The (modern) difference between science and the humanities.
Do We Have An Urge To Explore?
I explore the proposition, over at The Space Review today. Also, editor Jeff Foust has a good writeup on a recent panel discussion on the prospects for government and private spaceflight.
The Age-Old Debate Continues
Was Gotham City New York, or Chicago?
“‘The Godfather’ Of Superhero Movies”
That’s the briefest review of the new Batman flick that I’ve seen.
I’ll probably wait untll the DVD. I’m not that big a fan of dark movies.
“Snarkyboy” Persists
In a follow-up to the original Orion worship post:
The Saturn V, the biggest thing we’ve ever launched (just go with me here) weighed in at 6,699,000 lbs, or 3,350 tons, and managed to put a measly 100,000 lbs (50 tons) into lunar orbit.
So lets pretend we want to build a classic L5 space colony. How big does it have to be?
Sorry, but we’re not going to “go with you there.”
This is an inappropriate methodology, and the assumptions here are completely nonsensical. The problem has nothing to do with scaling Saturn Vs, and no one in their right mind ever thought that a “classic L5 space colony” would be built completely out of materials launched from the planet.
There is no good reason that we can’t have launch costs of less than a hundred dollars a pound with chemical rockets, and give rides to millions of pounds of passengers and cargo. All that is needed is to make the investment into space transports, and set multiple teams of engineers loose on the problem, something that we have not done to date.
The cargo would be used to bootstrap production facilities for extraterrestrial resources, with high-value/pound payloads (i.e., electronics) coming up from earth. We do not need Orion to build space colonies. We need a lot of other things, but not that.
Now That’s Intelligence
Did the Mossad help free the Columbian hostages?
Vanguardia’s Tel Aviv correspondent said the Mossad operation consisted of two agents unknown to each other separately infiltrating FARC.
The pair managed to penetrate the Marxist guerrilla group so effectively that they ultimately controlled what FARC did or didn’t know, the Catalan newspaper said.
All the more reason, of course, for the left to hate the “Zionists.”
I’ll Try To Restrain Myself
The FDA says to not eat lobster guts:
Health officials for years have advised against eating the tomalley, the lobster liver some regard as a delicacy. The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention reiterated its advisory Friday, however, after some lobster livers tested positive for high levels of toxins caused by large blooms of red tide algae.
No problemo for me. I’ll stick with the meat, as I always have.
Ich Bin Ein Dummkopf
Obama’s three hundred foreign policy advisors apparently weren’t enough. His new choice of location for his German sermon from the mount, to win over valuable electoral votes of the German people, seems to have backfired as badly as the attempt to emulate Kennedy and Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate:
Andreas Schockenhoff, deputy leader of the conservative bloc in Parliament, said Sunday that the choice of the Victory Column, also known as the Golden Angel, was an “unhappy symbol” since it represented so much of Germany’s militaristic past.
Rainer Brüderle, deputy leader of the opposition Free Democrats, said Obama’s advisers had little idea of the historical significance of the Victory Column. “It was the symbol of German superiority over Denmark, Austria and France,” Brüderle told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag.
The monument was built in 1864 to commemorate Prussia’s victory over Denmark. When it was inaugurated, Prussia had defeated Austria during the Austro-Prussian war in 1866 and the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71.
The column has been originally located near the Reichstag, now the Bundestag, or German Parliament, which is close to the Brandenburg Gate. But Adolf Hitler relocated it about two kilometers, or one mile, toward the western part of the city to the Grosser Stern, or Great Star.
Too bad Leni Riefenstahl isn’t around any more to film the event for him. Then later, he could reenact his grandfather’s liberation of Auschwitz.
Maybe if he gets a couple hundred more advisors, he can find one with a clue. I’ve never seen anyone have so much trouble getting good help. It must be tough being a messiah.
I do have to say, though, that watching this kind of thing for four years would be entertaining. I just wish that he wouldn’t be in charge of anything important during the show.
An Effective Alzheimers Treatment?
Let’s hope so. Alzheimers is, to me, one of the worst diseases, because it steals not just your body, but your mind, to the point that you’re essentially dead while the empty husk metabolizes on. If it’s actually possible to reverse the progress of the disease, that’s huge news. But I wonder if in doing so, you’ve still lost some irretrievable memories? And if so, who are you?
Hello, Dolly
We’ve had four named storms already, and it’s not August yet (and a good chance for one or two more before it is). That may mean a busy season. I just hope that southeast Florida isn’t in the bore sights. We’ve gotten off easy the last two years.