I love new galaxy stories. I love learning that someone pointed a telescope at an empty patch and found 1000 new spiral galaxies, each of which no doubt teems with life. Yes, I think that’s so, and no, I’ve no good explanation for why we haven’t been visited by Vulcans. I’m a fan of the multiverse theory, and I’d also be comfy with the notion that this is one of an infinite number of iteration of the universe, each with their own laws. It would be a pity if we ended up in the one whose laws were A) everything’s far apart, and B) you can’t get there, but them’s the breaks. Some galaxies, however, have it worse off. You get those peculiar ones with enormous rapacious black holes in the middle and just a smattering of stars, you think: bad neighborhood. Imagine being a sentient being in a system that evolves sufficiently to figure out it’s going to be eaten by a black hole in a few thousand years, and how this would affect society. If you knew it would be all over in 2000 years, who would build? Would anyone try to escape if there were no systems to which you could flee? Futility would be the handmaiden at every act of creation. Or it might make everything precious. Or, most likely, both, and neither. Some people would still live their lives, go to work, make what they could for their ration of time. A great many would use the expiration date as the validation of the standard-issue nihilism that affects those with attenuated adolescence, and clothe their selfishness in philosophy.
More where that came from. By the way, the few Mayans still around say that the calendar thing is hogwash. But what would they know?
New to me, anyway. Via “Major Tom” commenting over at Space Politics, I saw for the first time Space Policy Online, run by long-time space policy analyst Marcia Smith. I’ve added it to the blogroll.
And speaking of that site, there’s a story about a hearing yesterday to confirm a new IG for NASA, in which Senator Rockefeller expressed concern about “waste, fraud and abuse” at NASA. Say it ain’t so! But I found this quite the head scratcher:
In wrapping up the hearing, the Senator referred to “constituencies in the world of NASA” who are “very ambitious” and that he goes “blooey” hearing about plans to “pay $1 million and travel to the Moon” and doesn’t know how to react.
Well, apparently he reacts by going “blooey.” What in the hell is he talking about?
A six-year-old boy has floated off in a balloon in Colorado. I’m guessing no flight plan was filed with the FAA. This sounds like one of those “Honey, I shrank the kid” things. I’ll bet Mom’s not happy. Here’s hoping for the best.
But the story seems to be updated sort of weirdly. It’s not clear that he was ever in the balloon. Maybe he ran away after accidentally releasing it, afraid that he’d be in trouble.
[Late afternoon update]
Fortunately, it looks like my guess was correct. He was hiding, safe and sound.
Note to Jesse Walker. The California comsat thing was one of the reasons for the “Governor Moonbeam” appellation, but a more significant one (as was mentioned) was the Stewart-Brand/Whole-Earth-Catalog connection. Stewart was one of those promoting the ideas of Gerry O’Neill and L-5, and Brown was reportedly quite fascinated by the concept, and space in general. The only time I saw him in person was in April, 1981, when we shared a flight to Orlando from LAX (though he was in first class) for the first launch of the Shuttle (I flew back to see it land as well — he may have as well, but if so, it was on a different flight). And in an “n degrees of Jerry Brown” thing, I sat next to Linda Ronstadt at a concert at McCabe’s in Santa Monica a few years later, but I think they had broken up by then.
One thing not mentioned was the ignominious end to his governorship, in which he took a lot of flak for the fruit-fly spraying, first dithering and delaying it, and then changing his mind and infuriating his supporters on the left. It probably wrecked his chances for Senate. But as the article notes, he’s a resilient guy.
I scored about a five, which puts me in with most of the herd. I was best at judging right angles (typically close to a one) and splitting them, and worst at judging distance (centering the line and circle, where I averaged nine or so).
Someone in the AO-100 aviation section of the FAA, who was previously unaware of Armadillo, saw video of their NGLLC flights and decided that while Armadillo had proper permissions to fly above the airport, they did not have permission to fly from a federally subsidized airport. The AST section was surprised to learn about this issue. John says it will be worked out eventually but unfortunately in the meantime they cannot even do tethered tests because of the crazy ruling last year that labeled such tests as launches.
As a commenter notes, imagine if the government had required the Wright Brothers to get permission to fly from Kitty Hawk. It is a shame that the Armadillo team has to waste time and resources learning how to negotiate bureaucracies instead of how to develop safe and effective vehicles.
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