Rand Simberg has a great, must read piece in TCS Daily looking back on 50 years of man in space beginning with the Soviet launch of Sputnik.

The psychic shock to America when we realized that the Soviets were “ahead” in missile technology (they weren’t) gave a tremendous impetus to not only our own efforts to get into space but also several innovative and important government programs that sought to create more scientists and engineers by encouraging schools at the primary and secondary level to place more emphasis on those subjects while pouring money into college and university research facilities to fund post-graduate work in a variety of fields.

The result? A veritable explosion of scientific creativity with a savvy, market oriented engineering expertise to turn discovery into commerce. The key was Eisenhower’s decision to take the space program away from the military and make it a civilian agency. Since the creation of NASA in 1959, the billions poured into the space program have translated into trillions in gross domestic product returns. So many of the technological and scientific wonders of our modern world can be traced to the basic research done with space dollars that it is impossible to quantify. Breakthroughs with direct applications to civilian use or that inspired multiple levels of creative exploitation beyond the original use of the technology have enriched our lives beyond measure. And we have the space program to thank for it.

But as Simberg points out, lost in this outpouring of commercial success was the utter and complete failure of the space program to follow a logical path to the stars, substituting what was known at the time as the MISS program – Man In Space Soonest:

In the mid-1950s, many science fiction writers, such as Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein, were predicting that men would walk on the moon. But none of them were so bold in their predictions as to claim that it would happen in the coming decade. It made no sense—there was a logical progression to such things. In 1958, we could barely toss a few pounds into orbit, and in the first year of launch attempts, three out of four had failed. The notion that we would be sending people into space, in a couple years, let alone all the way to the moon within a few more, seemed like too far out a prediction even for a visionary writer of fiction.

But what would have seemed even more fantastic was the notion that, having landed men on the moon in the late sixties, the last one would trod on the regolith a few years later, and there would be no return for half a century. That was beyond science fiction, into the realm of dystopian fantasy.

Yet, in part because of the Sputnik panic, that’s exactly what happened. In our rush to regain the technological lead over the Soviets, we took what tools we had at hand—ballistic missiles (expendable by their nature) and converted them to space transportation vehicles. Very expensive, very unreliable space transportation vehicles. It established the paradigm for how we would get into space with which we live to this day, as demonstrated by the fact that NASA is going “back to the future,” developing yet another expendable launch vehicle family to take us back to the moon.

Back in the 1950’s when Sputnik was unheard of, the US Air Force was experimenting with rocket planes. The X-Plane Program was envisioned as the primary means by which man would conquer space – taking off from a runway and powering into orbit using hyrbid engines that would be air breathers while still in the atmosphere and switch to rocket engines to boost the ship into orbit. Each vehicle in the X-series went higher, faster, and farther with the last two piloted vehicles exploring ways to maneuver an aircraft at the boundary of space. There was even a piloted aircraft in production – the X-20 – that would have gone into orbit eventually.

But the X-20 program was cancelled and NASA decided to go with its “down and dirty” option of adapting existing American ICBM’s by slapping another stage on them, placing a small capsule on top, and blasting it into orbit. Even the massive Saturn V rocket (37 stories tall, 7 million pounds of thrust) that boosted the Apollo moon missions off the ground was not much different in technology than the V-2 rockets that Werner Von Braun designed for Hitler back in the 40’s.

The problem then and now with relying on these rockets is that they are incredibly inefficient and expensive not to mention dangerous as hell. Consider that we launched a 37 story rocket toward the moon and what came back could fit in the living room of most American homes. We will never make space accessible to commercial exploitation or human habitation until we can lower the cost of putting people up there from thousands of dollars a pound to perhaps dozens of dollars per pound.

For in the end, this reliance on rockets has totally skewed the space program away from exploration and discovery and toward gimmicks and spectaculars. If we had followed the logical progression into space that the X-Plane series was promising back in the 1950’s, we wouldn’t have gotten to the moon by 1969 or perhaps even 1979. But you can bet we would have gotten there while establishing a permanent presence in space that would have led eventually to manned bases on the moon and perhaps even missions to Mars by the time we are supposed to get back to the moon under NASA’s current plan; 2018 if all goes well – something that hasn’t happened at NASA in a long, long time.

Simberg concludes wistfully:

But if we had taken a more measured, systematic, natural approach to the development of space, unhurried by the Sputnik panic, while there are no guarantees, we might today have the spinning orbital space stations of the movie 2001, affordable transportation in cis-lunar space, the bases on the moon that NASA currently plans for the third decade of this century, perhaps even trips to, and bases on Mars.

We will never know, of course—history doesn’t allow do overs. Or at least, not in any exact form. But it’s not too late to decide whether our current approach is as flawed now as it was then, at least with regard to opening the high frontier. On the fiftieth anniversary of the dawn of the old space age, it’s perhaps time to think about ushering in a new one.

There is hope. Dozens of private space company start-ups are finally starting to attract the attention of serious investors. Although the original efforts will be geared toward space tourism, it is only a matter of time before the cost to boost people and equipment into space will tumble as market forces initiate a race among the best of these companies to see who can build the most efficient, the least expensive means to get us into orbit. When that happens, “the sky’s the limit” will cease being a cliche and become a rallying cry for the private conquest of space.

I have a bet with myself as to who will get back to the moon first; NASA or some private space company eager to exploit several different commercial possibilities there. Given NASA’s track record over the last few decades, don’t bet against the entrepreneurs.

UPDATE

Mr. Simberg wishes all “Happy Sputnik Day” on his personal blog, Transterrestial Musings and has some excellent links.

In what will surely be seen as a defining moment for the 9/11 truther movement, the History Channel has delivered a blow for sanity and rationalism by airing a superior documentary entitled 9/11 Conspiracies: Fact or Fiction.

There’s no other way to say it; the truthers got reamed.

They got reamed to the point that the truthers who produced the internet video Loose Change are scrambling to alter the third version of their conspiracy mongering tripe, even going so far as to drop any reference to the twin towers being blown up by the government (they continue to insist WTC #7 was brought down by explosives).

The documentary took no prisoners as it destroyed almost all of the major conspiracy theories associated with 9/11 while revealing the real motivations of the truthers; that they are part of a political movement driven by raw, unreasoning hatred of George Bush, the American government, and to some extent, America itself.

Prominently featured were historians like David Brinkley, Editor in Chief of Popular Mechanics James Meigs, and structural engineers, explosives experts, and a host of scientists, military experts, and eyewitnesses to the disaster. The cumulative effect of the testimony of the anti-conspiracists was absolutely devastating. The show left little doubt of the unhinged nature of the truthers, showing many of them – including radio host Alex Jones who has given vast amounts of air time to every kook, crazy, and nutcase with a theory on 9/11 – looking like the anti-intellectual fruitcakes they truly are.

The format was perfect. A truther would lay out a conspiracy theory which was then immediately debunked by 2 or 3 experts. Over two hours, a couple of dozen myths associated with 9/11 were laid to rest permanently including the “missile” that hit the Pentagon, the shoot down of Flight 93, the “implosion” of the towers,” and other theories not based on fact.

The implosion theory was debunked several times over. First, by the best forensic structural engineer in the country who, with the help of some excellent graphics and animation, showed exactly how the planes caused the towers to fall. An explosives expert (a young guy who was flabbergasted at the ignorance of the truthers regarding demolition) pointed out it would have taken weeks to rig the buildings for implosion and would have involved stripping drywall and ripping out walls. The nail in the coffin was supplied by one of the engineers who prepared the final report (working for the independent American Society of Civil Engineers) who showed how the collapse of the towers accounted for such things as the puffs of smoke seen in lower floors as the collapse was occurring as well as the speed of the collapse.

By the end of their presentation, I was on my feet cheering.

The emotional highlight of the documentary occurred when they had members of the victims families responding to the truthers. A confrontation at Ground Zero on the anniversary of 9/11 with the truthers screaming at family members who disagreed with them was shocking. One family member said every time she heard one of the conspiracy nuts it was like “a stab in the heart.”

Not that these nutcases care much. As the documentary showed, the truthers real goal is to blame Bush. And the disturbing poll numbers showing that 46% of the country believing the whole truth about 9/11 is being hidden by the government shows why this documentary should be viewed by everyone.

You can tell how deeply this program hurt the truther movement by the fact that they didn’t try to answer any of the points made by the piece but rather attacked the source:

An upcoming documentary entitled The 9/11 Conspiracies, to be aired on the History Channel, may represent the biggest hit piece to date on the 9/11 truth movement and is rife with bias, cronyism and conflicts of interest

The so-called documentary promises not to look at the flaws in the official story from a neutral perspective but to start out by suggesting that any deviation from the official line is “outrageous”.

The program also features so called independent “experts” who are actually in the employ of the program makers themselves who in turn rely on scores of multi-million dollar contracts with the government and the military-industrial complex.

Hit piece? It is hard to see how much more fair minded the History Channel could have been. They allowed the truthers to spout their conspiracy theories to their hearts content and then rationally, reasonably, calmly poked so many holes in them they resembled a piece of swiss cheese.

Pat Curley of the excellent truther debunking site Screw Loose Change called the documentary “the dream debunking piece. It’s Hiroshima for the Truthers.” One might throw in Nagasaki as well.

Pat concludes:

Overall: Devastating blow for most of the kooks; ironically the CIT nuts get a little thrill as their theory at least gets a little boost. The cumulative effect is pretty overwhelming. The voicemorphed calls thing gets smashed in their faces. Awesome, absolutely the most satisfying moment in a very satisfying two hours!

He is referring to the jaw dropping theory that all the communications from passengers on the doomed planes were faked! Family members tearfully rebutted those outrageous charges. And the young editor of Popular Mechanics, who tried very hard not to laugh when he was debunking some of the more unbelievable theories, actually said he was personally disgusted by the implication that family members were somehow involved in the conspiracy by covering up the fact that the phone calls were not really from their loved ones.

The show will air again this weekend. Check your local listings but I have it in the Chicago area airing at 7:00 PM central Saturday night and 11:00 AM central on Sunday morning.

Don’t miss it.

UPDATE

Due to some outrageously obscene comments by the you-know-whos, comments are now being moderated.

Global warming skeptics have had it rough recently. I don’t know about you but when Al Gore says that the debate over global warming is closed, we may as well shut down all the laboratories studying the problem and simply give in to the inevitable – that a bunch of Luddites and anti-industrial, anti-capitalist, anti-globalization nitwits should take control of the American economy and bring us into a new age of carbon free living while bringing back the horse and buggy and steam powered locomotives.

But something happened on the way to creating this nirvana, namely Steve McIntyre.

Mr. McIntyre is a saboteur, an apostate, a living, breathing monkey wrench who has thrown himself into the global warming Juggernaut and caused the entire machine to stop dead in its tracks:

Steve McIntyre posted this data from NASA’s newly published data set from Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) These numbers represent deviation from the mean temperature calculated from temperature measurement stations throughout the USA.

According to the new data published by NASA, 1998 is no longer the hottest year ever. 1934 is.

Four of the top 10 years of US CONUS high temperature deviations are now from the 1930s: 1934, 1931, 1938 and 1939, while only 3 of the top 10 are from the last 10 years (1998, 2006, 1999). Several years (2000, 2002, 2003, 2004) fell well down the leaderboard, behind even 1900. (World rankings of temperature are calculated separately.)

McIntyre had discovered a slight error in NASA’s temperature calculations – enough to skew the results considerably and throw the global warming worshippers for a loop. In fact, since many advocates treat global warming more as a religion than science, McIntyre’s discovery would be like finding out that Jesus Christ never lived or that Moses never got the Ten Commandments from God.

Now, lest I be accused of denying other evidence for climate change – namely the rise in CO2 and other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere whose measurements have spiked in the last 100 years and are at levels rarely seen in the last millions of years – I will state flatly that the data Mr. McIntyre has forced NASA to change only alters the debate over how serious the problem is and not whether the problem exists. In short, the alterations in climate data simply proves a point global warming skeptics have been making for more than a decade; that more research is needed before we crash the economies of the industrialized world in order to satisfy those whose agenda is more political than scientific.

Steve McIntyre will go down in history as perhaps the man who saved the global warming debate. By showing the true believers that they can be wrong, he has reminded the scientific community about their obligations to discovering the truth regardless of where it leads. And that goes for skeptics and believers alike.

McIntyre is, judging by his bio, a brilliant mathematician and has authored or co-authored several papers on temperature change. He is a confirmed skeptic about climate models that show a precipitous rise in temperature over the last 1000 years. He was one of the most vocal critics of the so-called “hockey stick” graph that showed a stable temperature record for most of the last 1,000 years until the 20th century which revealed a steep rise in temperatures in North America – a debate that rages in the scientific community to this day.

McIntyre is not employed as a climate scientist nor does he receive any funds for his research. His expertise is in running mineral companies, a job that he thinks has prepared him well for his research into temperature models as he explains in his bio.

In short, he is a citizen-scientist with no ax to grind save seeking the facts and holding scientists to a high and rigorous standard of research. What he has done is nothing less than bringing the debate over global warming back into the realm of science – for the moment anyway.

Consider the history of another controversial theory; the origins of the universe. For decades, cosmologists believed in the “Steady State Theory” as the best explanation for the creation of the universe. Those who disagreed with it were given short shrift and dismissed as cranks. Then a new theory arose in the 1960’s that challenged the primacy of the Steady State idea of the universe – an elegant mathematical construct we commonly call “The Big Bang” theory. Slowly, instruments became available that were able to supply observational proof for the Big Bang to go along with the complex mathematics until today, few cosmologists subscribe to the Steady State theory – even though it was gospel less than 50 years ago.

The reason cosmologists were able to change their thinking was the compelling nature of the observational data that matched up almost perfectly with the mathematical proofs. Even those scientists who had a heavy intellectual investment in seeing that the Steady State theory remain gospel were forced to alter their own theories in order to acknowledge the facts at hand.

McIntyre’s work will do something similar; it will force those scientists with a vested interest in seeing their theories about global warming validated by their peers to alter their models to reflect the new data. Those scientists who truly seek the facts about global warming will swallow their pride and perhaps come to new conclusions. Those scientists more interested in riding the global warming gravy train will denounce and obfuscate McIntyre’s work, hoping politicians like Al Gore come to their rescue by loudly proclaiming that the debate is still “closed.”

And we, the lay public who know next to nothing about the many scientific disciplines that are engaged in climate study, must ourselves keep a more open mind in order to decide the right course of action for the future. If nothing else, McIntyre has shown once again that scientists are as fallible as the rest of us.

Perhaps the scientists themselves need to be reminded of that from time to time.

I was pleased to see that someone decided to spend the time and energy to scientifically debunk the politically motivated statistical study on deaths in Iraq since the invasion published by the Lancet just days before the 2004 election.

First of all, it is important that these charlatans be exposed for the scientific hacks they are. Dr. Les Brown, an epidemiologist, headed the 2004 study which estimated 100,000 or more excess Iraqis had died as a result of our invasion and occupation. What should have been the tip off to the study’s uselessness was the contention that “most of the excess deaths” were the result of violence and that “80% of those deaths were the result of air strikes.”

Unless the US was carrying on a massive bombing campaign that killed tens of thousands of civilians without the media, the UN, the Iraqis themselves, or anyone else knowing anything about it, that statement was either a laughable corruption of statistics or a bald faced lie.

And given this thorough destruction of the study by David Kane, Institute Fellow at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University, the latter explanation may be the most logical.

Much of the math here is mind-numbingly complicated, but Kane’s bottom line is simple: the Lancet authors “cannot reject the null hypothesis that mortality in Iraq is unchanged.” Translation: according to Kane, the confidence interval for the Lancet authors’ main finding is wrong. Had the authors calculated the confidence interval correctly, Kane asserts that they would have failed to identify a statistically significant increase in risk of death in Iraq, let alone the widely-reported 98,000 excess civilian deaths.

An interesting side note: as Kane observes in his paper, the Lancet authors “refuse to provide anyone with the underlying data (or even a precise description of the actual methodology).” The researchers did release some high-level summary data in highly aggregated form (see here), but they released neither the detailed interviewee-level data nor the programming code that would be necessary to replicate their results.

Failing to provide the detailed interviewee-level data and the programming code so that colleagues could duplicate their results thus validating the study is a clear indication that Brown and his crew could have cared less if the study was accurate or even scientifically useful. It is an open question whether they knew the study was flawed which would make their sin a mortal one for a scientist, a transgression that would get you fired from any respectable scientific institution in the world and leave your career in tatters.

The study was a political statement – propaganda in service to people that Brown, whose work was most praiseworthy in Rwanda, should have recognized as kin to the genocidal maniacs who hacked 800,000 tribesmen to death in the 1990’s. The beheaders and mass murderers that we are fighting in Iraq were aided by this study. And Brown and his team should be abjectly ashamed of themselves for knowingly giving them assistance and comfort.

This ethical transgression by Brown should finish his career. Instead, don’t be surprised if he gets the Nobel Peace Prize.

And what of the Lancet? Publishing the study 5 days before the presidential election and then claiming that the publication date was only a coincidence exposes them as frauds and liars. One of the oldest and most respected medical journals on the planet was put in service of a partisan political agenda and in a most cowardly manner, denied it’s motives were anything except pure as the driven snow.

Outrageous.

As we have seen with the Bush Administration, politically motivated science put in service to a specific agenda is extraordinarily damaging. For the Bushies, who have no respect for science in my opinion and see it as a tool to be used to advance their political agenda, everything from the public health to climate change was affected by their cooking the books. But Brown and The Lancet went the Bush Administration one better; they put themselves and their scientific expertise at the disposal of the enemies of civilization. They allowed their animus toward the war, or Bush, or the United States to blind them to the fact that by hurting America’s cause they were helping those who, if given the chance, would just as soon put a bullet in their brains as give them the time of day. It makes no sense.

In the end, this is an esoteric argument. Tens of thousands of Iraqis are dead, most of them innocent women and children. And while it’s true that insurgents and terrorists use civilians as human shields, it is also true that no study, no argument can be made to really defend or obscure the fact that for many Iraqis, this war has been a personal tragedy beyond their ability to bear. Loved ones who have died in crossfire or because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time when a car bomb went off, or simply because a mistake was made by American forces are lost forever. They cannot be brought back by bogus studies or “supporting the troops” or “winning through to victory” or political posturing here at home. Dead is dead. And we don’t need cooked statistics published by ethically challenged journals to tell us of the immense pain and human toll our war of choice is costing the Iraqi people.

Iraq is an open wound, bleeding as a result of our ministrations. Even though the surge is showing some signs of success in some areas – less so in others, the political differences that divide the country are a chasm that no one seems willing or able to bridge. Until the Iraqis decide they wish to live together in peace, the body count will continue to rise. The only question is will more die if we leave than if we stay.

And no one knows the answer – no one has any answers that would allow us the luxury of a quick exit.

UPDATE

Vindication for Shannon Love of Chicago Boyz whose series of posts on the study back in 2004 I relied on for my own piece questioning the study.

Kane shows that if the Falluja cluster is included in the statistical calculations, the confidence interval dips below zero, which is a big no-no. Since the study’s raw data remain a closely guarded secret, Kane cannot be absolutely certain that the inclusion of the Falluja cluster renders the study mathematically invalid…

Ah, vindication is sweet.

Does anyone care anymore?

In 10,000 years that garbage you’re taking out today after the little woman nags you about it long enough will become priceless artifacts. Future archaeologists will puzzle over that broken coffee mug with the picture of a naked woman on it and wonder if she was some kind of goddess or perhaps a representation of your wife.

Maybe you should leave a note.

It won’t matter because the paper your note is written on won’t survive. Nor will 50% of the rest of our bio-degradable garbage which will leave a lot of real nasty stuff those future scientists will have to go through in order to extract a few nuggets of history that will tell future humans all about us.

In 10,000 years, no one will remember Nancy Pelosi. No one will remember George Bush either. They may rate a line or two in some obscure scholar’s dissertation on primitive nation-state politics but I doubt it. History will lose track of them as she forgets so many others. Clio is really quite selective about what people and events are clasped to her bosom and carried through the centuries to be examined and debated by those in the future whose calling is to explain the past to their contemporaries.

The millions of words spoken and written in anger or passion or to persuade others over Iraq these last years will have completely disappeared, are already disappearing as the relentless march of time burns away all but the most influential or seminal of events and people. What’s left is in turn ground to powder and the remainder sifted through the ages until the essence of an entire century or more will be distilled for consumption.

This doesn’t make what’s happening today any less important. But it does give us a sobering perspective on how, in the long, tangled skein of people, events, and ideas that make up the history of the last 100 years – the wars, the ideology, the clashes of civilization and wills, – almost all of it will be seen as nothing more than sound and fury signifying nothing if it is remembered at all.

Except for the moon landing, of course.

You can’t find much in newspapers or on the news nets about the 38th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon which was actually yesterday, July 20th (The moonwalk occurred early on the 21st.). Bloggers desperate for something to write about contributed more than a thousand posts to the historical discussion with an unknown number reminding everyone that the landing was a hoax, that all the moon footage was shot on a Hollywood backlot.

I have no doubt that for the foreseeable future, this kind of ho-hum reaction will greet subsequent anniversaries marking the achievement of Apollo 11. It isn’t that the event has lost its importance as much as its distance in time allows for a diminishing in the importance of the actual memory of the occasion. So much has happened between then and now that even though the moon landing may be the only thing remembered about the times in which we live 10,000 years hence, Apollo 11 today has a lot of competition when it comes to available space in our brains for recalling the past.

Then there are those who don’t see what all the fuss is about, that the accomplishment was a waste of resources that could have been better spent or not spent at all. From a purely rationalist point of view, there may be something to that argument – especially given the fact that NASA failed miserably in following up on its achievement in landing on the moon to go on to bigger and better things. No permanent space station – unless you include that over priced, over sold, under performing piece of space junk called the “International Space Station” we have orbiting now.

No trip to Mars. Not even a trip back to the moon to set up some kind of base of operations for future exploration. Only a fairly dangerous, earth orbit bound space truck called the Shuttle whose life has been extended because the NASA bureaucracy can’t figure out how to dream big dreams anymore. Apparently, there is no manual or position paper on how to capture the essential hunger felt by most people for human exploration of the universe to be found in any of the offices of NASA’s top bureaucrats.

A pity. Their predecessors who cooked up the Apollo program in response to a challenge from our ideological opponents in the old Soviet Union were, if nothing else, dreamers. They were also inveterate gamblers. There may never have been nor will there ever be any project undertaken so fraught with danger and risk for the participants as the Apollo program.

Think of it. In 1962 when the program was just getting underway, America had put exactly 3 men into space, only one of them into earth orbit. By making the decision to land on the moon and return safely by the end of the decade, NASA had its work cut out for it. Not only new technologies would have to be developed but entire industries would have to be created in order to meet Kennedy’s ambitious goal. There has never been an effort in peacetime like it in history. More than $24 billion would be spent (about $120 billion in today’s dollars) to make that dream a reality.

Nearly 500,000 human beings would lay their hands on at least one of the millions of parts that made up the Apollo 11 spacecraft. This dwarfs the number of people who worked on the Manhattan Project to build the A-Bomb, the Panama Canal, and the Pyramids put together. A study done in 1972 revealed that more than 25% of all the man hours worked on the project were in the form of unpaid overtime. This is because by 1968, after the fire of Apollo 1 that killed 3 astronauts along with subsequent delays in the delivery of the Lunar Module (LM), Congress was threatening to cut the program off at the knees.

In effect, NASA was launching a 37 story building, aiming it at a moving target orbiting the earth at more than 2200 miles per hour, 240,000 miles away with a spacecraft travelling more than 19,000 MPH. Some engineers in the early days of Apollo privately believed that the feat would be impossible, that the astronauts were doomed. The technical challenges were enormous. The Saturn V booster would have to generate more than 7,000,000 pounds of thrust to get the behemoth off the ground. The Lunar Lander, the first vehicle designed to be used exclusively in space, was the size of a mini-van and contained two stages.

The second stage was supposed to lift the astronauts off the surface when they were ready to leave and on Apollo 11, it had never been tested in space before. If it failed to work, there was no back up, no rescue plan. President Nixon was told that given all the uncertainties, there was a one in five chance that the astronauts would be left stranded on the moon unable to return (Neil Armstrong gave himself a 50-50 chance of coming home). He even had Bill Safire write a speech in case the mission failed.

Why should this date in history lose its significance as the years pass? There has never been an achievement in the history of mankind that summed up all that is good and noble in the human soul as Apollo 11. Yes the reasons for going to the moon may have been petty and selfish. But the achievement itself represents the best of what we are – thinking, rational animals with an insatiable curiosity of what is beyond the next horizon. NASA may have forgotten this. But the dream itself is alive and well thanks to a small group of outriders on the very frontiers of science who have started their own private space ventures. In the next decade, the novelty of space tourism will dominate this industry. But eventually, the drive for profit will send people hurtling into the void to exploit the resources and raw materials found on other heavenly bodies in our solar system.

Like NASA of the 1960’s, their reasons may be selfish and petty. But the very act of exploration will once again confirm the fact that regardless of politics or economics, the destiny of man is out there somewhere and everywhere in the universe. And it won’t be the ossified bureaucrats in governments who will lead this quest. It will be the dreamers and the risk takers whose own small steps will turn into giant leaps for all of us in the not too distant future.

This is certainly one of the more interesting science tidbits I’ve seen in the news lately. A panel of scientists has recommended that we expand our search for extraterrestrial life to include “weird” life forms based on other elements than carbon and water:

A panel of scientists convened by America’s leading scientific advisory group says the hunt for extraterrestrial life should be greatly expanded to include what they call “weird life”: organisms that lack DNA or other molecules found in life as we know it.

“The committee’s investigation makes clear that life is possible in forms different from those on Earth,” the scientists conclude in their report, “The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems,” published by the National Research Council.

Other experts hailed the report as an important rethinking of the search for life. “It’s going to help us a lot to make sure we go exploring with our eyes wide open,” said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars exploration program.

Starfish, sequoias, salamanders and the rest of Earth’s residents may seem very diverse, but they are surprisingly similar on the molecular scale. All species that scientists have studied need liquid water to survive, for example. Further, they all rely on DNA to carry genetic information, and they all use that information to build proteins from the same set of building blocks, known as amino acids.

NASA has long looked to life on Earth to guide its search for life on other worlds. Planets and moons that have hints of liquid water have been ranked high on the list of potential sites for life-detection missions.

But there is good reason to suspect that other kinds of chemistry could support life as well, the authors of the new report argue. Weird life could differ from life as we know it in small or big ways.

Fascinating. When scientists say that “Weird life could differ from life as we know it,” are they talking about life like this?

(NSFW)

There’s only one question I have for everyone out there today.

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!

Don’t you know the planet is in danger of shriveling up like Al Gore’s testicles on a cold winter’s day? Don’t you realize that unless we do something NOW about global warming, Los Angeles will be under water before you know it and they’ll have to cancel all those “See the Homes of the Stars” tours? Can’t you see that unless we abandon all industrial production and go back to a time when men were men, women were women, and horses were just like cars except they didn’t have chrome bumpers and electric sun roofs, that the Earth Goddess will be angry at us and punish us by cancelling the Winter Olympics in 2050? (Goodness! What will the Canadians do if they can’t compete in Curling?)

YOU PEOPLE SUCK! No commitment. No concern for the planet. AND YOU’VE GOT THE MOST GOD-AWFUL TASTE IN MUSIC I’VE EVER SEEN!

Live Earth has been branded a foul-mouthed flop.

Organisers of the global music concert – punctuated by swearing from presenters and performers – had predicted massive viewing figures.

But BBC’s live afternoon television coverage attracted an average British audience of just 900,000.

In the evening, when coverage switched from BBC2 to BBC1, the figure rose to just 2.7million.

And the peak audience, which came when Madonna sang at Wembley, was a dismal 4.5million. Three times as many viewers saw the Princess Diana tribute on the same channel six days before.

Two years ago, Live 8 drew a peak television audience of 9.6million while Live Aid notched 10million in 1985.

The BBC blamed the poor figures on Saturday’s good weather and said its Wimbledon tennis coverage had drawn away afternoon viewers.

Critics said however that the public had simply snubbed what they saw as a hypocritical event.

ALL OF YOU SHOULD BE ROYALLY ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES!

More people went to see Tiger Woods play golf in DC than the Live Earth Concert – many, many more:

People in attendance at the PGA Tour event today in the D.C. area: 37,613, per a local sports channel.

People in attendance at Al Gore’s Live Earth event in D.C. today… Well, somewhat less than that. Guessing whether it was 100 times less, or merely 50 times less, that’s just part of the fun.

Here’s what look like empty seats at the marquee event in New York.

And drastically fewer people showed up than anticipated in Rio.

What does it say about you dilettantes that 140,000 people showed up at a NASCAR race in Daytona to watch carbon spewing automobiles race around an oval track while a less than impressive 52,00 showed up at Giants stadium to watch rocker Bon Jovi (local boy) and that paragon of restraint and virtue Kanye West?

Why, I’ll be you didn’t even sign the pledge. What pledge, you ask? Why, the Live Earth Pledge, naturally:

I PLEDGE:

1.To demand that my country join an international treaty within the next 2 years that cuts global warming pollution by 90% in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy earth;

You see what I mean about horses, right? Cutting 90% of our greenhouse gas emissions would take us back to the turn of the century. That’s the turn of the 20th century!. But hey! Who’s counting centuries with “earth in the balance?” And don’t forget to pledge this part extra hard:

2.To take personal action to help solve the climate crisis by reducing my own CO2 pollution as much as I can and offsetting the rest to become “carbon neutral;”

No burping. No farting. And forget about barbecuing the next 4th of July. Gas, electric, or briquette, it doesn’t matter. They all contribute to your massive carbon footprint on this planet.

And no burning wood either. Don’t you know how long the Earth Goddess has to work to grow a tree? What’s the matter with you? If you get cold during the winter, might I suggest burning a few unnecessary books? For a list of accepted and appropriate titles to burn, go here. Of course, there’s always “snuggling.” But keep your hands to yourself! No monkey business under your recycled cotton blanket. You know how Mother Earth feels about kids – the fewer the better. Unless they’re white. But all you brown and yellow people out there CUT IT OUT, WILLYA! You’re spoiling the planet for the rest of us by having oodles of kids. Take a cold shower once and a while, huh?

But I see where all those big music stars and even Al Gore failed to get through to you. It’s not their fault. They did their best. IT’S YOU PEOPLE WHO ARE FAULT! YOU JUST DON’T CARE ENOUGH TO BE A TRUE CLIMATE WARRIOR!

So be it. For penance, when the next one of these “Live (fill in the blank)” concerts takes place. I condemn you to sit in front of your computer or TV and watch the whole thing from beginning to end. Even if Madonna shows up. Even if the Beastie Boys are, well, Beastly. That will teach you the proper way to practice social activism; sitting on your butt listening to the bones creaking from ancient musical acts.

AND DON’T GET ANY IDEAS THIS IS OVER. IT’S NOT. NOTHING IS OVER UNTIL WE SAY IT IS. Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? AND IT’S NOT OVER NOW!

So make sure you sign the pledge. It may be an inconvenient truth, but there you have it.

AND I DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO COME DOWN ON YOU LIKE THIS AGAIN. GET GREEN!

Ah! The absolute inscrutability of cats. They have fooled, manipulated, enslaved, and enraptured us for going on 12,000 years. And for all of our sophisticated techniques to unravel the mysteries of the universe, we’re still having a hard time discovering why these lovable, maddening, and unknowable creatures have deigned to share their milk bowl with us:

Your hunch is correct. Your cat decided to live with you, not the other way around. The sad truth is, it may not be a final decision.

But don’t take this feline diffidence personally. It runs in the family. And it goes back a long way—about 12,000 years, actually.

Those are among the inescapable conclusions of a genetic study of the origins of the domestic cat, being published today in the journal Science.

The findings, drawn from an analysis of nearly 1,000 cats around the world, suggest that the ancestors of today’s tabbies, Persians and Siamese wandered into Near Eastern settlements at the dawn of agriculture. They were looking for food, not friendship.

They found what they were seeking in the form of rodents feeding on stored grain. They stayed for 12 millennia, although not without wandering off now and again to consort with their wild cousins.

Fascinating findings. The date of 12,000 years is a little beyond what most scientists had surmised solely from the archaeological evidence – about 2-4 thousand years. The Egyptians were worshipping cats around 7,000 years ago so the date gleaned from DNA evidence is a little surprising.

It is a story about one of the more important biological experiments ever undertaken,” said Stephen J. O’Brien, a molecular geneticist at the National Cancer Institute’s laboratory in Frederick, Md., and one of the supervisors of the project.

“We think what happened is that cats sort of domesticated themselves,” said Carlos A. Driscoll, the University of Oxford graduate student who did the work, which required him, among other things, to befriend feral cats on the Mongolian steppes.

Stop right there. HOLD THE PRESSES! EXTRA! EXTRA!

SCIENTIST SAYS CATS “DOMESTICATED THEMSELVES”

I’d like to see a dog pull that off…

Seriously, what this proves is that scientists are extremely silly people. The truth is much more prosaic; cats domesticated us.

They probably saved early civilization by showing the stupid humans how dumb it was to keep the harvested grain on the floor of some mud hut where mice and rats would have easy access to it:

Large-scale grain agriculture began in the Near East’s Fertile Crescent. With the storage of surplus grain came mice, which fed on it and contaminated it.

Settled farming communities with dense rodent populations were a new habitat. Wildcats came out of the woods and grasslands to exploit it. They may have lived close to man—but not petting-close—for centuries.

Eventually, though, natural selection favored individual animals whose genetic makeup by chance made them tolerant of human contact. Such behavior provided them with things—a night indoors, the occasional bowl of milk—that allowed them to out-compete their scaredy-cat relatives.

For people, it was a great package—agriculture, food surplus (and all the civilizing effects that came with it), with domesticated cats thrown in to protect the wealth by eating the mice.

I wonder when they developed the ability to tug at our heartstrings with a well modulated “meow?” At what point did they realize that the simple act of looking us right in the eye, showing a face that defines animal beauty and comeliness, would make us fall in love with them? Wouldn’t it be interesting to find out when cats discovered they could get more by giving less; that the ability to manipulate us, wrap us around their paw meant that they could dole out their affections by the teaspoon rather than the bushelfull as lesser creatures like dogs do?

We will never know the answer to these questions because again, natural selection worked its magic in those areas as well. Slowly, over time, cats who were able to dominate the relationship with humans were more successful breeding due to longer life spans. Eventually, the genes that determined a cat’s behavior geared toward getting what they wanted from people won out and are with their domesticated grandchildren today.

The research shows that all domestic cats are descended from the East African wild cat. But there were wild cats in Europe and Asia as well. Why weren’t they domesticated also?

“When that technology was transferred to other cultures, so were the cats,” said Robert Wayne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California in Los Angeles. Therein lies the reason other cultures didn’t domesticate local wildcats, he said. “Why reinvent the wheel?”

This is not true with other acts of animal domestication.

Genetic studies have shown that cattle, goats, sheep, pigs and water buffalo were all domesticated at least twice in independent events. With horses, it happened many times.

And perhaps the most startling thing to emerge from this study, is that even after being domesticated, cats would escape the confines of human settlements to mix with their wildcat cousins in Europe and Africa:

The consequence of one other feline behavior—the average cat’s uncertainty about whether it wants to be indoors or out—was also written in the genes Driscoll studied.

He found that a significant fraction of wildcats in Europe, southern Africa and central Asia were hybrids. They carried genetic evidence of having tomcatted around from time to time with their domesticated relatives.

So far, genetic studies of dogs have not found this re-mixing with wolves or other wild dog species. But the geneticists have a much tougher task with dogs because it is believed they were domesticated at least 20,000 years ago and perhaps as far back as 100,000 years. And the task of tagging the DNA of all dog species would be a monumental effort.

All this is moot, of course, because cats could give a damn. They are what they are and they’re where they want to be. No power on earth can move them. And if, in the distant past, they wandered into some primitive human enclave to eat a few mice grown fat and slow from gorging themselves on the hard earned bounty of the land, I’m sure their initial impression of us must have been a good one.

Either that or they simply saw us as the only other creature on the planet who could truly appreciate their otherworldly nature.

Being something of an agnostic on the global warming debate, I was amused to watch Al Gore testify before Congress yesterday. Not only was the former Vice President entertaining – as most dogmatic, close minded advocates on both sides of the global warming debate usually are – but watching him wiggle and squirm as he sought to avoid charges of hypocrisy for not taking a pledge to live a life of carbon neutrality turned into either low comedy or high drama, depending on your point of view.

Environmental activist (and former vice president) Al Gore descended on Capitol Hill yesterday, telling two congressional panels that global climate change represents the most dangerous crisis in American history and that the measures needed to fix the problem—such as an immediate freeze on new emissions from cars and power plants—are far more drastic than anything currently on the table.

Gore, whose documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” won an Academy Award last month, testified before both House and Senate committees in an appearance that drew international media attention and lines of would-be spectators trailing through congressional hallways.

In both hearings, he had testy exchanges with lawmakers who doubted his scientific evidence or the feasibility of his solutions. Much of his day, though, was spent basking in an odd spotlight: Gore and his cause have Washington’s full attention. But his message, of a feverish planet and dwindling time in which to cure it, made for a grim homecoming.

“This is not a normal time. We are facing a planetary emergency,” Gore said in the afternoon Senate hearing. “I’m fully aware that that phrase sounds shrill to many people’s ears. But it is accurate.”

First, I wonder what Gore thinks of being referred to primarily as an “environmental activist” with his main claim to fame as Clinton’s Vice President given in parentheses. Considering the fact that Gore would probably like to ride his global warming crusade into the White House, my guess is that such distinctions don’t sit very well with him.

As far as his appearances, he was in his element – lecturing the assembled lawmakers and the rest of us that unless drastic action is taken, we’ll be under water before you know it. Or as dry as my Zsu-Zsu’s meatloaf depending on where you live. And we’ll either be hotter than hades or colder than an environmentalist’s heart unless we listen to he and other climate scare mongers.

You see, Gore and I are not scientists but we both share a passion for the subject. The difference between us is that I gather information from both skeptics (the serious kind, not including Senator Inhofe) and advocates who, surprisingly, are in close agreement on a few facts about climate change:

1. The climate is changing.

2. It is getting warmer.

3. Humans have had an as yet undetermined impact on these facts. (Still a matter of some dispute although the evidence has become pretty compelling over the last 2 or three years.)

4. No one knows what the hell to do about it.

For Al Gore to recommend the absolutely most catastrophic “solutions” – measures that would finish the United States as an economic power in the world – is not only irresponsible but silly. An “immediate freeze” on emissions from power plants would mean a helluva lot less electricity. Although I’m sure there would be enough to light up and heat Mr. Gore’s estate, as for the rest of us, I’m not so sure.

And a freeze in car emissions? How do we do that without shutting down the assembly lines and throwing tens of thousands out of work? Well, at least Al will still have a job. He could always latch on to a carnival somewhere as a barker.

Of course, this would be only the beginning. Huge increases in fuel taxes, a rush to shut down coal fired power plants, and other draconian measures that have little to do with saving the planet and everything to do with politics. The fact is, there is no scientific consensus on what to do about global warming and, in fact, there is a large body of scientific opinion that says even if we stopped emitting greenhouse gasses today, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.

Gore is not pushing science as much as he is touting a political agenda – an anti-capitalist, anti-industrial, pro-socialist agenda that would set up a super governing body to act as a carbon nanny, doling out punishments to nations that don’t measure up. The Luddites, the one worlders, the pastoral radicals, and anarchists who are his allies in this cause would basically be in charge of industrial production in the west.

By all means let us work diligently toward a society where greenhouse emissions are limited as much as possible. Let’s get the nuclear power industry up and running full bore. Let’s fully fund research into hydrogen alternatives to the internal combustion engine. Where possible, let’s encourage solar, wind, geo-thermal, and other alternative forms of energy (fat lot of good it will do since the savings in emissions would be minimal in the United States). And let’s start a massive educational campaign to inform the public of what each American can be doing to limit their “carbon signature” on the planet.

But at the same time, let’s tell Al Gore and his hysterical friends to put a sock in it. Their moralizing and politicizing the issue not to mention their filthy smears of not only skeptics but anyone who doesn’t buy in to their end of the world scenarios (some of them contradictory) is making the rest of us sick to our stomachs. Dismissing skeptics as shills for the oil and gas industry is outrageous demagoguery and indicates that, like religious zealots, it is impossible to challenge their beliefs in a rational, reasonable manner.

Perhaps the more outrageous Gore and his friends get in their dire pronouncements and calumnious denunciations, the less people will listen to them. I sincerely hope so. This has been the fate of other zealots in American history. And for Al Gore, such an outcome can’t come too soon.

UPDATE II

Check out the video at Michelle Malkin that has a jaw dropping example of Senator Boxer’s arrogance. And there’s a separate video of a CNN newsreader’s reaction (“Good for her.”)

What biased media?

And Dean Barnett has his own “Eco-Purity Pledge.” (Guffaw!)

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

I’ve followed along these last few years as case after case of the White House politicizing global warming data has come to light. And I’ve also written of other cases where religion and religious beliefs have colored the science that the government disseminates to the public.

But to say only one side is guilty of allowing a particular political agenda to intrude into scientific inquiry is demonstrably false and ignores the fact that both sides now are engaged in an ideological struggle that is doing enormous damage to the credibility of public science.

The taxpaying public must be reasonably certain that science being done by the government or funded with our tax dollars is above the political fray, that the conclusions reached by experts are free of partisan political taint and instead reflect empirical data discovered using the tried and true scientific method of inquiry. It should also be a given that this data should be open to full examination and criticism by other scientists, recognizing that vetting the work done in the laboratory in this manner is an important part of the scientific process.

Instead, both sides have been guilty of bending and twisting scientific observations to fit a preconcieved political construct. i.e. global warming is a crock or, from the other side, global warming will kill us all. This occurs even when new discoveries and new data either buttresses or calls into question certain conclusions.

For example, we see this phenomena when models predicting the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere are shown to be consistently off target – sometimes wildly so. For global warming skeptics, this is “proof” that climate change is a figament of the imagination. Global warming advocates simply ignore these models and point to other evidence.

Lost in the political debate is the fact that modelling is part of the scientific process and that we learn something every time scientists are wrong. Of course, this doesn’t stop global warming advocates from using other models as their own “proof” that global warming is happening and that we must radically alter our societies to combat it.

One of the most respected climate modelers, Roger A. Pielke, Sr. who is currently a Senior Research Associate at the University of Colorado-Boulder in the Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (PAOS) and whose work has been cited by both skeptics and advocates lays out the difficulties that climate modellers and ultimately, global warming advocates face in predicting future climate change:

Humans are significantly altering the global climate, but in a variety of diverse ways beyond the radiative effect of carbon dioxide. The IPCC assessments have been too conservative in recognizing the importance of these human climate forcings as they alter regional and global climate. These assessments have also not communicated the inability of the models to accurately forecast the spread of possibilities of future climate. The forecasts, therefore, do not provide any skill in quantifying the impact of different mitigation strategies on the actual climate response that would occur.

And just recently, University of Copenhagen Professor Bjarne Andresen, an expert in thermaldynamics, made a similar point about the difficulty in assessing the rise in global temperatures:

“It is impossible to talk about a single temperature for something as complicated as the climate of Earth,” said Andresen, an expert on thermodynamics. “A temperature can be defined only for a homogeneous system. Furthermore, the climate is not governed by a single temperature. Rather, differences of temperatures drive the processes and create the storms, sea currents, thunder, etc. which make up the climate”.

He says the currently used method of determining the global temperature—and any conclusion drawn from it—is more political than scientific.

Indeed, the entire global warming debate has become so politicized that the actual science being done – good and bad – takes a back seat to how either side can use scientific conclusions to win an argument.

If this kind of politicization were going on over an issue like answering the question of whether we’ve been visited by space aliens it wouldn’t matter very much. But the ramifications of the global warming debate affect every living thing on this planet not to mention the economic well being of America and the west. And the damage being done to the cause of free scientific inquiry cannot be underestimated. In short, the credibility of science is called into question when advocates and skeptics cherry pick facts and analyses to make their case.

Beyond using science as a political weapon, advocates of global warming regularly smear those on the other side by calling into question their motives. Dismissing skeptics as tools of the oil and gas industry is also damaging to scientific inquiry – especially since it isn’t true. Criticizing their conclusions by positing alternative theories based on sound logic and scientific principles is one thing. But character assassination has become the major weapon of climate change advocates. Calling skeptics “Nazis” and worse does nothing to advance scientific debate.

And censoring the facts about global warming is just as bad. There have been many examples over the past six years where the Bush Administration has excised references to climate change from official government reports. This is unconscionable. The perpetrator of this scientific fraud was Phil Cooney, a former lobbyist for the petroleum industry who was put in charge of the Council on Environmental Quality. Mr Cooney now works for Exxon Mobil. In one instance, Mr Cooney personally edited out a key section of an Environmental Protection Agency report to Congress on the dangers of climate change. “He called it speculative musing.”

At the same time, some global warming advocates in government are crying wolf. James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, claimed the Administration was muzzling him by preventing him from being interviewed about global warming by various media outlets.

The problem for Mr. Hansen is that his charges are demonstrably false:

“We have over 1,400 opportunities that you’ve availed yourself to, and yet you call it, you know, being stifled,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican.

Mr. Hansen responded: “For the sake of the taxpayers, they should be availed of my expertise. I shouldn’t be required to parrot some company line…”

Mr. Deutsch, who was 23 at the time (sic), said Mr. Hansen was prohibited from doing the interview because of his prior refusal to notify NASA officials when he was granting interviews, not for political reasons.

Citing what he called his “constitutional right” to give interviews, Mr. Hansen admitted violating NASA’s press policy but defended his actions.

Someone who gives 1400 interviews and makes the charge that he’s being muzzled with a straight face should not be taken seriously – especially since he saw fit not to denounce earlier comments he made referring to the White House as a “propaganda office,” and saying, “It seems more like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union than the United States.”

And Mr. Hansen’s political connections should raise a few eyebrows:

Mr. Hansen received a $250,000 grant from the Heinz foundation, which is controlled by Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat. Mr. Hansen was a vocal supporter of Mr. Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign.

“As far as I know, there’s no political connection to this award,” said Mr. Hansen, who has donated several thousand dollars to past presidential campaigns for Mr. Kerry and Mr. Gore. “It’s an environmental award.”

Uh-huh.

I doubt very much whether the collision of science and politics can be avoided when it comes to global warming – not when the solutions called for by advocates involve hundreds of billions of dollars in tax money and threaten the existence of some industries. But surely efforts can be made by both sides to lessen the impact of politics in formulating policy based on science. If not, I fear we face a future where the credibility of all science is called into question by the people footing the bill much to the detriment of both science and society at large.