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The UN Party?

Arnold Kling points out a very real danger for the Democrats next year (and one that they seem obtusely unable to recognize)–becoming, or at least being perceived as, the UN party, as opposed to the US party.

The single question that I think will determine my vote in the 2004 Presidential election might be phrased as follows:

Do you believe that the rifts within the United Nations indicate moral obtuseness on the part of (a) the United States or (b) other members of the UN?

I would answer emphatically with (b). I fervently believe that it is the United States that holds the moral high ground. We absolutely must not treat the UN as if it holds the moral trump cards.

My sense is that the activist wing of the Democratic Party passionately believes the opposite. If the Democratic nominee reflects the views of the activists, then as far as I am concerned, it’s game over. I cannot vote for anyone who sees the UN as morally superior. If you take the pro-UN position, then you can just sit down and relax — you do not need to answer any of my other questions.

I agree wholeheartedly.

General Science

Loosening The Shackles

I used to have a tee shirt, that had a picture of a garden mole and exterminator. The caption was “Mole problems? Call Avogadro 6.022 x 10^23.”

It’s a chemistry joke.

[rim shot]

OK, it’s geeky. Avogadro’s number is the number of atoms in a mole, which allows us to convert the unit of mass to number of atoms, and vice versa, by converting the atomic number to grams. Carbon 12 (the most common carbon isotope) is the reference–a mole of carbon 12 atoms will, in theory, mass exactly twelve grams. Similarly, a mole of hydrogen atoms will mass one gram.

Obviously, for this to work, we have to know pretty accurately just how many atoms there are in a mole. In fact, if we knew it accurately, and precisely enough, we could use it as an atomic basis for mass (just as the meter was defined in terms of wavelengths of a specific chemical laser, and more recently as the distance light goes in a certain time interval measured by a cesium clock). The current (crude) standard for mass is a lump of metal, a kilogram by definition, kept in a bell jar in Paris.

Recent research indicates that the traditional number, first identified by Avogadro, may be a little off. If they can refine the number sufficiently, it can be established as the basis for mass, and we can free ourselves of one of the few areas in which we’re dependent on the duplicitous French…

Uncategorized

Soaring Robots

The LA Times (sorry, registration required) has another typically misguided editorial about the space program. Like much of the rest of the media, they remain mired in the Cold-War mentality, and can only conceive of space as being for “exploration” and “science.” Accordingly, they continue to promulgate the tired and false dichotomy between man and machine.

Where Americans think NASA should go after the February explosion of the space shuttle Columbia depends on whether they’re Star Trek people or robot people. Trekkies say NASA must not shrink from the poetic challenge of human space exploration, that the inspirational pull can’t be measured by money. The robot people point out that unmanned craft do much more science for much less money, that there’s sufficient inspiration to be had from probes now heading for Mars and Saturn or the James Webb space telescope, to be deployed in 2010…

…Both the space shuttle and the international space station, which account for 40% of NASA’s budget, are dubious science. As Robert L. Park, a University of Maryland physics professor, bluntly said of the Columbia mission, “Nothing was being done on that flight that would have any impact on any field of science.”

But where is it written that the only reason that we should expend taxpayer dollars on civil space is science? It’s always assumed that it’s so, but it’s long past time to have a national debate on the subject, rather than continuing old and unresolvable arguments on that are based on flawed assumptions.

There is a little glimmer of hope toward the end, however:

Congress, as Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) suggests, should first require NASA to perform a detailed study of the costs and benefits of human space flight. This hard-nosed exercise should not quash the grander vision for space or the unimagined opportunities there. Might NASA find, for example, that entrepreneurs would take over programs it micromanages at a cost of billions?

I’m not sure that any entrepreneur in their right mind would want to do anything that NASA is currently doing, and I’m not sure what they mean by this, but I take heart that, despite their science-centric viewpoint, they’re at least willing to use the world “entrepreneur” in a space editorial. It will be interesting to see what the editorial response is when an actual entrepreneur (like Burt Rutan, or XCOR, or Armadillo) actually puts people into space, with no help whatsoever from NASA.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!