Post 572 - "Project Space Voyage" from January 1986

I was planning a vacation in 1986, and this brochure appeared at the AAA Travel Bureau, back when such things existed.   It was January, and there was an article in the Chicago Tribune on the 12th discussing the 161 who had already put up $5000 each for the earliest expected "traveler flights," expected by March 1992.   That article is here:  161 Hopefuls Put Up $5000

That was on January 12 - the Challenger disaster happened on January 28, 1986.  There hasn't been much talk about it since, until Mr. Musk began his dreams of escaping planet earth.  

I bring it up in light of the current disaster involving the submersible vehicle Titan, with five casualties reported this afternoon.   

It made me consider that sometimes you can discover the universe along a tree-lined path - with your bicycle.  But then, this area has bears and the occasional goth in a hoodie to enhance the interactive experience.  That's why the bicycle is nice.

 

 

Post 547 - Thinking About Frank Zappa...

I always appreciated Frank Zappa for the solemn determination embodied in each of his performances, even if I didn't understand where things were going once his cigarette was planted atop the headstock. What was, to me, often an aural cacophony (audio anarchy?) of chaotic and tortured chords would later appear as volumes of carefully etched out musical notations - was it some mysterious, coded language daring to rewire the prefrontal cortex? A paean to a torn cuticle pulled across a G-string? An expression of space-time compression?

It all seemed ferocious, fearless - and somehow correct, if indecipherable. It was an attitude that also carried on to his prescient observations on the state of American politics, where he could slice and dice the right-wing talking heads of the Reagan era. He crammed a lot into his 52 years... if he had only not regarded cigarettes as a food...

Frank Zappa - Crossfire - 1986

Time flies