of it, I can see it now, custom valk plushies, lol.

I'd like to keep it fairly reasonable, say around $300.00, I really haven't priced them yet either so I don't know what they run.

Hey All, after my recent business trip it has come pianfully to my attention that I should probably invest in a PDA. I'm not entirely sure what I want, though I know I don't need somethign completely gadget filled, but would like it to be expandable, if possible. DOes anyone have any advice, or can recommend a good PDA model? Also, I have thought about hte smart phones, but I kill my cell phones regularly working on ships so that would not be the best idea.

BLaine is right, as a consumer in a free market economy you vote with your money. IF you don't like a product, or a company then don't but from them. Personnally I think the game sounds stupid, just like the JTA games, so I did not buy them. The more I found out about them and Rockstar, the more I avoided them, and adviced friends and family to do so as well. So, if you don't like the game, just don't buy it, if you don't like the company don't buy their products. One of the reasons I don't get Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream is because they help to fund anti-gun groups that actively remove guns from the hands of law abiding citizens. I don't eat McDonalds, or most fast food, because I don't care for the food, or the wastefulness of the whole organization. Welcome to America where you vote with your money, in more ways then one.

Actually I remember another one that they took down, it had the engines all pulled off and rearranged properly, plus the wings were fixed, the turrett removed and the tails modified. It looked pretty good, but that page listing it is now gone. I am considering running by target tonight to get eyes on this plane, and I agree I would rather have a true 1:18 scale A-10, but hey I'm a hog nut and this may suffice for now. Also BBI probably realizes that the younger kids are cash cows, get them hooked on the less accurate stuff to rake in the money, but still release, on a slightly less active schedule, the 1:18 beauties.

What is fantasy football?

Great points guys, Tigh is a great dynamic character and it will be interesting to see what happens once Adama is a up and around again. I can also understand why Adama was reluctant to bring Mrs Tigh to the ship, he knows what a bad influence she is, and that is definitely coming out now. Hopefully Adama can slavage what is left of Tigh after this whole mess. Also am I the only one who thinks that Adama does really know where Earth is and is purposely delaying their arrival? WOuldn't you, especially if you had an unknown number of cylon agents in the fleet ready to signal the rest of the Cylons where the new home was? Also now we really have two dying leaders, Adama, and Roslin, which one is the prophesized leader?

That's pretty neat, does he have feet?

Interesting, I might consider picking it up now that I see it assembled. heck if you buy a couple you might be able to cut it up and make some fuselage and wing plugs to make it more accurate. I remember a while ago seeing a rattler on joecustoms that was customized into an A-10. It looked really good, too bad they pulled it down.

He fears our non-master's-degree educations. 317502[/snapback] I'll believe he has a masters degree when I see it.

The game sounds stupid to begin with, and personnally I never cared for any of their games, so on my care meter this ranks somewhere right below how much I care for Tom and Katie.

Development and usage of alternate methods of measure, be they distance, time, volume, etc... are best left to books then TV shows and movies. Why? Simply because in a book you can take time to explain the difference and give the reader a reasonable basis of camparison. In a TV show or movie it is harder to have the character stop and say "I'll link up with you in twnety Centons, which happens to be ten minutes earth time." In Farscape they did something similar, Crichton had to adjust to a whole new measurement system and in the first season or two, he had a couple times when he made comments about what the units of measure were equivalenet to to a human. Even as the show progressed you could sometimes see him doing the mental arithmatic. I find BSG, Firefly, and even farscape, to be much more relatable sci-fi then anything with the Star Trek name brand. The characters seem much more real, their manner and method dress much more human, and the technology much more achievable. I also find it funny sometimes when they are using modern day equipment, it gives the show a sense of scale and really shows that technologically what they are doing is achievable. As cool as it is to see people running around with laser, phasers, and blasters, a simple gun is still much more believable. Even then BSG for the most part has used obviously modern equipment sparingly, or has dressed it up a little to make it look just different enough. True the P90s a few pistols are straight off the shelf airsoft with a few add on, but your average viewer probably doesn't even know the P90 exists, and just sees a very futuristic looking gun. I do have to admit I did not like seeing the Hummer starbuck was driving and would have preferred an older or more dressed up old military truck. Overall I like where the series is going and have my own theories as to what will happen and what all the private agendaes are. I agree that Tighs wife is just a power hungry witch, and probably not a cylon, if she is maybe she is the first of the six series, but I doubt it. More then likely the next cylon model to be revealed will be shown when the Pegasus arrives and they show them the cylons they've found aboard.

Oh man another flame war, come on guys we're all, at least those I've met in person, resonably intelligent mature adults, don't let one person, you know who you are, ruin it. What most people are saying at this point is that it doesn't look spectacular but that they will give it a chance, maybe the person getting upset that we don't fawn all over it should think about that instead of out right attacking. Heck even A1 has been pretty moderate and open minded thus far, for A1 that is. Also, how can anyone be called a robotech purist, as Robotech is anything but pure?

I wouldn't say it was anywhere near as nerdy, our rat patrol antics were strictly for work, our airsoft antics were for fun. As for mean-spiritedness, come on like these guys aren't asking for it?

Hey always more room in the Jeep.

Oh I forgot one thing, after we're finished humilating the fat geeks we would head home to our girlfriends/wives, as I am the only unmarried Rat Patroller at the moment, and make sweet sweet love to them. Something few of those geeks ever do, lol.

It looks "interesting" I may download the first episode, mentally replacing all the names with the Mospeada equivalents, and if it turns out to be good, with good animation and is well written I will pay for it. BUt as of now, I must say I find it rather blah, and maybe it's just me but I find the uniforms to be rather gay, give me pratical, realistic uniforms anyday over these ST-TNG inspired garbage.