TheMadCap

One huge disadvantage shuttle has over Soyuz or Apollo is that by it's piggyback design, there is no crew evacuation possible during powered flight. Where the crew could (theoretically) escape a catastrophic Saturn V failure, no such system is possible on shuttle. Although, they did have jet fighter type ejection seats on Enterprise, which were later removed. Interesting point on the SSMEs. In fact, I would say that they are the best thing about the engineering involved in the STS program. They remain the most powerful rocket engine ever produced, and are essentially different engines now than the ones that flew on Columbia in 1981. And I wholeheartedly agree, the launch on the 4th was indeed spectacular...

I fell asleep and missed the whole thing...

Well, the jury is still out on whether the launch went ok. It will be days before all the film and data are analyzed to be sure that no problems occured during launch. The issue with scraping the program now is a bit complex. On one hand, without the shuttle, there can be no more modules for the ISS. NASA insists that we fulfill our obligations to the international community, as the shuttle is currently the only "functional" heavy launch vehicle on Earth. Remember without the shuttle there is no ISS, therefore, no shuttle is required. If the shuttle is not required, guess what happens to NASAs budget? That assumes that Constellation is not ready to go, which it isn't right now. From that standpoint it is easy to see why STS-121 had to launch. The pressure on NASA to "get it right" is enormous, with people in their own management questioning the very validity of the program. If they didn't launch this year, they might never have had the chance. NASA does not want to be Earth bound like they were between STS and Apollo. On that note, it is quite disturbing to hear NASA's current attitude regarding safety. After essentially firing a former astronaut who dared question the saftey of the current mission, to thier "Go Fever" the past few days, it will be quite a miracle if they get through the final missions without another catastrophe. The shuttle is a fataly flawed, 1960's-era technology that needs to be in a museum, not space...

Inadvertant whistle...

Yeah, it looked like to me that much like the original 1980's story arc, Parker has to conquer the black suit first, then Eddie finds it, likely at the end to set up for #4...

looks like to me they are setting up for Venom in SM4?

True, but he did stumble a bit there at the end and dove to the ground...

Good night sweetheart. Zizzou with the capper. That was fuggin sweet...

And freedom froma first class scum-bag. She's better off anyway...

Drew Bledsoe deserves the hall of shame if for no other reason than throwing the ball away on fourth down to end the game...

ANyone know when the Sabres will reveil thier new duds? And let us hope that is not a foreshadowed pun...

So Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

It defintely takes longer than five days, was that the basis of that movie??? I never in fact watched it. No wonder most people don't have a good understanding of the facts of global warming, when you have garbage like that being mass produced...

There are really two issues here as far as I see it: 1. Global warming- It is a fact that natural and anthropogenic gases increase the ability of our atmosphere to retain solar radiation. PERIOD. As finknottle alluded to earlier, one of the large problems encountered by changing the global temperatures even a few degrees is the threat to thermohaline circulation in the oceans. The oceans don't just slosh around, they are a very complex system. In a nutshell it works like this: The gulf stream brings warm salty water from the equator north where it is cools. Sea water is more dense as its temperature decreases and salinity increases. This natural sinking of the cooler, saltier water drives what is known as the conveyor, and drives ocean ciruculation, which in turn drives weather patterns for the entire earth. Now if the temperature of the Earth increases to where more fresh water from the ice caps dilutes the waters to where they are not salty enough to sink in the north, the entire process shuts down. The conveyor stops running, ocean patterns change, weather conditions get much colder, and then we are in a bit of a tight spot. This is not a myth, it HAS happened in the past. Using sediment cores from the deep oceans, science has shown the conveyor shutdown as a major component in past climate shifts in Earth's past. 2. Humans' role in the process - This is where we get a bit more clouded. While it is true that humans are contributing Methane, Carbon dioxide, water vapor and other "greenhouse gases" to the atmosphere, there is really no way to tell (yet) if our input is currently affecting weather on Earth. The fact is, the Earth periodically goes through natural fluxes in surface and ocean temperatures for a number of reasons and the data we have is just not sufficient to say with any degree of certainty if we are directly responsible for more changing climate. That being said, we should try and reduce our influence on this process, and as someone else pointed out, the US has done a fair job of decreasing CO2 emissions, saving forests, eliminating CFC's (another issue altogether), etc. Unfortunately, not everyone on Earth is on the same page on this one (see China). There are many interesting theories on decreasing the CO2 we have, such as the IRONEX experiment of a few years ago. Iron is a micronutrient for plankton in the oceans, so seeding the ocean with iron complexes cause the plankton to bloom, the plankton use the CO2 in the atmosphere, thus reducing providing a sink for excess CO2. There are other projects out there that talk about similar sinks for anthropogenic CO2 such as the natural calcium carbonate in the ocean. Look it up, it's pretty cool...

Exactly. In fact, Iraqs best chance for enriching uranium for a bomb would be to use older, aluminum based rotors for thier centrifuge. Using maraging steel would be too high profile. A Zippe-type centrifuge is much cheaper and easier to conceal for a covert nuclear weapons program. Theoretically. As you pointed out, it is impossible to say what those particular pieces of aluminum were intented for...

How dare you disprespect the great one who is so luminous that I cannot even utter his name in my mortal frame? Equal to Fletcher?????

True. And making it even more unlikely, using aluminum in Zippe-type centrifuges went out in the 1960's, when they started using a stronger steel alloy for the rotors...

Yep. I hate that too. Like the other day, we got to see Tiger miss all his puts...

I would argue the probability of getting hit is not increasing. And while there is certainly less material floating around now than when the solar system was forming, we are far from being able to do anything about an impact at this point other than turning one dangerous falling object into seveal dangerous falling objects. And it is true that people are at the point where we can seriously mess ourselves up, even cause our own extinction. As more deadly weapons come into the hands of less capable hands, the risk goes up...

agreed...

Indeed, they sucked the big one. THis is very bad for them, they needed at least a good showing to carry some momentum over for game 7...

The only problem I had was it looked like at the end of the game, the US was content to let the game end in a draw. No one was challenging until the Italians got into the US zone. I realize they must have been exhausted, but that was ridiculous...

To be honest, I don't like watching baseball, but my point was that people find different sports uninteresting. I think Bases-ball sucks, you and AD think kickball (by the way, that is pretty damn funny right there) is boring. Different strokes for different folks I guess...

When in downtown SF, go eat a place called Tommy's Joint. Excellent food man, and a HUGE fuggin barrel of pickles...

Unfortunately, I have heard some disturbing comments from Claudio to the effect of, "we need to be cautious, not make a big mistake". I don't like the sound of that. THe US needs to be agressive today, but not careless...