The Donald figures that the media are Democrats to a man, and out to get him, and elect Hillary. So, rather than the usual shtick of trying to placate them, which is what the usual pol does, Trump is trashing them, figuring that it gets him air time, and the media is so hostile now, that good solid trashing won't make things any worse than they already are. Plus the voters like watching the Donald trashing the media.
I predict more solid anti-media words coming toward the media. If Trump gets elected, he will have the bully pulpit and at least four years to let 'em have it. Fun fun fun.
Sunday, June 5, 2016
Saturday, June 4, 2016
SpaceX wants to go to Mars. Year after Next.
SpaceX is creating a manned vehicle to take astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). Essentially they are adding life support equipment, an air plant, and retro rocket engines to the existing ISS resupply carrier. And doing 50,000 pounds of NASA paperwork to "man rate" the vehicle.
SpaceX wants to send one, unmanned, to Mars in 2018. They have a signed agreement with NASA regardng intellectual property for SpaceX and NASA support for the mission. The vehicle ("Red Dragon") would make a jet landing on Mars, under control of the autopilot. SpaceX has been able to jet land the Falcon booster on a raft in the ocean which seems like a harder job than landing on Mars with it's lesser surface gravity.
"Red Dragon" has impressive engine power. Eight engines, burning nitrogen tetraoxide and hydrazine, produce 33,000 pounds of thrust, call it 16 tons of thrust. The vehicle only weights 15 tons on earth. If the fuel holds out, it has plenty of thrust to slow down and even hover briefly before touchdown.
Takeoff will be atop a Falcon Heavy booster which is three Falcon Nine boosters, strapped together. That will be 27 rocket engines, producing 5.1 million pounds of thrust. Design goal is deliver 15 tons to Mars surface. Straight thru, no earth orbit rendezvous.
SpaceX wants to send one, unmanned, to Mars in 2018. They have a signed agreement with NASA regardng intellectual property for SpaceX and NASA support for the mission. The vehicle ("Red Dragon") would make a jet landing on Mars, under control of the autopilot. SpaceX has been able to jet land the Falcon booster on a raft in the ocean which seems like a harder job than landing on Mars with it's lesser surface gravity.
"Red Dragon" has impressive engine power. Eight engines, burning nitrogen tetraoxide and hydrazine, produce 33,000 pounds of thrust, call it 16 tons of thrust. The vehicle only weights 15 tons on earth. If the fuel holds out, it has plenty of thrust to slow down and even hover briefly before touchdown.
Takeoff will be atop a Falcon Heavy booster which is three Falcon Nine boosters, strapped together. That will be 27 rocket engines, producing 5.1 million pounds of thrust. Design goal is deliver 15 tons to Mars surface. Straight thru, no earth orbit rendezvous.
Thursday, June 2, 2016
The Norks and their nukes
The Economist ran a cover story about the need to do something about North Korea's nuclear program. They went on about weakness and craziness in the Kim regime. Like it might be so crazy as to not be deterreable. The Norks have a missile operational today with enough range to hit all of South Korea and all of Japan. They have missiles under development with enough range to hit the western US. They managed to launch a satellite which means they have a missile that can reach anywhere in the world. Might not have the throw weight to loft a nuclear warhead, yet.
The Economist claims that the Bill Clinton administration considered an air strike on the Nork's nuclear facilities, but Clinton backed off,. fearing that it would touch off a second Korean war. I never heard that story before. There has been some talk that the Norks have dug in so deep that even our 15 ton Massive Ordinance Penetrator bomb couldn't take 'em out.
The Economist does acknowledge that non-military ways of pressuring the Norks pretty much don't exist, especially as the Chinese like having the Norks as a buffer state between them and the South Koreans. The Chinese are sending enough food and fuel to North Korea to keep 'em alive. The Chinese fear the Kim regime is shaky, and that any serious pressure might cause it to collapse. The Chinese don't want that to happen, cause the likely result is the South Koreans take over from the Kim regime, giving the Chinese a pushy, industrialized competitor, who is hand in glove with the Americans, right on their border.
Best the Economist can suggest is installing anti missiles, THAAD and Patriot. They compute that such a two layer defense, each layer having a Probability of kill (Pk) of 70% would yield an overall effectiveness of 90%. Not bad, but not very reassuring when you think about how bad just one nuke can be.
Of course Aviation Week doesn't see things quite that way. They have reported that each of the Nork nuclear tests had a yield of about one kiloton of TNT. That's so weak that most people call it a fizzle. So maybe the Nork's don't really have nukes, yet.
The Economist claims that the Bill Clinton administration considered an air strike on the Nork's nuclear facilities, but Clinton backed off,. fearing that it would touch off a second Korean war. I never heard that story before. There has been some talk that the Norks have dug in so deep that even our 15 ton Massive Ordinance Penetrator bomb couldn't take 'em out.
The Economist does acknowledge that non-military ways of pressuring the Norks pretty much don't exist, especially as the Chinese like having the Norks as a buffer state between them and the South Koreans. The Chinese are sending enough food and fuel to North Korea to keep 'em alive. The Chinese fear the Kim regime is shaky, and that any serious pressure might cause it to collapse. The Chinese don't want that to happen, cause the likely result is the South Koreans take over from the Kim regime, giving the Chinese a pushy, industrialized competitor, who is hand in glove with the Americans, right on their border.
Best the Economist can suggest is installing anti missiles, THAAD and Patriot. They compute that such a two layer defense, each layer having a Probability of kill (Pk) of 70% would yield an overall effectiveness of 90%. Not bad, but not very reassuring when you think about how bad just one nuke can be.
Of course Aviation Week doesn't see things quite that way. They have reported that each of the Nork nuclear tests had a yield of about one kiloton of TNT. That's so weak that most people call it a fizzle. So maybe the Nork's don't really have nukes, yet.
Wednesday, June 1, 2016
Snowflakes on NPR
The morning story is from an NPR chick. She had a flat tire, and 5:30 in the morning. Rather than opening her trunk and breaking out the jack and the spare, she started off by finger stroking her smart phone. She found out she was not a member of AAA, and AAA memberships would not be effective for 48 hours. But she did find some obscure web site that offered road service. It took service better than an hour to get there, and only three minutes to change her tire. She closed the piece by raving about clever new websites.
She would have done better just changing her own tire, all by her little snowflake self.
I can remember insisting that my teen age daughter change a tire right in our driveway before I allowed her to drive herself to school.
She would have done better just changing her own tire, all by her little snowflake self.
I can remember insisting that my teen age daughter change a tire right in our driveway before I allowed her to drive herself to school.
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Sorry about the Gorilla
On the other hand, I know nothing about gorilla's, and I know nothing about the specific gorilla that got shot. I am not going to second guess the zoo personnel who had to deal with the situation. I'm sure the zoo people feel terrible about killing their gorilla, and did every thing they could to avoid it. They clearly did the best they could in a bad situation. And, the life of a four year old boy is more important than the life of a gorilla. I'm glad the boy lives.
A question that the newsies have been too ignorant to ask. . How does a small boy get into an enclosure stout enough to hold an adult gorilla? If the enclosure can keep gorillas in, why did it not keep small boys out?
Something for all parents to consider. Small children think live animals are cute and huggable. In the Disney movies all the animals talk and act like people. There was a time when a wild black bear strolled by my NH house. All the small children playing on my deck dashed down after the poor bear. They wanted to pet it. The bear, seeing what was coming for him, increased his pace smartly and disappeared into heavy woods before the kids got too close. Fortunately that bear did not have any cubs with it, or things might have gotten very ugly.
Parents ought to make sure their children understand that wild animals are dangerous, and should NOT be pursued. Wild animals are safe as long as you keep your distance. I have wild bears strolling about up here all the time. I keep my distance, the bears keep their distance, and we all stay very happy.
A question that the newsies have been too ignorant to ask. . How does a small boy get into an enclosure stout enough to hold an adult gorilla? If the enclosure can keep gorillas in, why did it not keep small boys out?
Something for all parents to consider. Small children think live animals are cute and huggable. In the Disney movies all the animals talk and act like people. There was a time when a wild black bear strolled by my NH house. All the small children playing on my deck dashed down after the poor bear. They wanted to pet it. The bear, seeing what was coming for him, increased his pace smartly and disappeared into heavy woods before the kids got too close. Fortunately that bear did not have any cubs with it, or things might have gotten very ugly.
Parents ought to make sure their children understand that wild animals are dangerous, and should NOT be pursued. Wild animals are safe as long as you keep your distance. I have wild bears strolling about up here all the time. I keep my distance, the bears keep their distance, and we all stay very happy.
Xmen Apocalypse
Spent Memorial Day weekend at youngest son's brand new house. Since it rained Saturday, we went to the movies. This is the newest Xmen flick, just out. It might as well have been titled "Xmen versus the Mummy".
Lotta CGI special effects. Explosions, fires, collisions, Magneto's strange powers destroying whole cities. According to the rather weak plot, an God/Demon/Evil Sorcerer from Egypt of 3600 BC comes to life in fairly modern times and starts doing evil. Never mind that First dynasty Egyptian Old Kingdom didn't get started until about 2900 BC. This is the prequel Xmen, set in the 1970s or 1980's. Whole new cast, all younger. The guy playing a younger Charles Xavier isn't as good in the role as Patrick Stewart was. Nice costumes, the chicks look sharp and sexy, the guys look hunky, mostly. Hugh Jackman gets a brief (5-10 minute on screen) part. He never gets to speak a line, he just kills a bunch of soldiers, and the last we see of him he is dashing off into a snow covered forest, bare foot, and wearing only Bermuda shorts. Does adamantium warm a body as well as make it bulletproof?
Nobody has a line as good as Storm's line in the first Xmen, "Have you ever seen a toad struck by lightning?"
OK for kids, or dyed in the wool Xmen fans, but not as good as the first two Xmen flicks.
Lotta CGI special effects. Explosions, fires, collisions, Magneto's strange powers destroying whole cities. According to the rather weak plot, an God/Demon/Evil Sorcerer from Egypt of 3600 BC comes to life in fairly modern times and starts doing evil. Never mind that First dynasty Egyptian Old Kingdom didn't get started until about 2900 BC. This is the prequel Xmen, set in the 1970s or 1980's. Whole new cast, all younger. The guy playing a younger Charles Xavier isn't as good in the role as Patrick Stewart was. Nice costumes, the chicks look sharp and sexy, the guys look hunky, mostly. Hugh Jackman gets a brief (5-10 minute on screen) part. He never gets to speak a line, he just kills a bunch of soldiers, and the last we see of him he is dashing off into a snow covered forest, bare foot, and wearing only Bermuda shorts. Does adamantium warm a body as well as make it bulletproof?
Nobody has a line as good as Storm's line in the first Xmen, "Have you ever seen a toad struck by lightning?"
OK for kids, or dyed in the wool Xmen fans, but not as good as the first two Xmen flicks.
Friday, May 27, 2016
Nuking Hiroshima was the right thing to do
The Japanese started WWII by attacking Pearl Harbor, in time of peace, without a declaration of war. They sank the Pacific Fleet battle line, which gave them naval supremacy thruout the Pacific, at least by the thinking of 1942. They inflicted several more humiliating defeats upon us and upon the British. They treated our prisoners of war like dirt, many of them died in Japanese captivity.
The Japanese fought hard. Guadalcanal, Saipan, Okinawa, Io Jima, Tarawa. Based upon bitter experience gained on Okinawa and Saipan, we figured invasion of the Home Islands would cost us a million casualties, and the Japanese far more. By 1945 US submarines had blockaded Japan, nothing big enough to be worth a torpedo was getting in or out of the Home Islands. The Air Force had total air superiority, and were fire bombing every city in Japan. Even at this low point, with their backs to the wall, the Japanese refused to negotiate.
Offered a chance to end the war, Truman took it. And it worked. The first nuke on Hiroshima shook 'em up, but not enough to bring them to their senses. The second nuke on Nagasaki finally did the trick. The bitter end generals were pushed out of government, and some rational men took over and ended the war.
The Japanese fought hard. Guadalcanal, Saipan, Okinawa, Io Jima, Tarawa. Based upon bitter experience gained on Okinawa and Saipan, we figured invasion of the Home Islands would cost us a million casualties, and the Japanese far more. By 1945 US submarines had blockaded Japan, nothing big enough to be worth a torpedo was getting in or out of the Home Islands. The Air Force had total air superiority, and were fire bombing every city in Japan. Even at this low point, with their backs to the wall, the Japanese refused to negotiate.
Offered a chance to end the war, Truman took it. And it worked. The first nuke on Hiroshima shook 'em up, but not enough to bring them to their senses. The second nuke on Nagasaki finally did the trick. The bitter end generals were pushed out of government, and some rational men took over and ended the war.
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