We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day You know, being a test pilot isn’t always the healthiest business in the world.
Alan B. Shepard, aviator and astronaut. I also rather like his terse message to Mission Control at the time of his flight in 1961: “Why don’t you fix your little problems and light this candle”.
I am sure he would be thrilled at the private sector space ventures that Dale has been tirelessly writing about lately.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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He tragically died of leukemia at the age of (for someone so fit) only 74. One wonders if the radiation experienced on his Mercury spaceship and moon flights was responsible.
Freeman, it is possible. Shepard also suffered for much of the 60s from a terrible inner ear problem which grounded him while the Gemini flights went on, which must have been incredibly frustrating for such a flyer. But I just about recall as a toddler watching him hit those golf shots on the Moon.
I have just read Neal Thompson’s biography of Shep, written in 2004, called Light this Candle. It portrays a complex, highly driven, hard, cocky and very brave man. I felt very sad when he died – he was the Mr Cool of space flight.
They must make ’em tough in New Hampshire, his home state.
Then again, considering the fitness of Rusty Schweikert and Buzz Aldrin whom I saw merely days ago, one might say the environment was good for them 😉
I remember some of the Russians being amazed at the fitness of John Glenn at age 80 when he flew on the shuttle.
Most of the Apollo astronauts are still alive and well. We lost one through a motor cycle accident a few years ago though…
Did not Scott Crossfield, the first guy to break Mach 2, die the other day in a plane accident, at the age of 84?
Yeager is in his 80s and still has a pilot’s licence. What a dude.
Ah, JP, thanks for the plug. Several other astronauts currently live in NH as well.
I’ll note that my recent comments here about our Free State have enticed at least one reader to join the FSP in the last few weeks. For that, thanks, and I hope to see you here as soon as you can make it. For others interested in further inspection, the FSP’s Porcupine Freedom Festival is once again happening this summer in Lancaster, NH. Details can be found at FSP’s website(Link).
>Did not Scott Crossfield, the first guy to break Mach 2,
>die the other day in a plane accident, at the age of 84?
>Yeager is in his 80s and still has a pilot’s licence. What
>a dude.
Yes. A lot of those guys are doing well. But it’s not only them. One of the instructors at my gliding club turns 90 this year. He’s just been talking the last few months about maybe selling his own glider (a Cirrus like this one: http://www.akmedlanky.cz/pics/cirrus3.jpg) at the end of this year.
A couple of years ago I was talking to an American pilot at Omarama. He was also near 90 and told me he comes to NZ every summer to fly gliders, and in our winter he lives in Alaska and flies his float plane to remote lakes to go fishing. Amazing!
If you can beat the odds of surviving test pilot work, you should live a long time.
And yes, it’s amazing what some older types do.
It’s probably preaching to the choir here, but if you haven’t you really should read or rent the DVD of The Right Stuff. Or hell, do both. The movie is quite a bit more entertaining after reading Tom Wolfe’s book.