![[Mars Blog]](/images/masthead.gif)
LM is passing out free American flags non-environmentally-sensitive symbols of jingoistic nationalism and AmeriKKKan racism, imperialism, sexism, queerism, theism, and fillintheblankism at Thursday night's Rockies game, and disaffected suburban rapper poseurs aren't happy about it.
Well, I guess I have to give the execrable Johnny 5 credit for wanting to merely "funk" Lockheed Martin rather than burn it down, as his co-performer at a recent snit rally expressed a desire to do.
And come on..."Students for a Democratic Society"? As if the hippie nostalgia of Recreate 68 wasn't bad enough, we now have someone reanimating that corpse? I thought it was the right that supposedly clung to the faded glories of a distant golden age. (Even this pitiful "rapper" has a nostalgic stage name, albeit from a different era.)
I have a feeling we're going to be seeing some extra security at the office in late August...
A hat tip or even just a link would have been nice, Dwayne. Especially if you're going to take my point as one of your own.
As an amusing aside, when one follows the Google search link he does provide, a good number of the results have to do with James Hansen calling for trials of oil executives and others who question the political orthodoxy of global warming...trials whose political nature and predetermined outcome would no doubt have pleased the arguably fascist Roland Freisler.
[hat tip: NASAWatch]
ADDENDUM: In case it wasn't obvious what the first paragraph above is referring to, the reference to the Overview Effect in Dwayne's piece was to my eye a clear reference to my "Liberal Fascism Effect" post. If it is a reference to my post, Dwayne misunderstands (or willfully misrepresents?) what I said there, using it as one of his featured examples of namecalling...after which, as one of his own points, he blames this growing tendency to spot "fascism" everywhere on Jonah Goldberg. This was of course exactly the point I made at the beginning of the post -- that Goldberg's book had left me with an amusing (to me) tendency to spot fascist tendencies in even mundane things.
I think if Dwayne had actually read the book, he might have understood what I was referring to.
Space Adventures Charters Entire Russian Spacecraft
Now Space Adventures has upped the ante by buying not just one seat aboard one of the expendable Soyuz spacecraft that have been the mainstay of the Russian space program since the 1960s, but an entire flight. A professional Russian cosmonaut will command the flight for two ticket-paying passengers some time in late 2011.Selling individual seats on an ISS-bound Soyuz is one thing, but a fully tourist flight is quite another. If the Russians are willing to take this step, it's only a small step from there to Soyuz flights to Bigelow space hotels...From then on, Space Adventures plans to fly one charter flight to the International Space Station a year through the station's operational life. RKA will add new spaceships to its manifest rather than bumping existing flights, such as those that might have to be used by NASA after the Space Shuttle retires in 2010.
Unbelievably, this is not science fiction. Mr Pal holds up a small beaker of bug excretion that could, theoretically, be poured into the tank of the giant Lexus SUV next to us. Not that Mr Pal is willing to risk it just yet. He gives it a month before the first vehicle is filled up on what he calls "renewable petroleum". After that, he grins, "it's a brave new world".This is of course not the only effort going on to use microbes to synthesize petroleum and/or its derivatives (I remember an oil company commercial from the late 1970s or early 1980s touting their R&D work along these lines). What's interesting, though, is that this is yet another petroleum alternative that high oil prices are making more attractive, and one that doesn't (as the quote above states) require the complete rebuilding of the transportation fuel infrastructure. So, it's a more realistic and economically practical oil alternative than, say, a hydrogen-fueled car.Mr Pal is a senior director of LS9, one of several companies in or near Silicon Valley that have spurned traditional high-tech activities such as software and networking and embarked instead on an extraordinary race to make $140-a-barrel oil (£70) from Saudi Arabia obsolete. "All of us here – everyone in this company and in this industry, are aware of the urgency," Mr Pal says.
What is most remarkable about what they are doing is that instead of trying to reengineer the global economy – as is required, for example, for the use of hydrogen fuel – they are trying to make a product that is interchangeable with oil. The company claims that this "Oil 2.0" will not only be renewable but also carbon negative – meaning that the carbon it emits will be less than that sucked from the atmosphere by the raw materials from which it is made.
Of course, the amusing part is that it is theoretically a carbon-negative fuel source -- the microbes take more carbon out of the atmosphere than what they excrete as a useable oil (if that doesn't seem to make sense, recall that the microbes themselves require carbon for their own structure).
On the other hand, since this approach requires genetic engineering, the watermelons and luddites will no doubt put the kibosh on it regardless of its benefits -- the only thing more intolerable than the idea of environmental-guilt-free petroleum sustaining the Western lifestyle of individuality, independence, and material happiness is the knowledge that that guilt-free petroleum comes from "frankenbacteria".
Behold: The Ron Paul Rocket. No...really...
The Ron Paul Revolution is producing a spaceship for the purpose of lifting a payload into space so the entire Universe may receive Ron Paul's message for as long as we can maintain electricity. This is a groundbreaking effort, as no grassroots support group for a politician has ever paid tribute in Outer Space!It might be a joke, but then again, who knows? As rocket science, this approach is about as workable as the Paul supporters' approach to politics.The idea sprang about on the ronpaulforums.com as an effort to probe and expand the frontiers of our peaceful revolution. To reach this goal, we will utilize existing hobbyist technology, and push the edge. We will reach space!
One other purpose is to develop alternative propulsion systems using Carbonic Reaction Thrust Engines, powered by Diet Coke and Mentos. In this end, we ask both the Coca Cola Corp. and Mentos brand Breath Mints to sponsor both our early traditional propulsion efforts, and our experimental CRTE efforts.
Oddly, given the ubiquity of photo and video devices nowadays, this is something you don't see every day:
The Denver man who is pushing a ballot measure to have the city form an "ET Commission" showed video of what he says is an alien Friday morning at a news conference. Reporters were allowed to view the video, but only a still image of it was released to the media.Jeff Peckman said aliens visit his friend Stan Romanke all the time.
Romanke, who lives in Colorado Springs, allegedly recorded the alien video while living in Nebraska.
It's a pity he didn't air the video last Friday when Richard Hoagland was in town to speak at the Libertarian Party convention.
For those outside Denver, Jeff Peckman is the guy who recently proposed to the Denver City Council that it create an 18-member "Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission".
After a weekend in Moab, I can see why the Mars Society picked the Utah desert for one of its research stations.
Pretty martian.
A distracting side-effect I've experienced from reading Goldberg's Liberal Fascism is a newfound mental habit of playing Spot the Fascist Tendencies with everything I read.
"The Overview Effect," a phrase coined in the book of the same name by space philosopher and writer Frank White. It refers to the experience of seeing firsthand the reality of the Earth in space, which is immediately understood to be a tiny, fragile ball of life, hanging in the void, shielded and nourished by a paper-thin atmosphere. From space, the astronauts tell us, national boundaries vanish, the conflicts that divide us become less important and the need to create a planetary society with the united will to protect this "pale blue dot" becomes both obvious and imperative.
Oh, I know they mean well, and are probably not likely to start strutting around in jackbooted spacesuits, pressing us all into the worship of a unified pan-human World-State or whatever. But it's hard now to read such things without noticing the odor of mystical collectivism they emit. It's also difficult to read things like this and not speculate on where such mysticism could easily lead -- namely, regarding space as some sort of sacred wilderness to be preserved in perpetuity from intrusive human activities.
Personally I prefer rationalism and individualism as the basis for the permanent settlement of space.
On the other hand, I can't fault them for wanting more people to go into space (even if we may disagree as to the why of it). At least they get that part right.
[via Clark Lindsay]
After a long, strange trip, Phoenix has landed near the Martian north pole.
The image from orbit of the lander descending under parachutes is pretty darned cool.
Looks like NASA is finally disposing of the tooling used to build the orbiters, which had been moved to storage at Michoud a few years ago:
No more new orbiters (if anyone really wanted to build any).
