Peter Hodges

Various nations have pledged a visit to the moon within the coming years, and it will only be a matter of time before someone lays a claim to ownership. In an article published by CNET News, this will be a very valid question in our near future as NASA, Israel and China all have their eyes on some rather scenic real estate.

How will they decide who owns what? I think Eddie Izzard said it best.

We saw Russia lay claim to the arctic with a ceremonial flag planting and I can only see this kind of saber rattling causing even more strife as habitable land and resources start to run out with over population. Perhaps Robert Heinlein was right and the moon will be a place we send all our degenerates. She will certainly be a very harsh mistress.

This video follows the last four years of the Cassini mission and is what I would describe as incredible. If only we could see this stuff with our own eyes through space travel and exploration.

Obama in January.

Obama in August.

In January, it was kosher to pull money from the space program to fund schools in the inner city. After all, he had to distinguish himself from his fellow Democrats by appealing to the one demographic most likely to give him an edge in the elections–inner cities.

Quoted from the January position paper:

Obama will support the development of this vital new platform to ensure that the United States’ reliance on foreign space capabilities is limited to the minimum possible time period.

In the wake of nationalistic pride generated by the Chinese hosting the Olympics, the issue of the space race has once again come to the forefront. China’s spoken intent is to put a man back on the moon by 2020. The USA performed the same feat with less advanced technology, going from space in 1959 to a moon landing in 1969. With China’s resource and technology base, isn’t it fair to assume a moon landing within twelve years?

Quote from the August position paper:

Speeding the Next-Generation Vehicle: Obama will expedite the development of the Shuttle’s successor systems for carrying Americans to space so we can minimize the gap. This will be difficult; underfunding by the Bush administration has left NASA with limited flexibility to accelerate the development of the new systems.

Obama accuses the Bush administration of underfunding the space program. To make that statement truly accurate, say: “Bush and the Democratically controlled Congress have hamstrung the space program with successive budget cuts.” I find it odd that Obama accuses Bush of that, when he was going to do the same thing, as illustrated in this education plan [emphasis mine]:

Barack Obama’s early education and K-12 plan package costs about $18 billion per year.  He will maintain fiscal responsibility and prevent an increase in the deficit by offsetting cuts and revenue sources in other parts of the government.  The early education plan will be paid for by delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five years, using purchase cards and negotiating power of the government to reduce costs of standardized procurement, auctioning surplus federal property, and reducing the erroneous payments identified by the Government Accountability Office, and closing the CEO pay deductibility loophole.  The rest of the plan will be funded using a small portion of the savings associated with fighting the war in Iraq.

Which is it? Are we expediting the new crew vehicle for the space program, or are we delaying it five years in the name of an education program?

Now that Obama is mainstream, language that touches even tangentially on Welfare is going to be a sore sport for swing voters in typically red states. Obama must do something to counter the Chinese ambitions for their own space program, so he releases a slightly modified position paper. 

Neither one of these position papers amounts to anything more than arm waving. How is Mr. Obama going to expedite the new crew vehicle? Can he promise the American public that our space infrastructure won’t rot away while we funnel money into enabling the poor to stay poor? What will he say when our skilled aeronautical engineers and technicians are laid off from NASA, and they find themselves paid high salaries in China, Japan, and Russia?

Quite frankly, our lack of manned space delivery systems couldn’t come at a worse time.  Who knew that we would be hitch hiking to LEO in a Russian space capsule that uses forty year old technology?

First of all, these will be posted by Kate, even though I (Pete) wrote it. Damn all Wordpress upgrades, anyway.

West Helena, Arkansas is under martial law. Well, not really. But they do have a 24-hour curfew in effect to curb rampant violence in their town. Police officers are reportedly carrying all types of great murder machine hardware, including M-16s, shotguns, and night vision scopes. Is this one of those cases when I should haul out the old “those who trade security…” quote? Based on what I’ve heard of the situation here, I think not. The police are doing what they can to restore order, and I applaud the steps they’re taking to do so. Contrariwise, if this is a power play by the city council and the reports of violence are exaggerated, they should be removed from office for gross misuse of power. I suppose history (and the media) will be the judge here.

Is China cheating in the olympics? The right-leaning American Thinker blog thinks that they are. My wife, a massive fan of women’s gymnastics, pointed out that despite the age of the competitors, they did at least possess the skill set to win a gold medal. Whether the smaller size/weight of the Chinese gymnasts is a factor (particularly on the beam competition) is a fairly moot point now. Other allegations by other countries are starting to hit the mainstream media. Who can say how this end up for China?

Ain’t It Cool News recently pulled a negative review of the upcoming Clone Wars animated Star Wars movie at the demands of Lucasfilm. Say what you will about journalistic integrity (something I’ve said before in regards to reviews from AICN), the review sounds extremely passionate. I was not alone among my friends and cohorts in having high expectations for the movie. Seeing that a true fan thinks so little of it makes feel like Jar Jar Binks just punted me in the nut bag.

Last is our token space advocacy story. It appears that solar systems analogous to ours are somewhat rare, with a high incidence of gas giants in close orbit around their suns.This calls into question our current theories on planetary formation and provides interesting speculation on whether or not worlds depicted in science fiction (Yavin 4 in Star Wars or Allen Steel’s Coyote) could readily exist. I’d be interested to know if Kepler’s law still holds up in the wake of all these discoveries.

NASA scientists recently briefed the White House on a discovery made by the Phoenix lander. The blogosphere and editorial pages across the Western world were rife with speculation–had life been discovered? Was there the potential for life? Was there evidence (through spectroscopic analysis) of complex organic molecules?

In the end, it was the discovery of perchlorate that was supposedly so momentous. 

Perchlorate is an anion with four oxygen atoms and one chlorine atom. The chlorine atom has an oxidation state of +7 in order to accommodate the the demands of bonding to the oxygen atoms. Despite its high oxidation state, it is actually quite stable due to two things–one is that in that oxidation state with four oxygen atoms, the chlorine is considered to be a “closed shell,” which lends stability to an otherwise potentially unstable species. The other is that the perchlorate is likely stabilized by several “resonance” forms, in which the the electron density of the covalent bonds is distributed more or less equally across the entire molecule.

Perchlorate is typically formed in areas devoid of water that have a high salt content, such as deserts or dry lake beds. It can be formed industrially by reacting chlorine gas with a strong base. Perchlorate can be used in rocket fuel and fireworks, due to its high oxidation potential and its relative stability. My first thought when I heard the the Phoenix lander had found perchlorate was that somehow, the lander had contaminated the sample site. However, NASA claims that the Phoenix lander used a pure hydrazine fuel (two amine groups linked by a single N-N bond), which rules out contamination. 

Are the conditions proper for the spontaneous formation of perchlorate? At this point, further laboratory tests are needed to verify that the conditions on the Martian surface are correct. There is evidence that this can happen on Earth, but given the wildly different levels of temperature, pressure, and UV exposure, I would feel more comfortable with results which illustrated the formation of the anions.

A strong oxidizing compound isn’t always good news for species struggling to survive, but there is at least one example that I could find that shows that perchlorate could be used as an energy source for a bacteria-like organism. Again, given the harsh conditions on the surface, I’m not sure how much this could be true.

At this point, no one can say anything for sure, aside from two facts:

1. There is water in the regolith on Mars. NASA cannot accurately quantify the amount. At best, all they can do is guess. Anyone that tries to provide a quantity here is acting with insufficient data.
2. There is the presence of a compound that could act as an energy source, but this is atypical of life as we know it.

This brings up my last point, in that we are anthropomorphizing our search for life. Who says that life has to operate according to our known parameters? There may be a completely different way of energy acquisition and waste processing that we can’t even fathom because we’ve been so blinded by our evolutionary history and mechanisms of energy production. I’m completely for the search for “life as we know it,” but I feel as though we should be prepared mentally for “life as we don’t know it.” Too often, we’ve been blinded by our own preconceptions that we miss the answers that are right in front of our collective faces. I’d hate to see that happen now.

Lightsaber chopsticks. No, really.

Tyson replaces Labor Day with a Muslim religious holiday. In a recent union negotiation, Tyson, the ubiqitous packagers of poultry products, granted their workers at a plant in Tennessee a Muslim religious holiday in exchange for Labor Day. My natural bias leads me to be outraged here, but the argument could be made that the western world is typically off for Christmas. I want to rant and rave against this, but I just can’t. *sigh*

Here is a case of the punishment not fitting the crime. San Francisco wants to fine residents $1000 for not sorting their trash. Recycling is a necessary component of good stewardship of our resources, but this takes it a little too far. This is another example of the “nanny” government exerting its influence over us.

Kate, a self-professed reformed MMO addict, provides her reflections on re-entering the fold as a casual gamer. First with Age of Conan, and second with World of Warcraft, she’s exploring her rekindled love for the genre. She also has an interesting perspective on the current state of the PC Game market, in which developers are pushed to release games before they’re ready.

SpaceX fails to get its rocket into orbit. I’m very optimistic about the future of this company, but I’d like to see them get their quality control issues under wraps long enough for a successful launch. Elon Musk, the original owner of PayPal (who reported sold it for around $1.5 billion to eBay), has used his money as capital to get the company “off the groud.” (Pun intended). According to the article above, he had this to say after the launch:

In Mr. Musk’s statement, he insisted that the company will not be deterred and still has strong support from its backers. “SpaceX will not skip a beat in execution going forward,” he said, and added that the fourth flight, currently scheduled to take place in the fourth quarter of the year, and fifth flights are being prepared, and that he has given the go-ahead “to begin fabrication of flight 6.”

And, he added, “We are in very good financial basis here. We have the resolve, we have the financial base, and we have the expertise” to identify the problem and go forward. “There should be no question about that.” In a version of the statement distributed to employees, Mr. Musk said that the company “recently accepted a significant investment” that, along with the company’s current cash reserves, will ensure that “we will have more than sufficient funding on hand to continue launching” the Falcon 1 and the larger Falcon 9 vehicles.

Here’s hoping!

Global warming gives you kidney stones. All this time I thought it was oxalate in tea and cola that did it. Let’s be real for a second, even if we do live in the Feminized Nanny States of America. We are all responsible for our own actions. Do you know what that means? It means that because I drink too much Dr. Pepper (when I’m naughty) and Coke Zero (when I’m nice), I am destined to have kidney stones. Do I have a right to complain when this happens? No. (Well, maybe a little; enough, at least, to get some sympathy from the wife.) But it’s still my fault. I can’t blame it on global warming. I can’t sue Dr. Pepper or Coca-Cola.

Denver, the mile high city, once again makes news. This time, it isn’t a singer taking it upon herself to modify the national anthem, it’s the city police department and the safety council voting to outlaw pipes and chains in the hands of demonstrators. If your thought at the first was the same as mine, then maybe you’re thinking that it’s not a bad idea. Demonstrations are okay, provided they remain peaceful. However, weighted pipe and chain are not used as weapons. Upon further research, I discovered they are used to make a sleeping dragon, which is a device designed to make it difficult to arrest and remove protesters. An earlier draft of the ordinance endeavored to remove gas masks and bulletproof vests. That’s one thing I have a real problem with. If you want to know why, click this link.

The People’s Democratic Progressive Republic of Massachusetts is at it again. *sigh*

Could the International Space Station be used as a space craft? Color me doubtful, but it’s at least worth a feasibility study. One thing I do agree with the author about is the fact that we’ve wasted too much time playing in the cradle. It’s time to move outward. This could be an elegant solution, like using the interior of the first stage of a Saturn V booster as the first Skylab station.