A few days ago I had a nice discussion in a commenting thread on Wired, in response to an article about how uncertain the future of space flight is, now that the Space Shuttles are being mothballed.

When I was little, in the early eighties of the last century, I remember being told that the newly developed Shuttles would be the next big step in space flight technology. While previous rockets were disposable craft, the Shuttles were reusable. They could be launched over and over again with little effort. A whole fleet of these magnificent machines was going to be built and access to space would become cheaper. Getting into space was going to be routine. The James Bond movie Moonraker, from that time, depicts these ambitions when it shows us five shuttles being launched simultaneously from one location, after which they travel to a space station in high orbit.

Five shuttles docked at a space station, about 1:40 into the movie.

Obviously, it didn’t happen this way. NASA built only a handful of Shuttles and they did not live up to their promises at all. They were clumsy vehicles, none of them able to reach a decent orbit. At the same time, they were immensely costly, which left too few resources for other programs. That situation seems to be coming to an end now, finally.

Still, many Americans are very sad to see them being phased out. I can understand an emotional response. After all, they look pretty cool and nobody else has anything but rockets. Better yet, the Russian Shuttle program could be seen as failed^[1]. But when I think of what NASA should be proud of, it is not the Shuttle. It’s the Mars rovers and all those space probes, buzzing throughout the solar system, doing fabulous science. Even the Apollo-program wasn’t more than a show, albeit a spectacular one, but it did prevent NASA from doing more useful things.

Today, organizations are starting to launch craft into orbit to make a profit, and NASA is stopping with spending money on costly ineffective programs like Apollo or the Shuttles. In other words, rockets are launched for the right reasons. I can only conclude that these times are a lot less uncertain for space flight than in the five decades behind us.

As for the use of humans in space: humans should go into space for useful work that machines can’t do. Otherwise it will never be anything but a useless show, and never be sustainable.

1. ^[1] Though it didn’t: Gorbachev cancelled it before it ruined the Russian space program. ↩

Here’s a thought:

As I understand it, lots of Greeks, who have been reaping EU benefits for years without paying any taxes whatsoever, seem to be under the impression that they are not to blame for their country’s current problems, and are now protesting that they are being sent the bill.
This reminds me of the world-wide “It’s not my fault” protests against drastic measures that we will see within a few decades, when global environmental crises present itself, compared to which the current financial crisis will look like a minor nuisance.

On Christmas Day, a young misguided Nigerian named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to cause an explosion on flight NW253 from Amsterdam to Detroit. He brought with him 80 grams of pentaerythritol tetranitrate, a useful amount for his purposes, but insufficient knowledge on how to use it. There was only one way he could have caused serious damage to the plane, which involved putting it in a box and banging it against the wall. The way he did it, there was never any danger (Google translation from Dutch to English).

Since the incident, travellers on flights to the U.S. and on U.S. internal flights have had to endure heightened security measures and the minister of justice in the Netherlands is using this incident as a means to force the E.U.’s plans of using  full body scanners at air ports. Body scanners are devices that pierce through one’s clothing to see what he or she is carrying, greatly compromising the privacy of countless people, who are, let’s not forget still innocent. With these devices, the pentaerythritol tetranitrate on Abdulmutallab would have been found.

Abdulmutallab’s father had been warning U.S. authorities that his son was growing more radical for some time, but the man was ignored. Not because of policy, but because someone didn’t pay attention. Had these warnings been taken seriously, Abdulmutallab’s name would have been placed on a no-fly list, and he would never have gotten on board flight NW253, or any other flight toward the U.S. No body scan needed.

We give up irresponsible amounts or our civil rights into the hands of those we put in charge of our safety, because they deem it necessary, and when they screw up, the solution is to give up more privacy? Why not just fire the ones who were sleeping and tell the rest to actually use the power we gave them?

Someone once told me that Israel is more civilised (he actually said “a way better country”, but I suppose that’s what he meant) than its neighbouring Arab states, simply because Israel is a democracy, and its neighbours are not.

Setting aside the question whether an apartheid state can in fact be called a democracy, I find that odd reasoning. Sure, democracy means that a government is in contact with its people and has to listen to a certain degree, but doesn’t this particular difference between Israel and its neighbours just show that the Israeli government’s crimes against humanity are backed by a mandate from its people?

So what does it mean, that a country claiming to be a western democracy, defies the world’s anger, and persists in illegally building more houses in stolen land, thereby more and more making the occupation a fait accompli?

According to Dutch prime minister Balkenende, the current global financial crisis is due to the failing of man, not the market (links to Dutch site). What the hell does that mean? What is market mechanism other than the way people let channel their greed into something that could be used by others?

Balkenende, a conservative Christian right wing man, apparently still clings to Friedman, but without understanding one bit of it.

This is absolutely brilliant. Mr. Tjeenk Willink, chairman of the Dutch government’s primary advisary board, the Raad van State, says that politicians have been focusing too much on market mechanisms in the past. Really? Did we really need a financial crisis to realise that?

I remember thinking that when they sold off our postal services (1989) and public transport systems (1992) to the highest bidder, claiming that market mechanisms would no doubt improve quality. Never mind that quality in fact worsened, while prizes went up. No wonder. Both companies have been virtual monopolists since they became privatized. And since then they sold a lot more for easy money. If a child could see through that, why couldn’t these wise men who govern us?

I really hope that the current global economic situation will rid us of Friedmannian dogma once and for all. Please?

Yesterday, many Dutch news sources reported that a group of fifty physicians recommended further study into the harmful effects of radiation from cell phones and other wireless devices and a moderation in the usage of such devices. They observe a raise in unexplainable complaints and a raise in the use of such wireless devices, and somehow infer a causal relationship. You can ask yourself what kind of doctors these fifty people are.

Today, the Vereniging tegen de Kwakzalverij reports that, first of all, the list only contains 49 people, some of which are no doctor at all, and most of which are known pseudo scientists, like homeopaths, astrologers and the like.

The Vereniging explains that the only known effect of these types of radiation is a very slight raise in body temperature, much less in fact than for instance the natural daily variation in body temperature. It is not the radiation itself, but the supposed effect that causes the complaints. As they put it, “there is no reason to take these people seriously.”

Excellent.