Potpourri LXXVII

All sorts of Apollo 11 and other space stuff today (and rightly so!):

• An Australian newspaper on the prospects for space.


• Neil Armstrong reflected on those who gave their lives in the quest for space.


• Ares V imagery.


• Alan Stern on the greatest impact Apollo 11 had.


• Apollo seen by another writer as a dead end rather than a great beginning.
• Jeff Foust reviews several Apollo 11-related books.
• Best moon landings in movies.
• It looks like the Augustine Panel's public meeting in Huntsville has moved to July 29.
• NASA released a Neil Armstrong statement on the death of Walter Cronkite:
  "For a news analyst and reporter of the happenings of the day to be successful, he or she needs three things: accuracy, timeliness, and the trust of the audience. Many are fortunate to have the first two. The trust of the audience must be earned.
  "Walter Cronkite seemed to enjoy the highest of ratings. He had a passion for human space exploration, an enthusiasm that was contagious, and the trust of his audience. He will be missed."
• Popular Mechanics has a series of "untold stories" about Apollo 11.
• Space.com has several good stories, including this one...
• Apollo astronauts advocating trip to Mars.
• From Martin, an AOL list of fun space facts.
• And Darlene the Science Cheerleader has a nice roundup of some other Apollo 11 links.

Some stuff from Lin:

• The White House is delaying its budget report.
• This mind-bending financial bail-out could top $23 trillion in cost.
• "Earmark" is now part of the dictionary. Oh, goody. Another unwelcome addition to the vocabulary.
• An editorial recommends making businesses use electronic background checks of immigrants, illegal or otherwise, if only to verify that they're not on the DHS terrorism watch list. Maybe, says I. However, the watch list remains unreliable.
• Amazon.com can wipe out books from your Kindle if they find something amiss with them. Hmmmm.

From Cousin Katherine, a travel planning site recommendation. This might've been useful for the Europe trip when I was earlier in my process. Still might be good for future trips.

The wickedly funny gnomes at NeedCoffee.com are trying to wean themselves off of advertising by going to a subscription-only site as a means of paying their bills...at least the bills having to do with running the site itself. It's a reasonably sound business model: Jerry Pournelle runs Chaos Manor in this fashion--sort of like PBS. My fellow SF geek Doc, a part-time contributor to Need Coffee, referred me to the site, and I have been pleasantly amused with their content. NC is a media review site, if by "media" one can include items as diverse as TV shows, movies, video games, YouTube videos, and caffeineated energy drinks. Their rates are reasonable (starting at $1/month) and their range of attitudes and opinions suitably entertaining that even a cranky GenX conservative like me can laugh at their stuff on a regular basis.

Potpourri XIX

Jeez, I spend one day away from the blog, and I'm flooded with interesting stuff! That'll teach me. I do have a lot of stuff to post this evening, but before I get into the usual space and smashmouth, you've got to go see this lady sing on YouTube. If only "American Idol" was this classy, I might watch it once. Okay, back to the usual foolishness...

An article in The Atlantic on education, and Jerry Pournelle's comments afterward.

Congratulations due to Your Humble Narrator: There have been several stories on this. According to the Department of Homeland Security, I am now considered a likely right-wing nut-job terrorist. Okay, not me specifically, but apparently people like me or vaguely like me. Here is the specific footnote from Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment:

Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups--not me, wait for it), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority (this would be me, on several issues), or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.

What should have been said is "those that are violently antigovernment, rejecting federal authority..." etc. And there's this problem: there are millions of Americans who believe that the federal government has exceeded its authority as stated in the Constitution:

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

I don't hoard guns, wear a sheet, hate immigrants, bomb abortion clinics, or use vile words to describe our President. Nevertheless, that is how people who think like me are being portrayed by this innocuous footnote. It's disgusting and rude and paints with too broad a brush. I've got friends I disagree with on a multitude of issues, covering all the items listed above, but I don't consider them candidates to become left-wing terrorists. I hope someone in DHS takes the time to scrub their verbiage next time they write one of these reports.

Saw this link from one of the folks on Facebook: a seminar on open collaboration in government.

NASA is offering the opportunity for people to vote on the agency's greatest contributions to the environment.

Thanks to Doc and another reader for pointing out that there are free books out there for Kindle buyers. I "bought" Red Mars for $0.00 yesterday. Woo hoo!

I'm getting some requests to do more pro bono work for the Mars Foundation's Mars Education Center. I haven't said yes to all of the requests, but some of the smaller jobs. If you're interested in a Mars-themed educational experience, this is a project worth pursuing.

Darlene the Science Cheerleader has referenced a link to policy fellowships for scientists and engineers.

Some rich guys in Hong Kong have built Noah's Ark according to the specifications noted in Genesis Chapter 6.

California's largest utility has made a deal to purchase electrical power from a company promising to build a solar power satellite.

Fedora tip to Tracy for these:

• A decent article on Hubble.
• A book on "Generation Me," explaining what's afflicting Generation Y.
• An editorial by Seth Shostak on the realistic chances for deep space exploration. This one will not make my space settlement buddies happy, but it deserves to be considered.

NASA is supposed to send astronaut Suni Williams onto The Colbert Report to announce the name of the so-far-unnamed new node of the International Space Station. Finally. Put this foolishness to rest. I'm bored by it. I have a feeling this won't be the end of the matter, regardless of what decision is made.

Mike Griffin is taking an "eminent scholar" position at the Unviersity of Alabama in Huntsville. Maybe now I can get a copy of his book signed. It's actually a pretty useful book.

Hat-tip to Hu for these: some more speculation on what the latest DoD budget will mean for our military. Also here, here, here, and here.

And another from Hu, this one on robotics: MIT students develop a robot capable of caring for tomato plants.

And, to close this edition of potpourri, a little guerrilla theater, Sound of Music style. Tip o' the fedora to Father Dan for this. Have a splendid evening!

More Space News, Things That Bug Me, Etc.

This story bears paying some attention to; I referenced it previously in my analysis of John McCain's space policy. We need to consider how much we care about access to space. Why? Well, Congress is showing signs that they don't want to drop the waiver to trading with Russia despite their repeated violations of the Iran-North Korea-Syra Nonproliferation Act. The choices are simple, but ugly:

• Grant Russia the waiver. Under this plan, we would continue to have access to the International Space Station (ISS). However, if we don't punish Russia somehow, they will continue to sell arms to Iran, a nation committed to killing us and one of our chief allies, Israel. And Iran will continue to receive Russian-made weapons.
• Drop the waiver. However, Russia doesn't always have our best interests in mind. This might be just the excuse they need to keep their oil off the market, refuse to build more Soyuz rockets, or refuse to fly American astronauts to ISS.

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Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, has become the Winston Churchill of the commercial space sector, saying to his people, more or less, that he will never give up on building rockets to access ISS. And we'll need that kind of tenacity in our private sector, if we hope to have a viable substitute for Russian access (see above).

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More stories on Obama's policy shift/flip-flop on gutting Constellation to fund education:

http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2008/08/obama_reverses.html
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0808/02obama/
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-obama0308aug03,0,1723381.story?track=rss
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/aug/03/na-nasa-funding-a-top-priority-obama-tells-space-c/?news-nationworld

I see no reason to change my analysis from Saturday:

Obama might be backing off his idea of slowing the Constellation Program to fund some education program; that is not, however, the same thing as saying that he would give Constellation the green light.

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And then there's this: the Department of Homeland Security has now stated that they can seize and hold (that's steal in plain Chicago English) iPods, laptops, etc. I'm still p!$$ed off about the sunblock and shampoo that the Transportation Security Agency has stolen from me over the past few years. This is a little too much. Now admittedly the innocent shouldn't have anything to worry about. I'm not smuggling drugs, pot, illicit data, illegal aliens, kiddie porn, endangered species, or weapons.

Still, I resent that my government is willing to treat the innocent on the same level as the guilty--in short, that they are governing according to the lowest common denominator. The assumption should not be, "We have a small number of criminals among the traveling or border-crossing public; therefore, we shall treat everybody as criminals." This is one of those great opportunities for warrants, just cause, etc. Again, I'm not a criminal, but why should I consent to be treated as one? This is the difference between being treated as a citizen and being treated as a subject.