American Genius - SpaceX

For more SpaceX videos, click here.

Ever since the close of the Western Frontier exploring Outer Space has become the way for American's to continue their progress to the next stage of evolution. It is a very American idea. From Buck Rodgers to the Twilight Zone to the Outer Limits to Star Trek to the Mercury and Apollo programs, Outer Space has called Americans to discover, explore, find and conquer the natural elements to travel and live in its vast expanse.
SpaceX is a company that every day is undertaking the hard work, millions of tasks, and miracles taking us to Outer Space . I have followed it since its founding by Elon Must, who also founded PayPal and Zip2 corporation, since 2002.
Take a tour of Elon's company. The interior design has much to offer executives who want to get their employees to work together. My favorite line is where he gives credit to the scientists and engineers for making us a "space-faring civilization."
As a consultant who worked at NASA on Apollo once told me, "Apollo was a success because it was 400,000 private sector employees being managed by 50,000 government contract administrators." Space X goes even further, designing, building, testing and launching it own rockets for private sector companies and governments.
SpaceX is proving that the journey to space will be won by private companies like it that are lean, efficient, driven, and who hire brilliiant technicians and engineers.
Here is how SpaceX describes its mission:

"Although drawing upon a rich history of prior launch vehicle and engine programs, SpaceX is privately developing the Dragon crew and cargo capsule and the Falcon family of rockets from the ground up, including main and upper stage engines, the cryogenic tank structure, avionics, guidance & control software and ground support equipment.
With the Falcon 1, Falcon 9 and Falcon 9 Heavy launch vehicles, SpaceX is able to offer a full spectrum of light, medium and heavy lift launch capabilities to our customers. We are able to deliver spacecraft into any inclination and altitude, from low Earth orbit to geosynchronous orbit to planetary missions. The Falcon 9 and Falcon 9 Heavy are the only US launch vehicles with true engine out reliability.
They are also designed such that all stages are reusable, making them the world's first fully reusable launch vehicles. And our Dragon crew and cargo capsule, currently under development, will revolutionize access to space by providing efficient and reliable transport of crew and cargo to the ISS and other LEO destinations.
Our design and manufacturing facilities are located near the Los Angeles International airport, leveraging the deep and rich aerospace talent pool available in Southern California .
Our extensive propulsion and structural test facilities are located in Central Texas. We currently have launch complexes available in Vandenberg and Kwajalein Island , and in April 2007 we were granted use of and began developing Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral."

In his B-24, my Uncle Frank used to bomb the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy on Kwajalein, and it is good to see this island being used instead by SpaceX as a launch platform 65 years later.
When I was young, despite the horror of the Vietnam War and all the other bad news in the 60's and 70's, there was always the drama, inspiration and excitement of the Mercury and Apollo space programs. As I watch the Space X videos, that sense of wonder is rekindled.
I have collected space memorabilia and studied the space program and space-related businesses (for investment reasons) for years. For its brief history, Space X understands well the lessons of Mercury and Apollo (good and bad) and is taking us to the next stage of America's journey into space.
In the early 1990's, in a bid for financial freedom, I published a space financial newsletter until I discovered Phillips Publishing was doing the same but so much better. Still, I've stayed up on various space companies ever since. This one is a winner.
If I had large sums to invest, and if it was a public company, I would invest in SpaceX.

Working in Outer Space OMG

Image Credit: NASA
This photo stuns me.
Imagine doing this.
Here is how NASA describes it:

In Tandem

In this second spacewalk for the STS-126 mission, astronauts Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper (left) and Shane Kimbrough continued the process of removing debris and applying lubrication around the starboard Solar Alpha Rotary Joint (SARJ), replaced four more of the SARJ's 12 trundle bearing assemblies, relocated two equipment carts and applied lubrication to the station's robotic Canadarm2.

Emergency Exercise Carroll County MD Tornado

To help test our local emergency response services, I was a volunteer victim in a County-wide (Carroll County, MD) disaster exercise on August 2, 2008. The scenario tested was a tornado touching down on a family picnic at the Farm Museum of Carrol County grounds. The Carroll County Office of Public Safety ran the exercise.

Find Manuals with Retrevo

Manuals stored on-line free at Retrevo.
If you need a manual and can't find it when you need it, or lost it long ago, or are in the middle of troubleshooting an issue or trying to fix a problem or figure out a product feature, here is a way to skip the stress and experience the joy of finding your manual quickly and easily on-line.
You search for your manual, download it, and display it in Adobe Acrobat. Because it displays in Acrobat, you can increase the size of the page for clearer viewing.
Retrevo also does a great job matching people and electronics.

Create a Business Continuity Plan

White papers, plans, how-to, and other business continuity and business disaster recovery information is available from CIO here.
Some topics include:
What’s the difference between disaster recovery and business continuity planning?
What does a disaster recovery and business continuity plan include?
How do I get started?
Is it really necessary to disrupt business by testing the plan?
What kinds of things have companies discovered when testing a plan?
What are the top mistakes that companies make in disaster recovery?
I still have a binder with our Y2K plan. Will that work?
Can we outsource our contingency measures?
How can I sell this business continuity planning to other executives?
How do I make sure the plans aren’t overkill for my company?
Related articles from CSO magazine

Add 911 ICE to Your Cell Phone

Keep an eye on this one. It's a big reason you gotta love TechCrunch50.
"911ICE.org connects family, friends, and doctors with 911 during an emergency and links them to the critical personal medical information. Together, loved ones and providers share life-saving information, updates, and support. 911ICE is a FREE service that is accessed through the “In Case of Emergency” (ICE) contact in mobile devices."
*How 911ICE works Add it to your cell phone now.*
"There is a rapidly growing movement to put ICE (In Case of an Emergency) contacts into every mobile phone in the world in order to facilitate notification of emergency contacts and timely delivery of critical information to first responders. Putting ICE contacts into ones mobile phone is a very helpful, but imperfect and incomplete solution during life threatening situations.
911 ICEs combination of a toll free ICE phone number and cutting edge technology ensures that the key critical information is delivered promptly to emergency personnel and key contacts and then facilitates communication amongst care providers and loved ones via a personal health social network.
What 911ICE does:911ICE.org (ICE) is an emergency communication platform that leverages the established practice of checking a persons mobile phone for ICE (in case of emergency) contacts during a medical emergency. The ICE platform immediately connects first responders to a person's critical health/911 information and stored personal emergency contacts. In an emergency, 911ICE.org is a persons most reliable ICE resource. 911ICE changes the ICE contact in your mobile device from your spouse or mother to 800-ICE-8900. With no behavoir change the call by emergency responders now to our dynamic process informs and connects the emergency responders and profile contacts to your critical information and each other. This is innovative. Perhaps we are an "emergency twitter, PHR, Campfire " kinda thing.."
1. ALERT FIRST RESPONDERS: ICEs automated system provides accurate and immediate access to critical health information to first responders and to medical professionals in the ER via phone, SMS text or URL.
More reliable than listing specific individuals as emergency contacts in individual medical emergency and accidents
- Disaster situations (9/11, Hurricane Katrina) weaken traditional infrastructure, including phones and electricity. ICE provides simultaneous SMS updates to multiple emergency contacts
- A time saving convenience for first responders and ER personnel
- The faster critical health information is collected, the faster ER doctors can diagnose and treat a patient
2. ALERT EMERGENCY CONTACTS: ICEs automated system simultaneously notifies multiple designated contacts via phone, SMS text and email when a patients online health profile is engaged by first responders.
At any time, first responders can be connected directly with emergency contacts - a highly desired feature of information gathering that effectuates care and saves lives.
- Emergency contacts can provide additional vital information not included in a patients health profile (e.g. Linda mentioned having chest pains at work yesterday" or "he was in the hospital last week because he fell and hit his head").
3. CREATE VIRTUAL WAITING ROOM: When ICE is activated, a private online chat room (e.g. campfire plus) is automatically created (http://911ICE.org/JaneDoe_12345) to facilitate real-time updates and communication among loved ones and first responders. - and has applicability in e-Health far beyond this 500 word limitation!
A source of additional, vital information for emergency responders from the virality of the URL to extended family, friends, neighbors, co-workers - (e.g. " Yes, I was with him at the gym" - knowledge of such timing can often mitigate or even eliminate the damage to the brain from stroke)
Primary contact can post to the VWR via SMS text/email to simultaneously update family and friends
A source of comfort for loved ones that can be together online, if not in person, becomes a viral transient social network.
4. PROVIDE RECOVERY RESOURCES: ICE provides the patient and family social-media resources, which are accessible through the virtual waiting room, to help in the recovery process.
Problem: Medical Industry has no real compelling application to drive mass adoption and to get the initial taste of the consumer benefits of an EMR. Solution: 911ICE has the actionable reason to jump in. It is a gateway application to a bigger personal health play."

Train the On-Site Commander

Incident Commander offers gaming software that helps train the on-site commander.
Serious Games for Homeland Security
Incident Commander™ NIMS-compliant training tool for Homeland Security Disaster strikes a community through a severe storm, a chemical spill, a terrorist bomb, or a hostage situation in a local school. The game puts you in the role of incident commander, challenging you to coordinate a multi-agency (fire, police, EMS, HAZMAT, public works, operations, planning, finance, and logistics units) response using the National Incident Management System (NIMS) protocol.
Work in single player mode to control all units yourself, or assign specific unit command to up to 16 participants and tackle the impending catastrophe as a unified team before the situation spirals out of control. Launch video Client: Department of Justice – National Institute of Justice Objective: Teach NIMS-compliant incident management to public safety officers (e.g., fire, HAZMAT, law enforcement, EMS, public works, school officials, city managers) who protect the public before, during, and after natural and man made disasters.
 Solution: Engaging simulation enables users to learn and apply incident command protocol in scenarios that include severe storm recovery, chemical spill, courthouse bomb, and active shooter in a school building. Technology: 2D display engine with map objects support.

Code Orange™ Emergency Medical Management Training for Mass Catastrophe
While working in a virtual hospital, you hear that a weapons-of-mass-destruction event just occurred in your area and thousands of people are injured or killed. In 15 minutes, the first wave of casualties will begin to arrive by ambulance, helicopter, car, and on foot. As part of the medical team, your job is to save lives by working in concert with other staff to implement the hospital's streamlined process for handling mass casualty situations. Code Orange™ is built on the Hospital Emergency Incident Command System (HEICS) protocol.
 Launch video Client: The Washington Hospital Center Objective: Create a tool that provides risk-ready training to emergency medical staff in preparation for catastrophic events in a networked, information-intensive, immersive training environment. Solution: A multiplayer real-time training tool enables emergency medical teams to train for catastrophic events 24 hours a day by logging into their workstation computers.

True Reporting on the Afghanistan War

Rick: If it's December 1941 in Casablanca, what time is it in New York?
Sam: What? My watch stopped.
Rick: I'd bet they're asleep in New York. I'd bet they're asleep all over America.
Casablanca, 1942

The Washington Post, NY Times, Los Angeles Times, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, ABC and the 95% of the media that is liberal (if we are to judge by who their owners and reporters are giving money to in this Presidential election as well as by their bias as they "report" each day) have misreported the truth about Afghanistan and Iraq year after year.
But when AP put out a story about a remote American military outpost near Pakistan being almost overrun and the White House used it as a pretext to decry the failure of the Bush Administration and the American military to secure Afghanistan it was too much to take.
These soldiers fight and die for us everyday and they deserve to have the truth told, even if the liberal media seems unwilling to do them that courtesy. To create some small balance, here is true reporting about what happened that day by reporters willing to take the time to discover the truth.
"And when the talk is of courage and valor and leadership after reading the story of a little” battle in Afghanistan you may have a new standard when using those terms. The battle was, I believe first reported by AP and then by two reporters from Stars and Stripes."

Nine Funerals for Nine Warriors
I'm sure you heard about 9 soldiers being killed in Afghanistan a couple of weeks ago. As AP reported it, it was a "setback", the "newly established base" there was 'abandoned' by the Americans. That, of course, was the extent of their coverage.
Steve Mraz of Stars and Stripes and Jeff Emanuel tell the rest of the story. Emanuel, who went out and dug into the story sets the enemy force at 500 while AP sets it at 200. Frankly I'm much more inclined to believe Emanuel than AP.

July 13, 2008 was the date, and Jeff Emanuel, an independent combat reporter sets the scene:-
Three days before the attack, 45 U.S. paratroopers from the 173d Airborne [Brigade Combat Team], accompanied by 25 Afghan soldiers, made their way to Kunar province, a remote area in the northeastern Afghanistan-Pakistan border area, and established the beginnings of a small Combat Outpost (COP). Their movement into the area was noticed, and their tiny numbers and incomplete fortifications were quickly taken advantage of.
A combined force of up to 500 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters quickly moved into the nearby village of Wanat and prepared for their assault by evicting unallied residents and according to an anonymous senior Afghan defense ministry official, "us[ing] their houses to attack us." Tribesmen in the town stayed behind "and helped the insurgents during the fight," the provincial police chief, told The Associated Press. Dug-in mortar firing positions were created, and with that indirect fire, as well as heavy machine gun and RPG fire from fixed positions, Taliban and al Qaeda fighters rushed the 
COP from three sides.
As Emanuel notes, the odds were set. 500 vs. 70. Even so, Emanuel entitled his article, "An Alamo With a Different Ending." The 500 terrorists apparently didn't realize they were attacking US Army paratroopers.The unit in question was 2nd Platoon, Company C, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry regiment (Airborne), 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, led by 1LT Jonathan Brostrom. The first RPG and machine gun fire came at dawn, strategically striking the forward operating base's mortar pit. The insurgents next sighted their RPGs on the tow truck inside the combat outpost, taking it out. That was around 4:30 a.m. This was not a haphazard attack. The reportedly 500 insurgents fought from several positions. They aimed to overrun the new base. The U.S. soldiers knew it and fought like hell. They knew their lives were on the line.
The next target was the FOB's observation post, where nine soldiers were positioned on a tiny hill about 50 to 75 meters from the base. Of those nine, five died, and at least three others -- Spc. Tyler Stafford among them -- were wounded.
When the attack began, Stafford grabbed his M-240 machine gun off a north-facing sandbag wall and moved it to an east-facing sandbag wall. Moments later, RPGs struck the north-facing wall, knocking Stafford out of the fighting position and wounding another soldier. Stafford thought he was on fire so he rolled around, regaining his senses. Nearby, Cpl. Gunnar Zwilling, who later died in the fight, had a stunned look on his face.
Immediately, a grenade exploded by Stafford , blowing him down to a lower terrace at the observation post and knocking his helmet off. Stafford put his helmet back on and noticed how badly he was bleeding.

Cpl. Matthew Phillips was close by, so Stafford called to him for help. Phillips was preparing to throw a grenade and shot a look at Stafford that said, "Give me a second. I gotta go kill these guys first."
This was only about 30 to 60 seconds into the attack.
Kneeling behind a sandbag wall, Phillips pulled the grenade pin, but just after he threw it an RPG exploded at his position. The tail of the RPG smacked Stafford 's helmet. The dust cleared. Phillips was slumped over, his chest on his knees and his hands by his side. Stafford called out to his buddy three or four times, but Phillips never answered or moved.
"When I saw Phillips die, I looked down and was bleeding pretty good, that's probably the most scared I was at any point," Stafford said. "Then I kinda had to calm myself down and be like, 'All right, I gotta go try to do my job.' "
The soldier from Parker, Colo. , loaded his 9 mm handgun, crawled up to their fighting position, stuck the pistol over the sandbags and fired.
Stafford saw Zwilling's M-4 rifle nearby so he loaded it, put it on top of the sandbag and fired. Another couple RPGs struck the sandbag wall Stafford used as cover. Shrapnel pierced his hands.
Stafford low-crawled to another fighting position where Cpl. Jason Bogar, Sgt. Matthew Gobble and Sgt. Ryan Pitts were located. Stafford told Pitts that the insurgents were within grenade-tossing range. That got Pitts' attention.
With blood running down his face, Pitts threw a grenade and then crawled to the position from where Stafford had just come. Pitts started chucking more grenades. The firefight intensified. Bullets cut down tree limbs that fell on the soldiers. RPGs constantly exploded. Back at Stafford 's position, so many bullets were coming in that the soldiers could not poke their heads over their sandbag wall. Bogar stuck an M-249 machine gun above the wall and squeezed off rounds to keep fire on the insurgents. In about five minutes, Bogar fired about 600 rounds, causing the M-249 to seize up from heat.
At another spot on the observation post, Cpl. Jonathan Ayers laid down continuous fire from an M-240 machine gun, despite drawing small-arms and RPG fire from the enemy. Ayers kept firing until he was shot and killed. Cpl. Pruitt Rainey radioed the FOB with a casualty report, calling for help. Of the nine soldiers at the observation post, Ayers and Phillips were dead, Zwilling was unaccounted for, and three were wounded. Additionally, several of the soldiers' machine guns couldn't fire because of damage. And they needed more ammo.
Rainey, Bogar and another soldier jumped out of their fighting position with the third soldier of the group launching a shoulder-fired missile.
All this happened within the first 20 minutes of the fight.
Platoon leader 1st Lt. Jonathan Brostrom and Cpl. Jason Hovater arrived at the observation post to reinforce the soldiers. By that time, the insurgents had breached the perimeter of the observation post. Gunfire rang out, and Rainey shouted, "He's right behind the sandbag." Brostrom could be heard shouting about the insurgent as well.
More gunfire and grenade explosions ensued. Back in the fighting position, Gobble fired a few quick rounds. Gobble then looked to where the soldiers were fighting and told Stafford the soldiers were dead. Of the nine soldiers who died in the battle, at least seven fell in fighting at the observation post.The insurgents then started chucking rocks at Gobble and Stafford 's fighting position, hoping that the soldiers might think the rocks were grenades, causing them to jump from the safety of their fighting hole. One rock hit a tree behind Stafford and landed
directly between his legs. He braced himself for an explosion. He then realized it was a rock. Stafford didn't have a weapon, and Gobble was low on ammo.
Gobble told Stafford they had to get back to the FOB. They didn't realize that Pitts was still alive in another fighting position at the observation post. Gobble and Stafford crawled out of their fighting hole. Gobble looked again to where the soldiers had been fighting and reconfirmed to Stafford that Brostrom, Rainey, Bogar and others were dead.
Gobble and Stafford low-crawled and ran back to the FOB. Coming into the FOB, Stafford was asked by a sergeant what was going on at the observation post.
Stafford told him all the soldiers there were dead. Stafford lay against a wall, and his fellow soldiers put a tourniquet on him.
From the OP, Pitts got on the radio and told his comrades he was alone. Volunteers were asked for to go to the OP.
SSG Jesse Queck sums up the reaction to the call: "When you ask for volunteers to run across an open field to a reinforced OP that almost everybody is injured at, and everybody volunteers, it feels good. There were a lot of guys that made me proud, putting themselves and their lives on the line so their buddies could have a chance."
At least three soldiers went to the OP to rescue Pitts, but they suffered wounds after encountering RPG and small-arms fire, but Pitts survived the battle.
At that time, air support arrived in the form of Apache helicopters, A-10s and F-16s, performing bombing and strafing runs.
The whole FOB was covered in dust and smoke, looking like something out of an old Western movie.
"I've never seen the enemy do anything like that," said Sgt. Jacob Walker, who was medically evacuated off the FOB in one of the first helicopters to arrive. "It's usually three RPGs, some sporadic fire and then they're gone .... I don't where they got all those RPGs. That was crazy."
Two hours after the first shots were fired, Stafford made his way -- with help -- to the medevac helicopter that arrived.
"It was some of the bravest stuff I've ever seen in my life, and I will never see it again because those guys," Stafford said, then paused. "Normal humans wouldn't do that. You're not supposed to do that -- getting up and firing back when everything around you is popping and whizzing and trees, branches coming down and sandbags exploding and RPGs coming in over your head ... It was a fistfight then, and those guys held ' em off."
Stafford offered a guess as to why his fellow soldiers fought so hard.
"Just hardcoreness I guess," he said. "Just guys kicking ass, basically. Just making sure that we look scary enough that you don't want to come in and try to get us." Jeff Emanuel summed the fight up very well:"Perhaps the most important takeaway from that encounter, though, is the one that the mainstream media couldn't be bothered to pay attention long enough to learn: that, not for the first time, a contingent of American soldiers that was outnumbered by up to a twenty-to-one ratio soundly and completely repulsed a complex, pre-planned assault by those dedicated enough to their cause to kill themselves in its pursuit.
That kind of heroism and against-all-odds success is and has been a hallmark of America's fighting men and women, and it is one that is worthy of all attention we can possibly give it."
Of the original 45 paratroopers, 15 were wounded and the Sky Soldiers lost nine killed in action in the attack. They were:

• 1LT Jonathan Brostrom of Aiea , Hawaii
• SGT Israel Garcia of Long Beach , California
• SPC Matthew Phillips of Jasper , Georgia
• SPC Pruitt Rainey of Haw River , North Carolina
• SPC Jonathan Ayers of Snellville , Georgia
• SPC Jason Bogar of Seattle , Washington
• SPC Sergio Abad of Morganfield , Kentucky
• SPC Jason Hovater of Clinton , Tennessee
• SPC Gunnar Zwilling of Florissant , Missouri

Of the nine that were lost, Sgt Walker says: " I just hope these guys' wives and their children understand how courageous their husbands and dads were. They fought like warriors."
They fought like warriors.
Last week, there were nine funerals in the United States . Nine warriors were laid to rest. Nine warriors who had given their all for their country. All proud members of a brotherhood that will carry on in their name.
They fought and died in what most would consider impossible circumstances, and yet they succeeded. A nameless fight in a distant war which, until you understand the facts, could be spun as a defeat. It wasn't. And it is because of the pride, courage and fighting spirit of this small unit that it was, in fact, a victory against overwhelming odds. And there's little doubt, given that pride and given that fighting spirit, that they'll be back to reestablish the base, this time with quite a few more soldiers just like the ones who "kicked ass" the last time there.
My deep gratitude to the families of these men for protecting my family and nation.

Discover the Aqua City Resort

Aqua City Resort, a green, aqua world of spas, geothermal, and children's water park is:
Blog of the owner, Jan Telensky
At The Centre Of Europe A full member of the European Union since 1st May, 2004, and a state in its own right since its velvet divorce from the Czech Republic in 1993, Slovakia sits at the very heart of Europe where West meets East. Bordering Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and the Ukraine, this small mountainous country is home to around five and a half million people. The predominantly Catholic Slovaks are famously hospitable, prepared to go out of their way to welcome you. Blessed with a continental European climate – cool winters (-10°C to -15°C in January) and warm summers (32°C in July) – Slovakia is a modern democracy with deep rural, mining traditions and a rich cultural history, Slovakia's tourism and leisure sector is developing rapidly. Much of the 
tourist infrastructure is on a par with that in Western Europe although there's a refreshing absence of the McDonald's-style commercialism that seems so rampant elsewhere. In Bratislava, the capital city of Slovakia, located to the South West of the country, there is a real buzz. Steeped in elegant buildings, cathedrals and fine restaurants, it is a bustling cosmopolitan city where the extremely favourable exchange rate helps your money go a long way.
But it is out among the dramatic countryside where the country comes to life for the independent-minded traveler. Among 170 castles and chateaux, you'll find the biggest medieval castle (Spis), the oldest glacial cave (Dobsinska) and the biggest river island (Zitny) in Europe. Step into St. Jacobs church in Levoca and you'll see the biggest wooden altar in the world standing some 18.6 metres tall. A visit to the Caves of the Slovak and Aggetelek Karst will see you step onto the soil of one of the World's most important natural heritage sites.
Poprad, close to the Polish border, to the North East of Slovakia, is home to AquaCity. Located at the foot of the High Tatras, a magnificent European mountain range second only to the Alps in elevation, it is a bustling administrative, economic and cultural centre dating back to the 13th Century. Modern bars and restaurants compete for attention with museums, early gothic churches and wall paintings from the 15th Century. It is a town filled with stunning architecture, set against a truly awesome backdrop.
With a wealth of spectacular scenery, fairytale castles and historical monuments nearby and now, thanks to AquaCity, the ultimate in luxury hotel, spa, conference and sporting facilities, Slovakia and Poprad are beautiful and increasingly popular destinations to explore.