yes, he is comparing only against manned space craft.

Even though this test flight will be unmanned, Orion is meant to take astronauts into space - a replacement for the retired Shuttle program.

2 things that weren't clear from this video - 1) can it take large payloads, or only what can fit into the capsule? 2) can it dock to the ISS ?

Your video, Orion: Trial By Fire, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 8 Badge!

And now he's off to have victory sex with some green Orion Slave Hamsters.

Except for the flying cars and green Orion slave girls.

Wrong!

Orion is designed to come down on land using airbags.

How many Orion slave girls did Picard bed? Whether his own life, the lives of his crew, or the safety of his ship was on the line, Kirk always found time for love. If Kirk had been assimilated by the Borg, instead of Picard/Locutus, he would have had the Borg queen eating out of his hand, distracting her while his capable crew destroyed the Borg cube. Don't get me wrong, I loved TNG. Picard was brilliant, but Kirk was brilliant AND a playa. No contest.

</geek rant>

Looks a lot like Masters of Orion. Let's hope it's better than MOO 3 was.

I discovered Rodrigo y Gabriela quite by accident. I got into Metal music while growing up originally due to Metallica, and they remain one of my favorite bands. My favorite Metallica song is Orion -- one of their long instrumental songs from back when Cliff Burton was still alive. Anyway, I also have a love for hearing covers and reinterpretations of songs that I like, so one day I was surfing the web and did a search for "orion cover", finding the Rodrigo y Gabriela version. I love it, and it got me into their whole catalog and original works like this one also.

Thanks for the sift!

Yep, change happened in the Auto Industry:

"As part of the 2009 restructuring of GM, the Obama administration insisted that “innovative labor agreements” be put in place at factories building small cars. The UAW pushed through, without a vote by local union members, a provision that allowed 40 percent of the workers at Lake Orion to be paid tier-two wages. The deal also opened the door to hundreds of even lower paid contractors."

Just how much are those tier two and three wages? I hear you ask.

"Not only has the UAW sanctioned second-tier wages of $16 to $19 an hour—little more than half of what traditional workers earn. It has also opened the door to a third tier of contract workers who earn as little as $9 an hour, with no medical or retirement benefits."

and

"In the present situation, however, rather than defending workers, the UAW is functioning as a cheap labor contractor. So thoroughly has the UAW reduced wages that American automakers are now boasting they can produce cars as profitably in the US as in Mexico, China or other low-wage countries."

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/dec2011/linc-d14.shtml

Depression averted: To an extent this is true, however it was averted without fixing the mechanisms by which it happened in the first place, and America is on the path to bankruptcy at the rate it is accumulating debt. In the short term you can fix just about any economic problem you want by printing and borrowing money, but in the long term you need to have a way of repaying your debt, I'm not aware of such a plan.

Iraq war ended: His promise was that ending the Iraq war would be the first thing he would do as president.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VlXfs1K04g
And while the official war is now over, the US of A has an embassy in Iraq the size of the Vatican city, costing ~$3.8 billion this year (the most expensive in the world) and they still have around 16,000 people involved in the 'diplomatic effort', the majority of which are private security contractors.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12319798/#.TytXO1z9PUc
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/18/us-iraq-usa-diplomats-idUSTRE7BH04B20111218

Looking at the bigger picture, the total defense budget, magically, despite the 'end of the Iraq war' is going to remain at similar levels, with projected spending of just under $700 billion for the next 4 years. This is of course because while you shrink your Iraq footprint, you increase it in other areas such as the Asia-Pacific.
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1103bm47s1.pdf

This also doesn't take into account the spending that makes it's way to the military through other channels such as emergency funds, special projects etc. In fact more than half of every tax dollar is currently going towards military expenditure according to this:
http://videosift.com/video/53-of-each-American-tax-dollar-going-to-the-military

Bin Laden dead: apparently, not really worthwhile debating this as afaik there is no proof he's been killed and no proof he wasn't.

Same sex marriage: The DADT repeal was a good change, however at the Federal level same-sex marriage is still not recognized, not that I can criticize this, it's the same in Australia.

Anyway, that's my 2c, as usual, feel free to criticize.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those ... moments will be lost in time, like tears...in rain.
Time to die.

at the bottom of the vents in the pyramids that point to Orion's belt, he found an alien body with his remote control camera car.

@NetRunner

I don't really believe the "blackmail" theory. It just speaks to how sudden and drastic his about-face seemed to me. I mean, this guy had a HUGE progressive mandate when he got elected. Landslide victory, both Houses, 60-40 in the Senate (although sabotaged by "blueblood" prags). Then, Obama chastising the Repugs that "elections have consequences", and the optimistically prescient Nobel Peace Prize. Finally, some change I can believe in! Go, Obama, go!

And then... he just started caving. Offering compromises when compromises weren't called for or necessary in my view. And then failing to learn very quickly, if at all, that the opposition wasn't interested in anything but opposition. I agree that their "personal courtesy" was truly "partisan posturing", and he may has gotten suckered to a point.

Maybe part of the problem is that he has surrounded himself with people that have never shared his vision. Maybe this is some brilliant plan to expose the Republicans and the system for what it is so he has the support to proffer true progressive change in a second term, but I don't think so.

You can point to the list of his many accomplishments and tell me I'm wrong, but the big picture in this country hasn't changed. His victories are little more than election year bullet points. Very little has changed overall. Health care and financial reforms are a joke. Corporations are still raping this country's middle class by sending jobs and cash overseas while paying very little or no taxes. Unions, the very fucking organizations that created the middle class and kept it strong, are legally and financially weaker and have lower participation than ever. Environmental protections are being stripped at alarming rates, the country's infrastructure continues to crumble, students and teachers alike are being hamstrung by budget cuts, 1 in 50 Americans are in prison or on probation, and although we were walking on the fucking moon forty years ago, we currently have to rent space on Russian rockets just to get American astronauts to low earth orbit. Yeah, we have no money for roads, bridges, schools, health care, or Orion spacecraft, but we spend (borrow) many times that needed to fund these things for three useless wars and an entire Empire of hundreds of bases around the world. I'll spare you the Eisenhower reference.

Something fundamental has to change in this country, and I think that any change that matters is going to have to be HUGE change, even revolutionary.

I see a completely different Obama than the one I supported in 2008. Rhetoric that you want to hear is still just rhetoric. Palliatives for the disenchanted, and dogma for those who should be. Yeah, I know it's "yes, we can", not "yes, he can". That's what OWS is all about. Obama failed. OWS is Plan B.

I hope I'm absolutely wrong. I hope he does well and effects positive, substantive change. Unfortunately, I'll be voting for him not because I think "he can", rather, as the best of a bad lot.

Orion is pretty cool.
A capsule with escape rocket on top of a SS solid rocket motor.

And a capsule rated for 6 astronauts.

>> ^xxovercastxx:

>> ^ant:
>> ^xxovercastxx:
http://i.imgur.com/utjC8.jpg

Ooh, where is that in space?
That's actually the portrait of the Klackons from the race selection screen of Master of Orion 2.


Ah, I never got into MOO series and its genre. Did those alien ants act like real ants?

>> ^ant:

>> ^xxovercastxx:
http://i.imgur.com/utjC8.jpg

Ooh, where is that in space?

That's actually the portrait of the Klackons from the race selection screen of Master of Orion 2.