Fantasy football strategy, rankings, and podcasts

NASA

NASA no longer has a shuttle to access space, as of 2011. Space Shuttle Atlantis was the last one (Columbia exploded in 2003 and was not replaced). NASA's budget has declined (as a % of the overall federal budget) since the early 90's (1.05% in 1991), though it peaked in the years leading up to the moon landing (4.41% in 1966). In 2014, it was only 0.5% of the total budget. The projected budget for 2015 is around 18 billion. (For a quick lesson on taxes, check this out.)

In 2010, President Obama gave a speech and proposed that NASA essentially leave the business of sending men to space and instead contract with private companies to do it instead (ideally to do it cheaper).

Recently, there has been a push to increase the NASA funding. The Penny4NASA campaign started in 2012, inspired by Neil deGrasse Tyson's testimony before congress. In it, Tyson advocated spending a penny on the dollar, rather than the 0.5 that we currently spend (moving the budget from 0.5% to 1.0%, like in the early 90's. Check out this infographic on NASA's benefits to everyday life.

(Listen to the Retrospectical Podcast Episode 9: NASA and the Rise of Private Space Exploration)

A 1997 poll indicated that Americans estimated we spend about 20% of our budget on NASA. A far cry from the 0.9% we did spend that year. There's also a website that NASA runs called Spinoff that tracks all of the things NASA has developed that are in use in commercial businesses today. To see what our actual return on investment is estimated at, check out this page on Investopedia.

ISS

NASA still works with the ISS, but the Russians send shuttles there. Crew members must fly on the Soyuz shuttle from Russia. The ISS is managed by NASA, Russia, Japan, European space agency and Canada. ISS has been inhabited for over 14 years continuously. You can see the ISS from earth with the naked eye (though not in light-polluted Chicago).

Contracts for commercial resupply missions to the ISS were first awarded in 2008 to SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corporation. SpaceX was the first up there, with the first Dragon resupply mission going up in May 2012, followed by Cygnus (from Orbital) in September 2013. This CRS (commercial resupply services) provides all of the American cargo for the ISS (with a few exceptions).

With the Russian Progress resupply ship spinning out of control on 4/28/15, this leaves only the Japanese cargo ship and SpaceX’s dragon left to deliver supplies to the ISS. SpaceX is scheduled to make another delivery on June 15^th (along with another attempt at landing the first stage). Orbital’s resupply vehicle suffered a catastrophic failure in October of 2014.

In 2014, SpaceX and Boeing were awarded contracts to build vehicles to transport humans to the ISS. NASA expects this to begin in 2017.

SpaceX

SpaceX was founded by tech mogul (and probably secret superhero) Elon Musk. Musk's vision was to build an inexpensive reusable rocket, ala modern airliners. Started with some of his Paypal fortune in 2002, he had invested 100 million by 2006. As of 2013, they employed over 3000 people. In 2015, Google & Fidelity spent $1 billion in exchange for 8.333% of the company, valuing it at approximately $12 billion.

SpaceX was the first private company to launch and return a spacecraft from orbit, in December of 2012. A big part of SpaceX is the re-usability of all of this stuff in order to make it very cheap. This can greatly undercut existing commercial satellite launch companies.

To date, SpaceX has had 18 successful missions (one secondary mission on the 4th launch failed). This has been a mix of governments and private companies, resupplying the ISS and launching satellites into orbit.

The 18th launch on April 27th. Just last month, SpaceX had its 18th successful launch, sending a communications satellite for Turkmenistan into low earth orbit. The satellite was carried by SpaceX's Falcon9. This time around, they did not try to land the rocket in a controlled-descent test, as they have done with several of their recent launches.

SpaceX has been working on controlled descents for its first stage rockets. In several of their recent launches, they have attempted landing the first stage on a platform about 300 x 160 feet in the ocean. On their last try, earlier this month, they landed on their ship, but it tipped over after it landed because it was still moving too fast.

With almost 50 future launches planned, it's clear that SpaceX has been quite a success. They are on the cutting edge of current private space travel and should be putting astronauts into space as early as 2016.

Orbital Sciences

The private sector has always benefited from NASA and the space industry (there were over 350,000 people employed as contractors at the peak of the Apollo program). Now, the private sector is taking over with SpaceX, Boeing and Orbital ATK (formerly Orbital Sciences Corporation).

Orbital is a company started way back in 1982 (ancient in the aeronautics industry). They are also a defense contractor for the US, providing missile defense systems. They construct launch vehicles and satellites, in addition to the missile defense systems. They, in addition to SpaceX, supply the ISS using their Cygnus spacecraft.

In order to actually qualify for spaceflight, you have to exceed the karaman line, about 100km above the surface of the earth. Private spaceflight includes communications satellites, satellite tv, satellite radio and space tourism.

Private space flight was essentially kept illegal by NASA until 2004, even though one of the requirements in the founding charter is to maximize commercial space ventures. They certainly contributed to commercial ventures, but until 2004, private flights were effectively illegal. It's still technically illegal to send people into space in a commercial venture, though like most of these previous rules, they will likely be granted permission to do this when the time comes.

Virgin Galactic

Virgin Galactic is another private space flight company, but unlike SpaceX and Orbital, which are focused on resupply, satellites and eventual mars exploration, Virgin is in it for the space tourism. Founded by another eccentric billionaire, Richard Branson started virgin galactic in 2004.

Virgin Galactic uses a different style of aircraft. The “space ship” – SpaceShipTwo, piggybacks on a mother ship (white knight II) which carries it to an altitude of about 50,000 ft before it’s released. SpaceShipTwo then flies to a height of 110 KM, about 10km above the boundary of space (essentially in low earth orbit). The flight would last about 2.5 hours, with about 6 minutes of that being weightless.

Virgin’s program has been plagued by delays, though perhaps Branson’s initial prediction in 2008 that the maiden voyage would take place in only 18 months was a bit too ambitious. In October of 2014, disaster struck the VSS enterprise (virgin named their vessels Enterprise and Voyager). The craft broke up mid-air shortly after being released from the mother ship. Amazingly, only one of the two pilots aboard was killed.

Virgin took a lot of heat after the accident, criticized throughout the industry for not following common practices and not having the standard “two-failure tolerance”. There is a lot of info available on this, though I suppose it’s rather speculative. A full incident report isn’t expected until 1 year after the crash (6 months from now or so).

Virgin is the anchor tenant at Spaceport America. What is this? Well, it’s not as cool as a Cosmodrome, ok, well it’s the same thing, but Russians have a cooler name for it, that’s for sure. Spaceport America is in the New Mexico desert and is the first facility purpose built for commercial space travel. Tenants include Virgin, SpaceX, UP Aerospace and Armadillo Aerospace.

So far, I've loved how the episode pairs that we've watched seem to all go together. Episodes 5 and 6 went together very well - if it was a cheesy network show, there would have been a "To be continued........." after episode 5. Thankfully, this is Netflix and we can watch at whatever pace we want.

(Tune in to the TV Soup Podcast - Daredevil, "World on Fire" & "Condemned" Review)

Episode 5 – “World on Fire”

Matt & Claire’s relationship gets much more serious as he’s trying to protect her from the Russians. We get a little more insight into his “abilities” – he can taste the copper in the air when someone is bleeding, he can hear the bones inside someone’s body to tell if they’re broken. As Claire says, “You see….so much”. 

We get a “vision” of what Matt sees, which is a “World on Fire”. I’m not sure what this is referring to, if this is because he’s trying to save the world, or if he really does “see” something, but it’s nothing like traditional vision. He did have sight until he was 9-years-old, so he does know the difference.

Wesley goes to talk to Vladimir and witnesses the seeds being planted that the man in the mask (Matt) was the one who killed his bother. Vladimir sees it as a declaration of war, which it was, but against the wrong man. This isn’t something I saw coming, but makes perfect sense. Fisk is very calculating and we see it on an even greater level later on in this and the following episode.

We find ourselves in a car wash that seems to be taken right out of Grand Theft Auto. Of course, in Fisk’s line of work, you need a shop on retainer that doesn’t shy away from hosing blood and brains off of your car door. GTA VI: Hell’s Kitchen anyone?

Matt is on a mission to get after the Russians and tracks them to a cab in the middle of an alley. This is a really well shot scene. As long as the guy working for Madame Gao is alive, they stick with the camera in the back seat next to him and slowly rotate it around to view what’s going on. Matt finds out that he’s being framed for killing Anatoly and the cops show up – they’re getting closer every time.

Back in the real world, Foggy and Karen are having technical difficulties with the equipment they bought – a paranoid person would think that the previous owners (Karen’s evil ex-employers) have bugged it. Mrs. Cardenas, their newest client, comes to them to report on a slumlord who is trying to kick her out of her rent-controlled apartment by forcing her to live in squalor. Their case of the week does a good job, as usual, in tying into the rest of the overarching story (and eventually becoming much more than a case of the week).

While digging for more info, Matt hears a couple of cops kill a guy in an interview room just because he dropped the name "Wilson Fisk". This is yet another guy that winds up dead after giving up Fisk's name. Looks like people take that "we don't say his name" very seriously.

Foggy and Karen stop by Mrs. Cardenas's to help fix up the place, and she winds up fixing them up. She can certainly make a decent meal while living in terrible conditions. The date goes very well, and yes, it is a date now. Goes to show that being a lawyer will help you net a girl that's way out of your league. Of course, that all changes once the city starts blowing up...

Meanwhile, Fisk manages to get a second date with Vanessa. Somehow, the scene at their last date didn't scare her off entirely. She’s clearly attracted to power and doesn’t know that she’s walked right into a scheme that Fisk has been working on. This is all just a part of his grand plan to trap Vladimir and the man in the black mask at the same time. It's very well unraveled, as the misdirection works and nobody ever figures out what's going on right away. Vladimir takes the bait and rallies his troops for an attack on Fisk, even offering $1 million for his location.

Claire is trying to keep Matt from spiraling out of control. He's saying he will do "whatever it takes" and a few other worrisome phrases. She's worried that he is getting closer and closer to the guys that he fights every night. She has a point, he's quite ruthless, even if he seems to sorta draw a line at actually killing people.

Vanessa and Fisk's date continues with plenty of creepy vibes, but apparently Vanessa is attracted to creepy. Fisk goes on about his "business" and you can see that he's justified everything that he does through his excuse that he is trying to "clean up the city". I have no idea what his ultimate motivations are, apart from probably just being a psychopath who wants power.

So, Fisk's first part of his plan goes pretty well and he winds up blowing up all four of the Russian's hideouts, in a stunt that makes it look like the city is under attack. Just a continuity note - later on Foggy is injured from the blast, but he's not bleeding at all right after, in fact his shirt seems to be entirely intact.

Fisk and Vanessa have a "Fight Club" moment, where they romantically watch a bunch of explosions from a high-rise. Vanessa is totally drinking the kool-aid. The episode leaves on quite a good cliffhanger, but of course, this is Netflix, so on to the next episode!

Episode 6 – “Condemned”

This episode opens in spectacular fashion, with Matt taking out 3 cops while handcuffed, surely one of his best performances yet. Immediately after, Matt has to drag Vladimir away so he can get more information out of him, even though he's just trying to kill Matt the whole time. I suppose that prison bond with his brother is just as strong as they were implying.

Ben is back, and he appears that he's going to be our window into the outside world solving this case. I suppose if that's as deep as his character gets, that's fine with me. I do like his use of a deck of cards to build the hierarchy of the enterprise without any photos handy. He shows up at the "hostage" situation, if only to be a pain in the ass, but it causes Fisk to call the TV networks to drown out Ben (and get a big audience for what comes next).

The pair of asshole cops, and boy are they assholes, are canvassing the area for "survivors" and changing their status quickly (aka putting a bullet in their heads). Matt sneaks Vladimir into an empty warehouse and they have a friendly conversation (I have counter-proposal - suck my dick).

At the hospital, they have a fun time crossing story-lines left and right and we see at least 5 characters that we know by name. Matt asks Claire for help and she starts settling into a little comic relief, in this ridiculously dark moment in the show. "It's not like in the movies! I don't watch movies, I like records though".

Matt has to (gets to?) cauterize the wound on Vladimir's side and his screams wind up giving them away to a cop. Matt kind of assumes that all cops work for Fisk, and if that's not true, they certainly don't work for him and the rookie cop doesn't cooperate. Matt finally hears what he wants to hear from Vladimir about Fisk. While it seems like it's the truth, it's a distraction so that Vladimir can catch Matt off guard, because, well, he did make counter-proposal and all. It becomes apparent during all of this, that Vladimir never realizes that Matt is blind.

Fisk comes up with an excellent, though crazy, plan on the fly. He doesn't seem to mind sacrificing people that he employs to reach his ends. A sign of his power is when he gets a police radio and can get the officers in charge at the scene to get on a private channel so they can all talk together. You have to own a whole lot of cops to even risk doing something like that, and Fisk doesn't seem like a guy who takes too many risks. This is his last stage of his plan, framing Matt for the bombings, pointing out that he's taken a cop hostage (he really did do that), and then framing him for the shooting that takes place right outside the building. Blake (asshole cop #1) is taken out first, and it's probably because he gave up the cell phone to Matt last episode. Anybody who disappoints Fisk is pretty much screwed.

By the end of the episode, Vladimir and Matt are besties and make it out to the tunnel. Vladimir sacrifices himself and Matt is able to get away without being either killed or captured by the cops. Vlad gives him a name that he really needs, someone who is easier to get at than Fisk. Leland Owlsley, basically the money man for Fisk and the cabal that they've formed. Now that this is done, we can move on to episodes 7 & 8!

This show manages to combine a "monster of the week" kind of story while advancing the overall plot all at the same time. It reminds me of shows like Fringe, which did it well (though Daredevil may do it better) and Burn Notice, which did not do a good job of mixing it.

(Tune in to the TV Soup Podcast - Daredevil, "Rabbit in a Snowstorm" & "In the Blood" Review) 

Episode 3 - "Rabbit in a Snowstorm"

In the opening scene we see a bloody execution of someone who is clearly a boss of some type, bringing a couple of bodyguards with him to an empty bowling alley. While watching this, the gruesomeness of this show becomes apparent. Marvel movies don't usually feature too much blood, but our new friend (Healy) is splattered with it. He hides his gun, and in a move that does not seem very typical, he waits to be arrested by the police.

Matthew, imbued with some proper Catholic guilt, finds himself sitting in front of the church. Father Lantom really tries to get him to come in and talk, as clearly Matthew has been roughed up and has a lot on his mind, but he's not ready to talk, not yet.

We meet a couple of new characters against the backdrop of New York City. I'm not sure if there are a lot of buildings missing, but you can definitely see lots of buildings being constructed after "the event" or whatever they're calling it. It's an informant/gangster relationship, clearly, and later on you learn that Ben is a reporter and not a cop. In proper comic book fashion, Ben is warned off of the case that he's about to embark on (spoilers?).

Confederated global investments, represented by James Wesley (the errand boy with the employer-who-must-not-be-named), shows up at their law office with an offer to put them on retainer. Matthew is clearly (and rightfully) suspicious of their intentions, and Foggy is the opposite, fawning all over the money they've just been offered. Matt has a good line about how Foggy might care the other way around if he couldn't see the check.

Matt's senses are really finely tuned; he can tell Wesley by the specific tick of his watch, he can hear one conversation a ways off and I'm sure there are more surprises still to come. We've been wondering thus far if this is some sort of extra ability, or just his senses making up for his lack of sight.

Foggy is interviewing Healy, who finally tips off Foggy's BS detector with his amazingly fluent legalese. Clearly, as Foggy says, "this wasn't his first rodeo". Matt shows up and, without consultation, tells Healy they are taking the case. Matt's being a little bit unilateral in the early days of this law firm.

Matt is really just interviewing Healy for info on Wesley (whose name he doesn't know yet). Healy is eerily nonchalant about the whole thing (a "shark in a skin suit"), but Matt says they need to take clients just for the money, though clearly he wants to dig into their mutual "employer" more.

We see Ben at his office, and it's all very standard "we're old news guys, we can't do the news like we used to before". I've seen this now for the last 10 years on almost every newspaper storyline in anything I've seen on TV. It was done best on The Wire, season 5. Unless you're going to beat that, take a different angle.

Karen is offered a contract and buy-off to keep her mouth shut forever about Union Allied Construction (another good generic name) in exchange for the company not going after her for legal ramifications for breaking the NDA and stealing a file which got leaked to the papers. She leaves and it's uncertain which way she went. She later encounters Daniel's (the guy who they tried to frame her for killing) wife, asking her if she can help track down what really happened. The wife had already signed an agreement and is getting the hell out of dodge so Karen is on her own, but looking for someone else. Since she lied to Matt & Foggy about taking the file (by not telling them about it), she doesn't want to go to them about the situation.

Healy's case is sped to trial, and during the opening Matt quickly sniffs out a juror who has been compromised and deals with it that night nearly as quickly. This actually works, and Matt makes his closing argument to a jury of the untampered (he certainly listens for long enough to be sure). His speech is a warning to Healy as much as it's meant for the jury to take only the facts of the case into consideration. It's a good speech, but no McConaughey from A Time to Kill.

The verdict comes back, and there is no verdict! It's a hung jury, and the state will not be retrying the case as it's "too expensive". It doesn't seem like a hung jury should come back so quickly, clearly something else is happening behind the scenes. I like how every time Matt asks Healy a question he doesn't want to answer, he not only changes the subject but seems to compliment him too.

Finally we get a hell of a fight, as both Matt and Healy are friggin' bad-asses, so in proper Daredevil form, it goes on for quite some time with both sides gaining some advantage over the other. Matt is able to squeeze the name of Healy's employer out of him, which prompts Healy to impale himself on a spike rather than continue on after having given up his name.

Wilson Fisk is our man, played by Vincent D'Onofrio, and he's just hanging out in an art gallery. He looks like Gomer Pyle from Full Metal Jacket, all grown up (and not dead) but possibly just as crazy. He buys a painting called "Rabbit in a Snowstorm" which is kind of a joke, making up something that isn't there.

Episode 4 - "In the Blood"

We find out quickly what "In the Blood" refers to (as opposed to the last episode, in which we found out at the end). The Russian brothers have a very tight bond, strengthened in a Russian prison years ago where they presumably broke out with the use of sharpened bones taken from their deceased cell mate. That's sure to forge a tight bond between anyone.

Matt is getting patched up, again, by Claire, who is running her own ER out of a friend's apartment and hiding out from the Russians on advice from Matt. Matt & Claire certainly have an interesting relationship developing, and it looks like one of those that could go romantic, but won't (yet?) because Matt doesn't want her to be a target.

The Russians are in their "hideout", basically a taxi garage. Wesley comes by and tries to motivate the Russians to take down their "problem", as it's affecting business. They're also given an "offer" for Fisk (he who must not be named) to help out, but of course they resist at first. I like Vladimir's point about how the only reason they aren't supposed to say "Fisk" is because it makes him seem like he's not a man, not because of some eavesdropping suspicions or something else.

Karen and Ben are going over the facts of their case and Ben is trying to get Karen to move on from looking further into this. He smartly points out that most people who have gotten in the way have wound up dead. Unswayed, Karen is determined to find the paper trail.

Vladimir and Anatoly go looking for answers about the masked man and they seem to know a lot about how to get a guy out of a coma. I suppose they are some hardcore gangsters, but still, this is a pretty crazy thing to do to a guy on your side. Anyways, Semyon (the guy in the coma) leads them to Claire's apartment where they are able to connect the dots and eventually find Claire at the place she's hiding.

Wesley and Fisk are in the car, talking. Even when talking amongst themselves, they use really vague terms. Maybe it's just a habit for these guys at this point. Fisk mentions that he wants to handle it all quietly... but of course it ends up being the total opposite of that. He goes into the art gallery and tries to get a date with the lady from the last episode. You almost start to feel bad for this guy, as he's trying to relate to normal people (especially at first at dinner), but it's still awkward. It almost makes you forget that he's most likely a psychopath.

Matt finds out where Claire has been taken from Santino (after Matt was just barely too late). It's interesting that most of the time, he goes around with a walking stick, but when trouble is about, he's able to run full speed and navigate perfectly. The stick is just a prop to help him stay under the radar as Matt Murdock.

Matt always fights at night, but he finally uses a tactic that I've been wanting him to use for a while now. When he arrives at the taxi depot, he kills the lights, putting him at an instant advantage. This fight isn't even close to being even, as the Russians take a really dumb approach to this situation but this is a comic book series, so I guess I need to take that into consideration. Claire takes a huge swing at one of the guys - in the face, with a baseball bat - in one of the most satisfying moments of the episode, though it does leave her very, very shaken up.

Karen buys furniture at the auction and we find out that Ben is still interested in the story. I'm hoping that Ben becomes a better character, he seems far too cookie-cutter, and I usually like the good guy journalist character.

Anatoly heads to see Fisk, who was spotted at the restaurant. Anatoly seems like the level-headed brother, but he charges into the restaurant like a fool and we find out that Fisk has been surrounded by guards the entire time. Definitely ups the creep factor right after he was starting to seem normal.

The shoe is on the other foot for once; Matt is patching up Claire, just like when he used to fix up his dad after matches. Claire urges Matt to continue what he's doing, and that it's worth the risk. Matt then reveals his real name.

Fisk is finishing his date with Vanessa, trying to act all nonchalant about the bizarre scene at the restaurant. He then takes his frustrations out on Anatoly, in a very sloppy ending to an episode where all the characters were a bit sloppy with their actions. All the fights in this episode were very one-sided as well. Also, wtf, is Fisk wearing chain mail? I suppose so, he's going to war...