This is how to put a dampener on this week's breakthrough. The US Federal Government is dragging its feet about the legislation and nature of space tourism that will inevitably be operated by rocket companies.
Presumably if you run a rocket company, the last thing you want to do is fly unsafe craft. Presumably they have done their' due-diligence' safety calculations using the best predictors, simulators and whatever technology they can afford. Unless the US Federal Government runs NASA data, they're not going to know better than these operators who have put up considerable capital not to risk their investment. Given that they already have the experience of an aviation industry, exactly how long can this take? Does this woman even know what the hell she is doing? Or am I out of line (as usual) here? :)The rules that will govern the industry in the United States remain under discussion between federal regulators and rocket developers, and legislation is still before Congress. The pace of negotiations and the ultimate shape of the regulations could determine whether the sky-high enthusiasm for space tourism — fueled by the historic suborbital flights of SpaceShipOne — grows or wanes, especially among investors.
Federal Aviation Administration chief Marion C. Blakey this week visited Xcor Aerospace, a rocket developer just down the Mojave Airport flight line from SpaceShipOne's home. She talked of partnership with the new industry and said it was important for the United States to be the world leader. She made clear, however, that broad safety issues are the agency's topic No. 1.
"Our first concern will be the safety of the uninvolved public, making sure that as this grows and develops that we're doing everything we can to protect the folks on the ground, to make sure that the people who go into space understand the risks," she said. "It will be a risky business for many years to come, no doubt."
Congratulations
I saw Mr. Conservative Weasel handing out some hardware, so I thought I'd hand out my own...
"Congratulations to Mr. George Steinbrenner, Mr. Joe Torre, Mr. Gene Michael and the somewhat under-rated GM Mr Brian Cashman on another winning Yankee Season. Thanks to you, and despite opposition from many, Yankee fandomworld-wide is a happier place. Because you acted as you did, when you did in the way you did, the Boston Red Sox have so far been unable to win the World Series since 1918. Anything other than your deft ministrations might have proved disastrous for the whole world order. I do not know what the outcome will be for you at the next round of play-off baseball your organisation faces. Your enemies are many. Some don't like you because you made them appear weak, incompetent, cursed and stupid, indifferent in the extreme to the Glory of New York Yankee tradition. As with all things, your administration will pass. But not uncommemorated."
- Art Neuro
3 comments:
Thanks for the tip of the lid, Space Freak. I find the caricature heartfelt and funny.
As for OH&S (vis Occupational Health and Safety) aspects of space flight .. Duh! Sometimes I feel that OHS personnel are the real enemy of humanity. And then someone loses an eye ,)
However, OHS protocol is such that the anticipated delay in regulation had to happen. OHS experts couldn't anticipate what the problems were until they had hard data from an actual flight. Now there is a law of statistics regarding single events and rules. So there needs to be a second flight. But two flights don't illustrate a trend. So there needs to be a lot of flights carried out with exceptional permission granted by FAA OHS experts before man can fly to space. Then, as one year 9 boy noted some years ago, we'll discover that man does not, in fact, fly. Neither do the crafts that carry the man fly. Flying is done by birds, and these machines glide to great heights, while continually falling. Makes you think. I do my best thinking on buses. Makes you think I do my best thinking on buses.
How does it go in 'Repo Man'?
"I do my best thinking on Busses. The more you drive, the dumber you get."
"But YOU, CAN'T, drive."
"Don't want to neither!"
As a New Yorker at heart, I feel compelled to say, "hunt Al Qaeda, burn the Taliban, smash terrorism everywhere; do it good, do it right." I haven't changed my position since "9/11".
Iran's gotta a pay, North Korea's gotta pay. I'm just not so sure Saddam was the guy next in line on the 'terror account'. That doesn't mean he didn't have it coming to him; but was he *really* the next terror threat?
Look, You think there's an anti-Right bias in the media. I'm telling you, there's just as prominent anti-NY Yankee-bias in the media. :)
On the Left Leaning ABC program that is broadcast to indoctrinate kiddies with that ex 60 minutes guy, George Negus talks to the son of the pollster, Roy Morgan, who is part of the "Morgan Gallup Poll" that has run since 1940 in the US and 1948 here.
Note that one year after real pollsters were brought to Australia, ALP got turfed on its ear .. but that is another story. This Morgan made the following comment.
"Worldwide, conservatives have to overcome a 5% buffer from press related opinion"
Negus asks "You mean that people don't listen to conservatives politicians but do listen to left leaning pollies? I though all pollies lied"
Morgan "What I mean is that the media don't broadcast what the different sides say, so much as favor one side only. And that gets me mad, because I'm not interested in the journo's opinion .."
Mr Morgan's '5%' is not a personal observation but one that has been tested and applied in political theory by researchers. I understand the research was first applied by Harvard and the observation made in the early '90s, while the ''cold war' was still hot.
For the record, Mr Morgan considers himself to be left leaning.
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