I live in Washington, DC and VIPs routinely view exhibits after-hours, in private; many years ago I arranged such an occasion. I think it depends on the situation and what is best for the museum and the exhibit. This article seems to be making much to do about nothing, or in some way wants something negative to print about Thiel.
I think there is a more important why he would want to see that particiular piece: The Bayeux Tapestry is an embroidered cloth nearly 70 metres long and 50 centimetres tall that depicts the events leading up to the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, led by William, Duke of Normandy, challenging Harold II, King of England, and culminating in the Battle of Hastings. It is thought to date to the 11th century, within a few years of the battle. Now widely accepted to have been made in England, perhaps as a gift for William, it tells the story from the point of view of the conquering Normans and for centuries has been preserved in Bayeux, Normandy,
This mission is an orbital science mission studying Mars' atmosphere, not the same objective as SpaceX's long-term goal of sending large cargo and eventually humans to Mars. So I think the title might be taking the piss just a smidge.
I don't assume "Mars mission" to necessarily mean cargo for settlement or humans. In fact, that all seems quite distant at this point, so I ignore it entirely unless specific concrete actions occur.
So for many people like myself, the title is perfectly reasonable. The world does not revolve around SpaceX and its purported plans.
They did. It was the Soviets winning the space race that caused the USA to sink everything into the Apollo mission, to prove they could go bigger.
Russia were first to almost every other milestone, first orbit, first man in orbit, first woman in orbit, first EVA, first moon orbit, first (unmanned) moon landing, and many others.
Edited "Russians" to Soviets because lot was done by non-Russian parts of the union, my original reply just mirrored the OP use of Russians.
only if you squint at it while slightly tilting your head and really want it to be acrimonious.
"NASA picks Eric Schmidt's rocket company for Mars mission" comes no where close to implying it was a manned mission while absolutely being accurate in it's a rocket company being selected for a mission going to Mars. You're reading into it a manned mission.
SpaceX is incredibly sensitive about this after they've been beaten to Mars orbit by ... it's quite a list: NASA/JPL, the Soviet/Lavochkin Mars program, ESA, ISRO, ESA+Roscosmos, the UAE Space Agency/MBRSC + JAXA (Japan), and China’s CNSA. And Blue Origin: it launched NASA’s ESCAPADE probes. And while they are still en route and are expected to enter Mars orbit in 2027, orbital dynamics means it's not possible to beat them. Oh and adding these up you might think SpaceX has been beaten to Mars 7 times, but that's not correct. They've been beaten 17 times to Mars orbit in total, and that number will inevitably rise to 18 even if they launched a Mars mission tomorrow. It's over 30 if you count individual vehicles that launched on one rocket separately.
(yes, I'm a bit disappointed, I worked on a canceled European Mars mission long ago. Unfortunately, the financial math on why the entire company was canned was entirely correct, and yes I'm a bit angry that SpaceX gets such incredible funding, with a financial plan that, while better than the one we used, still isn't good enough)
Doubly so now it has been made clear that Falcon 9 is a failure. Reusable rockets are, as an innovation, in fact not good enough for a company to profitably sell access to earth orbit, as it turns out (but was extensively predicted)
(note: this is because starlink is of course using SpaceX funds, and is making a big loss doing it. In other words: the market for falcon9 launches is not big enough to sustain SpaceX, without artificial tricks that look good in the short term but unless something changes, increase the losses in the long term)
I agree that children under 16 should be limited in their exposure to social media but... I am deeply worried this will be used to either limit everyone else's access (particularly in "times of crisis") or may lead to a national identity requirement for accessing the internet. It's a little alarming the tech-minded public has not pushed back on this more.
I disagree with this path, there is no guarantee, nor can there be, that the data will be deleted. It can be divided up and sold to others with no recourse. The hackers got their money, they are under no obligation to comply with th agreement, and there's no one can could enforce it.
Right, however it's not really true in practice and we have stats for it. Generally it's enough money to set them for life and there is some sort of "moral code" around it as well, the same thing that allow darkmarkets to run.
The media has reported that two British passengers were allowed to fly home, to self isolate, but I am trying to wrap my head around why this was allowed. Given what we learned from the pandemic, would it not have made more sense to have them isolated locally rather than flying back?
As a stoner, I vote :) My local growers club has a newsletter and we discuss pro-cannabis politicians, and the importance of voting for them. What inspires me - to a degree - is how diverse our group is politically/socially, but this is one issue we agree on.
This has been a long time coming. Now let's tax it, and use that money to pay for drug and mental health treatment, much in the same way that the lottery is used in places to pay for education.
