IDK why 81 year old Poli-sci major, attorney, and ultimate NASA executive decision maker Bill Nelson wasn't forced out of office after he incorrectly explained to Congress that the far side of the moon is always dark
Like it or not, the job of the NASA administrator is not to actually do science or engineering, it is to fight for the agency’s budget with the President and Congress—a job for which political schmoozer extraordinaire Bill Nelson is eminently qualified, much more so than “real astronaut” Charlie Bolden, who struggled in this role despite being the epitome of the hypercompetent NASA pilot. I know which one I want at the controls of my aircraft, and which one I want on the witness stand on behalf of my government agency.
"Dark" in this context could be ambigious. It is possible he meant that the sun didn't shine there (it was literally dark0, which is false. Another possibility its its "dark" to direct communication from Earth, which is what people who know what they are talking about understand it to mean and literally say.
What's more troubling is the next statement - "We don't know whats there". Well, we've done tons of imaging on that side, since the 1960s. So I think we know something about whats there. Its just that there doesn't appear to be that much interesting there, that merits a specific landing mission.
Though there's a sense of the word "dark" that means it's unseen or that we are ignorant of it. Like "to leave someone in the dark", to "go dark" in communication, or a "dark match" in pro-wrestling (it happens but isn't broadcast and doesn't effect storylines).
Might be too much to hope for, but he could just mean it's always dark to us.
I'm getting of a kick out of this Trone calling it the "backside of a moon" and chewing on his glasses. Ain't no nerd. Tell me wut these Chinese is doing on the backside of the moon and leave the spacey mumbo jumbo out of it.
Did you watch the video? He also says, “we don’t know what’s on the back side of the moon”
I guess we have decided to elect political representatives are just egotistical camera whores, but why should the top decision maker at a technical agency be a complete idiot who is ignorant about many things the agency he runs has done? It would be like the head of the air force saying airplanes fly because of flubber
Do we have something in place to monitor the far side? We don't have a visual on it like we do the near side. Yeah, we've flown around it, imaged it in the past. Nothing ongoing though.
If you think about it in a national security sense instead of an astronomical one, the question is "what is a rival power up to", then indeed it is dark and unknown.
Mind I only watched from the timestamp, I might have missed something and this guy is a complete shit for brains.
The linked clip is pretty unequivocal, if you watch it. Nelson says: "They are going to have a lander on the far side of the moon, which is the side that is always in dark. We're not planning to go there."
Yeah, I watched it. I can hear it both ways. I don't know his mind or lack thereof, only that he hasn't necessarily spoken wrongly in that phrase
I could see governmental types having a colloquial use of the word at times like these that doesn't mean "it's always in the literal absence of light".
Didn't Asimov write about half the moon being dark? TIL the "far side of the moon" is actually referred to as "the dark side of the moon". But yeah, it's funny/sad that nobody in the room seems to know anything.
When we earthlings see a new moon, we see one dark side turned towards us, while another dark side is the far side; Moon is completely in the Earth's shadow.
During a solar eclipse, the far side is brightly lit, while the side turned towards us is dark.
Most of the time the dark side does not match the far or the near side, we see a part of both the dark and lit sides as a crescent.
I don't see how "the far side" and "the dark side" can be used interchangeably in any situation.
The earth’s shadow has nothing to do with moon phases and only affects our view during a lunar eclipse.
I always thought the dark side of the moon meant from earths’ view: we can see the light side (even when it’s dark) but we can’t see the dark side (even when it’s light)
Uh, no.
The ONLY time we see a new moon is during an eclipse. Other times the moon is above or below the sun and is too dim to see. A lunar eclipse is when the moon passes into the earth’s shadow and they happens during full moons
OK, we don't actually get to recognize the shape of the new moon with a naked eye because it's dark against the sky. It's still hot enough for some time to be visible in IR pretty well.
The point is that the lit part of the Moon moves widely, while the far / near sides don't due to the tidal lock. Hence they can't be used interchangeably.
Boeing would lock non-conforming parts in a cage so there is no chance they will be accidentally used. Unfortunately, managers would overrule an inspector and get the parts released for use
Now imagine that the manager knows there's an adversarial team actively working to entrap them into doing just that, with firing power and a financial incentive to use it.
Or imagine the CEO says, "Safety is everyone's job, we will accept no lapses in safety"
Instead the CEO said "increase monthly production 10% this quarter"
There is no trick needed here, just the proper leadership. The current Boeing CEO is an accountant who made a fortune running the private equity playbook of squeezing out costs:
And what if the management hierarchy actively fought against safety and quality inspection, and deliberately avoided making documentation, and worked to kick out or demoralise anyone who tried to ensure safety and quality?
> Under the leadership of CEO Jim McNerney, Boeing underwent a seismic shift in its corporate culture. Driven by a desire to cut costs and bust unions, McNerney embarked on a mission to outsource the development and engineering of the 787 Dreamliner to suppliers, many of whom lacked the necessary expertise. This ill-conceived plan not only burned through billions of dollars but also set the stage for a systematic purge of Boeing’s most experienced and knowledgeable workforce.
> Deliberate nondocumentation was a cornerstone of the new Boeing culture with which Swampy came into constant conflict. In 2014, he was reprimanded in a performance review for documenting “process violations” in writing instead of flagging issues verbally and “working in the gray areas”—i.e., without leaving a paper trail. Nondocumentation was part of a larger “theory,” Swampy explained in an interview earlier this year with TMZ, that “quality is overhead and not value-added.”
"We are confident in the safety of the 737 MAX and in the work of the men and women who design and build it," Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg March 2019
Tell me you have never worked in a publicly traded without saying it.
This is EXACTLY what late stage "political" companies are like. There is no rational way to decide who gets the window office vs. the internal office. Everything is "political"
Very nice intro. I like how you introduce networking layers. It seems you are starting to go down the path of explaining how computers and servers work - and that is certainly daunting. Maybe just stick with networking and introduce more of that and how real world systems (T1 and Ethernet) are just changing voltages at some point - and can be swapped in or out because of network layers. Then build up packet switched messages TCP, Telnet, HTTP
Thanks for the thorough research, not just on-line, but including calling people.
I occasionally go down rabbit holes like this and I have not gotten the helpful responses from officials I have contacted in the New England area. I don't know if I was telegraphing some agenda the officials did not want to further, or if it was because you were dealing with "Minnesota nice" people. I first heard of Minnesota nice when a curmudgeonly co-worker was grumbling about calling Anderson Window, "I hate calling them, they are so effing nice!"
I have been following Simon Wardley on Twitter and read most of his blog posts about mapping and maybe kind of worked through his examples - so I am not any kind of expert and had never used them before. I was introduced by a client to the roof truss industry. Here is a link to one corner of an entire ecosystem:
https://www.tpinst.org/
Just to help me make sense of an industry that I was completely unfamiliar with, I mapped it from lumber producers all the way to home owners. I showed the map to my client and just briefly explained what the axis were. He was able to clarify my understanding and point out where other players fit in that he had not mentioned before. By realizing that different players will fight commodification, we could see their likely moves. Time will tell if we are correct.
So my take-away is that it is useful. I went from complete ignorance of an industry that has a new technology being introduced, to making reasonable guesses about the likely moves of incumbents in just 2-3 hours.
https://youtu.be/daZyPwCQak8?si=n9KXH-LJFBlpKXUp&t=153