…by James Cameron, who is guest-editing a special issue of Wired this month.
As we mourned the Columbia astronauts, they were frequently referred to in media as “explorers.” The real tragedy of that accident is that they were not explorers. They were boldly going where hundreds had gone before. They were researchers working in a lab that happened to be in orbit. Did their research have value? Of course, but only in the sense that all science has value. Was it worth the price they paid? Not by a light-year. Did they die in vain? Only if we don’t learn and take to heart a lesson – not that foam can peel off the external tank and damage the reinforced carbon leading edge of the wing, or even that NASA culture needs to change. But that even after four decades of technical progress, travel to and from space is inherently dangerous, so only go there for a good reason.
In my mind, there is only one reason good enough, and that’s exploration. That means going somewhere, not in circles. But actually going somewhere, like the moon or Mars, is considered too risky and expensive. Those high school touchdowns scored by Neil and Buzz and the others are trophies that have been gathering dust, but we still fantasize that we are the same team we were then. The reality is that we have become risk averse, willing to coast on the momentum of past accomplishments. If we study the problem, build tools and systems, and so on for the next 50 years, we can jolly ourselves along that we are still those clever Americans who put a man on the moon back when was that again?
If the next step is to send humans to Mars, then we must reexamine our culture of averting risk and assigning blame. We don’t need any miracle breakthroughs in technology. The techniques are well understood. Sure, it takes money, but distributed over time it doesn’t require any more than we’re spending now. What is lacking is the will, the mandate, and the sense of purpose.
Lots of people are claiming that Dan Rather stepping down from his anchor chair next spring is a victory for bloggers. But this isn’t really news–there were rumors of it in September. Admittedly, that was after Memogate broke, but I thought that Rather was going to be retiring in ’05 regardless, and there had been rumors of his impending retirement of at least the anchor chair for years.
If he were to step down now, and the reason stated was because of Memogate, that would be a blogosphere victory, but this just looks like what was planned all along. He continues to do Sixty Minutes. I don’t see that he’s being punished at all. Or am I missing something?
Mark Whittington contrasts the President’s space initiative with that of his father. Suffice it to say that the current one has much better prospects for success, or at least lasting beyond his term.
OK, over three years later, with our men fighting house to house in Iraq, is there anyone out there (c’mon, raise your hands), anyone who isn’t aware of Islam?
I wonder if this Paula Berinstein is this Paula Berinstein?
Let those Democratic leaders who think their party should show more religious faith and moderate its stand on abortion know this: If the Democratic Party does so, it will lose millions of lifelong members like me.
Moving to the right is not the answer. The Democrats got 48 percent of the vote in the 2004 presidential election. They don’t need to change their positions. They need to take control of the debate, get their voters to the polls and make sure that Republicans don’t pull dirty tricks.
If the Democratic Party moves to the right, I will defect to the Green Party, as will many of my friends and family.
Paula Berinstein
Thousand Oaks, Calif., Nov. 17, 2004
That’s the problem that the Dems have. They may not be able to gain in the center without losing more heavily their base.
Glenn has a piece at his MSNBC site wrapping up last week’s arguments over safety and the coincidental passage of the new launch regulation legislation by the House. It’s a good roundup, but when he writes:
That’s how we took aviation from an expensive and risky activity, mostly the province of governments, to a safe and reliable means of transport.
He’s mistaken. Actually (and fortunately), aviation has never been mostly the province of governments, starting from the beginning with the Wrights. Had it been, we’d probably still be arguing about whether to build National Air Transportation System II (after the necessary technology had been proven out), or whether to just increase the fleet size of the current, dangerous “Air Shuttle” from three to five…
He also says that the legislation passed on Friday afternoon. Actually, it didn’t happen until Saturday.
This line in Richard Morin’s column about the election exit polls has bent the needle on my irony meter hard to starboard.
…rather than flog the bloggers for rushing to publish the raw exit poll data on their Web sites, we may owe them a debt of gratitude. A few more presidential elections like this one and the public will learn to do the right thing and simply ignore news of early exit poll data. Then perhaps people will start ignoring the bloggers, who proved once more that their spectacular lack of judgment is matched only by their abundant arrogance.
I wonder if he’s ever accused Dan Rather of arrogance? In a sane world, his picture would accompany the dictionary definition of the word.
I know that this proposal by Greg Zsidisin isn’t serious, but it does demonstrate just how deranged some otherwise intelligent people have become at the prospect of Democrats no longer being in power. It’s not particularly clever satire. I think it’s just sad.
And by the way, Greg, perhaps in your conspiratorial dreamworld in which the new Inquisition with corporate sponsorship by Enron and Halliburton will start any day, Tom Delay is a senator, but in this universe, he’s the majority leader of the House.