Tuesday - October 17, 2006

Quote Of The Day

“Cloning could solve a number of long-standing farm problems. Many prize males are not recognized as such until long after they have been tamed by castration. With cloning, that lack of semen would not matter.”

-- Washington Post, “FDA Is Set To Approve Milk, Meat From Clones”

Posted by The Skipper     on 10/17/2006 at 09:06 AM   
Filed Under: • Fine-Dining • Science-Technology •  
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   Wednesday - September 06, 2006

Most Ridiculous Item Of The Day (so far)

There’s something fishy going on in Washington, DC ... and I don’t mean in our govermnent (although there is plenty of fishiness there as well). No, this fish story is frightening. Male bass are growing eggs and displaying feminine characteristics! Sort of a “Queer Eye For The Finned Guy” kinda thing, dont’cha know.

Since today’s theme seems to be sexual conspiracies (see post below this one) I am downright concerned and am wondering if this is some trick by the Gay-Lesbian-Transexual-Bisexual group (or whatever their name is).  Could they be putting something in the drinking water to make fish come out of the closet? And what happens when we straight males eat those flakey fish? Do we wake up the next morning with large boobies and squeeky voices?

I know I for one am pretty concerned about this evil plot to rob us of our manhood with a biological weapon disguised under an innocent layer of tartar sauce. I demand a federal investigation into this matter. It’s obvious to me that some of our GOP congressmen have shown a severe lack of testicular fortitude lately. Can this be a symptom of an overall plan to “de-nut” our leaders?

The truth is out there ... and I intend to find it. Now, would you please pass me the hush puppies and cole slaw ...

Male Bass Across Region Found to Be Bearing Eggs
Pollution Concerns Arise In Drinking-Water Source
By David A. Fahrenthold
_{(WASHINGTON POST) - Wednesday, September 6, 2006}

Abnormally developed fish, possessing both male and female characteristics, have been discovered in the Potomac River in the District and in tributaries across the region, federal scientists say—raising alarms that the river is tainted by pollution that drives hormone systems haywire.

The fish, smallmouth and largemouth bass, are naturally males but for some reason are developing immature eggs inside their sex organs. Their discovery at such widely spread sites, including one just upstream from the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, seems to show that the Potomac’s problem with “intersex” fish extends far beyond the West Virginia stream where they were first found in 2003.

The cause of the abnormalities is unknown, but scientists suspect a class of waterborne contaminants that can confuse animals’ growth and reproductive systems. These pollutants are poorly understood, however, leaving many observers with questions about what the problems in fish mean for the Potomac and the millions of people who take their tap water from it.

“I don’t know, and I don’t think anybody knows, the answer to that question right now: Is the effect in the fish transferable to humans?” said Thomas Jacobus, general manager of the Washington Aqueduct, which processes Potomac water to provide drinking water for residents of the District, Arlington County and Falls Church.

Jacobus, like others at area utilities, said there was no evidence that tap water taken from the Potomac was unsafe to drink. They said humans should be far less susceptible to the river’s pollution than fish, because people are not exposed constantly to the water, our hormone systems work differently, and our larger bodies should require higher doses of any pollutant to cause problems. As research on the fish continues, other scientists across the region are trying to determine whether Potomac water or mud can affect human cells. This research, including tests at West Virginia University that examine whether cells react as if estrogen or estrogen mimics are present, has not reached any solid conclusions.

The first intersex fish in this area were found three years ago in the South Branch of the Potomac, a tributary more than 200 miles upstream from Washington. In 2004, more abnormal bass were discovered in a section of the upper Potomac near Sharpsburg, Md.

Following up, last fall federal and state researchers caught smallmouth bass in the Shenandoah River in Virginia and in the Monocacy River and Conococheague Creek in Maryland. All three tributaries eventually empty into the Potomac. At the site on the Potomac itself in the District, there are no smallmouth bass, so the researchers examined largemouth bass.

The results were striking, according to Vicki S. Blazer, a fish pathologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. More than 80 percent of all the male smallmouth bass they found were growing eggs, including all of the fish caught at four of the seven survey sites. The intersex condition doesn’t change the fish’s outward appearance but can be detected under a microscope.

At the site in Washington, seven of 13 male largemouth bass showed some kind of unusual feminine characteristic. Six of the seven fish tested positive for a protein used to produce eggs, and three of the seven contained eggs, Blazer said.

- More on the transexual fish at WAPO ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 09/06/2006 at 10:35 AM   
Filed Under: • Satire • Science-Technology • Sex •  
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   Friday - September 01, 2006

After The Shuttle

I am disappointed. NASA is going back to “tried and true technology”? This is just a modified version of the Apollo capsules. Of course, NASA probably didn’t have much choice considering how much funding has been cut from the space program over the last few decades. I would much rather have seen the X-33 or some SCRAMJET variant zooming across Earth’s upper atmosphere to a fully functioning space station with huge research facilities and living accomodations for several hundred.

We are now five years past Arthur Clarke’s vision of humans in space in “2001”. The problem is simple: take a close look at the space station in that movie and you’ll see that it was built by private companies .. not government. The orbiter has PanAm on the side and inside the station was a Howard Johnsons, if I remember correctly.

Space will not be colonized or explored by governments, neither ours nor anyone else’s. Government funding is too whimsical and often at the mercy of partisan politics or military expediency. The exploration of space is too important to mankind to be left in the hands of bureaucrats. I wish the government would sell off NASA and let private companies take over. If that ever happens, our children or grandchildren will see colonies on other planets in no time ... provided the Vulcans and Klingons are willing to accept us ....

Lockheed Wins Contract to Build
NASA’s New Spaceship
_{(WASHINGTON POST) - Friday, September 1, 2006}

Lockheed Martin Corp. won a multibillion-dollar contract yesterday to build a vehicle to replace NASA’s space shuttles, put a human on the moon for the first time since 1972 and be the precursor to a manned spaceship to Mars.

The award marks NASA’s most concrete step to fulfill President Bush’s two-year-old, $230 billion promise that the space agency would return astronauts to the moon and restore excitement about space exploration. NASA has planned to replace the shuttles since the mid-1980s and has spent almost $5 billion to do so—with little success so far.

“It’s just thrilling, for all of us,” said Skip Hatfield, NASA’s project manager. The vehicle, known as Orion, is the embodiment of the “very future of human space flight,” he said.

Orion will look somewhat like the three-man Apollo command module but will carry as many as six astronauts. Like the shuttle, Orion will be able to carry cargo to and from the International Space Station.

Orion is expected to make its first manned flight by 2014, four years after NASA’s three operating shuttles are retired. NASA said it hopes for a moon landing by 2020.

Unlike the shuttle, which lands like an airplane on a runway, Orion will descend with the aid of a parachute to landings in the ocean or on land. NASA plans to build two of the vehicles, one for manned flight and the other for unmanned. After judging how often the spaceships can be reused, the agency will decide how many more to buy, Hatfield said.

It was a somewhat unexpected win for Lockheed, the Pentagon’s largest contractor. The other competitor, Northrop Grumman, was considered the front-runner because along with its subcontractor, Boeing Co., it has been involved with all of the country’s manned space programs. Lockheed also has had a long history with NASA, though not entirely positive, and not predominantly with manned vehicles.

The company builds the shuttle’s external fuel tank and, in a joint venture with Boeing known as the United Space Alliance, took over day-to-day management of the shuttle program in 1996. But it was blamed for the 1999 disappearance of the Mars Climate Orbiter, which vanished into space or burned up in the Mars atmosphere after Lockheed engineers incorrectly programmed it using English rather than metric units. When the Genesis space capsule crashed in 2004, NASA said it was because of errors in designs prepared by the company. Lockheed’s earlier effort to build a shuttle replacement—the X-33 “space plane”—was canceled in 2001 after it ran into technological and cost problems.

- More on the story at WAPO ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 09/01/2006 at 07:34 AM   
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   Thursday - August 24, 2006

Downsized

“How stupid can scientists be? I mean, we already knew Pluto wasn’t a planet. Are these scientists completely blind or just plain stupid. Pluto is not a planet and never has been. As everyone knows, Pluto is a big, playful, lovable brown dog owned by Mickey Mouse. Now how can anyone confuse that cute little dog with some huge ugly planet? I never ... huh? ... really? Never mind.”—Emily Litella

Astronomers Say Pluto Is Not a Planet
_{PRAGUE, Czech Republic (WASHINGTON POST)}

Leading astronomers declared Thursday that Pluto is no longer a planet under historic new guidelines that downsize the solar system from nine planets to eight.

After a tumultuous week of clashing over the essence of the cosmos, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930.

The new definition of what is and isn’t a planet fills a centuries-old black hole for scientists who have labored since Copernicus without one.

Although astronomers applauded after the vote, Jocelyn Bell Burnell a specialist in neutron stars from Northern Ireland who oversaw the proceedings urged those who might be “quite disappointed” to look on the bright side.

“It could be argued that we are creating an umbrella called ‘planet’ under which the dwarf planets exist,” she said, drawing laughter by waving a stuffed Pluto of Walt Disney fame beneath a real umbrella.

The decision by the prestigious international group spells out the basic tests that celestial objects will have to meet before they can be considered for admission to the elite cosmic club. For now, membership will be restricted to the eight “classical” planets in the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Much-maligned Pluto doesn’t make the grade under the new rules for a planet: “a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a ... nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.” Pluto is automatically disqualified because its oblong orbit overlaps with Neptune’s.

Instead, it will be reclassified in a new category of “dwarf planets,” similar to what long have been termed “minor planets.” The definition also lays out a third class of lesser objects that orbit the sun “small solar system bodies,” a term that will apply to numerous asteroids, comets and other natural satellites.

- More on Pluto’s demise at WAPO ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/24/2006 at 09:55 AM   
Filed Under: • Humor • Science-Technology •  
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   Wednesday - July 19, 2006

Stem Cell Poll

The Congress passed H.R.810 by a vote of 238 to 194 and the Senate passed the bill by a vote of 63-37. President Bush has promised to veto the bill. It will take 67 votes in the Senate to override the President’s veto if he does indeed veto it. Those are the facts.

The text of the bill is provided below so you can judge for yourself. Cast your vote in the poll and let us know what you think. Vote limiting is enabled for this very serious question. One vote per IP address. Democratic Party ballot stuffing will not be allowed.

In First Veto, Bush Blocks Stem Cell Bill
(WASHINGTON POST) - Wednesday, July 19, 2006; 2:36 PM

President Bush today used the first veto of his presidency to stop legislation that would have lifted restrictions on federally funded human embryonic stem cell research.

“This bill would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others,” Bush, speaking at the White House, said after he followed through on his promise to veto the bill. “It crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect. So I vetoed it.”

H.R.810

One Hundred Ninth Congress
of the
United States of America

AT THE SECOND SESSION

Begun and held at the City of Washington on Tuesday,
the third day of January, two thousand and six

An Act

To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for human embryonic stem cell research.

      Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

      This Act may be cited as the `Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005’.

SEC. 2. HUMAN EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH.

      Part H of title IV of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 289 et seq.) is amended by inserting after section 498C the following:

‘SEC. 498D. HUMAN EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH.

      `(a) In General- Notwithstanding any other provision of law (including any regulation or guidance), the Secretary shall conduct and support research that utilizes human embryonic stem cells in accordance with this section (regardless of the date on which the stem cells were derived from a human embryo).

      `(b) Ethical Requirements- Human embryonic stem cells shall be eligible for use in any research conducted or supported by the Secretary if the cells meet each of the following:

            `(1) The stem cells were derived from human embryos that have been donated from in vitro fertilization clinics, were created for the purposes of fertility treatment, and were in excess of the clinical need of the individuals seeking such treatment.

            `(2) Prior to the consideration of embryo donation and through consultation with the individuals seeking fertility treatment, it was determined that the embryos would never be implanted in a woman and would otherwise be discarded.

            `(3) The individuals seeking fertility treatment donated the embryos with written informed consent and without receiving any financial or other inducements to make the donation.

      `(c) Guidelines- Not later than 60 days after the date of the enactment of this section, the Secretary, in consultation with the Director of NIH, shall issue final guidelines to carry out this section.

      `(d) Reporting Requirements- The Secretary shall annually prepare and submit to the appropriate committees of the Congress a report describing the activities carried out under this section during the preceding fiscal year, and including a description of whether and to what extent research under subsection (a) has been conducted in accordance with this section.’.

Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Vice President of the United States and President of the Senate.

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/19/2006 at 09:37 AM   
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   Monday - July 17, 2006

Home Again

They’re back and everything went well up there. It’s too bad things are deteriorating rather quickly down here. Personlly, I think it’s past time to retire the fleet of “freight train” shuttles and go ahead and deploy the newer Scramjet launch vehicles. The shuttle fleet served its purpose just as the Apollo vehicles before them.

Also, like the Apollo vehicles, their day is over. It’s time we took this to the next level and stopped playing around in space exploration. By my calculations we don’t have long before we’ll need to pack all the reasonable, intelligent people on a rocket and bug out of here.

This planet is going to the dogs. I say we get the heck out of Dodge and leave the Liberal Loons, Euro-Peons and Arabs to fight it out amongst themselves. We can watch the show from our new home in the Alpha Centauri system.

Anyway, congratulations to NASA for another good job. Onward and Upward ....

Space Shuttle Discovery
Lands Safely
_{CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP)
July 17, 2006 09:20am EDT}

Space shuttle Discovery and its crew of six returned to Earth through thick clouds Monday, ending an impressive mission that put NASA’s space program back on a solid, safer course.

Discovery landed at Kennedy Space Center at 9:14 a.m. in only the second shuttle flight since the 2003 Columbia disaster.

“Welcome back, Discovery, and congratulations on a great mission,” Mission Control told shuttle commander Steven Lindsey after Discovery rolled to a stop.

“It was a great mission, a really great mission, and enjoyed the entry and the landing,” Lindsey replied.

The smooth landing was sure to leave NASA officials jubilant, after conquering the chronic threat of foam chunks that break off the external fuel tank during launch — still a problem, but not a serious one in this mission.

The shuttle came in from the south, swooping over the Pacific, Yucatan Peninsula, Gulf of Mexico and across Florida to cap a 5.3 million-mile journey that began on the Fourth of July.

A last-minute buildup of clouds prompted NASA to switch the shuttle’s direction for landing. By the time Discovery approached, it was so cloudy, Lindsey couldn’t spot the runway until about a minute before landing.

At touchdown, hoots and whistles came from the few hundred astronauts’ relatives and space center workers at the runway. NASA officials had been certain going into Monday’s landing that Discovery’s heat shield was intact and capable of protecting the spaceship during the fiery re-entry.

- More on the story here ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/17/2006 at 09:44 AM   
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The Obsolete Gender

Sorry, guys. It’s all over for us now. They can make their own sperm now so we men will soon join T-Rex in the catalog of “Animals Who Disappeared”. The feminazis are probably already planning our extinction after this breakthrough discovery. We’re doomed, I tells ya ...

Women Could Make Sperm
—_{(IRISH HEALTH) - Tue 11/07/2006}

A new scientific breakthrough may lead to women in future being able to produce sperm. Scientists in England have turned stem cells from am embryo into sperm which are capable of producing offspring.

The breakthrough is likely to lead to new advances in treating male infertility and even the possibility that women could manufacture sperm.

The researchers at Newcastle University say that the advance, when developed further, could help men with certain types of infertility to become fertile and even one day could enable a lesbian couple to have children that genetically would be their own.

The experiment used embryo cells to produce seven baby mice, six of whom lived into adulthood, although the survivors suffered adverse events of the kind seen in cloning experiments.

The researchers isolated embryonic stem cells from an embryo only a few days old consisting of a cluster of cells. The cells were grown in a laboratory and screened to isolate the spermatogonial stem calls which were grown and then injected into female mouse eggs and grown in early stage embryos.

The research team says its project will aid the understanding of the biological process through which sperm is produced, which should help in the future treatment of infertility. It is hoped that this new knowledge could be translated into treatments for men whose sperm is dysfunctional, although could be some years into the future. The research was published in the journal Developmental Cell.

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/17/2006 at 09:25 AM   
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   Wednesday - July 12, 2006

Awesome!

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/12/2006 at 03:53 PM   
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   Tuesday - July 04, 2006

LIFTOFF!

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/04/2006 at 02:41 PM   
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   Sunday - July 02, 2006

Deep Impact Avoided?

Whew! For a minute there I was scared. Only 270,000 miles away? Heck, in space terms that’s a cat’s whisker. At a half mile wide, this monster is big enough to cause another extinction level event (ELE) even worse than the last one that allegedly killed all those cute dinosaurs we all came to love so much. I am urging everyone to go out in the woods and find a spotted owl, take it home and protect it ... just in case.

I’m sure this is a result of glowball warming. Think about it! A warmer planet attracts all kinds of frozen strange rocks floating around out there. They just want to get warm, like everyone else so you better trade in your huge, honking SUV for a Yugo ASAP or we’re all doomed. Then again ... it’s probably all George W. Bush’s fault. Yeah, I just know it’s an evil neo-con plot. They want to destroy all the Liberals with a big rock. I just know it.

Asteroid Set For Close Encounter
_{(BBC) - Saturday, 1 July 2006, 06:53 GMT 07:53 UK}

A large asteroid is set to pass Earth in a close encounter which scientists say will pose no danger. The asteroid, estimated at half a mile (800m) wide, will sweep within 270,000 miles (433,000km) of the planet - only slightly further away than the moon.

“It’s not Earth-threatening,” said Don Yeomans, who heads Nasa’s Near Earth Object Program. The asteroid, 2004 XP14, should be visible by telescope from N America and Europe, most clearly on Monday.

Asteroid-spotters should look towards the Perseus, Cassiopeia and Cephus, constellations to try to spot it. It will appear as a moving dot against the stars, said Roger Sinnott, of Sky and Telescope magazine.

The asteroid is expected to pass the Earth on a number of future occasions too, but scientists believe it is likely to be further away on future passes. The asteroid, which was discovered in 2004, is one of the largest of several dozen asteroids to have passed near Earth in recent years.

“For something of this size to come this close is unusual,” Mr Yeomans said. US scientists will use a radar beacon at the Goldstone Observatory in the Mojave Desert to work out more about the asteroid’s shape, and about its likely future course.

It is among 783 asteroids currently classified as potentially hazardous by the Minor Planet Centre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, because of its size and proximity to Earth.

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/02/2006 at 10:25 AM   
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   Saturday - June 24, 2006

Warp Drives Explained

- From: “Warp Drives” - Popular Science

How Do Warp Drives Work?

A spacecraft that travels at faster-than-light speeds by distorting, or “warping,” the fabric of spacetime. Instead of trying to move through space, the warp drive moves space itself. The ship sits inside a bubble of spacetime bound by a negative energy field that races across the cosmos.

1. Fuel Up: Start beyond Earth’s immediate gravitational pull. Convert matter into negative energy (particles with negative mass that are repelled by gravity rather than attracted to it).

2. Curve Spacetime: Emit pulses of negative energy to curve spacetime. Form a sphere around the ship with the energy, insulating passengers in their own private spacetime bubble.

3. Drop Out: The bubble warps spacetime so drastically that it actually slips out of the visible universe. Only a narrow tube of negative energy keeps it tied to our world.

4. Expand Space: Now that the craft is protected in its spacetime bubble, the real work can begin: Expand space behind the bubble at faster-than-light speed, and shrink the space in front.

What Do We Still Need To Develop To Have Warp Drives?

• Discover Negative Energy: There are no known particles with negative mass. The closest scientists have come is a phenomenon called the Casimir effect, wherein empty space between two conducting plates behaves as if it contains negative energy.


• Devise a Way To Manipulate It: Even if scientists could transform matter into negative energy, they would still have to find a way to focus it and create an infinitesimally thin, yet extraordinarily stable, bubble of the stuff around the spaceship.


• Harness Dark Energy: In recent years, cosmologists have been studying a mysterious force called dark energy that they think is accelerating the expansion of the universe. If scientists could generate it at the back of the bubble, it might move, or expand, space.


• Build Bubble Brakes: Because the spacetime carrying the ship would be completely cut off from the outside of the bubble, there would be no way to send a signal to turn off the warp drive. The signal would never get there, and the ship would never stop.


• Engineer Scott: Wait patiently for a child to be born in Scotland named Montgomery Scott who will be the only engineer in Star Fleet who can barely hold the warp engines together when the Romulans attack. Aye, Cap’n.

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/24/2006 at 01:27 PM   
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   Monday - June 05, 2006

Nobel Prize Candidate?

I see only one problem with this new beer that might keep its inventors from receiving the Nobel Prize for Medicine ... it’s non-alcoholic. C’mon guys! What good is it doing any of us if we give our women beer that helps them act rational and sane but at the same time we don’t take advantage of the moment and get them drunk? 

Face it! When they’re going through menopause they’re impossible to be around. Why fix the menopause in the first place if we’re not prepared to take the next step and boldly go where ... never mind. Now if we could only find a beer to cure the similar affliction in men of a certain age, commonly known as “mental pause”, then we’d be in business ...

Scientists Brew Menopause Beer
_{Friday, June 02, 2006}

(HEALTH-24) - Czech scientists say they have created a new non-alcoholic beer that contains 10 times the normal amount of phytoestrogen, intended to help women suffering from the menopause. The beer, developed by the Czech Republic’s Research Institute for Brewing and Malting, is intended to relieve menopausal symptoms and maintain bone density by tackling a lack of the oestrogen hormone in many Czech women.

The development marks a sizeable breakthrough in the realm of functional beer, at a time when functional foods are becoming more popular in many markets. Oestrogen levels drop significantly in women at the onset of the menopause and remain low from then on. Studies have linked a lack of the hormone to increased risk of various health problems, including heart disease and osteoporosis.

“Czech women lack oestrogen in their diet, so we wanted to solve this through beer because the Czech Republic is number one in the world for beer consumption,” Karel Kosar, managing director of the brewing research institute, told Cee-FoodIndustry.com. Czechs drink an average 161 litres of beer each every year, compared to 121 in Germany, 84 in the US and around one litre in India.

Scientists have known for some time that hops used to make beer naturally contain phytoestrogen, a form of the oestrogen hormone found in plants. Kosar said he and the team had used newly developed technology to make the beer.

He said the technique should also enable them to make the beer non-alcoholic yet preserve taste by maintaining the same levels of hops and malt as a normal alcoholic lager. The scientists now plan to expand the research to bring their new beer closer to its market debut. Funding could be a problem, however. “We are looking to do more research, but everything costs money,” said Kosar.

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/05/2006 at 09:54 AM   
Filed Under: • Medical • Science-Technology •  
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   Wednesday - May 24, 2006

So, You Want To Fly?

Just get a Man-Cannon

You’d think that with global terrorist threats and fighting two wars, the US Defense Department would have little time on its hands to start a circus troupe.

However, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has filed a patent application for a contraption designed to hurl SWAT teams and other emergency workers onto the roofs of inaccessible tall buildings human cannonball style, New Scientist reports.

The lethal-looking device (pictured) consists of a forward-facing chair mounted on rails that point at an angle of up to 80°. Powered by compressed air, the foolhardy “payload” would shoot up until the saddle reaches the end of the rails, at which point he would flail free skyward.

The application is extremely detailed, with proposals for computer control, feedback mechanisms, and valve pneumatics. They don’t seem to have considered in as much depth what happens once gravity takes over.

But no matter, the designers reckon a four metre high launcher could put a man on the top of a five storey building in less than two seconds.

Read the patent here.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/24/2006 at 10:15 AM   
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   Tuesday - May 23, 2006

Through The Looking Glass

“Onward And Upward”
_{-by- Red Orbit}

In Memoriam:  Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White, II, Roger B. Chaffee (Died: January 27, 1967, Apollo I); Francis “Dick” Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Judith A. Resnik, Ellison S. Onizuka, Ronald E. McNair, Gregory B. Jarvis, S. Christa McAuliffe (Died: January 28, 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger); Rick D. Husband, William C. McCool, Michael P. Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark, Ilan Ramon (Died:  February, 1, 2003, Space Shuttle Columbia).

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/23/2006 at 05:27 PM   
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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