Sisyphus

And national security, since we're talking about oil. And the fiscal bottom line in the long term, since we're talking about oil.

I don't know if it would have been an "outrageous coup," really. They had already put probes on the moon. The big deal was the manned mission. If Luna 15 had succeeded before Apollo 11, it's only significant "first" would have been that it was the first mission to retrieve physical samples. A great achievement, but it would have still been completely overshadowed by the Americans actually walking around on the surface (despite being a much more efficient mission).

Of course there's no poll. What would be the point? We're all red-blooded, God-fearing Americans here.

It should be said that obviously we're allowed to criticize parts of the stimulus. Taken to an extreme, "just wait and see" could be a catch-all response to criticism (much like invoking terrorism and questioning patriotism seemed to be circa 2001-05 or so), but I don't think that's really the point here. Just that calling it already failed is ridiculously premature.

Yes, it's much more stabile. Guns got a whole lot more accurate when they figured out how to spin projectiles by rifling the barrels. That is the reason - ignore all this stuff about "cutting the air" or whatever you and rockman are talking about. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifling

I've read it. I found his analysis very persuasive, but I have too little exposure to that kind of anthropology to trust my own evaluation. What criticisms I've seen seem to focus on minor exceptions, but it seemed to me he was always speaking in very broad terms, which are still valid.

dichotomy, I think a 10% doubt is very unreasonable, for reasons gone over in this thread. However, I'll try to provide what you're asking for. I can't find online archives of Soviet or Chinese newspapers from 1969 (let alone English translations), but the very first Google result for "Soviet newspapers moon landing" is this interview with Sergei Khrushchev (son of Nikita) from Scientific American about Apollo 11, including how it was portrayed in the state-run media. It was not and has never been contested.

No, it measures the interval between electric pulses. Or the torque on a spring-loaded piece of aluminum, if it's an older one.

No one who isn't very stupid, no.

Bullets are made to spin so they fly straighter because of gyroscopic stabilization.

I still haven't heard anyone give a coherent, plausible explanation for why it wouldn't be easier to actually go to the moon than fake it, let alone supply real evidence it was faked. Really, this widespread doubt about it is just baffling. Is it just because "walking on the moon" is so fantastic sounding?

Shhh. Obviously we're all Communists. It's a poll about what we say publicly.

I'm definitely a moderate, but what kind is pretty inconsistent. When talking to conservatives I tend liberal, to libertarians I go mainstream moderate, and to traditional liberals I turn into a libertarian. Basically, I'm a contrarian jerk. When there's no one around to contradict, I'm a generally indecisive moderate pragmatic "liberaltarian." There are plenty of ideologies I'm willing to say are outright wrong, but nothing I can commit to being actually right.

I don't know what would happen if the speed of light could somehow increase or decrease. If the speed of everything is dependent on the speed of light to the same degree (which is not necessarily true), then I'm saying it can't be any faster or slower. If nothing has changed, then nothing has changed.

The universe does not expand outward, or in any direction, and there is no outside. The universe is not a sphere, nor does it have any other 3D shape. The expansion is an increase of space itself but not a movement of objects.

If everything happens faster to the same degree, then nothing has actually changed, has it? What would "faster" mean?

Is there some reason you think it might not be?

It's more fun on the Moon. There's no air resistance, and orbital velocity at the surface is only about 1700m/s. So, you know, careful with those high-powered rifles...

I think of it as more significant than just a sphere of influence. No information can escape from "inside," so from a positivist perspective "inside" doesn't even exist, just the "hole" of a given radius. Any path from a point inside just leads elsewhere inside, so it's sort of its own little semi-universe.

A speedometer measures the relative velocity between car and road, and that can't be greater than C.

Where does luck come in? I'm still not getting it. Yucca and moth are parts of one another's environment. Of course they're going to influence one another's evolution.

Oh, ok. I thought you meant the selection pressures would be of a special kind if it was co-evolution. Which I guess is what you're suggesting. What is especially mysterious about it?

"Density wave," not "wave density."

Why? I think I'm missing something.

I see. No, that's not how it works. The Big Bang was not an explosion, and things were never "moving apart" from some central point. There is no central point. The Big Bang was everywhere.