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ALEX POURNELLE TEXTS: Hi I’m afraid that Jerry passed away We had a great time at DragonCon He did not suffer. Please feel free to post this news. Rest in peace, Jerry. You will be missed.

Being reported in several places, Jerry Pournelle has passed away. Noted Science Fiction author, strategic analyst, early popularizer of personal computers, one of the original bloggers. In his own way he was one of the more influential Americans of the 20th century. As per Instapundit in a comment to his own post, "I just talked to Alex. Basically, Jerry just laid down for a nap and passed in his sleep this afternoon. It was nice that he, Alex, and Larry Niven got to hang out and have such a good time at DragonCon. It's as easy a death as one...

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National Space Society members have voted the 2016 Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Award to Dr. Jerry Pournelle... (This award is distinguished from the Heinlein Award given by the Baltimore Science Fiction Society and co-funded by The Heinlein Society, and the Heinlein Prize for Accomplishments in Commercial Space Activities administered by The Heinlein Trust.)

I was a big fan in the early 80's. I had a week long correspondence with him in the mid 90's. I loved reading his Chaos Manner column in Byte magazine along with Garcia s circuit cellar. It was a great mag. I've been rereading some of his works lately and just reminiscing. Jerry Pournelle s Iron law: ...in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach...

So much of science fiction's core topics intersect with war, one way or the other. Rapid social change and technological innovation both get supercharged during wartime, and some of our greatest explorers are also warriors. So it's not surprising that many of science fiction's most well-known authors served in the military at some point — especially during the era when we had a compulsory draft. But how did serving in the military shape these writers' books? Here's a look at 15 of the authors who served in the armed forces, and how their work reflects that experience.

We have a special treat for our readers this morning. One of my all time favorite authors Dr, Jerry Pournelle. Having co-authored my third favorite book Lucifer’s Hammer (1 and 2 are both Heinlein works). I was a little nervous to contact him and more nervous to actually ask for an interview. Luckily I got over that and I am very proud to present this interview for our audience here at the Freehold.

A House Committee has voted that the Attorney General is in contempt of Congress. The vote was along party lines, which is a pity, because the contempt is obvious and definitely indicated. This should not be a Party Lines affair. The Congress is the Grand Inquest of the Nation, and constitutionally is empowered to see that the President does indeed take care to see that the laws are faithfully enforced. There is no compelling reason for withholding the documents demanded by Congress in this matter. To make it more interesting the President has bought into the ownership of Fast and...

. . . Democrats will control Congress. If they also control the White House, we will have a series of legislative packages that will make the Great Society look like a libertarian government. . . . The country is in trouble. We have forgotten our founding principles, and we move inexorably toward a European style socialist state, with the only winners being an enormous bureaucracy. This will accelerate the economic decline. The argument is to give the Democrats their head, and pick up the pieces after the inevitable crash. I think that overlooks the resilience of tax and tax, spend...

"'La force motrice' of Reusable Launcher Development: The Rise and Fall of the SDIO's SSTO Program, From the X-Rocket to the Delta Clipper" Introduction. NASA commissioned me to document the development of the X-33 in March of 1997. The X-33 is an advanced technology demonstrator vehicle intended to flight test technologies deemed critical for eventually building a reusable single-stage-to-orbit rocket transport. Those technologies include a metallic thermal protection system, an aerospike engine, and composite cryogenic hydrogen tanks. As part of the history project, I chose to write about the SDIO's SSTO Program as a predecessor to the X-33, even though...