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(((Charles Fishman))) Profile picture
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23 Sep, 5 tweets, 2 min read
Was the Apollo mission to the Moon a failure?

Or a success?

I did a podcast with @JimPethokoukis tackling that question.

The key to the answer: economics.

Apollo changed life, not in space, but back on Earth.

aei.org/podcast/charle…
2/ Apollo single-handedly created the market for computer chips — for integrated circuits — during the 1960s.

Apollo taught the semiconductor companies how to make perfect chips, chips that always worked, always did what you asked them to.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cha…
3/ Flying to the Moon in 1969 did not get us the world of the Jetsons, or Star Trek.

What it got us was the world we all live in today—a world of nonstop, always-on, real-time computing that mediates everything we do.

It started with flying to the Moon.

stitcher.com/show/money-pol…
If you are dubious of the value of going to the Moon ('all we got was Velcro & Tang…') — that's why I wrote 'One Giant Leap.'

Going to the Moon…

•…was a mind-boggling achievement, done by ordinary people

•…is a roadmap for some of today's problems
amazon.com/One-Giant-Leap…
By the way, Apollo didn't get us Velcro (invented 1948) or Tang (invented 1957).

Velcro is vital in space.

As for Tang, many of the astronauts didn't care for it. The Apollo 11 astronauts specifically excluded it from their Moon landing pantry.

fastcompany.com/90361081/my-co…

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More from @cfishman

(((Charles Fishman))) Profile picture
24 Sep
For the 2021 holiday season, these 5 big employers have announced hiring goals:

• FedEx: 90,000 employees (v. 70,000 in 2020)

• UPS: 100,000 (same)

• Amazon: 120,000 (v. 100,000)

• Target: 100,000 (v. 130,000)

• Walmart: 20,000 (same)

That's 430,000 at 5 companies.
2/ As an incentive, UPS has started a program to offer you a job within 30 minutes of applying, if you qualify. (A huge incentive in the world of online job applications, where you apply and then…never hear anything.)
3/ The US has 10.9 million open jobs right now.

How will WMT, TGT, UPS, FDX, AMZN find & hire people for tough, high-pressure jobs, with modest pay — at this moment?

Analyst on CNBC said, 'It's not too early to do your Christmas shopping. Don't count on last-minute delivery.'
Read 4 tweets
(((Charles Fishman))) Profile picture
18 Sep
Inspiration4 with a safe splashdown in the Atlantic off Florida.

Series if three pics below.

Great three-day mission of four regular folks to space.

A new era of spaceflight is being born right in front of us…
2/ Inspiration 4 returns…
3/ Inspiration4 floating safely in Atlantic…
Read 5 tweets
(((Charles Fishman))) Profile picture
17 Sep
We've got 4 ordinary people in space on a SpaceX capsule.

I recently re-read slices of 'One Giant Leap' to get ready for a podcast.

Space travel is hard, but it was really hard in 1969.

Amazing what you 'forget' about your own work.

—>
fastcompany.com/90357215/your-…
2/ Tidbit #1: On Apollo 11, Armstrong & Aldrin spent 2-1/2 hours Moon walking.

They ended up so covered in Moon dirt, & found the dirt so irritating, they spent their one night on the Moon sleeping in their helmets & gloves to avoid the regolith (p.xiv).

amazon.com/One-Giant-Leap…
3/ MIT won the contract to design the spaceship computers for Apollo, and then to write the software for them, and supervise their construction.

Apollo's computers were the fastest, most nimble computers ever created.

But MIT itself ran out of computing power to program them.
Read 6 tweets
(((Charles Fishman))) Profile picture
17 Sep
Here's the thing about @SpaceX …

In publicity terms, they do some things brilliantly.

Cameras mounted on the rockets & inside Dragon give amazing views. Riveting every time.

But complete blackout of @inspiration4x after launch is a bait & switch.

What's happening now?
2/ You don't inspire interest & passion for spaceflight with the walk across the crew access arm.

What's life like *in space* for the 4 ordinary-people crew?

What are their immediate observations?

Zero-G after 4 minutes v. after 12 hours?

How's the view? the food? the toilet?
3/ THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT.

We really never have had a crew like this. This is a verbal, smart, funny group. (Yes, I've watched the Netflix documentary.)

I want to hear their voices in real time.

I don't buy the whole Netflix 'exclusivity' thing.
Read 5 tweets
(((Charles Fishman))) Profile picture
30 Aug
This is absolutely bonkers.

The Mississippi River is 200’ deep at New Orleans, and a half mile wide.

That’s a wall of water as tall as a skyscraper and as wide as a city block, with 2,000 miles of water behind it.

Ida stopped the flow, then briefly reversed it.
2/ When I was a Mississippi River tugboat deckhand, Rule #1 was never fall in the river. Because, we were told, half who fall in don’t emerge alive.

Actually, Rule #1 was wear your life vest at all times on deck.

Rule #2, above.
The Mississippi River has been recorded flowing backwards at least three other times:

• 2012, Hurricane Isaac, for 24 hours bear the mouth

• 2005, for Hurricane Katrina

• 1812, after a series of powerful earthquakes near New Madrid, Missouri.

bbc.com/news/science-e…
Read 4 tweets
(((Charles Fishman))) Profile picture
26 Aug
Yesterday, a federal judge in Michigan did something extraordinary & important.

Yes, she penalized Trump's election attorneys for their conduct filing a lawsuit to have Michigan's 2020 election results thrown out.

But she did something bigger:

Took the suit seriously.

—>
2/ She went through every claim in the original suit, and then she went through every claim they mounted to defend themselves against charges of incompetence & bad lawyering.

And she crushed every single one — with barely restrained fury, but also with meticulous precision.
3/ One small example: Lawyers claimed they 'hadn't received' certain briefs mailed to them by lawyers for the city of Detroit.

They did receive the documents — Lin Wood tweeted mocking them.
Read 28 tweets

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