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Failure Is Not An Option
Bolero writes: "Gene Kranz, the hardboiled flight director during the Gemini, Apollo, and Shuttle eras now has his own Web site here. He recently wrote a book and Mr. Kranz has included a lot of stuff on his site that didn't make it into the book because it was considered too technical." Failure is not an option. Cool.
Why does the mission control story make me think of tech support...
Thousands of trained men in pocket protectors and white shirts waiting to cooly dissect and fix the latest problem within seconds after the release of a new Microsoft Operating System, while Bill Gates and his lackeys get all the credit...
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He was at the planetarium talking to the public - so as a 'staff member' I took a few mins to chat with him. His opinion of Apollo 13 is that it's a big budget documentary - they got far more right in that film than they got wrong.
And it's a bloody good film.
Edgar was the backup LM pilot for apollo 13 - so he was one of the people on the ground doing simulations to try and figure out how to get them back.
But - Gene Kranz is one of the heroes of the century - he commanded a team of thousands and had the real power to make the missions work.
Gene Kranz is representative of a breed of engineer that is dying out - and the epitome of the "get it done - period" ethic. The space program of the '60s and '70s was a place where impossible things were done on a daily basis, using incredibly crude equipment, with lives at stake constantly - all resting on the actions and work of a staff of nerds and a handful of ex-fighter jocks who liked to tinker and explore. Wow, that's cool.
The pressures they faced were enormous, and they pulled it off with incredible aplomb, given that the risks were far higher than the chance that stock options may go underwater. The leadership and teamwork principles that came out of NASA's glory days have, unfortunately, not made enough of an impact on everyday business, and NASA themselves lost their way for a long time.
But basically (I'm rambling a bit here, I know), when we think about hacking, great feats of engineering, and doing the Right Thing at all costs, we should be thinking of Kranz and the amazing group of people he worked with at NASA in those years. Getting three men to the Moon and back safely, multiple times, using about as much computing power as a free solar calculator is truly one of the great hacks of all time. Buy the book, and remember them the next time you need to propose a toast.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
all of those people work in nanotech
Lea
This gentleman seems to be a fairly friendly guy. Would it be possible that someone from /. contact him and see if he's interested in being interviewed? I'd have a fair amount to ask him.
The real question is: where did they film the moon landings, and how did they get such sharp, realistic-looking shadows? I can't imagine it was out-of-doors, unless they filmed it all at night away from any city glow with kleig lights.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Look, there's a very simple reason that the moon landings were faked. For the whole period, Mars was in Aquarius (remember, "the age of Aquarius"), and it was a completely inauspicious time for outer-space exploration. Any moon landings would have gone off-course, or crashed and burned. So they faked it. What's the big deal about that?
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
"the energy cost of sending humans and their life-support supplies into space is still too high"
The energy cost is perhaps a couple of dollars a pound, at current energy (eg electricity) rates. Yes, it takes a fair bit of energy to get there, but that isn't the driving cost of the system. The fuel costs for a Shuttle launch are perhaps a few million dollars, out of the $500 million or more per launch actual cost.
The problem is (a) systems engineering (the Shuttle design goals seem to have been to ensure that every congressional district in the US has some involvement in it, a real kludge) and (b) the politics of coming up with something that threatens to break the rice bowls of Big Aerospace. (If you though Microsoft tactics were bad, you ain't seen nothing compared to what NASA and the big aerospace companies are willing to do to defend their monopoly and government handouts).
A lot of us that had/have the Grand Dream have seen it smashed over and over by the likes of NASA bureaucrats. It isn't the organization it was in the 1960s, at all. (As witness, for example, the recent string of brilliant Mars successes.)
-- Alastair
Just try to get an IP from your local Baby Bell, Cable-Internet or DSL provider. Think you could afford it on a fixed income?
/27 subnet right now.. Of course, I wouldn't have a problem if the price went down, but still, I can't complain too loudly (I remember having to dialup to university terminal annexes to telnet into hosts, and having to run a console SLIP emulator, god forbid we have a dialin SLIP/PPP...)..
Why do you need an IP? Run on a virtual server or free hosting service if you don't want to spend money. Spend $20-30/month if you want fancy stuff like CGIs, MySQL, etc.. If you don't like the TOS, move, or pony up the $$$.. I don't have a problem with it.
Why not volunteer your own time and expertise to setup a non-profit ISP project with your own TOS for this purpose, not unlike the New Deal people recording old blues artists?
I can't imagine hosting static pages is going to get any cheaper than it is now, and IMHO this is a good thing as long as search engines continue to index (and this is a concern, considering they miss whole regions of the Internet)..
Does anyone know of a way to get a free IP so you can run your own server from home?
No, and I think your assumptions are a bit off: networking has never been less costly or convenient as it is today. Ever tried to get ISDN? Or, god help you, a T1 to your house? Even having to put up with tech.morons to get DSL was a dream compared to Hell Atlantic or UUNet for T1 service.. My mom+pop ISP has a class B (helps to have started in 1993) and grants static IPs to every customer, including dialups, and my DSL network is a
And when IPv6 comes along IP addresses should become portable and super-cheap..
Your Working Boy,
I appreciate the lead.
When the Europeans set out exploring, they knew that a good percentage were going to die trying. It was the same with those who set off west past the Mississippi -- some were not going to make it.
Nowdays it is unacceptable to loose a single life. If the odds on a successful flight to mars were 50-50, I bet that there wouldn't be any shortage of applicants, and by using equipment with that kind of failure rate we could probably send 5 or 6 flights for what it would cost for 1 flight now. I don't know what the answer is, because I sure don't want my friend or son or daughter to be one of the unlucky 50%, but yet -- our caution seems to be killing our sense of "gee -- I wonder what is beyond those mountains..."
Word game?
The could have done an even better job if they would have put a lot more of the technical stuff online. It is there, no reason to hold it back. Just imagine that in the future you read a textbook on 3d-modelling and you can go to a site to get the models yourself and fiddle with them. Or that you could find extra schematics for building something. Not nescessary to understand the book, or too expensive to include, but easily done on the Net.
Use Adsense for Charity
One could argue that there are tons of free Hosts out there, but that puts you at the mercy and content policies. What if some 80 year old dude wants to talk about his life in the KKK. What if a retired hacker wants to share the knowledge. As recent events have shown, getting your content yanked by your Host takes little more than filling out an online abuse report or making a phonecall. Does anyone know of a way to get a free IP so you can run your own server from home?
This ain't 'news for nerds', this is an unmitigated plug for a book. OK, he's a good guy, we like him, he's earned a boatload of respect and all, but how did this make it slashdot.
:-)
I read over the site. It ain't Gene Krantz's web site, and it ain't a personal web site or anything. It's a plug for a book. Simple as that.
Rant off: That said, I'm gonna go order the book now
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Hence the mantra...
"Do or do not, there is no try"
RFC2119
Yeah, I know it's old, but it's still true.
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
Wow, that's a refreshing change. A lot of gurus and self-help types have told me to give up. Or at the very least, they implore, set your sites lower.
Netcraft says he's running IIS over Windows. It seems that failure may very well be an option...
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
there were a complex of things moving the space program of the 60's forward - AISB (as I said before) cold war competition, Werner Von Braun, a post 2nd wwar techno 'can do' spirit, a public primed for a real 'Buck Rogers', presidential backing and congressional funding, etc. Just like they said in the movie version of 13, by the early 70's a moon shot was about as exciting as a flight to Milwaukee. Even then, there were plenty of folks who decried spending all that 'money in space' (as if it were all going to alien banks and not creating interesting jobs here on earth) when there's plenty of poverty on earth still.
Even colonizing the America's (to further that analogy) was in part a race by several different countries to claim land by populating it, as well as a 'promised land' for the oppressed to go to start over if they're not doing well or are stigmatized in their 'home' land. People seek gold , a pleasant climate and fertile land to raise a family on, like California - the moon just ain't got that appeal! It lacks a really good 'reason' to do it.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Cool stuff on GeekPress: How to Hack a Bank / Helmet o'Death, Almost
-- Diana Hsieh
-- Diana Hsieh
GeekPress: The Weirder Side of Tech News
i actually had the opportunity to sit down at a dinner with Mr. Kranz and my father a few years ago. we had a good talk about many things, from space shuttles to his hobby of flying planes and whatnot. one thing he related to me (and has turned out to be a good piece of advice) is to fly high and never let go of your dreams. besides being intelligent, he's also an incredibly wise man and very fun to talk to.
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DeCSS source code!
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i read all replies to my comments
I'm not about to compare Kranz to other great people like Genghis Khan or Napoleon or Beethoven or Patton, but could you imagine if all of our great thinkers and leaders had websites where they could share their views and experiences and 'inside stories'? It's too late for the past, but what will it be like 100 years from now when everyone from heads of state to poets and writers, musicians, architects and scientists share what was really behind the scenes.
Christ, imagine what it would be like to have the likes of Leonardo DaVinchi on the web, in his own words, pictures and creations! (I wonder if Leo would have dug Java or PHP3?).
I think we're just breaking the tip of the ice-berg. There are a million stories to be told and with the anonymity of the Internet (or the potential anonymity as the case may be if you take precaution) may encourage even more of them to share.
I'm not sure if these things exist, but I'd love to know more about (and from the mouths of) test pilots, nuclear scientists who were involved with projects in the 50's, officers in the Vietnam war and Word War Two and many other events. The pictures, stories, intricate details... It could be a very impressive thing!
Okay, I know -- this is all a little too utopian, but I've seen a few good sites like these and this one sparked the excitement along a little further...
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icq:2057699
seumas.com
It's QUITE interesting, although I must admit that I kept visualizing Ed Harris as Kranz from Apollo 13, but that's OK, because near as I can tell, Harris was a good likeness for him, both in physical appearance as well as in "demeanour".
HIGHLY recommended reading. :)