Sunday, 21 August 2005

How time flies
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: Moby
Topic: Musings
My, my how time flies you get busy with your regular life and then you look around and realize that you are no closer to your goals than you were six months ago. Maybe you’re still looking for that perfect job. Or maybe still trying to decide what grant you want to apply for the only thing that has changed is your waist line or your hair line, if your in school you've got a few more classes under your belt which may or may not have add to your waistline.

You ask me where I am going with this well let me start by saying congratulations to the crew of Discovery. The shuttle came back in grand fashion even with the orange foam being cast off as it went into orbit. We thought two years of stand down was over with; well I guess we weren't that lucky. Sort of like my life right now two steps forward and one step back.

I am not going to beat up on NASA for not having a perfect space plane. Honestly you can't. I want you to realize that accidents happen yes we can reduce the risk, but do you realize how many people died before we had safe reliable air travel.

During the first fifty years of flight and there was what is consider now an unacceptable level of accidents. Test pilots many times had a one and four chance of not coming back from there aircraft.

The shuttle is an experimental spacecraft it was and still is the only orbital space plane on the planet. A commercial aircraft or a military aircraft has as many as a thousand flights before it is put into final production. The shuttle is still a baby. Designed 30 years ago with half the budget it was called for and told that it must serve both military and civilian needs. Those cost cuts required by non technical people is what hurt the shuttle. Leaders like the men in Congress and the Senate who in many cases could not find there way under the hood of there car let alone inside a radio. Listen to people with no foresight like the people of Xerox not understand the concept of a mouse or Hewlett Packard oblivious to the power the personal computer would bring or IBM believing the world only need 12 computers.

It seems that visionaries are always left on the side line until the elites paradigm fails. Let’s not go that route again.

Tuesday, 12 October 2004

Open Source Space Development
Topic: Musings
What are the ways that you could motivate a group of people? There are several.

I believe that the there is a model that has shown its strengths. It has never been used for a tool for space activism but it has changed the way and the quality of the way software has been developed and used. This inovation is called open source software.

I believe we can use the same princples in creating an organization for development and promotion of space travel and settlement. While the hardware would not be free the engineering, labor, promotion and education could. I can see a form of volunteerism florish in a fashion of a volunteer fire department.

There has been an old saying that a volunteer fire department could build the Space Shuttle for a hundred dollars and a case of beer. I for one would like to find out if this could happen.

Friday, 27 August 2004

I have just returned from a alternate universe
Mood:  spacey
Now Playing: Dust in the wind.
Topic: Musings
I have been lost in a sea of computer parts and home projects. I forgot I had a website for a while. Not to worry I can again focus on this site. I believe I am through the worst.

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