I liked the headline on this
And a woman in 1963.
Also not bad:
Supervillain Kidnappers Just Missed Their Best Chance To Kidnap The Richest Man On Earth
Includes plan of how to do it.
Thatâs where it always breaks down, logically, doesnât it.
[insert generic Bad GuysTM organisation] using technology that would net them far more money than the demanded ransom for [insert generic Evil PlotTM] when marketed comercially.
Deployed from bases whose construction would have cost more than the ransom money would recoup.
(My background is is civil engineering. I enjoy watching films like this immensely, but I canât do it without thinking about how the Secret LairTM would be constructed, and how long it would take, the cost, where to put the spoil from all the excavations, and so on.
And donât even get me started on health & safety.
I do adore Ken Adamâs production/set designs, though.)
Some other link 
Timothy Leary, who is now as enthusiastic about space as he once was about LSD, attracted a full house to one conference meeting room to hear him address the subject of âThe Psychological Effects of High-Orbital Migration.â Relaxed and healthy looking in a gray suit and open pink shirt, Leary was introduced as an âethologistâ and âthe unofficial advertising arm of North American Rockwell.â He warmed to the applause and began, âIt is always my pleasure to be at a place like this surrounded by people who share my visions of high altitudes and fast movement and precise linkups.â A few of the corporate scientists at the back of the room, not exactly sure they shared Learyâs visions, exchanged odd grins.
Leary proceeded to pay tribute to space pioneers Daedalus, Icarus, Leonardo da Vinci, âWernher von Braun and his brilliant crew from Peenemunde,â Goddard, Homer, Gilgamesh, George Lucas and Pink Floyd, among others, and to lash out at âmembers of the so-called turned-on generation of the Sixtiesâ who want to limit technology. âWhen Ralph Nader tells me that he wants my car to be slow, cheap, ugly and slow, heâs imposing a way of life on me that Iâm going to resist to the bitter end.â Applause.
âIâm talking now to the hardware people,â Leary resumed, âand the aerospace tycoons in this audience, and Iâm saying. âYou guys are the evolutionary visionaries. . . . Weâre reviewing in these rooms right now the most exciting ideas since sex.ââ (In fact, the prospect of zero-gravity sex was a common topic of conversation among L-5 members in the hallways.)
The only problem with the space movement, Leary said, is that it hasnât been properly sold to the public. But, he assured his audience, he was working on that. âIâve been very busy in Hollywood. In the last six months I have â dare I use the word? â âturned onâ three Academy Award-winning scriptwriters to the inevitability, to the romance, to the challenge and to the excitement of space migration. So be of good cheer.â
Midway to his conclusion (âWhy are we going to space? . . . Itâs the best place to be freeâ), Leary paused to praise âthe greatest American since Christopher Columbus.â He was referring, as most people in his audience immediately knew, to Gerard OâNeill.
Jesus. Didnât know Leary was a Nazi sympathizer.
Apparently he said âEverybody gets the Timothy Leary they deserve.â If the rumors of him being social chameleon are true I really donât want to be in the same room with that audience.
This moral blindness was not unusual at the time, especially among his audience. Peenemunde as the site of rocket development overshadowed Peenemunde as the site of nazi atrocities.
Yep. Doesnât make the statement any less jaw-dropping, though.
Pipe down, Jeff. Youâve only gone where Gus Grissom went before, 60 years ago today
Somewhat lost in the hubbub over Jeff Bezosâ jaunt into space is the 60th anniversary of Virgil âGusâ Grissomâs suborbital flight aboard Liberty Bell 7.
The mission was the second Mercury capsule crewed by a human and followed Alan Shepardâs flight on 5 May 1961. Both missions were suborbital vertical launches atop a Mercury-Redstone booster (derived from the Redstone ballistic missile).
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Some good book tips, too.
Perhaps a manned probe could help confirm these simulations. Beware of tides.
