Space

A Seventeenth Century Space Program?

That’s what The Independent says:

The man behind the lunar mission was Dr John Wilkins, scientist, theologian and brother-in-law of Oliver Cromwell. In 1640, as a young man of 26, Dr Wilkins wrote a detailed description of the machinery needed to communicate and even trade with beings from another world…

…Although earlier philosophers and poets had written about visiting the Moon, the writings of Dr Wilkins were in an altogether different league, Professor Chapman believes. Wilkins lived inwhat he describes as the “honeymoon period” of scientific discovery, between the astronomical revelations of Galileo and Copernicus, who showed a universe with other, possibly habitable worlds, and the later realisation that much of space was a vacuum and therefore impassable

Even if true, it seems improbable that it would have been successful–he was a little dodgy on his physics:

According to Dr Wilkins, the gravitational and magnetic pull of the Earth extended for only 20 miles into the sky. If it were possible to get airborne and pass beyond this point, it would be easy to continue on a journey to the Moon. Inspired by the discovery of other continents and the great sea voyages of explorers such as Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh, Wilkins conceived an equally ambitious plan to explore space.

I’ll be curious to see if this story stands up to peer review. If so, it’s an interesting new and unknown chapter in the history of man’s dreams of spaceflight.

[Via Jim Oberg]

Space

Launch Legislation Update

Keith Cowing has obtained a copy of the draft legislation in the Senate that contains the poison pill. Jeff Foust has the latest description of what’s going on, including an analysis of the text.

And for those who say that this won’t kill the industry, that it would just move it off shore, Taylor Dinerman points out that if so, it won’t be done by Americans, due to ITAR restrictions.

All in all, it’s very important to both fix this legislation, and get it passed, as soon as possible, if we want to continue to build on the momentum provided by last week’s successful Ansari X-Prize win.

Satire

A Postmodern Eulogy

The contemporary elitist capitalistic racist sexist Francophobic narrative is that Jacques Derrida has undergone the ultimate deconstruction.

But if, as he once suggested, we use postcultural structuralist theory to deconstruct hierarchy, then it could be said that the characteristic theme of this pseudo event is in reality the rubicon of neodialectic bioidentity. In fact, consider this in the context of the fact that he actively promoted the use of predialectic narrative to challenge society, thus contextualising the subject into a neodialectic deconstruction that includes reality as a totality. By this reasoning (bearing in mind that reason is not a road to truth), it could be said that death itself is dead.

Just as Foucault’s model of postmaterial patriarchialist theory states that language serves to exploit minorities (and thus serve majorities, such as the dead), so will the inevitability of the ultimate choice, between neodialectic deconstruction and posttextual nihilism.

If one examines predialectic narrative, one is faced with another choice: either accept cultural demodernism or conclude that the significance of the participant, dead or alive, is social comment, given that reality is equal to consciousness, and death is equal to the ultimate unconsciousness. The premise of the capitalist paradigm of discourse suggests that culture is used to entrench outdated, lifeist perceptions of class, including the ultimate oppressed, those no longer even with us, as the current narrative suggests that Derrida is.

Ultimately, that will be his legacy–the destruction of communication, and the decimation of clear thinking in many university English departments.

Here is a memorial website to him and his works.

Political Commentary

Good Line

…from Pete Coors on Meet the Press this morning. Not an exact quote, but something like “Why would we want to bring into the coalition countries that have been working with the enemy?”

By the way, has anyone noted the irony of calling the coalition, which consisted largely of countries that weren’t on the take from Saddam and the UN Oil for Palaces program, the “coalition of the bribed”?

Political Commentary

Something I Would Love To See

…in the debate tonight. Remember the scene in the movie Annie Hall, in which people are arguing in a movie theatre lobby about something that Marshall McLuhan said, and Woody Allen, disgusted, pulls the actual Marshall McLuhan out from behind a counter, who informs them that they don’t seem to understand his work at all?

When (probably not if) Kerry mentions Paul Bremer, or Charles Duelfur, as supporting his position tonight, it would be great if the president could pull them out of the woodwork, and have them tell Kerry, in front of God and the debate audience, that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about?

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!