Troubled Soyuz
April 26, 2008
I was a little alarmed to read this article on CNN. Apparently the recent landing made by Peggy Whitson's ISS crew was pretty dramatic, seeing forces of over 8Gs. I've always thought of the Soyuz capsule as being a very dependable, safe reentry vehicle. It's also troubling to read that something like this happened last time, and they thought they had figured it out. If they couldn't figure it out last time, that tells me it's not an obvious cause, which might prevent them from finding it this time around too.
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Battlestar GalacticaApril 23, 2008
I'm not a huge sci fi fan, but I've heard lots of people talking about the show
Battlestar Galactica. It seems to get a lot of praise. People call it "the best sci fi series ever created", and the plot sounds interesting: Man against machine, where the humans are polytheists and the machines are monotheists. What a strange thought! Religious machines!
The Wikipedia article says
After the 2007 season of Battlestar Galactica, the Nielsen ratings have come out with a figure of over 119 million viewers as the highest rated and most watched show on cable networks.
More watched than
American Idol? Apparently Idol gets 30 million or so. (I'm still not convinced)
It would be pretty expensive, but it would be fun to start this series from the beginning by watching the DVDs. Apparently Blockbuster rents them for about $3.99 per 4 episodes.
Reusable rocketApril 18, 2008
http://www.krqe.com/global/story.asp?s=8173339A really interesting article about a prototype that Lockheed Martin is working on. I think the idea of cheap, reusable, automated rockets is fantastic. It's unfortuante the Space Shuttle didn't work out as people had envisioned, but I think the idea still makes a lot of sense.
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