Working six days this week. I suppose it'll keep me off the streets.

I was just looking on the Kennedy Space Center website. They're going to be launching a new Delta rocket today as a test flight, the Delta 4 Heavy rocket. I couldn't find any info on how much payload these things can lift but should they be capable of throwing 26 tons they could be used for Dr. Zubrin's Mars Direct. Cheap, too.

One wonders when someone's going to get a clue and slap a remote-controlled cargo module on one of these suckers so we can take some of the burden of flights to the ISS from the Russians. Or when someone's going to take out a loan, buy a whole bunch of clues, and dig out the blueprints for the old Apollo command modules. You'd think somebody might want to earn a few brownie points with the international community, considering our name is mud out there these days. Might improve our standing in the world by some small amount to be seen to be holding up our end of things. Why is the vast economic juggernaut of the United States depending on a country with more than enough economic problems of its own to do this? In case it has escaped anyone's notice, the Russians aren't turning out Soyuzes and Progress modules at anything like quickly. Kind of hard for them to, considering we're not paying them. At the rate we're going through them, they can't keep up with the demand. And oh yeah, we're not paying them so why should they?

Apollo -- a technology proven for 35 years. Why aren't we using it now?

Sometimes, you just want to scream.


Trippy truculent tightrope technicians taking Tylenol to Toledo.