Social/Cultural: January 2008 Archives

During the Cold War, one of the very-popular methods of escaping the thought that the human race might wipe itself out in a flurry of mushroom clouds was the notion that space travel would expand and grow to the point where anybody could go into space. Authors wrote stories about commercial space travel, and Stanley Kubrick gave us a "Pan-Am" space shuttle in the 1969 movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey. There have been a number of private-sector initiatives towards this goal over the years, but Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines (and now Virgin Galactic) continues to move forward to make private space travel a reality.

Private space travel has been a dream deferred by the militarization of the US space program, which began with the development of the space shuttle, and was further nurtured during the presidency of St. Ronald of California. Manned spaceflight was seen merely as a way to deliver satellites to orbit; there was no long-range focus, no unifying goal like NASA had in the 1960s.

Dreamers and entrepeneurs abhor the vacuums created by government, and the vacuum in progress on manned spaceflight was no exception. Starting with SpaceShip One and the Tier One program (backed financially by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen), the movement has reached the point where Branson's company, Virgin Galactic, has revealed the design of their next second-generation spacecraft, SpaceShip Two. Sir Richard's also selling tickets for rides on the six-seat craft, to the tune of $200K apiece.

The buzz surrounding Sir Richard's press conference yesterday is all about "space toruism," but that's not where the money is. Oh, sure, Virgin Galatic is going to make some money by taking people into space, and into orbit when SpaceShip Three is developed, but the commercial applications of the technology are more than just Star Trek dreams.

The simplest way for me to get to Tokyo from New Orleans is a one-hour flight to Atlanta or Chicago, then a 12-14 hour flight from either of those cities to Narita Airport. If I'm going to Singapore, I'm looking at another 5-6 hour flight after clearing immigration at Narita and the appropriate flight-change layover. Combine that with the time change, and it's a 26-28 hour travel day. Sub-orbital space flight could change that dramatically. SpaceShip Two is designed to simply go up and come back down, not to orbit the earth. If I could go up on a sub-orbital spacecraft for a bit, the combination of the craft's engines and the Earth's natural rotation would allow the spacecraft to easily come down someplace else on the planet. Instead of regular airline flights, the trip to Tokyo could become a flight to a "spaceport" like Mojave Spaceport (home of Spaceship Two), then a ride to Japan on a "space plane."

Spaceship Two works on the same basic premise as the old X-15 "rocket plane." The spacecraft is lifted into the atmosphere by a carrier aircraft Spaceship Two's carrier is called White Knight Two, an upgraded version of the White Knight that carried SpaceShip One. Once the pair have reached a high altitude, the spacecraft is released from the carrier, its rockets kick in, and off it goes into space. The spacecraft then re-enters the atmosphere and lands like a plane.

Branson plans to test SpaceShip Two and its carrier by this summer. If all goes well, Virgin Galactic will order a fleet of five spacecraft and begin passenger service in 2009 or 2010.

I haven't gotten my jet pack or hyperdrive yet, but we've also been spared the nuclear holocaust that many science fiction writers postulated, either. Seeing a private company begin passenger service into space will renew much of the hope that Republicans and our government sap out of me daily.

Some thoughts from an old friend of mine. His nickname, is "Fast Johnny," but every calls him "Johnny at the Track," because he's such a regular at the Fair Grounds. I ran into Johnny at a coffee shop on Esplanade Avenue yesterday, and he had some thoughts on crime. I asked him to put them down and e-mail them to me for this entry. I've added some links as well. My friend YatPundit and I were talking yesterday, and, like everyone else in the city, we started talking about our out of control crime problem. I had some thoughts that he thought others might want to read. Let me introduce myself, first. Everybody calls me "Fast Johnny," because the "fast" part is a play on my last name. I'm what you call an entrepeneur, but I've been semi-retired for a while now, so I can relax and watch the races. That's where I met Yat, in fact, at Da Track. We've got to get a handle on violent crime in the city. In the past week, there have been 11 robberies, one assault, and one rape. This isn't the first time the city has had a problem dealing with street crime, so I say, let's go back to giving the cops some leeway on the street. Back in the 1970s, NOPD had a unit, the Felony Action Squad, that had shoot-to-kill orders. Scared the crap outta a lot of folks, and street crime dropped. Sure they ruffled some feathers, but they got results. I don't think the death penalty makes much sense the way they do it up at Angola. By the time they stick that needle in a guy's arm, he's an older and changed person. You've done what you set out to do, getting the guy off the street, killing him is just extra for the families at that point. Thing is, it costs a lot of money to do it this way. Besides, these Assistant DAs have a lot of pressure on them to get convictions. If they re-started the FAS or the Urban Squad, NOPD could go back to doing street executions. I remember one, back in the 1980s, where the cops shot down these two guys on Gentilly Road. Oh, the shit hit the fan, f'sure--there were protests and marches, and there was this great smackdown where some of the women that live in the St. Bernard said they were glad those guys got shot. For all the noise, though, things settled down. You didn't see people protesting that the cops do something, that's a fact. I understand the whole thing about how some people don't cooperate with the cops. Some guys I know have some friends who know some people that are big believers in this. But even they have their ways of handling street crime. NOPD used to have a deal with the DA's office, where there was some leeway in how some arrests were made. The whole "Algiers 7" thing in 1980 messed that deal up, when the Feds got involved and some cops went to jail. Of course, that's when Connick was DA. See, if the street thugs know that the cops are gonna beat the crap outta them, then shoot them down, you don't have to pressure people into testifying. I don't blame these young kids for running like the devil when the cops are on them. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be somebody's bitch on a farm at Angola. But that's the problem, they shoot too much at the cops. They think that, if they fire a few shots, they'll get the time they need to get away. It doesn't work that way--all the bullets do is piss the cops off! That's then the system breaks down, though. These kids get out on bail, or the cases don't go anywhere because there are no witnesses. Let the cops track these kids down and put them down like they do horses. New Orleans isn't a place to try to rehabilitate criminals. We're trying to rebuild, here. It's not fair to ship the criminals to another town, where they'll just go after other folks. Just shoot them down and be done with it.

no witness cooperation, no trial, but the citizens of Jefferson Parish got a death penalty anyway:

The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Department said a man killed in Marrero over night was Christopher Davis, 23, who was charged with murder last January. Police said Davis shot and killed Vincent Bartholomew in the 1600 block of Buccola in Marrero. But the District Attorney’s Office dropped those charges, saying witnesses wouldn’t cooperate.

I was reading EbonyJet.com's blog post on The 10 Most Important Blog Posts of 2007, and one of them was an Honorable Mention to Cracked.com for "The 9 Most Racist Disney Characters." Some of them are no-brainers, but others are subtle and interesting.