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SpaceShipOne Flight Completed Successfully
knothead99 writes "CNN is reporting the successful liftoff of SpaceShipOne from a runway in the Mojave desert. Around 10:30 EDT the craft will reach an altitude of 50,000 feet and they'll separate from White Knight and ignite the rocket for space entry. More information can also be found at the Mojave Airport website" Update: 06/21 15:36 GMT by S : An MSNBC story confirms that SpaceShipOne 'glided safely back to Earth, landing back at the Mojave Airport' around 8.15AM PST.
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!!!111
They launched Donald Duck into a SCREAMING ORGASM. They launched him clear into the orgasmic aether OMG OMG OMG
When I was walking home around 2 A.M. one morning from a friend's house, I had a homeless man follow me and talk about the strangest things. Something he said that I will never forget was:
"I sent my testicles into space. Man, I'm not even born yet"
...
W))T!!!!
I guess Microsoft money is good for something!
What is your penile percentile?
If I lose my booze, I turn into a loose caboose.
And, HIS craft is less tech than the Airbus A-319, I suspect. Fortunately, the Airbus wasn't capable of ascenting into upper atmosphere.
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Hmm... after thinking over my own questions below, I now am wondering if someone managed to hijack the auto-pilot and nudge the plan slightly off course. If they did, this implies they also deceived/deflected the attention of the ATC AND the USAF radar operators. If this can happen or DID happen, we've got some pretty scary questions to ask:
--Do you want to fly?
--Will your flight be inverted zero-g and steered toward Terra Firma?
--Will your flight be steered into a flight of birds?
--Will you be steered into the path of another aircraft?
Lightly, tho...
So, Melville, welcome you two new assistants! That is, if you think you can overlook their recent landing.
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Fixed and additional URL:
http://rds.yahoo.com/search/news/S=53720272/K=n
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http://cbsnewyork.com/topstories/topstories_sto
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Two Northwest Airlines Airbus pilots might be the next runners-up for tourist flights into outer upper/space/out-of-airspace...
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid
An inquiring mind (mine) wants to know a few things.
After a Northwest Airlines Airbus passenger plane landed at Ellsworth Air Force Base, the passengers were detained for some 3 hours, interrogated, after being ordered to shut their window covers.
So, does anyone know what is so special about Ellsworth that the windows were ordered shut? This does not seem to be the case (ordering shuttered windows) at Portland and some other bases sharing a border with commercial airports.
Could the crew and or passengers have been interrogated as to whether they shot footage or filmed any of the base during descent? Did the military confiscate their cameras, or merely look at each frame and scan every laptop for pictures of the base (or look for quickly-hidden compact flash or other media disks), or did the military fly out with them on the short hop over the hill, ensuring that NO-ONE shot any pix or opened their window covers?
Even more importantly, how can the pilot and first officer of a plane with probably more computing power than a space shuttle land 5 miles off course and onto a MILITARY base, unless they turned off the electronics or doubted the electronics, and landed by VFR, or Visual Flight Rules. And, even MORE telling, does this say the the FAA and the flight controllers were asleep at the controls?
Can such a thing happen again? Will this prompt the military to "paint" commercial aircraft to sternly warn them to get back on course? Why did not the military simultaneously call the plane AND the air traffic control tower and vector the commercial plane away? Doesn't this say that even after 9/11, the military and commercial air traffic control systems, after billions of dollars in equipment and upgrades, STILL/one again let down the public?
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Shut the fuck up.
MADE YOU LOOK
Hmmm... Off Topic, ehhh. MLH, do you agree with my post being modded down? Here we have TWO technology-related stories, one with a civilian seemingly trouncing some NASA activities, and another in the wake or 9/11 and BILLIONS of tax dollars spent improving--supposedly-- US security. Oy vey (spelling?). Off Topic. That should BE a topic of concern.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
The original NASA charter was to be a "civilian" space program.
"Civilians" were primarily involved in the decision to impose sexually abusive techniques in the Abu Ghurayb prison.
While military discipline tends to slide quite a bit during peacetime (and times where the "war" isn't really life-or-death for the powers that be) the government space program would have been a lot better off if it had been purely military rather than "civilian".
There would likely have been far less competition between the governmental and private sector.
Having said that, there is simply no substitute for a society based on Yeoman farmer conservatism where the nation's real might is derived from free and independent people who know how to use tools and defend their own lands -- and the loss of that society during the 20th century is the true source of all this damaging government policy.
That is the society that gave rise to the Wright Brother's bike shop, the golden age of aviation and the real might of the United States during mobilization in WW II and beyond. That might is not entirely gone yet, but it is profoundly damaged and severely threatened with destruction.
Seastead this.
come on dudes. That's funny, give the guy his props.
Especially because she is doing it while straddling two lanes of traffic in front of me, in a bohemeth that completely blocks my view of the sky ahead.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Wow, I don't know you, but I am *really* embarrassed for you... You should stop...
OOOh, In your FACE!
Take that stupid Armadillo!
California rules!
Texas drools!
WOOT!
Max Faget his name is faggot LOL