meltedcheese, 1 day ago

@chriswho Thanks. I appreciate your perspective. I am a USian and have paid close attention to US politics and society since Nixon, Vietnam and the social unrest of the late 60’s. We have unique challenges today, e.g.; severe inequity, but many challenges we’ve seen before, including charismatic populism, nationalism and racism. It is the same fight since the Enlightenment and throwing off of kings and nobility. We are clearly not done. We will continue to resist and fight together.

meltedcheese, 3 days ago

@randahl The reason is that Russia has a policy, predating Putin and regularly reauthorized, that if Russia is faced with defeat then they will escalate to first use of nuclear weapons. The definition of “defeat” gives them some wiggle room, but the threat is real. The military-political consensus seems to be that once tactical nukes are used then escalation to a broader nuclear exchange is inevitable. No country wants to get near that tripwire. Direct confrontation is avoided.

meltedcheese, 4 days ago

@cstross @ovid This is true. As an executive at NASA, I was deeply involved in (and mortified by) the Constellation program at NASA, later rebranded as Artemis. Sen. Shelby had immense power over NASA’s budget and he got whatever he demanded. There were many machinations to assure that Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville had control of budgets and many tech decisions. It was (and is) pure Shelby Alabama pork. I quit NASA because of it.

meltedcheese, 4 days ago

@ovid @glitzersachen @cstross I remember Bush Sr’s “Space Exploration Initiative “ very well. I wasted a year of my life on it at NASA, developing the automation and robotics technology program, until SES was cancelled. It was only an election year political gimmick, nothing more.

meltedcheese, 4 days ago

@ovid @glitzersachen @cstross You are on the right track. I was at NASA HQ and involved in early decisions on commercial launch, at that time focused on small spacecraft. The political momentum was for refurbishing and repurposing existing ICBMs (in storage) for civil launch but the cost projections were in favor of commercial launch. I credit Assoc. Admin Scott Horowitz with making the tough call in favor of commercial launch.

meltedcheese, 5 days ago

@ottaross My granddaughter (8) loves her instant camera. Taking and looking at pictures is a big thing in our family, and she very happy now to be able participate on her own terms.