[Scotty]

UT, you obviously think patents are a lot more powerful than they actually are.  If patents were actually worth anything, there wouldn't be a dozen knock off brands of anything worth mentioning.

Additionally, knowledge is not locked up in patents.  A SINGLE SPECIFIC WAY OF APPLYING THAT KNOWLEDGE is all a patent pertains to.  Change one decently insignificant part, and it's a new product.

[Volyren Nightsong]

I wasn’t saying that nasa’s missions or accomplishments were not important. Quite the opposite.
I just don’t find that there is anything even remotely be optimistic about.
Honestly even though I think that whole December 21st 2012 doomsday thing to be over hyped and rife with all kinds of inaccuracies and outright historical FICTION, I'm starting to think that IF I wake up on the morning of December 22nd 2012 I will be disappointed.
Which wont be much of a change from how I feel now.
Feel free to close this and my other threads here in general discussion, unless people want to continue posting on them.
I think I will be away for a long time.

[666maslo666]

You do not seem to understand the nature of transition to private space industry. Governments will still be the primary customer. It will not be privately funded only. The research data will still be public and astronauts will still fly even if they are not millionaries.

[Spicious]

Additionally, knowledge is not locked up in patents.  A SINGLE SPECIFIC WAY OF APPLYING THAT KNOWLEDGE is all a patent pertains to.  Change one decently insignificant part, and it's a new product.

Patents don't work that way in the real world. Observe the patent lawsuits going on in the mobile industry: http://www.flickr.com/photos/floorsixtyfour/5061246255/.

[Nuke]

if theres one thing i hate about technology is how much of it is proprietary. patents are at least documented openly. imagine how much technology sits in some corporate vault somewhere. waiting to get lost, forgotten, or destroyed. if i had my way patents wouldnt just expire, they would become public domain after a certain amount of time. if you want to lock down a technology with a patent, if you ever decide not to renew (spend money) your pattents, it becomes public and therefore unpatentable. i dont like the patent office becoming a static collection of good ideas that noone can ever use without paying someone. and id rather companies invest what would have been spent defending patents on r&d to make better innovations. companies shouldnt even get to hold patents. i always figured patents were to protect the small time inventor, not massive corporate structures.

[newman]

You have Dawn that is orbiting Vesta right now, and will be the first mission of that type to enter a controlled orbit into a second space body while leaving the first one on it's own power as it departs for Ceres. Despite the huge financial difficulties the mission found itself in, it's been progressing beautifully and a lot of good research is being done just by that.

Then you have New Horizons, which targets nothing less than Pluto and the Kuiper Belt afterwards. If we're in this for the science, then these are great accomplishments. And if we are in this for the science then we need to be honest with ourselves and admit that while we have the technology to send someone to another planetary body, we do lack the technology to make the risks manageable and the journey to have much more of a point other than sticking a flag into another planet as a PR stunt.

Until we get new propulsion and material technologies allowing manned interplanetary travel that might actually make some sense, I'd say the correct choice is to focus on umanned exploration. Which is exactly what's been going on, and I for one find these unmanned probe programs pretty damn exciting in themselves. Have to learn to crawl before you move on to walking/running...

[Scotty]

Additionally, knowledge is not locked up in patents.  A SINGLE SPECIFIC WAY OF APPLYING THAT KNOWLEDGE is all a patent pertains to.  Change one decently insignificant part, and it's a new product.

Patents don't work that way in the real world. Observe the patent lawsuits going on in the mobile industry: http://www.flickr.com/photos/floorsixtyfour/5061246255/.

Yes.  Going on.  Undecided, incomplete, discussionary.  In other words, non-binding and its entirely possible that none of them will succeed.  All that tells me is that the mobile industry is screwy, but I think we all knew that anyway.  For a better analogy, take a look at the automotive industry, which is a much better comparison.  Building the same thing a different way does not violate a patent.  I repeat, a patent does not restrict knowledge or its application in any meaningful way.

[Spicious]

Yes.  Going on.  Undecided, incomplete, discussionary.

Yet still wasting massive amounts of money on lawyer costs.

All that tells me is that the mobile industry is screwy, but I think we all knew that anyway. 

Bold claim to make without evidence.

For a better analogy,

example

take a look at the automotive industry, which is a much better comparison.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124640553503576637.html

Building the same thing a different way does not violate a patent.  I repeat, a patent does not restrict knowledge or its application in any meaningful way.

Again, in practice this does not apply. This isn't even a new phenomenon: http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/do-patents-encourage-or-hinder-innovation-the-case-of-the-steam-engine/

[Kosh]

Until we get new propulsion and material technologies allowing manned interplanetary travel that might actually make some sense,

You mean new propulsion technology like this or this? We've had that technology for 30+ years and couldn't be bothered to do anything with it.

[newman]

The biggest problem space propulsion has to solve is actually getting stuff into a high orbit. Nuclear propulsion doesn't address this issue. What we need is technology that will make going into LEO and above a cheap everyday venture so things like orbital docks and interplanetary craft assembled in orbit can become a reality without bankrupting the planet.

[Kosh]

The biggest problem space propulsion has to solve is actually getting stuff into a high orbit. Nuclear propulsion doesn't address this issue. What we need is technology that will make going into LEO and above a cheap everyday venture so things like orbital docks and interplanetary craft assembled in orbit can become a reality without bankrupting the planet.

We don't necessarily need new propulsion technologies for that either, the problem is NASAs huge bureaucracy. Sure the shuttle costs $400+ million to launch it, but most of that cost was from the bloat of the organization itself, the fuel for example was only a couple million. While a revolutionary new design like the Skylon would certainly allow us to do the job better, it isn't as much of a requirement as one might think, especially when considering launch cost differences between the Falcon 9 and Ares 1. That in and of itself busts open the myth that we can't do it relatively inexpensively.     

[Unknown Target]

Too true. People wail about how awful it is that NASA is getting less money, but really that's probably the best thing for the agency. I bet you they could still run manned space operations on a smaller budget, but first they'd have to get their stuff together.

Some anecdotal stories;

I have an uncle (I think...he's extended family, I only see him on Thanksgiving ) who contracts for NASA. He's one of the old guys that was there back in the 60s and 70s I think, he told me about back then, if they wanted a new satellite, they'd get it up and launched within six months to a year or something. It was a very active environment, it accepted risk and it was very much that attitude of "gotta get this done, we don't know how to do it exactly so we're going to do the best we can". They were getting a constant stream of well educated, well skilled employees coming to work at the organization.

Fast forward to now, and things have changed. Firstly, it takes forever to get anything done. Through a myriad of deals with companies, outsourcing to private firms, litigation-happy lawyers, and a constant need to "justify" it's existence, what used to take one year now may take 5 or 7. It's more expensive because of yes, the bureaucratic bloat - there is so much paperwork that goes with launches now, it's unbelievable. As an example of how messed up the contracting system is (both for NASA and in general). NASA contracted out to rebuild a bathroom in one of their buildings. Halfway through the project they discovered that something was wrong with the plans and one of the stalls was too small for regulations. However, the way government contracts work, they could not stop building it. They HAD to finish the bathroom because that was what was specified in the contract. After the bathroom was finished, they had to draft a new contract (it costs money to make these contracts, too, don't forget), to tear down the bathroom they had just built, and then rebuild it up to spec.

As for the highly educated, highly skilled workforce - this guy retired several years ago, but they keep bringing him back because he's one of the few people that know how to do any of the stuff he does (he works with space-hardened electronics). The engineering students that are coming out of universities look great on paper, but when it comes to practical experience and knowledge they have not a clue. We got onto this subject because I brought up how bad a majority of the engineering students I've met are at what they do. It's crazy. They know how to crunch numbers like "all good engineers" - but they have no clue how to think creatively or problem solve.
But I don't need to go into the failings of the US education system and the hilarious yet depressing failings of it's college/university system. That's pretty obvious to anyone who enjoys knowledge or learning, and it's a discussion for another thread.

The point is that NASA is a very useful, very necessary government agency; but it really, really needs to stop acting like one. Most government agencies today are these massive entities that are separate bureaucratic monsters that the general populace feels completely disconnected with. These budget cuts could be good for NASA, if they get a clue. They need to streamline, and take this massive pillar of bloated government "achievements", and flatten it so that people can actually interact with it. They need look back on themselves honestly - they should really have a public discussion where they ask people "Do you think the shuttle was a success?". Of course they get to discuss their side of the story, and have this real healing process that looks at the pros and cons of what the organization has done in the last several years. There's been a lot of good decisions and a lot of bad ones, and they need to hold themselves accountable for what was done, otherwise we really won't learn what works and what doesn't in a public space program.

[Bobboau]

I lost faith in NASA when the canceled the VentureStar, that was when I felt they stopped looking to the future.

[Kosh]

I lost faith in NASA when the canceled the VentureStar, that was when I felt they stopped looking to the future.

Speaking of which........


Now that project is a showcase for massive project management incompetence.

EDIT: For those too lazy to click the link:

The VentureStar may now be nothing more than a memory, but it nearly became part of NASA, the commercial fleet and indeed even the US Air Force, had it of not been for some controversial key decisions during the construction of the technology demonstrator, the X-33.


Taking shape at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility, the X-33 was intended to be a 1/3 scale prototype of a fully-operational RLV (Reusable Launch Vehicle) called the VentureStar, designed to dramatically lower the costs of launching payloads in space. However, the official reasons for its demise fail to portray the true story.

Testing and construction had been going well during the assembly of the scaled down version of the VentureStar, with the launch facility at Edwards Air Force Base in California completed – along with 40 percent of the X-33.

Advances had been made with the thermal protection system (TPS) which doubled up as the aerodynamic shell of the vehicle. The XRS-2200 Linear Aerospike main engines were on target to become the next generation of liquid fuelled propulsion systems, although Rocketdyne’s decision to use Narloy-Z – a heavy copper alloy – saw changes to the flight control surfaces due of a aft-heavy center of gravity. This would prove to be a major – and defining – problem later in the process.

Other minor issues had continued to be ironed out until a critical test highlighted previously noted concerns, one that would add years to the target date for the first test flight, ultimately leading to be the end of the program – the failure of the composite LH2 (liquid hydrogen) tank during testing.

However, this was no surprise to those working on the program, with new information now showing that engineers and designers had protested at the very moment they were informed of a management decision to build a composite LH2 tank.

Such was the scale of the initial protest, go-ahead was given to build the LOX (liquid oxygen) tank out of the same aluminium-lithium alloy that is currently used on the external tanks for the Space Shuttle, a small but important victory for the protesting engineers at the time. The LOX tank passed testing and was installed with plumbing and electronics around the front third of the vehicle’s structure.

Yet still, the LH2 tank – a large multi-lobed structure – was to be the single most challenging project for engineers involved in the X-33 program, even if they had been able to use Al-Li alloys. Building one out of composite materials proved to be – as protests noted – even more of a challenge, with very little experience with large-scale composite structures within the workforce undertaking the fabrication of the tanks.

A five foot long tank was built and tested at NASA Lewis (now NASA Glenn), but the larger structure for the X-33 was going to be a step too far. Skunk Works’ designers of the LH2 tank had heard from engineers that storing liquid hydrogen in a pressurized composite (notably material IM7/997-2) tank with the hollow honeycomb walls was simply doomed to failure – but their advice was ignored.

Concerns grew with engineers of the tank, as problems in the LH2 tank fabrication stages during late 1997 and 1998 saw Alliant Techsystems personnel try to find solutions, personnel who also lacked experience with composite tanks. This led to the first tank – fabricated by Alliant in Sunnyvale – found to have debonds and delaminations – being sent back to try and fix the problems.

A second LH2 tank appeared to be in a much better shape and was shipped to MSFC (Marshall Space Flight Center) in Huntsville, Alabama for testing. The failure of the tank during testing at MSFC was still predicted – and occurred on November 3, 1999, during the fifth stage of testing.

Ironically, engineers – predicting the impending problem – had a solution already at hand. By filling the honeycomb walls of the tank with closed-cell foam, air wouldn’t be able to enter the structure and liquefy.

This idea had to be rejected, due to the 500 kg of extra weight being added to the aft, further affecting the center of gravity, which was already having serious fallout on the design due to the heavy engine ramps.

Thus the tank was doomed, as predicted.

‘Damage was discovered Wednesday (November 3) evening to one wall of the X-33′s composite liquid hydrogen tank currently undergoing cryogenic and structural loads testing,’ noted an MSFC press release at the time. ‘The damage was discovered while viewing the tank over video monitors, approximately two hours after the completion of a test cycle which appeared to be nominal.’

Such was the consensus that a failure was the only outcome for the composite tank, MAF (Michoud Assembly Facility) engineers had already started the process on having their own Al-Li LH2 tank ready for fabrication, pre-empting the call for change of plan.

Faced with a project failure, Lockheed Martin and X-33 NASA managers gave the green light to proceed with the fabrication of the new tank. Ironically this new tank weighed in less than the composite tank – disproving one of the reasons for going with a composite tank in the first place.

While the aluminium LH2 tank was much heavier than the composite tank in the skins, the joints were much lighter, which was where all the weight in the composite tank was, due to the multi-lobed shape of the tank requiring a large amount of surrounding structure, such as the joints. Ironically, the original design of the X-33 on the drawing board had the tanks made out of aluminium for this reason – but the cost played a factor for the potential customer base.

Then the hammer blow, as despite the project now appearing to be back on track, with the move towards testing of the new LH2 tank, the much-respected former NASA director Ivan Bekey appeared in front of the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, Committee on Science, at the US House of Representatives. His testimony on April 11, 2001, on NASA’s FY2001 budget request ‘Aero-Space Technology Enterprise,’ proved to be the final blow for the X-33 VentureStar.

His address to US lawmakers stressed that the X-33 had to continue with composite tanks, thus making the project doomed to failure.

‘The principal purpose of the X-33 program is to fly all the new technologies that interact with each other together on one vehicle, so that they can be fully tested in an interactive flight environment,’ said Bekey during his testimony. ‘If that is not done, the principal reason for the flight program disappears.

‘Even though the thermal protection system and the engine would be tested, the structure and its interaction with the tanks and support for the thermal protection system would not be tested. Since the biggest set of unknowns in this vehicle configuration have to do with the structure-tankage-aeroshell-TPS-airflow interactions, it is my belief that to fly the vehicle with an aluminium tank makes little sense from a technical point of view.

‘Worse yet, flight of an X-33 with an aluminium tank will increase the difficulty of raising private capital for a commercially developed VentureStar from the merely very difficult to the essentially impossible.

‘What I would recommend is that NASA and Lockheed Martin face up to the risks inherent in an experimental flight program and renegotiate the X-33 cooperative agreement so as to delay the flight milestone until a replacement composite tank can be confidently flown.

‘Both NASA and Lockheed Martin should make the investments required to build another composite tank and to absorb the program costs of the delay, because only then will the X-33 program be able to meet its objectives. To do anything less is flying for flying’s sake, wastes the funds already expended, and makes little sense.’

X-33 workers were said to be stunned by the comments of Bekey – still to this day a highly respected authority on space transportation – on his call to look once again at the composite tanks, now believed to be impossible to correct without a complete redesign of the entire vehicle – and then not assured.

By early 2001, the program was officially cancelled – five years and $1.5 billion down the line. Official reasons for the cancellation was a disagreement over extra funding from both industry partners, NASA and Lockheed Martin. However, the recommendation of the composite tank to keep costs down to prospective commercial interest was the main reason given to workers.

Not only was the program cancelled, but all the successful new technology was laid to rest along with the death of the X-33. The metallic TPS developed by BF Goodrich is still seen by some engineers as one of the most impressive parts that made up the X-33.

Four XRS-2200 Linear Aerospike main engines were constructed (two for testing and two for flight). One complete engine is still around today, displayed at NASA Stennis, at least two others were disassembled. Two LOX tanks were built over the lifetime of the X-33 construction, both are mothballed at NASA Glenn. The partially built vehicle, thought to be still in a storage hanger at Edwards Air Force Base, was actually disassembled.

All this despite interest from the Air Force in resurrecting the project, with Lockheed Martin high-flyer Cleon Lacefield in charge of the effort to re-start the program on at least one occasion. Each time the Air Force made requests to take the X-33 project as their own, they found the opportunity denied at the highest level of US government.

Even when armed with Lacefield’s final comments on the X-33, comments which gave full support to the Al-Li, added to by support from NASA Stennis on the engines, the Air Force – now trying to have their own VentureStar flying by 2012 – found the door of the White House firmly closed shut on any possibility of resurrecting the project.

Rumors of a final attempt by the Air Force came just last year, only to for them to hear the same answer, likely ending their interest in the vehicle and also the last remaining monument to the X-33 – the state-of-the-art launch facility at the Phillips Test Range, Edwards Air Force Base. Again, it was the White House that vetoed any new evaluations of the X-33.

No part of the X-33 technology will play a role in NASA’s architecture being developed for the return to the Moon, with the agency deciding to use the conservative – yet experience-rich – shuttle derived and Apollo approach.

The X-33 VentureStar was highly criticized as a chunky flying fuel tank with little to offer once the satellite launch business diluted between several regular and proven launch systems around the world.

But for those that worked on the X-33, the pure complexity of the new system – and the chain reactions felt from issues and bad decisions such as the heavy engine ramps to the resulting need for the low weight of the LH2 tank – to the lack of options open to use a solution for the LH2 tank failures, turned her from a potential leap in space vehicle technology, to one that became a $1.5 billion white elephant to the tax payer.

[Polpolion]

EDIT: For those too lazy to click the link:

clicking the link is the easy part, if you're going to pander to my lazyness I'd rather you summarize the article.

[Ghostavo]

(...)if i had my way patents wouldnt just expire, they would become public domain after a certain amount of time. if you want to lock down a technology with a patent, if you ever decide not to renew (spend money) your pattents, it becomes public and therefore unpatentable.(...)

You do know that's more or less how patents work, right? You gain the advantage of monopoly over whatever you patented with the disadvantage that when the patent expires, everyone already knows exactly what your patent involved.

Hence why companies like say... Coca-cola never patented their product, because after the patent goes poof, everyone knows how to make their product.

[Nuke]

(...)if i had my way patents wouldnt just expire, they would become public domain after a certain amount of time. if you want to lock down a technology with a patent, if you ever decide not to renew (spend money) your pattents, it becomes public and therefore unpatentable.(...)

You do know that's more or less how patents work, right? You gain the advantage of monopoly over whatever you patented with the disadvantage that when the patent expires, everyone already knows exactly what your patent involved.

Hence why companies like say... Coca-cola never patented their product, because after the patent goes poof, everyone knows how to make their product.

this creates another issue of course, vaulting. companies who keep technology under wraps for fear that someone else would make money on it. such technology has the potential of being lost.

EDIT: For those too lazy to click the link:

clicking the link is the easy part, if you're going to pander to my lazyness I'd rather you summarize the article.

main reason for the project failing is that they couldn't get the composite fuel tank to work. the engineers decided to make one out of proven technology that ended up being lighter than the composite tank, but management insisted that it be composite. then made the mistake of asking politicians for more money.

[Kosh]

main reason for the project failing is that they couldn't get the composite fuel tank to work. the engineers decided to make one out of proven technology that ended up being lighter than the composite tank, but management insisted that it be composite. then made the mistake of asking politicians for more money.

Yeah and the engineers said right from the start that composite tanks weren't going to work.

[Nuke]

main reason for the project failing is that they couldn't get the composite fuel tank to work. the engineers decided to make one out of proven technology that ended up being lighter than the composite tank, but management insisted that it be composite. then made the mistake of asking politicians for more money.

Yeah and the engineers said right from the start that composite tanks weren't going to work.

it should be noted that composite tanks were an issue for scaled/virgin galactic as well. ss1 NO2 tanks liked to leak and i think there responsible for the deaths that occurred during the construction of ss2. using composites for fuel/oxidizer tanks is a new and, so far, a somewhat unreliable technology. the tanks that were planned to be used for venture star were also of an exotic shape, where as the NO2 tanks used in ss1/2 were shaped like traditional propane tanks, and scaled by far has more experience with composite materials. lesson learned if youre managing an aerospace project, listen to your ****ing engineers.

[Volyren Nightsong]

***IMPORTANT NOTE***was working on this in word, but im hurting too bad to finish, and it only gets longer with each response. long story short. im disabled. (not wheelchair bound, just really bad back)i have a natural resistance to many types of meds. so for pain meds. im taking 5 methadone and 3 advil twice a day. unfortunately im all out of pills. doctor is on vacation and his new nurse is too scared to write my prescription since its soo much of the strongest painkiller available. withdrawals hit 2 days ago. i got five more days of hellish agony to go.(doc gets back.) so forgive me for any mood swings, its gonna be nothing but distilled pain, coupled with psycosis and suicidal thoughts (wishes? Prayers?)
i have my bed as comfortable as i can.
i have my barf bucket.
my bottles of water
my box of kleenex
and the 'puter.
as long as i keep sharp things away from me (already gave jen the gun clip) i think i wil be ok.
its really bad.
as bad as heroin is, they give addicts 1 or 2 methadone to help them with thier withdrawals. but ive been taking 10 methadone a day for 5 years. there is nothing to help me.
i had a very bad day yesterday. first time i SERIOUSLY thought about dying. (thought, not planned). im going to take a couple of sleeping pills. (just a couple, no body start worrying)
hopefully i cann sleep throgu most of it.
i probalby wont be posting much, but please tryt o bear with me. im not myself rigth now and i apologize if i get whiny or snap at anyone.
here's the post i was working on.:


and you guys give me hell about my long posts?
we will never leave this planet again. i bet life on it, because that bet is precisely why we WONT be going.
lawyers, public relations, politicians. news agencies.
all of em wanna make sure everything is as safe as possible. double/triple/dectuple check everything. sign contracts. buy insurance. make changes insurance company required of you before signing off, then fix all the problems those changes made, and re-submit to insurance company for round two.
we wont even let kids have monkey bars at recess for fear they might get a skinned knee and the school get sued. I mean, COME ON! Do you REALLY think that the idiots who seem to run everything everywhere would take the chance, and LET you make up YOUR mind to take a risk? HELL NO. they might somehow look bad in some small way. Can't be havin' that now can we?
you wanna go have a colony on mars? build me a time machine.
move nasa back to 1810.
back when people had a passion for exploring and trying new things was risky. back when instead of spending 10 years piling complex rules on something when it went wrong, and someone died, they did the only thing they could. either find someone else who beleives in it and is willing to take the risk, or take the damn risk yourself.
everyone is too damn afraid of failure. and to make matters worse you have a million "experts" that suddenly come down with a case of the " i knew it was going to happen"-itis.
hindsight might be 20/20, but if you wanna focus just on your "hind", then have fun staring at your own asses. meanwhile let the REAL heroes strap into their modified winnebego with the moonshine propellant. he might blow up. might even have a 99% chance of blowing up. He knows the odds are against him. but he's gonna launch anyway. It's HIS DREAM. The meaning of HIS LIFE.
and if he doesnt make it, his son will.
and if his son doesnt make it, his grandson will.
let the news laugh at them, let the whole world ignore them. they wont mind.
40 years from now, the sensational headline says it all.
"NASA/Virgin Galactic Discovers Whiskey 'Still on shore of Sea of Tranquility"

2 days later, in the new york times (yeah, like they're gonna be around even a week from now)
"Astronauts attacked on moon! Only Survivor Gives NYT Exclusive Account of Events"
He [Sgt. O'Malley] said "They kept chasing us, firing off those shotguns and yelling 'GET OFF'A MY LAND, YA EARTHY BOY!' It was like a nightmare! I lost my entire team!"
O'Malley broke down during the interview, and requested to leave. According to President Bieber (you heard me) there is a retalliation mission being planned right now.
"We don't know how those moonbillies got up there, or how they have survived, but since my chief of staff, William Clinton II, was dismissed for the incident involving the transvestite, I have asked my Secretary of State, Jim-Bob Bush, to put together a counter-attack plan. I will be calling on congress to declare war on the moon. May Cthulu have mercy on them all."
This reporter attempted to get a statement from Vice President Abdul, but her office did not respond. However this reporter managed to catch up to her as she was getting into her limo, heading to the set of "American Idol season twenty-whogivesacrapshowmeyourboobs"
"I think its just horrible, what happened up there" she remarked " i mean, the doctor could have done both implants at once! Now my left side looks like a grandfather clock when I bend over!"
We then explained to Ms. Abdul we were asking about the tragedy on the moon. After her secret service escort gave her medication to her she responded
"I totally agree, we cannot let this crime go unpunished! The moon has been mocking us for so long, staring down at us from its perch, lookin' all smug an' stuff. But you are just so beautiful, so no matter what you will be ok. I promise. You are like this half burned toast i saw an old lady eat on cartwheel farm fresh volkswagen mooooooo. Mooooo. MOOOOOOOO!"
the secret service moved us away from the limo. We called out to the vice president as they were driving away, and heard Ms. Abdul yell back at us as they drove away, "Don't worry about the moon, kittypuss, I won't let that mean dog eat your pretzels ever again! Hey! Agent Giggles! Yes, you with the hair plugs! Get my arming codes and my football this minute! Turtle pie hot hair evil cereal oats! Scrotum!" We regret that we could not print the remainder of the VP's comments, as they were innapropriate for our younger readers and also in a combination of middle earth Elvish and Klingon. We here at the times will keep you abreast of all the latest happenings here in Washington DC2 at Six Flags over Georgia. This reporter must admit to liking this assignment much better than when we were based on capitol hill. In other news, cleanup continues on the rubble up and down the east coast. It has been 2 months since the explosion. Scientists at ground zero have found enough evidence to determine the cause of the massive blast. It seems that both Rush Limbaugh and Bill Maher bumped into each other at an underground bestiality club, and both personalities were such complete polar opposites, they caused a matter/anti-matter reaction. All political commentators have since been rounded up and put into underground solitary confinement units for our safety and sanity."

***Note***was going to do another bit about next day's paper having "moon mysteriously blows up. in other news VP abdul found drowned in pool of mr. pibb." but about halfway through the paragraph above, is where the first withdrawals hit like a ton of bricks made with clay formed from distilled agony.
hope the above is funny, i cant even remeber whether it was supposed to be or not, hurts too bad to think.
taking sleepm eds now wish em luck.