Henry Spencer
Supplying fuel for a Mars expedition from the lunar surface is often suggested, but it's hard to make it pay off - Moon bases are expensive, and just buying more rockets to launch fuel from Earth is relatively cheap.Collection: Space
The Orion capsule uses an escape system quite like that of the Apollo spacecraft in the 1960s and 70s: an 'escape tower' containing a solid-fuel rocket that will pull it up and away from Ares I in a pinch.Collection: Space
Whether solid rockets are more or less likely to fail than liquid-fuel rockets is debatable. More serious, though, is that when they do fail, it's usually violent and spectacular.Collection: Space
Sometimes people wonder why aeroplanes are so cheap and rockets are so expensive. Even the most superficial comparison shows one obvious difference: aeroplane engines use outside air to burn their fuel, while rockets have to carry their own oxidisers along.Collection: Space
Reusable rockets promise much easier testing because you should usually get them back, and you can debug as you go rather than having to get everything perfect the first time.Collection: Space
Sometimes a malfunctioning test setup actually gives the tested system a chance to show what it can do in an unrehearsed emergency. During a test of an Apollo escape system in the 1960s, the escape system successfully got the capsule clear of a malfunctioning test rocket.Collection: Chance
Progress requires setbacks; the only sure way to avoid failure is not to try.Collection: Failure
In 1960-61, a small group of female pilots went through many of the same medical tests as the Mercury astronauts and scored very well on them - in fact, better than some of the astronauts did.Collection: Medical
Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.Collection: Unix
A bit of tolerance is worth a megabyte of flamming.Collection: Tolerance
If you lie to the compiler, it will get its revenge.Collection: Revenge
C++ is the best example of second-system effect since OS/360.Collection: Example
If I must be ruled by larcenous bullies, I much prefer that they be located far away. Local bullies know far more about me and my doings than faraway bullies sitting in offices in Washington, and can oppress me far more effectively.Collection: Office
Altruism is a fine motive, but if you want results, greed works much better.Collection: Greed
Programming graphics in X is like finding the square root of PI using Roman numerals.Collection: Roman Numerals
Politics /n/: from 'poly ticks', short for 'many small bloodsucking insects'.Collection: Political
MS-DOS isn't dead, it just smells that way.Collection: Technology
To err is human, but to really screw things up requires a design committee of bureaucrats.Collection: Design
Belief is no substitute for arithmetic.Collection: Science