Orrin Judd emails me with a link to a very nice (and long) essay in the Atlantic on exploring space from your computer.

I haven’t read the whole thing, but glancing over it, this paragraph jumped out at me:

A ghostly mass of battered rock, Earth’s satellite is an archetypal solar-system object, with surface features echoing those of many of the planets and moons arrayed in far-flung archipelagos around the Sun. But it’s much more than that?at least in the human context. The longer one considers it, the more its tidal influence grows. Without that luminescent lure would there even have been a pull to leave this planet?

The Moon is much more than that. Without it, we might not have developed the mathematics needed to get us to it. But more fundamentally, it’s possible that we wouldn’t exist at all–without the tides to periodically strand creatures in the shallows, none of them might have ever transitioned from the ocean to the land.

I remember reading an essay by Asimov many years ago, in which he described all the ways that the Moon might have been critical to the development of both life in general, and to intelligent life, and our own development in particular. In fact, I believe that he argued that such a large secondary body might be a necessary prerequisite for LAWKI (at least for it to develop naturally), and that this added one more factor to the Drake equation, further narrowing the odds of finding company in the universe.

There’s a forum tomorrow night in Washington to discuss the benefits (and I hope, the pitfalls) of international cooperation in space. When I look over the list of speakers, I’m wondering which, if any, of them will carry the banner of opposition to cooperation. None, would be my guess. My readers won’t be surprised to learn that I have some opinions on this subject, some of them informed.

There are two traditional arguments for it. The first is that cooperation in space promotes cooperation on other levels, and promotes world peace in general. The second is that it saves money, and makes projects affordable that wouldn’t be if carried out alone.

There are also some other reasons, particularly in the case of the space station, that international cooperation is favored by the bureaucrats at the State Department.

It offered a means of providing foreign aid to Russia, without having it counted against the foreign aid budget. In the early 1990s, there were also some national security aspects to this–the hope was that by paying Russian engineers to build space station hardware, it would deter them from taking pay from countries in the “Axis of Evil” to build nuclear weapons, and missiles with which to deliver them. Think of it as “midnight basketball” for the Russians.

But despite this, the money came not from the defense budget–it came from NASA. And, unfortunately, it didn’t always work.

Another benefit, that few appreciate, is that it keeps our allies’ space programs under our control. We’ve learned well the lesson of Ariane, in which the Europeans developed their own rocket, which has since grabbed much of the commercial launch market, because we refused to fly a payload for them back in the seventies.

It’s much easier to jerk the Japanese and Europeans around, and prevent them from going off on their own and potentially doing something that will actually put them ahead of us in space (not very difficult, if one wanted to make a little investment), if we inextricably entangle them in our own space policy mess. It allows us to hobble them, instead of just ourselves.

But assuming, just for the sake of argument, that our goal is to actually make serious progress on the high frontier (though there’s little available evidence that that’s actually the case), then cooperative efforts are probably counterproductive.

As I already mentioned, there is a myth that it makes space activities more affordable. In fact, it probably increases costs.

It certainly does for the program as a whole, due to the intrinsic management inefficiencies of such a program, and the vast increase in political influences on program decisions. But it probably increases them for the US as well, compared to an efficient program designed to meet technical and cost goals (as opposed to one aimed at creating jobs in Texas, Alabama, Florida, France and Russia).

Certainly the many delays caused by failure of the Russians to deliver hardware on schedule in the 90s were a significant contributor to the billions of dollars in overruns currently plaguing the ISS program (though certainly not the only one). Unfortunately, much of the money went to dachas, yachts and off-shore bank accounts of crooked Russian politicians, rather than to the engineers to build space hardware (which may explain why some of them still sold missile guidance systems to Iran), but Al Gore never seemed to mind.

And of course, it reduces, and even eliminates any prospect (however small) of actual competition, which might show up our activities for the overpriced welfare for engineers that many of them, sadly, are.

But even if, in defiance of history, it actually did save us money to join with other nations, the notion that we can’t afford it on our own is silly. The NASA budget is less than one percent of the federal budget. As a nation, we spend about as much on pet food as we do on space. We can easily afford it–we simply choose not to.

While it sounds lofty and enobling, like the Outer Space Treaty, this mindset of “going to space in peace for all mankind” is an outdated Cold War relic, that has not served us well in expanding into space. Historically, there have been two primary fuels for human progress–fear and greed. Fear got us to the Moon in the 1960s, and we did it alone.

Now, to have a sustainable effort, we must harness greed. And that means competition, at least in part.

With only one player in the race, there’s no way to judge progress–if a space station that was supposed to launch in 1992 isn’t up until 2002, it’s too easy to simply say, “it’s just hard–no one else could do any better.” When someone else beats you to it, though, it’s a lot more difficult to make excuses.

I wish other nations well in their space efforts, and hope that they will be vigorous and successful, but I don’t want to hold their hands (in space, no one can hear you sing “Kumbaya”). I want to compete with them, so we all are motivated to do our best. That is how we progress in every other sphere of life, and it’s the most promising route for progress in space as well.

There’s a forum tomorrow night in Washington to discuss the benefits (and I hope, the pitfalls) of international cooperation in space. When I look over the list of speakers, I’m wondering which, if any, of them will carry the banner of opposition to cooperation. None, would be my guess. My readers won’t be surprised to learn that I have some opinions on this subject, some of them informed.

There are two traditional arguments for it. The first is that cooperation in space promotes cooperation on other levels, and promotes world peace in general. The second is that it saves money, and makes projects affordable that wouldn’t be if carried out alone.

There are also some other reasons, particularly in the case of the space station, that international cooperation is favored by the bureaucrats at the State Department.

It offered a means of providing foreign aid to Russia, without having it counted against the foreign aid budget. In the early 1990s, there were also some national security aspects to this–the hope was that by paying Russian engineers to build space station hardware, it would deter them from taking pay from countries in the “Axis of Evil” to build nuclear weapons, and missiles with which to deliver them. Think of it as “midnight basketball” for the Russians.

But despite this, the money came not from the defense budget–it came from NASA. And, unfortunately, it didn’t always work.

Another benefit, that few appreciate, is that it keeps our allies’ space programs under our control. We’ve learned well the lesson of Ariane, in which the Europeans developed their own rocket, which has since grabbed much of the commercial launch market, because we refused to fly a payload for them back in the seventies.

It’s much easier to jerk the Japanese and Europeans around, and prevent them from going off on their own and potentially doing something that will actually put them ahead of us in space (not very difficult, if one wanted to make a little investment), if we inextricably entangle them in our own space policy mess. It allows us to hobble them, instead of just ourselves.

But assuming, just for the sake of argument, that our goal is to actually make serious progress on the high frontier (though there’s little available evidence that that’s actually the case), then cooperative efforts are probably counterproductive.

As I already mentioned, there is a myth that it makes space activities more affordable. In fact, it probably increases costs.

It certainly does for the program as a whole, due to the intrinsic management inefficiencies of such a program, and the vast increase in political influences on program decisions. But it probably increases them for the US as well, compared to an efficient program designed to meet technical and cost goals (as opposed to one aimed at creating jobs in Texas, Alabama, Florida, France and Russia).

Certainly the many delays caused by failure of the Russians to deliver hardware on schedule in the 90s were a significant contributor to the billions of dollars in overruns currently plaguing the ISS program (though certainly not the only one). Unfortunately, much of the money went to dachas, yachts and off-shore bank accounts of crooked Russian politicians, rather than to the engineers to build space hardware (which may explain why some of them still sold missile guidance systems to Iran), but Al Gore never seemed to mind.

And of course, it reduces, and even eliminates any prospect (however small) of actual competition, which might show up our activities for the overpriced welfare for engineers that many of them, sadly, are.

But even if, in defiance of history, it actually did save us money to join with other nations, the notion that we can’t afford it on our own is silly. The NASA budget is less than one percent of the federal budget. As a nation, we spend about as much on pet food as we do on space. We can easily afford it–we simply choose not to.

While it sounds lofty and enobling, like the Outer Space Treaty, this mindset of “going to space in peace for all mankind” is an outdated Cold War relic, that has not served us well in expanding into space. Historically, there have been two primary fuels for human progress–fear and greed. Fear got us to the Moon in the 1960s, and we did it alone.

Now, to have a sustainable effort, we must harness greed. And that means competition, at least in part.

With only one player in the race, there’s no way to judge progress–if a space station that was supposed to launch in 1992 isn’t up until 2002, it’s too easy to simply say, “it’s just hard–no one else could do any better.” When someone else beats you to it, though, it’s a lot more difficult to make excuses.

I wish other nations well in their space efforts, and hope that they will be vigorous and successful, but I don’t want to hold their hands (in space, no one can hear you sing “Kumbaya”). I want to compete with them, so we all are motivated to do our best. That is how we progress in every other sphere of life, and it’s the most promising route for progress in space as well.

There’s a forum tomorrow night in Washington to discuss the benefits (and I hope, the pitfalls) of international cooperation in space. When I look over the list of speakers, I’m wondering which, if any, of them will carry the banner of opposition to cooperation. None, would be my guess. My readers won’t be surprised to learn that I have some opinions on this subject, some of them informed.

There are two traditional arguments for it. The first is that cooperation in space promotes cooperation on other levels, and promotes world peace in general. The second is that it saves money, and makes projects affordable that wouldn’t be if carried out alone.

There are also some other reasons, particularly in the case of the space station, that international cooperation is favored by the bureaucrats at the State Department.

It offered a means of providing foreign aid to Russia, without having it counted against the foreign aid budget. In the early 1990s, there were also some national security aspects to this–the hope was that by paying Russian engineers to build space station hardware, it would deter them from taking pay from countries in the “Axis of Evil” to build nuclear weapons, and missiles with which to deliver them. Think of it as “midnight basketball” for the Russians.

But despite this, the money came not from the defense budget–it came from NASA. And, unfortunately, it didn’t always work.

Another benefit, that few appreciate, is that it keeps our allies’ space programs under our control. We’ve learned well the lesson of Ariane, in which the Europeans developed their own rocket, which has since grabbed much of the commercial launch market, because we refused to fly a payload for them back in the seventies.

It’s much easier to jerk the Japanese and Europeans around, and prevent them from going off on their own and potentially doing something that will actually put them ahead of us in space (not very difficult, if one wanted to make a little investment), if we inextricably entangle them in our own space policy mess. It allows us to hobble them, instead of just ourselves.

But assuming, just for the sake of argument, that our goal is to actually make serious progress on the high frontier (though there’s little available evidence that that’s actually the case), then cooperative efforts are probably counterproductive.

As I already mentioned, there is a myth that it makes space activities more affordable. In fact, it probably increases costs.

It certainly does for the program as a whole, due to the intrinsic management inefficiencies of such a program, and the vast increase in political influences on program decisions. But it probably increases them for the US as well, compared to an efficient program designed to meet technical and cost goals (as opposed to one aimed at creating jobs in Texas, Alabama, Florida, France and Russia).

Certainly the many delays caused by failure of the Russians to deliver hardware on schedule in the 90s were a significant contributor to the billions of dollars in overruns currently plaguing the ISS program (though certainly not the only one). Unfortunately, much of the money went to dachas, yachts and off-shore bank accounts of crooked Russian politicians, rather than to the engineers to build space hardware (which may explain why some of them still sold missile guidance systems to Iran), but Al Gore never seemed to mind.

And of course, it reduces, and even eliminates any prospect (however small) of actual competition, which might show up our activities for the overpriced welfare for engineers that many of them, sadly, are.

But even if, in defiance of history, it actually did save us money to join with other nations, the notion that we can’t afford it on our own is silly. The NASA budget is less than one percent of the federal budget. As a nation, we spend about as much on pet food as we do on space. We can easily afford it–we simply choose not to.

While it sounds lofty and enobling, like the Outer Space Treaty, this mindset of “going to space in peace for all mankind” is an outdated Cold War relic, that has not served us well in expanding into space. Historically, there have been two primary fuels for human progress–fear and greed. Fear got us to the Moon in the 1960s, and we did it alone.

Now, to have a sustainable effort, we must harness greed. And that means competition, at least in part.

With only one player in the race, there’s no way to judge progress–if a space station that was supposed to launch in 1992 isn’t up until 2002, it’s too easy to simply say, “it’s just hard–no one else could do any better.” When someone else beats you to it, though, it’s a lot more difficult to make excuses.

I wish other nations well in their space efforts, and hope that they will be vigorous and successful, but I don’t want to hold their hands (in space, no one can hear you sing “Kumbaya”). I want to compete with them, so we all are motivated to do our best. That is how we progress in every other sphere of life, and it’s the most promising route for progress in space as well.

If this story is true, Grayout Davis may have more to worry about than just losing an election.

[Update on Thursday morning]

The story seems to have disappeared. If I can find it in the archives, I’ll fix the link. But it was describing the fact that the FBI has been sniffing around Sacramento, in the state capitol building, and perhaps in the executive offices as well. And it described the previous successful sting operation back in the 80s that nabbed several politicians for bribery and corruption.

[Thursday afternoon update]

Thanks to Ken Summers, who dug the link out of the archive, it should work now.

To celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of Watergate, which still has the press in paroxysms of self congratulation and narcissistic adoration, Gary Aldrich compares Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. The latter doesn’t come off looking very well.

Defenestration is death by being thrown out a window. What do you call it when you die from being sat on?

Besides stupid, that is…

[Update at 3:50 PM PDT]

Fritz Anderson has an excellent candidate. He suggests “subglutication.”

I might add a syllable, to it, though. How about subglutification?

In a small blow against political correctness, Speedy Gonzales has returned to the Cartoon Network.

In a small blow against political correctness, Speedy Gonzales has returned to the Cartoon Network.

In a small blow against political correctness, Speedy Gonzales has returned to the Cartoon Network.