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December 04, 2003

Bush To Make 'Return To Moon' A Major Policy Initiative?

We've been hearing solid rumors for a while that President Bush was going to make an appearance at the heavily hyped 100th Anniversary Wright Flight celebrations in North Carolina less than two weeks hence. While the most intriguing/frustrating aspect of this, until recently, was the inevitable TFR that would be forced upon Kitty Hawk and ground every aircraft for miles around; another (far more positive) story is starting to emerge. A number of sources indicate that President Bush is going to use the Centennial event to suggest an aggressive new effort to return the US to a more prominent role in the pioneering of space travel... specifically with a specific goal that we turn our resources to mount return trips to the moon, including possible colonization.

Amazing Technology Now Being Fielded Worldwide (Part III) If your nation operates multiple combat aircraft, a single G-FET-II can train all the crews. One very neat feature of the GFET-II was the modular cockpits. In an hour mechanics can loosen a few bolts. Then the old cockpit is winched out a hatch, and a new one lowered in. A couple of modular plugs are connected, the same bolts are tightened, and the air data model for the new aircraft is loaded in the computer system. This initial machine, which is bound for Malaysia, has cockpits for that nation's combat aircraft: the F/A-18D, the MiG-29, and the Hawk Mk-208. Each cockpit has the correct seat angle, control stick, throttle, and pedals, as well as the correct instruments. The HUD is projected on the viewscreen.