June 16, 2016
The Cast Away Martian
Hollywood's been on a hard science fiction binge of late, to varying degrees of success. The physics in Interstellar is more wishful thinking than science. Gravity turns the laws of orbital mechanics upside down. But The Martian, which maroons Matt Damon on Mars, is basically Apollo 13 and Cast Away (minus most of the angst) set a few years in the future.
In The Martian, man fights nature largely within the limits of current technology and without any bad guys out to purposely harm him. Oh, for a few minutes, they try to make Jeff Daniels into a villain to gin up some conflict. But two scenes later he goes back to playing a perfectly plausible NASA administrator.
The simple yet daunting goal of Damon's Astronaut Mark Watney is to survive until a rescue mission can return to rescue him. The problem is that with current technology, getting from the Earth to Mars takes six months at best. So he's got a lot of problem solving to do. A major motion picture that is about nothing but problem solving is a breath of fresh air.
Like, I'm willing to give the radiation thing a pass, because no manned mission is going to Mars in the first place without solving that vexing problem. They don't solve it in the movie either, they simply ignore it, the same way they mostly ignore the .38 Gs of gravity on Mars.
And unlike Tom Hanks shedding a real fifty pounds for Cast Away, Matt Damon didn't starve himself for the role; a scene toward the end showing us his gaunt frame (face hidden) is almost certainly a body double. He's wearing a space suit most of the time anyway.
Tacking down the Pathfinder lander, plugging it in and powering it on (interplanetary cable standardization at last!) a quarter century after it landed is an eye-roller. Still, I could roll with it just because it's such a cute idea.
And I loved the bit about digging up the RTG (radioisotope thermoelectric generator) and using it as a plutonium-powered handwarmer (accompanied by Damon's wry "Don't try this at home!" narration).
No, what first suspended my suspension of disbelief was the implication (again, in order to create more obstacles to cleverly overcome) that the astronauts had only a single point of direct communication with Earth. In fact, the Mars landers use satellite uplinks to talk to the orbiters, which relay the signals to Earth ground stations.
Likewise, it is beyond belief that an ATV the size of a small truck would be limited to line-of-sight communication. All of the later Apollo missions left working equipment and experiments on the Moon. The vehicle and the habitat would be studded with transponders and satellite dishes humming along long after the humans left.
Equally improbable is that the inner hatch door of a habitat in a near-airless environment wouldn't be sealable and built into the superstructure. To quote NASA, the purpose of such a hatch is to "isolate the airlock from the crew cabin." I bet Astronaut Mark Watney sure wishes he had one of those. They were standard equipment on the Space Shuttle, after all.
The first failure of the NASA resupply rocket was awfully predicable (more conflict creation). While I did appreciate bringing in the Chinese (China should be part of the ISS), the movie ignores that Russia, Japan, and the European Space Agency have comparable launch capabilities, not to mention ULA, Orbital ATK, and SpaceX.
Given the chance to save the day, Elon Musk would be all over this.
And yet I give it a solid A for effort. The Martian isn't one of those movies where the plot holes let all the air out of the suspense. It is a rousing Rubik's Cube of an adventure movie with a bunch of cheating aces tucked up its sleeve. Like the old Star Trek, it's often more interesting for its obvious flaws than for its dramatic successes.
Labels: movie reviews, science, science fiction, space, star wars, technology
June 01, 2015
In the long run . . .
. . . we're all dead, as John Maynard Keynes famously observed. And by "we," I mean "everybody." When the Sun enters its red giant phase, this planet and everything on it will be vaporized.
Don't panic: that won't happen for 7.5 billion years. The problem is, the Sun is a fusion furnace and it's slowly but certainly running out of its primary fuel, hydrogen. As it does, the core shrinks a little and heats up a little.
In turn, the Earth's orbit widens a little. It all balances out--until it doesn't. Solar luminosity has been growing about 10 percent every billion years. But once helium fusion commences, the Sun will get way too hot way too fast.
Life will get uncomfortably warm long before that, in only a few hundred million years. Ironically, what will probably kill us first is the lack of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
That's right. Too little carbon dioxide. As plate tectonics slows down and the Sun heats up, continental erosion and ocean evaporation will accelerate carbonate formation, locking away more and more carbon dioxide.
Including us. Not to mention that no more green plants means no more oxygen. So forget about breathing. But hey, we've got a half-billion years to go! For once, we can definitely call it somebody's else's problem.
Don't panic: that won't happen for 7.5 billion years. The problem is, the Sun is a fusion furnace and it's slowly but certainly running out of its primary fuel, hydrogen. As it does, the core shrinks a little and heats up a little.
In turn, the Earth's orbit widens a little. It all balances out--until it doesn't. Solar luminosity has been growing about 10 percent every billion years. But once helium fusion commences, the Sun will get way too hot way too fast.
 |
| Courtesy Wikipedia Commons. |
Life will get uncomfortably warm long before that, in only a few hundred million years. Ironically, what will probably kill us first is the lack of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
That's right. Too little carbon dioxide. As plate tectonics slows down and the Sun heats up, continental erosion and ocean evaporation will accelerate carbonate formation, locking away more and more carbon dioxide.
So as the Sun slowly brightens, carbon dioxide is sequestered into limestone. Some 600 to 800 million years from now, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations should fall below 10 parts per million, a threshold where plants can no longer photosynthesize. This process might wipe out plants and the animals that depend on them.
Including us. Not to mention that no more green plants means no more oxygen. So forget about breathing. But hey, we've got a half-billion years to go! For once, we can definitely call it somebody's else's problem.
Labels: deep thoughts, science, space
March 16, 2015
Walk on water
When I was growing up, the space race competed with underwater sea adventures for gorgeous photo spreads in National Geographic (which nobody read for the articles). Jacques Cousteau was as big a star as the astronauts and took prettier pictures.
As with Stanley Kubrick's space station in 2001: A Space Odyssey, everybody knew that we were going to be living in cities at the bottom of the ocean any day now (because, you know, population).
Alas, by the time we made it to the Moon, real space exploration had grown ho-hum (sans white-knuckle disasters like Apollo 13). Living in space turns out to be pretty inconvenient. And mostly good for making cool YouTube videos.
The same goes for living under water. Somewhere along the evolutionary path, we homo sapiens got rid of gills, and good riddance.
But as it turns out, millions of people are living at the bottom of the ocean. The trick, you see, is first to raise the bottom of the ocean to sea level. That makes it a lot easier.
Over the past century, almost one hundred square miles of Tokyo Bay have been "reclaimed." I lived for a year in a housing project on reclaimed land in Osaka Bay, also home to Kansai International Airport, built entirely on a man-made island.
In Japan, it's actually more economically, politically, and environmentally efficient to carve up a mountain and dump it into the ocean than to move in the opposite direction, or push all urban development everywhere down to the water's edge.
The Tohoku earthquake has taken land reclamation in a whole new level. It's been four years since. The rubble has been removed, leaving behind empty fields and vacant lots where towns once stood. The question is how to prevent the "next time."
On 11 March 2011, 250 miles of coastline shifted up to eight feet eastward and dropped over two feet. Most harbor seawalls failed. Entire fishing villages were washed away. Fukushima Daiichi was swamped, its backup generators destroyed.
It soon became obvious that building sea walls able to defend against any possible tsunami was a fool's errand. And if built, the high walls would turn the place into a prison (which remains a problem even with the sea walls that are being built).
As a result, two basic approaches are being taken: 1) relocating retail and residential communities further inland; 2) a combination of sea walls and raising the ground level (click to enlarge).
Following the earthquake, parts of many coastal towns ended up underwater at high tide (and people complain about their mortgages being "underwater"). A good part of what was Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, will rise forty feet.
This once quaint fishing village now looks like a science fiction movie set: a forest of massive conveyor belts moving 20,000 cubic meters of soil a day. If you're looking for "shovel-ready projects," the shovels don't get any bigger than this.
Elaine Kurtenbach describes the government-industry complex that has been churning along now for half a century:
Rikuzentakata won't be going to the mountain; the mountain is coming to Rikuzentakata. Literally.
The Book of Isaiah sums up the process very well:
As with Stanley Kubrick's space station in 2001: A Space Odyssey, everybody knew that we were going to be living in cities at the bottom of the ocean any day now (because, you know, population).
 |
| As useless as the ISS (and more dangerous) but at least cheaper. |
Alas, by the time we made it to the Moon, real space exploration had grown ho-hum (sans white-knuckle disasters like Apollo 13). Living in space turns out to be pretty inconvenient. And mostly good for making cool YouTube videos.
The same goes for living under water. Somewhere along the evolutionary path, we homo sapiens got rid of gills, and good riddance.
But as it turns out, millions of people are living at the bottom of the ocean. The trick, you see, is first to raise the bottom of the ocean to sea level. That makes it a lot easier.
Over the past century, almost one hundred square miles of Tokyo Bay have been "reclaimed." I lived for a year in a housing project on reclaimed land in Osaka Bay, also home to Kansai International Airport, built entirely on a man-made island.
In Japan, it's actually more economically, politically, and environmentally efficient to carve up a mountain and dump it into the ocean than to move in the opposite direction, or push all urban development everywhere down to the water's edge.
The Tohoku earthquake has taken land reclamation in a whole new level. It's been four years since. The rubble has been removed, leaving behind empty fields and vacant lots where towns once stood. The question is how to prevent the "next time."
On 11 March 2011, 250 miles of coastline shifted up to eight feet eastward and dropped over two feet. Most harbor seawalls failed. Entire fishing villages were washed away. Fukushima Daiichi was swamped, its backup generators destroyed.
It soon became obvious that building sea walls able to defend against any possible tsunami was a fool's errand. And if built, the high walls would turn the place into a prison (which remains a problem even with the sea walls that are being built).
As a result, two basic approaches are being taken: 1) relocating retail and residential communities further inland; 2) a combination of sea walls and raising the ground level (click to enlarge).
 |
| Moving inland and higher up (courtesy Japan Guide). |
Following the earthquake, parts of many coastal towns ended up underwater at high tide (and people complain about their mortgages being "underwater"). A good part of what was Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, will rise forty feet.
 |
| Another way to stand on higher ground (courtesy Japan Guide). |
This once quaint fishing village now looks like a science fiction movie set: a forest of massive conveyor belts moving 20,000 cubic meters of soil a day. If you're looking for "shovel-ready projects," the shovels don't get any bigger than this.
Elaine Kurtenbach describes the government-industry complex that has been churning along now for half a century:
Pouring concrete for public works is a staple strategy for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its backers in big business and construction, and local officials tend to go along with such plans.
Rikuzentakata won't be going to the mountain; the mountain is coming to Rikuzentakata. Literally.
 |
| Making the mountains low (courtesy Japan Guide). |
The Book of Isaiah sums up the process very well:
Every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain.
Labels: economics, environmentalism, geography, geology, japan, science, space, tech history, technology, tohoku earthquake
November 17, 2014
The air that we breathe
Last month, Google executive Alan Eustace made the highest sky dive ever, jumping from an altitude of 135,890 feet and breaking the sound barrier in the process. At 24 miles high, the sky above is black, the curve of the Earth is visible, and the near-vacuum and extreme temperatures requires a space suit.
And yet he was only a third of the way to the official edge of "space": 62 miles. It's another 40 miles to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). And then 100 miles on top of that to get to the ISS.
That may seem like a long way to go. It's not. The Earth's atmosphere is ridiculously thin. The diameter of the Earth is 8000 miles. A good pair of lungs will take you up another three miles. If a commercial jet aircraft--cruising at seven to eight miles--depressurizes, you'll need that emergency oxygen mask to stay alive.
If we generously define the atmosphere as ending at LEO and compare the planet to a baseball, the atmosphere would be thinner than a dime. Applying this analogy to breathable air only, the atmosphere is thinner than a sheet of paper.
Talk apples instead of baseballs, and the Earth's atmosphere is the mere skin of the fruit. This strikes me as a bad design flaw in the inhabitable planet design spec, though if the atmosphere reached any higher, nothing in LEO would stay in orbit for long.
This "skin of life" reinforces what a strange creature gravity is, simultaneously the strongest force in the universe--that can crush a star into a black hole--and the weakest. The paradox is so profound that physicists seriously theorize that gravity leaking into alternate universes saps its actual strength.
But gravity alone isn't enough to keep an atmosphere down on the farm. A small, rocky planet requires a molten core to power plate tectonics and a magnetic field.
The magnetic field forms radiation belts that deflect the solar wind around the atmosphere (the solar wind collides with the atmosphere at the poles and creates auroras).
Mars, by contrast, lacks both volcanic activity and a strong magnetic field. Gases stripped away by the solar wind aren't easily replaced. So sans the above, terraforming Mars is a lost cause.
The Saturnian moon of Titan is shielded by the magnetosphere of its mother planet. Locked in a close orbit to Saturn, tidal forces heat Titan's icy interior, creating an atmosphere denser at its surface than Earth's.
Titan's atmosphere is 98 percent nitrogen, its lakes liquid methane (-179 degree centigrade). But Titan could become beach-front property when the Sun enters its red giant phase five billion years from now and cooks the Earth to a cinder.
Though a gamma-ray burst could do us in long before then. Or a really big asteroid. Closer to home, there's always the Yellowstone Caldera.
It's a miracle we wake up every morning still breathing. The improbabilities of dying are balanced out by the improbabilities of existing in the first place. Like Dr. Who's Clara Oswald, Earth is, for the time being, the "impossible girl."
For all we know, the gods could get restless tomorrow and knock over our beautiful house of cards and play pinochle on our snouts. Which brings to mind the last scene from Cabin in the Woods:
I'm with Marty. The only regret I have about the world ending one day is that I (probably) won't be there to see it. Throughout Buffy and Angel, Joss Whedon kept trying to end the world as we know it (an underlying flaw in both series). In Cabin in the Woods, the monsters take over and the world ends for good. Finally!
But to conclude on a more tuneful note:
And yet he was only a third of the way to the official edge of "space": 62 miles. It's another 40 miles to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). And then 100 miles on top of that to get to the ISS.
That may seem like a long way to go. It's not. The Earth's atmosphere is ridiculously thin. The diameter of the Earth is 8000 miles. A good pair of lungs will take you up another three miles. If a commercial jet aircraft--cruising at seven to eight miles--depressurizes, you'll need that emergency oxygen mask to stay alive.
If we generously define the atmosphere as ending at LEO and compare the planet to a baseball, the atmosphere would be thinner than a dime. Applying this analogy to breathable air only, the atmosphere is thinner than a sheet of paper.
Talk apples instead of baseballs, and the Earth's atmosphere is the mere skin of the fruit. This strikes me as a bad design flaw in the inhabitable planet design spec, though if the atmosphere reached any higher, nothing in LEO would stay in orbit for long.
This "skin of life" reinforces what a strange creature gravity is, simultaneously the strongest force in the universe--that can crush a star into a black hole--and the weakest. The paradox is so profound that physicists seriously theorize that gravity leaking into alternate universes saps its actual strength.
But gravity alone isn't enough to keep an atmosphere down on the farm. A small, rocky planet requires a molten core to power plate tectonics and a magnetic field.
The magnetic field forms radiation belts that deflect the solar wind around the atmosphere (the solar wind collides with the atmosphere at the poles and creates auroras).
The Saturnian moon of Titan is shielded by the magnetosphere of its mother planet. Locked in a close orbit to Saturn, tidal forces heat Titan's icy interior, creating an atmosphere denser at its surface than Earth's.
Titan's atmosphere is 98 percent nitrogen, its lakes liquid methane (-179 degree centigrade). But Titan could become beach-front property when the Sun enters its red giant phase five billion years from now and cooks the Earth to a cinder.
Though a gamma-ray burst could do us in long before then. Or a really big asteroid. Closer to home, there's always the Yellowstone Caldera.
It's a miracle we wake up every morning still breathing. The improbabilities of dying are balanced out by the improbabilities of existing in the first place. Like Dr. Who's Clara Oswald, Earth is, for the time being, the "impossible girl."
For all we know, the gods could get restless tomorrow and knock over our beautiful house of cards and play pinochle on our snouts. Which brings to mind the last scene from Cabin in the Woods:
Dana: I'm so sorry I almost shot you. I probably wouldn't have.
Marty: Hey, shh, no. I totally get it. I'm sorry I let you get attacked by a werewolf and then ended the world. [incredulous] Giant evil gods.
Dana: I wish I could have seen them.
Marty: I know. That would have been a fun weekend.
I'm with Marty. The only regret I have about the world ending one day is that I (probably) won't be there to see it. Throughout Buffy and Angel, Joss Whedon kept trying to end the world as we know it (an underlying flaw in both series). In Cabin in the Woods, the monsters take over and the world ends for good. Finally!
But to conclude on a more tuneful note:
Labels: buffy, deep thoughts, movies, science, space
July 28, 2014
Exploring Europa
A fascinating presentation from NASA TV.
Though nobody at NASA is supposed to say so, this is an excellent argument for why manned space flight is an (almost) total waste of money. Russia charges $70 million a head for its ISS taxi service. NASA could finance a Europa mission for the cost of shipping a couple of astronauts to the ISS.
For the price of the ISS itself, NASA could have sent 100 Volkswagen-sized Curiosity rovers to Mars. All of the truly useful people at NASA work at JPL.
Though nobody at NASA is supposed to say so, this is an excellent argument for why manned space flight is an (almost) total waste of money. Russia charges $70 million a head for its ISS taxi service. NASA could finance a Europa mission for the cost of shipping a couple of astronauts to the ISS.
For the price of the ISS itself, NASA could have sent 100 Volkswagen-sized Curiosity rovers to Mars. All of the truly useful people at NASA work at JPL.
Labels: nasa, science, space, technology
December 16, 2013
The bright side of the Moon
Actually, the far side of the Moon is no darker than the near side. In astronomical terms, the word would have originally meant "unexplored." (And then there's that more well known Dark Side of the Moon back here on Earth.)
Another modern urban myth is that we have the Space Program to thank for Tang, Teflon, and Velcro. All three predate NASA. But we can credit Project Apollo for a fantastic illustration of what defines a true introvert.
It comes from Al Worden, the Apollo 15 command module pilot. XKCD calculated that as he orbited the far side of the Moon, he became one of handful of men who've been not only the furthest away from human civilization, but from any other human being.
Of the experience Worden recalled:
Introverts don't necessarily mind talking to people, but they loath being compelled to talk to people on terms not of their own choosing.
Another modern urban myth is that we have the Space Program to thank for Tang, Teflon, and Velcro. All three predate NASA. But we can credit Project Apollo for a fantastic illustration of what defines a true introvert.
It comes from Al Worden, the Apollo 15 command module pilot. XKCD calculated that as he orbited the far side of the Moon, he became one of handful of men who've been not only the furthest away from human civilization, but from any other human being.
Of the experience Worden recalled:
There's a thing about being alone and there's a thing about being lonely, and they're two different things. I was alone but I was not lonely. My background was as a fighter pilot in the air force, then as a test pilot--and that was mostly in fighter airplanes--so I was very used to being by myself. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I didn't have to talk to Dave and Jim any more. On the backside of the Moon, I didn't even have to talk to Houston and that was the best part of the flight.
Introverts don't necessarily mind talking to people, but they loath being compelled to talk to people on terms not of their own choosing.
Labels: introversion, space
October 28, 2013
Planetes
Gravity is garnering a lot of kudos as the most realistic space movie made to date, though the script still has our heroic pair violating several fundamental laws of physics to make the plot work. As real astronaut Garrett Reisman graciously concedes,
The same can be said about Planetes (2003), one of best ever "near-future" hard-SF anime series. It also involves space debris, in this case a crew of astronaut janitors responsible for cleaning up the dangerous junk zipping around in low Earth orbit.
The first half of the series follows rookie Ai Tanabe as she joins Debris Section, under the tutelage of the young and brash "Hachi" Hoshino. These procedural episodes are some of the best, made all the better by interesting characters and attention to accuracy.
In a way, Planetes, is scientifically honest enough to argue against the idealism of its own premise: showing a child raised in a low-gravity environment to frail to ever return to Earth, and the debilitating effects of long-term exposure to radiation.
The series then gets taken over by Hachi's efforts to qualify for a 2001-style exploratory mission to Jupiter, and a bunch of economic terrorists determined to sabotage the project.
The latter of these two storylines is the weakest. The litanies of zero-sum, socialist complaints about poverty quickly become tiresome, though in the same way that activists of this sort always wear out their rhetorical welcome. So maybe it's on purpose.
In the end, the political arm of the movement sells out the militant arm in exchange for a legislative pat on the head. I did find that totally believable.
The former storyline, about Hachi joining the crew of the Von Braun, is also punishing, except here the writers are taking seriously Kurt Vonnegut's advice for creating compelling dramatic fiction:
In the process, Hachi becomes a monomaniacal astronaut jerk, and inevitably ends up in a life-or-death struggle with a monomaniacal terrorist jerk. That these are realistic depictions of human nature doesn't make them any more pleasant to watch.
But stick with it. In the final episodes, Hachi's and Ai's character arcs fully develop, intersect, and pay off big time, giving Planetes one of the most rewarding endings--while not losing anything in terms of authenticity--of any anime series.
Hachi's eventual change of heart and reformed outlook on life is real and earned.
In purely scientific terms, Planetes suffers from some of the same technical quibbles as Gravity: the orbital changes required to complete their missions would be impossible with the technology on hand. Orbiting a planet is not like flying a plane.
The more glaring anachronisms include the chain-smoking Fee Carmichael (her nicotine addiction does make for funny comic relief). And a large lunar base would be completely buried to shield it against cosmic rays, solar flares, and micrometeoroids.
But when it comes to science fiction on the big screen and small, making a good-faith effort to get things right counts for a lot. The producers of Planetes paid attention to their JAXA advisors. In that light, the science in this science fiction gets an "A" for effort.
The inaccuracies were done to help advance the plot or to add drama to the film which is exactly the artistic license we should be willing to grant the filmmakers. This is entertainment, not a documentary.
The same can be said about Planetes (2003), one of best ever "near-future" hard-SF anime series. It also involves space debris, in this case a crew of astronaut janitors responsible for cleaning up the dangerous junk zipping around in low Earth orbit.
The first half of the series follows rookie Ai Tanabe as she joins Debris Section, under the tutelage of the young and brash "Hachi" Hoshino. These procedural episodes are some of the best, made all the better by interesting characters and attention to accuracy.
In a way, Planetes, is scientifically honest enough to argue against the idealism of its own premise: showing a child raised in a low-gravity environment to frail to ever return to Earth, and the debilitating effects of long-term exposure to radiation.
The series then gets taken over by Hachi's efforts to qualify for a 2001-style exploratory mission to Jupiter, and a bunch of economic terrorists determined to sabotage the project.
The latter of these two storylines is the weakest. The litanies of zero-sum, socialist complaints about poverty quickly become tiresome, though in the same way that activists of this sort always wear out their rhetorical welcome. So maybe it's on purpose.
In the end, the political arm of the movement sells out the militant arm in exchange for a legislative pat on the head. I did find that totally believable.
The former storyline, about Hachi joining the crew of the Von Braun, is also punishing, except here the writers are taking seriously Kurt Vonnegut's advice for creating compelling dramatic fiction:
Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them, in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
In the process, Hachi becomes a monomaniacal astronaut jerk, and inevitably ends up in a life-or-death struggle with a monomaniacal terrorist jerk. That these are realistic depictions of human nature doesn't make them any more pleasant to watch.
But stick with it. In the final episodes, Hachi's and Ai's character arcs fully develop, intersect, and pay off big time, giving Planetes one of the most rewarding endings--while not losing anything in terms of authenticity--of any anime series.
Hachi's eventual change of heart and reformed outlook on life is real and earned.
In purely scientific terms, Planetes suffers from some of the same technical quibbles as Gravity: the orbital changes required to complete their missions would be impossible with the technology on hand. Orbiting a planet is not like flying a plane.
The more glaring anachronisms include the chain-smoking Fee Carmichael (her nicotine addiction does make for funny comic relief). And a large lunar base would be completely buried to shield it against cosmic rays, solar flares, and micrometeoroids.
But when it comes to science fiction on the big screen and small, making a good-faith effort to get things right counts for a lot. The producers of Planetes paid attention to their JAXA advisors. In that light, the science in this science fiction gets an "A" for effort.
Labels: japanese tv, japanese tv reviews, personal favs, science, science fiction, space, technology
April 22, 2013
Illuminating differences
Nighttime satellite pictures of the the north-south divide in Korea reveal the stark contrast between a first-world, technologically-developed country and a medieval totalitarian state.
On the other hand, this ISS photo of Berlin tells an interesting story of technological choices. In this case, sodium vapor street lamps in what was East Berlin versus mercury vapor in what was West Berlin.
According to a commenter on Tyler Cowen's blog, after reunification, the existing lighting infrastructure was maintained (quoting from a German government website) "to enhance orientation by neighborhood."
Japan, on the other hand, uses a lot of fluorescent street lamps in residential areas. They don't so much light up a street as keep it from being pitch black, a commentary on expectations of public safety, perhaps.
Although these quaint fluorescents are giving way to LEDs (scroll down to the bottom here for a comparison). In Clannad: After Story, Tomoya's first job as an electrician is repairing fluorescent street lamps.
On the other hand, this ISS photo of Berlin tells an interesting story of technological choices. In this case, sodium vapor street lamps in what was East Berlin versus mercury vapor in what was West Berlin.
According to a commenter on Tyler Cowen's blog, after reunification, the existing lighting infrastructure was maintained (quoting from a German government website) "to enhance orientation by neighborhood."
Japan, on the other hand, uses a lot of fluorescent street lamps in residential areas. They don't so much light up a street as keep it from being pitch black, a commentary on expectations of public safety, perhaps.
Although these quaint fluorescents are giving way to LEDs (scroll down to the bottom here for a comparison). In Clannad: After Story, Tomoya's first job as an electrician is repairing fluorescent street lamps.
Labels: japan, social studies, space, technology
April 01, 2013
Barenaked Ladies in space
The International Space Station is the best waste of money any bunch of governments (the U.S., Russia, Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency) has ever come up with. And perhaps the most harmless accomplishment of international diplomacy in history.
Though the challenge of safely deorbiting all 500 tons of the ISS when it reaches its end-of-mission may put that achievement in jeopardy.
In the meantime, the ISS keeps armies of bureaucrats busy not bothering the rest of us. Now, you could argue that our best and brightest should be focusing their attention on more pressing problems than circling the globe 250 miles above the Earth every 90 minutes.
Except that when it comes to politics, as William F. Buckley famously observed about whom he'd actually prefer to be governed by, putting the best and brightest in charge tends to just makes things worse in more ingenious and complicated ways.
Paradoxically, the utter uselessness of the ISS turns out to be its greatest strength. Government agencies around the world continue to pump gobs of money into the thing with barely the glimmer of a political agenda in sight. It's the biggest vanity project in history.
Well, except for not allowing China into the clubhouse (dumb). And Russia's very successful agenda is siphoning off gobs of money from the U.S. Treasury in exchange for ferrying human beings up there.
But the true (and mostly hidden) cost of the ISS is all the real science NASA has cannibalized for decades to keep this roadshow going. Now and then, though, the ISS folks dream up a new and interesting way to extravagantly waste money that just make you say, "Awww."
So, yeah, I know. This is going to sound like a joke. But it's not! It not only sounds pretty good but is quite real: ISS Commander Chris Hadfield does a duet-from-outer-space with Canadian alternative rock band Barenaked Ladies.
Hadfield is one of those Jacks-of-all-trades who's a master of all of them. Good grief, he just doesn't sing, he sings well. He plays in a band when he's not doing the astronaut thing. He's great on TV. And his Twitter feed is definitely worth following. Thanks, Canada!
I do have to wonder how they overcame the half-second latency in the relay to the TDRS satellites in geosynchronous orbit and down to the terrestrial links. My theory is that Hafield played to a local recording, which was then used as the beat track in the studio.
Then they remixed the whole thing in post. At any rate, as I said, it's a nice song. And it only cost $150 billion dollars to make!
Though the challenge of safely deorbiting all 500 tons of the ISS when it reaches its end-of-mission may put that achievement in jeopardy.
In the meantime, the ISS keeps armies of bureaucrats busy not bothering the rest of us. Now, you could argue that our best and brightest should be focusing their attention on more pressing problems than circling the globe 250 miles above the Earth every 90 minutes.
Except that when it comes to politics, as William F. Buckley famously observed about whom he'd actually prefer to be governed by, putting the best and brightest in charge tends to just makes things worse in more ingenious and complicated ways.
Paradoxically, the utter uselessness of the ISS turns out to be its greatest strength. Government agencies around the world continue to pump gobs of money into the thing with barely the glimmer of a political agenda in sight. It's the biggest vanity project in history.
Well, except for not allowing China into the clubhouse (dumb). And Russia's very successful agenda is siphoning off gobs of money from the U.S. Treasury in exchange for ferrying human beings up there.
But the true (and mostly hidden) cost of the ISS is all the real science NASA has cannibalized for decades to keep this roadshow going. Now and then, though, the ISS folks dream up a new and interesting way to extravagantly waste money that just make you say, "Awww."
So, yeah, I know. This is going to sound like a joke. But it's not! It not only sounds pretty good but is quite real: ISS Commander Chris Hadfield does a duet-from-outer-space with Canadian alternative rock band Barenaked Ladies.
Hadfield is one of those Jacks-of-all-trades who's a master of all of them. Good grief, he just doesn't sing, he sings well. He plays in a band when he's not doing the astronaut thing. He's great on TV. And his Twitter feed is definitely worth following. Thanks, Canada!
I do have to wonder how they overcame the half-second latency in the relay to the TDRS satellites in geosynchronous orbit and down to the terrestrial links. My theory is that Hafield played to a local recording, which was then used as the beat track in the studio.
Then they remixed the whole thing in post. At any rate, as I said, it's a nice song. And it only cost $150 billion dollars to make!
Labels: music, pop culture, space, technology
August 13, 2012
Profits and payloads
The International Space Station is finally being put to practical use. NASA's Commercial Crew Program has awarded contracts to Sierra Nevada Corporation, SpaceX, and Boeing to develop commercial systems to ferry astronauts to low Earth orbit.
The only thing to go to in low Earth orbit is the ISS (other than the Hubble servicing missions, which actually did have great scientific value).
NASA should have headed in this direction a decade ago. But as Jim Muncy quips, "Democrats don't think that capitalism works within the atmosphere, and Republicans apparently don't think it works above it." Well, better late than never.
Because the commercial route is the only sensible way to go for manned spaceflight.
If you tune into NASA TV before and during an unmanned space mission, you'll see scientists and engineers talking about what the program is supposed to accomplish, how it will get done, and how success will be measured in clear, empirical terms.
I've never seen anything like that with the ISS, other than billion-dollar Show & Tell sessions with elementary school classes. Forget science. The State Department should take over the ISS, as it seems a decent way to foster international relations.
Though the very healthy vig Russia now takes for doing the "fostering" was a big motivation in getting the private sector back into the game. And who knows what the Russians will do once those millions stop flowing? I recommend inviting the Chinese.
So we return to my original point.
Newt Gingrich was the most cogent of the goofball Republican candidates, but his "Man on the Moon" flights of fancy were just plain nuts. He couldn't even come up with a lame scientific reason for going there, like building a big radio telescope.
The same goes for Mars.
To people who rhapsodize about "colonizing Mars," I recommend they colonize Antarctica first, as it's a billion times more friendly to human habitation. Or to get the full experience, camp out near one of the old uranium mines around Moab, Utah.
Minus the vegetation, Moab does kind of look like Mars.
Mars doesn't have a molten core and no magnetic field. The solar wind strips away the atmosphere and cosmic rays bombard the surface. You'd have to live underground to shield yourself from the radiation. How is that better than looking at an HD screen?
The worst place on Earth beats anywhere else in the solar system by light years.
If "discovering life" is the goal, Robert Park is exactly correct. You can't put human beings into any environment where you hope to find life without irrevocably contaminating it. Land a man on Mars and we will indeed colonize it--with E. coli.
About 100 trillion bacteria live in and on every healthy human being.
Unlike the science done by robots like Curiosity, NASA's role in human space exploration has come and gone. The same way trappers and traders "opened" the American West after Lewis & Clark, it's time for capitalism to again go where no man has gone before.
The only thing to go to in low Earth orbit is the ISS (other than the Hubble servicing missions, which actually did have great scientific value).
NASA should have headed in this direction a decade ago. But as Jim Muncy quips, "Democrats don't think that capitalism works within the atmosphere, and Republicans apparently don't think it works above it." Well, better late than never.
Because the commercial route is the only sensible way to go for manned spaceflight.
If you tune into NASA TV before and during an unmanned space mission, you'll see scientists and engineers talking about what the program is supposed to accomplish, how it will get done, and how success will be measured in clear, empirical terms.
I've never seen anything like that with the ISS, other than billion-dollar Show & Tell sessions with elementary school classes. Forget science. The State Department should take over the ISS, as it seems a decent way to foster international relations.
Though the very healthy vig Russia now takes for doing the "fostering" was a big motivation in getting the private sector back into the game. And who knows what the Russians will do once those millions stop flowing? I recommend inviting the Chinese.
So we return to my original point.
Newt Gingrich was the most cogent of the goofball Republican candidates, but his "Man on the Moon" flights of fancy were just plain nuts. He couldn't even come up with a lame scientific reason for going there, like building a big radio telescope.
The same goes for Mars.
To people who rhapsodize about "colonizing Mars," I recommend they colonize Antarctica first, as it's a billion times more friendly to human habitation. Or to get the full experience, camp out near one of the old uranium mines around Moab, Utah.
Minus the vegetation, Moab does kind of look like Mars.
Mars doesn't have a molten core and no magnetic field. The solar wind strips away the atmosphere and cosmic rays bombard the surface. You'd have to live underground to shield yourself from the radiation. How is that better than looking at an HD screen?
The worst place on Earth beats anywhere else in the solar system by light years.
If "discovering life" is the goal, Robert Park is exactly correct. You can't put human beings into any environment where you hope to find life without irrevocably contaminating it. Land a man on Mars and we will indeed colonize it--with E. coli.
About 100 trillion bacteria live in and on every healthy human being.
Unlike the science done by robots like Curiosity, NASA's role in human space exploration has come and gone. The same way trappers and traders "opened" the American West after Lewis & Clark, it's time for capitalism to again go where no man has gone before.
Labels: nasa, robots, science, space, technology
May 31, 2010
A shuttle by any other name
The name of the space shuttle Atlantis has always irked me, as NASA could surely come up with a better name for a space vehicle than that of an imaginary underwater city. But now, at the end of its operational life, thanks to APOD and Wikipedia, I've discovered that the source of my irk is largely misplaced.
Of course, the antecedent is still there, but I suppose it's like being given the goofy name of a venerable ancestor instead of your parents making it up out of whole cloth (though Frank Zappa did come up with some doozies: Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan and Diva Thin Muffin).
The first operation shuttle was going to be called Constitution, but was ultimately named for another fictitious creation: Enterprise. It flew as a glider but never into space, so maybe it makes for an appropriate metaphor.
I attended a lecture by Leonard Nimoy in the mid-70s (the dry spell before the first movie), and he was quite proud of the shuttle's designation. Deservedly so. Who could have imagined that three seasons of such campily earnest science fiction could have inspired so many (including me)?
Eight ships of the Continental and U.S. navies have shared the name. It currently belong to the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN-65).
And I have to admit that I entirely approve of naming the Apollo 10 Lunar Module Snoopy and the Command Module Charlie Brown.
The RV Atlantis was the first research vessel operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Several ships are named after it, as well as the space shuttle Atlantis.
Of course, the antecedent is still there, but I suppose it's like being given the goofy name of a venerable ancestor instead of your parents making it up out of whole cloth (though Frank Zappa did come up with some doozies: Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan and Diva Thin Muffin).
The first operation shuttle was going to be called Constitution, but was ultimately named for another fictitious creation: Enterprise. It flew as a glider but never into space, so maybe it makes for an appropriate metaphor.
I attended a lecture by Leonard Nimoy in the mid-70s (the dry spell before the first movie), and he was quite proud of the shuttle's designation. Deservedly so. Who could have imagined that three seasons of such campily earnest science fiction could have inspired so many (including me)?
Eight ships of the Continental and U.S. navies have shared the name. It currently belong to the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN-65).
And I have to admit that I entirely approve of naming the Apollo 10 Lunar Module Snoopy and the Command Module Charlie Brown.
Labels: annoying stuff, pop culture, science, space, star trek