The Art Neuro Weblog

He swings, he misses!
An asteroid bogey did a fly-by on our planet last week. Okay, that's ascribing way too much personality on a wandering piece of space debris, but you get the picture. Suddenly it's news, and people are thinking about one of my fave flicks of the late '90s, 'Armageddon'.
I'm a bit surprised to see it only rates 5.7 out of 10; I give it a 8/10 myself because of the character conflicts and the obstacles and the complications and the pyrotechnics. However I'm also aware that some people HATE it because, well, the physics is bad and the science is bad and the script is too sensational and there's no pleasing some people.

My favourite quip in that movie comes in response to the off-screen president who demands, "Why didn't we see this thing coming?" and Billy-Bob Thornton character says, "We've mapped about 2% of it but with all due respect sir, it's a pretty damn big sky out there."
In fact NASA now has a price tag for mapping the pretty damn big sky up there and it's US $236 million. It seems to me that it's small-change compared to say, the cost of sending us back to the stone age and starting again. Or even the cost of hiring Bruce Willis and his mining cohorts to go plant a nuke up on the incoming rock the size of Texas. If we know it's coming in at a certain date for US $236 million, it seems to me we might not need Bruce and the entire Hollywood SFX department.

I guess part of the endemic problem with our generation is that because NASA were so spectacularly successful when we were kids, we have this false sense of NASA's probably looking after that. In fact I was pro-NASA in the same vein that the film-makers of Armageddon were for many years simply because I gave them too much credit while ignoring the obvious White Elephant Money Sponge known to us as the Space Shuttle programme. The real shuttle, even if equipped with titanium hull (ha! cackle!) is in no way able to swing around the moon and approach the Rock, let alone land a crew of brave roughnecks to drill and deliver a nuke. In fact... Well let's not re-hash the faults of the Shuttle now, but you get the idea. The point is, it really is time for us to discard our positive regard for NASA and start thinking about and tackling these problems for ourselves.

Playing for more Moneyball
This isn't exactly news, but thirdbaseman Eric Chavez, signed a 6-year $66million extension with the small-market Athletics. The contract takes him through to his Age 32 year.
While this seems like a lot of money to some, it isn't exactly the sort of money Chavez could have commanded at the end of this year when his Free Agency would have come up. It's certainly nothing like A-Rod, a.k.a. Alex Rodriguez's legendary US $252 million over 10 years. He could have commanded more than an average of 11mil/year, but Chavez chose to stay with the Athletics. This is a good sign in as much a Oakland have let other home-grown stars walk in the last 2 years, and could expect to lose at least one of their 'Big 3' pitchers, Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito. Hudson had stated earlier that he would only consider re-signing with the Athletics if they extended Chavez's contract.
But really, when you stop to think about it, the amount of money the US professional sports pay their elite athletes over their careers is essentially the sort of money it takes to run NASA's programme. You'd think the US government might find that cash *somewhere*.

Maybe A-Rod would be willing to finance the NASA project with his massive wealth. Then he could truly be the greatest hero on the planet. Imagine that!: Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankee Thirdbaseman, friend of Team Captain Derek Jeter, Saviour of the Planet from Asteroid Threats.
"Hello NASA? A-Rod here. I heard that you need about 236million to save the planet from a random rock hitting us and sending us into extinction. Yeah well, it'd be a real downer for me too, because I love New York and playing for New York. So guys... It just happens I happen to have 252 million coming to me thanks to Tom Hicks, and I was just thinking maybe I could help you guys out and in the process help the entire planet. Sure. Ok. I'll let my little people talk to your little people. Oh yeah, can I fly in one of your supersonic jets the next time I visit the Cape?"

Pro'lly not. :)

- Art Neuro