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And it's not the first time they've blown up rockets rather than shooting them into space.

Well, yes, but that happens to everyone in the launch business, including SpaceX. Doing it on production launch is not good for business though.

http://www.floridatoday.com/st...

Representative Richard Shelby, aka the politician who brings home the pork to Alabama's space industry and one of the biggest proponents of SLS, is trying to add more paperwork to the Commercial Crew program.

Because clearly, the best way to save taxpayer money is more studies and paperwork. Next up: studies and paperwork to determine if the amount of studies and paperwork is a detriment to government effectiveness.

I guess the rich dont need to use the cafes. But hey, I bet they are pretty handy for someone who didn't grow up with a computer. No setup fees. Maybe a little free help. No big startup cost on a fixed income. A reason to get out of the house. If there is any state in the union that should have them, its flori-duh.

With one signature, Internet cafes in Florida close
Effect on workers, patrons immediate when Scott makes bill law

http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20130411/BUSINESS/304110024/With-one-signature-Internet-caf-s-Florida-close?nclick_check=1

I generally agree. James Webb is great science, but at a huge cost that could most likely be spent more effectively elsewhere. Space telescopes are sexy and are attractive to congressmen that want to work on "bold projects." But often the best science comes in smaller increments. I'm all for increasing space and science funding, but in a world of limited resources, you still need to prioritize. Take a look at the article below for a critical view of the James Webb telescope: http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20110605/NEWS01/110604013/Telescope-debacle-devours-NASA-funds

There is the offsetting Bread and Circuses problem with direct democracy - an overnight revolution establishing true democracy would probably lead to a breakdown of society sufficiently dramatic to erase the technology that makes direct democracy possible - catch 22 if you will.

Still, it would be gratifying to just once see a majority of the US Federal Congress vote for something (important, like tax rates) that serves the majority of the people - directly, without waiting for the benefits to "trickle down" from a few private hands.

Don't get me wrong, it's good to be good to the rich, we wouldn't want them leaving en-masse for Australia or anything like that, but we shouldn't be pandering the way we are.

Oh, and circling back to topic slightly, I'm all for private space development, but here again is a big fat handout to private companies owned and operated by wealthy individuals.

Yeah, but "75mT"?

Hmm, I just realized that article linked in the summary didn't include a reference on the 75mt/mT/whatever requirement. Here's one that does:

http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20100710/NEWS02/7100318/1007/Funding+may+alter+NASA+s+spaceflight+direction

While saying it was not the committee's place to design rockets, Nelson said the giant launcher -- capable of lifting at least 75 metric tons -- should be largely derived from shuttle systems and likely would use solid rocket boosters, like the Constellation program's
Ares I and Ares V rockets.

The "mT" thing is technically deprecated if I understand correctly, but for whatever reason is still quite common in aerospace circles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonne

T and mT and mt (especially in the combination mmt for million metric tons compare to Mt for megatonne) are also occasionally used, but all of these are deprecated since they conflict with internationally agreed SI symbols.

Do you have a reference for his statement? Not doubting you, in fact I believe that he probably did say it. I just want to see the quote and any additional information.

Here's an earlier similar quote, from June 7:

http://m.floridatoday.com/news.jsp?key=218238

But NASA says new supercomputer analyses will prove the Ares I launch abort system would do its job, propelling the Orion crew module and astronauts safely away from a dangerous maelstrom of fire and debris during an emergency.

"We feel we have a very, very, very safe first stage. Very reliable," said Jeff Hanley, manager of NASA's Project Constellation, which is developing Ares rockets and Orion spacecraft in an effort to replace retiring shuttles and to ultimately carry astronauts to the moon by 2020. "We think we have a very robust design for the abort environment."

I wouldn't worry too much about children shooting porn and storing it on their laptops. Everyone knows they prefer to use cell phones.

Completely unsubstantiated BS on /.!?! What a surprise! If it's a slow news day, how about doing followups to a previous story like donttasemebro. Seems he has apologized. Or maybe, if you're going to be posting stories like donttasemebro that really have nothing to do with YRO anyway, you could cover other rights violations like the sleeping man who was tased in his own home and then tased again and arrested by police after he identified himself. Yeah, he was a black guy. There's even followup to that story. The police were cleared of any criminal wrongdoing. I guess real stories from actual newspapers are less important that made up shit from cheetos eating bloggers... News for nerds indeed. Tall tales for gullible suckers is more like it.

Airlines treat the customers like this.

You're treated as a direct threat from the moment you buy the ticket.

You can be jailed for voicing your displeasure over their ipod policy

You can be jailed for making a stupid joke

You can be held against your will for the runway for 8 hours.

TPTB underestimate the power of the Internet as an organizing tool. Many of them really don't use the internet all that much (for instance, they know about myspace because they've read about it in the news but many have never heard of livejournal) and networking is just a concept. Speaking of bullies. After reading similar stories about ASCAP extortion in Florida - fleecing a restaurant owner for having the televison on while Hank Williams Jr. "Are You Ready for Some Football?" played because the song was carried on the "Monday Night Football" telecast - this warms the cockles of my heart. Go gen-y. Anyway - here's a link to the Florida story. http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article? AID=/20070708/NEWS01/707080343/1006

Yep, a marketing stunt that coincides with the Saturn 5 restored to former glory.

Besides, the blueprints seem to be stored away, quote:""The Federal Archives in East Point, Georgia, also has 2,900 cubic feet of Saturn documents," he said. "Rocketdyne has in its archives dozens of volumes from its Knowledge Retention Program. This effort was initiated in the late '60s to document every facet of F 1 and J 2 engine production to assist in any future restart.""

CC.

Hello, are you retarded, or just dense?
Does the phrase "Industrial sabotage" mean anything to you? Come on!
There was just an article on /. earlier about how someone snipped some wires in a NASA computer (FNAR). The fact of the matter remains that a MAJOR AEROSPACE CORPORATION bought out a MINOR AEROSPACE CORPORATION, which everyone with two brain cells to rub together knew said minor aerospace corporation would give the public a chance to reach near orbit. NASA, from the very beginning, has been vocally outspoken against space tourism. NASA, the very same organization that is a primary outsourcer to companies such as Northrop Grumman, the company that built a goodly sized chunk of every space shuttle in orbit.
The explosion came as part of a "routine test", and, as I may add after two days, now is exhibiting the exact same results as I predicted:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/27/scaled_com posites_mojave_spaceship_two_explosion/
http://news.com.com/8301-13574_3-9751315-40.html
http://www.kget.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_ id=530d01a7-2215-4ee1-9568-6edcc3904343
http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article? AID=/20070728/NEWS02/707280333/1006

The computer is designed to retrieve data from strain gauges on the central truss of the space station. It was repaired and will be installed in the U.S. Destiny laboratory after it is delivered to the outpost by the Endeavour astronauts.

Kathy posted something about it at "NASA managers mull shuttle engine issue and that links to a Florida Today article.

Kathy usually includes this sort of news and more in our newsletter the Starry Messenger. Here is a mailto link to subscribe to the Starry Messenger.

Wasn't STS-96 the mission where Discovery got hit by flying thermal insulation and they nearly lost the bird due to tile damage? No, wait, that was almost every shuttle mission.... That said, STS-96 was #15 in terms of number of impacts among the flights that made it home in one piece, and in terms of major impacts, it was #5. I wonder if there's a temperature correlation in this data. Anybody have a table of shuttle launch temperatures?

Sorry folks, but the cost of every technology decreases with time. CDs should cost less, not more. You could pick pretty much any mature technology for an example, but I'll choose television.

In 1966, a 25 inch colour television was the best you could buy. It cost $3,600 in today's dollars ($580 then). In 2007, you can buy a 25 inch CRT tv for about $200 and you can buy a top of the line TV set for about $2,800 (source)

What does this tell us?

• the very best technology for a specific task costs much less today than it used to (20% less for television sets)
• the same technology costs almost nothing compared to what it cost in the past (94% less for television sets)

CDs are the "old" technology, the 25" CRT. We should expect CDs to cost less than they did 20 years ago. We should expect any new, higher quality, recording technology to cost more than CDs cost today, but significantly less than CDs originally cost.

Driving the truck. That's what the job looks like. Those guys even look like truck drivers.

Then when they get there, they have to unload the truck. ""There's an awful lot going on, and it's going to be non-stop work from start to finish ... with virtually no time for breaks."

That's the reality of the job.

Lifting off from Canaveral in a SpaceShip 2 and landing in Spain would make the old Concorde record time look pretty pathetic.

Actually, Branson has mentioned that even though his first spaceport will be in New Mexico, they're considering building a spaceport at Cape Canaveral later on. The shuttle runway would be an ideal place for WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo to operate from.

No, they announced prospective plans about Florida before this annoucement.

http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article? AID=/20060206/BREAKINGNEWS/60206011

There's an interesting post over on Clark Lindsay's RLV and Space Transport News, part of which I've pasted below:

http://www.hobbyspace.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid =894

* Florida Today points out that "In the past three years, Congress has given the [Shuttle] program $13 billion, and all that money has resulted in just two flights". Sword of Damocles: NASA must safely launch the space shuttles this year, or the program wont survive - Florida Today - Feb.5.06.

To put that into perspective:

* Elon Musk has spent about $100M so far on developing the line of SpaceX Falcon launchers. The first Falcon 9 launch is scheduled for 2007. He hasn't said how much more money it will take to reach that launch but I doubt it could be more than another $100M.

* Kistler says it needs a few hundred million dollars to finish its fully reusable two stage K-1 vehicle.

* T/Space said it can build a CEV system capable of taking crews and cargo to the ISS for around $500M.

* LockMart once promised to build the VentureStar for $6B. If they had a 100% overrun that would still be less than $13B.

The launch has been scrubbed for Wednesday as well, because of a power outage in Maryland at the New Horizons control center

(see http://www.floridatoday.com/floridatoday/blogs/plu tolaunch/)

See this article: http://www.floridatoday.com/columbia/columbiastory 2N1124AFTERSHUT.htm It says exactly that. I haven't heard any more recently though.

http://www.floridatoday.com/columbia/columbiastory 2A43182A.htm

FloridaToday.com has an article this morning indicating that they *have* postponed the launch.

http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article? AID=/20050429/NEWS02/504290343/1007

One thing I quickly learned after moving down here to the "Space Coast" area, is that Florida Today usually knows before anyone else does!

http://www.airsafe.com/events/space/astrofat.htm/
For starters but with regard to the 27 January 1967 entry. That accident was due to poor work on that unit.
http://www.iasa.com.au/folders/Safety_Issues/RiskM anagement/shuttleContractorsUnderScrutiny.html/
http://www.floridatoday.com/columbia/113003columbi a.htm/
That was within 2 mins of googling. My bad for thinking it was common knowledge

They received a 6% increase this year.

Are you sure about that? Only 31 states have shield laws.

Although rare, Gazillo said it wasn't the first time he has investigated a fire caused by a lizard and a heat lamp.

I know you're being funny. But in reality, the reason college students aren't allowed to cook is A: Hot plates present a ceartin risk regardless of their operator (my george foreman grill just electrocuted me about an hour ago). And B: Support overpriced college meal plans!

Yes I do.

1998 Florida Mayoral race overturned because of massive voter fraud. This is only the most recent of a half dozen cases in Florida some of which resulted in convictions and/or invalidated elections. Lots of funs stuff... Deceased voters, vote buying, non-resident voters, ballot switching - the whole nine yards. (Gee I wonder if THAT could possibly explain the "intimidating" presence of Republican poll watchers and an attempt to purge the rolls of deceased, illegal and non-resident voters? NO it MUST be "suppression"). As it turns our there WERE still dead people that voted in 2000. The Miami Herald found André Alismé who died in 1997 among 144 other illegal voters after investigating only about a sixth of the precincts in Miami.

Forged absentee ballots in S. Dakota in 2002

Apparently some of the Democratic voting dead vote in primaries too.

Deceased voters still making it to the polls

Of course the 1960 Presidential election... Long past history but memories are long and political

And there is plenty of proof that this year may be a high-water mark for fraud... Fictional people registered to vote
Tons of registrations accumulated over months including many fraudulent ones with fictional names, dozens of the same name, forged signatures, dead people etc. all dumped on the county offices at the last minute to overload the checks to prevent fraud in Pennsylvania, Florida (and here), Colorado, Texas.

While I think the death penalty may be a bit extreme I agree that these guys should face severe punishment.

Of course the guys over at ACORN should face the same punishment for the exact same crime (among others).

The one really good thing I see coming from this is that now that a Republican has been caught doing this the problem which is becoming an epidemic is finally getting some media attention. I don't know if it's bias or if reporters just expect this kind of thing from Unions and big city political machines (sort of dog bites man... not really "news") but after a series of almost identical stories of voter registration fraud that never made it beyond local TV, newspapers and a few conservative magazines and web sites this one instance is finally making the national news.

Can anyone reply to my post with a corresponding list of things Dems have done?

Sure:
-Republican forms get tossed in the trash but not Republican forms...
- Democratic registration for completely fictional people...
- Fraudulent, forged Democratic registrations as well dumping a full years worth of paperwork on the registrars lap in the last minute to ensure they weren't looked at and INTENTIONALLY putting down false information for Republicans or simply not turning them in.

- Texas Democrats who Gerrymandered in their redistricting efforts... (The recent successful Republican effort was tit for tat revenge for the 1990 redistricting that The Almanac for American Politics called "The most partisan redistricting in the '90 cycle in the nation." and "the shrewdest gerrymander" of it's time. A gerrymander that resulted in a house delegation that was 17 to 15 Democratic despite 56% of the voters at the polls voting for a Republican congressman.

- CBS (as partisan as Sinclair or Fox) doing it's traditional 60 Minutes week-before-the-election hit piece early this year using obvious forgeries and giving the Kerry campaign advanced notice so they could exploit it with their operation "Fortunate Son"

-Florida 1998 -- Massive voter fraud uncovered that eventually leads to the election being overturned. The efforts during the next cycle (2000) all efforts to prevent fraud demagogued as "disenfranchising black voters" by the EXACT same people who had perpetuated the fraud.

Can anyone reply to my post with a corresponding list of things Dems have done?

Sure:
-Republican forms get tossed in the trash but not Republican forms...
- Democratic registration for completely fictional people...
- Fraudulent, forged Democratic registrations as well dumping a full years worth of paperwork on the registrars lap in the last minute to ensure they weren't looked at and INTENTIONALLY putting down false information for Republicans or simply not turning them in.

- Texas Democrats who Gerrymandered in their redistricting efforts... (The recent successful Republican effort was tit for tat revenge for the 1990 redistricting that The Almanac for American Politics called "The most partisan redistricting in the '90 cycle in the nation." and "the shrewdest gerrymander" of it's time. A gerrymander that resulted in a house delegation that was 17 to 15 Democratic despite 56% of the voters at the polls voting for a Republican congressman.

- CBS (as partisan as Sinclair or Fox) doing it's traditional 60 Minutes week-before-the-election hit piece early this year using obvious forgeries and giving the Kerry campaign advanced notice so they could exploit it with their operation "Fortunate Son"

-Florida 1998 -- Massive voter fraud uncovered that eventually leads to the election being overturned. The efforts during the next cycle (2000) all efforts to prevent fraud demagogued as "disenfranchising black voters" by the EXACT same people who had perpetuated the fraud.

The main problem is that if the tipping point has been reached, then the first time you might get your 'hard evidence' is the entire population of Florida migrating north.

Last I heard (I live just south of NASA, and I miss watching the shuttles go up), the return to space launch has been pushed out 2-3 months to May or June of 2005. It may even be pushed out to July depending on lanuch conditions.

Source (caution: may have popups, so use protection).

where all the capable ones (IBM, EDS, what have you)

Uhm, Lockheed Martin Information Technology and Lockheed Martin Enterprise Information Systems frequently find themselves bidding against IBM and EDS for government contracts...

Methinks this'll be a DIY project, if only for prestige value.

PS. And of course, like any defense contractor, Lockheed is allergic to offshoring. Look what happened the last time!

Great

As if our video-games didn't have enough mindless violence. Now they'll have this hard core hate that the Hip-Hop preaches like there is no tomorrow.

Think I'm really biased (which I am) or am trolling ? Well apparently Bill Cosby agrees with me

Sunny Dubey
Resident of New York City, lots of mindless hip-hop here ...

The Soyuz design is a good one because it is proven, and very very simple. No fiddly bits. You could probably launch in a hurricane if you absolutely had to: little short of a thunderstorm over the pad will stop the launch. This is no space shuttle, and weather-related scrubs are almost unheard of here.

On the other hand, the Arianes have fiddly bits and can't launch in bad weather. So where does this thing fall, somewhere in between? Even more fiddly than Ariane? Less complex than Soyuz?

Earlier GPS satellites had less features and probably cost less. There have been 50 launches.

Florida Today article is the local paper for Cape Canaveral and states that the Delta II launch costs are now $90 million. Whether that value includes the $45 million for the satellite itself, I don't know.

The satellites do have a design lifetime of less than 8 years. However, they have been lasting several years longe, typically lasting 10-11 years. The Air Force manages to keep quite a few working, even though particular satellites may have several subsystems failing. The satellites that are coming after the GPSIIR run out have a longer design life, perhaps 10 years. Hence the Air Force has only launched 37 since SVN 13 in 1989, only 2.5 per year.

Yes, the government pays 105, maybe $135 million per launch.

Oh yeah? Well just think how the how the Hubble Space Telescope feels.

While this could concievably just be a negotiating tactic by Pixar, it's more likely to be a simple case of Disney needing Pixar more than Pixar needed Disney.

Why would ladies be looking for geeks?

I mean, maybe "Management, move along, these are not the geeks you are looking for..." would have been a little better...

Besides, Jeff Gordon already drove the star wars car, didn't he? Of course, his version doesn't look as cool, but it's a bit faster...

Do you have any or is it just your prejudice?

A little googling gets you a lot.

Besides, where were you when the wackos were complaining that Cassini was going to kill us all and eat our children? It was only a few years ago, and it was BIG news.

That is pretty impressive if it turns out to be true.

It is. In fact, the US has only burned up one RTG and it was intentional. Russia is responsible for most of the contamination brought about by RTGs. Still, not a single death has yet been linked with Russia's carelessness.

But I suppose skeptics will say that just because past explosions have not exposed it does not mean that future explosions won't either.

What can you do? Skeptics won't accept anything but zero risk. And zero risk is simply impossible. There's risk I could trip and break my neck. Therefore we should have safer dirt! *sigh*

Nasa understandably just does not want to deal with the politics of radiation if there are "close enough" alternatives.

Unfortunately, there is no "close enough" substitute for nuclear power solutions. Solar panels are only effective as far out as Mars. Beyond that, they are useless. They also don't produce a steady stream of power like RTGs do and are sensitive to the weather.

And if we want to bring launch solutions into this discussion, there's no current launch solution that can get anywhere close to a 6 million pound rocket with 2 million pounds of cargo. Even the Space Shuttle, with its massive lifting power, has to operate within barely acceptable safety limits to meet the weight requirements of liftoff.

What's REALLY interesting is if you look at the ISP of various rockets:

Space Shuttle Boosters: ~250 ISP
Saturn V: ~450 ISP
Nuclear GCNR Rockets: 3000-5000 ISP

Wikipedia has more info.

Well duh, of course government spending on anything to create government jobs isn't going to improve the economy. Only democrats believe that.

But since similar space programs have been done before, perhaps one should (gasp!) look at past performance and ROI before setting up straw men to knock down.

Ever wonder why the US leads the world in many areas of computers, electronics, manufacturing, matereials, etc.? The space program isn't the only reason, but it's a big one.

Ever wonder what the real ROI is, or how many technologies and materials in your own home are spin-offs from space-related research?

But I guess the Bush-hating pastime is much more fun and emotionally satisfying than actually dealing with the facts. I just wouldn't expect it from a group of nerds. Oh wait. This is slashdot. Nevermind.

http://www.floridatoday.com/space/explore/special/ slc6/slc6.htm

They can't know about the intelligence before the intelligence was gathered post 9/11.

True; what they can't know, though, they can sure make up out of whole cloth.

"it'd explode instantaneously, and no, you -wouldn't- hear it, it's in SPACE, there's no AIR, so there's no SOUND-"

Actually, if you would be looking at the satellite in space and see it explode, you would very much hear it. While it is true that the near absence of air means that a person would not hear any sound from a shockware that travels through the air, but from the explosion that person would very well hear the many high-velocity particles ticking, and thunking against his/her vessel. If you have experienced any explosions of significance, or have enough imagination, you will know what kind of rain of particles I'm talking about. Just a week ago, astronauts were shaken up by a sound that probably was produced by such a space particle. So you would hear the explosion in space, just differently than on earth.

Now about the no air - no sound thing: Things like "there is no sound in space" that they teach kids in high school are ususally oversimplified or just plain wrong. Did you know that black holes actually emit sounds?

Not just the UK. Here in the United States those people at flea markets do "exactly" the same thing. :)

I wrote a letter to the local paper a few weeks ago about a DOT sign that had two misused apostrophes. Not a week after it was published, the sign was fixed! What do you know, the DOT people can read after all!

Is it being broadcast live? From what I heard China stopped live coverage of their space program after a few unfortunate incidents involving ground casaulties (though I don't think the linked article is the one which created the blockage of live reporting/broadasts).