Category Archives: Technology and Society
Save The Planet
..by keeping calm. Bjorn Lomborg says, once again, cool it:
When you look at these issues properly, the results are surprising. Climate change, for example, has had a net benefit for the world. From 1900 to 2025, it has increased global welfare by up to 1.5 per cent of GDP per year. Why? Because it has mixed effects – and when warming is moderate, the benefits prevail (even if they are unevenly distributed between nations).
Increased levels of atmospheric CO2 have improved agriculture, because the gas works as a fertiliser; we have avoided more deaths from cold than have been caused by extra heat; and we have saved more from lower heating bills than we have lost to an increased need for air conditioning.
But that doesn’t give the socialists the control over our lives that they continue to crave.
Gerry Griffin
…proposes a giant leap for all mankind:
Mr. Griffin reminds us that space is a dangerous business. One of his biggest jobs at NASA was to manage the risk in a reasonable way. Risk can never be taken to zero; that would mean humans do nothing. Astronauts have died in space, but to put this in context, people in the aerospace community have also been killed on the highway on their way to work. Transportation, in any form, does not currently have zero risk. Safety is important. An early failure, such as the Apollo Launch pad fire, would be a problem for commercial viability. Design will require a reasonable middle ground with some redundancy, but not to the point of adding massive weight or prohibitive costs. Technology is so much better today and designers have fifty years of operating history to guide them. The physical demands of working in space are so intense that a momentary distraction could prove fatal. However, more is known about human error factors and training could better manage those.
Gee, someone should write a book about that. Yes, I know, Real Soon Now. Had a last-minute glitch, but it’s happening this month.
Washington Is Broken
Comparing the America that works with the one that doesn’t.
Gravity’s “Science” Problems
Jeff Foust discusses the issue over at The Space Review (spoiler warning for those who haven’t seen it). Also spoiler warning for people who read the rest of the post.
Sputnik Anniversary
An apparently before-coffee tweet from Wayne Hale this morning kicked off a minor exchange that reminded me of this back and forth I had with Homer Hickam at the LA Times on the fiftieth anniversary, six years ago. I think it holds up pretty well.
Rebooting Star Trek For The Small Screen
Self-Assembling Robots
If you could put a reaction control system into them to allow them to rendezvous with each other, you might have some interesting fractionated satellites.
This is a good example of Arthur C. Clarke’s rule that when a distinguished elder scientist says that something can’t be done, he’s very likely wrong.
A Deadly Accident In Space
There will be one:
You might depart the theater after Gravity with mixed emotions about going to space yourself. Cuaron’s tracking shots and sweeping vistas of the blue marble below evoke a sort of spiritual response, especially in the spaces between suspense when the movie gets quiet. Of course, the Bullock and Clooney spend much of the film spinning and flailing in mortal danger, dodging hunks of metal that become ballistic missiles at orbital speed. Jones sees Gravity as appearing amid a rising wave of interest in space brought on by the emerging private space industry, and that’s a hopeful trend. But humanity has to be realistic about risk assessment, and ready for the high drama of trying to rescue space travelers after a disaster in orbit. Perhaps when space travel becomes common, and not simply the domain of professional astronauts, we’ll treat space disasters like plane crashes—tragedies that can be made extremely uncommon, but never eliminated. And that will be a good thing.
Yes. That’s the fundamental premise of my book.
Manual Transmissions
Cars that only come with them. They aren’t dead yet.