Archive for the &;Tribbles&; Category

Space Travel Dangerous Even If You&;reDead

August 11, 2008

The LA Weekly is running my story  on the new private space race, a battle between billionaires like Elon Muske (SpaceX), Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and of course Richard Branson (Virgin everything.)  Bill Gates is more focused on curing malaria around the world. One of my points in the story is what would happen if private space travel had the same safe flight rate as NASA&;s space shuttle program.  The shuttle has suffered two cataclysmic crashes in 123 flights despite NASA&;s spending $150 billion of our money. &;If the 18,000 monthly aircraft departures from LAX suffered from the same 98.4% arrival rate experienced by the Shuttle, a staggering 288 airliners a month would crash.&; Space travel is hazardous&;even if you&;re already dead. The ashes of James Doohan (Scotty on Star Trek), fun-loving astronaut Gordon Cooper and 200 other people were destroyed last week, rather than achieving space orbit, when a SpaceX rocket crashed on takeoff.    Doohan&;s son wrote, &;While there are many complicated reasons why this is a disappointment, mine is simple: I&;d like to finish saying goodbye. Every launch attempt is like reliving his funeral. There’s a lot of pomp and ceremony, and a retelling of his deeds in life. But at the end of these funerals, something goes awry, the body doesn&;t get buried, and you know you&;re going to have to come back to do it over again.&;

Tags:bill-gates, James-Doohan, Jeff-Bezos, LA-Weekly, Michael-Goldstein, NASA, private-space, Richard-Branson, space-shuttle, SpaceX, StarTrek Posted in public-relations-disaster, Space, Television, Tribbles | 2 Comments &;

Let Tom CruiseFilm

June 25, 2007

Tom Cruise has never won an Oscar, but he has won fame as the world&;s best-known Scientologist.  To many, Scientology is a controversial, even debatable, religion.  It is not recognized as such in Germany. So when producers of Tom Cruise&;s new movie, Valkyrie, asked to film at German military sites, Cruise was refused because he is a Scientologist, according to the German Defense Ministry.  (Drudge links here.) Valkyrie is the story of Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, leader of the unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the Nazi dictator in July 1944.  Probably a thriller, Valkryie is also the story of someone who, no matter how late and convoluted his reasons, stood up against tyranny.  (Sophie Scholl is a better example of suicidal courage in the face of Nazi torture and murder.) There&;s much to admire about the new Germany, from its conscientious efforts to acknowledge the Holocaust to its support of the United States.  But from a public relations perspective, Germany should allow Cruise and his team (including respected director Bryan Singer) to film wherever they want, regardless of Cruise&;s support of Scientology. Beyond that, Germany should not be in the position of determining what is a state-approved religion and what is not.  We know where that goes.

Posted in Bryan-Singer, Colonel-Claus-von-Stauffenberg, Germany, Oscar, Scientology, Sophie-Scholl, tom-cruise, Tribbles, Valkyrie | 3 Comments &;

Technorati vs. WordPress: BlogSlowdown?

April 29, 2007

The number of &;active&; blogs has stalled at 15 million by Technorati&;s count, according to Valleywag (tip of the hat to Andrew Sullivan.)  I don&;t necessarily get that from the data.  And each day when I log into WordPress, home of this blog, there&;s a few thousand more of us.  Today (April 29, 2007, 11:30AM PST) there were 911,236 blogs.  Check for yourself; looks like they&;re still multiplying, if not like Tribbles.

Posted in Technorati, Tribbles, WordPress | 1 Comment &;