Let's just copy the RD180. I doubt it has any patent ecumberances.
They've already licensed the damn thing for domestic production from the beginning and had a good decade where they could have set up their own factory and had the Russians come in and willingly ensure they are being produced correctly and fix any detail not conveyed properly on the plans. In fact, I believe that the RD-180 is more of a work-for-hire specifically commissioned for Lockheed's requirements.
Now everything is sour and steps to remedy it look political, rather than just a way of giving jobs for American blue collar labour, which is how it would have appeared before.
The RD-180 is a good engine that provides staged combustion performance and efficiency at similar cost to American gas generator cycle engines. The only problems with it is that it was really hard to design, which is irrelevant when you have the plans anyway. It would be a shame for NIH syndrome to screw up America's capability to launch satellites.
Notability is important for preventing a potentially slippery slope towards Wikipedia being expected to have an article on every shop, every street, every apartment complex, every popular teacher, and every creative work ever appreciated by more than 10 people.
However, there is something frankly awful about the way it is handled.
Deleting an article should be a grim and thankless task, carried out in the stoical way that a county bailiff would hang or brand a petty thief. Instead, it seems to be a matter of great pride and satisfaction to those who elect themselves to carry it out. These folks really seem to enjoy making up pedantic excuses to remove things, even when faced with strong opposition and enough evidence to at least raise reasonable doubt. When I have checked many of these editor's commit logs, I frequently find that they do little else but marking other articles for deletion, adding "citation needed" after junior highschool level facts and giving barnstars to other like minded nimrods.
If one has contributed in good faith to an article that has been marked for deletion or even appreciated reading one of these articles, it is hard to maintain one's passion for the project. Back when I was a regular contributor, I was creating articles for large international airlines and the like. Then when those were all finished, I made ones for well known video games, books, composers, etc. After those were done, there seemed like nothing remaining but the obscure. But at this time, it was so hard to be excited when one needs to justify each time why Wikipedia would not be better off if what you just wrote was erased, So for the last 7 years, I've pretty much just changed a comma or semicolon here and there.
there were endless posts about how "just not liking gays" was somehow a perfectly okay position to take
Who determines what positions are and aren't OK to take?
There has never been an Australian citizen in space.
Of the two Australian born persons who have been in space. One of them took American citizenship in order to join NASA's astronaut program, the other already was an American Naval Officer when he joined NASA.
The only British Citizen that has been to space went up with the Soviet space program.
To my knowledge, the NASA human spaceflight program was for Americans only since its inception.
What's the percentage of white male computer-science and technical graduates?
If I can recall back to my university days, approximately:
The other options to the Falcon 9 are the Atlas 5 and Delta IV, they are now sold as complete vehicles by United Launch Alliance (a consortium of the two) and were before 2006 sold as complete vehicles by Lockheed and Boeing respectively. Or one could use an Ariane 5 (Airbus) or Proton (Khrunichev), also complete vehicles.
NASA's policy of farming out to different contractors was only ever done for their megaprojects like Saturn rockets and the Space Shuttle and this was only because they were also designed to drive research and provide economic stimulation (or pork as one may cynically call it) rather than be practical solutions to mundane problems like Falcon 9 (as well as those other Rockets I mentioned) is designed to be.
If NASA, for the first time in its history chooses the Falcon as their man rated rocket of choice, this is because they have absolutely no other candidates. If Boeing wants to, they can choose a supplier of a capsule (RSC Enegia, SpaceX and others) and create a man rated Delta rocket to provide another option to NASA. At any rate NASA and Congress would do better at picking ready made vehicles to buy than they did in organising the Orion project.
Really good post.
Until you got to the Beeching Axe and you started sounding like a nostalgic train anorak.
Then you got to Boeing and SpaceX of all topics and it just went worse from there on.
The Beeching Axe almost got British Rail back to profitability. SpaceX is just a competitor for Boeing Defense, Space & Security, which Boeing damn well needs, after acquiring all of its previous competitors like Rocketdyne, McDonnell Douglas and Hughes.
As a programmer, project manager and substantial shareholder in my own company, I'm always grateful when people point out things I do that could be done better.
If I was just the former and not the latter two, I think the relative importance of my ego and the quality of the product would be shifted somewhat.
Most, Open Source programmers tend to value recognition pretty highly relative to absolute merit of the product. To your average guy, if you say "your project sucks, we'll pay you to fix it" means that you will get the credit when it is fixed. If you say "your project is good but it could be better" means you will give them the credit either way.
Here's the thing.
We are moving now to start reducing the first 13,000 positions, and the vast majority of employees whose jobs will be eliminated will be notified over the next six months."
They are announcing layoffs that will not be implemented, in some cases for over 6 months in the future. That means, for over 6 months, Microsoft employees won't know for sure whether they will be laid off or kept. In management terms, that is going to result in dramatically lower morale and productivity for half a year for what? So that Microsoft can announce 5,000 more layoffs than they are actually capable of firing right now.
It really just shows how much more Microsoft cares about stock value than running a good company.
There is no culture in rural areas. There is no learning. For the active mind, it is a fate worse than death. Intelligent people want to be around other intelligent people. Who wants to live in the country with a bunch of bigots who dismiss any ideas they don't agree with?
You don't think the thing you just said then was maybe, well, super bigoted?
I grew up in the country, there are smart people too. The town's "intellectual elite" tend to know each other and be friendly regardless of their profession, age and views, meaning that if you're smart, you get a diverse group of friends. In cities, people form microcosms of folks just like them, with roughly the same job, the same age, the same personality and the same views. A metropolis is the antithesis of diversity, they bring every kind of person together from all over the world, so you can find the ones just like you.
The only thing bad about the country is the job situation. And the lack of entertainment and fine dining. And there being no choice in schools. And the Internet being slow and expensive. And that you have to drive everywhere. And it is inconvenient to take international flights. And consumer goods are expensive. And quite a few other things.
Real Programmers don't eat quiche. They eat Twinkies and Szechwan food.
