Weekend Open Thread

The first of a new breed of private-sector spacecraft built for NASA as a commercial venture is poised for blastoff Saturday on a high-stakes inaugural test flight to the International Space Station.

The solar-powered capsule is the first of a new breed of private-sector spacecraft built for NASA in a commercial venture to deliver critical supplies to the space station in the wake of the shuttle's retirement and, if the company's founder has his way, to eventually carry astronauts to and from the lab complex.

But even Musk knows SpaceX must learn to walk before it can run, and a major step on the road to credibility will be Saturday's planned launch of the Falcon 9/Dragon spacecraft.

If the flight goes well, SpaceX will be clear to press ahead with routine cargo delivery missions later this year under a $1.6 billion NASA contract calling for at least 12 flights to the space station at an average cost of some $133 million per mission -- a bargain in the high-cost world of space operations.

"Saturday is a huge day for NASA and the nation," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told CBS News. "It will mark the return of cargo launches to American soil. We've been reliant on our international partners since we phased the space shuttle out, but this will be bringing it back home -- American jobs, launches from Cape Canaveral, and that's critical."

Making only its third flight, the 157-foot-tall, two-stage Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to blast off Saturday from complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 4:55:18 a.m. EDT, roughly the moment Earth's rotation carries the pad into the plane of the space station's orbit. Forecasters are predicting a 70 percent chance of good weather.

to bad a glitch shut down engines at liftoff, bird is still on the launch pad

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket carried the unmanned Dragon capsule into space after a 3:44 a.m. EDT launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., marking the first time a private company has sent a spacecraft to the space station.

The mission is considered the first test of NASA's plan to outsource space missions to privately funded companies now that its fleet of space shuttles is retired. SpaceX aims to prove to NASA that its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule are ready to take on the task of hauling cargo -- and eventually astronauts -- for the space agency.

SpaceX planned to launch the current mission Saturday. The countdown was flawless until the last second, when the rocket engines briefly lit up and then went dark.

SpaceX said a flight computer detected an anomaly in one of the rocket's nine engines and automatically shut down the launch sequence. Later that day, company engineers traced the problem to a faulty valve, and technicians fixed it within hours.

The company, with about 1,800 employees, has a $1.6-billion contract to haul cargo in 12 flights to the space station for NASA. If the current mission is successful, SpaceX will begin fulfilling the contract later this year.

SpaceX has now had three successful launches of the Falcon 9.

Why didnt you go all the way down to basic cable ?

Why didnt you go all the way down to basic cable ?

Probably because some people like LIVE sports only on some non-OTA cable channels.

welcome to our world.
I have basic cable and Internet of three years going. I do not use Netflix is I may be paying for a subscription weeks or even months without broadcast tv. My average TV viewing is 1 to 2 hours a week.

missed it big-time... thinking about becoming a premium member just to show Justin some support....

Anyone else have withdrawals while the site was down?

I know I kept entering the URL every time I sat down in front of my desktop or laptop without even knowing it.

A bizarre Foreign Ministry report circulating in the Kremlin today states that this Friday past (11 May) Russian Envoy Vladimir Vinokurov, the Consulate General of San Francisco, was approached near his hotel room during a visit to Los Angles by an agent of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) identifying himself as Stephen Ivens who warned that he and a former FBI agent named Donald Sachtleben had uncovered evidence of an impending terror attack on US soil stating that those behind the attack were “all insane.”

Before Ivens was able to finish his “message,” this report says, the three American Diplomatic Security (DS) agents, who trail all Russian diplomats in the US, began to “surge” towards Ivens causing him to flee.

According to US news sources, Special Agent Ivens, after leaving downtown Los Angeles, returned to his home in Burbank whereupon he then fled into the rugged Verdugo Mountains after which a massive manhunt for him ensued involving 100 FBI agents, 40 sheriff’s department rescuers and a dozen local police officers.

Even more bizarre about this case, this report continues, is that the retired FBI agent named Donald Sachtleben mentioned by Ivens, who also knew about this impending “plot,” was arrested within hours of Ivens disappearing and charged with trading child pornography.

Most important to note about Sachtleben was, aside from his being an over 25-year veteran of the FBI, he was a special agent bomb technician before retiring in 2008 who specialized in counterterrorism and bombing investigations and whose most important case was the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York City.

According to US news reports about Sachtleben’s arrest, this most knowledgeable of FBI agents openly traded child porn using the e-mail address ‘pedodave69@yahoo.com’ in an act so stupid for one of the United States most highly trained intelligence agents it defies belief.

The practice of US intelligence services charging their most feared dissidents with child pornography and/or sex charges is well known, with the most celebrated case being against the former UN weapons inspector William Scott Ritter, Jr.

Prepare to meet Nick Hanauer. He's a venture capitalist from Seattle who was the first non-family investor in Amazon.com.

Today he's a very rich man. And, somewhat jarringly, he's screaming to anyone who will listen that he, and other wealthy innovators like him, doesn't create jobs.
The middle class does - and its decline threatens everyone in America, from the innovators on down.

“We’ve had it backward for the last 30 years,” he said. “Rich businesspeople like me don’t create jobs.

Rather they are a consequence of an ecosystemic feedback loop animated by middle-class consumers, and when they thrive, businesses grow and hire, and owners profit.

That’s why taxing the rich to pay for investments that benefit all is a great deal for both the middle class and the rich.”

You can’t find that speech online. TED officials told Hanauer initially they were eager to distribute it. “I want to put this talk out into the world!” one of them wrote him in an e-mail in late April. But early this month they changed course, telling Hanauer that his remarks were too “political” and too controversial for posting.