Monday, August 13, 2007

It's Good To Know That Some Things Never Change

Russian news agency Interfax is reporting that thieves have stolen a three-tonne meteorite from the yard of the Tunguska Space Event foundation, whose director said it was the part of meteor that caused a massive explosion in Siberia in 1908. The massive three tonne rock was bought to Krasnoyarsk after an 2004 expedition to the site of the so-called "Tunguska event'' - a mysterious mid air explosion over Siberia in 1908 was 1,000 times more powerful than the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 and felled an estimated 80 million trees over 2,150 square kilometers (830 sq mi). The foundation's director Yury Lavbin claimed to have discovered the wreckage of an alien spacecraft during the expedition.

"It winds up that it disappeared said Lavbin. "Our colleagues are establishing what got lost, where the rock is and why they only came to us about it now,'' he said.

Via - Interfax

I knew it!

When Nazi's Have it Right


Gather 'round while I sing you of Wernher von Braun,
A man whose allegiance
Is ruled by expedience.
Call him a Nazi, he won't even frown,
"Ha, Nazi, Schmazi," says Wernher von Braun.

Don't say that he's hypocritical,
Say rather that he's apolitical.
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun.

Some have harsh words for this man of renown,
But some think our attitude
Should be one of gratitude,
Like the widows and cripples in old London town,
Who owe their large pensions to Wernher von Braun.**

You too may be a big hero,
Once you've learned to count backwards to zero.
"In German oder English I know how to count down,
Und I'm learning Chinese!" says Wernher von Braun.

Wernher von Braun, perhaps NASA's most famous Nazi, had it right through when he argued that
rockets must be symmetrical from tip to tail. Having irregular protuberances anywhere along
the profile of the rocket -- solid rocket boosters, an auxiliary fuel tank and all the pipes,
cables and trusses holding everything together -- at the speeds and forces that a spacecraft
is subjected to shaking off its earthly shackles and re-acquiring them is bound to folly. And
so has it proved with this last space shot. NASA reports today that they will extend the mission
by another three days to determine (and repair if necessary)this twenty-odd year old's spaceship's
space-worthiness. Isn't it time to give the old bird a rest?