I'VE NEVER BEEN TO MAAAAHS!!!!!

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If, as you'd likely argue, these are hardworking, smart, skilled workers, let the private sector demand more out of them. The government only breeds laziness and stagnation. There is no program that embodies this stagnation better than NASA. In the last 50 years, what advancements have we made to the way we get into orbit?

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In 2008, for example, NASA's budget was a little over 17 billion; the Department of Defense's budget for their space program alone was over 21 billion.

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People assume that space flight is easier than it is and after 50 years should be more routine and advanced. But the nature of the beast is that it is so complex and difficult, that every space flight is experimental, failure rate is high, only around 5,000 objects have ever been sent into orbit, and virtually every one of them used only once - compared to the millions of airplanes built and used multiple times during the first 50 years of airplanes.

Visible rapid advancement in other technology areas raise expectations for space flight, but the realities are that it remains more complex than any other human endeavor. The space shuttle itself is the most complex machine ever built, each flight is experimental rather than routine, it has a high percentage failure rate (2 down), and is being scrapped because it will never be fully reliable.

After 10,000 generations of humans, the fact that the last 50 years escalated space flight to its current level is impressive. Still, expectations for faster progress remain artificially high based on misunderstandings of what a big hot mess it is to launch humans safely into space and return them to Earth so they can astroblog about their experience.

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It would be like carrying around an elephant-gun for protection from wildlife... in Manhattan.

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and Rush is not a source of anything but bullshit.

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Could it be that Steward's jabs are getting too close to exposing the ridiculousness of the situation?

The problem may not be whether the missile defense system are needed or not, but whether they will actually work even when needed. At this point, some Marvin Gaye and some charm appears to be just as effective as a system that can't even find the side of a barn, let alone hit it.

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No it couldn't. In addition to being a comedian, Jon Stewart is a citizen. And he's a citizen with more reach and access than most (Giz doesn't link to the opinions of my Uncle Carl three times a week). He lectures journalists on their ethics without wondering why those journalists can't ask hard questions. They can't because of people like him. Whether he labels it as such, his show is just as much of a news source than any other mainstream news organization, if not more so. And Stewart puts on a clown nose and says 'I excepted from my own rules because I'm a clown. I do everything a journalist does, I use all of the trappings to my advantage, I opine constantly, but at the end of the day, because I choose not to apply this label to myself, then the rules don't apply to me.' Which is either extremely disingenuous or extremely naive.

During the '04 campaign John Kerry wouldn't do any hard news shows, but he did TDS, because he knew it would be a friendly venue. So Kerry gave the appearance of having been interviewed by a news anchor, when what he got was on-air verbal fellatio from Stewart In the midst of the Swift Boat issue, when Kerry could've been given the chance to clearly state his case, Stewart asked "So how you holding up?" One question, right before the play-out music, no chance for a response, on the biggest controversy of the biggest election (to that point) in recent history, Stewart's the only one given a chance at a public question, and he fucking doesn't bother. Jim Cramer wishes he got such a pat on the head. Stewart Had a candidate for POTUS, and he tossed him softballs. And because Stewart was available and tossing softballs, no journalists that looked like he might do a hard interview had a shot. Stewart's show (and Rush and Glenn Beck, et al.) makes venue shopping by politicians much more viable. And it lowers the standard for everybody, since TV is a business. If you want the big, rating bonanza interview, you better not bring any more heat than TDS. The fact that progressives go apoplectic over Fox News' bias, and then want to offer Stewart tongue baths from their virgin daughters is a sign of cognitive dissonance on a mind boggling scale. Fine, Fox News is officialy declared a comedy channel, therefore all bets are off, right? Right.

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I get the cutting of the Army's Future Combat Systems - the program was massive, going nowhere fast and America's present qualitative edge in ground combat vehicles is a lot more secure than in the air. If we do have to fight a major power like China or Russia, it will be in the air and at sea - any land war is likely to be against low-tech forces like Iraq, Iran or the Norks - and I say this as a former Army guy - the Army's stuff is good enough, whereas the Air Force has to keep pushing the technical envelope.

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But I actually agree that canceling the F-22 sucked, yeah it ran over-budget and took too long, but it is pretty much done at this point. So we're going to give up and stop signing checks when the project is ~95% complete.

And don't even get me started on the F-23, what a chunk of commercialized BS. VERY WELL PUT GANN - "The term jack of all trades, king of none comes to mind." Not to mention the fact that they are going to be sold to pretty much any country that can afford them, so air combat is a spec racing series now? WTF?

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Until then STFU...

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damn.

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I was thinking of the CBU-97 sensor-fuzed weapon.

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