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They did it. The unofficial
altitude is 368,000 feet, which beats Joe Walker's 354,200 with the X-15 in
August 63. The official award of the X prize is in about half an hour.
OK it's all over. All the speeches have been made, the
lunches have been eaten, and I'm on the way home. I have photographs.
I'll be home in a couple of hours.
Home. Pictures tonight.
I will try to put up pictures others wouldn't have.
Sunday afternoon there was a press conference and reception
at the laboratory and headquarters of XCOR. Jeff Greason, XCOR President,
shows the Honorable Marion Blakey, Administrator of the Federal Aviation
Agency, and FAA Associate Administrator Patricia Grace Smith around the
shop. There was a press conference afterwards at which I rather surprised
the Administrator by saying I wanted to ask a philosophical question. "John
Adams said the United States differed from other countries in that we hold
that each man is the best judge of his own interest. Given that, how do you
view the job of the FAA in regulating commercial space flight?"
I have to say she gave a good answer. The FAA's main job is
to protect the uninvolved public from undue risks. We can agree on that. The
second issue is informed consent: those who want to take the risks of going
to space should understand the risks they take. There is considerable room
for disagreement here, but my impression is that the FAA at present at least
understands that if people want to take risks in going to space they should
be able to do so. After which I pointed out that perhaps the model ought to
be, not buying a ticket on an airliner today, but Will Rogers and Wily
Post...
Xcor shows off its "tea tray" rocket, with a series of
firings. It always starts...
Dawn. All is ready. White Knight and Space Ship One head up
to begin the takeoff; and the scene in the VIP area just before takeoff.
Waiting for takeoff. Here she comes! White Knight and Space
Ship One roll past to takeoff.
Now it's a long wait until they climb, and get separation,
and ignite... While we wait I'll wander about and get some pictures.
Eric Lindbergh. And it's late and I'll have
more tomorrow.
I met
him in connection with full pressure suit research, both during Mercury and
later in Downey on Apollo planning. He was friendlier than Glenn and less
jocular than Grissom. When the astronauts became national treasures and
weren't sent on missions lest we lose one it was a turning point in NASA's
history as NASA went from being a place of adventure to one of caution. That
also broke his heart.
Jerry, I was so
saddened to learn about Gordo Cooper's passing. Gordo was the first
astronaut I met, when I was working on the Gemini program. He had the "look
of eagles" in his eyes, and as a very shy 18-year-old budding engineer and
would-be spacewoman, I was enchanted to meet him, and enthralled by his
eyes. He had seen space, and it showed. He will always have a special place
in my heart, and I will never forget that he encouraged me. I'm sorry he's
gone; I would have liked to have offered him a ride. Aleta
And XCOR would be just the outfit to do it...
============
More photos
from XCOR where there was a small party and reception after the X Prize:
The kinds of things you will see at a rocket company. Dick
Rutan who flew Voyager around the world. The notice board of required things
you have to post or get fined; ain't government wonderful? A test stand. Dan
DeLong shows off the rocket engines. And
the anti-rodent system off duty; then pleading that no one ever feeds her,
and there are no rodents left to eat...
==================
The press conference.
Before the press conference:
Sarah Evans, of CarryOn Public Relations, feeling the
pressure... I've been to a lot of these things, and she has done at least as
well at press management as any, and better than a very great number I have
seen. Congratulations.
Dr. Peter H. Peter Diamandis, X Prize
Founder; The honorable Marion Blakey, FAA Administrator; Burt Rutan, all
caught a bit off guard. The Los Angeles Times this morning spoke of Marion
Blakely "an administrator of the FAA" which tells you something about the
Los Angeles Times.
The press conference begins:
Taking their seats. I was a bit too close with the wrong camera: this one
doesn't have a wide enough lens to get everyone at once. Sarah Evans opens
the conference. The mood, as you can imagine, is euphoric. (91)A good
shot of Peter Diamandis and Miss Anousheh Ansari whose family sponsored the
last phase of the contest. The Ansari family remains associated with the
prize and interested in space travel. Note the sponsors: M&M's and Seven Up.
(92) The conference begins. that's Mike Mellvill in the back row to your
right. My conference handout says the man seated at the far left is TBD; of
course it's Brian Binnie, who flew the ship to a new altitude record and to
win the X prize. (94) Pilot Brian Binnie, Chief Judge Colonel Rick Searfoss,
and behind them Doug Shane, Flight Director. (97) Colonel Searfoss announces
officially that they have done it! And (98) Burt and Paul Allen at that
moment.
And another picture of Paul Allen and Burt Rutan a moment after the official
announcement.
The pilots; and Paul Allen takes a question (from me) about use of PC's to
build the flight simulators. Burt Rutan has more to say on the subject.
Rutan wanted to make it clear that his team did a lot of good work, and the
computer revolution helped but it wasn't the main reason they could do it.
That wasn't part of the question....
Sponsors: Kelli Freeman, Director of Marketing, 7 UP; and a
very enthusiastic Sir Richard Branson, Chairman of the Virgin Group of
Companies, with his Virgin Galactic shirt. Sir Richard has ordered 5
passenger model space ships for a total of $100 million. He and Burt Rutan
will ride on the first commercial flight to space.
The Administrator presents Brian Binnie with Astronaut wings. Take that,
NASA!
And then presents a plaque to Rutan and Allen. Take another, NASA!
After the presentation the photographers on the other side of the room asked
them to pose again: and Paul Allen finally shows his emotions.
So: that was my day. I should have got some more pictures at
XCOR and at the parties, but I was getting tired. There were parties, and we
talked to a lot of people.
Space Ship One doesn't lead directly to orbital flight:
there is no way to trace a route using improvements in any of Space Ship
One's developments -- airframe, propulsion, reentry -- to orbital flight;
what it does show is simplicity, safety, and the ability to move fast. Six
powered flights, and each one an incremental improvement over the last;
leading to the design of a ship that can carry commercial passengers to
space. Not to orbit; but to space.
XCOR has some designs for
sub-orbital ships that can lead to orbit; and once you are in orbit you are
half-way to anywhere. What Rutan has shown is that for relatively modest
amounts a small private company can do something significant in space; it
doesn't take an enormous government program. And now the race is on.
In that promising land the spirit of I’m as good as you has
already begun something more than a generally social influence. It begins to
work itself into their educational system. How far its operations there have
gone at the present moment, I should not like to say with certainty. Nor
does it matter. Once you have grasped the tendency, you can easily predict
its future developments; especially as we ourselves will play our part in
the developing. The basic principle of the new education is to be that
dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and
industrious pupils. That would be “undemocratic.” These differences between
pupils – for they are obviously and nakedly individual differences – must be
disguised. This can be done at various levels. At universities, examinations
must be framed so that nearly all the students get good marks. Entrance
examinations must be framed so that all, or nearly all, citizens can go to
universities, whether they have any power (or wish) to profit by higher
education or not. At schools, the children who are too stupid or lazy to
learn languages and mathematics and elementary science can be set to doing
things that children used to do in their spare time. Let, them, for example,
make mud pies and call it modelling. But all the time there must be no
faintest hint that they are inferior to the children who are at work.
Whatever nonsense they are engaged in must have – I believe the English
already use the phrase – “parity of esteem.” An even more drastic scheme is
not possible. Children who are fit to proceed to a higher class may be
artificially kept back, because the others would get a trauma -- Beelzebub,
what a useful word! – by being left behind. The bright pupil thus remains
democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career,
and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening
to his coeval’s attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON A MAT.
It's column time, and I have to get out to Fry's, then get my Linux
Xandros box tuned up. I'll have more later.
======================
On the Iraq War:
I am not entirely sure who is the author of this; it was forwarded to me
as a forward and after a while origins get lost.
"On the one hand, the Americans remain under
extraordinary international pressure to retreat; on the other, the appeal of
the Islamist ideology is still growing, and finding its voice through such
mass media as Arab satellite television.
"If, for instance, a President Kerry were to
take the Americans out of Iraq, mission unaccomplished as in Vietnam, we
would see a storm-tide of Islamist triumphalism, and the belief would
quickly spread through the Muslim world that an aggressive, Jihadist,
politico-religious Islamism is the wave of the future.
"The same, of course, would happen if a
President Bush did that. But everything we know about the man suggests he
wouldn't.
"One of my reasons to pray for his victory in
the coming U.S. election is because he wouldn't. I don't think he fully
grasps the dimensions of the conflict -- nobody does. But he knows they are
large, he knows the difference between advancing and retreating, and that's
really all he needs to know, for now. The rest we learn as we go along."
I am not entirely certain that we are winning, although the events in
Samara indicate that we are getting on top of the situation; I am fairly
certain that bugging out now would cause a wave of Islamic triumphalism with
very long term and very dire consequences for the west. The US Armed Forces
are pretty good at winning a peace, once they understand the mission. I see
no reason to believe that will change.
The process of building an empire is long and will always generate
blunders. We were forty years in the Philippines with mixed results. The
process of rule without building an empire is not notably easier.
My own view is that it is cheaper to fight Arabs over here than over
there: it's hard for them to get at us. But it's also politically disastrous
to have another 911; better 1,000 troopers lost than 3,000 citizens, and I
doubt any of the troops would disagree. I would like to come home and do
energy research and build solar power satellites. I do not think we can do
that precipitously.
Greg Cochran asked me if there was anything as disastrous as the
invasion of Iraq that Kerry could do. I have thought about that at length,
and the answer is, yes: Albright nearly got us into a war (hot or cold) with
Russia over our treatment of the Serbs, and that would have been a real
disaster. And Albright was proud of the fact that we had no national
interests as we converted NATO from a defensive alliance into an imperial
coalition we don't even lead. I see no signs that Kerry has rejected any of
the views of the last four Democratic Secretaries of State, or the Democrat
philosophy on war and government. Indeed, he seems to have embraced them.
Albright was PROUD of the fact that we had no national interests in the
Balkans where we bombed the Chinese and seriously annoyed the Russians. All
that for altruism. God knows what they would do in Africa and the Sudan.
I note that the question about AIDS among black women got from Cheney an
admission that he didn't know that was a particular problem; but from
Edwards more language about world wide crusades, and more commitment of
American resources to fight battles where we have no stake and remedy wrongs
we had no hand in committing.
So: Yes, there are things more disastrous than the invasion of Iraq that
Kerry could do. Bugging out precipitously from a war we ought not have been
in, thereby triggering a triumphalist reaction is one; getting us involved
in wars in which we have no interest, vital or otherwise, dozens of little
tar babies, is another. I have no great enthusiasm for Bush. I could make
that statement stronger. But almost all the things I dislike about Bush --
overseas involvements, entangling alliances, meddling in territorial
disputes halfway across the world, no Child Left Behind, enormous increases
in discretionary spending -- are things the Republicans say they aren't
really for, but the Democrats support with gusto.
I would prefer a party that would win the war in Iraq by applying the
Samara strategy to Fallujah and Sadr City and all the other points of
resistance, leave a small high tech force behind in a safe base, and come
home; and thereafter understand that we are the friends of liberty
everywhere but the guardians only of our own; and that we hold each American
to be the best judge of his own interest. I prefer a party that would leave
many matters to the states, particularly matters of abortion and gay
marriage and the like. I prefer a party that would take off economic
restrictions like Americans with Disabilities, minimum wages, OSHA, and
leave all that to the states while enforcing immigration laws and protecting
the borders. I prefer a 10% tariff as a means of minor protection of
American jobs without building huge walls to protect gross inefficiencies;
while removing the federal regulations that make it nearly impossible to
compete in many areas (leave those protections to the states). I do not
believe that party exists.
Because my party doesn't exist, I would be glad to sit this one out: were
it not for my fear of Islamic triumphalism. As a student of history I have
seen what can happen in the past. For those who don't know some of that
history, a good start would be Iron Men and Saints and The Flame
of Islam, by Harold Lamb; I believe the two volumes are now available as
The Crusades. It's readable and you may learn something of the
volatility of that region.
I do fear the consequences of a hasty retreat from Iraq; if the price of
staying there is 1,000 troopers a year, that is a heavy price, but it is one
that has to be paid; and it is not paid in vain. The West is worth
protecting.
Creating an orderly democracy in the Middle East is an arduous task,
perhaps beyond our strength and capabilities, and certainly one I would not
have undertaken. Now that we have undertaken it, we have an obligation to
ourselves, and to the heroes who fell in Mesopotamia, not to leave the
region a ghastly mess. The price of that is to stay until we have built,
probably not democracy, but something stable and not as notably cruel as the
rule of Uday and his family; a place where it is not routine to feed people
into a wood chipper feet first. And that we can do, and must.
If you are not paying for this place, click here...
As we all surmised, everyone including Saddam's
generals believed he had chemical and biological weapons; and close
reading of the report indicates that he thought his threat to use them
DETERRED BUSH I from taking Baghdad. Thus he wanted to maintain the
illusion of having those weapons, both in laboratory and in deployable
stockpiles. Each general thought some other general had them.
Given his success in deceiving his own people, is it any wonder that he
was able to deceive Bush II, Blair, the French, the Germans, and probably
even Mossad although some say the Israelis knew he didn't have any -- but if
that is the case they didn't tell us that. Just about everyone thought he
had chemical and biological weapons. It was pretty clear he didn't have a
real nuclear program. Those are much harder to hide, particularly since we
had inspectors on the ground. But having said that, do note that we didn't
know a lot about the big underground facilities in his palaces. Note also
that Clinton never suspected one of North Korea's TWO nuclear enrichment
programs, and until well after Clinton left office the official US view was
that North Korea was complying with the disarmament agreements. This is NOT
intended as a slam on Clinton and his people; my point is that even nuclear
programs can be hidden, even when there are cameras in some of the
facilities and lots of surveillance. It was unlikely that Iraq had a nuclear
program, but not entirely impossible.
Chemical and Biological weapons, on the other hand, are much more easily
hidden; even stockpiles. Saddam was playing a dangerous bluffing game, and
he managed to convince the President of the United States that he had
chemical and biological weapons -- and at the time, darned few people
thought differently. My own view was that he had them and I didn't care: he
was a threat to his neighbors, particularly Iran, but hardly a threat to the
United States. Nuclear weapons would have been a different matter, but I was
not willing to invade over chemical and biological weapons.
The President was bluffed. I am hardly surprised, given the effort
expended to bluff him. And as President he had to decide whether Saddam's
possession of those weapons was a threat to US interests. Do not forget: it
was plausibly believed that the small quantities of weaponized anthrax which
was used against the United States might have been supplied by Saddam to al
Qaeda. I know many in the Pentagon believed it; some believe it still, since
the age of the anthrax isn't determinable. We know something of the origin
of the original strains, but those weren't all that hard to get; the
difficulty was in growing more, harvesting the spores, and micronizing the
resulting powder. Iraq might have done that at one time. Note I said might:
this is one of those theories that even today is hard to disprove, and just
after 911 and then the anthrax attacks was impossible to disprove. It might
have been; anbd one can say that even today. Might. Once again, the
President has a decision to make.
I did not think the Iraq invasion was a very good idea at the time, and I
thought it would go about as it did; but I am not omniscient, and I hadn't
been elected to make those decisions.
And now we are there, and I think we have no choice but to see it all
through. In the early days of the war we could have gone in, driven Saddam
from power, and got out: a demonstration that it is dangerous to bluff the
United States, and we will remove from power any regime we think a threat to
our vital interests or which we believe harbors our enemies. It is, I think,
too late to do that now. But that's another story.
Subject: Perhaps a new e-mail scam that looks
beautiful
Dear Jerry,
Just received an e-mail from "Microsoft" (the e-mail
address is communications_wincs_fpp@communications3.msn.com) purporting to
give me an easy way to get Windows XP Service Pack 2. I was immediately
suspicious, so I checked the message source.
I saw that and deleted it; I probably should have looked closer. Thanks.
Looks like phishing to me. Anyone know more?
HAH
That's legit. The URL points to msn.com without any
hanky-panky. I clicked it, knowing I'm safe because I'm on a Mac (that's
only half-true, but it's still half-funny :-), and it was just a simply
click-through to the claimed destination. It's just meant to report that
Steve Erbach followed the link. Because I did, Microsoft will think he has.
:-)
. png
Dr. Pournelle:
Today's (Thursday)View had a question from Mr. Steve
Erbach about a mail message from Microsoft. The message was from "communications_wincs_fpp@communications3.msn.com",
and purported to be a quick way to get the XP SP2 patch.
"Danger, Will Robinson!!"
Even though the link in the mail message might look
like it goes to www.microsoft.com/protect , the underlying code in the
message might point to somewhere else. A very common technique for 'phishers'
is to use a "on-mouse-over" command. The parameter for that command will
show text on the status line, but the actual link that is executed when you
click on it might be somewhere else.
At work, we get several dozen bank 'phishing' attempts
each day, and all of them use the mouseover technique to fake the actual
address. Although my report shows the technique for web pages, it is just as
easily done in HTML mail.
In the reader's question, the "communications.msn.com"
site really belongs to Microsoft. (I checked via "Arin" at www.whois.net ,
where you can get registration info on any domain name or IP address.)
But it could have easily been a spammer that was
verifying your email address with a script attached the the URL in the
message, then a re-direct to Microsoft's site. The script could do more,
like attempt to hack your computer.
Worse, it could be a hacker trying to "own" my
computer. If I (as a hacker) send out a mail message to everyone telling
them where to get SP2, most of the people who will respond probably don't
have SP2. So my page will attempt an attack via a pre-SP2 problem, then
redirect to Microsoft (or anywhere else). The result could be that I get to
"own" your computer, and you won't know it.
So my recommendation is to be very careful with links
in unsolicited messages. They might be legit or nefarious. In today's world,
the chances are that it's nefarious. Mr. Erbach and others should be
careful.
Caveat emptor!
Regards, Rick Hellewell, Information Security Dude
In theory the column was due at midnight last night, but I have slipped
that until Sunday night. So that's what I am doing. There's a lot to cover.
Thanks to all who have recently renewed subscriptions or have subscribed
for the first time. I admit I was reminded to remind you by the USC pledge
drive this week...
I am off to walk the dog. I can darned near get a column out of just
today's Fry's ads and their implications.
Hoo Hah. It takes a while for This Land to download. Wait for it...
======================
When you make recordings on the iPAQ under pocket PC it makes a file I
can certainly see and play on the iPAQ. When I do synchronization with the
main system it says it has synchronized.
However, I can't find the blooking recordings on the PC! Search doesn't
seem to find them either. CAN ANYONE HELP here? Where do they go and how can
I find them?
It's worse. Synchronization tells me all kinds of things I can't find
later. Is there an iPAQ synchronization expert in the house? HELP! I
would like to be able to find notes I made on the iPAQ on the main
computer...
ALL RIGHT> I found them. OUTLOOK has grabbed off the files. I guess I
have to export them from Outlook before I can do anything with them. Foo.
Did anyone ever make a DVD of the ceremony at the National Cathedral
following 911? Particularly the Battle Hymn? I see a couple of places that
hint at its existence, but the sites I am lead to are so badly organized I
can't find out if it even exists.
"In some cases, the link simply aims potential victims
at an executable file -- a Trojan horse program sitting in a hidden location
on the Internet. In others, slightly more elaborate techniques are used to
inject code onto a machine after it is directed to a Web site."
As mentioned in my message to you (which you posted at
the end of your Thursday mail section), clicking on links in emails can
(will) cause problems.
Best practice: just delete and move on. And get those
updates installed.
Regards, Rick Hellewell
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