All posts by Rand Simberg

Space

Clueless Trekkers

In response to my previous post citing Orson Scott Card’s Star Trek critique, Tobias Buckell takes issue with my comment (and Jim Oberg’s concurrence) about Trekkers’ interest in space:

Boy, I’d have to quibble with that. I recall ST folk being excited enough to beg NASA to rename the first shuttle Enterprise. That hardly smacks of ‘not being interested in space activities.’

This little episode, dating back to the late 1970s, actually makes my point, not his. OV-101, the test article for the Approach and Landing Tests (ALT), was originally supposed to be called the Constitution, but the Star Trek fans were mobilized to rename it the Enterprise, despite the fact that it would never actually fly in space. Many (including me) attempted to make them aware of this, but they didn’t seem to care, and pressed on regardless.

It was kind of a drive-by interest, and whether or not the vehicle they were attempting to rename would actually be a space vehicle seemed to be of much less importance to them than that it be named after the Enterprise. If they thought that they could have pulled it off, they’d have probably signed a petition and sent in letters demanding that the astronaut uniforms be bell bottoms with boots, a la STTOS. If Mr. Buckell has any other data to indicate interest by Trekkers in space, or reality, I’d be interested to hear it, because this sure isn’t it.

Technology and Society

Cat Man Do

Expect to see a lot more of this sort of thing as the technology for body morphing (particularly genetic) continues to develop:

He charges $1,000 a day for his appearances, but the offers are sporadic. Avner said his agent is pitching a show for him on the Fox television network, but the details are still murky.

“If I could make a living at it, it would be nice,” he said.

He said his need to transform himself into a form of human cat stems from his Indian background as a member of the Huron and Lakota tribes. He grew up in Michigan and was given the Indian name of Stalking Cat. Following an ancient Huron tradition, Avner said he is changing himself into his totem of a tiger.

Not surprisingly, he has a web site.

Administrative

New Samba Problem

I’ve gotten Samba working on my Fedora server, and I can see and read files on it from my Windows 2000 box, and when I first got it working (I had a firewall problem) I could even write to it. But now when I try to drag files to it, or save them from an application, I’m getting an error that indicates a permission problem. I can’t imagine what it could be, since the files and directories are all write permission for the user, and I’m the user. I can write to them as a user on the Fedora box itself–I just can’t do it from the Window’s client.

Anyone have any ideas what could be the problem, or how to diagnose it?

War Commentary

Tuning Up The World’s Tiniest Violin

The Iraqi insurgents were boo-hooing to Zarquawi last week that their morale is low. Ain’t it a crying shame?

The author of the letter also “admonishes ‘the Sheik’ for abandoning his followers” after last year’s U.S. siege on Falluja, west of Baghdad.

U.S. forces led an assault then on the Sunni Triangle city’s terrorist network believed to be run by al-Zarqawi.

Because of the “continuous pressure by Iraqi and [U.S.-led] coalition forces,” a military statement said, al-Zarqawi has relied on his cell leaders to conduct operations while he is forced to evade being killed or captured.

Doesn’t your heart just go out to them?

War Commentary

Tuning Up The World’s Tiniest Violin

The Iraqi insurgents were boo-hooing to Zarquawi last week that their morale is low. Ain’t it a crying shame?

The author of the letter also “admonishes ‘the Sheik’ for abandoning his followers” after last year’s U.S. siege on Falluja, west of Baghdad.

U.S. forces led an assault then on the Sunni Triangle city’s terrorist network believed to be run by al-Zarqawi.

Because of the “continuous pressure by Iraqi and [U.S.-led] coalition forces,” a military statement said, al-Zarqawi has relied on his cell leaders to conduct operations while he is forced to evade being killed or captured.

Doesn’t your heart just go out to them?

War Commentary

Tuning Up The World’s Tiniest Violin

The Iraqi insurgents were boo-hooing to Zarquawi last week that their morale is low. Ain’t it a crying shame?

The author of the letter also “admonishes ‘the Sheik’ for abandoning his followers” after last year’s U.S. siege on Falluja, west of Baghdad.

U.S. forces led an assault then on the Sunni Triangle city’s terrorist network believed to be run by al-Zarqawi.

Because of the “continuous pressure by Iraqi and [U.S.-led] coalition forces,” a military statement said, al-Zarqawi has relied on his cell leaders to conduct operations while he is forced to evade being killed or captured.

Doesn’t your heart just go out to them?

Space

A Peek At The Future?

I just got an interesting note from Popular Mechanics:

At 12:01 a.m. EST, Popular Mechanics will unveil on its Web site an early look at Lockheed Martin’s proposed Crew Exploration Vehicle — one of two major proposals submitted today to NASA to replace the Space Shuttle and eventually carry us to Mars. We’ll be including images and specs. A larger piece will run in our June issue.

I don’t know if I’ll stay up for it (I’m still recovering from the Space Access Conference sleep deprivation), but comments here are open for anyone who does. I’ll take a look in the morning. I am curious to see what Lockmart will propose, particularly now that the competition has gotten more heated with the apparent decision to only award a single contract.

[Tuesday morning update]

Here’s the story.

The biggest obvious difference between it and the Boeing concept (at least the Boeing concept that has been on display in the exploration studies–I can’t speak to what was actually proposed) is that it’s got wings. Or at least a body with a lot more lift than a capsule, with supersonic drogues. Despite that, it still lands with chutes and bags, so it’s not clear why they want such a high L/D, except for more cross range and landing site flexibility, and reduced entry gees. What NASA has been calling a Service Module they seem to be calling a Propulsion Stage. It’s not clear whether it also contains life support consumables (as the Apollo Service Module did), though it does mention that the crew module itself has a LOX supply and fuel cells.

It definitely looks more sexy than Boeing’s design–they may be hoping that will help them as it did in X-33, but having that much L/D is a problem for the launch vehicle, because it will impart bending loads (for which it’s not designed) on it from the side force of the lift. It will be interesting to see how they explain this.

General

Recapping Star Trek

I can’t think of anyone better to do it than Lileks:

“The Next Generation.” The post-Reagan years. The Enterprise was no longer a lone vanguard making its way through realms unknown; now it was like a grand Hilton in space, complete with spa, psychiatric counselor, accommodations for kids, and a French captain who could sometimes be mistaken for a cranky sommelier. Whoopi Goldberg was the ship’s bartender, which, in retrospect, really tells you all you need to know. Patrick Stewart’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard was much-beloved, and for good reason: His stentorian acting style gave the show a dramatic heft it otherwise didn’t always deserve.

The Federation, in this iteration, was like a liberal dream of the U.N.: diplomacy first, multicultural understanding above all, but if need be, a gigantic armada could be summoned to fight off whatever evil leather-clad empire had decided to mess with the goodfolk of Earth. Zeitgeist giveaway: The Klingons became allies, sort of, after the Berlin Wall fell. Grade: B+, not so much for overall quality, but because it relaunched the franchise with a broad-based appeal no subsequent version would match.

RTWT