Saturday, October 16, 2004

testing testing

testing testing

I have wanted to add some video to this blog for a while, so I am trying this little video I made a couple months back. The sound isn't the greatest, but I'll be working on that for my next video.

Saturday, October 09, 2004

being lazy

being lazy

Geez... it really is easy to neglect a blog. I just checked it now, and see that holy smokes! I haven't written anything on it in almost a week.

Apologies to my fan.

Let's see, what's been happening lately? HR 3752, the bill that was supposed to make space travel regulation much easier to cope with, had some poison pill amendments introduced that would have made it impossible to ever launch private spacecraft. Thankfully that bill died.

hmm what else... oh yeah, there was a townhall-style "debate" between dubya and flipflop the other night, and Bush beat Kerry like a rented mule. Wanna buy some wood?

The Aussies had an election and made Spain look like a bunch of Frenchmen. Howard's reelection was a great big "Fuck You, Asshole" to OBL and pals.

Tuesday, October 05, 2004

Well, I respected him

Well, I respected him

Rodney Dangerfield died tonight in Los Angeles, at the age of 82.

Rest in Peace, Rodney. There'll never be another like you.

Monday, October 04, 2004

they did it

they did it

Arrgh. I was having problems getting into Blogger earlier today, so I didn't get a chance to post about it until just now. By now it is old news that SpaceShipOne has won the Ansari X-Prize. More from Glenn Reynolds, Rand Simberg, and Clark Lindsey.

Sunday, October 03, 2004

sunday bloody sunday

sunday bloody sunday

Strolling through the Daily Recycler's archives today I came across this gem: President Bush "singing" Sunday Bloody Sunday. Fricking hilarious. More stuff like this can be found at thepartyparty.com.

Friday, October 01, 2004

space tug

space tug

BBC NEWS has an article about the coneXpress space tug, the first of which will be launched in 2007 aboard an Ariane. The tug is designed to latch onto the aft kick motor found on most telecommunications satellites, and then to use an ion engine to boost such satellites. This would be done to extend the operating lifespan of satellites which have run out of fuel; their electronics typically last much longer than the fuel supply, so the addition of a tug could extend the satellite life by several years.

Go for Launch

Go for Launch

Florida Today reports that SpaceShipOne is ready for a launch on Monday:

"The history-making spacecraft designed by aviation pioneer Burt Rutan will blast off Monday morning from a small airport in Mojave, California, in a bid for $10 million. "

They also report that SS1 only went to 337500 feet on September 29th, rather than the 358000 feet that had originally been reported by CNN.

I hope they make it on Monday. However, if they come up short then they still have until October 13th to try again. If they don't make it by that date, then the door opens for Brian Feeney and the da Vinci project team.

Go baby, go.