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April 2, 2007
What the Hell, NASA?
It’s called the Space Race, not the Space Sit There and Pout.
According to an AP article released today out of Cape Canaveral, officials in NASA, as well as members of the Space, Aeronautics and Related Sciences Congressional subcommittee are worried about a scheduled “gap” in American space activity. It appears that while plans to replace our long-outdated space shuttles in exchange for the first round of 21st Century ships is still going forward, the schedule is being pushed further and further back. The current generation of shuttles are scheduled to stop running around 2010, and the Orion capsules, as they’re currently called, aren’t scheduled to be ready for manned spaceflight until March of 2015, eight fucking years from now. This implies a complete absence of American-led space activity for more than four years, and officials are worried that NASA will lose influence and attention to space programs in other countries. They’re probably right.
It gets worse. The AP article explains that, mostly due to federal budget cuts, while the first manned Orion flight won’t be able to go up until 2015, the first manned Orion moon landing “is scheduled for no later than 2020.” It’s going to take until the year twenty-fucking-twenty to get to the goddamn Moon? It’s right there! (Seriously, my calendar says that tonight’s a full moon night, go out after dark and just look at how right there it is.) We did it in 1969. It’s already been thirty-eight years, and you’re telling me that, half a century after the first Moon landing, our big target is another Moon landing? Damn your complacent hides! We should have cities on Mars by 2020!
While we’re on the subject, remember Bush’s 2004 State of the Union Address, where he announced plans to increase NASA’s budget and build a base on the Moon? “The president is strongly committed to the exploration of space,” said Scott “Little Piggy” McClellan in January ‘04. And the “Apollo on steroids” plan (the Orion capsules) was still on the table as recently as December ‘06. But with a dwindling budget and a lame-duck president who now spends all of his time on the defensive and who, in any case, has a strange idea of what “strongly committed” means, results are lacking. In any case, Bush’s plan calls for an established lunar base by 2024 and frankly, that’s just not good enough.
Florida Senator Bill Nelson, who heads the space subcommittee, said “the gap could be narrowed to three years if NASA were to get an extra $400 million above the 2008 budget request and an extra $800 million each in 2009 and 2010.” That’s better, but it’s only one year better. Still, it gives us something to go on. $400 million is worth what, ten minutes in Iraq? So if you’re flushing money down the toilet anyway, there’s no harm in getting creative. NASA’s entire budget request for 2008 is $17.3 billion. In U.S. budgeting terms, that makes it a low priority. How much would it cost to get Orion into space by 2010, so that it can make a smooth transition from the shuttle program? No, fuck that, how much would it cost to get Orion into space this fucking year? Independence Day is in three months, how much would it cost to get a manned flight, in the Orion capsule, to the Moon and back by the 4th of July 2007, to land in sync with a big-ass fireworks display? Don’t tell me it can’t be done. Just tell me how much it will cost, and I’ll start making phone calls.
The point is, NASA needs to learn how to make deals in the 21st century, because this “sitting around and waiting to be noticed for past glories” strategy doesn’t work anymore. There are three things that get results in the year 2007: money, motivation, and balls. NASA is running low on all three. Isn’t there anyone with the cash, charisma, and cojones to get things moving? Well, there’s British entrepreneur Richard Branson, owner of things like the Virgin Records label and Virgin Megastores, and a soon-to-be pioneer in the next generation of spacefaring awesomeness. That’s because Branson has launched Virgin Galactic, “the world’s first spaceline”. “In the next few years,” their website boasts, “Virgin Galactic will begin taking private individuals to space (and back).” That’s right, space tourism is finally on the verge of practicality. Anticipating articles like this one, Virgin’s FAQ also declares the following: “Q: Why has this not already happened? A: Commercial manned space travel has been constrained historically due to a lack of funding, safety, and a reliance on antiquated government programs. However, with Burt Rutans’s innovation and brilliant use of technology and Richard Branson’s entrepreneurialism, the era of commercial space travel has finally begun!”
They’re right, you know, it’s about fucking time. Tickets for Virgin’s trips are set to begin at $200,000 and flights are scheduled to begin running by 2009. Branson’s prototype ship, SpaceShipTwo, will be the first in a fleet launching a year before the cessation of NASA’s shuttle program and a full six years before the anticipated launch of the Orion fleet. Last week Virgin Galactic announced that they had successfully leased a spaceport in New Mexico, and were on schedule. This is excellent news. Now all we need is for Branson to have a few strong competitors to really get things moving. He’s already making NASA look pathetic, which takes care of the establishment; now who else has money? Hey Bill Gates, you want to get in on this? Or how about J.K. Rowling? She’s super-rich, and with the final Potter book publishing this summer, she’s going to have a lot of free time. In the right opportunistic hands, Potter branding could probably rival Disney at this point, and using the characters to market a break-out space tourism company could pay off. For that matter, why not Disney? Walt would have loved having his own Moon base.
I tend to side with Stephen Hawking on these things. Planet Earth is in serious trouble, and if we want the human race to survive, we’d better spread our asses out. Colonize the fucking galaxy, just like in an old Robert A. Heinlein or Isaac Asimov novel. Bransonesque space tourism is a great alternative to the “establish government/military bases” model. The novelty of going into space on its own will fade after a few years, and tourists will want to actually go somewhere, be it the Moon, Mars, or a casino on Titan. Some clever bastard’s already working out how to build the first extra-terrestrial luxury hotel, I just know it. Once you get the first shelters and the first shipping routes in place, colonization is the obvious end result.
Look, NASA. You got us to the Moon the first time, and we still love you for it. Honestly. But you’ve really let yourself go. We’ll always have the memories, but if you don’t start living up to your old standards of excellence, we’re going to find someone else who will. Count on it.
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September 15, 2006
Seriously? Planet Eris?
Not long ago, as Horatio noted in this post, the International Astronomical Union sat down to decide what made a planet a planet, and which bodies deserved the title. The big controversy of the meeting was whether fan-favorite Pluto would lose its planet status, but I was more interested in whether or not we would add a few new planets to the roster.
The asteroid Ceres was up for the honor, as was Pluto’s moon Charon, but most interesting (to me) was 2003 UB313, an as-yet-unnamed object that was larger than Pluto. If Pluto got to be a planet, I thought, this thing had to be one too. And they’d get to name it! This is the sort of shit that gives nerds like me a serious buzz.
Well, the ruling came down. Pluto wasn’t a planet, and neither were Ceres or 2003 UB313 (I didn’t hear much about Charon, but come on. That thing was tiny). They weren’t just asteroids or “objects” either; they were the freshman class of the newly-created “dwarf planet” category. Dwarf planets were exactly what they sounded like, and now one of them needed a name.
2003 UB313 had previously gone by the nickname “Xena” (after Lucy Lawless’s popular TV character) but that name would hardly do for a planet, even a dwarf one. So the astronomers set to work coming up with a better moniker, and at the end of their deliberations they chose…
Eris. Planet Eris. Named for the Greek goddess of chaos and strife, star of counter-culture classic the Principia Discordia, and my all-time favorite classical deity (I even have the tattoo to prove it).
The scientists came up with some bullshit explanation about how creating the dwarf planet classification caused discord among astronomers, making the name a perfect fit. I’m not buying that for a second. These guys named their planet after the modern version of Eris, an icon of freak culture and an inspiration to countless geeks and stoners the world over.
After all, who names planets? Distinguished scientists, that’s who. And “distinguished scientist” is just a polite term for “nerd who’s old enough to remember Eris’s last pop culture splash.” And though the evidence is mostly circumstantial, it does start to stack up.
For example, there’s the fact that in ancient times, Eris just wasn’t a very big deal. She figures into exactly one myth. Most books on mythology, when recounting that myth, use Eris’s name exactly one time. She’s usually not even in the index. The other planets are named after some serious gods, though; Jupiter and his little pals had temples devoted to them all over ancient Rome, and their predecessors had similar temples in Greece.
That raises another point. Greek and Roman deities are more or less the same*, but with the exception of the unfortunately-named Uranus, all the planets bear the names of Roman gods. From Mercury to Ceres we’ve got nothing but Roman names, but Eris, as you may already know, was Greek. They could’ve just as easily given the planet her Roman name, Discordia, but no one on the panel had ever read a meandering comedic novel about Discordia.
So I posed a question to Horatio: What if we had been on that panel? Wouldn’t that be the first name we threw out? And wouldn’t our bullshit explanation sound a lot like the one the scientists actually gave? After all, they want their work to look legit, and they certainly don’t want it to be identifiable as a product of their collegiate gigglefests. Chances are there are tons of old pothead astronomers in the Carl Sagan mold who have been waiting their whole lives for a chance like this.
I also jokingly asked him what it meant for the field of astrology, but I have yet to receive a reply. Not that it matters, since I’m more interested in what it means for the Discordian religion. Sooner or later the connection is going to come out, and even if it doesn’t Eris’s public profile has just increased a thousandfold. Before this, only Hellenophiles and Discordians knew her name. Now it will be taught to millions of elementary school children.
This may diminish the Eris mystique a bit, but the increased exposure could be worth it. Which is to say: there may not be many people who worship Zeus/Jupiter, but they still far outnumber the people who dig Eris. And hey, Discordians will finally have a planetary correspondance, which will give them some Pagan cred.
The implications are far-reaching. The mainstream media will offer up brief versions of Eris’s place in culture and mythology. Astronomers will be beset by laughing fits for years to come over the stunt they managed to pull. And upon hearing the new dwarf planet’s name, all of my ex-girlfriends will probably think about me for a few minutes.
My friends and I were into Eris before it was cool, and as such I almost feel tempted to welcome her to the planet club. But that would be a mistake. No, instead I will welcome humanity to her abode, because for the first time in milennia they remember her name.
She is chaos. She is alive once more, and she has come to tell us that we are free. So get to it, humanity.
*I understand they’re not really the same. Rome had its own deities, and then gradually adopted Greek myths and inserted their own characters into the stories. The end result, though, is that the average person on the street just assumes the two sets of myths are identical.
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August 14, 2006
Millions Bored by Pluto Question
The International Astronomical Union (2,500 astronomers strong) is meeting this week in the Czech Republic to decide whether or not Pluto deserves to be called a planet, and whether or not big masses further out in the solar system ought to also be called planets; or whether we should have stopped at Neptune and told the rest of our Sun’s entourage to go fuck themselves.
It’s a toughy. Depose Pluto, or expand the aristocracy? For astronomers, this may be the biggest controversy since the whole “Sun orbiting the Earth” fiasco. But for a large portion of the general public this is a colossal waste of time, and most people really just want space to get fun again.
Listen, Astronomy, we need to have a little talk. I know things started out great, and this has been a really exciting five hundred years. With the onset of modern physics and advanced telescope and camera technology, you’re learning new things about the universe all the time. But you’re losing a big chunk of your audience with all this bickering about definitions crap. City council meetings are for arguing about zoning restrictions, and people don’t go to those. They’re not going to care any more about astronomy’s equivalent.
Astronomy, the public doesn’t want you to tell them what a planet is. They want you to tell them where the planet with the six-breasted babes riding on giant lizards is.
No, damnit, I mean this, it’s really in your best interest to make astronomy weird and exciting again. There’s a whole infinite universe out there, and there are bound to be some fun things in it. Think about all the freaky shit that exists on Earth alone! Are you really going to tell me that there won’t be infinitely more cool things to find if you multiply the number of places to look for it? No one cares about the exact definition of a planet except for the people who will get famous for discovering them. There aren’t any tax breaks or trade restrictions for masses that achieve planetary status. A lump of icy rock is a fucking lump of icy rock, no matter how big it is. But a lump of vegetative rock with a civilization of Wookies on it? That’s money in the bank and pizza at your doorstep, my friends. That’s Nobel material.
More than just audience power may be at stake, however, as a Revised Planetary Zoning Standard (RPZS) could, depending on its statutes, pave the way for a whole lot of other cold rocks to become official planets; especially out in the Kuiper Belt, which is only beginning to be explored. Humanity may be apathetic to the fate of Pluto, but what if they’re suddenly told that there are fifty more planets out there to consider? Will any of them have any cheesy alien monoliths? How will elementary school teachers come up with mnemonic devices to remember them all? Will there be enough Roman gods to go around? Hell, the Moon is bigger than Pluto, what if the Moon became an official planet? Would we finally have to give it a name and a decent wage? And let’s not forget the community of astrologers, who will now need to revise all of their books. The astrologers are going to be pissed.
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