Archives for April 2011

“High diddle diddle, The Cat played the Fiddle, The Cow jump’d over the Moon, The little dog laugh’d to see such Craft, And the Dish ran away with the Spoon.” Mother Goose wrote that in 1765. Consider it as proof that man has been looking for a way to shed its gravitational coil and touch the stars for a long time. Let’s face simple facts, mankind has only benefited when it makes strides, not when it builds walls. We may not be the beneficiaries of Manifest Destiny as we thought so long ago, but we do posses the need to cross the impossible to find the unknowable. Those who define themselves rigidly have set themselves apart from humanity. They exist only as global parasites waiting for their predictable deaths. I could care less how holistic their beliefs may be; those who do not strive, atrophy.

It pains me to hear some people, otherwise viable examples of humanity, cling to the rocks of the past as the tides of the future wash over them. Our survival depends solely on our ability to swim in the sea of time. Fortunately, not all is lost. As Leroy Chiao reports, with the decline of government sponsored space flight, entrepreneurs are stepping in to fill the void and save humanity.

U.S. policy on access to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is on the edge of a dramatic shift.

Currently, only three governments have the independent capability of launching astronauts into LEO: The United States, Russia and China. After the U.S. Space Shuttle is decommissioned from service, there will be only two.

The Review of U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Committee, headed by the highly respected former aerospace executive Norm Augustine, included in their report the option of stimulating commercial efforts to provide access to LEO.

It makes sense: We have been flying to LEO for almost 50 years, so the technology is quite mature and available. The challenge is to make this a commercial practicality.

The idea of private, commercial space access has been around for decades. It is not a new one, and it is not one that has yet found success. The advent of SpaceShipOne winning the Ansari X-PRIZE in 2004 was an important milestone.

Although the privately built vehicle was only designed for suborbital flight, it proved that a non-government spacecraft was possible. Commercial orbital flight will be much more difficult, but I believe it is possible.

Many of my colleagues and peers have written articles and pieces deriding the idea of commercial LEO access. Indeed, the track record of the self-described “New Space” companies has thus far been marked generally with failure and arrogance.

Not all, but many of these folks, before they run their companies into the ground, seem to spend the bulk of their time attending self-serving, self-aggrandizing conferences where openly slinging mud at NASA is sport. This is hardly constructive, and it brings discredit to others who have serious aspirations for the future of commercial spaceflight.

However, I respectfully disagree with my colleagues who believe that only governments can and should engage in human spaceflight. We members of the Augustine Commission (as the review committee came to be known) fully intended for the commercial LEO efforts to include contributions from the traditional aerospace companies.

These companies, or their predecessors, built every U.S. crewed spacecraft to date. They have much to offer. To exclude them entirely would be foolish and would waste valuable knowledge.

The time is right for commercial human spaceflight. Private companies should learn the lessons from NASA and traditional aerospace, and then try to apply them in a more efficient manner.

It is understandable how and why the processes for government/contractor space programs have evolved into what they are today: Bureaucratic and inefficient, but safe. The key is to work in a smart manner to provide efficiency, without sacrificing safety, perhaps in partnership with traditional aerospace companies.

Any time there is significant change in the air, the establishment gets nervous. This is to be expected. Sometimes dramatic change is necessary to achieve fresh results. Time will tell if the private companies will achieve LEO access, but I for one, remain optimistic.

Americans have always been innovative, flexible and doggedly determined. If it can be done, the citizens of the United States still embody the creativity and courage to find the way.

By way of introduction, here is the bio I was supplied by the author;

Leroy Chiao served as a NASA astronaut from 1990-2005. During his 15-year career, he flew four missions into space, three times on space shuttles and once as the copilot of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station. On that flight, he served as the commander of Expedition 10, a six-and-a-half-month mission. Dr. Chiao has performed six spacewalks, in both U.S. and Russian spacesuits, and has logged nearly 230 days in space. He was a member of the Review of U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Committee, and is currently an Executive Vice President of Excaibur Almaz, a private commercial space venture.

Yeah, he’s way smarter than me. Or you. Or anyone we know.

Shortly after this was published, our new best friend, Ian O’Neill wrote that one company has picked up the gauntlet and is pushing for a way for humans to live on Mars.

On Wednesday, SpaceX released a pretty cool promo video for its commercial crew development program. If it were any other commercial spaceflight company, I probably would have filed it under “Nice, but we’ve got a long way to go.” But this is SpaceX, a company that is proving its launch capabilities year after year, the most recent landmark launch being the flight of the Dragon capsule last year.

But company founder Elon Musk has far loftier goals than simply putting stuff into low-Earth orbit. That’s so last century. No, he wants to see SpaceX go to Mars, facilitating the expansion of mankind’s influence throughout the solar system. If there’s someone wanting a ride, Musk wants SpaceX to be the first company they call.

Only last week, Musk went on the record to say SpaceX was aiming to make commercial trips to the Red Planet a reality within 20 years. And after seeing Falcon 1 make its first successful foray into orbit in Sept. 2008; watching that awesome Falcon 9 thunder into space in June 2010; then the Falcon 9 carrying the Dragon capsule into a near-perfect orbital insertion in Dec. 2010; it’s little wonder I’m more than just a little excited about a future with SpaceX.

Now that SpaceX has secured NASA funding and well on course to supplying (and launching astronauts to) the space station, seeing the SpaceX Dragon capsule performing a propulsive landing on Mars (using a dual purpose launch abort system no less) doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch.

No it doesn’t.

Back in the nascent days of space flight many thought that inter-solar travel would be accomplished by some guy in his barn knocking together a rocket. Think Astronaut Farmer without the cool special effects. As it turns out, they may not be that far off, at least in the general sense of things.

Instead of some giant bureaucracy winding in upon itself, progress is coming from individuals who are unafraid to dream and unafraid to step forth and take the necessary strides.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!

If anyone knows me, they know when I love something, I *LOVE* it.  And one of the fun things in life that I have just fallen in love when Cirque de Soleil is involved.  Any time there’s one in town, I jump at the chance to go and see it and that goes for anything that’s Cirque-related as well.  So when my producer asked if I wanted to go and see the Cirque Eloize ID show that’s currently playing at the Cadillac Theatre, I quickly told my girlfriends that they now had an extra Cubs ticket for the game that night!  I didn’t know what to expect because this was not your usual Cirque de Soleil experience, but that just added to my anticipation and I knew it would be good…and I was not disappointed.

Cirque Eloize ID is much more dance-focused with a gritty, urban street theme running through it along with contortionist, acrobatic, balancing and juggling acts added through as well; on top of that is a splash light-hearted circus-like comedy.

The best way I can describe it is sexy, visceral and just a delight to watch.  The performers are just beautiful and in top, I mean TOP physical shape.  Their performances are strongly aided by the music and lighting which makes them just simply mesmerizing to watch.  You can’t help but just feel happy while taking in the whole experience.  I would highly recommend seeing this show, but hurry and get your tickets now, it’s only here until May 8, 2011.  It’s a great way to kick off celebrating Spring-time in the city!

As William Heisenberg famously noted, things are what we perceive them to be. For example; if you visit Virginia, you might think that you’re visiting a U.S. state. You would be wrong. Virginia, like Puerto Rico, is a commonwealth, not a state. So are Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. You think you know your neighbors and you’re usually wrong. Unlike Texas, they don’t need to vote to secede from the Union, they’re not a part of it in the first place. As I said, perception is everything since these commonwealths pay taxes and vote for our presidents. Speaking of perception, here’s hoping that Donald Trump will now crawl back under the rock he was found under. President Obama was forced to release his, long form, birth certificate because …. well, because 20,000 or more people gathered and conspired to make, a Muslim born foreigner, president of the United States with no paperwork trace. Right. Try and get your spouse to keep a secret for a day then imagine all of those people keeping one for 49 years. Let’s face it, Fox News has agreed that we have Christian, American, President. Don’t get me wrong, the Left has their own share of morons. The idiots who think that Sarah Pailn lied about being the mother of Trig Palin tend to sound like shrieking, wounded, birds. Let’s be blunt. Shut up, she’s the mom, move on.

But, as Seth Shostak reports, our misguided miscreants aren’t the only nagging neighbors we need to discuss. We should seriously should look at the many UFOs landing here.

Each year, thousands of UFOs are sighted and reported, which is an impressive tally of unidentified aerial phenomena. Surveys show that roughly one-third of the populace believes that at least some of this sky show is due to extraterrestrial spacecraft, here to probe our airspace and, when that proves boring, our bodies.

In other words, alien presence on our planet is not a fringe idea. And every day, I get e-mails and phone calls from people eager to describe their experience with this unbidden invasion. Most correspondents tell me they have evidence that will cinch the case for extraterrestrials and silence the non-believers. The nature of their proof varies: most common is testimony by witnesses — including such credible types as pilots and astronauts — who see strange objects they deem to be spacecraft on the basis of their movement or appearance. A few individuals report being abducted by smooth-skinned beings, usually for excessively personal interactions. And then there are countless claims by people insisting that these creatures from afar are communicating with them one-on-one, usually to convey important messages to humankind.

There’s a small group who tell me they are aliens.

It’s hardly likely to amaze you, but I’m skeptical. I don’t think the evidence laid on the table as proof of extraterrestrial visitation is compelling, and I certainly don’t buy the argument that better evidence (in fact, all the really good evidence) has somehow been collected by the governments of the world and stacked up in secret storage lockers.

But I’m not here to argue with you. I’d like to make a different point — one that somehow seems to have escaped notice in the seemingly endless debate about UFOs. Namely, if the aliens are here, you have to admit something remarkable: They’re about as harmless as kittens on Xanax.

Consider: The premise is that Earth is being visited. But are these invaders a mortal threat? You can read occasional claims that aliens are mutilating our cattle (a decidedly unwelcome pastime, if true), but homicide seems to be off limits for ET. They don’t kill people. Your chances of being snuffed by a moose are higher.

Well, what about all those creepy abductions? Some pundits have proposed that the aliens have come here to breed with us. Apparently, too much bike riding or something similar has rendered them incapable of reproducing within their own species. But do extraterrestrial infants toddle through your neighborhood? A dozen years ago, tens of thousands of people bought Lloyds of London’s alien impregnation insurance. None ever collected.

OK, what about technology transfer? Hasn’t the U.S. military reverse-engineered captured alien spacecraft, and occasionally farmed out sophisticated inventions (e.g., fiber optics) to favored defense contractors? Aside from being an insult to the science and engineering community (who clearly developed these things, usually with centuries of effort), this suggestion would imply that — for example — American military equipment should be orders of magnitude better than that of our Cold War adversaries. Indeed, it should be incredibly better than our own earlier hardware. But the curve of technological progress has no such startling discontinuities.

If the aliens haven’t seen fit to bless us with better technology, have they at least provided some advanced knowledge, helping us to deal with such sticky problems as climate change or nuclear war? Negative, Captain.

All right. But surely their presence in our airspace must have consequences? All those sighted craft must be driving air traffic controllers crazy, right? Well, ask yourself how often your flight to Des Moines has been delayed because alien spacecraft are flying around without filing an FAA flight plan.

Commercial aviation doesn’t seem to be greatly affected, but there’s a recent suggestion that the extraterrestrials have greater interest in the military. The claim is that they’re hovering around our nuclear missile silos. Whether you believe this or not, you have to admit that the idea is nuttier than a praline. Any beings advanced enough to traverse interstellar distances are at least a thousand years beyond our technical level. Spending gobs of time examining our missiles is equivalent to sending the Air Force back to the Middle Ages, and insisting they examine the chain mail factories.

It comes down to this: In the 16th century, the Americas were invaded by Europeans. If, at the time, you had asked the natives to list the consequences of this incursion, they would surely mention such noteworthy items as enslavement, decimation of the population by disease, being driven off their lands, and the appearance of novel technologies such as the horse, the gun, and the wheel.

As far as I can tell, the only unambiguous consequence of the claimed invasion of Earth by beings from another star system has been a nonstop torrent of TV specials.

So if you’re one of the many who believe the aliens are here, you really do have to admit this: They’re the best houseguests ever.

Kittens on Xanax? I get his point.

Let’s face it, even the most rabid UFO supporters, misguided though they may be, only describe the most benign scenarios.

UFOs are, most likely, a man-made conspiracy. Learn to live with that fact and move on.

BTW, yesterday I did my weekly interview with Ryan Gatenby. It was more fun than you’re allowed.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!

While the entire planet seems to be all giddy for the Royal Wedding and wrapped up in its pageantry, I can’t help but remember that not all Brits share in the excitement, as the commentators on the TV coverage would have you believe.  Most of the people that I know in the UK never seem to have too many nice things to say about the Royals or the monarchy, actually.

I personally have nothing against it, I suppose that to me as an American the whole thing is all part of the UK’s charm.  But what it does remind me of is the fact that dissidence to the Crown has long held a place in music history.

One probably couldn’t even count the number of anti-Thatcher songs that were recorded during her tenure, but perhaps the most volatile and influential example of music vs. royalty was during the punk era of the 70’s.

First, let’s paint the picture of what was going on at this particular point in British history.  During the 1970s, Britain’s economy took a downturn and was punctuated with high unemployment, several union strikes, out of control inflation, and a shrunken middle class.  It literally became the ‘Have’s and the Have Not’s’.  Young people had few prospects and barely any possibilities of finding a job, let alone affording an education.

So what do you do when you’re 20 years old with nowhere to go and full of vigorous angst?  You start a band, of course.

Enter the Sex Pistols.

Barely able to even play their instruments, the Sex Pistols were more about what they accomplished in toppling the establishment than with their actual songs.  They might not have been the first punk band ever, but they were the key component in its emergence and influence.

The origins of Alternative music can be traced back to the 60’s, but most will agree that it was the punk era that galvanized it and set it loose.  New and adventurous musical ideas were running rampant and began bubbling up.  In New York, it was the Ramones who looked at the grandiose rock of groups such as the Eagles or Queen (heh), and decided such over-the-top pretentious music was out of touch with them.  They decided to make the sort of music that anyone could make, right there in their own garage.  They brought rock back down to earth.

That set the wheels in motion.  You had the anxiety of young people in the UK who were yearning for something different and something to call their own, and you had a more basic approach to music coming to light.  All it needed was the one spark to make the whole thing explode and take over.

The Sex Pistols (who are said to have had a copy of the debut Ramones record in the studio for inspiration while recording their album) brought along the attitude with their ferocious approach to music and image.

Overnight, they were a scandal.  Headlines in the UK immediately described it all as “the Filth and the Fury”.  It was just what young people in England needed, and it’s just what the stale state of music needed at the time, too.

To make it even more blasphemous, the second single that they released from their one and only album Never Mind The Bullocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols was entitled “God Save The Queen”.  Yes, sharing the same title as the national anthem of the UK.  Only, this was no homage to the Queen whatsoever.

Complete with the controversial cover, matters were made worse (or better, in a punk and musical sense) because the single was released just in time for Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee (the 25th anniversary of her coronation) in 1977.  Smack in the midst of the celebration and the pomp and circumstance came this anthem for restless and fed up youth.  It spewed venom over the Royals’ lavish lifestyle while singing over and over that the people of Britain have “no future”.

The BBC quickly banned the song, so it was practically never heard on the radio.  Despite that, it shot up to the top of the charts.  It never was allowed to be printed in the #1 spot, however, since the chart was essentially dictated by the BBC. (in May 2001, the BBC wrote that the single “reached number one in the UK despite being banned by the BBC”.  Score.)

Considering the success of the single with no airplay gives you a sense of how strong the subversive and underground tendencies were in the British public.  It also proved that all you needed was the will to make a difference and a message, and the music just followed suit.  It was what bound like-minded people together and helped lay the groundwork for Alternative music for many years to come.

Kids in “punk bands” today might think life sucks and might write songs describing their inconveniences.  But at the end of the day, they get picked up from school in an SUV and have a nice meal in their stainless steel appliance kitchen.

THESE GUYS, however, had a gripe.  And it changed music forever.

We’ve all had one of those moments. Your mouth works before your brain can stop it. Like greeting your friend on the plane with a loud “HI JACK!” Shortly after that you’ll realize the error of your ways. You’ll also become intimately aware of the various and sundry meanings of the phrase “body cavity search.” Think of it this way, these perfect strangers will know more about you than your spouse. Lawyers have an entire site set up for legal good ideas / bad ideas that could cover a year’s worth of posts here were I interested enough to care. Suffice it to say that asking a judge if your, decorated Marine client, is a pedophile ranks near the top. It’s akin to dressing up as a piñata for Halloween and handing out large sticks.

But, fortunately for us, Florida exists. As Todd Wright reports, a resident there set the bar so high (or is that so low) for a good idea / bad idea moment that it may never be eclipsed.

Unless not until the next press release comes out of Florida police department.

Florida motorists can get quite creative when trying to get out of a speeding ticket, but Jonathan Paul Rorech may have taken the cake.

The Naples man had what he thought was a foolproof plan to get out of a ticket, police say — make a prank 911 call.

After being pulled over by a sheriff’s deputy Tuesday, Rorech placed the emergency 911 from his cell phone, the police report showed, and reported there was a shooting in the area and a victim was on the ground, the Naples News reported.

The call was dispatched to the deputy, who dropped what he was doing to attend to the alleged more serious matter, the police report stated.

Rorech, who was allegedly driving with a suspended license and going 45 mph in a 30 mph zone, drove away thinking he had pulled a fast one on the law, apparently

Unfortunately for Rorech, the police have heard of caller ID.

When the deputy arrived at the address given for the fake shooting, the scene was empty and no one had heard any gunshots.

He realized that something was wrong. The deputy quickly retraced the call and got Rorech’s voicemail.

Now instead of just a traffic ticket, Rorech was arrested for making a false 911 call.

Just FYI, in case you think this was a great idea, you could end up doing 3 years in jail for that little prank.

In Las Vegas, in order to keep the land they paid $15,000,000 an acre for (yes, you read that amount right), Mariott Hotels was forced to open a casino in a tent.

Steve Friess has the whole story.

The last time a casino opened around here, the champagne flowed freely, the women wore jewels, “Nightline” taped a segment and Brandon Flowers jammed in the lobby bar.

This time, a guy named Walter Jones unlocked the door, then headed back to his car because the 6 a.m. desert air can be nippy and the fellow responsible for turning on the lights and heat hadn’t shown up yet.

A few hours into Jones’ shift on Wednesday, nobody had shown up to play any of the 16 video poker slot machines inside the 20-by-20 tent erected on a plain of asphalt at the corner directly across from the entrance to the Las Vegas Convention Center.

If you think this gambling hall doesn’t look like other casinos near the Las Vegas Strip, you’d be right. Because of a peculiarity in local law, landowners can lose valuable zoning designation that allows casinos if there’s no active gambling held on their land in an 18-month period. That leads to “pop-up casinos.”

Also, neither Jones nor his bosses cared. In fact, for simplicity’s sake, it would be easier if there was no money exchanged, the better for keeping the paperwork to a minimum.

The purpose of this “casino,” which shut down for good when the clock struck 2 p.m., was not to make money.

Rather, it is to preserve the ultra-valuable zoning designation for unrestricted gaming that exists on the parcel. County law requires active gambling to take place on property zoned for gaming for at least one shift every 18 months or else the zoning expires.

Thus, the landowner, Marriott International, hired Vegas-based United Coin Machine Co. to create this pop-up casino.

It doesn’t even have a name, but in 2008 Review-Journal reporter Howard Stutz dubbed it “Trailer Station” as a play on the ubiquitous middle-of-the-road locals casinos from Station Casinos that includes Boulder, Texas, Sunset and Palace Station.

Many of them take place in small trailers, although today’s took the form of a tent.

United Coin representative Rob Woodson said Marriott has told him that it plans to put up a 3,500-room flagship casino-resort where the tent stands.

What a great job! Show up and hope you never see a customer. If you’re successful you probably get a bonus.

But, seriously, $15 mil for a parking lot? I am clearly in the wrong line of work.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!