Its almost a very sad moment, its the end of the manned exploration of space for pure scientific purposes. With the American's basically contracting it out, we're now looking at the explotation of space for commercial purposes.
For all of the talk of setting up a manned moon base or sending men to mars, unless its the Chinese or Russians, its just not going to happen in my lifetime.
Instead we're going to end up with fat rich tourists blasting off into space just to say they were there.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Its almost a very sad moment, its the end of the manned exploration of space for pure scientific purposes. With the American's basically contracting it out, we're now looking at the explotation of space for commercial purposes.
For all of the talk of setting up a manned moon base or sending men to mars, unless its the Chinese or Russians, its just not going to happen in my lifetime.
Instead we're going to end up with fat rich tourists blasting off into space just to say they were there.
Yup. The privatization of space. Exactly how a lot of people wanted it.
What was the purpose of the DC fly-by? Shot across the bow? Or just ceremonious?
Yup. The privatization of space. Exactly how a lot of people wanted it.
What was the purpose of the DC fly-by? Shot across the bow? Or just ceremonious?
I've always thought that we would have been a lot further along in the actual exploration of space by this point. In a lot of ways the shuttle concept ruined that.
From a prospect of putting sensing devices into space, its great, but the great push for humanity should be outward not around it.
When man landed on the moon nearly 43 years ago, with the way that aviation sciences and all of our other applied sciences were going through rapid accelerated improvements, I always thought we would be heading for Mars by the start of the century (Just think about what a great celebration of mankind it would have been to launch a mars mission on Jan 1, 2000.
Instead we stalled and man's push went from scientific to how to create a better screw in space.
Now the only way that we're going to be able to do this exploration of other worlds is to sell the naming rights to the mission, and allow companies to put in claims on the surface of the moon, and mars and all the little moons out there, and they're only going to do that if we get the mineral rights.
In the same words that my old man used when describing me, we had so much potential, and we've just fallen flat.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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Today's flight of the 747 with Shuttle Discovery on piggy back made me think of other fly-bys including this famous one by Israeli fighter jets:
IAF Jets Fly Over Auschwitz
September 4, 2003
IAF Jets Fly Over Auschwitz
Commemorate Holocaust Victims
By Arieh O'Sullivan
The Jerusalem Post
Jerusalem----September 4....Three Israeli Air Force F-15 fighter jets thundered over the Auschwitz death camp Thursday afternoon in a display of modern Jewish might.
As the jets zoomed by at 300 knots an hour, formation leader Brig.-Gen. Amir Eshel read out the following statement, which was broadcast on the ground: "We pilots of the Air Force, flying in the skies above the camp of horrors, arose from the ashes of the millions of victims and shoulder their silent cries, salute their courage and promise to be the shield of the Jewish people and its nation Israel."
The Israeli F-15s, originally invited to Poland to celebrate the Polish Air Force's 85th birthday, were escorted during the flight by two Polish air force fighter jets. The ceremony ignored marginal protests and heavily overcast Polish skies.
In the cockpits, the Israeli aircrews carried the names of all those recorded murdered in Auschwitz on this date exactly 60 years ago. They had picked the names out of the records at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem prior to flying to Poland last week.
The jets, displaying the blue Star of David, flew toward the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp as slowly as possible, followed the railroad tracks leading into the camp and crematoriums and then peeled away.
Among those on the ground was a contingent of 140 IDF officers who were selected to visit Europe's death camps. Following the fly past, the jets, the most lethal aircraft in the IAF's arsenal, landed back at Radom air base, refueled and set out on the 1,600 nautical mile route back to Israel.
"They are passing over this most awful place on earth, a place where the allies did nothing to even show they were even trying to save us," said Prof. Shevach Weiss, Israel's ambassador to Warsaw.
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I got into avionics tech at SAIT starting in the fall. Anyone familiar with this program?
I took the program for a semester. It is well taught, but you need to be fully commuted towards it. You should also be mechanically inclined it with the sold ability work with your hands.
Honestly, if you aren't that person, do something else. Two years of school, plus 3 plus more years working to get your license is a long time. If you are the type of person, great. I just know what is like to have the feeling of wasting your time, and like to prevent people from doing so.
I withdrew despite good marks, I just wasn't mechanically inclined. If you have a passion for aviation, there is many other aspects you can work in. Just don't get fired, they tends to hurt your future job prospects. Then, again I may be bitter about that.
EDIT: If you have any more questions, shoot me a PM.
Last edited by KelVarnsen; 04-18-2012 at 04:33 AM.
My my! Don't those thrust reversal "buckets" on the old turbojet ones kick up a pile of FOD. I'm guessing there's a "budget figure" in place to account for regular re-skinning of the underside of the flaps amongst those who operate these old "turbos" off of "gravel roads"...
And you thought that rock chip in your windshield was a major PITA...
Tom Burbage, the Lockheed Martin F-35 programme manager, showed up at a National Aeronautics Association luncheon today and dropped a bombshell of a Hollywood scoop. Sure, there was talk about schedules and budgets, partners and politics, software blocks and carrier hooks. But we'll get to that later.
The big news from Burbage's speech involves Top Gun 2, the long-not-quite-awaited-but-certainly-delayed sequel of the 1986 fighter jock classic.
Tom Cruise, of course, confirmed back in December that the sequel is coming, but nobody -- not even IMDB (we checked) -- knows the full story.
But Burbage does. Lockheed's Fort Worth, Texas, factory and flight test center will host production crew in the "next month or so" to start filming, Burbage told the NAA luncheon crowd.
Burbage also confirmed that Cruise will not just make a cameo; he will be the star, and he is playing the role of a Lockheed F-35 test pilot!
