Tag: Gulf of Mexico

Is SpaceX doing ocean salvage operations near Boca Chica?

11:25 pm

Superheavy aft section being salvaged
Click for original source.

SpaceX appears to be recovering the Superheavy booster that soft landed off shore from Boca Chica during the sixth test flight in November.

On Saturday, footage, albeit from a vantage point of someone who should not have been that close to the recovery operations, showed the aft end of a Booster with most of its Raptor engines still attached, being lifted out of the water.

During that November flight mission controllers decided against attempting a chopstick recovery, and sent the booster to do a soft vertical spashdown just off the coast. The booster than fell over and was seen drifting south. It appears SpaceX has now mounted operations to recovery it, possibly in response to the complaints by Mexican officials about its rocket pieces showing up on the beaches. Company engineers likely also wish to take a look at the equipment for their own reasons.

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Just as I refuse to say “native American”, I refuse to say “Gulf of America”

1:57 pm

A British map from 1700, with the Gulf of Mexico labeled at
A British map from 1700, with the Gulf of Mexico
labeled at “The Great Bay of Mexico”

The recent effort by Donald Trump to get the name of the Gulf of Mexico changed to the “Gulf of America” appears at first glance to have many laudable aspects, the most important of which his desire to energize the American people to have pride in their country. For too long young Americans have been indoctrinated with the anti-American Marxist poison pushed by our modern bankrupt academic community, and have thus been trained to think timidly and with hate about their own country.

Advocating this name change is Trump’s way of quickly countering that negativity. The United States is founded on noble principles — “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” — and it has lived up to those ideals with remarkable success during its entire 250 year history. Thus, Americans have plenty to be proud of, and to Trump’s mind something needed to be done to underline that fact.

Hence, his push to change the “Gulf of Mexico” to the “Gulf of America.”

And yet, as much as I support his general effort to invigorate Americans to their glorious past, to my mind this particular effort by Trump is as false and as shallow as the left’s never-ending demands that we use new language for everything. American Indians should be “native Americans”, even though everyone born in the U.S. is native. “Chairman” must become “Chair” or “Chairperson,” even though such usage is ugly and unnecessary. Spaceflight can never be “manned,” football teams can’t be “Redskins,” and “communists” must now be called “progressives.”

And worst of all we must all use the pronouns demanded by perverts, even if when by doing so we are denying reality.

Such abuse of language offends me, as a writer. » Read more

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