Curiosities for Artists and Engineers

Working Title: Hosed Story: Frederick P Mikkelsen EXT Street : Spring Morning A woman, late-thirties or early forties, walks up a hill. She is the building inspector of this sleepy fishing village island on the side of a very steep hill. The island is off the coast of Maine with cold biting winds much of the time and the residual of the crashing waves of the storm is perhaps more than normal in this harbor which sees large tidal shifts daily. The main street is basically straight, but up the hill, and there's plenty of openness around to get a view of the ocean, harbor, bobbing ships, and debris blowing around. A serious, unexpected, freak storm had occurred, and this woman is inspecting damage. She has a staple gun and a folder full of plastic condemnation signs. She snuck out the back of the fire station and was not seen by reporters who wouldn’t know who she was anyway. She is the building inspector. There are a few reporters there. No big crews in vans because...

Augmenting the USA Health Insurance Market Universal Healthcare Supporters of Universal Healthcare understand it as the best solution to provide basic healthcare to the entirety of the population. Universal Healthcare is a great idea. It requires the political commitment of the nation as a whole -- a condition that has not been forthcoming in the United States and doesn't appear forthcoming anytime soon. This approach herein is not to replace the goal of Universal Healthcare, nor is it to replace the current private healthcare system, but to provide a means that would work in the present-day United States to provide more distribution of healthcare and healthcare security. It is an approach that can be used to encourage Universal Healthcare while allowing coverage during the transition to fullest Universal Healthcare coverage. Insurance Risk  Insurance works when you can look at risk abstractly and insure probable known risk rather than known book-keeping risk. This is the c...

Logistics-Oriented Spacecraft The project I'd like to see NASA perform is the reconstruction of an identical expedition judiciously applying efficiencies without fundamentally changing the equipment. New generations of these successful platforms could be created and deployed at a lower cost than the original. Minor improvements could be applied to to the equipment provided certain guidelines are maintained: The change increases efficiency, quality, or reduces weight. The changes are contained within constraints of interchangeable sub-assemblies, meaning changes are forward and backward compatible. This is to improve maintainability in space. Sub-assemblies are encouraged to be consistent with sub-assemblies in other projects. The planning scope would contain new projects, sure, but not all new projects would need to be "new". The planning missions could take a more modular approach with an overall equipment strategy based on a known base of designs. Example:...