Has America Abandoned Space?

Tags

astronomy, nasa, science

Will human eyes ever gaze this way again?

This morning, I watched with tears in my eyes as the last flight of the space shuttle pierced the clouds above Cape Canaveral.  After the joy of watching four human beings rise above the atmosphere carried by little more than a few thousand tonnes of metal, plastic, and ceramic safely and in less time than it takes me to drive to work, I started to look back upon a week that has been, if I may put it bluntly, disastrous for NASA, and for the American space effort.

Technologically Catalyzed Social Change

Christ, this has been a difficult post to write.  I’ve had to delete and start over a couple of times, so I apologize if this still isn’t quite the quality I would like it to be.  I just finished the truly excellent Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson.  One of the great joys of reading science fiction is the ideas it puts in my head about society and where it is heading.  The idea I’ve been pouring from hemisphere to hemisphere in my brain over the last few weeks is the idea that technology, rather than political/cultural/religious ideology is the primary driver of social change.

What’s the E-mail Equivalent of “Leafing-Through” Letters?

ZOMG, FIRST POST!!1!!one!!

I am in Scotland for the summer, working as a software assistant in the lab of Dr. Mike Tyers at the Wellcome Trust Center for Cell Biology at the University of Edinburgh. Waiting in the airport before my flight over from Vancouver, I realized that I hadn’t packed a book, and my Irex Iliad was out of batteries… doh! As thrilled as I was at the prospect of Zoom Airline’s masterful film selections, I thought I’d better load the proverbial Dice of Entertainment Probability, and happened upon a wonderful little book in the airport bookstore: