Story Musgrave kicks ass: Thoughts on NASA's lack of vision

10 Questions with Story Musgrave - TIME:

The best of...

"Obama has no plans. Neither has NASA Washington. They don't have the courage. NASA should create a great vision, communicate it artistically and then ask Congress to execute that."

When asked what NASA's goals should be: "To explore farther out. You need to combine your robotics program with the human programs. You go out there with robots. They mine materials, they manufacture, and they assemble a habitat for humans. That's the most reliable and lowest-cost way to get humans out there. Voyager has now been to four planets. For what the space station costs, we could have had 400 Voyagers. If we'd gone that way, today we would have had 100 satellites sending data back to Earth. That's what we gave up by not having the courage to leap off and go further."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2081919,00.html#ixzz1ZMOuGrPI

'via Blog this'

One small step for China, one impossible step for America: Falling behind in space

I told myself I wouldn't get distracted with these little posts today, but this story gets to me. Hooray for China! Now, why the hell can't the U. S. figure it out.

This nails it, for me... "It's not driven so much by science, but by the desire to develop new technologies."  And what can we do with new technologies?  Sell them.  And what does product development and the manufacturing and marketing of new technologies do for a struggling economy?  These things create jobs!

Oh yeah, and there is that whole optimism and hope thing too.

Sure, it could be said that right now they are only repeating steps that NASA took 30 years ago.  But we've, pretty much been sitting on our asses for 20 years, so they are not that far behind overall and right now, bottom line, they can put people in space and we cannot.  They are ahead and they win, for now, at least.

In a related post to follow, I think Story Musgrave does a great job putting words to many of my own concerns about the current state of the U. S. space program.

http://www.democracyindistress.com/2011/09/story-musgrave-kicks-ass-thoughts-on.html



BBC News - Rocket launches Chinese space lab: 
"China is investing billions of dollars in its space programme. It has a strong space science effort under way, with two orbiting satellites having already been launched to the Moon. A third mission is expected to put a rover on the lunar surface. The Asian country is also deploying its own satellite-navigation system known as BeiDou, or Compass.

Bigger rockets are coming, too. The Long March 5 will be capable of putting more than 20 tonnes in a low-Earth orbit. This lifting muscle, again, will be necessary for the construction of a space station.

"There are loads of ideas floating around, and they're serious about implementing them," said UK space scientist John Zarnecki, who is a visiting professor at Beihang University, the new name for the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

"There's a sense of great optimism. It's not driven so much by science, but by the desire to develop new technologies. The money is there, although it's not limitless. And they're taking it step by step," he told BBC News."

'via Blog this'

BBC News - China launches space lab into orbit: "The 10.5m-long, cylindrical module will be unmanned for the time being, but the country's astronauts, or yuhangyuans, are expected to visit it next year.

Tiangong-1 will demonstrate the critical technologies needed by China to build a fully fledged space station - something it has promised to do at the end of the decade."

'via Blog this'

Time to retire the old header...

This one hasn't been up that long, but it is time for it to go...

Democracy In Distress dates back to George W. Bush's re-election in 2004 and is the home for my political writing and discussions of current, topical issues.

Anyway, been working on some changes to all four of the blogs.  The two old ones and the two "new" ones.  Well, one is just moving over to Blogger from Live Journal, but the other is a brand new one centered around music and my once and future band/whatever project.  So, for now, it is pretty much just a dumping ground for music clips and related minutiae.

So,  a lot of work tonight for some minor cosmetic changes...  However, everything is a little bigger, so there is room for bigger pictures, bigger videos, etc...   And that meant going through some dusty corners of my hard drive looking for the original image files for the headers for both this blog and Rubble.  So it took a minute.  And now I am done.

GOP: The true tax and spend party?

Posted by Anne on Facebook, thanks!

Republicans too liberal for today's GOP: Dwight Eisenhower

This is not our grandparents' Republican Party...

Suburbanites Graduate from Oxy to Smack | The Fix

Availability of drugs, the economy... Many factors contribute to the rising statistics of addiction. This is a disturbing trend. People get comfortable with the prescriptions because they are just pills, and not street drugs. But then, once addicted, they realize the street drugs are cheaper and easier to get, and since they are opiates, just like they are already taking, the once frightening stigma of heroin is removed.

Chicago's Suburbanites Graduate from Oxy to Smack | The Fix: "growing numbers of white suburbanites now graduate from pain pills, such as oxycodone, to heroin—often in reaction to their supplies of prescription drugs drying up. As prescription drug abuse increases in Chicago, so the use of traditional street drugs like heroin continues to spread from the city to the surrounding counties. Heroin deaths in Lake County rose 130% between 2000 and 2009, for example. And although Chicago's number of heroin-related deaths during the decade up to 2008 fell overall, the figure increased 40% among white women. Epperly believes that prescription drug and heroin abuse are “intertwined [and] similar enough that addicts who run out of one may take the other as a substitute.” Users who start on prescription meds, which many consider to be “safe,” find it a simple matter to move on to heroin, which is “now easier to try because it’s pure enough to snort or smoke rather than inject,” explains Epperly."

'via Blog this'

Can this government be fixed? Three steps that might help – USATODAY.com

Can this government be fixed? Three steps that might help – USATODAY.com: "three "wave" elections in a row shifted political power but failed to fundamentally change the way Washington works, or doesn't work. They have some ideas for steps that could help.

Perhaps the most significant would change the way congressional lines are drawn, making more districts competitive and increasing the odds that centrist candidates could prevail. Revising the rules for Senate filibusters could prevent a few senators from routinely blocking action supported by a majority. And changing the congressional calendar could encourage legislators to build personal relationships with colleagues from the other party."

'via Blog this'