332 posts
Yesterday, I visited the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT) museum. CALT designs, develops and manufactures Chinese space launch vehicles and ballistic missiles. The highlight, for me, was a “Smart Dispenser” (SD), which is a CZ-2C upper rocket stage…
Looks like it was that bad. Kaiser claims the press conference “aggravated the doubts of a lot of people.” One literate friend quotes Fischer on Amis: The Bush performance “isn’t bad as in not very good or slightly disappointing. It’s…
Obviously, I didn’t get to see the Bush press conference, but I received the following observations: He didn’t answer a single question (most of which were softballs), he was offered and refused 3 or 4 opportunities to admit that he’d…
The highlight of the Workshop on Technical Aspects of Space Security, so far, has been the tour of The Beijing Museum of Astronautics. I have some great pictures of myself with China’s first ballistic missile (the 1059) and its first…
In a speech on the 43rd anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s epochal spaceflight, President Vladimir Putin called for the demilitarization of outer space: “We all know that for many years, space was an area for military and political rivalry. Today, we…
Xinhua is reporting that seven Chinese nationals were kidnapped by armed men in Fallujah, after they entered Iraq via Jordan. I just arrived in Beijing for a conference on Technical Aspects of Space Security at Beihang (Beijing Aeronautical and Aerospace…
I can’t let up on the bridge thing, I suppose, because Bremer compared the Iraqi reconstruction effort to the Marshall plan: “The grants to Iraq the President seeks bespeak grandeur of vision equal to the one which created the free…
Having read the declassified PDB, we now know the answer to President Bush’s rhetorical question, “Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on…
Two members of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council have resigned over the operation in Fallujah and three others have condemned the operation. Abdel Karim Mahud al-Mahamadawi said “we have failed the Iraqi people”, while Abdel Basit Turki, according to another…
Some “highlights” in the USAID fact sheet released a couple of weeks ago: Power Production“In April, Iraq’s electrical generation capacity was 1,275 MW-29 percent of the pre-conflict level. … Total demand in Iraq is still estimated to be 7,000 MW,…
