Humor Random Comments Thread

[MaverickSawyer]

Whatever you do, don't ever piss off a gate agent. :rofl:

Yep. Very few people have the ability to deliver karma in such a swift fashion.

 

[Unstung]

Still waiting for Mankind Divided.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Yep. Very few people have the ability to deliver karma in such a swift fashion.

Too true. I'm happy to report that the woman was a Canadian, and I was the American visiting Canada for the first time. The experience with Air Canada was freaking awesome, they took great care of me flying out and coming home. Great first impression of Canada.

Coming home through Toronto and being given the "Papers please" treatment from the U.S. TSA jackbooted thugs made me less than proud to be an American. Flying into Canada, the security always seemed to be staffed by pleasant and lovely (but professional and thorough) women. Coming home it was like being interrogated by a mall cop.

 

[Andy44]

Mall cops are less likely to steal your luggage.

 

[Linguofreak]

Too true. I'm happy to report that the woman was a Canadian, and I was the American visiting Canada for the first time. The experience with Air Canada was freaking awesome, they took great care of me flying out and coming home. Great first impression of Canada.

Coming home through Toronto and being given the "Papers please" treatment from the U.S. TSA jackbooted thugs made me less than proud to be an American. Flying into Canada, the security always seemed to be staffed by pleasant and lovely (but professional and thorough) women. Coming home it was like being interrogated by a mall cop.

I just a few days ago dealt with security staff in both Dallas and Toronto in the same day. The difference was quite stark.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Mall cops are less likely to steal your luggage.

True. I was thinking hard about becoming a Canadian on my way home. me. Being civil to people is not that hard.

Anyway, B-17 American awesome note -

 

[mojoey]

Coming home it was like being interrogated by a mall cop.

You basically are. It *is* the TSA after all.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

True. I was thinking hard about becoming a Canadian on my way home. me. Being civil to people is not that hard.

Anyway, B-17 American awesome note -

Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress flight with cockpit view and ATC - YouTube

Not the exact same aircraft, but still cool:

 

[jedidia]

New idea in the category "so cool there's no way this is ever gonna happen": A Cowboy Bebop reboot... with the Diablo Swing Orchestra doing the soundtrack :headbang:

 

[Linguofreak]

True. I was thinking hard about becoming a Canadian on my way home. me.

And I feel somewhat tempted to take advantage of my dual citizenship and move up here for good one of these years...

 

[Matias Saibene]

A meteor fell in Argentina.

 

[Jarod]

I did a search but I couldn't find this already posted here :
The Ruins of the Soviet Space Shuttles

 

[TMac3000]

New idea in the category "so cool there's no way this is ever gonna happen": A Cowboy Bebop reboot... with the Diablo Swing Orchestra doing the soundtrack :headbang:

They better have Christina Ricci as Faye Valentine, or I will somebody up

 

[Thunder Chicken]

I did a search but I couldn't find this already posted here :
The Ruins of the Soviet Space Shuttles

That is so sad that those Buran shuttles are being left to rot like that. In many ways I think Buran was a smarter first incarnation of the shuttle concept where they were content to dispose of the booster.

The American shuttle simply needed too many bleeding edge technologies to play together to meet reusability requirements. The Challenger and Columbia accidents were both due to the push to minimize disposable components and to maximize reuse. The orbiter itself was not the problem.

I wonder how the Buran program, had it continued, would have compared to the U.S. shuttle program. It was less reusable, but at the same time less complicated, and perhaps safer and more cost effective.

 

[fsci123]

This may lean towards tin foil hat theories but the thing that about the x-37 that intrigues me is the fact that the whatever its payload is... it is valuable and expensive enough that the air force had to develop a new space plane to launch it and retrieve it from space.

 

[Linguofreak]

The American shuttle simply needed too many bleeding edge technologies to play together to meet reusability requirements. The Challenger and Columbia accidents were both due to the push to minimize disposable components and to maximize reuse. The orbiter itself was not the problem.

But the orbiter *was* the problem. Replace the ET with a stage with the same fuel volume and engines similar to the SSME block. Replace the orbiter with a reusable capsule mounted on top of the stack. Keep the SRBs, using the exact same design as flown on the real world shuttle. Challenger would have still happened, but would have been survivable, as a launch escape system usable from prelaunch through to SRB separation would have been workable, and crew survival would have been likely even without an LES. The Columbia accident wouldn't have been possible, as there would be no opportunity for a foam strike.

It's a good thing Buran did fail, otherwise it might have cannibalized Soyuz funding the way that STS cannibalized the possibility for a launch system developed from Apollo/Saturn IB, and the world would now have two space programs with no viable manned launch system.

 

[fsci123]

The U.S. space program could've been resumed almost immediately if NASA stopped using all but one of the space shuttle orbiters and spent that energy developing a smaller spaceplane like the dream chaser or a large capsule. That could've been mounted onto a modified liquid fuel tank like the shuttle c concept.

This would've been a perfect replacement IMO

 

[Andy44]

Could've, should've, would've....

There's no guarantee that canceling one program means money for another. Politics dictated the STS program be the way it was even before Gene Cernan climbed up the ladder off the moon for the last time. Nixon and others in his camp wanted to cancel Apollo and not paying for STS wasn't going to change their minds.

There's no use crying over what might've been. The space shuttle was a failure in some ways, but a fantastic technical achievement in many others. I think it's a shame not to take the huge leaps in technology from it and use them in the future. Just think: STS was only the first of its kind. Buran came too soon to really learn from any mistakes made in STS, but if a new shuttle program was designed today it would really benefit.

But since we're fantasizing about our pet ideas, my favorite idea is SERV.

 

[Pipcard]

The U.S. space program could've been resumed almost immediately if NASA stopped using all but one of the space shuttle orbiters and spent that energy developing a smaller spaceplane like the dream chaser or a large capsule. That could've been mounted onto a modified liquid fuel tank like the shuttle c concept.

They could have used that HL-10.

 

[Urwumpe]

When the last Shuttle is in a museum and the last spaceplane project cancelled ... you will see that capsules suck.

All that "Oh spaceplanes are unsafe, the Shuttle was unsafe, with a capsule it would have been survivable"... Face it: The Shuttle program management had been unsafe. If you use the same management on a capsule, it will be unsafe too. Ignoring risks and trying to change reality by memos has never worked in history.

Just repeat the "capsules are inherently safe" nonsense a few times more, and I bet capsules will even be less safe than the Shuttle ever was, because managers will also believe in that religious statement and trust the capsule way past its real capabilities.

Even if Apollo should have been a warning that being 12 times close to disaster does not mean you will never have a disaster after 24 flights.

(Especially if you look at what the STS meant for the US launch rates back then: A Saturn V had a 5 month launch campaign as minimum, the Shuttle really managed less than 30 days)