My new Fox column is up. As part of commemorating this week's Apollo anniversary (and remember it's only three more shopping days until Evoloterra Day), I have some observations on where we stand in spaceflight, midyear. There's a lot of retreads from the past few days, but some new stuff as well, not to mention a Simpsons reference.

Yay! Another reason to celebrate even is that its my Birthday!!!! Funny also that someone born on July 20th has the Moon as there Astrological planet.

Are you aware that over 3,000,000 people have their names on CD's aboard the two MER's from
America? I have seen nothing about it in the press
nor has NASA been wise enough to use it as a great
public relations move - and it appears that none
of the experts, critics or professional observers
of space exploration have noticed it either. No one seems to care that a whole lot of ordinary
citizens are wiser than they've been given credit
for - and more realistic about our future in space.

Are you aware that over 3,000,000 people have their names on CD's aboard the two MER's from
America? I have seen nothing about it in the press
nor has NASA been wise enough to use it as a great
public relations move - and it appears that none
of the experts, critics or professional observers
of space exploration have noticed it either. No one seems to care that a whole lot of ordinary
citizens are wiser than they've been given credit
for - and more realistic about our future in space.

At this point I’m a “glass-half-empty” sort. I so much want us to get sizable/worthwhile landers out to places like Europa (in my lifetime) and so much want to see things like the ‘cloud tops’ of other Earthlike worlds around other stars, but increasingly doubt they’re going to happen soon. Finding life on a moon or actually detecting Oxygen / Ozone / pollutants in the atmospheres of another distant world would likely ‘wake-up’ our sleeping space industry that seems all too happy to glorify past events. Telescopes like the LBT, VLT, and the combined Kecks are sure to help change things!

If things were reversed to a point where we lived on a desolate and barren world like Mars and saw a neighboring planet as wondrous as the watery blue Earth waiting to be explored, the decision to go would be vastly different. We’d be tripping over each other to get there (here)! The barely hospitable conditions of Mars challenges our true inner determination and resolve. Can we go to such a world while we spend hundreds of billions on weapons, while we are divided, and while we still have resources to burn? Not really! In reality, we must first successfully colonize Earth (our home world) before we can go triumphantly off to places like Mars and beyond.

Earth’s gravity is also not very conducive to space flight. Earth has the mass of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Pluto and all the moons of those world’s (and ours) combined: not to mention having a dense atmosphere to penetrate in the process. These factors meant that even with the massive Saturn V underfoot, only foil-thin, tinker-toy-like LM’s could be sent to the surface of the Moon.

The Planetary Society did indeed put DVD disks on both landers: special 'heat resistant' ones of course. I’m one of the proud people who have their name on them and believe that civilian space groups like the Planetary Society can make small contributions. For example, we all helped fund the re-commissioning of a small ~2.0 meter telescope that will be able to detect Exoplanets around other stars. There also was a lot of development that went into a Mars balloon able to get mm resolution of the surface! Real science by ordinary people!