From John Walker.
He found a misspelling that I’ve been missing. Guess it will have to remain for the next revision (the first one will be available this week).
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Green On Green
California environmentalists may not be very happy with Jerry Brown and his high-speed train to nowhere.
High-Risk Sports
Some ruminations on the possibility of death. As I note in the book, many extreme sports, not just motorsports, carry such danger, but it’s not regulated by the government. The commercial space industry will need to develop its own standards for different risk levels and activities.
Crowdfunding
Traditional capital flows from nonprofits to investment banking are being disintermediated. People, causes and businesses that need capital have access through the internet, social media and crowdfunding platforms to capital that they simply could not access before. As this trend grows, crowds will demonstrate a different sort of wisdom, sometimes funding causes that foundations wouldn’t or entrepreneurs that VCs wouldn’t.
The JOBS bill was one of the few bi-partisan things that Congress had done recently that will actually help the economy and provide more opportunities for true wealth and job creation.
Ceres
…may have more fresh water than on all of earth. Seems in many ways more habitable than Mars.
Space Casualties
…are a necessary tragedy.
My column on this week’s anniversaries, in historical perspective. Actually, it’s a 500-work summary of the book.
[Update a few minutes later]
Right on cue, some idiot comes up in comments with the usual, “End human spaceflight. If you want science, send a robot.”
Of course, the word “science” didn’t appear in the piece.
Beings Making Space Livable
Clark Lindsey critiques Kenneth Chang’s article about the difficulties of living in space.
Stem Cells
…made from blood cells. In thirty minutes.
This seems kind of huge.
Virgin Galactic Motor Progress
They’re suddenly very forthcoming about progress.
As long as it’s not the motor that has to work this year.
Challenger Day
On the 28th anniversary of the event (and my birthday), Mollie Hemingway (to whom I gave a copy of the book at the Ricochet podcast Sunday night) has already read and reviewed it over at The Federalist. I would clarify this, though:
He suggests that NASA consider returning to an R&D function consistent with its original charter, otherwise getting out of the human spaceflight business entirely.
I don’t necessarily want them out of the human spaceflight business entirely, but I do want to get them out of now-mundane things like getting people (or anything) into orbit, and focus on the systems they need to go beyond. We have a commercial launch industry, and they should avail themselves of it instead of trying to compete with it.
[Afternoon update]
Molly has a post up at Ricochet, with a lot of discussion in comments.
[Bumped]
[Update a while later]
I was particularly gratified by this:
In any case, the book is just wonderful. I’m not someone who’s particularly interested in space exploration (though I have gone to many Space Shuttle launches and landings, so maybe I’m selling myself short). I’m definitely not someone with much knowledge of the space industry. And I wasn’t sure if this book would be so technical or wonkish as to be inaccessible. It’s not. It’s just a really engaging read with a compelling story about human nature, risk and reward.
That was what I was aiming for.