Crazy Eddie Blogger

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• Commented on Russian Soyuz-2.1b Launch Failure

  Trailrider - IIRC, Obama pushed for a manned exploration program, NEO leading to Mars, but this got buried in the debate over cutting Constellation and "killing HSF". I do hope the plan ends up as the program of record, but...

• Commented on Stratolaunch Systems Unveiled

  "I'm ba-ack" said the falcon 5, "Guess where I've been...." Wiki says the F5 was 150 tons. I can see that. (modified, obviously, and I wonder how you hang a fully fueled rocket from one point like that - I'd...

• Commented on Why is NASA Langley Wasting Time on Cold Fusion Research?

  I think Rossi's either delusional or a cynical fake but before crucifying Bushnell, I'd look into whether this is legit research. CF is not against any laws of physics that I'm aware of, and the quote: "Dennis Bushnell has came...

• Commented on Neil Tyson: Misquoted or Missing The Point?

  Zack - I really don't think you can blame it on funding... In the same universe, compare the costs of developing Ares I/J2X/Orion to that of Falcon/Merlin/Dragon. You can nit pick the scope of the projects, but the disparity in...

• Commented on Neil Tyson: Misquoted or Missing The Point?

  He is 100% on the money, and Keith - your Editor's note is _exactly_ what he's talking about. The sad facts that Shuttle makes Apollo look good, and that the general state of things has deteriorated enough that we're having...

• Commented on Lenovo ThinkPads in Space: Fact Checking

  I don't know about Macs, but I'm a very heavy PC laptop user. I tried the heavy duty "portable workstation" offerings of HP and Dell, but ever since we tried Lenovo there's no looking back. Superior in every way, including...

• Commented on Video: J-2X Rocket Engine Test

  Zack - not much argument on the non-SpaceX stuff, but characterizing SpaceX as a video-only or video-mostly company ignores a lot of achievement. While their economic model remains to be proven, they are the only one who are really trying...

• Commented on Video: J-2X Rocket Engine Test

  Sure Zack, except nobody was claiming Rocketdyne, or ULA "only did videos". My post was that your original comment about "a real engine test, unlike that video-only SpaceX" seemed odd, given that SpaceX did tens of engine tests. SpaceX is...

• Commented on Video: J-2X Rocket Engine Test

  Zack and friends: "In August alone, we ran twenty-one major Merlin test firings, nearly one per working day" Congratulations on your test firing though....

• Commented on Video: China Uses "America The Beautiful" on Their Space Station Propaganda

  Maybe someone to whom all western music sounds exactly the same picked up a "serene yet powerful" sounding bit of music without even knowing the words or understanding the connotations?...

• Commented on SpaceX Unveils Fully Reusable Falcon 9 Plans

  Les - seriously now - do you think that SpaceX is laying out their future plans without having done the fuel math before? When you dis a worthy player that badly, you're only dissing yourself. Steve: With the second stage,...

• Commented on Does NASA Have A Contingency Plan For Crashing Satellites?

  Satellite reentry is like plane crashes, except: - more predictable - a lot less mass - no preference towards population centers - any consumables have been boiled/burned off Satellite reentry is like meteorites, except: - more predictable - slower (a...

• Commented on UARS Update: NASA Still Doesn't Know Where it Landed

  As always - Never ascribe to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence. And yes, if it feel short of the western seaboard, I am sure early warning radars and cameras saw it. But if they were to publish...

• Commented on How Much of Webb is Actually "Complete"? (Update)

  "I believe the definition of the 75% number is the same for all programs, and is very clear. Its the estimated mass fraction of the components that have passed the Critical Design Review." Well in a universe where this is...

• Commented on How Much of Webb is Actually "Complete"? (Update)

  Heh, it's not like the program management charts have a %-by-weight-complete row, and somebody just happened to pick that number for the interview. They had to look hard for the aspect of the telescope is "75% complete". They tried volume,...

• Commented on Another Earth?

  LC: My favorite kind of planet... With moisture constantly vaporizing on the hot side and condensing on the cold side, and so all rivers flowing in the same direction across the equator... And an ecosystem differentiated into hot-side and cold-side...

• Commented on Mike Griffin's Hypocrisy And Selective History On Display Once Again

  "It was so shockingly bad, that both Democrats and Republicans in Congress rebelled against it" Exactly - this is one of the clearest indicators that the plan did not concentrate on pork. The "pro NASA" house members are not exactly...

• Commented on Blue Origin Test Flight On Wednesday Never Happened

  "... has mysteriously disappeared" Mysteriously as in "black helicopters", "the Loch Ness Monster", or as in "they called the local FSDO or Tower or whoever and told them they won't be launching that day" Inquiring minds want to know!...

• Commented on More Climate Change Arm Waving

  Roy Spencer has been on a crusade against GW as a career path. The AGW folks will alternatingly have you believe that a) temperatures aren't rising, and b) it's not mankind that is raising them. ("I've never seen this gold...

• Commented on Ed Weiler Thinks Obama's JWST Budget = "Road to Nowhere"

  It's not just that this isn't the first budget extension. It's also that there's no reason to believe it is the last. Such a large increase, and at the expense of so much else - let it go. At some...

• Commented on POTUS NASA Remarks in Twitter Town Hall

  right on....

• Commented on Last Minute Plea To Not Retire Shuttle Fleet

  Fanboism my rear end. "one or two test flights" count for nothing, but a bunch of long promises about the moon from constellation counts for so much that canceling it was "killing HSF". Let's face it. On a deep emotional...

• Commented on J-2X Ready For Testing

  Y'all are so quick to pounce on expressnews10 and nitpick the less important issues as in "did he imply F1 thrust etc?" that you forget to address his main point: Yeah, J2X is great, as are other projects, but nothing...

• Commented on Paolo's Space Pix Found!

  Alliance Pilot took the words out of my mouth. Seriously - The order of the posts ?! And the angles are damn fine. And those are the FIRST EVER pictures that show the entire complex and shuttle in high quality....

• Commented on Copenhagen Suborbitals Launches Open Source Rocket

  Chris - so one company is enough to saturate your excitement? The exciting thing here is that more private entities are making substantial progress into both orbital and suborbital launches. That, plus the sheer simplicity of this design, and the...

• Commented on The Senate Wants One Copy of Every NASA Document

  Xnasa - very very well said. The problem started with the way NASA was controlled by congress, but by now the people that survived 30 years of political and bureaucratic attrition are - well - politicians and bureaucrats. Good ole...

• Commented on Frank Wolf Wants to Ban NASA and OSTP From China Cooperation

  Marcel - agreed about the fraction of NASA costs relative to the overall budget, but the problem with the government-run space program is that it produces results which are not unlike said Medicare - very inefficient and expensive - and...

• Commented on Frank Wolf Wants to Ban NASA and OSTP From China Cooperation

  yuh. From the article: "using the D2X digital camera with the F800 telephoto lens and the HVR-Z1J SONY video camera" I doubt he could have gotten better than 10 m/pixel even on a good day, so this doesn't make sense....

• Commented on Frank Wolf Wants to Ban NASA and OSTP From China Cooperation

  Just curious, what equipment did the cosmonaut use for these pictures? Was it a hand-held camera through a viewing port? Is there an instrument mounted outside the ISS that can properly take high resolution terrestrial images?...

• Commented on Frank Wolf Wants to Ban NASA and OSTP From China Cooperation

  Marcel - so you're suggesting we fight a centralist government sponsored project with another one? We did that with the Russians, won the battle, but lost the war since we succumbed to the exact ailments that doomed communism - the...