mmm yeah

*makes wanking gestures*

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/tourism-05w.html

show me a freaking rocket first!

Hrm.... They have to make a big deal out of the fact that one of their members is a Reservist in order to get media coverage..... Yeah, we're not gonna see any hardware before 2080.

Parade magazine ran an article last Sunday that featured Rutan (makes sense, right), PlanetSpace's Canadian Arrow (well, partial credit for having tested hardware), Bristol Spaceplanes (okay, so it's a pretty little airplane, but it's just a freakin' drawing), and InterOrbital Systems (huh? One measely rocket test and THEY get coverage?). I'm still trying to figure out why the writer didn't cover SpaceX or at least SpaceAdventures.

Bill Sprague is one of Bob Truax's heirs. I think he'd be better off joining another team. I don't know why he wants to stoop to hiring Air Farce people though--seeing Sea Dragon was NAVY and the Air Force robbed space from the Army.

In other news Schriever--who led the Air Force's takeover of space--is dead as of June 20.

I could say something nasty--but for once I will hold my tongue.

Publius you are one funny dude. Calling the Air Force an Air Farce isn't nasty? "Stooping to hire" isn't nasty? Man, what an acid wit you are.

DKH

Too often more acid than wit.

Rather like someone else I know on these forums... I shan't name any names, of course.

I must credit you both, however, with occaisonally holding at least a parity between the two elements.

Uh Ohh.

Heh.

I bite back.

I think I was a sharp tongued old queen in another life.

Thus my piece here:
http://www.starshipmodeler.net/cgi-bin/ ... 6&start=30

scroll down to:

Titan...ick

In the interest of full disclosure, then, publi...

In the post that your link leads to, you mention an article of yours that was pulled by SpaceDaily. Here's what SpaceDaily had to say:

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-03zy1.html

... in all fairness, though, you should let us have a peek at the original article. Have you still got it?

Sadly--it has vanished. There is a tale behind this--if you will. I mentioned another piece that Simon wanted a link to--I had to type word for word this other piece to let him know what Jumper said. I put my comments in italics that were not meant to be included in the piece.

He included them by mistake(including some choice language I had for Jumper)--and the AF brass rebelled--and he wrote this 'retraction' to get back in good graces.

But thankfully the damage had been done. My Marine contact in the Pentagon sent me an e-mail about the havok that piece raised

[EDIT]

Ask him about the article "Is The Air Force The Enemy Of Space?"
--and how that changed some things up there. Simon wrote what he wrote because he has contacts who were--shall we say--a bit testy. Read also COUNTDOWN FOR DECISION, by General Medaris as to how the Air Force robbed space form the ABMA. That is a fact (even if Simon wishes to discount it to mend fences).

And ask Mr. Gayl about the SUSTAIN project--a Marine-space project. I think they may be more open to working with private space enthusiasts than a bunch of stuffy Blue-Suits.

You will find that I am not the only one who thinks the AF is NOT the best steward for space-flight.

That having been said, Lance Lord looks to be a much better guy--he supports Griff's HLLV. He had to write a response to my article "Five, Four, Three, Two, One Abort Abort" as a response to my piece--but I'm willing to bet he got a good laugh--and would admit same--once Jumper (a fighter jock) is no longer his boss.

Jumper is going to retire. Something (allegedly) to do with a certain tanker contract--if that sounds familiar--or so the scuttlebutt goes.

But who believes water-cooler talk eh?

Hrmph. Wouldn't be surprised if he already has a job at the Other Organization Whose Name Needs Not To Be Spoken.

Anyway, after a thirty-second Google search, I turned up this: http://www.justforfun-forum.com/forum/Is_The_Air_Force_The_Enemy_Of_Space_110450.html

And this: http://www.justforfun-forum.com/forum/Is_The_Air_Force_The_Enemy_Of_Space_part_II_110451.html

Have fun.

Thanks for digging that up, Cowboy.

Shucks, I can't see anything in either article which would justify "un-publishing" the material. Publi, as always, does a great job of staying "on-message," but his editorial style is (also as usual) somewhat scattered. Still, obviously it was sufficiently compelling to stir up some response from the AF brass.

I actually read the "Abort, Abort" article and was not impressed. I thought "this general should have got one of his aides whom was more recently in school to write this, 'cuz it isn't really very solid." I suppose it is possible that he himself was writing as proxy and his heart wasn't in it.

Publi is right when he says that the AF is a "pilot's union," it is absolutely true that a disproportionate majority of the general-grade officer corps are flyers, and he is certainly not the first to suggest that it may not be best for the overall service. It probably is something of a "tyranny of the elite" kind of thing, but that is endemic to military organizations. It is the same in the Army, for example; if you want your star someday, you really have to serve in Combat Arms -- the difference here being that you have so much more to choose from: Armor, Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery... in the AF you're only a "warfighter" if you drive a "warplane."

Probably it would be best to roll the AF back into the Army, but I doubt it will happen in this soldier's lifetime. I'm not sure at this point whether the Army would jump into space with enthusiasm.

I always thought an orbit-based rapid-deployment force would be supremely awesome (that's the paratrooper who loved Heinlein talking, there), because you could have forces on the ground anywhere in the world in an hour or so. And you can bet your last round of 5.56mm ball ammo that you would need a fleet of BFRs to support an operation like that!

I wrote those pieces before the Boeing Scandal (they are in trouble yet again with selling microchips to China):
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050706/boeing_g ... .html?.v=2
--and before Bush's VSE. It seems these articles (which I thought lost) made some impact--so my contacts tell me, anyway.

Lance Lord had to write that article--and didn't want to. He and Griffin are on the same page--he is under pressure from Rumsfeld. I am going to remove the contact info above (the Marine aide) so he won't get in trouble. I posted that to let you know my contacts are legit--and only a few people read this forum sadly.

I prefere to keep things close to the breast.

In other news...look at this nice artwork:
http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/dow ... =drobinson

Interesting news.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/aerospace-05v.html
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/china-05zzzzc.html

In the business we're actually dealing with, playing your cards close to your chest is usually the only thing that keeps you from leaving a flaming skid mark on the parking lot.

And I've always wondered why the upper ranks are called "field grade officers". Since when does a colonel, much less a general, set foot in the field, unless he's a megalomaniac like Patton or a really really outstanding and unusual individual like Schwartzkopf?

SawSS1Jun21: I'd be very surprised if you didn't like PlanetSpace's (or was it DaVinci's?) old idea of spacediving.