Mostly Travel

            Today our wonderful president announced his plan for moving the US space program into high gear, with a whopping 1 billion dollars in additional funds allocated to NASA for the next five years and an overall budget of 12 billion including diverted funds from other NASA projects. Admittedly this is not supposed to be the full cost of putting a permanent base on the moon, but it is a significant (5 of 11 years, including most of the R&D) fraction of it. In contrast the original Apollo program cost 25.4 billion in 1960's-70's dollars. If anyone believes that Bush's numbers will give a practical result I'd really like to see an explanation.           Almost all practical plans I have seen for a permanent presences on the moon involve three separate segments with specialized craft. An earth to low earth orbit launch vehicle, an orbit to orbit transfer vehicle, and a lunar orbit to lunar surface landing vehicle. The simple...

  I had what had to be the best interview of my life today. I was coherent, concise, and really sold myself well. I covered all my good points, glossed over my bad points, demonstrated how I was working to fix my past problems and was extremely personable (not my strong suit). There was only one tiny problem. They didn't have a job for me. You would think if a company has your resume they would read it and think about it before calling you in. What they are looking for is someone who can move into a low level managerial level position, so what I will be about another 3-5 years down the road(minimum). Definitely not something I'm capable of right now. Once the interviewer clarified that (toward then end) even I had to admit it. I find this very frustrating simply because such a good interview on my part was completely wasted. (Unless I still don't have a job when something at my level opens up, but hopefully that won't be an issue). We'll see but: AAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!...