Political Commentary

Mr. Nuance

A quick break from conference blogging to point out yet another reason, via Mark Steyn, in the wake of the exposed lies of Joe Wilson, why I can’t even consider voting for Kerry:

Some of us are on record as dismissing Wilson in the first bloom of his unmerited celebrity. But John Kerry was taken in — to the point where he signed him up as an adviser and underwrote his Web site. What does that reveal about Mister Nuance and his superb judgment? He claims to be able to rebuild America’s relationships with France, and to have excellent buddy-to-buddy relations with French political leaders. Yet anyone who’s spent 10 minutes in Europe this last year knows that virtually every government there believes Iraq was trying to get uranium from Africa. Is Kerry so uncurious about America’s national security he can’t pick up the phone to his Paris pals and get the scoop firsthand? For all his claims to be Monsieur Sophisticate, there’s something hicky and parochial in his embrace of an obvious nutcake for passing partisan advantage.

A comment from someone at Roger Simon’s site, with which I have some sympathy (though I came to that realization during the 1990s, not as a result of the latest lying and viciousness in the war):

I ask myself why I feel such animosity towards the Democratic party, a party that I belonged to for so many years. Betrayal is the word I come up with, I feel betrayed by the triviality, immaturity, and sheer lunacy of the party. It’s not like some other party, say the Republicans, whose oddities I can tolerate as the eccentricity of the neighbors, no, it’s like finding that my wife has run off with a derelict with whom she had a long standing secret affair. Not only do I feel betrayed, but I wonder how I could have been such an idiot, overlooking all the signs and clues.

Space

Live RTTM Blogging–David Gump

David Gump of Lunacorp started off his talk with a twenty-year old poster about business opportunities in space, displaying the Shuttle and the then newly announced space station program. It was a cautionary note, reminding us of all the things that can go wrong, and how the more things change…

[Update]

Central lesson learned:

Government-owned infrastruxture (with federal employees as the space workforce) is poison to commercial ventures (cannot be overcome by good intentions–institutional barriers are too deep).

Privately owned facilities (vehicles, platforms, bases) are essential to success.

He hates the phrase “space advertising.” Emphasis needs to be customer rewards.

Prizes are good, but cannot be the only way for NASA to involve the private sector (same point that Jim Benson of SpaceDev made yesterday). Prizes are good for amateurs and angels, but businesses won’t accept the risk of being beaten to the deadline.

Lunacorp’s submittal for the NASA exploration initiative was to rely on the invisible hand, by nurturing private enterprise, and not to attempt another “Stalinist plan.”

Space

Live Blogging–Wendell Mendell

Thanks to Michael Mealing (see comment here), I’m back on the air, and waiting for the first talk (Wendell Mendell, lunar guru from Johnson Space Center).

[Update about 9 AM]

Dr. Mendell is relating a history of how his thoughts have evolved on getting back to the moon. Brief summary: he started out naive in the early eighties, and but eventually came to realize that NASA was incapable of carrying out the vision, and that private activities will be the key. He made a variation of a theme that I’ve commented on in the past (when I called space, including currently low earth orbit, a wilderness). He described it as an undeveloped country with vast resources, but no infrastructure.

[A few minutes later]

He’s hammering on a theme now that Paul Spudis reinforced yesterday in the keynote address: that various players are working hard to subvert the president’s initiative to support their own agendas. Moreover, the continued focus on Mars indicates that people were not listening to what the president said (he mentioned it only once, as part of the phrase “Mars and beyond”).

He’s knocking down the misconceptions that the only purpose of going to the Moon is to learn how to go to Mars, or to test equipment that will be used on Mars.

More thoughts on this later (and probably a column or two) after I collect my thought, and am not distracted actually listening.

[Another update]

This was mentioned briefly yesterday, but Dr. Mendell says that there is serious talk among some at NASA of doing a “touch and go” on the Moon. In other words, immediately after a lunar landing, we’ll then go on to Mars, thus somehow (in their demented view) having satisfied the letter (if not the spirit) of the president’s vision.

Political Commentary

I’m A “Little Red”

According to this test.

It was more than a little irritating, though, because all (not just a few) of the questions should have had a “No Clue” option.

I generally do well on multiple-guess tests, but I don’t think they’re a useful gauge of knowledge, and I particularly dislike those that don’t have an “I dunno” option.

Political Commentary

I’m A “Little Red”

According to this test.

It was more than a little irritating, though, because all (not just a few) of the questions should have had a “No Clue” option.

I generally do well on multiple-guess tests, but I don’t think they’re a useful gauge of knowledge, and I particularly dislike those that don’t have an “I dunno” option.

Political Commentary

I’m A “Little Red”

According to this test.

It was more than a little irritating, though, because all (not just a few) of the questions should have had a “No Clue” option.

I generally do well on multiple-guess tests, but I don’t think they’re a useful gauge of knowledge, and I particularly dislike those that don’t have an “I dunno” option.

Space

Centennial Challenge Report

NASA has published a report (PDF) on last month’s Centennial Challenges Workshop (thanks to Neil Halelamien over at sci.space.policy for the pointer).

I haven’t read the whole thing, but I did go look to see what they did with my glove idea.

I regret that I wasn’t there–they made some decisions that I would have argued about. I think that the glove should be 8 psi, not 4.3–a large part of the idea was to eliminate the need for prebreathing and avoid risk of the bends. I like the idea of providing plans for gloveboxes to the contestants, and think that worrying about someone injuring themselves is silly, not because it’s not a danger, but because it’s a danger we have to accept if we want to progress. I still like my task idea of tearing down and rebuilding an auto, or motorcycle engine. I proposed a million, and they came up with a quarter million (though they recognize that the amount may be too low–it’s driven by legal constraints which will hopefully be removed in the future).

Anyway, it looks like a promising start, and Brant Sponberg should be congratulated. Let’s hope he can keep the ball rolling.

Space

Space Prize Hearings

SpaceRef has a summary of the hearing on prizes for space achievements, held on the Hill this morning.

Molly Macauley made an excellent point:

“Even if an offered prize is never awarded because competitors fail all attempts to win, the outcome can shed light on the state of the technology maturation. In particular, an unawarded prize can signal that even the best technological efforts aren’t quite ripe at the proffered level of monetary reward. Such a result is important information for government when pursuing new technology subject to a limited budget,” she said.

The DARPA Challenge is a good example of that, in my opinion.

Of course, we have the usual caviling:

“While establishment of a NASA prize program is certainly worth considering, we should not be lulled into thinking that it is any substitute for providing adequate funding for NASA’s R&D programs,” cautioned Subcommittee Ranking Minority Member Nick Lampson (D-TX).

Rep. Lampson is one of the representatives from JSC.

Overall, while there were some appropriate cautionary notes, there seemed to be a consensus that this was a good idea. Let’s hope that they can get the funding now.

Political Commentary

Torture and the ticking bomb

Brad DeLong makes an excellent point about the torture memo:

It seems to me that Yoo misses a great many points. The hypothetical he describes–Osama bin Laden himself, a ticking nuclear bomb, a city that cannot be evacuated, et cetera–is not a situation in which torture should be legal. It is, however, a situation in which torture is pardonable. If you find yourself interrogating Osama bin Laden in such a situation, you do what you must do–and then you ask the president for a pardon. And the president has the power to give you one.

That’s what the procedure is with respect to torture. And I think that’s what the procedure should be.

As a nation we have no compunction about asking our defenders to risk death in order to protect us. Why are we so lilly-livered about asking them to risk legal hassles? Is it really worth sacrificing the legal protections that previous generations fought (and yes, died) for in order to spare someone in a highly unlikely scenario from having to ask for a pardon? I don’t think so. Not only is the indictment vanishingly unlikely to ever be brought in the first place (since it would destroy the career of the attorney general who brought it), but even if a jury could be found that was willing to strictly construe the applicable law, there is still the presidential pardon available as a final stopgap.

The reason the administration wants to have the rubber hose option legally available has nothing to do with the ticking bomb scenario. The ticking bomb is such an unambiguous case that even a blatant violation of the law is not going to be punished. The scenarios in which the legal loopholes are needed are the ambiguous ones, the ones where finding an AG willing to indict, a jury willing to convict, and a president unwilling to pardon are a real possibility. It is precisely those scenarios where torture should not be used.

The alternative is a legal regime in which torture can slip through the cracks, growing in application to more and more crimes and suspected crimes. Once our expectations are renormalized to allow torture on people suspected of terrorism, it’s only a matter of time before major drug crimes are included under the theory that drug money funds terrorism. From there we slouch on to lesser drug crimes, cybercrime, and so on. Perhaps you trust the current administration not to slip down this slope. But do you trust all possible future administrations?

What we give up by not legalizing torture is a small measure of safety. What we lose by legalizing it is not just the moral high ground, but also our own future safety from abuses by our own government.

The instinct to legalize torture comes from the same misguided mode of thinking that wastes time and effort figuring out all possible scenarios in which it’s legitimate to violate traffic laws. Nobody is under the impression that it’s wrong to blow a stop sign if you’ve got a guy in the back seat with arterial bleeding and you’re headed for the hospital. There is no need for a legal exception, and if a cop stops you he’ll more than likely give you an escort. Ditto the ticking bomb – if Alan Dershowitz is around, he’ll help you clip the electrodes to the guy’s nuts.

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