PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet 119/2002 - 11 October 2002
-------------------------------
** Due to a computer problem by JMU's listserver since last
weekend,
a number of CCNet issues may have arrived late or not at all.
Those
issues have now been posted on the CCNet archive at
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cccmenu.html.
**
(1) GLOBAL WARMING ON PLUTO PUZZLES SCIENTISTS
Space.com, 9 October 2002
(2) J002E3: AN UPDATE
Ron Baalke <baalke@jpl.nasa.gov>
(3) THREATENING ASTEROIDS: FEWER HITS IN OUR FUTURE?
Sky & Telescope, 8 October 2002
(4) PLANETARY GEOPHYSICS MEETING
Geological Society
(5) FOR ECONOMIC RECOVERY, LOOK TO SPACE
The Plain Dealer, 10 October 2002
(6) 'FLY ME TO THE MOON' FOR CLEAN, RELIABLE ELECTRICITY
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
(7) RE: OCEANIC IMPACT SIGNATURES AND PERMIAN EXTINCTIONS? (ed't)
Hermann Burchard <burchar@mail.math.okstate.edu>
(8) IF SADDAM HUSSEIN WERE AN ASTEROID...
Drake A. Mitchell <PlanetaryDefence@Netscape.Net>
(9) AND FINALLY: 'RADICALISM AND TECHNOLOGY'
Tech Central Station, 10 October 2002
=========
(1) GLOBAL WARMING ON PLUTO PUZZLES SCIENTISTS
>From Space.com, 9 October 2002
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/pluto_warming_021009.html
By Robert Roy Britt
In what is largely a reversal of an August announcement,
astronomers today
said Pluto is undergoing global warming in its thin atmosphere
even as it
moves farther from the Sun on its long, odd-shaped orbit.
Pluto's atmospheric pressure has tripled over the past 14 years,
indicating
a stark temperature rise, the researchers said. The change is
likely a
seasonal event, much as seasons on Earth change as the
hemispheres alter
their inclination to the Sun during the planet's annual
orbit.
Jay Pasachoff and colleagues at Williams College made one set of
observations on Aug. 20 when Pluto occulted a star. This image,
taken with a
University of Hawaii telescope, shows Pluto (the brightest
object) 25
minutes before occulting the star, which sits to the lower right.
They suspect the average surface temperature increased about 3.5
degrees
Fahrenheit, or slightly less than 2 degrees Celsius.
Pluto remains a mysterious world whose secrets are no so easily
explained,
however. The warming could be fueled by some sort of eruptive
activity on
the small planet, one astronomer speculated.
The increasing temperatures are more likely explained by two
simple facts:
Pluto's highly elliptical orbit significantly changes the
planet's distance
from the Sun during its long "year," which lasts 248
Earth years; and unlike
most of the planets, Pluto's axis is nearly in line with the
orbital plane,
tipped 122 degrees. Earth's axis is tilted 23.5 degrees.
Though Pluto was closest to the Sun in 1989, a warming trend 13
years later
does not surprise David Tholen, a University of Hawaii astronomer
involved
in the discovery.
"It takes time for materials to warm up and cool off, which
is why the
hottest part of the day on Earth is usually around 2 or 3 p.m.
rather than
local noon," Tholen said. "This warming trend on Pluto
could easily last for
another 13 years."
Stellar observations
The conclusion is based on data gathered during a chance passage
of Pluto in
front of a distant star as seen from Earth. Such events, called
occultations, are rare, but two of them occurred this summer.
In the occultations, which are like eclipses, astronomers
examined starlight
as it passed through Pluto's tenuous atmosphere just before the
planet
blotted out the light.
The first occultation, in July, yielded limited data because of
terrestrial
cloud cover above key telescopes. Marc Buie, an astronomer at
Lowell
Observatory, scrambled to observe the event from northern Chile
using
portable 14-inch (0.35-meter) telescope. Afterward, Buie said he
was baffled
by what seemed to be global cooling of Pluto's atmosphere
punctuated by some
surface warming.
Then on Aug. 20, Pluto passed in front of a different star. The
latter event
provided much better data captured by eight large telescopes and
seems to
clarify and mostly reverse the earlier findings.
The results were compared to studies from 1988, the last time
Pluto was
observed eclipsing a star.
James Elliot of MIT led a team of astronomers who coordinated
their
observations and presented the findings today at the annual
meeting of the
American Astronomical Society's (AAS) Division for Planetary
Sciences in
Birmingham, Ala.
Elliot said the Aug. 20 occultation was the first that allowed
such a deep
probing of the composition, pressure and the always-frigid
temperature of
Pluto's atmosphere, which ranges from -391 to -274 degrees
Fahrenheit (-235
to -170 degrees Celsius).
Volcanoes on Pluto?
Elliot hinted at the possibility of another factor fueling
Pluto's warming
trend.
He compared Pluto to Triton, a moon of Neptune. Both have
atmospheres made
mostly of nitrogen. In 1997, Triton occulted a star and
astronomers found
that its atmosphere had warmed since the last observations were
made in 1989
during the Voyager mission. Back then, Voyager found dark
material rising
above Triton, indicating possible eruptive activity.
"There could be more massive activity on Pluto, since the
changes observed
in Pluto's atmosphere are much more severe," Elliot said.
"The change
observed on Triton was subtle. Pluto's changes are not
subtle."
There is no firm evidence that Pluto is volcanically active, but
neither is
there evidence to rule out that possibility. Even the Hubble
Space Telescope
can barely make out Pluto's surface.
Elliot added that the process affecting Pluto's temperature is
complex. "We
just don't know what is causing these effects," he said.
Let's go there
Elliot and others believe this poor understanding of our solar
system's
tiniest planet is grounds for sending a robot to investigate.
Pluto is the
only planet not visited by a spacecraft.
NASA has shelved a mission that would explore Pluto and the
Kuiper Belt of
frozen objects in which it resides.
Congress, however, appears to view the mission as worthy of some
funds. A
House budget panel this week followed the lead of the Senate in
approving
$105 million for the mission. If final approval comes, NASA would
be
compelled to undertake the project.
Interestingly, while Pluto's atmosphere has been growing warmer
in recent
years, astronomers have argued that a Pluto mission must launch
by 2006,
lest it miss the opportunity to study Pluto's atmosphere before
it
completely freezes out for the winter.
Tentative mission plans call for a robotic probe that would not
reach Pluto
for several years, making a flyby sometime prior to 2020 prior to
investigating other objects deeper in the solar system.
Meanwhile, astronomers are looking forward to a space telescope
called
SOFIA, slated to begin operations in 2004. SOFIA will carry an
instrument
designed specifically to observe occultations and is expected to
be employed
when Pluto passes in front of other stars in coming years.
The Pluto observations this summer were funded by NASA, the
Research
Corporation and the National Science Foundation. Observations
were made
using the telescopes at the Mauna Kea Observatory, Haleakala,
Lick
Observatory, Lowell Observatory and the Palomar Observatory.
Copyright 2002, Space.com
=======
(2) J002E3: AN UPDATE
>From Ron Baalke <baalke@jpl.nasa.gov>
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov
J002E3: An Update
Steve Chesley and Paul Chodas
NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office
October 9, 2002
We have new results since our September 19 report on the distant
Earth
satellite J002E3. Evidence continues to accumulate that J002E3 is
the lost
S-IVB third stage from the Saturn V rocket used to launch the
Apollo 12
lunar landing mission in November 1969.
J002E3 passed into the daytime morning sky around Sept. 24, and a
week later
amateur astronomers Richard Fredrick and Vance Morgan at Powell
Observatory
in Kansas recovered the object after it had crossed into the
evening sky.
However, their measurements did not match the predicted position
unless we
added a gentle push from solar radiation pressure to our
acceleration model.
As more observations were reported over the next few days, it
became clear,
not only that radiation pressure was detectable in the motion of
the body,
confirming that J002E3 is a man-made object, but also that the
size of this
acceleration matches very well with what we would expect for an
S-IVB.
With the quality of our orbital solution improving, we decided to
look to
see if this relatively bright object had been detected by other
telescopes
before its discovery in the first week of September. Indeed,
using the SkyMorph online
search system, we found a single trail from the fast-moving
object on an image taken by the
NEAT-Palomar NEO survey on June 16, 2002. After we notified him
of the
detection, Reiner Stoss of DANEOPS [ http://earn.dlr.de/daneops/]
immediately
measured the precise position for us.
The new precovery data extended the arc of observations from 35
days to 114
days, dramatically improving our ability to determine the past
and future
paths of this object and to measure the acceleration of solar
radiation
pressure. At our last report we had only 15 days of observations
and there
was greater uncertainty about what the future held for J002E3. We
were not
sure how long it would remain in the Earth's vicinity, although
it appeared
likely to escape next June. We could not even rule out the
possibility of a
collision with the Earth or Moon over the the next year. It is
now certain
that J002E3 will depart the Earth-Moon system in June 2003 and
that there is
no possibility of an impact for several decades. In the years
ahead J002E3
may be recaptured, but the first opportunity for this will not be
until the
mid-2040s.
Looking into the past, we are still unable to connect the motion
of J002E3
with the last know position of the Apollo 12 S-IVB. One reason is
that the
solar radiation pressure is not constant in time, but rather
changes with
its position around the sun; to precisely account for this effect
we need to
know the pole of rotation. Furthermore, if J002E3 is the Apollo
12 S-IVB
then that stage spent more than a year in a highly chaotic orbit
around the
Earth. So far these two factors have combined to prevent us from
predicting
the position of J002E3 with sufficient precision to definitively
link these
two objects. Nonetheless, we are hopeful that with continued
observations,
and with the possibility of additional precovery observations,
this link can
be conclusively established before J002E3 slips back into solar
orbit next
summer.
=============
(3) THREATENING ASTEROIDS: FEWER HITS IN OUR FUTURE?
>From Sky & Telescope, 8 October 2002
http://skyandtelescope.com/news/current/article_756_1.asp
By J. Kelly Beatty
October 8, 2002 | While politicians have only recently begun to
take serious
interest in possible impacts by near-Earth asteroids (NEAs),
astronomers
have been trying to gauge the magnitude of the impact threat for
decades.
Two new analyses, presented yesterday at the American
Astronomical Society's
Division for Planetary Sciences meeting, hint that our planet may
not be in
quite as much danger as previously thought.
A colliding asteroid at least 1 kilometer across would wreak
havoc on a
global scale, so these are the objects that astronomers want to
find and
catalog most urgently. More than 600 NEAs of this size have been
found, but
it's unclear how many remain unseen. Based on the discovery rate
to date,
dynamicists estimate that the total population probably ranges
from 800 to
more than 1,200.
But each new find divulges only its brightness - astronomers must
then guess
its diameter and mass, and to do so they typically assume an
object has an
albedo, or surface reflectivity, of 11 percent. But after
carefully studying
the spectral properties of many NEAs, J. Scott Stuart and Richard
P. Binzel
(MIT) conclude that the average Earth-crosser has an albedo
several percent
higher, which means that objects of a given brightness are likely
smaller
than thought. So the good news, Stuart concludes, is that the
total count of
1-km NEAs may be close to the low end of estimates, nearer to
800.
The bad news, however, is that one subgroup (known as D-type
asteroids)
could be much darker - and thus more numerous - than thought,
especially if
they are the extinct comet nuclei masquerading as asteroids. For
example,
the nucleus of Comet Borrelly has ultrablack patches that reflect
just 1
percent of sunlight. If all D asteroids are like Borrelly's
nucleus, Stuart
explains, then the census of 1-km NEAs would climb by several
hundred.
It doesn't take a big asteroid to cause a lot of damage, however.
Impact
specialists are quick to note that the Tunguska event of 1908,
which leveled
some 2,000 square kilometers of Siberian wilderness, was caused
by an
interplanetary intruder no more than about 60 meters across.
Telescopic
surveys surveys occasionally sweep up NEAs this small, but not
very often.
So estimates of their total population (and thus how often they
strike
Earth) are very uncertain - the best estimates suggest a
collision every
every 100 to 300 years.
Alan W. Harris (Space Science Institute) thinks the threat from
Tunguska-size impactors isn't as great as thought. He has
simulated the
population of small NEAs using discovery statistics from the
LINEAR
telescopes in New Mexico. "It's like guessing how many black
jelly beans are
in a big jar," Harris explains, by throwing in a handful of
red ones (the
discovered objects), mixing them all up, then seeing how many red
ones are
in each subsequent handful. LINEAR has spotted a few dozen
Tunguska-class
NEAs, and from that Harris concludes that there must be about a
half million
of them in all. That means we can expect one to hit Earth every
1,000 or
2,000 years. "That makes the Tunguska event quite rare,
compared to its
statistical likelihood," Harris notes.
Copyright 2002 Sky Publishing Corp.
===========
(4) PLANETARY GEOPHYSICS MEETING
February 13-14, 2003
Geological Society
Burlington House, London
sponsored by the British Geophysical Association and the Royal
Astronomical
Society
We would like to bring your attention to a two day planetary
science meeting
to be held on February 13-14, 2003 at the Geological Society in
London.
The theme of the meeting is "Planetary Geophysics" and
focuses on the use of
geophysical techniques to studying planetary surfaces, interiors
and the
origins of planetary diversity. Our lead speakers include Prof
David
Stevenson (California Institute of Technology) and Prof Jay
Melosh
(University of Arizona). The meeting is being held under the
auspices of the
British Geophysical Association and the Royal Astronomical
Society, and one
aim of the meeting is to strengthen the links between the UK
geophysical and
planetary communities.
We are soliciting both oral (15 minute) and poster presentations.
The talks
must be primarily geophysical (from the nature of the sponsoring
organisation), but the posters can be on any aspect of planetary
surfaces or
interiors. Titles and abstracts should be emailed to both of the
conveners.
* * * The deadline for abstract submission is 23rd December 2002
* * *
Full details can be found at the web site:
http://bullard.esc.cam.ac.uk/~nimmo/bgaras.html
or by mailing the organizers:
Richard Holme (R.T.Holme@liverpool.ac.uk)
Francis Nimmo (nimmo@ess.ucla.edu)
===========
(5) FOR ECONOMIC RECOVERY, LOOK TO SPACE
>From The Plain Dealer, 10 October 2002
http://www.cleveland.com/business/plaindealer/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/business/1034242417110840.xml
Winn L. Rosch
Special to The Plain Dealer
Advice to all those looking for a cure for the stumbling stock
market and
stagnating economy - look up. Higher than that. Say about 238,000
miles.
The moon may be the answer.
Few people realize that the last economic surge as well as the
other great
boom of the modern age - that of the 1960s - have roots in the
moon race.
Many of the most exciting and profitable modern technologies had
their
origins in the space program.
The list is impressive, everything from home smoke detectors and
cordless
tools to heart pumps and protective clothing (like the moon suits
worn at
your favorite hazardous waste site) have space-program
beginnings. High on
the list are microelectronics and computers, the powerhouse of
the most
recent boom years.
Total it all up, and you'll see the original moon program paid
off big as an
investment. It cost billions but yielded trillions.
Now with the benefits of the original program fading, it's time
to consider
doing it again.
"A lot of scientists would like to go back to the
moon," said David
Williams, a planetary scientist at the National Space Science
Data Center in
Greenbelt, Va. "We learned more about the moon from just
those few years of
Apollo missions than we did in entire human history before
that."
Sky-high payoff
But the real incentive is economic rather than educational. The
challenge of
returning to the moon will inspire technologic advances like
those of the
original effort of the '60s. Williams noted several areas of
technology that
he believed would benefit from a new lunar effort.
Energy topped his list.
"I would want to have the most efficient and lightweight
solar cells you can
possibly make," he said. "You still want solar cells
for spacecraft, but you
would need them on a large scale to set up on the moon. And you
would want
them to last for a long time and endure an environment that's
both extremely
hot and cold."
Work developing the needed cells could lead to making terrestrial
solar
cells more affordable - perhaps into a viable alternative to our
dwindling
nonrenewable energy sources. They could help stall the greenhouse
effect.
But solar cells can't supply all the energy needs for a lunar
colony. Half
the time a moon base would be in the dark as the moon slowly
rotates once
each month.
"Battery technology is one area where advances . . . would
definitely be
required," said Williams. "Once it is night, moon
colonists would have to
rely on stored energy. They would need batteries that would last
for two
weeks under the extreme conditions of the moon's surface."
Any advances in battery technology might translate into better
batteries for
other applications, for example in powering electric vehicles,
which also
need extremely rugged, long-lasting power.
"You would also need to do more research in the stuff they
did for Biosphere
2 into developing a self-sustaining environment," said
Williams. "You would
want to grow some of your own food and produce some of your own
oxygen. You
would have to develop technologies for large greenhouses with
mixtures of
plants and gases."
With no chemical industry on the moon and delivery costs for
fertilizers
that would be, in a word, astronomical, the needs of lunar
colonization
could lead to advances in chemical-free farming and gardening.
Unpredictable profits
"The real advances would probably be things that you
couldn't predict," said
Williams. "Living on the moon touches every single aspect of
life - like
waste disposal, breathing and gravity. We know a little about
what happens
under zero gravity, and it's not good. But no one has any kind of
an idea of
what prolonged one-sixth or one-third normal gravity would do. Is
it closer
to zero gravity or more like normal gravity? If you have any
gravity at all,
it pulls blood to the legs. What happens in the in-between?"
Unfortunately, that knowledge and the rest of a renewed moon
program would
be expensive. After all, economics are why we've not gone back.
Even thirty years ago when the Apollo missions were in full
swing, the price
proved too high. Cost issues led to the cancellation of the last
three
Apollo flights.
The three 365-foot-tall Saturn V boosters planned for those
flights remain
as monuments to space technology, museum pieces in Alabama,
Florida and
Texas.
"The thing that would really make a permanent kind of space
program is to
find out whether there is profit in space. For example, going to
Mars or the
asteroids to set up a base for mining," said Williams.
"If someone found it
was profitable, the whole equation changes."
If history is any guide, however, the real profits will be found
here on
Earth. The technological fallout from a renewed lunar program
might just
bring another 40 years of economic boom.
Rosch is a Shaker Heights free-lance writer.
Copyright 2002, The Plain Dealer
=============
(6) 'FLY ME TO THE MOON' FOR CLEAN, RELIABLE ELECTRICITY
>From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
Office of External Communications
University of Houston
Contact:
Amanda Siegfried
713/743-8192 (office), 713/605-1757 (pager)
asiegfried@uh.edu
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 7, 2002
'FLY ME TO THE MOON' FOR CLEAN, RELIABLE ELECTRICITY
Moon-Based Systems Could Supply Solar Power to Earth
HOUSTON -- The key to a prosperous world is clean, safe, low-cost
electrical
energy, according to University of Houston physicist David
Criswell. And his
idea for how to get it is literally out of this world. For more
than 20
years, Criswell has been formulating the plans and the
justification for
building bases on the moon to collect solar energy and beam it
through space
for use by electricity-hungry Earthlings.
Criswell will talk about lunar solar power systems at the World
Space
Congress 2002 in Houston Oct. 10-19.
"Prosperity for everyone on Earth requires a sustainable
source of
electricity," Criswell says. The World Energy Council, a
global multi-energy
organization that promotes the sustainable supply and use of
energy for the
greatest benefit of all, agrees. The WEC's primary message is
that
affordable modern energy services for everyone -- including the
two billion
people who have no access to commercial energy -- are a key to
sustainable
development and peace throughout the world. See
http://www.worldenergy.org/wec-geis/publications/default/stat2002.asp
for
details.
Criswell estimates that by the year 2050, a prosperous population
of 10
billion would require about 20 terawatts of power, or about three
to five
times the amount of commercial power currently produced.
The moon receives more than 13,000 terawatts of solar power, and
harnessing
just one percent could satisfy Earth's power needs, he says. The
challenge
is to build a commercial system that can extract a tiny portion
of the
immense solar power available and deliver the energy to consumers
on earth
at a reasonable price.
"A priority for me is getting people to realize that the
lunar power system
may be the only option for sustainable global prosperity,"
Criswell says. He
contributed a chapter to a new book, Innovative Solutions for CO2
Stabilization, published in July, which addresses major aspects
of
sustainability and global commercial power. See
http://uk.cambridge.org/engineering/catalogue/0521807255/
Criswell's lunar-based system to supply solar power to Earth is
based on
building large banks of solar cells on the moon to collect
sunlight and send
it back to receivers on Earth via a microwave beam. Solar cells
are
electronic devices that gather sunlight and convert it into
usable
electricity. The microwave energy collected on Earth is then
converted to
electricity that can be fed into the local electric grid.
Such a system could easily supply the 20 terawatts or more of
electricity
required by 10 billion people, Criswell says. The system is
environmentally
friendly, safe to humans, and reliable since it is not affected
by clouds or
rain, either on the Earth or the moon, which essentially has no
weather.
The moon continuously receives sunlight, except once a year for
about three
hours during a full lunar eclipse, when stored energy could be
used to
maintain power on Earth, Criswell adds.
The system could be built on the moon from lunar materials and
operated on
the moon and Earth using existing technologies, he says, which
would greatly
reducing the cost of the operation. He estimates that a lunar
solar power
system could begin delivering commercial power about
10 years after program start-up.
Technology under development at UH increases the options for
successfully
building a lunar power base. UH researchers at the Texas Center
for
Superconductivity and Advanced Materials (TcSAM) are developing
nanotechnology techniques that could transform the lunar soil
into solar
cells.
"The raw materials needed to make solar cells are present in
the moon's
regolith," says Alex Freundlich, research professor of
physics, who has
examined lunar material to determine whether it contains the
necessary
ingredients for making solar cells. He, research scientist
Charles
Horton, Alex Ignatiev, director of TcSAM, and a team of NASA-JSC
and
industry scientists also have used "simulated" moon
soil to determine how to
go about manufacturing the solar cell devices on the moon.
"Our plan is to use an autonomous lunar rover to move across
the moon's
surface, to melt the regolith into a very thin film of glass and
then to
deposit thin film solar cells on that lunar glass substrate. An
array of
such lunar solar cells could then be used as a giant solar energy
converter
generating electricity," Freundlich says.
Criswell, who has a Ph.D. in physics from Rice University, began
thinking
about lunar-based power systems more than 20 years ago when he
was an
administrator at the Lunar Science Institute, now the Lunar and
Planetary
Institute. For about seven years at the institute, Criswell was
responsible for reviewing nearly 3,400 NASA proposals for lunar
science
projects.
"I really got to know the peer-review process and I learned
about all
aspects of lunar science," he says.
For the past 10 years, Criswell has been director of UH's
Institute for
Space Systems Operations, which receives funding from the state
for
space-related research projects conducted by faculty and students
at UH and
UH-Clear Lake in conjunction with NASA-Johnson Space Center. See
http://isso.uh.edu
NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: A publication-quality photo of UH
researchers with a
solar cell device is available at
http://www.uh.edu/newsroom/wsc2002/wsccriswell102002.html
============================
* LETTERS TO THE MODERATOR *
============================
(7) RE: OCEANIC IMPACT SIGNATURES AND PERMIAN EXTINCTIONS? (ed't)
>From Hermann Burchard <burchar@mail.math.okstate.edu>
Dear Benny,
concerning OCEANIC IMPACT SIGNATURES AND PERMIAN EXTINCTIONS?
Adrian Jones
states [CCNet Oct 8, 2002]: ".. Siberian Traps
(continental).." Actually,
there seems to be sufficient data to show that there was a
Sibirian ocean,
but no continent prior to 250 Ma. The continent of Sibiria was
sutured to
Asia only in late Jurassic times. The traps are formed from magma
erupted in
an oceanic environment, with a spangling of micro-continents [cf
work on
Uralian eclogites by fellow Oklahoman Mary Leech, Stanford Univ
and UC Santa
Barbara]. See my CCNet note of 17 September 2002 for details and
http://www.umich.edu/~newsinfo/Releases/1999/Jan99/r011999a.html
More details are in my CCNet notes 27 Apr, & 2 May 2001, 11
June 2002, etc
passim.
The eruptions of a plume or plumes from impact(s) in the WSB (and
S Kara
Sea) most likely created the continent. in the first place.
I do realize this is hard to reconcile with geologists'
traditional
uniformitarian views.
Cheers and best regards,
Hermann
========
(8) IF SADDAM HUSSEIN WERE AN ASTEROID...
>From Drake A. Mitchell <PlanetaryDefence@Netscape.Net>
Dear Benny,
If Saddam Hussein were an asteroid, would the United Nations be
singing
diplomatic overtures? I rather doubt it. For that matter, given
the world's
"Iraq-niphobia" [1], he and Iraq's oppressed people
should be quite thankful
that he is >not< an NEO. We can perhaps hope to witness a
timely exodus of
innocent civilians from Baghdad.
I must commend NASA Associate Adminstrator Dr. Edward J. Weiler
not only for
his lead sponsorship of a groundbreaking workshop last month
(kudo's to the
BBC's taped coverage, and all participants), but also for his
public
appearance on C-SPAN (Tue 08Oct02 [2], webcast archived [3])
demonstrating
courageous leadership in spite of not being a specialist in our
very new,
very complex, very underfunded field.
I must also commend the convergence of U.S. aerospace leadership
exemplified
by the STA meeting later the same day (webcast replays expected
on C-SPAN
and NASA TV) [4], not to mention the DPS meeting awardees and our
latest
Nobel Prize winners - truly a World Space Week.
I think we all look forward to senior UK government executives
upping the
ante in the near future.
Best Regards,
Drake
[1] Diane C. Swonk, Chief Economist, Bank One
[2] http://www.spaceref.com/calendar/calendar.html?pid=1744
[3] In the 3-hour Washington Journal, 30-min subsegment
available:
http://www.cspan.org/journal/
[4] http://www.spaceref.com/calendar/calendar.html?pid=1703
================
(9) AND FINALLY: 'RADICALISM AND TECHNOLOGY'
>From Tech Central Station, 10 October 2002
http://www.techcentralstation.com/1051/defensewrapper.jsp?PID=1051-350&CID=1051-101002A
By Yuval Levin
The new National Security Strategy document released by the White
House last
month includes a terse one-sentence summary of the risks we
confront: "The
gravest danger our Nation faces lies at the crossroads of
radicalism and
technology." This is certainly true, but it is worth noting
that at this
crossroads also lies the greatest danger facing our opponents.
The risk to us is mostly plain and simple. Modern technology is
uniquely
suited to empowering madmen and fanatical cults of destruction.
In earlier
ages, to pose a real threat to the security of a great nation
usually
required large armies, smart strategy and good tactics, which in
turn
required numbers, prudence and practical sense usually lacking in
bands of
barking-mad zealots.
Today, doing certain sorts of real damage can require only
technical
knowledge and daring-a combination quite common at the edges of
sanity. From
its beginnings, the modern move in both science and politics has
aimed to
empower the individual, and it has succeeded in the realm of war
as in
others. Only in our age of technology could 19 men kill three
thousand in an
instant. And only in this age could we plausibly fear the loss of
many
thousands more in a nuclear, chemical or biological attack by a
relatively
small group of loosely organized madmen.
But the fact that Al-Qaeda can only threaten us with our own high
technology
reveals not only our vulnerability, but also their weakness.
Their own
stated purpose in threatening us, and in killing and maiming us,
is after
all to undermine the very culture and civilization that has made
that high
technology possible. If they can hurt us only with our weapons,
then their
mission-the undoing of western modernity-seems fatally weak at
its core.
That they can only confront us at "the crossroads of
radicalism and
technology" spells more trouble for them than for us.
It is so troubling for them because our technology always carries
with it
hints of the larger culture that produces it. In fact, this is
why many
Western worriers about technology (among whom I now and then
count myself)
are so concerned about it: because a lot of modern technology
relies upon
and points toward a culture of its own, a culture of radical
individualism,
technical utopianism, and total materialism. If this is far from
our ideal,
it is immeasurably further from the ideal of Muslim radicals.
Those of us who want to defend the classical liberal ideal from
being robbed
of its soul by certain uses of technology face a daunting but (we
think)
achievable challenge. We want to keep capitalism rooted in its
moral
grounds. We want to keep liberal democracy aware of the higher
uses of
politics. We want to keep societies alert to what holds them
together and
why, and individuals conscious of the importance of dignity,
nobility and
virtue. We seek to defend modern society from its own excesses.
In doing
this, we sometimes run the risk of focusing too much on the
excesses, and of
sounding like prudes or Cassandras. But at bottom, we are always
defending
modern, Western, liberal-democratic society, and seeking to make
it better.
High technology is one important fruit of that modern society,
and the very
ideals we seek to defend are those that can show us how to use
technology
responsibly, and thereby enjoy some of its benefits while
averting the
gravest of the dangers it might pose for us.
Al Qaeda Handbook
Radical Islamists, however, would use that very technology in
their struggle
against the civilization that has made it possible. This means
that radical
Islam has more destructive power than it otherwise could, but it
also means
that in the realm of ideology-which is after all where they make
their
claims to legitimacy-radical Islamists are in the grip of utter
contradiction. The creed for which they have pledged to kill and
die leaves
no room for the methods by which they would do so. The
Taliban-style
reversion to medieval life would make high technology impossible,
and a
dependence on high-tech makes that reversion impossible. The
combination-"the crossroads of radicalism and
technology"-is an impossible
home for radical Islam.
Of course, it is a far more comfortable home for some others
among the
threats we confront. Saddam Hussein would face no fatal
contradiction by
nuking us, and the combination of technology and his lunacy is
much more
dangerous for us than for him. And, to be sure, the intellectual
problem of
relying on Western technology to attack the West does not mean
that the
radical Islamists won't attack us. What it does mean, however, is
that the
field of battle is better suited to our strengths than theirs.
Most of the truly mortal long-term dangers posed to our society
by
technology are the risks of success: like the risk of
dehumanization at the
hands of mishandled biotech. We risk losing sight of the limits
to our
power. Some modern technologies-and not only weapons
technologies-could pose
real threats to our way of life, and we should not drown out
worries about
these in a torrent of careless techie triumphalism. Technology
will not
solve our society's problems, and we can plausibly imagine a
number of ways
in which it could make many of them substantially worse, and give
rise to
brand new ones. Nonetheless, modern technology is a product of
the cluster
of notions that defines our way of life-individualism,
rationalism, science
and liberty. Taken too far, all of these are destructive. But
properly
handled, they are the source of much of our greatness.
For Muslim fundamentalists, they can only be destructive.
For us, the great challenge of the age of technology is to keep
sight of
prudence, remember our limits, and be willing to defend ourselves
when our
way of life is at risk, from within or without. In the war
against terror,
victory would involve being true to our ideals. And the war
itself has
helped us remember just what these are.
For our enemies, the challenge is to master the techniques and
technologies
of Western modernity while resisting and rejecting its liberating
principles. When they live true to their retrocessive ideals,
they are
powerless. When they wield power, they are violating the
principles for
which they claim to be acting. In their war against us, any
victory would
involve a complete corruption of their so-called cause.
If this is the shape of the battle, our prospects are bright.
Yuval Levin is a member of the staff of the President's Council
on Bioethics
and the author of Tyranny of Reason: The Origins and Consequences
of the
Social Scientific Outlook. The views expressed here are his own
and do not
represent those of the President's Council on Bioethics or its
members.
Copyright 2002, Tech Central Station
--------------------------------------------------------------------
CCNet is a scholarly electronic network. To
subscribe/unsubscribe, please
contact the moderator Benny J Peiser < b.j.peiser@livjm.ac.uk
>. Information
circulated on this network is for scholarly and educational use
only. The
attached information may not be copied or reproduced for any
other purposes
without prior permission of the copyright holders. The fully
indexed archive
of the CCNet, from February 1997 on, can be found at
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cccmenu.html.
DISCLAIMER: The opinions,
beliefs and viewpoints expressed in the articles and texts and in
other
CCNet contributions do not necessarily reflect the opinions,
beliefs and
viewpoints of the moderator of this network.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------