Sadly supersonic flight is an environmental disaster from a climate change perspective. Probably at least 3 or 4 times worse than regular aviation per passenger mile. It is going to be hard enough to deal with zero-carbon subsonic fleet......

(Written on 05/16/2023)(Permalink)

Not sure that the fat cat understanding is not true. While it is true pensions do hold stocks it all gets a little difficult (to say the least) to analyze what percentage that is and the wealth of those pension plan holders. Typically rich people are significantly over represented assetwise in pensions and 401k, IRA etc. Sadly a very significant proportion of the US population have zero savings beyond their Social Security. I believe it is true that the majority of US citizens do not have enough money to comfortably retire. Overall something like 40% of the nation’s wealth is held by the top 1%.

(Written on 05/12/2023)(Permalink)

I am sorry to hear about your health issues. However nationwide statistics are hugely positive in regards to the safety of the vaccines. The risk reward reward ratio is massively positive in favor of getting vaccinated. The probability of the vaccine being the cause of your heart problems is very very low. Not zero but very very low. The odds of serious health issues, including death, from getting COVID-19 way outweigh the risks from the vaccine.

(Written on 05/12/2023)(Permalink)

Last time I checked there were under 10 deaths due to COVID-19 vaccination. So odds are: 10 in 600,000,000 from dying from the vaccine ie 1 in 60,000,000 1,100,000 in 330,000,000 from dying from COVID-19 ie 1 in 300 Pick one!

(Written on 05/12/2023)(Permalink)

Yep By just about every scientific measure the vaccines are incredibly safe and very effective. The only significant downside is that their protection does not last as long as we would wish.

(Written on 05/12/2023)(Permalink)

Your survival stat is wrong. It is more like 99.7% with +60% vaccination rate and new antiviral medications that did not exist in 2021 You are 117,000 times MORE likely to die from COVID-19 than the vaccine The unvaccinated are something over 6 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than the vaccinated even though the vaccinated group is heavily overweighted with those most likely to die from COVID-19. . Those odds make it a totally foolish NOT to get vaccinated. The “sheep” in this case are those that followed the totally insane anti-vaccine nuts. That group represents over 500,000 citizens that died unnecessarily. 500,000!!!!!!

(Written on 05/12/2023)(Permalink)

You need to read the article carefully, very carefully as the wording is very misleading. What it says is "the production process can produce up to 80% fewer carbon emissions than traditional jet fuel". The key word is "production". It says nothing about the CO2 emitted in use or the land area used to grow the material that goes into the production process or what it takes to grow the material. The real problem is that there simply no way of scaling this up to be anything more than a rounding error. We run out of land before that ....if we want humans to actually have food for people to eat. THe only way that the aviation industry is going to get anywhere near zero carbon is via direct air capture (DAC) where the cO2 is removed from the atmosphere. The problem with DAC is that we really don't know how to do it commercially today. To get to zero carbon, or anywhere near it, a LOT of work needs to be done....and sadly it is not getting done at anything close to the rate i

(Written on 05/01/2023)(Permalink)

Consider it a down payment on replacing the An-225 that Russia destroyed!

(Written on 05/01/2023)(Permalink)

I tell you what - we will take it off the reparations bill that Russia owes for the huge damage they have done in Ukraine. Hell that doesn't even cover the cost of the An-225 that Russia destroyed.

(Written on 05/01/2023)(Permalink)

In the larger sense it doesn't matter how the current government came to power. What does matter is that clearly the current government has the overwhelming support of the people of Ukraine. It can not be denied that the Ukrainians are fighting like demons to defend their country. On the other side we see an unprovoked attack on a country by a military that is clearly targeting civilians. The only "defense" that Russia has provided is that they didn't like the new regime. The war crime claims against Russia appear to be be based on real evidence. Putin has made it clear he wants to reestablish the old corrupt USSR no matter what. As for the endgame...from the Ukrainian perspective it is to kick the invaders out of their country.

(Written on 05/01/2023)(Permalink)