Some Reads on a Thursday

Here are some reads I would like to suggest if you get a free moment today.  For all you school workers out there, you should have the day off today, right? :-)

In space technology, here is an excellent piece from the National Review on the transition from the Constellation project to the SLS project as the successor to the space shuttle, even going so far as to say the same thing I did, that the new rocket stack designed to lift the payload off of Earth is just a knockoff of the Saturn V from the Apollo days (and the Ares V rocket as well).  Author Rand Simberg notes that Congressional pork spending (from both Democratic and Republican controlled Congresses) is taking valuable dollars away from what should be being spent on space technology in the NASA budget.  Unfortunately, Congress-people are only more worried about how this affects their own districts as we approach the 2012 election cycle.  Visions of going to the moon by 2020 were farsical under George Bush, but at least NASA under Obama admits that unmanned testing on this vehicle doesn't start until at least 2017.  The Constellation/Orion project originally started under Bush had serious design flaws that were the result of being rushed to make the agency look good in the aftermath of the Columbia accident.  The only thing where I would have a serious issue is toward the end of the piece, where Simberg argues in favor of privatizing launch capabilities for low-cost alternatives to get to LEO and the Space Station.  I have always argued against the infestation of space cowboys.  We have only been in space for 50 years, which is not nearly long enough to understand it enough to start making money off of it.  There is much about space that we have yet to learn, and NASA is the agency through which we should be learning about it.

Over at Lattanzi Land, Dustin wrote up a fantastic guest post on fan reaction to the Redskins' 18-16 loss to the Cowboys on Monday night.  It seems like common sense, but we're not children anymore, people.  Sure, losing to the Cowboys stings, but the next day is Tuesday and we play again on Sunday.  Get over it!  You've got far more important things to worry about than losing a game.  While I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here at Caputo's Corner, if you listened to ESPN980 on Tuesday morning (which Josh affectionately refers to as "Dan Jazeera Radio"), you'd want to barf.  Now, I did not listen myself, quite frankly because Kevin Sheehan's outward homerism can be very off-putting.  They talked all week about Dallas Week, and then when they lose, the wouldn't even take their medicine and hung up on every Cowboy's fan that called in to heckle them.  You can't make this stuff up.  One day, Sheehan says it's Super Bowl or bust.  The next day, he pouts like a 3rd grader who just had his lunch money taken away.  I wonder if Sheehan (and Andy Pollin, usually the voice of reason on the MMQ show) even listen to themselves afterward. 

Finally, I usually don't talk about baseball here at Caputo's Corner (that's Josh's thing), but even I had to take note of what happened last night.  The Red Sox and Braves completed epic collapses that defy description.  Holding leads of 9 and 8.5 games respectively at the start of September, they are both now out of the MLB playoffs as the Rays and Cardinals sneak their way in with wins on the last night of the regular season.  Howard Bryant over at ESPN gives an analysis of what it was like in a span of mere minutes between the end of the Red Sox game, where Johnathan Papelbon blew a 9th inning lead to Baltimore and the end of the Rays game, where Evan Longoria hit a walk-off home run to beat the Yankees (and complete a 7 run comeback in the final 2 innings).  I have always liked the idea of a Wild Card in baseball, and the last couple weeks of September proved that it was in fact a good idea, keeping significant drama in the baseball season even though the 6 division titles had long since been decided.  I don't have a dog in the fight in the MLB postseason, but I have to root for the Rays, if only because they spent an entire decade of futility in the basement of MLB's most competitive (and expensive) division.  Now, they are on level footing with the Yankees, and well ahead of the Red Sox, whom they vanquished in the 2008 playoffs as well.  They open the postseason at Texas tomorrow in the Division Series. 

Alright, hopefully some light reading will keep you happy for a while.  Enjoy your Thursday