(no subject)

[gfish]

I'm feeling increasingly pessimistic about the future of manned space flight, but I can't let /July 20, \d{3}9/ pass without a note. So, yeah, 40 years. I wish my species still dreamed big.

In less depressing news, tonight's D&D game was pretty fun, for all that I had 2 hours in which to throw it together. I gave them a magic crown which tells them if there are any goblins around which would find them sexually attractive. (What do you think magic would be used for, most the time?) Then there was a combat sequence in a mine field for which they had a map, but it was backwards because the mole-people who made it were looking at the surface from below. Favorite moment: stunning the mage while he was levitating 20 feet in the air, thus canceling some very powerful ongoing damage he had going as well as doing enough damage from the fall to get him making death saves. Several players and creatures were also pushed/pulled into landmines, which was fun.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Do not despair for the future of manned space. Despair for the American government's role in it, yes, for it is a great steaming pile of organic fertilizer, and few can abide the odor thereof. But out in the desert they're doing some pretty cool stuff. See icon.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was there for the first Space Ship One flight. That was five years ago, and Space Ship Two is still vaporware. I mean, I have high hopes and all, but in that same time period we went from Mercury through Gemini to Apollo.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't call it vaporware. RM2 and WK2 testing proceeds apace. They *did* have their own AS-204 incident some time back, and it's not like you've got the entire American government doing a cold-war crash program behind you, it's one very small (albeit dedicated and well-funded) company. (They *are* hiring for their first production manager, so I'd say that's a very LOUD signal that they're pretty close to not just unveiling a working SS2, but a whole BUNCH of them (cf. the reveal at the end of "And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place").

The Apollo program was a freaking miracle on the scale of the Parting of the Red Sea.... or the buildup of the American military 1942-1944. And we do not have Nazis breathing down our necks nor the specter of Soviet missiles pointed at us from space to kick us in the butt... only a twinkle in the eyes of Burt, Paul, and Sir Richard. It will get us there... just not at Warp Nine. Modern miracles are considerably more subtle. Like, say, a book.

Patience. With good medicine, we'll all live long enough to see some Really Cool Stuff. Maybe even participate. I hope.