Good score on the Brainerd Holmes signed book.

Earl

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Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
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Thanks! I'll try interlibrary loan. My library system is great and according to WorldCat 58 libraries within 200 miles have a copy. Not as rare as I expected. They've even gotten me a technical book so rare that it had to come from the Library of CONgress. Too bad CONgress apparently doeasn't use that library much based upon legislative results.

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"I looked in the mirror and told my wife that all I saw was an ugly old man and needed a compliment to raise my spirits. She said, 'Your vision is perfect.'"
"Before I met my wife, I was incomplete. Now, I'm finished." - Norm MacDonald

I'm going OT but this is FreeForAll after all. I have a library card from the LoC. Any US citizen can get one by going to the Madison or Jefferson building and applying for it with a valid form of government ID. I haven't actually used it yet, just a cool thing to have. They're valid for only a year though.

Also, besides the Air & Space Museum, the Library of Congress is my favorite place to visit whenever I'm in DC. The architecture and murals are awesome!

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Well, since money for key players in CONgress and their states/districts is what drives NASA funding more than science return resulting in, for instance, the vastly expensive Shuttle jobs continuation program called SLS, it's just a matter of the gradual phasing out of the legacy aerospace industries in their states/districts over time to be replaced by the many new highly innovative entrants thinking outside the box and located elsewhere. Thereby, the economic incentives for manned stuff established in the 60s mainly for political rather than scientific reasons will hopefully fade as the money associated with that decreases.

The deorbiting of the $150 billion dollar scientific return literal waste of space called the ISS will free up the $3 billion spent per year spent sending supplies to it. That will at least theoretically free up that much to spend on, for instance, one of the latest small car sized nuclear powered Mars Science Laboratory rover missions PER YEAR instead, two of which are roving around on Mars right now or, for another instance, six of the older and smaller MER rovers PER YEAR or, more preferably, other unmanned probe/lander missions.

If SpaceX succeeds with Starship, that'll bring the price of SPAM in a can missions way down, freeing up funds for scientifically productive missions. If Starship doesn't succeed and that doesn't manage to bankrupt SpaceX, they might come up with a second best fully reusable super-lift booster which I'll call Super Falcon 9 using 9 of the highly efficient and low cost Raptor 2 engines developed for Starship and a Super Falcon Heavy using three Super Falcon 9s.

__________________
"I looked in the mirror and told my wife that all I saw was an ugly old man and needed a compliment to raise my spirits. She said, 'Your vision is perfect.'"
"Before I met my wife, I was incomplete. Now, I'm finished." - Norm MacDonald

I've been to DC once and visited Air & Space. Didn't visit the LOC. If you haven't yet visited and get the chance, the USAF Museum in Dayton, OH is fantastic.

https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/

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"I looked in the mirror and told my wife that all I saw was an ugly old man and needed a compliment to raise my spirits. She said, 'Your vision is perfect.'"
"Before I met my wife, I was incomplete. Now, I'm finished." - Norm MacDonald

Actually, instead of having to conduct covert espionage to gain the relevant technologies as the Soviets did since, unlike with the CCP, we properly recognized the Soviet Union as an adversary, they have been basically handed them via various means.

Some books:

Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America - translated from Chinese - November 10, 2015

by Qiao Liang (retired Major General in the People's Liberation Army Air Force), Wang Xiangsui (retired senior Colonel in the People's Liberation Army)

A sobering and fascinating study on war in the modern era, Unrestricted Warfare carefully explores strategies that militarily and politically disadvantaged nations might take in order to successfully attack a geopolitical super-power like the United States. American military doctrine is typically led by technology; a new class of weapon or vehicle is developed, which allows or encourages an adjustment in strategy. Military strategists Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui argue that this dynamic is a crucial weakness in the American military, and that this blind spot with regard to alternative forms warfare could be effectively exploited by enemies. Unrestricted Warfare concerns the many ways in which this might occur, and, in turn, suggests what the United States might do to defend itself.

The traditional mentality that offensive action is limited to military action is no longer adequate given the range of contemporary threats and the rising costs-both in dollars and lives lost-of traditional warfare. Instead, Liang and Xiangsui suggest the significance of alternatives to direct military confrontation, including international policy, economic warfare, attacks on digital infrastructure and networks, and terrorism. Even a relatively insignificant state can incapacitate a far more powerful enemy by applying pressure to their economic and political systems. Exploring each of these considerations with remarkable insight and clarity, Unrestricted Warfare is an engaging evaluation of our geopolitical future.

The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower - 2016

by Michael Pillsbury, a fluent Mandarin speaker who has served in senior national security positions in the U.S. government since the days of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, was closely involved with Nixon's opening to China and now deeply regrets that. BTW, the text of the book disproves the title as it shows that it was clearly never a secret, it's just that those in charge were too freaking stupid to see it, as usual.

Stealth War: How China Took Over While America's Elite Slept - 2019 [they weren't "sleeping"; the mountains of cash to be made blocked their vision)

by Robert Spalding, retired USAF Brigadier General, B2 pilot, former U.S. Senior Defense Official and Defense Attaché to China and Senior Director for Strategic Planning, and National Security Council member

The media often suggest that Russia poses the greatest threat to America's national security, but the real danger lies farther east. While those in power have been distracted and disorderly, China has waged a six-front war on America's economy, military, diplomacy, technology, education, and infrastructure--and they're winning. It's almost too late to undo the shocking, though nearly invisible, victories of the Chinese.

In Stealth War, retired Air Force Brigadier General Robert Spalding reveals China's motives and secret attacks on the West. Chronicling how our leaders have failed to protect us over recent decades, he provides shocking evidence of some of China's most brilliant ploys.

Spalding's concern isn't merely that America could lose its position on the world stage. More urgently, the Chinese Communist Party has a fundamental loathing of the legal protections America grants its people and seeks to create a world without those rights.

The CCP has proved the great truth of this old commie adage to which I will add as a preface, "When multinational corporation owned governments don't prevent it..."

"A capitalist will sell you the rope you hang him with." - Communist adage heard in various forms being the fundamental message of a much longer Vladimir Lenin quote

...except in this case its, "will finance the construction of your rope factory, allow you to steal the IP involved with no consequences, and then BUY the rope you hang him with."

__________________
"I looked in the mirror and told my wife that all I saw was an ugly old man and needed a compliment to raise my spirits. She said, 'Your vision is perfect.'"
"Before I met my wife, I was incomplete. Now, I'm finished." - Norm MacDonald

I have one complaint (it's not against you) about the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM), which a vote of Congress might remedy. I include it here so that other kit manufacturers, especially small "cottage industry" ones, can avoid these problems:

When one purchases copies of photographs in their archives that are official U.S. government agency or organization pictures (Official U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, or NASA photographs, etc.), they are not copyrighted--or perhaps to be more exact, the American people own the copyright, because we paid for them with our taxes (the practical upshot is that an author or other content creator need not obtain the rights to use such official photographs), BUT:

The NASM charges a "rights fee" and puts other restrictions on the use of such pictures. I discovered this when I was setting up to produce my Nova Hobbies ASP (Atmospheric Sounding Projectile, a U.S. Navy-developed sounding & nuclear bomb mushroom cloud-sampling rocket) scale model rocket kits (see: https://www.rocketreviews.com/nova-...-mike-goss.html ), which Peter Alway graciously provided the scale data--and printed the triple-fold instructions--for. Fortunately, the Naval Historical Foundation had most of the same ASP photographs that I wanted, and they didn't charge--or even mention--a rights fee, or any restrictions on their use (I'm always happy to pay for photo-reproduction and postage of course, but I knew that the NASM's rights fee and usage restrictions were bogus). Moreover:

In the course of my conversation with the Naval Historical Foundation's photographic archivist, I mentioned my experience with the NASM. He suddenly became angry (at the NASM, not me), and proceeded to tell me about how the NASM was engaging in an illegal and unethical practice. The ASP pictures were Official U.S. Navy photographs, and thus not subject to copyright restrictions, he told me; the NASM just hadn't been caught--or reported for their practices regarding official photographs--yet. (Estes' Mini Honest John kit--the 13 mm mini motor powered M-50 Honest John scale kit--has two body decals that ^should^ read, "U.S. ARMY," but they read "U.S. MILITARY" instead [no actual Honest John, M-31 or M-50, was ever painted with such a stencil], because Estes apparently bought the NASM's line. The U.S. Army *does* have trademarks on its "star-in-a-square" logo decal and on its various seals [as do the other service branches, see: https://www.defense.gov/Resources/B...and-Trademarks/ ], but those don't cover the "U.S. ARMY" stenciled identification on the Honest John; ditto for other military rockets, missiles, sounding rockets, launch vehicles, and also NASA vehicles.)

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NAR #54895 SR

We're getting WAY off topic and I was partly guilty of that myself, so maybe start another thread about that.

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"I looked in the mirror and told my wife that all I saw was an ugly old man and needed a compliment to raise my spirits. She said, 'Your vision is perfect.'"
"Before I met my wife, I was incomplete. Now, I'm finished." - Norm MacDonald

No need--I just saw the NASM mentioned (it's a wonderful museum, and was even in its old location, when my parents and I visited it back in 1971); I just wanted to pass along their photo archive's wrongdoing regarding official U.S. government agency photographs. To get back on-topic:

You're absolutely right--we (most of the government folks and corporate heads, "on both sides of the aisle") foolishly thought that engaging with mainland China would make Communism go away, or greatly 'mellow out.' (That was what they said in public; I'm sure they saw it as an opportunity to enrich themselves.) I remember when they were often called "The good Communists" here, because--unlike the Soviet Union--they didn't seem intent on gobbling up other countries, but on modernizing their own country, through engagement with the West.

My father once saw that phrase "The Good Communists" in a newspaper article about China, and he told me that it *might* be true, but he also warned me that the Chinese are a very patient people, and that their apparently non-bellicose behavior at that time--the 1980s--(although he reminded me of how they armed and trained North Korea's and North Vietnam's militaries in previous years) might be only a ruse to get what they needed in order to again become "The Middle Kingdom" (the major power on Earth, to whom everyone else must pay tribute). Unfortunately, he was right--like the leopard, the panda does not change his spots...

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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR

Thanks... yeah that was sweet when I opened it up and saw that... must've been an old Apollo engineer. Hopefully he just sold his books when he moved somewhere nice for retirement... More likely the poor guy passed and his kids sold everything off including the books, not even caring what they had.

Later! OL J R

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