Sunday, November 02, 2014

Speaking Of Idiots, Part III

     This idiot at Time.

     Hey, Jeffrey, feel free to freeze in the mud in the dark, but don't try pulling the rest of us down with you.

28 comments:

Paul Schwa said...

'Cause NASA never blew up any rockets.

Anonymous said...

People like this clown have always been with us. they scoffed at the Wrights, Edison, Columbus, and everybody else who married means with dreams. In this case, it's married with some sort of semi-Marxian wealth envy.

Bah.

Joe in PNG said...

He'll be one of the featured speakers at the upcoming "Fire BAD!" seminar.

Jess said...

One hundred years ago, he'd be bemoaning the dangerous ideas of Henry Ford.

Those that shoveled the crap left on the streets would have loved him. Those with inspiration would have left him babbling, as they drove away in their newfangled ride through the new century.

Eric Wilner said...

He seems to believe that one cannot be a "professional" without being on the government payroll.
Interesting underlying belief system, there.

drjim said...

I'd say something, but I'm speechless at that guys level of idiocracy!

drjim said...

Here's another article by the boneheads over at "Wired".

http://www.wired.com/2014/10/virgin-galactic-boondoggle/

Merle said...

Back in my brasher days "wired" meant stoned. Sounds like it still does....

Merle

Kristophr said...

That's fine.

More money and opportunity for non-luddites. And he can engage in more marxist whining when the people who take risks make themselves even more bloody rich.

Sdv1949 said...

"...this is known as bad luck."

Anonymous said...

And people wonder why I don't read TIME anymore...

Ulises from CA

Old NFO said...

It's BECAUSE of idjits like him that we succeed. People get pissed at being told they can't do something... As for him, let him go somewhere that his attitudes are acceptable... Maybe Africa needs a journalist...

Anonymous said...

That "reporter" needs to run for office. He would make a wonderful politician and would fit in so well in Washington; speaking about and trying to get rid of and outlaw "bad things".

Kerry

Windy Wilson said...

Gus Grissom is past turning over in his grave, he's working on crawling out and beating this Luddite and all the others who have created this new risk-averse society to a sodden puddle of death.
And if he can't get to it, Ed White, Roger Chaffee, and the 14 space shuttle astronauts are more than happy to help. Not to mention all the Cosmonauts who didn't come home.

Ulises, recall what Robert Heinlein said about TIME and NEWSWEEK. On two occasions he had been somewhere when a story of national significance occurred. On both occasions TIME and NEWSWEEK got it wrong. Gell-Mann didn't work in him.

Jerry The Geek said...

"The Man who Sold The Moon": Heinlein, 1949.

(See also: "Blowups Happen")

Anonymous said...

http://www.avweb.com/blogs/insider/SpaceShipTwo-Loss-A-Harsh-Reality-Check-223035-1.html
Read paul Bertorellis take on the subject matter, as always he provides thoughtful insight on a touchy subject.

Roberta X said...

...And yet he seems unaware of the heavy oversight FAA was exercising on this effort even before the accident. SpaceShip 2 is an aircraft, with a real FAA-issued number and subject to the very same rules as any other aircraft; it just happens to go higher than most and uses an unusual powerplant. FAA has been in on this since the X-prize-winning flightsa of SpaceShip 1.

Anonymous said...

I agree. Even this is a tragic loss I fully commend their pioneer spirit! I guarantee those guys know every time they strap that thing on there is a chance, however small, they might not come home that night. Being a fellow aviator I'd jump at the opportunity to participate in one of their test flights, even though I'm woefully unqualified... It's the same spirit that made the first astronauts nearly fist fight over who would be the first to ride a slightly modified ICBM into low earth orbit, something you would never see today! I hope their brethren honor the fallen by continuing the project because we will all be better for it. And it proves that "real men and women" exist amongst a generation of nannys.

Cheers

TomcatTCH said...

Was the Columbia so long ago that it has fallen out of memory?

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

Not a space-travel story, and perhaps more akin to the Fukushima disaster, but see also Piper, H. Beam, "Day of the Moron".

No matter how hard you try, stuff inevitably happens. When it does, you have to pick up the pieces and move on. Build it bigger and better next time instead of whining about the human cost of a single failure.

Murphy was an optimist.

mikee said...

I remember when Challenger exploded, after the somber and respectful phase of mourning there came a time when answers were sought to explain the blast.

Some derided the political pressure on NASA, some excoriated the entire design of the launch system, some sought actual root causes and didn't use the event to grind their old axes to a sharper edge.

Here's the thing: space travel is going to happen, unless a big, big asteroid hits earth before technology advances far enough.

When the tech is barely capable, as in the shuttle, there will be accidents, abuses and failures.

When the tech gets better and better, there will still be failures, because of human factors and because what they are doing is hard.

But it is going to happen.

So ignore those grinding their axes on any given event, and listen to the ones who find root causes, and implement corrections to overcome both human and tech problems and move. Forward.

Goober said...

At the risk of being over-simple about this, I think the author's main issue with the whole thing is that these "upstart" companies just aren't government-ey enough.

You know, if they'd been endowed with the magic government juice, these disasters would never have happened...

except that one time.

And that other time...

Oh, yeah, and that other time.

And that other, other time...

Goober said...

to wit, I'm sure that had Jeffry lived in the late 19-teens, he'd have probably been worried sick about the profit motivations of commercial airline services driving them to "cut corners" and "insinuate" themselves into the aerospace industry without being "professionals."

I'm sure that 1918 Jeffry would be shocked to learn that private commercial air flight is the safest means of transportation on Earth, including walking...

And it didn't even take a government...

Steve Skubinna said...

Sadly we live in a culture that give cowards veto power over the rest of us. This particular pants wetter has far too much company, in too many influential places.

Vision and courage are obsolete. Think small, everybody.

drjim said...

NTSB press conference has apparently exonerated the engine.

Looks like something caused the "feathering mechanism" to activate, and the spacecraft broke up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjYVhGvUSNc#t=468

mariner said...

For those who don't remember the name, Kluger co-wrote Jim Lovell's Lost Moon, the source for Apollo 13.

Roberta X said...

That doesn't excuse his being a .gov-worshipping pantywaist.

Matt said...

This reminds me of the classic Super Dave story that ends in "Dude... that's why you'll never have a space program."