Pasadena to party hardy as Martian landing looms Pasadena is a fairly geeky place at the best of times, given it's the home to the California Institute of Technology and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, but the city is going Mars crazy as Curiosity approaches its rendezvous. On Saturday night a party is taking place in the city's downtown zone where the great and the geeky …
There are no women, no bars, no swimming pools, no bacon sandwiches and you can't even get a tan?
After being cooped up for weeks in an oil drum with some other sweaty individual you arrive, the door opens and.......
Neil Armstrongs first word on the moon 'one small.... Zzzzzzzz....shit Buzz this place is booooring....zzzzzzz.....step for man one giant.......zzzzzzzzz......what the f*** we gonna do for the next couple of days......zzzzzzzz.....leap for mankind.
The edited reply from Buzz Aldrin 'could just go for a walk I suppose'
Have a look at Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy site for webby links. I'll be doing the same at 6am
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/08/05/reminder-curiosity-lands-tonight/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BadAstronomyBlog+%28Bad+Astronomy%29
is a linkfest.
<----- Just because
As a Brit ex-pat and member of the LA OASIS society[1] I'm continuously in jaw dropped mode. I've been introduced to the Space-X CEO, know people who's lecturers worked with Wolfgang Pauli and other scientific luminaries. It goes on and on, including people I know who work for JPL. The UK efforts, sadly, make it look like WASA[2].
Its an utterly different world and those not familiar with it have no idea of the core of talent, commitment, money and opportunities. The UK is no slouch when it comes to talented scientists, but everything else seems so shoe-string in comparison.
[1] https://info.aiaa.org/Regions/Western/LA/Lists/Calendar/DispForm.aspx?ID=159
[2] http://www.welshspaceagency.org
PS: One space science meeting was at Northrop Grumman's cafeteria, the exterior of which is best known to Star Trek fans as the place where Spock was attacked by the fried egg monsters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation:_Annihilate!
Hey guys the rest of the world is watching the Olympics, you are welcome to join us. Put down the space toys and come check out the real pinnacle of human achievement. I just witnessed a man moving his legs and arms really fast and someone timed it and turns out it was the fastest anyone has moved like that for years. The entire human race was hooting and clapping at this while you guys are stuck here thinking about robots. See anything wrong with that picture?
This party was lame. It was basically a self-congratulating party for SpaceX and some of its employees. You couldn't see or hear any of the speakers. Elon Musk showed up and said something no one could hear since it echoed out into the open space and they confined him to behind the DJ area, while he took pictures with his own employees/VIPS and they blocked off the dance floor until he left - security reasons I guess and understand, but it was still lame, kind of. Why not have some photo opps with Bill or Elon or any of the speakers for the people who attended and supported this party? There weren't THAT many people there, maybe 100 at MOST/at peak hours. I thought SpaceX wants to make space accessible. People who didn't buy tickets were sneaking in - ducking under the ropes with no recourse. Today NASA's Curiosity will land on Mars - let me emphasize it's NASA's. SpaceX acts like THEY had something to do with the creation and execution of all this, and they didn't. Why is Musk trying to steal that thunder? Yeah, sure he wants to build spacecraft to go to Mars - so do I. So do lots of people. All he's doing is talking about it and lands a profile in the LA Times as if this has ANYTHING to do with SpaceX. They should be profiling the lead engineers of this mission - Adam Stelzner, for example. Meanwhile, Musk sings the praises of capitalism and free-enterprise space exploration ... all of which is made possible largely through government grants. It's great what SpaceX has achieved with the Dragon capsule, really, but for once could Musk/SpaceX step aside, tuck away his ego and let the true pioneers of space technology/exploration have the limelight? Enough with the Musk demagoguery/worship.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
