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rain_gryphonGood news from the House for a change. It seems Bush was actually sincere when he proposed returning to the moon. I strongly doubted him, but I was wrong.
NASA released the designs for Ares I and V today as well. This is a true, proper space exploration system.
There's a light crew to orbit vehicle for everyday use, and a heavy lifter for big stuff and moon missions. These are sensible designs, with escape towers and ballistic reentry capsules. The capsule's up front, where stuff can't hit it too, and the heat shield is protected until it's ready for deorbit. This is going to kill a whole lot fewer crews than the Shuttle. They're good modular vertical designs too, that can be easily modified. This is where we should have gone in 1965, instead of veering off into the 'single vehicle to the moon' and then 'space plane' concepts. With any luck I'll live long enough to see a permanent human presence on the moon, where we should have been 40 years ago.
I'll have something nice to celebrate this Fourth of July. With any luck, the Shuttle will make it safely to orbit this afternoon, and bin Ladin will stop a missile.
*****
The Ares V is a big ol' rocket, and should carry about as much as a Saturn V. They've gone with the more powerful hydrogen motors, so unfortunately it won't gush fire like the old kerosene-fuelled Saturns. That's a step backward aesthetically, even if it does have the sparkler-like SRBs. The best description I ever heard of Saturns was 'if Niagara Falls were made of fire'. Still, it's a heavy lifter, which for a long time I thought I'd never see again. Right now I want to live to be an old man, and see one of these go, which I've been kind of iffy on these past few months.
*****
So, in the morning I'm off to the USGP. Hopefully the French won't ruin this one like they managed to last year. England are playing the Porch Geese in the morning too, but I suppose I'll have to miss that.
*****
I'm lucky to have a car to drive to Indianapolis at this point, actually. Thursday night on my way to work, I ran over something (I've no idea what, except that it was sharply angular) that smashed in a rim and destroyed both tires on that side. I called the tire service van, who was gonna change me right there, but the one wheel absolutely wouldn't come off. I hired a tow truck (who grievously overcharged me) to haul it back to the Firestone store near my apartment, only to discover that they'd gone out of business sometime in the last few days. I had him haul it to my place instead. This morning, I had a different towing company (reasonably priced) haul it to another Firestone store. They ended up having to cut off and drill out the studs on the one wheel, they were bent so badly. At any rate, now I've got four new tires, and miscellaneous mechanical refurbishments. I suppose next week I'll take it back and have the ball joint replaced like he recommended. It feels 'dancey', even with new tires. At some point, the engine needs rebuilding too. I'll prolly work on it some at my mother's, since there's a nice big driveway for that.
*****
The President came to town this afternoon, but I didn't get to see him. In theory I should have been able to from my bedroom window, since the motorcade went along 270, but as I can only see a narrow slice of that, it didn't seem worth it hanging out the window to see a one second glimpse of the limousine.
*****
I've started buying Mama Rosa's frozen pizzas. They're roughly half the price of any other, and they're actually of better quality. It's amazing. I used to eat quite a bit of frozen pizza, but of late I've been finding it less and less to my taste. It wasn't until I tried Mama Rosa's that I realized what was wrong - they're putting corn syrup in pizza now. Mama Rosa's doesn't - it has a crust that bakes dry and crunchy, and the tomato sauce is sour, and has a decent amount of oregano as well.
It's like every damn thing in the world has to have sweeteners in it anymore :P It would disgust me, although not surprise me, to see someone pop up with 'honey crust' pizza or some similar abomination soon. Barbecue is already ruined for me - I can't even stomach any of the commercial sauces anymore, since they're all based around honey and corn syrup. The choice anymore seems to be between moderately sweet and extremely sweet. God knows I'm not a health-food sort. I drink beer, and eat pretty much what I please. I just don't want every single thing that I eat to be sweet, which apparently puts me at odds with the modern palate.
*****
Anyway, despite the bitching, I'm happy. I need to look for a set of Ares models to build :)
NASA released the designs for Ares I and V today as well. This is a true, proper space exploration system.
There's a light crew to orbit vehicle for everyday use, and a heavy lifter for big stuff and moon missions. These are sensible designs, with escape towers and ballistic reentry capsules. The capsule's up front, where stuff can't hit it too, and the heat shield is protected until it's ready for deorbit. This is going to kill a whole lot fewer crews than the Shuttle. They're good modular vertical designs too, that can be easily modified. This is where we should have gone in 1965, instead of veering off into the 'single vehicle to the moon' and then 'space plane' concepts. With any luck I'll live long enough to see a permanent human presence on the moon, where we should have been 40 years ago.
I'll have something nice to celebrate this Fourth of July. With any luck, the Shuttle will make it safely to orbit this afternoon, and bin Ladin will stop a missile.
*****
The Ares V is a big ol' rocket, and should carry about as much as a Saturn V. They've gone with the more powerful hydrogen motors, so unfortunately it won't gush fire like the old kerosene-fuelled Saturns. That's a step backward aesthetically, even if it does have the sparkler-like SRBs. The best description I ever heard of Saturns was 'if Niagara Falls were made of fire'. Still, it's a heavy lifter, which for a long time I thought I'd never see again. Right now I want to live to be an old man, and see one of these go, which I've been kind of iffy on these past few months.
*****
So, in the morning I'm off to the USGP. Hopefully the French won't ruin this one like they managed to last year. England are playing the Porch Geese in the morning too, but I suppose I'll have to miss that.
*****
I'm lucky to have a car to drive to Indianapolis at this point, actually. Thursday night on my way to work, I ran over something (I've no idea what, except that it was sharply angular) that smashed in a rim and destroyed both tires on that side. I called the tire service van, who was gonna change me right there, but the one wheel absolutely wouldn't come off. I hired a tow truck (who grievously overcharged me) to haul it back to the Firestone store near my apartment, only to discover that they'd gone out of business sometime in the last few days. I had him haul it to my place instead. This morning, I had a different towing company (reasonably priced) haul it to another Firestone store. They ended up having to cut off and drill out the studs on the one wheel, they were bent so badly. At any rate, now I've got four new tires, and miscellaneous mechanical refurbishments. I suppose next week I'll take it back and have the ball joint replaced like he recommended. It feels 'dancey', even with new tires. At some point, the engine needs rebuilding too. I'll prolly work on it some at my mother's, since there's a nice big driveway for that.
*****
The President came to town this afternoon, but I didn't get to see him. In theory I should have been able to from my bedroom window, since the motorcade went along 270, but as I can only see a narrow slice of that, it didn't seem worth it hanging out the window to see a one second glimpse of the limousine.
*****
I've started buying Mama Rosa's frozen pizzas. They're roughly half the price of any other, and they're actually of better quality. It's amazing. I used to eat quite a bit of frozen pizza, but of late I've been finding it less and less to my taste. It wasn't until I tried Mama Rosa's that I realized what was wrong - they're putting corn syrup in pizza now. Mama Rosa's doesn't - it has a crust that bakes dry and crunchy, and the tomato sauce is sour, and has a decent amount of oregano as well.
It's like every damn thing in the world has to have sweeteners in it anymore :P It would disgust me, although not surprise me, to see someone pop up with 'honey crust' pizza or some similar abomination soon. Barbecue is already ruined for me - I can't even stomach any of the commercial sauces anymore, since they're all based around honey and corn syrup. The choice anymore seems to be between moderately sweet and extremely sweet. God knows I'm not a health-food sort. I drink beer, and eat pretty much what I please. I just don't want every single thing that I eat to be sweet, which apparently puts me at odds with the modern palate.
*****
Anyway, despite the bitching, I'm happy. I need to look for a set of Ares models to build :)
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Date: 2006-07-01 12:51 pm (UTC)