Private Mars Rocket II

A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? by Kelly Weinersmith

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I'm not obsessed with Mars - I can stop thinking about it any time I want to. ;-) Yesterday was not that day - I read the new book A City on Mars. Part of the subtitle is "Have We Really Thought This Through?" This may be a bit of a spoiler, but the answer is no.

The authors very competently, clearly and in an entertaining manner outline all the important stuff we don't know about living in space, from pregnancy to running closed-system ecologies. Rand Simberg, somebody I've sparred with online on occasion, is quoted at least twice in the book, neither time favorably. I personally didn't learn anything I didn't already know, but the book was a useful compellation of all the known unknowns facing space settlement.

The authors conclude with making a reasonable argument that humanity should do a lot more research before attempting any permanent colonization. Unfortunately, I expect this advice to be ignored. Simply put, once getting "there" becomes possible, the most optimistic people will go. I expect there will be a number of tragic deaths which will serve as object lessons for what not to do.

In any event, this is a well-written book and definitely worth your time to read.



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I've occasionally expressed my dislike of the concept of libertarianism. Here's a great and funny article I totally endorse.

Just a tidbit: "I’m liberal. Regarding the term’s use as an insult – when you are ready to volunteer for a flight on Market Self-Correction Airways or have your kid to eat the Mad Cow meat and die on a ventilator with blood hemorrhaging out of his eyes, then we’ll talk."

Scott Adams, the gift that keeps on giving, dashed off a blog post on his lunch hour in which he solves the North Korea problem. Like much emanating from the Alt-Right at the moment, his idea is at best half-baked. Scott, like many of the alt-right, is completely unable to understand what the various groups want. So, he makes an assumption about what they want, then follows that assumption down a logical path. But because he hasn't walked in the other guy's shoes, his understanding of their goal is so far out that his proposal makes no sense.

In this particular case, Scott assumes that China wants a peaceful Korean peninsula. Well, they'd like and would take a peaceful region, but what they absolutely don't want is for North Korea to collapse. That would spark a massive refugee problem and other political and economic heartburn. China also doesn't want a well-armed and Western-sponsored nation on it's border. China likes buffer zones. As a bonus, North Korean antics distract the US, giving China a freer hand in the region. This means China can't and won't push too hard on North Korea.

Scott assumes the North Korean leadership is interested in personal financial gain, so his plan gives them time to move their money overseas to hide it. Maybe, but it's entirely possible that the Kim family are psychopaths who just want people to be scared of them. It's also possible that they think Communism is "right" and the current poverty is character-building. Lastly, something is keeping the army from just taking over. Perhaps if one removes the "threat" of invasion from the South, the army will see that as a green light to take over.

At any rate, the failure of the Alt-Right and Trump to understand this is part of a whole. Somebody once said that for every problem there was a solution that was simple, obvious and wrong. The Alt-Right has a platform full of such solutions.

Thought #1 - "A Troubled Loner"

It seems that any time a black or Muslim man shoots somebody he shouldn't, that's proof of terrorism and conspiracy. Yet when a white man with a history of waving Confederate flags at black people shots somebody, we're told that they are "a troubled loner." In the latest case, it would be more accurate to call them a habitual criminal and violent racist.

Thought #2 - Making Water

It's said that necessity is the mother of invention. Israel, the driest country in the world, needed fresh water. So they invented cheap desalinization. Of note in the article - the same drought that forced Israel to make water let to the collapse of Syrian agriculture and the creation of large slums on the outskirts of Syrian cities. These led to the current civil war. Note to libertarians - either government takes care of the poor or the poor take care of government, French-revolution style.

Thought #3 - the Ghost Fleet of WWI

On a lighter note, in World War I, the US started an emergency program to replace merchant ships lost due to U-boats. Like much of our efforts in that war, the fighting was done by the time the ships were built. They were also uneconomical to operate, so they were left to rot in Mallows Bay. The wooden ships have created fascinating ship-shaped islands.

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo has written a series of posts called the brittle grip series. In these posts, he documents "growing calls from the extremely rich to not only be able to use their money without limit to shape the political process but to do so anonymously to avoid being "intimidated" or "vilified"."

I don't think this is just the rich. I think this is modern American conservatism. You see a similar phenomenon in my favorite American conservatives, be they at Simberg's Flying Circus (which I haven't visited for a while), Torgersen's Undisclosed Location or Wright's House of Wrong. In all three (and others) people who exercise their free speech rights in ways critical of the host's actions are accused of wanting to ship the host to a gulag or otherwise forcibly silence them.

To be clear - nobody is silencing the American conservative. Criticism is not silencing.

Three thoughts on this Good Friday-shortened work week:

1) Ryan Bundy, one of the dudes who took over the Federal wildlife refuge in Oregon, sends a letter. It's typical libertarian BS - no rules at all for me.

2) Part one of a two-fer from Gin and Tacos: Donald Trump and his supporters are absolutely right about one thing when it comes to immigration. Ed, the proprietor, points out that economically, America wants cheap immigrant labor while politically we want to keep immigrants out. Harsh laws poorly enforced accomplish both goals.

3) Part two of the two-fer: The story of Frank Woodall AKA Mary Johnson. In 1908, a woman living as a man got stopped for a health inspection at Ellis Island. When asked why, Frank said, "Women have a hard time in this world."

Jim Wright, over at Stonekettle Station, has no use for the so-called 'militias' occupying wildlife refuges. Another blog I stumbled across says "They [groups of self-described libertarians] don’t favor liberty because it promotes the widest possible flourishing and self-actualization of human beings. They favor it because it gives local patriarchs and lords of manors a free hand to dominate those under their thumbs, without a nasty state stepping in to interfere. For them, “libertarianism” — a term they pollute every time they utter it with their tongues — is simply a way of constructing the world of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale by contractual means.

I have to say that I find strong links between the "contractual libertarians" and the "militias" of Stonekettle Station. They both spout the language of liberty, but when you get under the hood, you don't see freedom. You see a desire to prevent government from interfering with their activities.

It's at best (with some of the rancher types) the kind of "freedom" that a 15-year-old wants when they demand Daddy's credit card so they can fly to Vegas for the weekend. That's the freedom to do what you want while getting subsidized. At worst, when the militia types rant against Muslims, it's the freedom to engage in racial and religious persecution, while being protected by the state.

These groups keep using the word "freedom." I do not think it means what they think it means.

Today is my last regular Rotary meeting of the year. In honor of that, have a couple of links.

A) You may have heard of Airbnb, a service that allows you to rent out spare rooms via the Internet. Well, this guy's dad died because of an Airbnb rental, and he notes, " The irony is that amateur innkeepers who couldn’t be trusted with the banal task of photographing and marketing their properties are expected to excel at hospitality’s most important rule: keeping guests safe and alive."

B) An interesting article on how technology drives culture: Friday Food Post: The Economics Behind Grandma's Tuna Casseroles.

C) In the "the globe isn't warming department, really" comes this: The city of Miami Beach floods on such a predictable basis that if, out of curiosity or sheer perversity, a person wants to she can plan a visit to coincide with an inundation.

D) The publisher Angry Robots is having an open submission period.

It's been hot and rainy this week, but today dawned dry and cool. To celebrate, have some links:

A) An interesting article on dinosaur exhibits over time.

B) Tim Akers has an interesting thought on politics by way of Dungeons and Dragons.

C) A Fungus Among Us or St. Anthony's Fire. Ye Goode Olde Dayes weren't really very good.

D) No, my libertarian friends, we won't, nay can't, leave you alone.

E) On a humorous note:

On this 1st of May, have some links and commentary:

1) A lengthy article on the start of Gamergate. The ex-boyfriend sounds like a full-on sociopath.

2) In certain gun-owning circles, it is an article of faith that the Sandy Hook shootings didn't happen. Tim McGraw begs to differ, which shows how impossible these "conspiracies" are.

3) One of the things which fascinated me about the book Ender's Game is how the author set up his reality such that Ender, a true sociopath, is the hero. This fellow thinks it's related to Mormon theology. Presented without comment.

4) This article about Sad Puppies has been all over the Internet. I link to it because it provides a useful definition of fascism. To wit, one needs all of:
- A charismatic leader
- A call to a (usually authoritarian) past Golden Age (frequently mythical)
- A stabbed-in-the-back narrative, which explains why the present is fubar
- A secret cabal of backstabbers, the existence of which means extra-legal or at least extra-ordinary actions are required