Japan Successfully Launches Satellite
Here's the article.

The Japanese-built H-2A rocket powered into the evening sky leaving a huge plume of vapor above the launch site on the tiny island of Tanegashima, 620 miles southwest of Tokyo at 6:25 p.m. (4:25 a.m. EST).

"The satellite separated from the rocket about 40 minutes after takeoff and is now in its initial orbit," Tsukasa Mito, an executive director at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) told a post-launch news conference. The dual-purpose navigation and meteorological satellite is due to start operating in May.

Television showed scientists applauding and shaking hands in the control room.
"At the moment of takeoff, my heart swelled," said Education and Science Minister Nariaki Nakayama, whose ministry oversees JAXA. "When I heard the satellite had separated successfully, I was relieved, but at the same time I thought it was a matter of course."

Takeoff was more than an hour later than planned after an error occurred in the H-2A's data transmission system. Poor weather had caused an earlier two-day delay.

They had to blow up the last launch. So props to them.

- Art Neuro

Quick Shot
I became an uncle on 22nd Feb 2005. A real one for the first time. I've been uncle Art to many of my friends' kids but this is the first time any of my sibs have had a kid, so that is pretty darn special. Bouncing Baby Felix is well with his mum & dad in Randwick now.

Cheers to all. :)

- Art Neuro

Useless Call
The UN Assembly is makng call to stop research into human cloning.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A deeply divided General Assembly committee voted on Friday to approve a declaration calling on governments to prohibit all forms of human cloning including techniques used in research on human stem cells.

The assembly's legal committee voted 71 to 35 with 43 abstentions to adopt the proposal put forward by Honduras and backed by the United States but opposed by advocates of stem cell studies. The nonbinding measure now goes to the full 191-nation assembly.

The upside of this technology is too good to pass up in favour of some abstract morality. Even if they vote for this bill, somebody is going to pay somebody to do the reearch because the fruits of that tree are too good to let slip. Sorry if you're a devout anti-abortionist, but that's the nature of the world with a market economy. They may as well make a call to stop the research of Atomic Energy lest some idiot maniac dictator with a bad hairdo in North Korea might get hold of nuclear weapons.

Space Elevators Update
The latest on this technology here.

The biggest challenge to the space elevator has been developing a cable tough enough to extend 62,000 miles without breaking. This, Edwards explained will be solved with carbon nanotube composites - tiny bundles of carbon weaved together to form a ribbon that will be stronger than steel. His startup company, Carbon Designs, Inc., is currently focused on developing this technology.

The space elevator is even more uplifting than it seems. Spacefarers no longer need to fear the dramatic forces and vibrations normally experienced with a rocket launch. This vehicle can adjust its speed to accommodate passengers.

Likewise, cargo and astronauts eliminate the crushing forces of re entry used by rockets for slowing down when coming back to Earth. You can travel as slow as 10 miles per hour, making it [re entry] much safer, Edwards said.

In contrast to rockets where most of what's being launched is fuel, the space elevator moves only the payload, a set of motors, and structures needed for its operation. With the fuel cost almost eliminated, only everyday operations and the mechanical climber expenses remain. Edwards estimates that the cost of launching into the lower earth orbit will be reduced from $10,000 per pound on Shuttle missions to $100 per pound on the space elevator.

Once you reduce the cost to almost a Fed-Ex kind of level, it opens the doors to lots of people, lots of countries, and lots of companies to get involved in space, Edwards emphasized. No longer will space travel be limited to the United States, Europe, Russia, China, and other major players.

And power to all!

Life Forms On Mars?
Marvin would be proud. Do check it out.
Two scientists in private conversation...

Stoker told her private audience Sunday evening that by comparing discoveries made at Rio Tinto with data collected by ground-based telescopes and orbiting spacecraft, including the European Space Agency's Mars Express, she and Lemke have made a very a strong case that life exists below Mars' surface.

The two scientists, according to sources at the Sunday meeting, based their case in part on Mars' fluctuating methane signatures that could be a sign of an active underground biosphere and nearby surface concentrations of the sulfate jarosite, a mineral salt found on Earth in hot springs and other acidic bodies of water like Rio Tinto that have been found to harbor life despite their inhospitable environments.

If you believe in little green men, you'll be disappointed, but this is interesting all the same.

- Art Neuro

Off The Air
For some reason I had problems accessing the blog's edit page which meant I have been unable to post up anything for a good few days now. I suspect it affected a fair chunk of people as other blogs seem to have stopped posting as of 16th-17th of Feb. depending on where they were on the planet.
Well, I'm back.

Just before it all went off air, I had written a piece aboutNASA, but it got swallowed up by Blogger. It's just not been reliable lately as I have lost at least 10 posts in the last month.

So here's hoping I don't lose so many posts in the future.

- Art Neuro

The Empire State Team Strike Back At The Press
On the whole, the press grumbled about Juicin' Giambi's weird apology session. Murray Chass of the New York Times wrote an artcile alleging that the Yankees were somewhat foolish in removing a clause about steroids from Giambi's contract back in 2001. That artcile is now mysteriously not on the NY Times site. Instead, there's this article.

The Yankees were stung by the suggestion that they should have known what they were getting when they signed Giambi because they agreed to his agent's request to delete references to steroids in the guarantee language of the contract.

Guarantee language is designed to protect a club by prohibiting players from engaging in certain activities that could be hazardous to their health. If a club sends a draft of guarantee language to a player's representative and the representative sends it back with the word steroids crossed out, it would not be farfetched to think that someone should be suspicious. But, the Yankees said, it wasn't like that.

"There were at least 20 changes made," Trost said in reference to the guarantee-language provision in Giambi's contract. On the telephone a day earlier, Trost said he couldn't discuss Giambi's contract specifically. On this call, he discussed it specifically.

"Our contracts cover things in different ways," he said, batting second. "There is a provision in his contract that says he will not be paid if he uses or abuses any illegal substances. The idea that we removed steroids is so far from the truth. The word steroids that was taken out was illustrative," he said. In other words, Trost was saying that the word was meant to be part of a contract provision aimed at substances including but not limited to steroids. Nevertheless, the word steroids was in the original draft of the Giambi contract and then taken out, and the Yankees are not denying that.

Rubenstein suggested that the Yankees fax copies of the relevant pages of the contract to me so that I could see what they were talking about. They couldn't do that, they said; the contract was confidential. Then read the relevant paragraphs, Rubenstein suggested.

So Trost read two paragraphs, or parts of paragraphs, of the guarantee language dealing with elements that could deprive Giambi of his salary. That is what a guarantee-exclusion provision is - a list of activities (sky diving, for example) that would render a contract void if a player could not play as the result of one of those activities.

Last winter, Aaron Boone hurt his knee playing basketball, a prohibited activity in his guarantee language, and the Yankees later released him, paying him only one sixth of his contract.

In Giambi's contract, he would not be paid, for example, if he couldn't play because of physical impairment or mental incapacity "directly due to or approximately caused by" a series of circumstances including "the intentional use or abuse of any type of illegal substance."

After completing his reading, Trost remarked, "To say we didn't cover steroids is
absolutely fallacious."

Right. You'd think so, given that most punters thought the biggest muscle-bound sluggers were most likely on steroids at the time. The issue wasn't that steroids weren't there; the issue was that the MLB and the MLBPA were really, really really soft on performance enhancing drugs, and only now are they tightening up, squeazing the Yankees in the process. Then there's this article at NJ.com:

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman came out swinging yesterday in response to an article in yesterday's editions of The New York Times that said that the Yankees, in their zeal to sign Jason Giambi, removed, at the first baseman's request, all references to steroids from the guaranteed language of the contract before signing him to a seven-year, $120 million deal in 2001.

"That's a lot of bull. It's hogwash. It's not true," Cashman said in one of his three appearances on ESPN Radio "You don't invest this kind of money if that were the case. You back off and walk away."

But another Yankees executive, chief operating officer Lonn A. Trost, said changes were made to the contract regarding the language concerning steroids. But Trost, who drafted the contract and called the Times report "misinformation," said that those changes that were made gave more protection to the Yankees than they did to Giambi.

The wording was changed, he said, but not in the manner indicated in The Times article.

"Partial truth and half truths and incorrect statements always cause problems," Trost said. "The fact of the matter is we had a number of paragraphs that dealt with this subject matter. And there must have been 50 changes in those paragraphs before we finalized. "Was the word 'steroid' removed as one of the changes? Absolutely. Why it was removed was foolish on their part and not on our part."

And then there's this in the updated Chass article:

"Clearly," Levine said, "there is language in this contract that would provide the Yankees a basis to go forward, if we so desired to, in any action against our player." But, he added, based on Giambi's comments in his meeting with team executives, "We decided to give him a second opportunity at this point in time, to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"However, Levine further added, "No one has waived any rights or claims." If Giambi does not live up to what he has told the Yankees, "there is a basis for going forward."

Tellem declined yesterday to discuss Giambi's contract or the negotiations that produced it. What he did talk about was the good working relationship he said he had "with the entire Yankee front office."

"Our focus right now," he added, "is on doing everything we can together to support Jason so that he can come back and be the player that everyone hoped and expecte he would be when he came here and lead the Yankees to the World Series."

So in other words, it doesn't mean the Yankees are getting out of the onerous contract (onerous, only if Giambi does not bounce back) because they can't; it's because they're choosing to wait and see; Sending a strong message to Juicin' Giambi that he has to bounce back or else. The Press conference wasn't aboutPR or truth or apolgies; it was about Giambi being made to eat humble pie in public.

Tough Talk indeed.

- Art Neuro

Juicin' Giambi Apologises. For What Exactly,Who The Hell Knows? (It's sealed)
This just sucks. Jason Giambi holds a press conference to apologise for stuff he can't talk about or admit to, but says for which he's taking full responsibility. Umm, yeah.
Here's the quick list of links already put up on a press conference where learned nothing.

NY Times: A Careful Apology From Giambi (reg req)
NY Times: Putting the Con Back in Confession (reg req)
Newsday: Giambi avoids talk of 'roids
Washington Post: With All Due Apologies (reg req)
AP: Jason Giambi is sorry - and he's not the only one
ESPN: The Yankee inquisition

I'm still quite pissed off about Giambi. Well,I'm pissed off about Gary Sheffield too, and also Barry Bonds, but Sheff said he was unwittingly adminstered with steroids, and Barry Bonds claimed he thought they were flaxseed oil. While I don't necessarily hold with their actual plausible deniability claims, they've got plausible deniability. Giambi has none, and as far as we can tell, brazenly went and took this stuff about which he cannot say anything - except he's sorry. Great.

The Yankees cannot void the rest of his (wrongfully gained) contract. They are stuck with this man who has gone and smeared the taint of steroids all over the proud franchise. The fallout for which is the signings of such non-entities as Tony Womak, Doug Glanville and even the return of Tino Martinez at 1B.

It sucks, but you know, it's also something that 40HRs and 120 RBIS with a .380 OBP in 600 PAs won't solve. That's the reason why it just sucks even more. If he comes back fine, then there was no reason to have tainted the franchise; and if he doesn't, then that's 82 million bucks wasted on a crappy hitter for 4 more years. It's lose-lose for the Yankees unless you re-draw the rules.

- Art Neuro

Still Debating
Are in-flights repairs even feasible. If you detected a fault in the heat shields while in orbit. Would you trust and back yourself to fix it; in EVA, mix up a special ointment, apply it successfully in null-grav; get back in safely and ride that rollercoaster home? That's the question.

Mission commander Eileen Collins, who was at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with her six crewmates for training, said NASA had not yet decided on which repair techniques to test.

"Normally you'd have to make the decision a lot sooner," she said. "We've been training for over three years -- and we have a lot of flexibility in the sense that we're trained to maybe pick up some tasks late," Collins said, seemingly good-natured about the problem.

"But it is late, we're three months from launch." Columbia was destroyed after a chunk of insulation fell off the shuttle's fuel tank during launch and smashed a hole in the orbiter's left wing. The damage was undetected until after the shuttle attempted to re-enter Earth's atmosphere on Feb. 1, 2003, and was torn apart by searing temperatures and high pressure.

NASA's first priority was to redesign the fuel tank and Discovery will fly with a new one.

MIXING MATERIAL IN SPACE
The heat shield repair technique that spacewalkers Soichi Noguchi of Japan and Steve Robinson have practiced the most involves a complex caulk gun and a heat-resistant material known as STA-54. Ground tests, however, indicate there may be problems mixing and applying the material in the weightless environment of space.

"I don't know if we're ready to do it in space or not," Robinson said. "We are not going to fly it if it's not ready," he added. NASA managers and engineers were meeting on Thursday to review options for the heat shield repair techniques and Collins said she was hopeful there would be a decision by the end of this month.

There are no options, however, to fix a hole as large as the one that downed Columbia. If that were to happen again, NASA is developing a plan to temporarily house the shuttle crew aboard the International Space Station.

Among the hundreds of items the Discovery crew is delivering to the station are supplies to sustain the seven astronauts aboard the outpost if they ended up having to abandon ship and take refuge there. A second shuttle would presumably be
launched to retrieve the crew within a month or so.

"This is not a certified thing that we're doing," Collins said, meaning that it was an option that might be used if needed rather than meeting the stringent requirements for flight operations. "We don't plan on doing it. But we do have the capability to stay if we had to."

The use of the space station as a refuge was called into question last week by Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, who will be the next station commander. He said the emergency plan raised safety issues and he had pressed managers on the issue.

What? You think I'm that brave? What does Princess Leia say when she first lays eyes on the Millennium Falcon? - "Wow, you guys came in that thing? You are brave!"

- Art Neuro

The March Of Science
The scientist who headed up the team that cloned Dolly the sheep has been granted licence to clone human cells.

Professor Ian Wilmut, of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, plans to obtain stem cells for research into Motor Neurone Disease (MND), a procedure that divides the medical world along ethical lines.

Britain's cloning watchdog, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), granted the license Tuesday to Wilmut, Dr Paul de Sousa from Edinburgh and Professor Christopher Shaw from King's College London.

It is only the second such license granted in Britain. "Our aim will be to generate stem cells purely for research purposes," Wilmut said in a statement. "This is not reproductive cloning in any way."

Human reproductive cloning is illegal in Britain but therapeutic cloning, creating embryos as a source of stem cells to cure diseases, is allowed on an approved basis.
Stem cells are the body's master cells. Those from days-old embryos have the ability to form any kind of tissue and scientists are working to learn how to manipulate them for transplants to treat diseases ranging from diabetes to cancer and MND.

The practice has divided the medical world. Opponents argue the use of a human embryo for medical research or even treatment is unethical. President Bush says he plans to press for even stricter limits on human embryo research.

But the British group said the stem cell technique would greatly enhance their understanding of MND and accelerate the discovery of new drugs. "We have spent 20 years looking for genes that cause MND and to date we have come up with just one gene," Shaw said. "This is potentially a big step forward," Wilmut and his colleagues plan to use the same technique that was successful in creating Dolly in 1996.

They will extract genetic material from a skin or blood cell of patients suffering from an inherited form of the illness and place it in an egg whose nucleus has been removed.

Well, expect the usual furore.

- Art Neuro

Edward Bernays

Ed was a behavioural psychologist who moved into the field of advertising. He wrote the following in 1928 (in his book entitled 'Propaganda'):

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ... We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ... In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons ... who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind. "

Whoa. I don't know whether to be frightened or comforted to discover that our society has been this way for such a long time.

Terraforming Mars
Today's article from Space.com covers that long-discussed wonder-subject, terraforming Sol iv 'Mars'. I'm being naughty again, but it's certainly a good discussion-starter.

Robert Britt
Senior Science Writer
SPACE.com

The best way to make Mars habitable would be to inject synthetic greenhouse gases into its atmosphere, researchers said Thursday.

The stuff could be shipped to Mars or manufactured there. Scientists and science-fiction authors have long pondered terraforming Mars, melting the vast stores of ice in its polar caps to create an environment suitable for humans. The topic is highly controversial. Some think earthlings have no right to mess with the climate of another planet. Others see Mars as a refuge for people who might need to flee this world as conditions deteriorate. Another argument holds that Mars was likely warmer and wetter in its distant past, and it might have harbored life, so bringing it back to a previous state makes sense.

Among the ideas for how to warm Mars: sprinkling stuff near the poles that would absorb more sunlight; or placing large mirrors in orbit around the planet to reflect more sunlight onto it. Jumpstart the warming The new research suggests that forcing global warming by injecting greenhouse gases may be the best way to terraform, should governments decide to do so. The conditions warming Earth could be harnessed to transform Mars, the scientists determined.

Jumpstarting global warming in a planet-sized laboratory would be a boon to science in some respects. "Bringing life to Mars and studying its growth would contribute to our understanding of evolution, and the ability of life to adapt and proliferate on other worlds," says Margarita Marinova, at the NASA Ames Research Center when the study was done. "Since warming Mars effectively reverts it to its past, more habitable state, this would give any possibly dormant life on Mars the chance to be revived and develop further."

The research is presented in the February issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research-Planets, published by the American Geophysical Union. With a very thin atmosphere and being farther from the Sun, Mars is much colder than Earth. There is no evidence for any liquid water presently on the surface. Liquid water is considered essential to life as we know it. The polar regions contain vast stores of water ice and carbon dioxide, or dry ice. Theorists have said in the past that melting the poles might thicken the atmosphere, which like a blanket would insulate the surface and eventually create a more Earth-like climate.

Studies suggest Mars had surface water and bouts of rain in its early history. Gas of choice The new research modeled how manmade greenhouse gases would affect Martian temperature and melt water ice and carbon dioxide ice at the poles.

Artificially created gases could be 10,000 times more effective than carbon dioxide in warming up the Red Planet, the study determined. The gases that would work the best are flourines and could be made from elements readily available on Mars, Marinova and her colleagues found.

Adding 300 parts per million of the gas mixture into the Martian air would trigger a runaway greenhouse effect, according to the models. The polar ice sheets that would slowly evaporate. The newly released carbon dioxide would cause further warming and melting. Atmospheric pressure would rise. The process would take hundreds or thousands of years to complete, the scientists report.

That's the whole article, but here's another link featuring Greg Bear which might be of some interest. I won't quote the lot, but here's a little bit of it with Kim Stanley Robinson talking about the economics of it:

Donna Shirley: Let's talk about the economics. If we're going to terraform Mars, what are the economic incentives? Will pharmaceutical companies be able to fly us to Mars to find new medicines? Stan, you had some economic things worked out in the trilogy.

Kim Stanley Robinson: Well, no, it will never be economic. This is the cool thing about it, and one of the reasons that people all around the world are so interested in Mars, is that it sits outside of the systems of current culture and economics. You can't make a profit from it. You can't make it make sense in religious terms. It's just a kind of a thing that humanity would do as a project for the sake of how interesting it would be. It would be an interesting story. We would go there first the way we go to Antarctica, to do scientific studies, to try to help us understand the world better. And then after that, if it were to be terraformed, people would be doing it for itself, just in the way of gardening or building a cathedral. There is no analogy that really makes sense, because it's such a new and big thing. But I think that people are interested in all these little robotic missions and in everything about Mars, because it's so hard to get outside the economic trap that we're in, in our current culture. So it's best to think of it as being meta-economic, or beyond economics.

I don't exactly know what he means when he says meta-economic. Can somebody enlighten me on this? :)

- Art Neuro

Ernst Mayr Dies at 100
Ernst Mayr was an evolutionary biologist who informed us greatly about biodiversity who passed away at the age of one hundred.

In his travels in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, Mayr showed, unlike Darwin, that species can arise from isolated populations.

"Professor Mayr's contributions to Harvard University and to the field of evolutionary biology were extraordinary by any measure," Harvard history professor William C. Kirby said, calling Mayr a "leading mind of the 20th century." Mayr "shaped and articulated modern understanding of biodiversity and related fields," Kirby said.

Born in Kempten, Germany, Mayr joined the Harvard faculty in 1953 as a zoology professor and led Harvard's Comparative Zoology museum from 1961 to 1970. He retired in 1975.

Mayr throughout his career fought to make sure biology stood alongside physics, astronomy and chemistry. He is credited with pioneering the study of philosophy and history of biology.

"Much as we know about the 'how' of human evolution, the 'why' is still a great puzzle," he wrote in 1963.

Well, since then genetics has answered a lot of questions, so we now know that isolated populations ar far more likely to evolve into different subspecies through genetic drift. But heck, he contributed greatly into the notion of biodiversity. 100 is good.

- Art Neuro

A True Yankee Great But Not Of The Uniform
General Manager of the New York Yankees and only 37, Brian Cashman is living a nightmare that is also a dream. Or is it living a dream that is also a nightmare? Read on.

I bet he doesn't play fantasy baseball. :)

- Art Neuro

Lessons Learned From a Disaster
Bring it on girls & boys.

"I think the agency is a different agency today than it was two years ago," said Jim Kennedy, director of the Kennedy Space Center -- NASA's Florida spaceport -- in a telephone interview. "We now have a really strong group of checks and balances, and we're a better agency for it."

Columbia was destroyed during reentry by a disaster precipitated days earlier during launch, when a chunk of foam from its external fuel tank gouged a hole in the shuttle's left wing. NASA has spent the two years since devising safer ways for humans to reach space.

In the meantime, the space agency's three remaining shuttles have been grounded, leaving only Russian Soyuz spacecraft to ferry new crews to the International Space Station (ISS).

"Because of the Columbia accident we are constantly, diligently, 24-7, working at fixing it so that we know that when it comes time to fly we have done our absolute best," said NASA chief Sean O'Keefe during a recent memorial service for the crew of Columbia, as well as the lost astronauts of the 1986 Challenger accident 1967 Apollo 1 fire. "We will never eliminate the inherent risk, though I know each of us will work to minimize that risk."

Among that work was the installation of new sensors along Discovery's wings to check for impacts, as well as an orbiter boom designed to scan the integrity of orbiter's underbelly in space and a redesigned external fuel tank that agency officials claim is the safest ever built.

But the agency has also worked to revamp its internal culture, which was cited by Columbia accident investigators as a contributor to the accident. "For NASA, [return to flight] is a very important milestone," NASA's Lynn Cline, deputy associate administrator for space operations, told SPACE.com. "It's an indication that we have learned the lessons we've needed, fixed the problems and have a tangible demonstration that we're moving forward."

To test out those new technologies -- including a new flight maneuver expected to give space station astronauts a chance to photograph orbiters before docking --shuttle officials have put two launches on the docket for this year. Discovery and the STS-114 crew is targeting a May-June liftoff, to be followed later by Atlantis. But agency managers are cautious to say that target dates are not binding.

Are you convinced?

- Art Neuro

Cost Benefit Analysis On Hubble
The official price tag on fixing Hubble is now stated at US$2 billion. Well, that changes a lot of things, because US$2 billion simply isn't chump change. No wonder the White House balked and no wonder Congress is balking. I'd balk at that too, because for US$2billion, you might consider buying another one or three; brand spanking new with better technology.

While NASA has sent several repair missions, experts say an additional one is needed because the batteries and gyroscopes probably will fail between mid-2007 and 2010.

But with the crash on Feb. 1, 2003, of the space shuttle Columbia, a manned mission to repair Hubble is not worth the risk, said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (news, bio, voting record), R-Calif. "Some people just want to dive back in and use the shuttle as if these catastrophic accidents didn't happen. ... To the degree that we don't have to use the shuttle, we shouldn't use the shuttle," he said. Experts also are divided about the best course of action.

NASA caused an uproar among scientists last year when the agency said that the safety of astronauts should not be put at risk in order to repair Hubble. A National Academy of Sciences committee concluded in December that NASA should use astronauts, not a robot, for a repair attempt.

"The crew risk of a single shuttle mission to Hubble is very small," the chairman of that committee, Louis Lanzerotti, a professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, told lawmakers Wednesday.

But Dr. Paul Cooper, an executive at the company asked by NASA to create a Hubble-repairing robot, said such a trip could be of huge scientific benefit in future repairs of U.S. satellites, particularly for the Defense Department.

Okay. Time for some facts:
The shuttle was originally conceived for doing exactly what we're talking about, which is to go up and repair satellites. It wasn't a great idea in the first place, and having the shuttle has always delayed us from deploying proper geo-sync satellites because they would be out of the shuttle's range. Go figure.

So now the argument is that it would be too costly AND a bad risk to send the shuttle up to do what it's meant to do.

I have doubts as to whether the cost of repairing Hubble really is US$2 billion or whether that number is inflated for the purpose of blocking the repair and pushing for the construction of a new orbital telescope. NASA has a double motive in not wanting to fix this venerable toy that has provided so much fun, joy and information. What I don't quite understand is why they've never had a plan to replace Hubble that would satisfy the community. Or maybe this haphazard process is exactly that process of replacing Hubble. I don't know about you, but NASA's thinking is obviously quite unlcear on this issue.

Spotting Dick-Taters
A friend of mine sent this in this morning, which might be of some interest. It doesn't represent my opinion, nor does it constitute my thoughts on the topic. I'm just putting it up because it might draw a chuckle.

Dr. Lawrence Britt, a political scientist, studied the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia),and Pinochet
(Chile). He found the regimes shared 14 identifying characteristics:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and otherparaphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate aperceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses, and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear ampaigns against or even
assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

As for analysis, it's pretty idiotic, but it's still a good compendium of checkpoints. Considering there are self-righteous morons everywhere trying to draw conclusions about what is observed as 'results' in politics and what is performed in service in politics and think there is a causal, scientific relationship.

- Art Neuro

There's Actually An Office For Reconnaissance?
NASA has agreed to work with the National Reconnaissance Office in developing the next payload for the Lunar robotic probe.

The cooperation will focus on developing a miniature synthetic aperture radar sensor that the lunar probe will use to develop detailed maps of the Moon's surface, Rustan said in a Jan. 25 interview. The lunar probe is expected to begin its mission, which will run over the course of a year, in 2008. The Pentagon is planning to launch the fourth in a series of small spacecraft known as TacSat or Joint Warfighter spacecraft that year.

While the Pentagon has not finalized the payload for that spacecraft, the NRO hopes to place a small synthetic aperture sensor on the satellite, Rustan said. The NRO is also working with NASA to reduce the size of synthetic aperture radar sensors used on spy satellites through NASA's experience with the Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar program, Rustan said. The NRO and NASA began collaborating in this area about a year ago following discussions by the partnership council that includes NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe, NRO director Peter Teets, and other top military officials who oversee space work, he said.

Other examples of joint efforts include automated data processing, Rustan said. The NRO and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency are working with NASA officials to take advantage of technology used to automate processing of image data used by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, he said.

There's also a note about trying to prop up Lockheed Martin and Boeing. It's a little like trying to read tea-leaves, but we see some reference to White House directives.

Meanwhile, the Air Force has been preoccupied with finding ways to support Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co., its primary launch providers, due to the poor commercial launch market, Dickman said. The Air Force has also focused on developing rockets that can launch small satellites in a fast and inexpensive manner, he said.

Such rockets are not likely to fit into NASA's plans for bringing humans to the Moon and Mars, Dickman said. But more launch cooperation could come as a result of the U.S. Space Transportation Policy signed by President George W. Bush in December that calls on NASA and the Pentagon to collaborate on the development of a heavy lift rocket for space exploration.

The policy instructs the agencies to strongly consider using the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle rockets developed by Boeing and Lockheed Martin for the Air Force as they made plans for the exploration vehicle.

It's interesting how Bush's presidency is beginning to echo certain aspects of another Texan president, Lyndon B. Johnson. President Bush seems very interested in giving the Aerospace industry something to do as well as build up market demand for the military industrial companies such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Of course this manifests itself in wars such as Vietnam and Iraq, as well as a general sense of dodginess to the contract tenders issued. Sometimes it ain't about party politics, it's just about delivering the bacon to your people.

- Art Neuro