MarsBlog.net

Physical impossibility be damned — GMD works.

Posted on September 28th, 2007 under Miscellaneous. Comments Off

Well, now…this is interesting: James Hansen,
on the payroll of left-wing billionaires.

If we can question the science of climate scientists solely on the basis of whether they accepted research money from Exxon or another corporation, on the grounds that that money comes with an agenda attached which irremediably taints any of their findings (at least, if they don’t support AGW crisismongering), is it legitimate to question whether money given to other climate scientists by far-left organizations likewise comes with an agenda attached?

Posted on September 27th, 2007 under Luddism. Comments Off

Henry Cate hosts this week’s Carnival of Space.

Posted on September 23rd, 2007 under Miscellaneous. Comments Off

Looks like Odyssey may have found caves on Mars.

The description seems quite different from caves one finds on Earth (these caves are on Mars, after all), sounding more like sinkholes. Being at high altitudes on Arsia Mons and 300-800ft across, they’re probably too remote and too large to use for early settlements.

Posted on September 22nd, 2007 under Space Science. Comments: 1

I’ve wondered for some time what PDAs and the like might evolve into as we move into space. Specifically, I can see space-based devices being equipped with simple environment-monitoring sensors (air composition, radiation) which will help alert users to dangers peculiar to the space environment which are difficult or impossible for a human to recognize unassisted.

And then along come this:

Kiera Ormut-Fleishman had more! She came with a prototype of Maintenant, a system designed to make us more ecologically aware.

Maintenant revolves around the Social Pedometer/So-Ped, a device which connects to your mp3 player and auditorily alerts you whenever you’re passing through a high-air pollution saturated area.

The So-Ped, equipped with a carbon monoxide and methane sensor, is continually searching the air you breathe as you walk around. When a higher level of gases is detected, the sensor sets off the voice chip and alerts you to this. First the alert temporarily cuts off your music then you get a tip that says how to save up energy, for example.

There is only one So-Ped and it is not for sale. However, you can sign up to test the So-Ped when it becomes available in your area, you will then be able to use it for two weeks.

Granted, being preached to about energy conservation every time one walks by a tailpipe is not quite what I had in mind, but the core idea here is right: a device normally used for other, pedestrian (heh…) purposes, which keeps watch in the background for certain dangers and interrupts to warn the user when these dangers appear. Apart from space, there are numerous uses for such things here and now: warning asthmatics of rising concentrations of some personal environmental trigger, for example, or alerting industrial workers (and people living near their facilities) to elevated levels of airborne chemicals before they become a health or safety threat.

Give it another ten years, and things like this will probably be ubiquitous — on Earth.

Posted on September 13th, 2007 under Useful Technology. Comments: 2

Ouch, this is going to leave a mark.

In the movie, many of the critics who claim to live in the affected areas are less than honest. One, a Swiss environmentalist who leads the opposition to mining in Romania, actually lives in the sort of town to which many of the impoverished peasants of Rosia Montana want to move.

The terrorists are adamant that the locals should preserve their “pristine” environment. A Belgian environmentalist says the people of Rosia Montana would rather use carts and horses than pollute the air with cars. “She says this to get noticed,” counters a Romanian peasant who looks totally bewildered.

Half a world away, when confronted with the argument that denying the people of Fort Dauphin a chance to obtain jobs would keep them poor, the leading critic of the ilmenite project and the owner of a luxurious catamaran pontificates to Gheorghe Lucian, an unemployed Romanian traveling with the film’s crew: “I could put you with a family here and you can count how many times people smile … and I can put you with a family that is well-off in New York and London and you can count how many times they smile, and then you can tell me who is rich and who is poor.”

Barf.

There has to be something seriously wrong with people who condemn others to poverty and despair “for their own good”.

Posted on September 10th, 2007 under Luddism. Comments: 1

Could it be that the Kistler K-1 is finally dead?

Not quite yet, but they seem to be under warning from NASA.

Posted on September 10th, 2007 under Space Commerce. Comments Off