… Guttenberg Sold Separately, $207 Million in Cash and MORE.

Soused In Space
A panel has found that astronauts were allowed to fly on at least two occasions despite warnings they were so drunk they posed a flight risk, Aviation Week & Space Technology reported yesterday.

The trade publication, which doesn’t identify its sources, says it has obtained a draft report that says NASA allowed astronauts to fly while intoxicated on two occasions. Members of a government panel said the panel set up by NASA to study astronaut health issues reported “heavy use of alcohol” within 12 hours of launch. It said flight surgeons and other astronauts warned that the drunken astronauts posed a flight risk when they flew on the two known occasions.

Aviation Week says NASA wouldn’t comment on the report. The space agency is scheduled to hold a news conference this afternoon. The report will be available for download at noon.

In brighter (no pun intended) space news…

Spitzer & Suns: Quadruple Sunsets Possible
Astronomers have spotted a dusty disk in a four-star solar system that could be home to a planet in the making.

Astronomers using the “infrared eyes” of NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope spotted the swirling disk around a pair of stars in the quadruple-star system HD 98800, located 150 light-years away in the constellation TW Hydrae, Space.com reports:

If a planet did form in the disk, its sky would be bathed in the light of four suns. One pair of suns would blaze brightly, while the other pair, gravitationally bound to the first pair, would appear as little more than faint pinpoints of light.

The finding will be detailed in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

An artist’s concept illustrates a quadruple-star system.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

Google Privacy Chief: Tees, Not Ties
Google Inc.’s global privacy counsel, Peter Fleischer, wants to see t-shirts replace ties in the workspace, claiming a tie “constricts circulation to the brain.”

Moreover, the tie “acts as decorative camouflage for the business suit, designed to shield the middle-aged male physique, with its shrinking shoulders and protruding paunch, from feeling sufficiently self-conscious to hit the gym,” Fleischer recently wrote in a letter to The Financial Times (via PC World).

The letter, written in response to an article that praised the tie as appropriate business attire, was signed using Fleischer’s Google job title.

This may help explain some goings-on in our government.

But it COULD decide to blow away anything that moves, couldn’t it? COULDN’T IT, Crosby?
Johnny Five from the highly quotable 1986 movie Short Circuit — and which recently made #35 in (UK) Times Online’s “The 50 Best Movie Robots” — is up for auction.

The original full-size hero robot cost more than $175,000.00 to construct in 1983, according to the seller (via Gizmodo). Now, starting at $100,000, the hero robot comes with a control apparatus.

According to the seller at eBay Live Auctions:

Standing fully 5 ft. tall, the robot is constructed of machined aluminum and steel, with vaccu-formed styrene panels which conceal the intricate gearing that brought the robot to life. The eyes and eyelids are activated with servo-controlled electric motors. To animate the robot, a specially designed exo-skeleton apparatus was made to control all of the mechanical features of the robot during filming, which is also included.

Of the 15 such robots made for the mid-’80s Guttenberg movie (which spawned a sequel soon after), “this is the only complete Johnny Five that survived, and is the only one known to exist.”

Eco-Friendly Packaging Increases Guilt-Free Littering
Eco-littering is one way the public is embracing the “green” trend.

Green product packaging — which emphasizes the use of recycled, biodegradable post-consumer paper-based materials and relies less on petroleum-derived polymers like Styrofoam — has unleashed a spontaneous trashing of sidewalks, roadsides, and pristine wilderness by gratified consumers. And experts say the trend is here to stay.

To wit, highway littering shot up 6 percent nationwide in the last weeks of 2006, shortly after retail giant Wal-Mart announced its intention to encourage its tens of thousands of suppliers worldwide to reduce packaging materials.

To curb the new littering, the Sierra Club is now suggesting that all consumer packaging be coated with a toxic, nonbiodegradable polymer that would kill wildlife and poison groundwater unless products were disposed of in heavy plastic garbage bags.

“The stigma attached to littering is at long last being put to rest,” according to industry analyst Tom Schneider. “As long as manufacturers are packaging their goods in unbleached paper and biodegradable, cornstarch-based plastics, more and more consumers will discard their refuse wherever they please, knowing it will safely decompose within 10 to 20 years. Call it the ‘New Compost.’”

Yup … The Onion.

Ever Wondered What $207 Million in Cash Looks Like?
Wonder no more:

Image from The Washington Post

Police raided 44-year-old Zhenli Ye Gon’s luxurious Mexico City home in March, carting off what they said was $207 million, most of it in $100 bills that had been stashed behind false walls and in closets, according to The Washington Post on Wednesday (via Fark).

The U.S. government called it “the largest single drug cash seizure the world has ever seen.”

Isn’t it pretty?

Like The Jetsons
The first flying car — shaped like a saucer! — has finally gone into production.

To avoid the need to meet FAA regulations, the civilian version of the Moller M200G Volantor is restricted to heights of 10 feet, reports Jalopnik (via Digg). But it can travel as fast as 50 mph and fly for up to 90 minutes. Maximum payload is 250 pounds (eh, one for each family member).

Moller has already started work on the 67 orders received so far. Depending on the number of orders, prices could be as low as $90,000.

(Bonus points for the music, as noted in YouTube comments)

Cheers.