From seed XCOR investor and blog reader Stephen Fleming, with connections to GA Tech.
[Wednesday-morning update]
Casey Stedman weighs in.
My biggest concern with going to the movie: When I read the book, I didn’t actually have to listen to the Disco.
[Bumped]
As Keith Cowing points out, the Planetary Society is in no hurry to put anyone on the surface of the Red Planet. They want to do Apollo to Mars, but take almost three and a half decades before the first boots on Mars, and almost four decades before long-term habitation. Though Firouz Naderi claims that keeping it under the cost limit makes it more likely, I’d say that it is doomed to failure. Something that takes that long, accomplishes so little, for so much money, is unsustainable in a democratic Republic. This is why Apollo to Mars is doomed in general. I’m discussing this in the Kickstarter project. We need to have a different approach, starting with an end to the phrase “space exploration” as the reason we send humans into space.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Here’s the link to the report. I’m reading it now, hoping it will have some useful cost data from Aerospace.
[Update a while later]
Even Chris Carberry recognizes that we won’t ever get another “Kennedy moment.” I’m not sure, though, how one “stays the course” to Mars, when there is no course.
[Late-morning update]
Over at Sarah Hoyt’s place NASA employee Les Johnson proposes (wait for it) Apollo to Mars.
It is not going to happen, and it should not happen.
Here’s the first review I’ve seen of Robert Redford and Cate Blanchett’s production of Mary Mapes’s fairy tale:
The problem I have with TRUTH is one of focus. While, to the best of my knowledge, it doesn’t say anything wrong, or leave important details out, it does emphasize a certain point of view strongly. There is a reasonable case to be made that this is because it is the side we haven’t heard. But there is more to it than that — it is trying to build a Hollywood narrative out of a decidedly messy situation by amplifying certain details and minimizing others. Plus, I think the real story here is one of journalistic failure. A focus on what causes us make mistakes and why we often can’t admit when we are wrong would have been much more interesting. That stuff is kind of in the atmosphere here, but isn’t emphasized.
I’ll illustrate my feelings with one of my favorite stories from science. In 1991, Andrew Lyne announced the discovery of the first planet around another star. He was scheduled to give a keynote address about it at the January 1992 meeting of the American Astronomical Society in front of thousands of astronomers. Yet when he got up, he instead explained that he was wrong. He had done some calculations incorrectly, and there was no planet. Rather than disdain, he got a standing ovation from the crowd. That’s exactly how science is supposed to work, and journalism too. But when Mary Mapes was confronted with fairly compelling evidence that she didn’t get things right, she didn’t seem to take a fresh look at the the facts in this new light, she doubled down on her original position. I think it was entirely justified that she was fired, even if the manner in which it was done was problematic.
A democracy depends on a well-informed public, and journalists have an extraordinary responsibility to be above reproach. In our two-party system, too often things degenerate into “sides” and scoring points on the other team. Yes it isn’t fair when one side can lie and change public opinion, and the other can make an honest mistake, face enormous penalties, and have other correct points ignored. But whining about what’s fair is a children’s game. Responsible adults who want to be taken seriously should do the upstanding thing and lead by example.
I’d note (as I always have to do) that “forgeries” is the wrong word, because it implies that there was something real to forge. They were fakes.
Richard Gere: “He doesn’t appear to have the solutions that everyone thought.”
Not everyone, Richard. Only fools like you.
From space historian, and mission controller Jim Oberg. Interesting discussion in comments.
[Tuesday-afternoon update]
Another review, from Alex Knapp.
[Bumped]
Don’t have game on teevee, but play by play looks like nothing is happening on the ground. Hard to win when it has to be all through the air.
Wow, they were lucky to pull that game out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen their offense play such a terrible game. A one-score win on a 34-point spread.
I’m a little behind on my reading of The Space Review, but last week, Eric Sterner cautioned (as Keith Cowing has been doing repeatedly) space enthusiasts not to imagine that the movie will somehow sell NASA programs or budgets. Note the discussion about lack of redundancy in comments. Weir’s scenario assumes that NASA is going to do Apollo to Mars. The purpose of my Kickstarter project is to show why that shouldn’t and probably won’t ever happen. And there’s also this:
Do people who support NASA's fake #JourneyToMars realize how few astronaut opportunities it entails? https://t.co/n4mugagjsr
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) September 14, 2015
Yes, this. I’ve been having a lot of this false-choice and other fallacious arguments with a lot of idiots on Twitter.
Here’s the first review of the full movie I’ve seen, over at Mashable.
I’m not a big Damon fan, because his politics annoy me, but it sounds like he did a good job.