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What It Takes to be an Airline Pilot

Max Launch Abort System

NASA's Max Launch Abort System Test from PopSci.com on Vimeo.

This is a test of a proposed escape system for the Orion Spaceship. Oriion will be the next manned system to replace the Shuttle if it survives budget cuts. The Orion design currently has an escape rocket similar to the Apollo system. MLAS is an alternative answer. Testing of MLAS will continue because it's a separate budget item for NASA. Whether or not Orion goes forward, MLAS will probably be seen on future spacecraft.

Apollo 11

Where were you on 20 July, 1969? I was fishing at Pinto Lake, California with The Boy Scouts. We listened to the landing on the radio. When it was announced that the crew would skip their crew rest and go directly yo the EVA (the moon walk) we beached the boats and haul assed home to be there to see it on TV.

In Honor of the 40th anniversary of the flight of Apollo 11, the First Moon Landing, we humbling offer the following:

The only watch worn on the Moon as an Omega.

The Apollo 12 Lunar EVA checklists featured pictures from Playboy magazineSee check list here.

The lives of Armstrong and Aldrin were saved when Aldrin used his pen to reset the Ascent Engine circuit breaker. It was a Fisher Model AG7E.

Fisher Pens spent $2 million to develop a pen that would work in zero gravity. The Soviets used a pencil.See proof here.

Dr. Eugene Shoemaker, the person who trained the Apollo astronauts in Lunar geology has his remains interned on the moon.

The only person to have golfed on the Moon was Commander Allen Sheppard. He sliced a six iron.

Eugene Cernan was the last person to leave the Moon's surface.

"Tell Cernan, BEEP-BEEP my ass!"
Al Shepard's (Apollo 14)response whenever one of the crew patches for the back-up crew would float out of a locker. Cernan, Evans and Engle had taken care to stash away patches in every single locker and compartment in the spacecraft.

Sheppard was the oldest Astronaut when he commanded Apollo 14.

Colonel Bud Day

The prelude to the "response" below, from Colonel Bud Day, Medal of Honor recipient - prisoner of war survivor - reads "I didn't expect to be reminded of my treatment some 36 years ago on this holiday weekend but our politicians find it worthy to ignore what some have tried to recount to them, who have actually been there."

I got shot down over N Vietnam in 1967...a sq commander.

After I returned in 1973... I published 2 books that dealt a lot with "real torture" in Hanoi . Our make believe president is branding our country as a bunch of torturers when he has no idea what torture is.

As for me. Put thru a mock execution because I would not respond...pistol whipped on the head...same event... Couple of days later...hung by my feet all day. I escaped and got recaptured a couple of weeks later... I got shot and recaptured. Shot was OK...what happened after was not.

They marched me to Vinh... put me in the rope trick, trick. Almost pulled my arms out of the sockets. Beat me on the head with a little wooden rod until my eyes were swelled shut, and my unshot, unbroken hand a pulp.

Next day hung me by the arms...rebroke my right wrist...wiped out the nerves in my arms that control the hands. Rolled my fingers up into a ball. Only left the slightest movement of my L forefinger. So I started answering with some incredible lies.

Sent me to Hanoi strapped to a barrel of gas in the back of a truck.

Hanoi ...on my knees. Rope trick again. Beaten by a big fool.

Into leg irons on a bed in Heartbreak Hotel.

Much kneeling--hands up at Zoo

Really bad beating for refusing to condemn Lyndon Johnson.

Several more kneeling events. I could see my knee bone thru kneeling holes.

There was an escape from the annex to the Zoo I was the Senior Officer of a large building because of escape. They started a mass torture of all commanders.

I think it was July 7, 1969...they started beating me with a car fan belt. In first 2 days I took over 300 strokes. Then stopped counting because I never thought I would live thru it.

They continued day-nite torture to get me to confess to a non-existent part in the escape. This went on for at least 3 days On my knees. Fan belting... cut open my scrotum with fan belt stroke. Opened up both knee holes again. My fanny looked like hamburger. I could not lie on my back.

They tortured me into admitting that I was in on the escape and that my 2 room-mates knew about it.

The next day I denied the lie.

They commenced torturing me again with 3- 6- or 9 strokes of the fan belt every day from about July 11 or 12rh...to 14 October 1969. I continued to refuse to lie about my roommates again.

Now, the point of this is that our make-believe president has declared to the world that we ( U.S. ) are a bunch of torturers... Thus it will be OK to torture us next time when they catch us....because that is what the U.S. does.

Our make-believe president is a know nothing fool who thinks that pouring a little water on some one's face, or hanging a pair of womens pants over an Arabs head is TORTURE. He is a meathead.

I just talked to MOH holder Leo Thorsness who was also in my sq in jail.... as was John McCain ... and we agree that McCain does not speak for the POW group when he claims that Al Gharib was torture... or that "water boarding" is torture..

Our president and those fools around him who keep bad mouthing our great country are a disgrace to the United States . Please pass this info on to Sean Hannity. He is free to use it to point out the stupidity of the claims that water boarding ...which has no after effect... is torture. If it got the Arab to cough up the story about how he planned the attack on the twin towers in NYC ... hurrah for the guy who poured the water.

BUD DAY, MOH

George Everett "Bud" Day (born February 24, 1925) is a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel and Command Pilot who served during the Vietnam War. He is often cited as being the most decorated U.S. service member since General Douglas MacArthur, having received some seventy decorations, a majority for actions in combat.. Day is a recipient of the Medal of Honor.

Air France HOAX!

Emails are circulating with pictures supposedly taken during the crash of Air France flight 447. They are a complete hoax. They are stills from the pilot of the television series "Lost". See the proof here.

The investigation of the loss of Flight 447 continues but hopes in finding the cockpit and flight recorders are dwindling.
The search will continue until July 10th, using submersible ROV's.

Teenager Survives Yemini Crash

Fourteen year old Bahia Bakari was the sole survivor of a Yemini Airbus 310-300 crash which killed 152 passengers and crew. The Airbus was on approach to Moroni when it crashed into the Indian Ocean. The child is a non-swimmer and spent 13 hours clinging to debris. Her injuries consisted of ONLY a mild hypothermia and a broken collar bone. She was rescued by a passing boat.

No reason was given for the cause of the crash.