Category Archives: Technology and Society

Administrative, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Space, Technology and Society

Are We Serious About Space Policy?

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Jeff Foust reports on a forum where that is the topic of discussion. The (unsurprising, or at least it should be to readers of this weblog) answer is, “no.”

Space, at least civil space, is not important, and has not been since the early 1960s. What is more dismaying, though, is that military space is not treated seriously, either, and that really should be considered important.

The panel also doesn’t think much of reviving the Space Council. I agree that the focal point should not be at OSTP, and that space does need a more serious advocate on the National Security Council.

I wonder why Jeff doesn’t quote anyone by name? Was he reporting under restrictions?

[Update in the afternoon]

Apparently, he was. He writes over at Space Politics:

Because of the ground rules of the discussion, none of the comments are attributed to any of the attendees.

I’d be curious to know at least who the attendees were, even if we can’t correlate specific statements with specific attendees. Is that a secret, too?

Also at The Space Review today, a good tutorial on how to tell a launch system from a ballistic missile.

I should note that one point not made here is that it’s actually easier to build a launch vehicle than an effective ballistic missile, if one defines “effective” as being able to hit a precise target, because the latter requires an entry vehicle. Getting into orbit, per se, does not require a precise injection, or heat shields, as long as the resulting trajectory doesn’t intercept the atmosphere.

Finally, Dwayne Day clears up (or at least attempts to clear up) media misconceptions about the Chinese space program.

[Mid-afternoon update]

Jeff provides the list of speakers, though it’s still not clear whether the quotes are from speakers or attendees.

Philosophy, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Evolutionary Benefits

15 Comments

…of religion.

I don’t know whether or not I’ve blogged on this subject before, but it’s a common notion that while not everyone requires a supreme lawgiver to be good, most people perhaps do, and that a retributive religion promotes a better society. Similarly (and perhaps it’s a corollary, as pointed out in the link), while dying sucks for an individual, some view it as a good for society and the species, by getting the fogeys out of the way and making room for fresh blood and ideas. At least in the latter case, I think that the cure is worse than the disease, and I’d like to have the problems associated with indefinite lifespan, and look for solutions to them, than die without getting the chance to tackle them. Of course, one of those solutions is space migration.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

I Hope He Freezes In The Dark

52 Comments

Timothy Noah is cheering what he hopes is the upcoming demise of the nuclear power industry, in the wake of Obama’s closing off the Yucca Mountain option. I was never a big fan of Yucca Mountain — I think it a ridiculously overpriced solution to an hysterical non-problem. But for the money that they planned to spend on it, we could have come up with a safe and reliable launch industry, by using it as a market for storage on the moon.

Technology and Society

No Shockwave

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No, this isn’t about the supersonic technology that I discuss from time to time. I’m referring to the fact that it doesn’t seem to be available for Linux. I’ve been using a Fedora workstation in lieu of my broken Windows box, and that seems to be the biggest deficiency. Many, many sites, including PJTV, are unviewable from Linux due to the fact that Adobe doesn’t seem to support it. There are claims that it can be ported via Crossover, or by using Wine, but I haven’t had time to try. This would seem to be a pretty big hole in the Linux desktop. How are the netbooks handling it?

Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

The Democrat War On Science

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John Tierney has some useful thoughts on the politicization of science in the new administration:

Most researchers, Dr. Pielke writes, like to think of themselves in one of two roles: as a pure researcher who remains aloof from messy politics, or an impartial arbiter offering expert answers to politicians’ questions. Either way, they believe their research can point the way to correct public policies, and sometimes it does — when the science is clear and people’s values aren’t in conflict.

But climate change, like most political issues, isn’t so simple. While most scientists agree that anthropogenic global warming is a threat, they’re not certain about its scale or its timing or its precise consequences (like the condition of California’s water supply in 2090). And while most members of the public want to avoid future harm from climate change, they have conflicting values about which sacrifices are worthwhile today.

A scientist can enter the fray by becoming an advocate for certain policies, like limits on carbon emissions or subsidies for wind power. That’s a perfectly legitimate role for scientists, as long as they acknowledge that they’re promoting their own agendas.

But too often, Dr. Pielke says, they pose as impartial experts pointing politicians to the only option that makes scientific sense. To bolster their case, they’re prone to exaggerate their expertise (like enumerating the catastrophes that would occur if their policies aren’t adopted), while denigrating their political opponents as “unqualified” or “unscientific.”

“Some scientists want to influence policy in a certain direction and still be able to claim to be above politics,” Dr. Pielke says. “So they engage in what I call ‘stealth issue advocacy’ by smuggling political arguments into putative scientific ones.”

My concern with Chu and Holdren is that they are Club of Rome types who seem to be anti-technology. I’m sure that they would say that they are in favor of “appropriate” technology (yet another leftist theft of an intellectual base, like “progressive”), but it amounts to having no faith in our descendants to come up with technological solutions to today’s burgeoning problems. That inability to account for technological improvement is at the heart of apocalyptic predictions like world-wide famine and California agriculture drying up from lack of water. It’s that same blindness (and ignorance of basic economics) that resulted in Holdren and Ehrlich losing their bet with Julian Simon

Not to say, of course, that famines and droughts can’t occur, but if they do, it will be a result of foolish (or evil) government policies, not an overabundance of carbon in the atmosphere.