Space

Planet Wars

There’s a huge (and largely pointless) argument going on over at Space Politics about whether or not we should go to the Moon before Mars (kicked off by Bob Zubrin’s wishful thinking).

I liked Ed Wright’s comment:

We don’t have a national consensus on what to do in the air or on the sea or on land.

We don’t need a national consensus to decide whether Americans will go to Las Vegas or Disneyland next year.

Why is that when it comes to space, people think there can only be one destination and one goal, which is chosen by national consensus?

General

The Overst0ck.Com Television Ad

…has to be one of the most effective ones in history, in terms of watchability and effectiveness in selling the product. At least if you’re a (heterosexual) male.

There are a lot of ads that are interesting, entertaining, but ineffective in terms of making the viewer (or listener–there are many that have only music as the audio, which provides no cue or clue as to what the product is to those who only listen to the television while doing other things, and aren’t watching it) aware of the product and interested in purchasing it. But this one compels healthy males to watch, and hammers the product into their reptilian brains.

[Wednesday update]

I’m curious to know how effective this ad is for women. I suspect that it might be, though not for the same reasons. I’d be interested in the opinion of any female readers who’ve seen it.

Satire

After Six Decades, No End To The Quagmire

PARIS (Routers) August 25, 2004

Sixty years after Paris was seized by the “Allies,” and the beginning of the American occupation, France remains a failed nation, mired in political corruption and beset by vast pockets of Muslim extremism and anti-semitism, into which the gendarmerie fear to tread. The economy continues to struggle under economic policies driven by failed ideologies, and many of its best and brightest continue to flow out of the country, with only ex-dictators and their families, and hysterical movie stars willing to move there.

Sadly, history has born out the predictions of those who, in the spring of 1944, warned against invading. Many had pointed out what a poor prospect the region was for any kind of democracy, with its long history of belligerence and arrogance, and failed republics.

Noted WW II historian Robert Winthrop pointed out that the occupation got off on the wrong foot from the beginning, when the Americans freely allowed atrocities in the fall of Paris. “In the wake of all the violence and sex that the brutal ‘Allies’ condoned, it’s not surprising that the resentment lives on six decades later.”

The corruption of the French government is legendary, with its current president likely avoiding jail only because he’s president. The economy continues to limp along, with high unemployment rates, exacerbated by primitive socialistic policies.

The growing Islamic insurgency in the suburbs of the capital and other cities is particularly troubling, and even after six decades of training, it’s not clear that the native security forces are up to the job, with many of them refusing to even enter disputed areas.

Many say that, as the US has done with France’s similarly failed neighbor Germany, in which many desire a return to communism, it’s time to give up and wash our hands of the region.

“Nation building is clearly a failed policy, and we’ll have a much more effective foreign policy when we recognize that,” said one U.S. State Department official. “At some point one has to realize that there are some places that are simply hopeless, and all we can do is manage them as best we can.”

Regardless of the future, in the wake of all their current problems, it is little surprise that the French street views the sixtieth anniversary of the fall of their beautiful capital to western forces as a day of sadness, and hardly one to celebrate.

[Anniversary day update]

Not all have forgotten:

The day was charged with symbolism as France remembered its liberators, from American soldiers who backed a French division, clinching victory, to communist Resistance members in the vanguard of the underground fight.

And there’s this:

President Jacques Chirac, in an address at Paris City Hall, urged “vigilance” by younger generations in dealing with present-day manifestations of “this hate of the other, still at work, the most somber face of the human soul.”

The president was referring to racist-inspired acts plaguing today’s France, including anti-Semitic attacks.

Good for him.

Space

A couple of space links

The Beagle 2 mission team has released its own report on what went wrong – they place a lot of blame on ESA management, but the upshot is that the atmosphere wasn’t as dense as they thought. Story via Nature

Nature also has a story on the Shuttle return to flight. One paragraph stands out to me:

The CAIB report said that safety checks were often poorly managed. “The shuttle programme had become comfortable with an operational mindset that treated a developmental vehicle as an operational vehicle, accepting debris strikes as normal, and so on,” says Hubbard. This culture is being challenged through increased communication between different areas of NASA, says Hubbard.

The problem of treating a vehicle in development as operational is serious, but the solution is not more communication. Reading between the lines, that looks to me a lot like more forms, more reports, more meetings, more teleconferences. In other words, more noise. The solution I prefer is a single office tasked with both operations and upgrades, and with the authority to take the vehicle off line. The bipod ramp foam shedding was a known issue and it could have been addressed with a number of different fixes had work started when the problem was first identified. Of course this presumes management with an attitude oriented to fixing things before they become problems, which may be asking too much. Certainly expecting NASA to behave in ways which fly in the face of the political incentives imposed by congress is asking too much, but hey, a man can dream, can’t he?

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!