Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Hubble repair mission delayed to Feb 2009

As you may have heard, a key control system on the Hubble Space Telescope failed Saturday. It may be possible, though laborious, to switch to a redundant backup that's been turned off for the past 18 years. However, switching to the backup means you don't have a backup anymore, and you know how NASA likes redundancy. As a result, NASA has delayed the Hubble repair mission from Oct 14 to mid-February 2009 at the earliest.

Some of that delay is for the engineers to figure out how to repair/replace the failed unit. (Apparently there's a spare in a closet.) Some of that delay is to train astronauts in the new repair (Go John Grunsfeld, go!) But most is because of two strange, crazy notions in which NASA, despite all the evidence, still believes. They are:

  • The International Space Station is NOT a colossal boondoggle we'll dump in the ocean as soon as it's done. Rather, it is vitally important to prove that humans can build pointless space stations in space. Even if it delays fixing Hubble, the one shining achievement of manned spaceflight in the last 20 yrs.
  • Keeping a backup shuttle ready on the launchpad makes the Space Shuttle safer. One Shuttle: one-in-fifty chance of catastrophe. Two Shuttle: safe.
Just bitter, sorry.
Links: NYT article; Steinn's wrap-up; Julianne's take

Friday, September 26, 2008

Fantasy Dinner Party

The game: think of living, real people you'd like to invite to a dinner party. (No fictional characters or dead folks in this version of the game.) You get to assume that of course, they'd come to your party.

My list so far:
Salman Rushdie. Madhur Jaffrey. Teresa Nielsen Hayden. Tina Fey. Jane Goodall. Bob Mould. Barbara Kingsolver. Larry Kramer. Adrienne Rich. Alan Bean. Jon Stewart.

Please suggest other guests -- or create your own list.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Tina Fey as Sarah Palin on SNL

Non-embedded link here.



Do I need to say that Tina Fey rocks my casbah? Thanks to my sib for the link.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

How two post-docs built an A-bomb

Fascinating story in the Guardian about two physics postdocs who in 1964, designed from scratch an atomic bomb. They'd been hired by the US Government to see whether a few smart people with no expertise could take a nation nuclear. The answer: yes, in two years.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Up to 17 Hubble Fellows per year?

"We anticipate offering up to seventeen Hubble fellowships this year, with selection by peer review by experts from areas of research spanning the full range of the Cosmic Origins theme." I suppose that's only 2 more than the old system(10 Hubble Fellows + 5 Spitzer Fellows).

Likewise, the Chandra & GLAST fellowships have been concatenated into the "Einstein Fellowships", with "up to 10 fellows in 2009".

What does this bode for fellowship-seeking astronomers?

The right to make a different choice

Regarding Senator McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate:

  • My nonagenarian aunt asked what I thought of "The Eskimo Governor". (Which answers the question of whether she's still mentally sharp.)
  • It's a personal decision for a woman, when prenatal screening reveals a serious health issue like Downs Syndrome, whether to abort. While I would have made a different choice, I strongly support the right of women to make their own reproductive choices.
  • What's scary is that Ms. Palin believes women should NOT have those choices.
  • The NYT is reporting that McCain hoped to nominate Joe Lieberman instead, or maybe Tom Ridge. Because both men support reproductive rights, religious conservatives apparently threatened a floor flight if either was nominated.
  • Worth reading: this BBC article, which explains the story of Palin's pregnant daughter in the context of the US's sky-high teen pregnancy rate (compared to the developed world), and does its best to explain "abstinence-only" indoctrination to a European audience.
  • I can't help thinking back to age 17 -- my own immaturity, that of my classmates, and how terribly equipped any of us were for parenthood at that age. My classmates who gave birth in high school -- hmm, their kids are in high school now. Wow.