Comparing the America that works with the one that doesn’t.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Gravity’s “Science” Problems
Jeff Foust discusses the issue over at The Space Review (spoiler warning for those who haven’t seen it). Also spoiler warning for people who read the rest of the post.
Sputnik Anniversary
An apparently before-coffee tweet from Wayne Hale this morning kicked off a minor exchange that reminded me of this back and forth I had with Homer Hickam at the LA Times on the fiftieth anniversary, six years ago. I think it holds up pretty well.
Rebooting Star Trek For The Small Screen
Self-Assembling Robots
If you could put a reaction control system into them to allow them to rendezvous with each other, you might have some interesting fractionated satellites.
This is a good example of Arthur C. Clarke’s rule that when a distinguished elder scientist says that something can’t be done, he’s very likely wrong.
A Deadly Accident In Space
There will be one:
You might depart the theater after Gravity with mixed emotions about going to space yourself. Cuaron’s tracking shots and sweeping vistas of the blue marble below evoke a sort of spiritual response, especially in the spaces between suspense when the movie gets quiet. Of course, the Bullock and Clooney spend much of the film spinning and flailing in mortal danger, dodging hunks of metal that become ballistic missiles at orbital speed. Jones sees Gravity as appearing amid a rising wave of interest in space brought on by the emerging private space industry, and that’s a hopeful trend. But humanity has to be realistic about risk assessment, and ready for the high drama of trying to rescue space travelers after a disaster in orbit. Perhaps when space travel becomes common, and not simply the domain of professional astronauts, we’ll treat space disasters like plane crashes—tragedies that can be made extremely uncommon, but never eliminated. And that will be a good thing.
Yes. That’s the fundamental premise of my book.
Manual Transmissions
Cars that only come with them. They aren’t dead yet.
America’s Greatest Days Lie Ahead
Freeing Our Minds For Space Missions
Bob Clark has some politically incorrect thoughts on how to get back to the moon.
Nuclear Power’s Future
It may be small reactors.
The industry is a mess because the government has been inhibiting innovation in it for decades, since the beginning.