these people are such scumbags; that O'Keefe guy gets 300,000$ per year; the money for the organization gets shuttled through another company that keeps the donors anonymous; trump donated 10,000$ to them directly about 2 years ago

Ok; super geek time:

1) Smithsonian Air and Space, including the Udvar Hazy extension at Dulles; B-29, SR, and shuttle and for extra geek points
2) Make a special call and get an appt slot WAY ahead of time for the Smithsonian Air and Space's Paul E Garber restoration facility...There's is (or was) unbelievable stuff in there...

I was hoping the ISS or a shuttle crew was going to pop in... ha ha. But of course why would they be on public freq...

I actually did go to the Intrepid last time I was in NY (ye gods, it was 17 years ago... now I feel old) especially to see the SR 71 and the shuttle.

Bored my poor wife (then girlfriend) to tears, but it was geek nirvana for me. Totally worth it!

If you visit NYC, be sure to check out the Intrepid Museum (it's an old aircraft carrier with lots of planes and a space shuttle).

Keeping a sealed pneumatic tube along the entire track? Sounds like a maintenance nightmare, to be honest. How do you switch rails? How do you get a stranded propulsion module off the track (can't just get a diesel locomotive to drag the thing, can you now)? What are the backup breaking systems for failures on those 10% grades?

I suppose this might at the very best be a niche thing, more so than the current Transrapid/Maglev system. Airport shuttles, maybe.

This video has been nominated as a duplicate of this video by eric3579. If this nomination is seconded with *isdupe, the video will be killed and its votes transferred to the original.

*dupeof=https://videosift.com/video/A-Space-Shuttle-Launch-In-Amazing-HD-Slow-Motion

This is a dupe post:
https://videosift.com/video/A-Space-Shuttle-Launch-In-Amazing-HD-Slow-Motion

I lived in Cape Canaveral during the shuttle program and was fortunate enough to watch all but 5 launches live.

An excellent video with scenes I thoroughly enjoyed in slow motion and HD.

A brief mention in the video about the 6 seconds from when the main liquid engines ignite until the solid boosters ignite is called "twang."

When the main engines ignite, the power causes the whole assembly to rock forward. It takes 6 seconds for the assembly to fall back to vertical again and then the boosters light up and away it goes.

I've been playing this... the gameplay is alright, the worlds are great looking, but everything else is lazy and feels like a first pass.

Aside from the horrible head models and lack of character and facial animation, most conversations have an abrupt start... you may have just activated a door, but you are likely to suddenly snap inside and be in a conversation. Dialog feels disjointed, likely from moving lines around instead of in the order of how they were recorded.

There's a few places where the wrong models were used, blown up shuttle is supposed to be the alien one (according to dialog and the scanner description), but it's the alliance one.

I get the impression that the world team cared about their job and had the right people in place, but the designers, writers, and animators either were lacking talent, didn't care, or woefully mismanaged.

If money was no object, I'd carry out the plot of Moonraker, only I'd do it successfully cause I know that Bond is going to be in the other shuttle.

Oh certainly, there are definitely glaring flaws with Rogue One.

The biggest problem for me was how every character conveniently dies IMMEDIATELY as soon as their narrative purpose is done with. And strangely, every character seems completely ready to die in a way that makes the deaths fairly laughable.

Saw: "I'm gonna stare out this window and not even try to escape."

Bodhi: "I'm gonna close my eyes and not even try to toss that thermal detonator back out of the shuttle."

Baze: "Welp, my best friend is dead so I'm just going to Leroy Jenkins those Deathtroopers."

They missed major dramatic opportunities for each character death. Think "Saving Private Ryan" where each character death is meaningful. Caparzo disobeys a command to do something decent and gets himself killed. Wade dies because Tom Hanks wanted to do the right thing and clear the machine gun nest. Fish dies because Upham is too cowardly to climb the steps and fight. And none of those guys resigned themselves to death--they all wanted desperately to live.

A couple of other things that bothered me about Rogue One:

Why did Admiral Raddus take Princess Leia--a Galactic Senators daughter--into a major battle with the Empire, one which most Rebels were convinced was a trap designed to draw out the fleet?

Why didn't Vader just Force pull the Death Star plans out of the escaping rebels before massacring them all?

Why did the Death Star "miss" Scarif base and hit the ocean instead despite them showing it had pinpoint accuracy when blowing up Jedha?

All that being said, TFA disappointed me big time. It was just trying waaaaaaaay too hard to evoke the original trilogy. If I wanted to watch the original trilogy again I'd, you know, watch the original trilogy. And don't even get me started on Kylo Ren. I haven't wanted to punch a character in the face so hard since whiny Anakin from Attack of the Clones.

EDIT: To keep this on topic, I'm annoyed that Plinket didn't point out the actual flaws in the movie and instead focused on the "they didn't explain the Force" bullshit.

That's not true either. Following their directions doesn't mean you won't be negligent. Not following their direction doesn't mean you are negligent. You're conflating things. Each situation needs to be judged on it's own merits.

Removing safety features is not negligence unless you make the firearm unsafe. None of my firearms have a firing pin block from the factory. They're all safe firearms. My triggers have been lightened - they're still safe firearms. I've seen triggers lightened so much that they are unsafe. As before, each instance is judged on it's own merits.

I'll soon finish my mechanical engineering degree (and don't you know it, I'm looking for a job in firearm designing), so I do know a little about this stuff. Whilst with the proper equipment you can detect crack propagation or premature wear, this is not done on consumer products like firearms. That's why I wrote "this sort of item". Unless you're going to spend more money than the firearm is worth trying to detect cracks, you won't know it has cracked until you visually identify it.

Sure proper cleaning and gun inspection is part of having a safe, well functioning firearm. But don't fool yourself into thinking it's an aeroplane or space shuttle in inspections. Go ask your local gunsmith - the best one you can find - how many times he's done x-ray diffraction on a firearm for preventative maintenance. Chances are he's going to say zero.

Spend 5 seconds on google and I know you will find multiple videos of factory condition firearms discharging unintentionally. You'll also find recall information affecting millions of firearms - firearms at risk of unintentional discharge.

I should have qualified "much". More or less than 2500 rounds a year?

I was 14 when they landed on the moon. I remember watching it live on TV. I was fascinated by the space program and I still am. I eventually moved from NJ to Cape Canaveral in 1980. Got see all but 5 space shuttle launches in person, plus many rocket launches. It was a great time.