Quotations from "Leaving Orbit" - Notes from the Last Days of American Spaceflight by Margaret Lazarus Dean
"Together the five orbiters Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour have flown a total of 133 successful missions, an unequaled accomplishment of engineering, management, and political savvy. But it's the two disasters that people remember, that most shape the shuttle's story."
"Hugely wasteful; hugely grand. Adjust the focus of your eyes and the same project goes from being the greatest accomplishment of humankind to a pointless show of misspent wealth."
"In reality, the most shuttle launches NASA ever accomplished in a single calendar year was nine, in 1985 - far short of the magic number of twenty-five."
"In all, twenty-four missions launched and landed successfully between April 1981 and January 1986."
"The space shuttle project never did get us any closer to Mars, but it deployed more than half the cargo ever carried to space and sent three hundred fifty-five people into orbit."
"The orbiting laboratory has been occupied non-stop since November 2, 2000 ..."
"Eleven crewed missions, including six successful trips to the lunar surface"
"December 1968: First trip to lunar orbit on Apollo 8"
"December 1972: Final moon landing Apollo 17"
"Ongoing Access to Low-Earth Orbit":
"April 1981: First test flight of space shuttle Columbia"
"July 2011: Final flight of the space shuttle program{Atlantis}
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Friday, December 4, 2015
Experimental Blog # 196
Quotations and comments from "The Great Surge" - The Ascent of the Developing World by Steven Radelet
"In 1993 almost 2 billion people around the world lived in extreme poverty < > Then, for the first time in history, the number began to fall < > in just eighteen years the number was cut by almost half: by 2011, it was down to just over 1 billion < > The proportion of the population of developing countries < > in extreme poverty {was} 42 percent in 1993 to < > 17 percent in 2011."
"In 1983 seventeen developing countries were democracies; by 2013, the number had more than tripled to fifty-six ..."
"The unprecedented progress in the world's poorest countries is ultimately good for the richest countries, and for the whole world."
" ... development helps spread and deepen shared values of openness, prosperity, and freedom."
"China accounts for about 60 percent of the decline in extreme poverty between 1993 and 2011, or about 560 million of the < > 955 million people. What about the other 395 million?" "In India, the number of extreme poor peaked in 2002 at 476 million; nine years later{!}, it had fallen < > to 300 million." The author lists about 33 other countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe that make up the rest of the decline in extreme world poverty.
"...the end of the Cold War meant the fall of dozens of dictators - on both the right and the left < > and new economic opportunities in dozens of developing countries around the world."
"Communism, totalitarianism, and strong forms of state control lost credibility."
The author emphasizes how important government and foreign aid, properly given, in education, infrastructure, and health care are vital to the economic development of the whole country.
"In 1993 almost 2 billion people around the world lived in extreme poverty < > Then, for the first time in history, the number began to fall < > in just eighteen years the number was cut by almost half: by 2011, it was down to just over 1 billion < > The proportion of the population of developing countries < > in extreme poverty {was} 42 percent in 1993 to < > 17 percent in 2011."
"In 1983 seventeen developing countries were democracies; by 2013, the number had more than tripled to fifty-six ..."
"The unprecedented progress in the world's poorest countries is ultimately good for the richest countries, and for the whole world."
" ... development helps spread and deepen shared values of openness, prosperity, and freedom."
"China accounts for about 60 percent of the decline in extreme poverty between 1993 and 2011, or about 560 million of the < > 955 million people. What about the other 395 million?" "In India, the number of extreme poor peaked in 2002 at 476 million; nine years later{!}, it had fallen < > to 300 million." The author lists about 33 other countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe that make up the rest of the decline in extreme world poverty.
"...the end of the Cold War meant the fall of dozens of dictators - on both the right and the left < > and new economic opportunities in dozens of developing countries around the world."
"Communism, totalitarianism, and strong forms of state control lost credibility."
The author emphasizes how important government and foreign aid, properly given, in education, infrastructure, and health care are vital to the economic development of the whole country.
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