Left Flank

Stephen Hawking's quip in this Charlie Rose interview about humans "dropping the basket before distributing the eggs", referring to the urgency of human colonization of space before the current Earth-challenged generations destroy themselves through "stupidity and greed", prompts this comparison. What's more important, space traffic control, or Cape Canaveral?

On one hand, there's practicality.

The traditionally festive Space Day at the Capitol last Thursday was transformed from a purely symbolic event into a series of hurried, closed-door pleas for state incentives. Teams from Lockheed Martin, Space Florida and NASA scrambled to hit all 160 members of the state Legislature. Their tactics were exhaustive, and so was the wish list.

They asked for a new $45 million space incentive fund to lure companies looking to relocate. They also wanted a grab-bag of other financial sweeteners for aviation and aerospace companies willing to do business in Florida.

These included extending tax breaks previously offered to defense contractors, and pumping $20 million into a multi-university research and technology center that could cluster space-related brain power. State budget writers are also being asked to extend work-force retraining dollars for the thousands of soon-to-be unemployed shuttle workers.

Legislators have already filed bills to give future commercial space ventures immunity to lawsuits in the event of deaths except in cases of negligence -- similar to what Virginia and other states have done. And it is not just Virginia that Florida needs to worry about. Experts point to developing launch sites in New Mexico, Texas, California and Oklahoma, as well as pads in South America and Russia.

Competition can be a good thing, but space is limited.

"The real crucial thing is some system for collision avoidance and a process to ensure that people don't run into each other," she says. It may look like space leaves plenty of room to maneuver, but objects are moving so fast that once they swing into sight, it's too late.

Between the how of launching vehicles from the ground to the stars, and keeping those phallic-shaped fuel containers from creating big fireballs, there's a debate larger than how Florida's Brevard County–or even how the Mars program–pays the bills. The debate at Space Politics is a lively place to end.

Look, there's no doubt that there is, and should be, an emotional component to our space policy decisions. But it's not at all clear that getting someone excited by watching a Shuttle launch is going to lead to good decisions. For instance, it might lead to a decision to continue to fly the Shuttle, just because it's so awesome, and wouldn't it be a shame to not be able to watch it any more? Or it might lead to a decision to support Ares because it's «Shuttle-derived» (never mind the fact that there's not much Shuttle derivation left in it). Or it might lead to a decision that because the launch of a large vehicle like the Shuttle is impressive, that building smaller, but more cost-effective vehicles is a waste of money, and not a useful goal.

I repeat–the fact that a Shuttle launch is awesome doesn't, in and of itself, indicate that Shuttle flights are important. If space is important, we need to understand what's important about it, and formulate policies that will emphasize those goals. Unfortunately, we're a long way from that, partly because people who grew up on Saturns and Shuttle have developed a big-rocket fetish, and because the primary basis on which congressional decisions are made are pork, which can be the most emotional basis of all.

I agree, Rand Simberg.

Donald F. Robertson also has this colorful site related to this topic!

Although these moving images derived from a terrestrial-based radar installation are exciting, why is NASA sending an orbiter to map the South Pole again?

Scott Hensley, a scientist at JPL who took part in the latest radar-mapping effort, notes that the orbiter's laser-like radar, or lidar, will be able to match Goldstone's 20-meter resolution at the south pole after some eight months of orbiting the moon. But the orbiter can't bring that level of detail to as wide a swath of the south pole as can the radar. But where the radar can distinguish changes in elevation of roughly five meters, the LRO will be able to detect changes in terrain height of around one meter.

But for other parts of the moon, the LRO will only match the one-kilometer resolution of past missions. The Goldstone radar still has the best chance of spotting those yacht-sized objects anywhere on the moon scientists can aim it, making it for now the lunar cartographer to beat.

Alright, I can see why the difference between one and five meters of elevation is important to a descending craft with humans aboard. But, can't NASA just make a better radar at Goldstone? Is NASA just inflating simple tasks into romantic ventures, to save its budget?