"Humans need straight lines, nature doesn't. Indecisive river and orderly farmers, central Asia."

Tweeting photos from space.

"Neil Armstrong was... a reluctant American hero who always believed he was just doing his job."

Good job!

"It’s too bad this is such a big deal."

"It’s too bad our society isn’t further along."

The CBS News reporter Diane Sawyer asked [Sally Ride] to demonstrate a newly installed privacy curtain around the shuttle’s toilet. On “The Tonight Show,” Johnny Carson joked that the shuttle flight would be delayed because Dr. Ride had to find a purse to match her shoes.

ADDED: "The pioneering scientist was, a statement from Sally Ride Science announced, survived by 'Tam O'Shaughnessy, her partner of 27 years.' With that simple statement — listed alongside her mother, Joyce; her sister, Bear; her niece, Caitlin and nephew, Whitney — Ride came out." Link.

"The pancreatic cancer community is going to be absolutely thrilled that there's now this advocate that they didn't know about. And, I hope the GLBT community feels the same," Bear Ride, who identifies as gay, said....

Of Sally Ride's sexual orientation, Bear Ride said, "Sally didn't use labels. Sally had a very fundamental sense of privacy, it was just her nature, because we're Norwegians, through and through."

"Put me in a room with a pad and a pencil and set me up against a hundred people with a hundred computers - I'll outcreate every goddamn sonofabitch in the room."

Said Ray Bradbury, in a 1998 interview, quoted in a new NYT op-ed, by the writer Tim Kreider, who says:

[Bradbury] opposed the kind of technology that deadened imagination, the modernity that would trash the past, the kind of intellectualism that tried to centrifuge out awe and beauty. He famously did not care to drive or fly, but he was a passionate proponent of space travel, not because of its practical benefits but because he saw it as the great spiritual endeavor of the age, our generation’s cathedral building, a bid for immortality among the stars.

His visions of a better world weren’t high-tech but archaic, bucolic. In “Fahrenheit,” Montag remembers “a farm he had visited when he was very young, one of the rare few times he had discovered that somewhere behind the seven veils of unreality, beyond the walls of parlors and the tin moat of the city, cows chewed cud and pigs sat in warm ponds at noon and dogs barked after white sheep on a hill.” His utopia isn’t some flying city or exotic planet but prewar, small-town America — specifically, Waukeagan, Ill., circa 1928, a town of porch swings and bandshells, dandelion wine stored up in cool cellars and fire balloons on the Fourth of July. His Martians are not alien like Heinlein’s or futuristically evolved like Welles’s but a premodern people akin to the ancient Egyptians or American Indians (or a boy’s idealized conception of them), our superiors not technologically but spiritually. He was, like most of my favorite artists, a misanthropic humanist.

That's nice. I respect the art and aesthetics. But back away from the government. Do not lay your hands on the people's money to pay for your nostalgic, utopian trips to Mars. Keep dreaming your dreams and penning your stories, but do not use tax money to make these things real. Trips to Mars belong in the same category with the high-speed rail.

"Could the United States establish a moon colony and develop a new propulsion system for going to Mars?"

"All within eight years of a Newt Gingrich presidency, as Mr. Gingrich promised this week? The answers seem to be technologically yes, economically iffy and politically very difficult."

Newt's idea for a lunar colony is...
	... lunacy.
	... intriguing but misguided.
	... exactly the kind of thing we need.
pollcode.com free polls

"Was the Space Shuttle a Mistake?"

Asks John M. Logsdon — professor emeritus at the Space Policy Institute, George Washington University, member of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board — in the MIT Technology Review:

The selection in 1972 of an ambitious and technologically challenging shuttle design resulted in the most complex machine ever built. Rather than lowering the costs of access to space and making it routine, the space shuttle turned out to be an experimental vehicle with multiple inherent risks, requiring extreme care and high costs to operate safely. Other, simpler designs were considered in 1971 in the run-up to President Nixon's final decision; in retrospect, taking a more evolutionary approach by developing one of them instead would probably have been a better choice....

The shuttle was much more expensive than anyone anticipated at its inception.... The shuttle's cost has been an obstacle to NASA starting other major projects.

But replacing the shuttle turned out to be difficult because of its intimate link to the construction of the space station....

Today we are in danger of repeating that mistake, given Congressional and industry pressure to move rapidly to the development of a heavy lift launch vehicle without a clear sense of how that vehicle will be used. Important factors in the decision to move forward with the shuttle were the desire to preserve Apollo-era NASA and contractor jobs, and the political impact of program approval on the 1972 presidential election. Similar pressures are influential today. If we learn anything from the space shuttle experience, it should be that making choices with multidecade consequences on such short-term considerations is poor public policy.

ADDED: Was the shuttle program too expensive? It cost $209.1 billion. Think of it as a jobs program and compare it to the Obama stimulus, which is said to have cost $278,000 per job. The stimulus was $666 billion, more than 3 times the cost of the shuttle program, which went on for many years and which went way over budget.

"If I don't make this flight, they'll send the backup pilot instead... That's Yura" — Yuri Gagarin — "and he'll die instead of me. We've got to take care of him."

It was 1967, and Vladimir Komarov knew — a month in advance — that he would almost surely die in the showy spaceship link-up Leonid Brezhnev had planned to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Communist revolution.

Gagarin had written a memo explaining the 203 serious structural problems with the spacecraft, but there was an even worse structural problem with the Soviet government: "Everyone who saw that memo... was demoted, fired or sent to diplomatic Siberia." The memo couldn't go up the chain of command.

Don't click on the link unless you want to see a photo of the open casket of Vladimir Komarov.

"No one thought anything bad would happen. It was an adventure."

"So teachers made a special point of showing the lift-off to their classes.... And we needed to tell them something's gone wrong. And they kept asking, you know, are those people dead? And we had to tell them yes."

Is it possible to declare a "Sputnik moment"?

The President tried last night:

Half a century ago, when the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik, we had no idea how we'd beat them to the moon. The science wasn't there yet. NASA didn't even exist. But after investing in better research and education, we didn't just surpass the Soviets; we unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs. This is our generation's Sputnik moment.

But how do you have Sputnik without Sputnik? The Soviets launching their satellite shocked Americans into a period of intense activity and achievement. It's nice to want to do that again, but there's not an equivalent incentivizing advance by an imposing and feared foreign competitor.

This is our generation's Sputnik moment. What is? Are we playing let's pretend? Nothing is scaring us and lighting a fire under us. In fact, it's hard for us now, with our long perspective, even to understand why Sputnik was such a huge motivation. Ask some under-50 Americans today: Why was it so important to beat the Soviets in sending men to the moon? Ask them when/if the Soviets got a man to the moon. I'll bet they can't even give plausible answers. I'll bet even the over-50s are hit-or-miss when it comes to answering the question whether the Soviets got a man to the moon.

So what on earth — or on the moon — does Obama think he will get out of the mere verbal tag "Sputnik"? If you remember how Sputnik felt — and I do — you'll probably say, but there is  no equivalent of Sputnik. There are just a lot of countries, full of human beings, trying to get ahead economically, like us — not against us. There's no race with dramatic consequences for the winners and losers, and there's no impressive physical object that signifies that bad guys are winning the race. If you don't remember Sputnik, you're like: Sputnik?

***

Bonus Bob Dylan lyric:

Well, I don’t know, but I’ve been told
The streets in heaven are lined with gold
I ask you how things could get much worse
If the Russians happen to get up there first
Wowee! pretty scary!

Now, I’m liberal, but to a degree
I want ev’rybody to be free
But if you think that I’ll let Barry Goldwater
Move in next door and marry my daughter
You must think I’m crazy!
I wouldn’t let him do it for all the farms in Cuba

Space toilet — bet you're not ready for that.

"Family Becomes Extinct, To Be Replaced with Feminism and Gender Equality."

A headline in Pravda.

The Russians gradually lose interest in marriage and family. Recent opinion polls conducted in the Krasnoyarsk region showed that 72 of each 100 marriages end with divorce. Demographers say that family as a social unit became irrational because of the financial crisis. Psychologists explain the current trend with the development of new culture and substitution of notions. It is not ruled out that the institute of marriage will vanish in the near future....

What makes Russians live in loneliness? Every specialist would have their own opinion regarding the subject and all of them would be right in their own way.

As long as I'm reading Pravda...

"Pregnancy: Mystical Condition Full of Superstitions."

It was believed that by denying a pregnant woman’s request, people incurred all kinds of misfortune. If a pregnant stranger knocked at someone's door, she had to be let in, fed and given overnight shelter. You could not raise voice at or scold a pregnant woman.

"Hellish hairy sea monster cast ashore." (Oh, now I may have to skip dinner.)

"Belka and Strelka: 50th Anniversary of Space Dogs Flight."

Russia on Thursday marked the 50th anniversary of the space flight of two dogs who became the first living creatures to circle the Earth and come back alive.

How many came back dead?

"Cat crosses Siberia to find its home."



"Bush's Legs Strike Back." What?!

American chicken legs, widely known in Russia as Bush's legs...

???!!!!

"We must become astronauts and go out into the universe and discover the God in ourselves."

Ray Bradbury talks about religion. Some of what he says makes some sense, and some, like that quote, makes no sense at all.

Oh, how I loathe, the use of the space program for inspirational purposes. (Like this.)

Obama asked NASA "to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering."

To be fair, that wasn't the only goal. There was also: "to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math" and "to expand our international relationships."

Oh, admit it! The point of science is to feel good about how we can do science.

Today's exercise in the comedy of Drudge photographic juxtapositions — AKA Drudgedy.

At Drudge right now, the picture at the very top is the Obama-with-winged-fingers that we were talking about yesterday, but let's talk about this collection of images:



This is a mysterious one, so let's brainstorm. The first thing I noticed was how that Google "You can trust us with your data" device — whatever it really is — looks like it's designed to stamp beanies onto the Pope's head or perhaps to examine/muddle/read the mind of the Pope. In the center column, the space shuttle is a simple and obvious phallic symbol. The left column — which we may interpret in relation to the giant technological phallus — is mainly hands: Nancy Pelosi's outstretched palm and Arnold Schwarzenegger's thumb-to-fingers grasp approaching 3 phallic microphones thrust toward his face.

Okay, you take it from there.

"Obama plan to land on asteroid may be unrealistic for 2025."

Headline that made me laugh.

Anyway, what's unrealistic? In 2025, he won't be President. So it's totally realistic of him to blab about crap he won't have to do. And I'm quite happy to have him dreaming about the distant future instead of inflicting things on us right now.

The moon is 240,000 miles away. A trip to an asteroid would be 5 million miles — at a minimum.

Why go?

Why not!

Asteroids have always been passed over as a destination for human explorers. Then-president George H.W. Bush wanted NASA to go to Mars, while his son, George W. Bush, chose the moon. During the past six years, NASA spent $9 billion building a spaceship, rocket and other gear to help reach the second Bush's goal of returning humans to the lunar surface by 2020.

In February, Obama took steps toward killing Bush's moon program, which was beset by technical troubles and money woes. Two months later, in a speech at Cape Canaveral, Obama announced that the astronauts' next stop is an asteroid.

A President's got to be about going somewhere... somewhere else.

So far, the Obama administration has been quiet on the need for a major sum of money to accomplish his goal.

Ha.

What do you do once you get to an asteroid?

•Humans can't walk or drive on an asteroid.

... [E]ven the biggest asteroids have practically no gravity. So anything in contact with the surface could easily drift away.

Like thoughts in the cranium of a President.

"You don't land on an asteroid," says former Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart, a longtime advocate of asteroid studies. "You pull up to one and dock with it. ... And getting away from it, all you have to do is sneeze and you're gone." He envisions a spaceship hovering next to the asteroid and occasionally firing its thrusters to stay in place.

Astronauts wouldn't walk on an asteroid. They would drift next to it, moving themselves along with their gloved hands.

La la la. Float along!



In gloves!

To keep from floating into space, crewmembers could anchor a network of safety ropes to the asteroid's surface, but "that has its own risks, because we don't understand how strong the surfaces of asteroids are and whether (they) would hold an astronaut in place," says Daniel Scheeres, a planetary scientist at the University of Colorado.

Lasso an asteroid!

The minimal gravity also means that any dust the astronauts stir up will hang in a suspended cloud for a long time. Because there's no weather on an asteroid, there's no erosion to smooth the dust particles.

"It's all going to stay pretty razor-sharp. ... It's not the most friendly stuff in the universe," Korsmeyer says. Keeping humans safe as they explore an asteroid "is going to be really tricky."

Dodge razor-sharp dust!

Go 5 million miles to paddle your gloved hands across the surface of a rock and stir up a cloud of razor-sharp dust particles that will — once you leave — hang there endlessly.

IN THE COMMENTS: Lemondog says:

Any chance the little prince could speed it up???!

Mebbe......next year?

Now we know the B in B-612 stands for Barack.

Just so, you might say to them: "The proof that the little prince existed is that he was charming, that he laughed, and that he was looking for a sheep. If anybody wants a sheep, that is a proof that he exists." And what good would it do to tell them that? They would shrug their shoulders, and treat you like a child. But if you said to them: "The planet he came from is Asteroid B-612," then they would be convinced, and leave you in peace from their questions.

OMG! He's not a natural born citizen! But he was charming, he laughed, and he found quite a lot of sheep.

Let's watch Obama's big speech.

7:06: He's laying out a "battle plan" to fight the leak at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. He's "deploying" the military.

7:08: What to do during the "siege." A decision has been made to speak in military terms. Of course, he's not the first President to ask us to think about a nonmilitary problem in military terms. The War on X... the moral equivalent of war....

7:12: To make sure this won't happen again, Obama is establishing a commission.

7:15: We need to "jump start" the "clean energy" future. There's "the potential" to create "millions of jobs" but "only" if we "act together." We need to do something big at the national level to make this happen. Some people say we can't afford this, but he's saying we can't afford not to do it. He's vague about what this will be. The only thing he won't accept is doing nothing. He won't accept the "paltry limits of conventional wisdom." So even though we don't "precisely know" what we need to do, we will do it. Like we did in WWII and in going to the moon. We'll do something. And it will have to be big, but we don't know what it is. Then he drops from that scarily high level of abstraction and the unknown to... shrimpers. Something about shrimp people. We must think BIG and... shrimpy.

7:20: And suddenly, it's getting religious. I think he's bringing this speech in for a landing, because... it's a bit prayer-like. There's a "hand" that will "guide us." And — yes — it is the end: "May God bless America."

7:26: Well, that was a terrible speech! When it wasn't grim and dreary, it was grandiose. But the grandiosity was so vague... and half-hearted. Oh! The malaise!

AND: Here's the text of the speech. This is the part that interested me most:

As we recover from this recession, the transition to clean energy has the potential to grow our economy and create millions of jobs -– but only if we accelerate that transition.  Only if we seize the moment. And only if we rally together and act as one nation –- workers and entrepreneurs; scientists and citizens; the public and private sectors.  

This is the anti-capitalist move. There is all this opportunity, but free enterprise and capitalism can't take advantage of it. We need a top-down, government-imposed scheme, he announces. He doesn't explain why. It's an article of faith.

Now, there are costs associated with this transition [towards energy independence].  And there are some who believe that we can’t afford those costs right now.  I say we can’t afford not to change how we produce and use energy....

This is such embarrassing cliché rhetoric: Some say we can't do it. I say we can't not do it.


He cites a bunch of modest ideas that have been suggested and says we should think about them, then says that we have to do something, even though you could take all those things together, impose them, and still not break what he calls our "addiction" to fossil fuel. He blathers about WWII and the moon landing -- as noted above --  and talks about "what has defined us as a nation": "the capacity to shape our destiny....  Even if we’re unsure exactly what that looks like.  Even if we don’t yet know precisely how we’re going to get there.  We know we’ll get there." That is so hopelessly grandiose and vague, and to keep us from looking at it too long and despairing, he's all: Look! Shrimp!

Each year, at the beginning of shrimping season, the region’s fishermen take part in a tradition that was brought to America long ago by fishing immigrants from Europe.  It’s called “The Blessing of the Fleet,” and today it’s a celebration where clergy from different religions gather to say a prayer for the safety and success of the men and women who will soon head out to sea....

It's the shrimp and religion combo platter. Yummy!

Apparently, I stand alone among conservative bloggers...

... appreciating the conservatism of Obama's decision to decline to stamp new human bootprints into the face of the moon.

Obama squelches the moon mission.

Good!

"Astronaut urine spotted in skies above North America."

That glowing streak of light was just "a fortnight's worth of astronaut waste."

Why not send people to Mars and just leave them there?

Lawrence M. Krauss, director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University and author of "The Physics of 'Star Trek'" makes this suggestion in an op-ed in today's NYT:

Much of the cost of a voyage to Mars will be spent on coming home again. If the fuel for the return is carried on the ship, this greatly increases the mass of the ship, which in turn requires even more fuel...

[I]f the radiation problems cannot be adequately resolved then the longevity of astronauts signing up for a Mars round trip would be severely compromised in any case. As cruel as it may sound, the astronauts would probably best use their remaining time living and working on Mars rather than dying at home.

If it sounds unrealistic to suggest that astronauts would be willing to leave home never to return alive, then consider the results of several informal surveys I and several colleagues have conducted recently. One of my peers in Arizona recently accompanied a group of scientists and engineers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on a geological field trip. During the day, he asked how many would be willing to go on a one-way mission into space. Every member of the group raised his hand....

We might want to restrict the voyage to older astronauts, whose longevity is limited in any case. Here again, I have found a significant fraction of scientists older than 65 who would be willing to live out their remaining years on the red planet or elsewhere....

I agree. And I note that I floated the same idea on this blog 4 years ago:

But I must say, when I saw the headline about a 90-year-old "Explorer of Mars," an idea that occurred to me was having a one-way mission, sending some quite old persons to Mars, with no way to bring them back. I was assuming he'd be in favor of sending a man to Mars and imagined him saying I'm 90, send me! I'm going to die pretty soon anyway. I'd like to have a shot at making it to Mars. And you can just leave me there!

Would it be wrong to have a mission like that? Why is it that young people take the most risks with their lives? Shouldn't the oldest people take the most daring risks, since they've lived the greater part of their lives and therefore risk less of it?

***

By the way, the NYT published an offensively ageist illustration with its op-ed.