Artemis II launch experience

by philg

I went to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex yesterday to watch at least $2.5 billion of our tax dollars getting incinerated via the Artemis II mission. The best graphic that I’ve found to explain this somehow comes from Al-Jazeera:

My journey began with a flight (2005 Cirrus SR20 with no A/C) from our South Florida redoubt to KTIX. The sole FBO was slammed so they established a piston ghetto parking area on the east side of the field and deputized flight school employees to park the planes that weren’t worth dealing with. Here’s the Cirrus row:

I arrived around noon and my Enterprise rental car wasn’t there. “They had to deliver 300 cars to NASA,” explained the FBO gal. Eventually a 19-year-old flight instructor gave me and two other Cirrus pilots rides to the downtown Titusville Enterprise office. The 19-year-old had gone straight from high school to flight school and, now in possession of all her ratings, was working as a CFI rather than paying $400,000 to listen to PhD mediocrities (being a Florida, she could presumably have gone to college essentially for free via Bright Futures, but her flying career would have been delayed by four years; she can get an online bachelor’s degree if she ever needs one). I then stopped at Publix to pick up sandwiches and returned to the airport to pick up a friend in his ghetto-adjacent Piper Malibu JetPROP. My friend, an AI-coding entrepreneur, had found unauthorized resale tickets on Reddit for Kennedy Space Center viewing at $155 each ($99 face value; to have gotten our own tickets we would have had to notice an email sent from the KSC that Gmail maps into Promotions and then purchased the $99 or the $250 “feel the heat” ticket within the first few seconds (“feel the heat” is viewing from the Saturn V building, just 4 miles from the pad; the main KSC has a much larger capacity and is 8 miles away)). He brought along a guy who has some connection to a commercial space company. Let’s call him “Space Friend”. At the “real FBO” we met a father-daughter pair who’d just stepped out of their personal Challenger (“I work in finance” said the dad, when Space Friend asked). They had arranged a car service to take them to a public park, but Friend had two extra tickets so we invited them to jump into the Enterprise minivan with us and go to the KSC.

Combining the delays of getting the Enterprise car, Space Friend fighting through Miami traffic to reach KFXE, and Friend+Space Friend having to sit on the ground at KFXE waiting their turn to take off (45 minutes due to heavy flight school volume), we ended up on the road at about 3:15 pm, a mistake of monumental proportions. There was a security check to get onto the NASA Causeway and we were also asked if we had tickets, but didn’t have to show them. Somehow this caused an epic traffic jam despite the fact that the security check for us took about 15 seconds (everyone trusts minivan owners!). We arrived at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor complex around 5:30 pm (i.e., 2+ hours for what is normally a 15-minute drive). The parking lot attendant asked us to show a phone screen of our ticket, but didn’t scan it. There were some people watching the launch from the parking lot (pretty much the same view/sound as inside) so I wondered if they had pictures of someone else’s ticket or perhaps they had the $99 tickets and didn’t like crowds.

It’s a shame that we didn’t bring Mindy the Crippler because we were greeted by a bunny near the entrance:

Our sketchy Reddit tickets actually did scan, so we were able to enter and find a golden retriever:

Also the Artemis backup team:

The bleachers and prime viewing areas near big-screen TVs were packed, but nearby areas almost as good weren’t crowded:

The weather was perfect:

The launch itself was loud, but not to the point that it would have been nice to have earplugs.

We had binoculars, but it was uncomfortable to look at the vehicle with them because the rocket exhaust is so bright. I didn’t make a video because I believe in “f/8 and be there” (i.e., the cameras set up by NASA and affiliates close to the pad are going to “be there” and do a much better job).

The trip back to the airport took about 45 minutes through some traffic.

I flew the Cirrus back to her Stuart, Florida home, about 35 minutes under a full moon. Orlando Approach refused to provide “flight following” (formerly there was a big push to call this “VFR Advisories”, but that seems to have died along with “Notice to Air Missions” as a replacement for “Notice to Airmen”) due to “staffing”. Florida is bursting at the seams!

Was it worth a whole day for a 4-minute launch experience? Sure. I was glad that I was there for a Florida community experience. Although we weren’t there for long, we chatted with people who’d been there for hours in folding chairs and who were extremely passionate about space flight, e.g., a family from Melbourne, Florida whose kids are techies in Atlanta and have come home for every Artemis attempt. It would have been a lot less traffic and more fun to enter the KSC at around noon and spend the day waiting with the crowd. If you just want to experience the sound and fury of a rocket launch, though, it would be just as good to get a “feel the heat” ticket to watch a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch (much less likely to scrub) from the Saturn V building. It’s a smaller rocket, but being only half the distance away means the visceral effect is as large or larger.

Let’s hope the Artemis mission is a success. If it is, though, we’ll be forced to conclude that it is easier to send an Astronaut of Color, an Astronaut of Femaleness, and an Astronaut of Canadianness (another victimhood category?) to the moon than it is to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Mahmoud Khalil, or most other migrants.

(Given SpaceX Starship, what is the point of the SLS and Artemis, you might ask? A friend at NASA Goddard: “It’s a jobs program so that NASA didn’t have to fire the people who worked on the Shuttle.” In his view, all of the SLS/Artemis goals could be accomplished at a much lower cost by SpaceX. Keep in mind that Science NASA is jammed with haters of the manned space program!)

Related:

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Feel better about your upcoming college tuition bills

by philg

We’re closing in on when parents find out the extent to which they’re going to be impoverished by college education bills. To celebrate April Fools’ Day, given that nothing is more foolish than handing over one’s life savings to a for-profit nonprofit university, I thought everyone might enjoy this exchange from a Jupiter, Florida Facebook group:

My son is zoned to attend Jupiter High School, and I’m a bit lost on how to navigate the course options. I’m trying to understand the differences between AICE courses, AP courses, and the various choice programs, especially in relation to qualifying for the Bright Futures scholarship.

Answer from a young lady: I am a recent college graduate and I also attended JHS. Thanks to AICE classes combined with dual enrollment courses, I was able to complete my bachelors degree in two years, all paid for by full bright futures scholarship (which was from completing the AICE diploma). If your kid is planning on going to a Florida college one day, I recommend the AICE program as more FL schools accept those credits.

Background from Google AI: AICE (Advanced International Certificate of Education) classes in Florida are part of a rigorous Cambridge University program offered in many high schools, allowing students to earn college credit, gain university-level skills, and qualify for Florida Bright Futures scholarships by passing challenging exams.

Bright Futures is free tuition (but the in-state rack rate is minimal in any case; less than $7,000/year at University of Florida) funded by the gambling addicts who purchase lottery tickets. “Dual enrollment” refers to the right of any Florida high schooler with decent grades to take college courses at state-run universities at no charge (taxpayers also have to pay for the textbooks) and get high school and college credit at the same time.

So, the parents of the gal who responded ended up with a 20-year-old college graduate at zero cost other than some rent/food/transportation expenses. My response to her: “your parents should buy you a car of your choice every three years for the rest of your life. #Legend”

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International Transgender Day of Visibility in Florida

by philg

We recently received this bumper sticker in the mail, addressed to my late mother, a loyal Democrat.

Happy International Transgender Day of Visibility to those who celebrate. Note that this is not to be confused with National Transgender HIV Testing Day (April 18) nor International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia (May 17) nor Nonbinary Awareness Week, culminates in International Nonbinary People’s Day on July 14, nor International Pronouns Day (third Wednesday in October) nor Transgender Parent Day (first Sunday in November).

It is unclear to me why those for whom 2SLGBTQQIA+ identification is important stay in Florida. safehome.org says “Thirteen states received a failing “F” grade for LGBTQ+ safety, based on their high number of discriminatory laws and hate crimes. Florida scored lowest of all of the states.” (DC was included and, thus, Florida was #51 out of 51).

Excluding those who have scored taxpayer-funded public housing, for which there would be a 10-20-year waiting list anywhere else, why would the 2SLGBTQQIA+ stay in the absolute worst and least safe state? They could move tomorrow to any of these A-rated states:

(I don’t think that poverty can be the answer for why the 2SLGBTQQIA+ don’t flee to safety. Nearly all of the top=-rated states offer more generous welfare than Florida does. (CATO, Table 4).)

In other transgenderism news, the Supreme Court today said that Colorado’s law against therapy intended to keep people in their birth genders is likely unconstitutional (details). The law dates from 2019 (ABC):

The same person is governor today and apparently isn’t going to apologize to his/her/zir/their subjects for likely violating the U.S. Constitution for 7 years:

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Florida Legislature responds to the No Kings protest by renaming Palm Beach International Airport…

by philg

… to Donald J. Trump International Airport. I wonder if the code will change from PBI to DJT.

“DeSantis signs bill to rename Palm Beach International Airport after Donald J. Trump” (WPTV):

Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a controversial bill to rename Palm Beach International Airport after Donald J. Trump. The newly approved legislation, House Bill 919, gives the state authority over naming major commercial service airports and officially designates the facility as “Donald J. Trump International Airport.”

Palm Beach County, of course, has more registered Democrats than Republicans, so this isn’t going to be universally popular with our neighbors…

#Ironic: Via his regular weekends in Palm Beach, Donald J. Trump has done more to reduce the utility of PBI than anyone in the 90-year history of the airport. (Temporary Flight Restrictions imposed when DJT is in town make PBI cumbersome/burdensome to use.)

Whether one loves Donald J. Trump or not, I think everyone can agree that PBI offers an awesome traveler experience. Security is a breeze, even without PreCheck. The check-in counters are always fully staffed so there are minimal lines for checking bags. The gates aren’t as crowded as in FLL or MIA. I do wish the ceilings were higher in the gate areas.

Here’s the view of Mar-a-Lago while sitting on JetBlue climbing out of PBI (DJT?) in December 2025 (en route to Minneapolis):

A car in the airport garage back in June 2025 (rare to have any political bumper stickers in this part of Florida, but it is also possible to go big):

Permanent airport exhibit on David McCampbell, “the United States Navy’s all-time leading flying ace”, who spent his youth and retirement in Palm Beach County:

Battle of Leyte Gulf: “When he landed his Hellcat aboard the USS Langley (the flight deck of Essex was not clear), his six machine guns had just two rounds remaining, and his airplane had to be manually released from the arrestor wire due to complete fuel exhaustion.”

Speaking of naming… if we had an aircraft carrier named for FDR why not one for Donald J. Trump (assuming that he wins the current war against Iran!)?

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Farrier pay: Feel better about those college tuition costs

by philg

Families are preparing to hear from colleges for their teenage darlings. Each acceptance will come with a price tag of up to $400,000 plus the cost of the darling not being in the workforce for four years (foregone wages). In order to cheer everyone up who is facing these costs, let me relate a conversation that I had with a farrier recently. We shared a row on a commercial flight to PBI, the second-closest airport to the equestrian gold mine of Wellington, Florida (there’s also a fabulous airpark right in Wellington!).

A farrier may prepare for the career with a half-year program (example; also, a 16-week $8500 program at Cornell) and then start as an apprentice. If joining a multi-farrier enterprise, the starting salary can be over $60,000 per year. After 10 years, a farrier who works hard among show horses should be earning about $250,000 per year. That’s with 6 months of post-high-school education and is about 2X what a veterinarian earns (BLS).

Note that this career does require maintaining some physical fitness: “Be able to lift 75 pounds and be in reasonable physical condition for the work,” says Cornell.

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Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas

by philg

As Women’s History Month comes to a close, let’s look at a February visit to the Pinball Hall of Fame, on the Strip in Las Vegas.

This is essentially a big warehouse filled with old arcade games, indifferently maintained and many powered off. That said, it is a large enough collection that there are probably some playable games within that you’ve never seen and never played.

Here’s a supersized Flintstones machine from 1994 that is better as a concept than as a game:

A prototype machine for squirrel-hating golden retrievers… Goin’ Nuts:

Speaking of hate and haters…

Those who appreciate fruit crate art will like this 2015 retro Stern Whoa Nellie!

Machines are priced at whatever their original price was, e.g., some as low as 25 cents and quite a few at 50 or 75 cents per play.

Let’s close with a 1995 Gottlieb Strikes ‘N Spares machine, dressed up in Big Lebowski garb.

Tip: Get there right when it opens if you want to be able to hear the machines’ callouts and music clearly. Don’t be put off by the surly ladies who run the place! (I’m not sure why they’re there because one of them said that she didn’t like pinball and never played any of the machines.)

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How was your No Kings rally yesterday?

by philg

There was no No Kings rally here in Jupiter, Florida yesterday so I’m forced to rely on the New York Times to understand what one might have been like. Here’s one of their photos (source), I think from Minneapolis:

Principal confusion: We’re informed that Minneapolis is a fully integrated society of white people, Somalis, the Latinx, and some legacy African Americans who are being phased out in favor of migrants. But the photo appears to show only white people, consistent with Minneapolis in December (my experience in December 2025 was that environments were 100% white or 100% Somali and that there was no mixing).

Maybe the protest is actually against democracy? Folks are upset that the candidate for whom they voted was beaten by a candidate for whom other Americans voted? This is an illegitimate result because Americans who aren’t Democrats are “morons”:

In Little Rock, Ark., where more than 2,000 people marched across the Arkansas River, one woman carried her own MAGA sign: “Morons Are Governing America.”

The technical definition of “moron” used to be an IQ of 75 or less, but Democrats must mean something else because they advocate for increased immigration from countries whose average measured IQ is less than 75. Gemini in response to “average IQ in Somali”, for example (quote, but not in quote style for readability):

Based on studies conducted by researchers such as Richard Lynn and David Becker, and various international rankings, the average IQ in Somalia has been estimated to be in the range of 67 to 68.

  • Contextual Data: A 2025 compilation of countries by average IQ, often citing data from the Ulster Institute, lists Somalia with a score of 67.67.
  • Study Data: Another study focusing on Somali refugees in Kenya, using the Standard Progressive Matrices Plus, identified a British-scaled average IQ of 68.
  • Controversy and Factors: It is widely noted that IQ scores are heavily associated with environmental factors, such as nutrition, parental socioeconomic status, morbidity, and educational quality. These low scores are frequently attributed to poor socioeconomics, conflicts, and developmental challenges rather than innate intelligence.
  • Methodology Debate: Critics argue that these studies often rely on outdated data, small sample sizes, or Western-centric tests that do not account for cultural or educational differences. 

These figures place the estimate among the lowest in international IQ studies, often noted in the context of the lowest-ranked nations for national intelligence estimates. 

(I personally think that Somalis who collect checks from government welfare programs are smarter than white Minnesotans who write the checks and work 60 hours/week to pay taxes to fund the checks! So we can say for sure that IQ tests don’t measure practical intelligence.)

What did you all see in your neighborhoods for No Kings day? Your answer can’t be “nothing” because the NYT says “The No Kings organizers said that eight million people took part” and we know that it is Trump who lies and not those who are opposed to Trump.

Pictures from friends on Facebook who attended… note the lack of non-whites.

Boston:

Silicon Valley:

Portland, Oregon:

Black-free Atlanta:

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12 Hours of Sebring and a car show in Jupiter

by philg

A car weekend in Florida… (last weekend)

I took the 10-year-old to the 12 Hours of Sebring IMSA race, conveniently located right next to the Sebring airport.

Chevy, whose team finished just behind the Porsche 911 team, brought the latest Corvette ZR1X to the event:

I’m not sure who needs 1,250 horsepower to get to Publix, especially given that the nearest curve on a public road is in Georgia. The sacrifice of the front trunk space seriously compromises the ZR1X’s utility as a car. Chevy also brought the “Stars and Steel” 250th anniversary of the U.S. edition Corvette (a car that is made out of plastic (body) and engine (aluminum)):

GM unveiled the Grand Sport version of the Corvette at the event, but few details were provided.

Consistent with the quantities of alcohol previously consumed at Sebring, a drunken 4-day experience for many, Ford brought a Mustang tipped on its side:

Access to the elevated viewing deck is limited to Mustang owners and, presumably, their friends, so try to show up with a Mustang owner. Here’s the view from the top:

There’s a small museum next door. Reflect on the fact that today’s Islamic Republic of Great Britain was once sufficiently mighty to engineer and manufacture cars that could run continuously for 12 hours:

(See also 12 Hours of Sebring 2025 and 12 Hours of Sebring, a perfect Florida fly-in destination)

The next car event for the weekend was Cars and Coffee in Boca Raton at the office park in which the IBM PC was developed 44.5 years ago. I’ll cover that when the PC turns 45.

The final car event was a show here in Jupiter at the Double Roads Tavern. This show was heavier on antiques than the usual South Florida event. Here’s a 1946 Ford cab-over-engine (COE) truck:

A Lincoln Continental next to a 1955 Thunderbird (the first year for a car that lasted until 1997 and then had a retro version from 2002-2005) next to a 1957 DeSoto:

A lot of old pickup truck action:

This Chevy 3100 was a work of art:

Maybe the El Camino (1968) should be brought back for those who want to transport bicycles rather than the heavy cargo for which the Ford F-150 is spec’d:

What happens to all of these collectibles when Americans are no longer able to drive because robots have taken over? Will it be fun to sit in the passenger seats while the Optimus robot does the driving of a classic car? If not, do the ones that aren’t in museums get scrapped?

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Bank of America customers get to pay $72.5 million to Jeffrey Epstein’s female associates

by philg

If you’re wondering why Bank of America needs to charge fees… “Bank of America Pays $72.5 Million to Settle Lawsuit by Epstein Victims” (New York Times, yesterday):

The lead plaintiff in the Bank of America lawsuit, an unidentified woman, came to the United States from Russia in 2011 when she was about 20. The lawsuit said Mr. Epstein had sexually abused her at least 100 times and coerced her into a “cultlike life,” in which she was totally dependent on him.

In 2013, Bank of America opened an account for the woman, then 22, at the direction of Mr. Epstein’s employees, even though she spoke little English and had no job or discernible source of income — all potential red flags for sex trafficking, the lawsuit said.

The two law firms representing the victims, Boies Schiller Flexner and Edwards Henderson, could be eligible to receive fees totaling 30 percent of the settlement amount, according to the court filing.

Note that Boies Schiller Flexner was Theranos’s law firm, absolutely critical to keeping the fraud going according to the book Bad Blood, and David Boeis was actually a Theranos board member (see Evaluating trustworthiness; lessons from Theranos).

So… this woman got paid to have sex with Jeffrey Epstein from age 20 to age 28. In addition to whatever she got paid at the time, e.g., via the Bank of America account at issue, she would have received about $3.5 million from JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, and the Epstein estate. Let’s say with this latest settlement she’ll be up to $5 million, all tax-free because it will be payments for damages suffered. She says that she had sex with Jeffrey Epstein 100 times so that works out to $50,000 per sex act plus whatever Emmanuel Goldstein paid her on a current basis.

Loosely related… “[OnlyFans] proves that, when given the choice and opportunity, many women will choose to enter the prostitution industry voluntarily”

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Why is it legal for the U.S. to shut off oil and electric power in Cuba, but a “war crime” if we were to do it to Iran?

by philg

We’re not at war with Cuba, as far as I know, and Cubans don’t chant “Death to America” while building advanced weapons. Nonetheless, we’ve supposedly prevented Cubans from getting oil and, thus, generating electric power. From state-sponsored NPR… “How the U.S. oil blockade is taking a high toll on everyday Cubans”:

For millions of Cubans, daily life has turned into a desperate struggle. Earlier this week, Cuba was forced into a nationwide blackout after months of the U.S. effectively choking off oil shipments to the island from Cuba’s allies. The country continues to experience rolling blackouts. And meanwhile, President Trump continues to float the idea of taking over the country. But amid negotiations with the U.S., Cuban officials say they don’t intend to go anywhere.

(According to the U.S. Department of State, NPR is simply lying, but that isn’t relevant for the purposes of this post. Let’s assume that NPR Is telling the truth.)

Trump-hostile media outlets complain that U.S. policy toward Cuba is cruel, but not that it is a “crime” or a “war crime” (NYT example).

The most obvious way to reduce the Islamic Republic of Iran’s long-term military power is to disable the country’s oil industry and electric power generation. Without money from selling oil, the Islamic Republic wouldn’t be able to rebuild weapons factories. Without a surplus of electric power, the Islamic Republic wouldn’t be able to run its weapons factories.

The same newspaper that implies it was not a crime for us to disable Cuba’s electric power says that it would definitely be a “war crime” to do anything to harm our actual enemy, Iran. NYT, March 24, 2026:

Intentionally targeting the country’s energy infrastructure could constitute a war crime under international law.

Here’s another mystery… “Iran Moves to Formalize Toll Plan in Strait of Hormuz” (NYT):

Tehran has effectively closed off the critical waterway, turning back container ships on Friday, and Iranian lawmakers are considering whether to charge fees to pass.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said Friday that it had turned back three container ships attempting to enter what it described as a designated corridor, declaring that “the Strait of Hormuz is closed” and warning that any unauthorized traffic would face “severe action,” according to a statement carried by Fars.

We’ve been told that the U.S. has sunk the entire Iranian navy and also that A-10 Warthogs are patrolling the Strait of Hormuz. How is Iran able to operate military naval vessels, even boat-sized, that can “turn back” a ship? Maybe the answer is that Iran is radioing the ships and threatening them with drones or missiles?

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