Category Archives: Technology and Society

Health, Media Criticism, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Melanoma

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I hadn’t realized that they’ve made great advances in treating it:

This seismic shift in melanoma care — largely brought about by enlisting the immune system in the fight — might eventually be used to treat other cancers, researchers said. Smoking-related lung cancers, among others, are now starting to respond to similar treatments, according to research to be presented at this week’s conference.

“We really are in a historical time right now,” said Dr. F. Stephen Hodi, director of the Melanoma Treatment Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. “Cancer treatment five years ago compared to five years from now — it’s going to be completely different.”

Faster, please.

I found this a little sad, though:

“Someone with metastatic melanoma, I used to tell them to ‘eat whatever you want.’ Now, I’m saying ‘you should watch that cholesterol,’ ’’ said Dr. Patrick Hwu, chairman of the Department of Melanoma Medical Oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

It’s amazing and frightening how ignorant the medical profession is about diet and cholesterol.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society, War Commentary

Ending Our Dependence On Moscow

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Defense News has a hit and a miss. First, the hit:

…And after SpaceX unveils the manned version of its previously unmanned Dragon spacecraft this week, NASA should accelerate development of the project

Yes, though unlike me, they don’t actually propose how to do that.

Here’s the miss, and it’s a big one:

and revive the Space Launch System to put super heavy payloads into orbit.

What does “revive” the SLS mean? I thought it was ahead of schedule? That’s what its proponents keep telling me.

And what “super heavy payloads” are there that need to be put into orbit? What does this have to do with dependence on the Russians? This recommendation seems to be a complete non sequitur.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society, War Commentary

Snowden

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Why is Russia harboring him? A disturbing and plausible theory:

Since Snowden took vast quantities of information, and nobody can be quite sure what information he took, Russia has gained a fabulous smokescreen for all of its actual intelligence operations in America. Russian possession of American secrets is no longer actionable evidence of Russian spies in America; the secrets, especially anything touching on surveillance and the NSA, might have come with Snowden. The logic of American counter-intelligence is broken for a generation. It is like issuing a new life to every Russian spy in America, and nine new lives to any spy in the NSA.

What a disaster.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The Mitchell Study

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I just looked over the preliminary briefing on the RD-180 mess. A couple things stuck out at me. First, let’s compare the policy dictates on launch between the DoD and NASA:

“Secretary of Defense, as the launch agent for national security space missions, shall:
– Ensure, to the maximum extent possible, the availability of at least two US space transportation vehicle families capable of reliably launching national security payloads”

“Administrator, NASA, as the launch agent for civil space missions, shall:
– Develop, in support of US space exploration goals, the transportation-related capabilities necessary to support human and robotic exploration to multiple destinations beyond low-earth orbit, including an asteroid and Mars.”

Emphasis mine.

First, note that the DoD is tasked with a resilient launch capability. No such requirement exists for NASA. Which is why we went through two periods of over two-and-a-half years when we couldn’t get astronauts to orbit during the Shuttle program. Note also what else is missing from the NASA mission: no mention of heavy lift. Some, of course, believe that it is implicit in “transportation-related capabilities necessary to support human and robotic exploration…beyond earth orbit,” but many studies indicate otherwise. And the two omissions are related. If heavy lift is necessary, and if resilience were necessary for human exploration then, as with the DoD mission, the wording would be “Develop, to the maximum extent available, at least two of the transportation-related capabilities necessary to support human and robotic exploration…beyond low-earth orbit.”

Of course, they can’t even afford one, so they know that if they make that a requirement, it would make it utterly hopeless. But it does demonstrate the dramatic difference in importance between national security and “space exploration” “beyond low-earth orbit.”

Also note, later on in the briefing, that they say that there will be a “heavy-lift” requirement for military payloads. But they don’t define that explicitly, instead pointing out potential examples of such a capability (e.g., growth Delta and Falcon Heavy). That is, the DoD has a different definition for “heavy lift” than NASA does.

Given that the two of them, together are supposed to (among other things):

Work with each other and other departments and agencies, and with the private sector, as appropriate, to pursue research and development activities regarding alternative launch capabilities to improve responsiveness, resiliency, and cost effectiveness for future space launch alternatives,

it would be nice if they could resolve these disparities. Particularly since serious use of the EELV (and Falcon) families for exploration could drive down the costs of those vehicles for everyone. Instead, NASA is wasting billions on a non-redundant rocket that no one needs, except those working on it, who depend on it for their salaries.