It is not illegal to lie — except under oath.
Sure, fraud, false advertising, slander, and libel are all perfectly legal.
In the '60s we had enough workforce and disposable income to build rockets with western engineers right here and do it right.
Well, some of those "western engineers" weren't from "right here" and weren't part of "we".
In the '60s we had enough workforce and disposable income to build rockets with western engineers right here and do it right.
Western engineers like Wernher Von Braun and his buddies?
Of course it would be a lot easier if the astronomers would let us know a few years in advance rather than six months, but then the offset between TAI and UTC could exceed 0.9 seconds, and as we all know that would bring Ragnarok.
Predicting earthquakes, land slides, massive storms, icebergs, and other events that alter the rate of rotation of the Earth by looking at the stars is a job for astrologers, not astronomers. Also, by definition, TAI and UTC differ by an integral number of seconds, and they currently differ by 35 seconds - far more than your battle inducing 0.9 second threshold.
There are three important time systems in play here. TAI, UT1 and UTC. TAI is a count of SI seconds based on atomic clocks situated around the world. UT1 is the count of "solar" seconds based on the angle of the Sun to the Prime Meridian. Because it is based on the rotation of the Earth, which can vary for a multitude of reasons (earthquakes, icebergs, etc), UT1 "seconds" are variable in length, However, unlike TAI there will always be exactly 86400 seconds in a day.
UTC is a compromise time scale. It uses SI seconds, like TAI, but there are occasional adjustments made so that it remains synchronized to within one second of UT1. These adjustments come in the form of leap seconds (or skip seconds).
The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) has the responsibility of adjusting UTC. The last minute of the last day of the month can be lengthened or shortened by one second in order to keep UTC and UT1 in step. By agreement, the first preference is to adjust in June or December. The second preference is to adjust in March or September. So far, there has been no need to adjust using a skip second, or to adjust in any month other than June or December.
Coast-to-coast probably means a fuel stop in between. But unless this is a rather large "bizjet", it's not going to take you to London.
For some values of London
When your toaster costs 20 dollars, how long can it take to take it apart, find the fault and put it together again, before it becomes a huge waste of time?
How long would it take to go to the mall or go online and comparison shop different toaster models? Some things are a huge waste of time no matter how you handle them.
Reference the NULL within NULL, it is the gateway to all wizardry.