Free Republic

Same-Same. He may still be “selling Georgia” - per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Not sure how figurative this statement really is with this guy.

The NappyOne

The Critical Drinker posted an excellent you tube review of Wrath of Kahn juxtaposed with Star Trek: Into Darkness. It is worth the time to take in CD’s insight about the two movies. The title of the video is - “Star Trek: Into Darkness is a terrible movie”.

The NappyOne

NASA has the right stuff. And you, me and every other taxpayer supplies it. I was a design engineering lead for a couple of the early years a decade ago on this program as a subcontractor, and it was a Sh-show compared to ISS, where I was a design engineer starting in 1989. I have no doubt this launch will succeed, as long as I can trust my sources still working the program. I wish I could say it was worth the price or that cost was ethically considered.

The NappyOne

When dad, sis and I watched a game on TV, they used to put Vin on for innings 1-3 then 7-9 and switch in the radio announcer for innings 4-6 while Vin picked up the radio broadcast. We would always shut off the TV sound for innings 4-6 and turn on the radio. There will never come again those golden sports days with Vin in the Spring and Summer and Chick in the winter. I do miss them, especially Vin.

The NappyOne

I’ve been using bacillus thuringiensis for years to control caterpillars. Granted it is a bacterium not a virus but... biological control of destructive insects is, in my opinion, better than poisons for the harvest and the environment. Right now, my only option for control of the very nasty fire ant is poison. I am as diligent as I can be to protect native ants on my property, but fire ants are dominant.

The NappyOne

I have voted for Mo Brooks in the last 5 Republican primaries for the House and for Brooks in the general 5 times. My wife and I voted for Mo in the primary and will again in the runoff for senate. We never liked Shelby and won’t vote for a Shelby/McConnell stooge. We are likewise steamed at Trump for ditching Mo and would prefer he stay out of it now. I believe Durant’s endorsement and Mo’s steadfast reputation will carry him over the finish line without having Trump’s nod. Trump made his move. Baking Mo now will appear weak.

Britt has a lot of money behind her, but she won’t face Mo before the voters. I am a transplant here. What I can make of Alabamians tells me this won’t sit well with them.

God speed Mo.

The NappyOne

MO was supposed to finish third. With Durant baking Mo, I believe Britt will be fighting for her political life. The voters of Limestone and Maddison counties know better than to believe Mo is “too woke” for Alabama and made the runoff a reality. I don’t like to say it but we in my house are shaken in our confidence in Trump over this whole thing. After the crap with Moore, I am fuming. I hope Trump just stays out of it. I will be doing my part to send Mo to D.C. This time as a Senator. Alabama deserves better than Britt, Shelby or Jones.

The Nappy One

I was a design engineer on the program when our “science VP”, Algore, green-lit the Russian inclusion. Not that he had anything to say about it, really. It was the deep state in the State Department that made the decision. It cost the program dearly. So much so that we got way behind and way overbudget. Sensenbrenner threatened to shut the whole program down over it.

NASA had had several crew spend time on the Russian MIR, which used some of the same modules the State Department funded for ISS to integrate. It was well known by then that time in use was not kind to Russian hardware. But, ISS was only supposed to fly for 10 years (wink, wink - nobody believed that).

I am happy to report that, 20 years on, my hardware is still cranking away. And it has accumulated tens of thousands of hours of operation beyond specified requirements. Not surprising. Reliability calculations for NASA reliability were, at the time, full of very pricey and massive margins. The European and Canadian portions of ISS were very much the same. NASA insisted upon it.

At least I got an all expenses paid week in Moscow out of it. Imagine the wonder this veteran felt when standing in Red Square. One who once stood to post in the Fulda Gap twenty years earlier.

The NappyOne

Are medical doctors not required to take two semesters of general physics?

Clearly the CDC is where Bernoulli’s principle went to die.

The NappyOne
BS Chemical Engineering, Veteran of the US Army Chemical Corps.

September 18, 1850 the Senate passed the Fugitive Slave Act. Not the darkest day?

March 21, 1854 the Senate passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Not the darkest day?

“Leader” Schumer, certainly you have your priorities confused, or are you just another Democrat racist?

The NappyOne

I had to take a quick refresher on MCC consoles. GC was not something I caught, unless you meant GNC (guidance, nav and control). If your father did downlink for a while, it was probably at the INCO (Integrated Comms Officer) station. Both are avionics systems. Wherever I sat for my day job (not at the MER - the unsung in the Mission Engineering Room) GNC was never far away.

Sounds like your dad was something of a showman and got a choice assignment there. The only celebs I ever worked with were some old time operators from the Apollo days and some of the current crop of astronauts; very inside baseball.

Yea, Taj Mahal, Bay Area and Middlebrook. It is hilarious how firmly that nick-name stuck Boeing took over that building about 2005-ish. I never got an office there. But I did work in a building in Nassau Bay, derisively named “the mistake on the lake” when I first got to Houston, narrowly avoiding the stint the team I joined did housed on the JSC campus itself. Finished off my time in the Boeing Tower 2 building overlooking Ellington on the far reaches of Space Center Blvd.

I wasn’t NASA. Started with McDonnell Douglas and ended with a Boeing badge after the dreaded Boeing Organization (BORG) took them over.

Good times, Mr. Storm.

The NappyOne

Nice to see people connected to JSC on here.

Moved to Clear Lake in 1995. I could just see the fence outside Ellington through a second floor window of my house.

My dad was on the design team for Saturn V and ISS.

I did the entire DDT&E cycle on ISS, then did ops and logistics for a decade, including an upgrade to the Ku-Band/Audio/Video avionics space to ground interface. Spent some time in the MER too.

While I never met him face-to-face, I was on an avionics cost cutting “Tiger Team” headed by John Aaron during the turbulent year leading up to the ISS redesign.

The NappyOne

Funny. I can just see Bill Clinton dismissing his lawyer and making his own closing argument ala Jack Lemon in the movie “How to murder your wife.”

The NappyOne

I have been hearing that the charges brought by the OSP and dropped by local prosecutors are being picked up by the Feds now that OSP has be deputized by Homeland Security. Many have already been re-arrested for processing by the Justice Department. If so, I see no reason PPD could not also be deputized by HSA. If so, Sorros just had the mother of all end runs pulled on him. Could be wishful thinking. Hope not.

The NappyOne

One thing we always tipped our hats to about the Russians, if they had something that worked they didn’t mess with it. That meant they had production lines that were decades old. There are a lot of problems that get ferreted out over time. Their designs may have been old, but they had earned a reputation for reliability. It also meant we had to restructure ISS to fit the limitations of off-the-shelf hardware designed for something else. And it meant we had to change the orbital inclination drastically, resulting in much smaller lift capacity for the Shuttles launched from the Cape due to increased energy needed to get to the altered orbit.

Oh, well. As my mentor often said, “Change is our most important product.” Indeed.

The NappyOne

You are right about standards across our international partners, save one. The Russian modules are all from the MIR era of the Soviet space program, some of it even older. When our Science Vice President, ALGORE, pushed us into bringing the Ruskies on board, we pretty much took their hardware as is. Of course we went over their products as best we could with as fine a comb as we had. I can testify that I certified my corner of the partnership on whatever documentation Energia provided and a one week fact-finding trip to Moscow. Still, we did a pretty good job, considering the kluge the White House forced us into has been working just fine these 20 years.

The NappyOne

I just read a report on the 2018 leak. I would have thought a 2mm hole would be pretty alarming, but it was considered by MCC-Houston to be small and non-threatening. It was, as this story says, hunted down and patched.

This one must be very small. Merely an annoyance. They sealed all the modules, collected sensor data for a period and still could not isolate to a module.

If this leak is in one of the outer bulkheads, the bigger task is going to be locating it once isolated. I am pretty sure all those modules, certainly all the US, the Japanese and ESA modules, do not have a lot of bulkhead surface not obstructed by some sort of equipment or experiment rack.

What is stunning to me is how casual MCC-Houston has become about leaks. The panic induced by the first leak was a sight to see. Now it’s, “Meh... we’ll track it down when we get some spare time.”

Hard to believe it will be 20 years this November since ISS was first crewed.

The NappyOne

He is good enough to listen to for hours. He is a bit morbid, but his delivery is empathetic and engaging. He does focus on the big personalities of history but also provide some good insight into the lives of ordinary people who were their contemporaries. I suggest you listen to some of the free content before you buy. For a single episode topic I’d suggest his “The Celtic Holocaust”. It is free.

A bit of a warning though. Carlin is mostly a moderate libertarian and is sympathetic to upheavals that deliver liberty to individuals at the expense of centralized power. Unfortunately, he cannot see that element in our President, even though he grudgingly admits the President is just the kind of person he would prescribe to re-launch the enlightenment movement. My guess is that he sees too much Caesar or Napoleon in Mr. Trump. Thus he comes off as a Never Trumper.

The NappyOne

Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6. Survive.

The NappyOne

Those who donning the uniform knelt in submission have dishonored their regiments. Their standards should be cased, never to be uncased, on battlefield or parade ground, until these regiments have been purged by blood sacrifice on the field of honor for the dishonor these individuals have purchased. Decimation is their only redemption.

The NappyOne