Post
by Coito ergo sum » Mon Mar 07, 2011 5:18 pm
She's a fucking idiot.
1. The whole pen-pencil thing is a giant load of shit - a myth that has been perpetuated for decades, but it is simply bullshit and nothing more. The Americans used pencils on the mercury and gemini manned missions, just like the russians did. The pen was developed by a company called Fisher. The problem to be solved by using a pen was the reality that pencil points break a lot and become possible hazards by having little pieces floating around, and then you need a sharpener. They also have the nasty habit of burning rapidly in an oxygen atmosphere. After the Apollo 1 disaster where astronauts died in a fire, NASA decided to go with the pen. The first load of space pens were sold to NASA in 1968 at $2.95 each and the Russians followed suit thereafter and began using pens.
2. The US has a heavy lift rocket called the Atlas V, which it actually just launched, again, on March 5, 2011. We are not dependent on the Russian space program. However, there is nothing wrong or emasculating about working with other space programs, including Europe and Russia.
3. She wrote, "Last year, in his February budget request to congress, Obama committed the US to continued space exploration, pointing to asteroids and Mars as new frontiers." -- Yeah - that's what he SAID. But, in the year since then, we haven't heard word one. There is NO COMMITMENT to a continued space exploration involving manned missions, at least none that has been made public. She goes on to say, "Americans should be relieved that their president no longer needs pompous and hugely costly phallic displays of political potency to convince anyone that he's top dog." And, of course, that's a steaming pile of shit - typical Euro-arrogance that assumes that the only reason the Americans were going back to the moon was a big dick contest - clearly only someone with penis envy or a micropenis would make that assumption. The space program was for exploration, discovery, scientific learning, technological development and a host of other valid reasons other than "my dick is bigger than yours." That may be the only reason this fuckwit sees to have a vibrant space program, but anyone who actually knows anything about it knows better.
Is there a ricin for that? 
