SpaceShipOne Makes History: First Private Manned Mission to Space

For Details, Contact: Kaye LeFebvre
Phone: 661-824-4541
Fax: 661-824-4174
Email: info@scaled.com
Website: http://www.scaled.com



Press Release
21 June 2004
For Immediate Release



SpaceShipOne Makes History:
First Private Manned Mission to Space


The world witnessed the dawn of a new space age today,
as investor and philanthropist Paul G. Allen and Scaled
Composites launched the first private manned vehicle
beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. The successful
launch demonstrated that the final frontier is now open
to private enterprise.


Under the command of test pilot Mike Melvill, SpaceShipOne
reached a record breaking altitude of 328,491 feet (approximately
62 miles or 100 km), making Melvill the first civilian
to fly a spaceship out of the atmosphere and the first
private pilot to earn astronaut wings.


This flight begins an exciting new era in space travel,”
said Paul G. Allen, sole sponsor in the SpaceShipOne
program. “Burt Rutan and his team at Scaled Composites
are part of a new generation of explorers who are sparking
the imagination of a huge number of people worldwide
and ushering in the birth of a new industry of privately
funded manned space flight.”


The historic flight also marks the first time an aerospace
program has successfully completed a manned mission
without government sponsorship. “Today’s
flight marks a critical turning point in the history
of aerospace,” said Scaled Composites founder
and CEO Burt Rutan. “ We have redefined space
travel as we know it.”


“Our success proves without question that manned
space flight does not require mammoth government expenditures,”
Rutan declared. “It can be done by a small company
operating with limited resources and a few dozen dedicated
employees.”


A large crowd watched the momentous flight live from
the grounds of the Mojave Airport, joining millions
of others around the world who tuned in by television,
radio, and the internet. Dignitaries attending the event
included U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher, the Commanding
Officer of Edwards Air Force Base, General Pearson and
the China Lake Naval Air Warfare Center, Admiral Venlet;
former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, and Konrad Dannenberg,
one of Werner Von Braun’s lead scientists on this
country’s original space development effort. Hundreds
of media representatives were also on hand to record
history in the making.

How Liberty was lost on the internet

There is an article over at sp!ked-IT titled How Liberty was lost on the internet which talks about takedown notices to ISPs. I was somewhat disappointed that the article does not discuss is the potential repercussions to the ISP (because of the DMCA) if they do not follow the takedown notice. If the ISP makes a judgement call on the side of the website operator and is proven wrong, the DMCA makes the ISP partly responsible for the copyright violation. If they wrongly act on the side of the complaining party, they are guilty of censorship. What's an ISP to do?

Webmaster cleared of Patriot Act terrorism charges

Finally, sanity prevails! Unfortunately, it was the jury who was sane, not the government. (See this article.) I extremely dislike the Patriot Act, as I feel it is overly vague, poorly written, and overly broad (intentionally, I'm sure), so I see this as a win :)

Linux Fun for IBM eServer

Linux Fun for IBM eServer
Just found this little site. Gotta check it out, but it looks pretty funny.

Towel Day

"You sass that hoopy Douglas Adams? Now there's a frood who knew where his towel was. You are invited to join your fellow hitchhikers in mourning the loss of the late great one. Join in on Towel Day to show your appreciation for the humor and insight that Douglas Adams brought to all our lives"

I'm absolutely looking forward to May 25th! I've mentioned this to two of my co-workers, and without any real convincing required, they both said they'd bring their towels. I encourage anyone else who may be reading this to do the same. People may think it strange, but I think it's going to be fun! I gotta remember to take my digital camera to work so I can get some pictures.

Bizarre!

Today, I had the most bizarre phone call. Co-worker comes to me and says there is an abuse issue that needs addressed on line one. So, I pick up line one, and this guy is telling me about this guy who "uses your service" (I work for an ISP) who is making online threats, photoshopping nude photos and posting them online, and is involved in identity theft, all if which violate our usage agreement. The call definitely grabs my interest, because network security is fascinating. I start asking for information. The caller tells me that the police, sheriff, and FBI have all been contacted and are involved, so he cannot give me the IP address. At this point I'm thinking "Then why am I talking to you instead of a fed," but I don't say anything. Instead, I inform him that first, we would need a valid subpoena to release log files (not that our logs are particularly useful) and also state that we used to have a different upstream provider which provided IP address space to us, but we gave it back even though records still show those IP addresses as being assigned to us. I tell him the address space that is, and also our CIDR block, and he tells me that the address in question isn't part of either network. How bizarre! I explain that I would need to talk to one of the three computer guys who told him that the activity traced to our network in order to investigate further, because an issue coming from that address could not have come from us. He finally relented and gave me the IP address, and a quick trip to ARIN shows that the IP address belongs to Road Runner! I do a traceroute and find out that this particular Road Runner customer is a business class account, and 22 hops away from us. The caller finally says that he'll take what I've told him back to his computer guys (why is he handling this instead of the feds?!) and will get back to me. I told him that I'd be interested in knowing how the IP traces to us, so have one of the computer guys call me so I can help them figure out what's going on.

RPG Archive: Role Playing Community Site and Online Adventure Database

RPG Archive: Role Playing Community Site and Online Adventure Database
This is an extremely impressive website for role playing. I may have to start some campaigns based on some of the stuff here.
posted by Wintermute # 11:36 AM no comments