Obama's Address on Thursday
Showing posts with label space. Show all posts
Showing posts with label space. Show all posts
Friday, April 16, 2010
Quick comparison between Obama's space policy speech on Thursday and Kennedy's Moon speech
Counting words in a speech isn't the same as analyzing content. However, it does provide some quick and interesting clues, especially when contrasted with speeches of similar scope and ambition. That's why I love Wordle. Here's a quick comparison between Obama's space policy address at Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, April 15 and Kennedy's "Moon" speech at Rice University.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Kepler will find Earth-like planets
Comments - To the Sun-like stars: Life beyond Earth (Financial Times)
To be fair, Kepler is doing a photometric study. It won't be able to use the light of these incredibly dim (relative to their parent star) planets to look for oxygen, the clue that life exists on that world. But it will hopefully achieve the 10^7 contrast ratio for Sun-like stars in the near-infrared (or 10^10 in the visible) needed to identify a planet around a star.
Disclosure: In case you didn't know, I used to work on ground-based detection of low-mass companions to M-dwarfs in the near-Infrared at Palomar. Not nearly as glamorous, but I did find about ten new stars.
Glad to see astro made it in the financial pages. :)
To be fair, Kepler is doing a photometric study. It won't be able to use the light of these incredibly dim (relative to their parent star) planets to look for oxygen, the clue that life exists on that world. But it will hopefully achieve the 10^7 contrast ratio for Sun-like stars in the near-infrared (or 10^10 in the visible) needed to identify a planet around a star.
Disclosure: In case you didn't know, I used to work on ground-based detection of low-mass companions to M-dwarfs in the near-Infrared at Palomar. Not nearly as glamorous, but I did find about ten new stars.
Glad to see astro made it in the financial pages. :)
Saturday, August 23, 2008
The Bear, the Eagle, and the Gap
Who controls low-earth orbit controls near-earth space. Who controls near-earth space dominates Terra. Who dominates Terra determines the destiny of humankind.
- Astropolitik: Classical Geopolitics for the Space Age
"The (Russian) Empire Strikes Back" was already used by the Time leader article on Aug. 12. On the subject of space...
On Tuesday and Wednesday, I attended the Cornell Workshop on Space Security. It was a great conference, with lots of interesting discussions about issues in space security. Particular attention was given to China's anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons test in 2007 and the US ballistic missile defense program. I will write notes and thoughts about the conference later this weekend.
For now, I want to broach the issue of what the Russia-Georgia conflict and cooling relations with the Kremlin may mean for the US manned space program. In particular, what will happen when the Shuttle is retired in 2010, with no foreseeable replacement until Ares-I/Orion goes online in 2016 (2018? 2020?)
With so much happening on Earth in the financial and political arenas, I'm finding that I'm a bit rusty on space politics. However, Jeff Foust's blog, spacepolitics.org, remains a useful source for quick bits of space-related news.
An August 13 entry mentions that a planned extension of NASA's exemption of the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act (INKSNA) is probably dead. That exemption permits NASA to buy Progress and Soyuz flight services from Russia, which, in the absence of a working Shuttle program, are the only way for US astronauts to get to and from the International Space Station, as well as perform manned repairs of space assets.
Read the comments - there's one indicating some fighting between the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and NASA over the testimony of the AIAA director to Congress, suggesting that additional resources be devoted to a near-term human-qualified capsule for low Earth orbit access, rather than to an acceleration of Constellation.
The United States has already paid for Soyuz flights in 2010-2011.
Michael Griffin has indicated that Soyuz flights to cover 2011-2016 would be in excess of $2 billion.
I'm still processing this information, but this could become politically salient. After all, if Florida's electoral votes (I'm discounting the online space community's impact) convinced Obama to reverse his position on delaying Constellation to fund federal science education programs, the threat of sending additional money to a revanchist Russia might lead to an increase in funding to NASA (and the contractor who wins the bid).
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Sputnik 50th Anniversary Speech
An edited, condensed version of the article I wrote on Sputnik in October. Recorded and on Youtube for a Science Communication project.
Speech delivered at Toastmasters, May 15, 2008
On October 4, 1957, Leave it to Beaver premiered on CBS. This show, more than any other, would capture the spirit of optimism and simplicity that characterized America at that time. Few Americans were aware that that same day, the Soviet Union had launched the first man-made satellite into space - Sputnik. The illusion of innocence was evaporating as the beep-beep of the Red Moon rising ticked off the seconds of the new era.
Sputnik immediately challenged the basic assumptions upon which Western security and American confidence, rested. American confidence depended upon the assumption that, by empowering the individual and not the state, a free and open society could better harness the collective energies and intelligence of its citizens to preserve peace and prosperity. Postwar American strategy presumed scientific superiority and depended upon high-tech solutions — in particular, a nuclear bomber deterrent — to balance Soviet numbers in Europe. Imagine the reaction, then, when it became apparent that this backward, repressive regime was able to beat the free world to the ultimate missile. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that if the Soviets could launch a satellite into space, they could launch a nuclear weapon at American cities.
The American response was swift and substantial. In 1958, Congress created NASA to better direct the efforts of America’s various military and civilian aeronautical programs, whose petty rivalries had prevented the United States from being first to space. In time, America would use its own satellites to provide needed intelligence about the world beyond the iron curtain. That same year, Congress passed the National Defense and Education Act, which revamped science education and, for the first time, provided massive amounts of financial aid for college students.
Yet in spite of Eisenhower’s efforts to reassure the American people, fears of American technical inferiority and a “missile gap” helped decide the 1960 presidential election. Not since World War II, and perhaps never since, have science and technology been so politically central, so intimately linked in the American mind with the survival of the free world. Space exploration was a vision that transformed potency into existence, dreams into global impacts and politics into progress.
Sputnik created a host of institutions and a strong federal commitment to fund science. But its greatest, most critical legacy is a generation of scientists and citizens who embraced that shared vision of at last touching the heavens.
They were inspired and organized, trained and mentored, and overcame fear and challenges to explore the possibilities of this new age. These individuals now teach our classes, and serve in leadership positions in all areas of society. These men and women continue to expand the frontiers of science, to bring us sometimes wonderful, sometimes frightening, but unfailingly miraculous tomorrows.
No one living in the age of Sputnik, save the most farsighted scientists and unrepentant dreamers, could have imagined the world of today. We are equally ill-equipped to predict the events of the next half-century, either here on Earth, or in space.
This new ocean, like the seas of the twentieth century, may become the battlegrounds for bloody conflict. Or, space might be the exception in human history, the one frontier not consecrated with the blood of the innocent as well as the brave.
Perhaps in our efforts to explore beyond this pale blue dot, we might find the wisdom and means to build, here at home, what Langston Hughes called “the land that never has been yet — and yet must be/The land where every man is free.”
Whatever the future holds, one thing is certain — America and the world depend upon the genius, vision and character of its citizens, who dare to ask why, dare to dream, dare to challenge the frontiers of what is known, and dare to challenge themselves to become better through greater knowledge and wisdom.
History in general, and Sputnik in particular, tell us that there is little that collective human action cannot overcome, though it be matched against great challenges, natural or man-made. Thanks to that belief, and those believers, we can look at the heavens today and the earth below, with both greater knowledge and appreciation than any other generation in all history.
Speech delivered at Toastmasters, May 15, 2008
On October 4, 1957, Leave it to Beaver premiered on CBS. This show, more than any other, would capture the spirit of optimism and simplicity that characterized America at that time. Few Americans were aware that that same day, the Soviet Union had launched the first man-made satellite into space - Sputnik. The illusion of innocence was evaporating as the beep-beep of the Red Moon rising ticked off the seconds of the new era.
Sputnik immediately challenged the basic assumptions upon which Western security and American confidence, rested. American confidence depended upon the assumption that, by empowering the individual and not the state, a free and open society could better harness the collective energies and intelligence of its citizens to preserve peace and prosperity. Postwar American strategy presumed scientific superiority and depended upon high-tech solutions — in particular, a nuclear bomber deterrent — to balance Soviet numbers in Europe. Imagine the reaction, then, when it became apparent that this backward, repressive regime was able to beat the free world to the ultimate missile. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that if the Soviets could launch a satellite into space, they could launch a nuclear weapon at American cities.
The American response was swift and substantial. In 1958, Congress created NASA to better direct the efforts of America’s various military and civilian aeronautical programs, whose petty rivalries had prevented the United States from being first to space. In time, America would use its own satellites to provide needed intelligence about the world beyond the iron curtain. That same year, Congress passed the National Defense and Education Act, which revamped science education and, for the first time, provided massive amounts of financial aid for college students.
Yet in spite of Eisenhower’s efforts to reassure the American people, fears of American technical inferiority and a “missile gap” helped decide the 1960 presidential election. Not since World War II, and perhaps never since, have science and technology been so politically central, so intimately linked in the American mind with the survival of the free world. Space exploration was a vision that transformed potency into existence, dreams into global impacts and politics into progress.
Sputnik created a host of institutions and a strong federal commitment to fund science. But its greatest, most critical legacy is a generation of scientists and citizens who embraced that shared vision of at last touching the heavens.
They were inspired and organized, trained and mentored, and overcame fear and challenges to explore the possibilities of this new age. These individuals now teach our classes, and serve in leadership positions in all areas of society. These men and women continue to expand the frontiers of science, to bring us sometimes wonderful, sometimes frightening, but unfailingly miraculous tomorrows.
No one living in the age of Sputnik, save the most farsighted scientists and unrepentant dreamers, could have imagined the world of today. We are equally ill-equipped to predict the events of the next half-century, either here on Earth, or in space.
This new ocean, like the seas of the twentieth century, may become the battlegrounds for bloody conflict. Or, space might be the exception in human history, the one frontier not consecrated with the blood of the innocent as well as the brave.
Perhaps in our efforts to explore beyond this pale blue dot, we might find the wisdom and means to build, here at home, what Langston Hughes called “the land that never has been yet — and yet must be/The land where every man is free.”
Whatever the future holds, one thing is certain — America and the world depend upon the genius, vision and character of its citizens, who dare to ask why, dare to dream, dare to challenge the frontiers of what is known, and dare to challenge themselves to become better through greater knowledge and wisdom.
History in general, and Sputnik in particular, tell us that there is little that collective human action cannot overcome, though it be matched against great challenges, natural or man-made. Thanks to that belief, and those believers, we can look at the heavens today and the earth below, with both greater knowledge and appreciation than any other generation in all history.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
The Red Moon Rises: Sputnik and the Space Age Turn 50
My article in the Cornell Daily Sun, published October 2, 2007, two days before 50th anniversary.
http://cornellsun.com/node/24971/
http://cornellsun.com/node/24971/
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