I remember that broadcast, I missed the "joke" and was thinking it didn't make sense because about same time in other media one mentioned a different set of names, another mentioned names of crew withheld pending investigation. At the time I was looking into how will it effect my flight into SJC (about 40 miles south) and also what caused such a simple landing to go wrong (maybe it is not that simple). But later I cringed thinking about the KTVU falling for bad information. Supposably, they called FAA to confirm but got someone who was taking messages for a FAA official who asked another person, etc. I guess pressure to be the first to get the news before someone else (I think it is better to be second or third place and be right instead of first place and be wrong).

Yes and no. There is the "Dilbert Principle" which the ineffective engineer is promoted so they don't screw things up in engineering (at least what I've heard, it seems to me managers come in all types of skills and effectiveness). Supposably the successful technical person at least knows subject matter even if they are poor managers as compared to the PHB of Dilbert fame.

yep, imagine that. building your own analog computer (need some good machine shop tools), a MAC decades before Steve Jobs. Really, Mechanical Analogue Computer https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I had a S-100 bus machine, everyone craved that was the way to go. Not tied to proprietary platforms like Apple, IBM-PC, OSI, Franklin, etc. And then when I got my system all ready (and with two 8" floppy drives, wow!), S-100 died. And it vanished from existence. No ads, no discussion, no articles.

I see some with military experience reply to this, "hard to realistically rate one crew as being notably better than another."

Years ago talking with USAF officers and they said officer evaluation reports have these boxes for each particular line item from 1 to 10 (1 as lowest score, 10 highest), and a enough space to write one sentence. But all officers had all "10" boxes checked, if any other box even a 9 on any line were checked, then that officer will promptly lose his commission. (I never understood this, maybe I should ask some officers). So what it really came down to is what is written for each item. For non-pilot officer would have, "supervised mod to air refueling system" and pilot officers would have "logged 200 hrs on F15D." Since evaluation board of generals (all are pilots, i.e. if you don't have wings on chest, you're not getting stars on shoulders) they will then place the one who logged flying hours over the other. This was back in 1980s when to be a USAF general, you had to be pilot. Since air force has much less aircraft in inventory, how does this pan out? Just wondering.

this subject was discussed before, and there was this comment (I saved it as example of poor K-12 education, and those kids that get stuck with it):
"Black people tend to be poor. Poor people tend not to have good schools in their neighborhoods. Having a bad education makes you less qualified to do certain jobs. Rather than trying to get people to hire more black people, we should be trying to fix the massive gap in the quality of schools in rich and poor neighborhoods."

by golly that's a really good idea! Really, it takes time, it takes skill, it encourages using your brain, etc.

ok, now back to whining on the forums.

"we Americans are becoming an ever-more-exhausted and accident-prone society due to sleep debt"
http://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Th...

and this from a blog by Chuck Divine, "Some people argue that humans have not evolved to do intellectual work for more than a portion of a week that might be as low as 40 hours. Yes, you can go over that limit, but other things will suffer if you do."

if that were to happen all guvmint agencies will collapse as all are coffee drinkers.

the movie "The Aviator" was fascinating to watch when they portrayed the hearing. Howard Hughes then turned the tide against Brewster with bringing up certain "contributions" the senator received including reference to the painting of llamas (first scene earlier in the movie where Howard was being sociable asking about where Owen got the painting. But he was really gathering information to be used for his benefit later). I believe movie script used was direct from the transcripts of that hearing. And there were other aircraft contracts of other companies that never delivered anything to the Army Air Corps.

maybe the chief engineer trying get this thing through bureaucracy got fed up and yelled at Politburu (or whoever at top govt), "If I can't get this thing to fly, I will leave China!" They probably then gave him the resources he wanted. Most likely not true but don't ruin a good story with facts.

true but I've seen non-licensed people who call themelves consulting engineers instead of consultants. Though many of these people use "engineer" but whaddaya gonna do, place them under citizen's arrest? However, civil engineers are very strict on licensing unlike vast number of silicon valley engineers.

reminds me of Dilbert cartoon where he is working lot of unpaid overtime where the hardhat maintenance technician either gets to go home at end of day or gets 1.5 or 2 times normal wage.

reading all this stuff of potential disasters... is it numbing our sense of urgency? There was a time when we had no idea of many dynamics of the Sun (there were no spacecraft). It is scientifically interesting, an IRIS scientists said the solar system is a system, the sun is not constant and causes non-constant interactions to planets. Speaking of disasters that have happened, might happen, a nearby star can go supernova. Or there could be a nearby gamma ray burst. But looming catastrophe is shrinking reserves of water that is safe to drink.

I second that. Yes, lots of people say it's safe, it's great, etc. but being one of the 0.01% is a chance I don't want to take.

There was PBS documentary about Mt Everest climbers, one of them went blind at altitude because his laser-surgery eyes deformed because of decreased pressure. Losing eyesight on that mountain is superbad because everyone else is struggling and leading another adds more difficultly and danger. He managed to get to lower elevations and eyesight came back. I don't know about other mentions in this thread regarding pilots and astronauts but I also heard that's why they don't accept those who had laser surgery because at pressure altitude of 30K they can lose eyesight.

not sure why this was marked down (unless all of us tired of hearing same complaints). I remember the hoopla about renaming DFRC and politicians on the house floor giving glowing speeches of Armstrong, and then later that day they cut the NASA budget $600 million.

It seems to me Neil would want that NASA facility to remain under Hugh's name. Armstrong flew the X-15 but it was Dryden who was instrumental in creating the X-15 program.
Who Was Hugh Dryden and Why Should We Care? (page 163)
http://history.nasa.gov/sp4112...

I heard verbally from someone they renamed Lewis Research Center after Glenn to discourage politicians from closing down the center.

Rumor has it they want to rename Ames Research Center after Sally Ride. Of course Sally is a fine person and but consider Joe Ames was the first NACA administrator and later he kept the NACA alive when Herbert Hoover tried to eliminate it and transfer its duties to industry. And here's another from a NASA history page (I kept this but lost the url):

"Ames accepted a nomination by Air Minister Hermann Goring to the Deutsche Akademie der Luftfartforschung. Ames then considered it an honor, many Americans did, and was surprised to learn about the massive Nazi investment in aeronautical infrastructure, then six times larger than the NACA. Ames urged the funding for a second laboratory and expansion of the NACA facilities to prepare for war. " It was these facilities and infrastructure that helped allies win WWII, helped US aerospace industries, laid down the foundations for NASA able to make Neil the first man to step the moon.