Cairn

Cairn - a pile of local rocks marking a trail intended for backtracking or for others to follow...

Sorry that I haven't posted lately, but sometimes I get tied up in other things and don't get the time to eat 3 meals a day, much less post a blog.

I've been watching one of the Science Channel's shows about the current X Prize competition. The X Prize sponsors the privatization of space flight and the current target is the moon. Not that it's the only target, but that's the one they're leaning on right now. I have to admit that the presence of Helium3 and the prospect of nearly limitless clean power for our sadly depleted planet has a lot of appeal. In fact, I like it a lot more than the chances for fusion reactors happening any time soon.

Then we get to that next target: Mars.

I know... it's stale news to you young 'uns, but us old buggers were raised at a time when just reaching the moon was a marvel and Mars was about as reachable as the Holy Grail. The one outfit, SpaceX, that seems serious about going to Mars in person has a unique qualifier for people who want a shot at becoming Martians- it's a one-way trip. That's right, they're not offering any return trip. They still got over 8000 applicants, of course. Sadly, there are only 24 initial seats. Those who go will have to suffer all the usual crap that happens in an alpha test situation, plus the burdens imposed on their bodies by living in a low-g environment: muscle and bone atrophy and likely nightmares, though the public hasn't been informed of anything like that. They'll need to grow their own food, as well and someone will be tending the saw grass (that's the most efficient plant for photosynthesis). Sadly, the current NASA timetable pegs Mars to happen around 2035. Is it soon enough?

Clearly we're going to learn a huge amount simply by having people just living there on a permanent basis. Things that will be vitally important when we develop a starship.

Speaking of which, I have begun to wonder just what's going on. I mean that. Is the government entirely run by stupid (clinically deficient in intelligence) people? Could it possibly be? I've been wondering if we're just not being filled in on any progress towards a starship or has everything so far been a total failure? That's the basis for my earlier questions. If they're not stupid and they ARE working on the engineering part of it, then surely some progress should be evident. And they should not only say so, they should shout it off the roof of the White House. It would give us poor plebes some glimmer of hope. Not all of us on the outside are stupid.

We know that we are going to need an escape hatch sooner than later and we'd better damn well have one handy. Skip military spending or put a tax on sugary soft drinks, but get it done!

Enough. I would expect that astronomers will be refining the orbit track of Apophus in the next dozen years. If things turn ugly or just unlucky, I think it will leak and we can all panic in plenty of time to kiss our butts goodbye. That's when we'll find out just how smart we are. Are you smarter than a dinosaur?

Other than this, things have been remarkably quiet. At least quiet if you don't count certain volcanoes and earth quakes. I do have my own theory about quakes. It holds up pretty well so far. It seems obvious that if one edge of the Pacific plate, let's say in Alaska, lets go, then the other edges will have to adjust. Note that the latest initial tremor was around San Francisco, the next was in Alaska. Now, give the plate a year, maybe, to catch up the slack, then either New Zealand, Indonesia, or Japan is going to catch hell. South America isn't precisely safe, but they expect it. The one sticky wicket is southern California. That part hasn't really moved in far too long. Get this: small quakes are good. They show that the plates are sliding along and stress is minimal. Now Man comes along. He sucks as much water out of the ground as he can. Suddenly, the plate doesn't have the lubrication it needs and sticks... Until BOOM, very big quake. And that is not good. Or maybe you get a lot of sudden rain. And you get mudslides. And things get slippery...

Think about that next time you're out there watering your lawn....