Mars and/or Bust

The chart below from a new Congressional Research Service fact sheet on NASA funding shows in a glance why nobody is going to Mars anytime soon. viagra sans prescription http://robertrobb.com/how-much-difference-would-a-1-billion-rainy-day-fund-make/ In this manner this treatment activates the normal mode in existence of ED health condition. The principle dynamic part of Kamagra Oral Jelly and I […]

Plutonium Nation

The bazillion-dollar American plutonium manufacturing complex that is a legacy of Cold War nuclear weapons mania has found its silver lining in production of Pu-238 for fueling spacecraft electricity generators. Like Bulova’s plutonium-powered wristwatch, Monsanto’s atomic coffee machine, and Medtronic’s nuclear pacemaker, NASA’s RTG units were plausible technology only because they were backed up by […]

Fukushima Reality: Half a Century, Maybe

It’s been four years since the Japanese government declared the Fukushima disaster to be “under control,” though that was clearly a politician’s wishful thinking, not an engineer’s assessment. Now the man in charge of decontaminating the site admits that no one knows how long the cleanup and decommissioning will take. The most optimistic projections are […]

The Technology of Terrorism: Plus Ça Change

Kalashnikovs and TATP: still the same cheap, reliable, low-tech weaponry from last century. As the most lavishly supported intelligence services in the world continue to be foiled spectacularly by terrorists on the lowest rung of the ladder, old lessons remain valid:

Terrorists don’t work to overcome particular anti-terrorist technologies. They choose softer targets. Instead of […]

The Whole World is Watching

The history of protest on the Left had a sad moment at the University of Missouri yesterday when students and faculty aligned with the Concerned Student 1950 movement blocked a news photographer. Regardless of the dialectic of mistrust that led activists and at least one journalism professor (well, an assistant professor of mass media in […]

Take Me Out to the Flag Waving

The last week or so has opened an unusually clear window on the depraved side of the Pentagon’s budget, which, like all the other sides, carries a shocking number of digits in front of the decimal point. First there was the multi-billion JLENS balloon debacle, now there is the multi-million “paid patriotism” program at pro […]

JLENS raison d’être

One might reasonably conclude that yesterday’s Army JLENS fiasco will bring a swift end to this sorry program. But one should never, ever underestimate the ability of multi-billion-dollar military programs to defy reason, viz the Air Force’s new doomsday bomber announced a day earlier. JLENS and the LRSB have little or nothing to do with […]

A Great Day for Curtis “Bombs Away” LeMay

With the Air Force’s announcement today that Northrop Grumman will build yet another new generation of nuclear-war-fighting bombers, General Curtis LeMay can continue to rest in peace six feet under the turf at Colorado Springs, assured that his 1950’s-vintage Armageddon mission of flying over distant cities to erase them with thermonuclear bombs will remain doable […]

Puff the Magic Dragon lives forever: The AC-130 at Kunduz

History-minded readers with strong stomachs are invited to consider the 50-year saga of the U.S. Air Force/Lockheed/Boeing AC-130 gunship–a descendant of the Vietnam War’s infamous “Puff the Magic Dragon” aircraft–which perpetually draws the furor of human rights groups around the world. Designed primarily to rake saturated fire with cannons and Gatling guns across massed battlefield […]

Fahrvergnügen Schmarvergnügen

Automotive industry engineers and the niche journalists who write about auto technology must all be scratching their heads about the furor over Volkswagen’s “Deiselgate.” It has been no secret for years that official testing of car engines to see if they meet exhaust pollution standards has precious littleObserved Indications The below mentioned indicants are effortlessly […]