millerjsullivan

Even though Obama cancelled the original Constellation Program, he seems to have replaced it with a even better funded but sort of vague goal of sending astronauts to a Near Earth Object (NEO) .... an asteroid or comet.  There are also plans to send astronauts to Mars, but the problem of radiation and body degradation still exists for astronauts and it seems that a lot of work is currently being done to study the problem..

The Space Shuttle program was ended and the remaining shuttle orbiter craft retired (Enterprise, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavor... space shuttles Challenger and Columbia as well as the Russian's Buran were all destroyed)

Here are the seven spacecraft replacing the shuttle for the USA:

* (NASA) Lockheed Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV):


NASA "CCDev" Program Related:

* "CST-100" crew capsule being developed by Boeing
* "Dragon" being developed by Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX)
* "Dream Chaser" space plane being developed by Sierra Nevada Corporation
* "Space Vehicle", a unnamed "biconic nose cone design orbital vehicle" spacecraft being developed by Blue Origin


NASA "COTS" Program Related:

* "Cygnus" being developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation and Thales Alenia Space
* "Dragon" (uncrewed variant) being developed by Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX)

Hey look! The new US space program, "Project Constellation"... to go back to the moon, and on to Mars, using tried-but-true technology, with new technology mixed in:

Article explaining everything:
"APOLLO ON STEROIDS Behind the Scenes with NASA's New Moon Ship" (popularmechanics.com)

Video demonstration/explanation:
"Constellation Rocks!" (space.com)

The Cooters. The remarkable thing about these guys is they are from the deep, deep, deep racist south: Mississippi. It's really nice to see a punk/hardcore/metal band that isn't a bunch of non-political posers. Where the fuck does eveyone think this anger, this aesthetic comes from? Being upset because your boyfriend left you? FUCK NO. The authorities are FUCKING US, THATS WHAT ITS ABOUT.

Anyway, check out their MySpace page:
www.myspace.com/thecooters

Songs like "The Gooch", "Crusty", and "Cripple Pie" are really fantastic. Fuckling ROCK.

("Cripple Pie" doesn't appear on their song player on that page but if you keep hitting reload it should start playing.)

I wrote this as a response to a recent journal entry by andrewk, and I hope people will read this and take what I am saying to heart:

The real inspiration behind (Ralph Bakshi's movie) WIZARDS is the amazing artist known as Vaughn Bode, and it is sad that while there is so much obsession with the work of Japanese (anime, manga) artists by us American cartoon/animation artists today, the work of so many American cartoonists and comic book artists (both underground cartoonists like Robert Crumb and Richard Corben and all the UN-NAMED AND UN-RECOGNIZED people who worked for Disney, Warner Bros., Hanna Barbera, etc. from 1930-1990 as ordinary illustrators and character design people - do we know their names? Why don't we try to find out?) has gone so often and for so long utterly ignored.

People need to go to the comic stores across America and look through all those old dusty comic books from that time period that get ignored now days... old science fiction and fantasy and humour magazines and comics - and find all that awesome and original stuff to take inspiration from.

Wally Wood, Jack Davis, Mort Drucker, Jim Davis (not the Garfield Jim Davis - the Jim Davis who drew THE FOX AND THE CROW comics for decades)... these are GREAT cartoonists to take inspiration from! As are these people listed below (all still alive):

Mike Kazaleh
www.imdb.com/name/nm1198142/

Marc Schirmeister:
www.imdb.com/name/nm0771956/

Lou Scarborough:
www.imdb.com/name/nm0769098/

Iwao Takamoto:
www.imdb.com/name/nm0847314/

Willie Ito:
www.imdb.com/name/nm0411764/

Dan Haskett:
www.imdb.com/name/nm0368153/

Scott Shaw!:
www.imdb.com/name/nm0789969/

Garrett Ho:
www.imdb.com/name/nm0387299/

Noah Miller:
www.imdb.com/name/nm0589069/

Bill Messner-Loebs:
www.imdb.com/name/nm0582262/

Sergio Aragonés:
www.imdb.com/name/nm0032775/

Steve Leialoha
(he did some inking of early issues of Howard the Duck, and his own artwork is fantastic.)

NOTE: All of those IMDB entries (the links I gave) are incomplete, and the artists they are about need to contact IMDB to update them.

Whether you are an experianced and skilled furry artist, or an amature beginner, for some reason it's extremely difficult for some of us to get commissions and other professional obligations completed in a reasonable amount of time. We are used to drawing what we feel like, when we feel like, because it makes us feel good, and obligations are a big turn off. Yet we need money to pay bills and buy things we want, too! "Furry Artists Git 'R Done" is a mailing list for folks to help each other with getting work done in a timely manner with encouragement as well as helping with "tips for professionalism", layout, inking, coloring and more. This group is for FURRY ARTISTS ONLY (furry fans may join too!).

groups.yahoo.com/group/FurryAr…