Private Mars Rocket II

The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy called and wants me to post on the recent trend of billionaires in space. After I suggested they might want to fix their payroll issues, I agreed to post the following.

First, I am not at all upset that Bezos and Branson, AKA The B Team, launched themselves into space. I *would* be upset if, after their launches, they announced that they were done with space. They did not. Both individuals are attempting to build businesses of flying people into space safely and at a less astronomical cost then charged by NASA. (Pun intended.) This is overall a good thing for humanity. We will sooner or later want to be able to support large numbers of space travelers.

Second, it is entirely fair to dump on The B Team for not paying their fair share of taxes. A significant increase of taxation on either individual's firms or personal income would not reduce their spaceflight efforts in the slightest. They would still have more money than they knew what to do with.

Finally, yes the Blue Origin vehicle does more-than-vaguely resemble a flying penis. (I do remember when I was an junior high!)

On Saturday, I went to my local eat-and-drink movie house to watch the new SF flick Ad Astra. I have opinions.

1) I found the movie a bit ponderous. Some of that is characteristic of the plot, which is basically Heart of Darkness as interpreted by Apocalypse Now. Some of that is just because it's ponderous.
2) The spaceflight sequences are very much anti-2001, with tech that looks almost retro.
3) Much of the science is wonky.
4) You'd better like Brad Pitt - he is in every scene. Everybody else is a third banana or worse.
5) The visuals are stunning.
6) I found the ending a bit hokey.

Having said all of that, I did enjoy the movie, but overall I'd rate it a B.

I'm taking a break from politics. At some point (like, last week in my case) everything that needs to be said has been said, and repetition does nothing but make people cranky. So, no repetition from me.

I will note that those fine people at NASA have found not one but seven Earth-sized planets. I'll call that a win for science.

Comes news today that SpaceX just successfully recovered their first stage, making them the second entity to fly a reusable spaceship to orbit. (NASA's Shuttle was the first, of course.) This event is critical, in that if we are ever to have colonies in space, the cost of getting to orbit has to go down. The only way that happens is if we stop throwing away the spaceship after one mission.

The far side of the Moon as the Moon transits Earth. (Link with movie here.)

I'm going to Rotary, so have some links in lieu of content.

A) The other government revolving door - sheriffs departments and state troopers providing new homes for bad cops. Note: although this article is safe, the full site is full of not-safe-for-work "good shit."

B) Regarding the mess in Ferguson, this guy sums up my views perfectly.

C) An interesting article on the American way of dying. Having seen this with a number of aging relatives, the article makes good points.

D) The US Navy has deployed a 30 KW laser as a weapon.

E) An interesting article on the guy who refloated the Costa Concordia.

F) Space geeks really need to drop whatever they are doing and watch this movie.

Wakeup!

On Friday, I got a 4 ayem wakeup call from our security monitoring system. A bunch of alarms were tripped and I was asked if I wanted to meet police at the site. I did, and discovered the alarms were tripped by a power issue. Alas for my sleep, the damage was done and I spent a good part of Friday in a semi-zombielike stage.

Change of Plans

A former shipmate, with whom I have been in intermittent touch via Facebook, is now getting a degree at New College, Oxford. (They call it new because it was new, back in 1379 when it was founded. "New" is after all a relative term.) At any rate, since he's there and available during the first part of my trip to the British Isles, I am changing my travel plans to make a visit to Oxford. I'm skipping Bath, since the only reason I was going to Bath was I didn't want to spend all my time in London.


Space!

I note that yesterday was the 45th anniversary of the first moon landing. It would be nice to get back before the 50th, but I suspect that's not going to happen.

Like the label on the tin says:

A) Obama's pullout from Afghanistan explained. Money quote: It has been 13 years. If, after 2232 dead and at a cost of $10 million an hour, there still is no "democratic Afghanistan" to be found, whose fault is that? What are the magic numbers? Thirty years? Four thousand dead? Fifty thousand civilians? Fifty million an hour? What is the size of the butcher's bill that would force Fred Hiatt to abandon his imperial delusions and admit that, well, hell, we did our damndest?

B) From IO9 - a very interesting map of countries due east or west of the Americas. Of interest to me is how all of Europe is north of Virginia (or Illinois).

C) Also from IO9 - Earth-sized exoplanets appear to be surprisingly common. Good news for SF writers.

D) An interesting story - Air Force pilot helps land civilian airliner. I wonder why we're hearing of this months after the event.

I was reading somewhere that, in certain Japanese temples, one can see Roman glassware. To be clear, Roman glassware that was purchased when it was new by the temple staff. It was a reminder that the Silk Road was a real thing. So, not only was the road real, but at least some people on both ends of the road were aware of the people on the other end.

Think about that. Roman emperors were at least tangentially aware of Japanese emperors, and vice versa. But from a day-to-day perspective, they had no influence on each other.

Where this ties into space (no, I'm not obsessed about space, I can stop thinking about it any time I want to) is in terms of alien civilizations. The best guess we have about intelligent life in the galaxy is that we would expect, on average, civilizations to be separated by about 200 light years. Now, averages are funny, and so you could have a civilization a thousand light years from its nearest neighbor or one light year and still have an average galaxy-wide of 200 light years.

But 200 light years is a God-awfully long way. Travelling at the speed of light, a trip would take 200 years - assuming you can go that fast and don't need to stop for anything. Even travelling at 100 times the speed of light - or 100 times faster than Einstein says you can - that's a two-year trip one way.

This would, I suspect, set up something similar to the old Silk Road. Sufficiently-advanced civilizations would be aware of each other, and would probably have some low level of trade, but very little real influence on each other.

The universe is big, old and empty too.

I ended up working all day Saturday and a couple of hours on Sunday, relocating one of our branches to their permanent home after renovations. Thus, I find myself really dragging today, so, have some links on the lighter side.

1) Sent to me via email: a fascinating video tour of the International Space Station. It's about 30 minutes long, so get comfortable. What struck me was the amount of junk, hoses and cables strung randomly in the station.

2) An interesting question: Why do old men love to hang out naked (pun intended) in the locker room? Presented for amusement value.

3) An amusing quiz: 18th century resident of Connecticut or muppet character?

ETA: Just got another sales call. Transcript:
Caller: How are you. Having a good day?
Me: Yes. Who are you and what can I do for you?
Caller: I'm Sara, and Mister O'Kelly said you can help me.
Me: I never heard of a Mister O'Kelly.
Caller: click, followed by dial tone.