Astronomers Discover Tatooine

What does this look like?

If you are a Star Wars fan it looks like Tatooine, a planet with two suns. But this is real. It's Kepler 16b, discovered by a NASA team using the Kepler space telescope.

Chinese Space Exploration

The Chinese have major plans for space exploration.

China has said it will put a man in the moon by 2025, and begin exploring Mars and Venus in five years. It will have a space station within a decade.

I'm not sure if this is unsubstantiated bluster, or if China really will be able to develop that level of space capability. China conducted its first space walk only two years ago. But a major Chinese presence in space is a worrying prospect.

Don't expect China to worry about great steps for mankind. There's little doubt that Chinese space exploration will aim at benefiting China first & foremost. China is not our enemy, but it is a potential threat that has to be watched. Space is currently an area where the U.S. holds major strategic advantages. A surging Chinese space program could drastically change that calculus, especially if U.S. efforts remain relatively stagnant. It's something to keep an eye on over the next decade.

Department of Education's Muslim Outreach Program

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan gave an interview to Al Jazeera today. According to Mr. Duncan, perhaps the "foremost" mission of the Department of Education involves outreach to the Muslim world.

before I became the Secretary of Education -- President Obama charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to education.

When pressed for specifics about why expanding international relationships & building self-esteem in the Muslim world were primary goals of a U.S. federal agency apparently devoted to an entirely different mission, the secretary had this to offer.

Well look, let's face it, we are doing a terrible job here at home with this whole education thing. We keep spending more and more money and have less and less to show for it. Why shouldn't we focus on something that just makes people feel good instead? And after all, international cooperation with Islamic nations will help improve education here at home. We have schools that want to teach intelligent design in science classes. Wouldn't they benefit from the latest Islamic creationist research? People associate creationism with Christianity, but Muslim countries are also doing great work in that area.

There are all sorts of things we could learn. What's the best way to stone a woman to death for adultery? When is it justified for a man to beat his wife, and how hard? Those questions can only be answered by Islamic scholars.

Duncan described education as an international collaboration of which Muslim nations must be a part.

It is a matter of trying to reach out and get the best of all worlds, if you will, and there is much to be gained by drawing in the contributions that are possible from the Muslim (nations)."

Almost as an afterthought, the secretary did state that the U.S. Department of Education will still be working on issues related to U.S. education -- sort of.

For anyone reading who might be clueless... this is satire. Some text was quoted either directly or altered from the following article.

Another Bad Idea from the Obama Administration

Which one? You might ask. This time it's the new space policy announced today. It's not all bad, just one of the core ideas.

[It] renounces the unilateral stance of the Bush administration and instead emphasizes international cooperation, including the possibility of an arms control treaty that would limit the development of space weapons.

Once again, instead of putting U.S. interests and security first, the Obama administration has no problem limiting our options -- for no particularly good reason. According to the previous policy,

The Bush administration ... said it “rejects any limitations on the fundamental right of the United States to operate in and acquire data from space,”

That was a clear statement that the U.S. should look to protect U.S. interests in space. Naturally we can't have that under Obama. He's much more interested in internationalism for internationalism's sake. Talk and arms control agreements are fundamental to the wishful thinking school of foreign policy, which prefers the illusion that such things enhance security more than actually building defenses and securing a strong strategic position.

Have a Year and a Half to Spare?

Looking for something to do? How about spending 520 days isolated with five other people in a simulated Mars mission?

The crew will follow a programme designed to simulate travel to Mars (250 days), a 30 day Mars surface exploration phase and travel back (240 days). They will live and work in a facility in Moscow, which has been specifically designed for the needs of these simulations.

You'll have plenty of room in your 3 square meters of living space. It would be interesting to know exactly what this mission will pay, but I could only find the following:

For successful completion of the entire study including training before and follow-up after the isolation, the respective volunteer will receive a fixed compensation that is in line with international standards for participation in clinical studies.

I hope it's a large amount.

Preparing for an Asteroid Strike

There's was an interesting article in the Christian Science Monitor a couple days ago called, "Who is responsible for averting an asteroid strike?" The answer of course is: no one.  The main thrust of the article is that even if a large, dangerous asteroid is detected with plenty of warning time, there is no international team or organization responsible for taking action to prevent it from reaching earth.

Scientists and engineers who have studied the problem of deflecting a dangerous asteroid believe the technical issues are difficult but solvable. The challenge now is figuring out the legal issues of who takes action on behalf of humankind and of what their responsibilities and liabilities will be.

Is there any better example of the sheer idiocy of legalism? It's tempting to dismiss the author's concerns. You might think that if a killer asteroid were bearing down on earth, the main focus would be on destroying or diverting it, not on "legal issues." But you might also think that if piracy threatened commerce in a particular region, the primary emphasis would be on eliminating the pirates, rather than legal concerns. But of course you'd be wrong. In today's political climate it is quite possible that we could see extended squabbling over international law, arguments over putting weapons into space, and all sorts of other legal nonsense. People would feel the need to consult lawyers and get legal rulings on exactly what we could and could not do to stop the oncoming asteroid. There might even be lunatics arguing that an asteroid has "rights," and we couldn't just destroy it. After all, who would have thought that people would have been crazy enough to argue that terrorists should be given rights? 

Just Say No to a Space Weapon Treaty

Reuters reports that the Obama administration will "seek a worldwide ban on weapons in space." This was one of Obama's dumber campaign pledges (and that's saying a lot), and hopefully will be relegated to a back burner and forgotten amidst more pressing concerns. Here is a type of issue that tells you quite a bit about a person's thinking regarding national security matters. If you actually believe that passing a treaty banning space weapons benefits the U.S., you might as well wear a sign saying, "I'm really naive and can't be trusted with national security."

Most of the countries that might be a threat to the U.S. in space cannot be trusted to abide by any treaty banning weapons. A treaty of this nature will have the following effect: it will restrict the U.S. from developing and deploying effective weapons, and allow potential adversaries to gain advantages, forcing us to play catch-up later on. The very idea that we can or should ban weapons from space is, in my opinion, completely ridiculous. Space is already militarized and we should recognize that fact. The U.S. should be working to strengthen its military advantages in space, as well as identifying and developing defenses to lessen its vulnerabilities. Pretending that we can effectively demilitarize space is the worst sort of utopian thinking. Along with being unattainable, the demilitarization of space is undesirable. U.S. technological innovation is one of our greatest strengths. There is no reason we shouldn't take full advantage of the military opportunities offered by space. And we should certainly not trust our security in this critical area to some feel-good treaty.