Category Archives: Space

Space

A Work Of Art

1 Comment

Just to hold you over in the blogging (sort of) hiatus, here are some gorgeous pictures of earth from orbit.

I can only shake my head at those who say there’s no market for views like this, or that no one will want to go, or repeat the experience, once the novelty wears off. It’s like saying that no one would ever take a repeat trip to the Grand Canyon or Yosemite. The ever-changing planet, with its weather patterns, clouds, light angles, is the ultimate kaleidoscope, and we’ve just barely begun, haven’t even begun, to tap the market for the view.

Humor, Science And Society, Space

We’re Saved

3 Comments

Frank J. has a plan to deal with the asteroids. Sort of.

Here’s what we’ll do: We’ll paint Mars blue. The asteroids will see Mars, think it’s us, and hit it instead. It’s simple and it will work. So you’re asking, “Why not paint Venus? It’s the same size and should make a more convincing Earth.” That’s idiotic. For one thing, it’s super-hot there, so how the hell do you plan on painting it? Also, it’s further away from the asteroid belt than us, so the asteroids will see the real Earth before seeing the decoy Earth. Painting Venus is a truly idiotic plan. You’re disgustingly stupid for even suggesting it. This is why I sometimes think of just giving up blogging because I just can’t deal with people as stupid as you are.

I know how he feels. Sort of.

History, Political Commentary, Space

More Space Fascism Commentary

Thomas James notes some irony in Dwayne Day’s piece:

…when one follows the Google search link he does provide, a good number of the results have to do with James Hansen calling for trials of oil executives and others who question the political orthodoxy of global warming…trials whose political nature and predetermined outcome would no doubt have pleased the arguably fascist Roland Freisler.

Not exactly the point that Dr. Day was trying to make, I suspect.

[Previous post here]

[Update a couple minutes later]

Speaking of fascists, Thomas also offers a preview of August in Denver:

…come on…”Students for a Democratic Society”? As if the hippie nostalgia of Recreate 68 wasn’t bad enough, we now have someone reanimating that corpse? I thought it was the right that supposedly clung to the faded glories of a distant golden age.

OK, so I guess it won’t be another Summer of Love.

General Science, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Space

Sesquicentennial

44 Comments

It’s been a hundred and fifty years since Darwin first presented his thesis. Charles Johnson has some thoughts. I may have some as well, later. Or not.

[A minute or so later]

Well, actually, I do now, in light of Lileks’ comments this morning, in which he pointed out the simplistic, stilted views of many across the political spectrum. I’ll repeat:

Really, if one wants to cling, bitterly, to the notion that a believe [sic] in lower taxes and strong foreign policy and greater individual freedom re: speech and property automatically translates to a crimpled, reductive, censorious view of pop culture, go right ahead.

Similarly, if one wants to cling, bitterly, to the notion that a concern about Islamism, and an inability to realize what an evil stupid fascist criminal George Bush is translates to a belief that the world was created by Jehovah six thousand some years ago, complete with dinosaur bones, go right ahead.

Before 911, Charles Johnson was a Democrat, and a jazz musician. Almost seven years ago, he got mugged by reality. That, combined with some scary things that were happening at a mosque near his home in Culver City resulted in a change in emphasis at his web site. Now many of the left wingnuts who read LGF stupidly assume that he’s a “right” wingnut. Yet here he is, defending science from places like the Discovery Institute, on a semi-daily basis.

I get the same idiotic treatment, much of the time. I’ve often had discussions on Usenet whereupon, when I argue that maybe it wasn’t necessarily a bad idea to remove Saddam Hussein’s boot from the neck of the Iraqi people, and that I don’t believe that George Bush personally planted the charges in the Twin Towers, I am told to go back to whatever holler I came from and play with my snakes, and am informed that my belief in a Christian God, and my lack of belief in evolution is just more evidence of my irredeemable stupidity, despite the fact neither religion or science had been on the discussion table.

I then take pleasure in informing them that I am an agnostic and for practical purposes an atheist, and that I am a firm believer in evolutionary theory, it being the best one available to explain the existing body of evidence. Whereupon, I am sometimes called a liar. Really. It’s projection, I think.

Same thing often happens here, in fact. I tell people that I’m not a Republican, and have never been, nor am I a conservative, and I’m accused of lying about my true beliefs and political affiliation.

C’est la vie. There’s no reasoning with some folks.

In any event, happy birthday to a controversial but powerful (as Dennett says, absolutely corrosive, cutting through centuries of ignorance) scientific theory. Expect me to continue to defend it here, and Charles to defend it there.

[Late evening update]

Well, Iowahawk has the comment du jour:

I’m a dope-smoking atheist writer for a San Francisco lowbrow culture mag; I also enjoy seeing 7th century genocidal terrorist shitbags getting waterboarded. I really don’t see the contradiction.

Space

More Non-Defense Defense

9 Comments

Like Steve Cooke, Dave King defends ESAS/Ares:

Direct 2.0, the concept in question in the June 23 Times article, falls significantly short of the lunar lander performance requirement for exploration missions as specifically outlined in Constellation Program ground rules. The concept also overshoots the requirements for early missions to the International Space Station in the coming decade. These shortcomings would necessitate rushed development of a more expensive launch system with too little capability in the long run, and would actually increase the gap between space shuttle retirement and development of a new vehicle. Even more importantly, the Ares approach offers a much greater margin of crew safety – paramount to every mission NASA puts into space.

To accomplish the nation’s goals in space, we need more than a new rocket. We need a robust, multipurpose space fleet.

Again, this is all simply argument by assertion. Show us the numbers and the assumptions. The notion that Direct 2.0 falls short of the lunar lander performance requirement is pretty funny, considering that Ares 5 does as well. This makes one think that there may be a problem with the requirement. The second paragraph is semantically meaningless. Is he saying that Direct is “a rocket” but that Ares 1 and 5 are a “fleet”? Why is Direct not multi-purpose? In what way is Ares “robust” that Direct is not?

Not that I’m a big Direct fan, of course. A lot of these issues would be solved by simply coming up with an architecture and operating philosophy that allows the use of existing vehicles, something that was clearly never under consideration.