ARIANE 5 IS GOOD ENOUGH.
The Constellation program is a stop gap measure. So why to create it from scratch, at great cost, and technological uncertainty, and not use instead Ariane 5, which exists, is reliable, and has the launch capability?
The reasons for sending human beings in space at this point are borderline (whereas robotic space science is a must, and starved by present US and NASA policies). Space launch, before the space elevator, basically uses a chemical propulsion principle discovered in China about 900 years ago (according to legend the first Chinese rocket engineer, Wan-Hu, died in the first attempted launch; he 94 rockets attached to two kites, and it would have been the first attempt at motorized flying).
It is enlightening to compare European and American space science policies. At this point Europe does a lot of good science (a French space telescope, Corot, is searching for extrasolar planets, for example, well in advance of the similar NASA project).
Ares V seems too large for anything reasonable looking forward for the next 15 years (there is no urgency to rush to Mars, robots will do better for now, including maybe setting up a base there).
Europe has resisted the call of engaging in launching people in orbit, although it has invested a lot in the space station and has the capability with the Ariane 5 and ATV combination. The ATV, the Automated Transfer Vehicle was successfully launched to the ISS in March 2008, and docked to the station for 5 months, bringing supplies, and pushing the station to a higher orbit (to compensate for aerodynamic drag). The ATV was also used to brake and drop the station by a mile to avoid a large piece of Russian space debris. The ISS crew used the ATV for personal hygiene and sleeping (it's large and quiet, which the station is not).
It seems that it should be only natural that Orion be modified to sit on top of a variant of the ATV. Ariane 5 is already scheduled to launch the next US Space Telescope, and increasing Euro-American technological cooperation can only benefit both sides. Ariane Vs and ATVs could be shipped to the USA, as they are to French Guyana now, and, or, made under license in the USA. This is strategically not a problem (the extensive Franco-Americano-British nuclear weapon cooperation is incomparably more sensitive, defense-wise).
France had the good reflex when, after trying to develop the erroneous home grown graphite-gas nuclear technology (the design used for Chernobyl), she bought US technology from Westinghouse (since then transmogrified). There is no shame in getting a little help from one's good friends. That is what trade is all about. Europe has some better systems right now, let the USA use them. In turn Europe could use Orion, and splash in the ocean too (although, with Ariane 5 greater lift, Orion could be equipped with land landing capability, like Soyuz).
Patrice Ayme
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
THINK, OR YOU SHALL SINK.
FAITH OVERDOSE DOES A MIND KILL.
What needs to be rediscovered, reinvented, and re-disseminated in the USA is thinking. Good, deep, honest, deliberate, well informed thinking. Not feel-good thinking, not wishful thinking, not let's-all-sing-together-we-are-so-beautiful thinking, but causal, rational, hard core thinking. That means that faith should be out as a first choice for mental pre-positioning. Certainly returning to the separation of church and state would help. One could start by phasing out the obviously anti-Constitutional motto of 1956 "In God We Trust", an apparently obvious imitation of Adolf Hitler's motto: "Gott mit Uns" ("God With Us"). German soldiers and SS carried "Gott mit Uns" all over Europe as they invaded. Similarly, G. W. Bush's ultimate justification for invading Iraq was that his "Higher Father" told him to.
When thinking is applied, it will be revealed that plutocracy does not a democracy make. Nor does calling the world's richest men "philanthropists" make them good. Nor being the only country in the universe to use the old imperial system of units does an empire make. And so on.
Happy Winter Solstice (aka the Birth of the Sun, the birthday of Mithra, made, more than a millennium later, into the famous "Sol Invictus" (the Invicible Sun), an official massive Roman celebration, later conveniently transmogrified into Mr. Christ's birthday, when the later Roman emperors decided that all the People needed was the cross...)!
***
P/S: The treaty of Tripoli, a document agreed to by the entire machinery of the US government under the first and second US presidents, Washington and Adams, states that "...the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion...." (1796-97). Indeed the de facto motto of the USA dating from 1776 was "E Pluribus Unum" (but had never been officially proclaimed as such).
Patrice Ayme
Patriceayme.wordpress.com
What needs to be rediscovered, reinvented, and re-disseminated in the USA is thinking. Good, deep, honest, deliberate, well informed thinking. Not feel-good thinking, not wishful thinking, not let's-all-sing-together-we-are-so-beautiful thinking, but causal, rational, hard core thinking. That means that faith should be out as a first choice for mental pre-positioning. Certainly returning to the separation of church and state would help. One could start by phasing out the obviously anti-Constitutional motto of 1956 "In God We Trust", an apparently obvious imitation of Adolf Hitler's motto: "Gott mit Uns" ("God With Us"). German soldiers and SS carried "Gott mit Uns" all over Europe as they invaded. Similarly, G. W. Bush's ultimate justification for invading Iraq was that his "Higher Father" told him to.
When thinking is applied, it will be revealed that plutocracy does not a democracy make. Nor does calling the world's richest men "philanthropists" make them good. Nor being the only country in the universe to use the old imperial system of units does an empire make. And so on.
Happy Winter Solstice (aka the Birth of the Sun, the birthday of Mithra, made, more than a millennium later, into the famous "Sol Invictus" (the Invicible Sun), an official massive Roman celebration, later conveniently transmogrified into Mr. Christ's birthday, when the later Roman emperors decided that all the People needed was the cross...)!
***
P/S: The treaty of Tripoli, a document agreed to by the entire machinery of the US government under the first and second US presidents, Washington and Adams, states that "...the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion...." (1796-97). Indeed the de facto motto of the USA dating from 1776 was "E Pluribus Unum" (but had never been officially proclaimed as such).
Patrice Ayme
Patriceayme.wordpress.com
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
MONEY ALLOWS PAID INTELLECTUALS TO FORM INTO A CLASS, AND SERVE THE PLUTOCRACY.
USING PUBLIC MONEY TO FORM A SECRET SOCIETY. HOW INTELLECTUALS ARE ALLOWED TO TURN INTO A NEW CLASS OF STATE PRIESTS, OR IS THAT AS PROSTITUTES FOR THE ELITE?
Recently, only personel of rich universities have been allowed access to scientific and intellectual research product. This is done by requiring the public to pay hefty fees to just have a glance to an article.
It's outrageous that scientific research would be withdrawn from public scrutiny and access. Most scientific research is funded by the PUBLIC. Thus the public ought to be the ultimate owner of the information gathered by scientists. In Britain, for example, the universities are now all public (Oxford and Cambridge are not private anymore). So it is in continental Europe. US universities, even private ones, are hugely financed by taxpayer money in various ways. To grab other people's property for one's profit is thievery. To do it to the public defiles and attacks the REPUBLIC (res Publica).
Besides, science, and intellectual activities are public utilities, thus should provide with public access, just like the high seas, the moon, or the air one breathes.
Should this grabbing of collective resources by a small self-selected elite and rich universities be allowed to go on, it is to be feared that a new priesthood will rise. Meanwhile, most of the public will get ever more ignorant, antiscientific, anti-intellectual, and resentful (of that new priesthood). New Dark Ages would be here. (Apparently, even the present administration has expressed alarm, and took corrective action in some biological areas.)
In a way, allowing only members of rich universities to have access to intellectual product, is similar to what happened at the criminal root of the present financial crisis: a small elite grabs for itself, and its personal enrichment, vast global, public resources.
Indeed, more globally the question is that, if it takes several hundred dollars to look at a just one issue of one journal financed by the public, who has that kind of money? Who has that kind of access? The plutocracy, those at the root of the world financial and economic mess.
As Obama claims that he wants to provide better internet access to the population, one guesses that he means better access to information, and, in particular, to publicly financed information. So he should look at this injustice.
***
Patrice Ayme
Patriceayme.wordpress.com
****
P/S: Here is how Dr. Olivia Judson describes the access to intellectual product problem in the New York Times (Dec. 16, 2008):
"One caveat. I say “access to information is easier and faster than ever before.” With respect to scientific information, this is true for people within universities, but not for those without them. One of the consequences of the scientific journals going digital is that it has become harder for members of the public to get access to original scientific information. It used to be the case, for example, that anyone could get permission to spend a day at the library at Imperial College; once there, they could read any of the journals on the library shelves. Now, subscriptions to the paper editions of many journals have been stopped — the journals are no longer physically there — and only members of the university are allowed access to the online versions. Some journals give free access, at least to back-issues; but many do not. Then, if you are not a member of a university and you want to read some articles, they may cost you as much as $30 each. I think this is a pity. Perhaps not many people want to read original scientific research; but somehow, it seems against the spirit of the enterprise."
Recently, only personel of rich universities have been allowed access to scientific and intellectual research product. This is done by requiring the public to pay hefty fees to just have a glance to an article.
It's outrageous that scientific research would be withdrawn from public scrutiny and access. Most scientific research is funded by the PUBLIC. Thus the public ought to be the ultimate owner of the information gathered by scientists. In Britain, for example, the universities are now all public (Oxford and Cambridge are not private anymore). So it is in continental Europe. US universities, even private ones, are hugely financed by taxpayer money in various ways. To grab other people's property for one's profit is thievery. To do it to the public defiles and attacks the REPUBLIC (res Publica).
Besides, science, and intellectual activities are public utilities, thus should provide with public access, just like the high seas, the moon, or the air one breathes.
Should this grabbing of collective resources by a small self-selected elite and rich universities be allowed to go on, it is to be feared that a new priesthood will rise. Meanwhile, most of the public will get ever more ignorant, antiscientific, anti-intellectual, and resentful (of that new priesthood). New Dark Ages would be here. (Apparently, even the present administration has expressed alarm, and took corrective action in some biological areas.)
In a way, allowing only members of rich universities to have access to intellectual product, is similar to what happened at the criminal root of the present financial crisis: a small elite grabs for itself, and its personal enrichment, vast global, public resources.
Indeed, more globally the question is that, if it takes several hundred dollars to look at a just one issue of one journal financed by the public, who has that kind of money? Who has that kind of access? The plutocracy, those at the root of the world financial and economic mess.
As Obama claims that he wants to provide better internet access to the population, one guesses that he means better access to information, and, in particular, to publicly financed information. So he should look at this injustice.
***
Patrice Ayme
Patriceayme.wordpress.com
****
P/S: Here is how Dr. Olivia Judson describes the access to intellectual product problem in the New York Times (Dec. 16, 2008):
"One caveat. I say “access to information is easier and faster than ever before.” With respect to scientific information, this is true for people within universities, but not for those without them. One of the consequences of the scientific journals going digital is that it has become harder for members of the public to get access to original scientific information. It used to be the case, for example, that anyone could get permission to spend a day at the library at Imperial College; once there, they could read any of the journals on the library shelves. Now, subscriptions to the paper editions of many journals have been stopped — the journals are no longer physically there — and only members of the university are allowed access to the online versions. Some journals give free access, at least to back-issues; but many do not. Then, if you are not a member of a university and you want to read some articles, they may cost you as much as $30 each. I think this is a pity. Perhaps not many people want to read original scientific research; but somehow, it seems against the spirit of the enterprise."
Saturday, November 22, 2008
GAY VERSUS SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS RESOLVED...
Maureen Dowd observes that: "Gays who supported Barack Obama had the bittersweet experience of seeing [less educated, being Black and Hispanics] voters who surged to the polls to vote Democratic also vote for Proposition 8, which turned gay “I dos” into “You can’ts".”
California already has a domestic partnership law. Once united by it, couples need to go through a real divorce if they want to part ways (as one of my friends found to her dismay!). So President Obama has just to pass, with his tremendous majorities in the Senate and House, the law recognizing domestic partnership from state to state. Problem solved.
In Europe, domestic partnerships have supplanted the old style marriage, thus vaporizing the problem of sad versus gay state of affairs. Please circulate, good people, there are more serious matters out there!
Patrice Ayme
California already has a domestic partnership law. Once united by it, couples need to go through a real divorce if they want to part ways (as one of my friends found to her dismay!). So President Obama has just to pass, with his tremendous majorities in the Senate and House, the law recognizing domestic partnership from state to state. Problem solved.
In Europe, domestic partnerships have supplanted the old style marriage, thus vaporizing the problem of sad versus gay state of affairs. Please circulate, good people, there are more serious matters out there!
Patrice Ayme
Monday, November 17, 2008
PAST THE TECHNOLOGY OF NO RETURN.
FULLL TECH AHEAD!
One reader wonders about the following quote found in "STIMULATING THE RIGHT WAY" (on http://patriceayme.wordpress.com): “That is precisely why high technology green jobs have to be promoted.”
"This is paradoxical — industrialism has created widespread environmental devastation, and so we expect to work our way out of this with more “high technology” (i.e., industrialism)?"
“Paradox” means against common opinion. In the USA, opinion is running strongly against intellectualism, science and high technology, which are all tightly related. But it seems not to be the case in France, Britain, Germany, or some non negligible countries such as Brazil, India and China.
The main problem nowadays is that high technology and its attending industrialization keeps alive nearly seven billion people. It is indeed unlikely that much more than 50 million people could be kept alive with primitive technology.
Our civilization is in the situation of a jet barreling down the runway, well past the point of no return: either we take off, or we crash in flames and explode.
More advanced technology will not have to have a worse impact on the environment. A gory example is that when thermonuclear power reactors get on line, one could probably burn in them unusable radioactive waste (such as produced in medicine). A sunny example is that solar power will work, and give us all we need (the most recent studies show it would even provide with enough power on Mars to make fuel there).
The American anti-technology, anti-intellectualism bias is strongly related to the American reign of plutocracy (See Patriceayme.wordpress.com, Nov 16, 2008).
PA.
One reader wonders about the following quote found in "STIMULATING THE RIGHT WAY" (on http://patriceayme.wordpress.com): “That is precisely why high technology green jobs have to be promoted.”
"This is paradoxical — industrialism has created widespread environmental devastation, and so we expect to work our way out of this with more “high technology” (i.e., industrialism)?"
“Paradox” means against common opinion. In the USA, opinion is running strongly against intellectualism, science and high technology, which are all tightly related. But it seems not to be the case in France, Britain, Germany, or some non negligible countries such as Brazil, India and China.
The main problem nowadays is that high technology and its attending industrialization keeps alive nearly seven billion people. It is indeed unlikely that much more than 50 million people could be kept alive with primitive technology.
Our civilization is in the situation of a jet barreling down the runway, well past the point of no return: either we take off, or we crash in flames and explode.
More advanced technology will not have to have a worse impact on the environment. A gory example is that when thermonuclear power reactors get on line, one could probably burn in them unusable radioactive waste (such as produced in medicine). A sunny example is that solar power will work, and give us all we need (the most recent studies show it would even provide with enough power on Mars to make fuel there).
The American anti-technology, anti-intellectualism bias is strongly related to the American reign of plutocracy (See Patriceayme.wordpress.com, Nov 16, 2008).
PA.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
PLUTOCRACY ORIGINATED SLAVERY AND RACISM.
THE HEAD OF THE DEADLY SNAKE HAS NOT BEEN CUT OFF YET.
The racial Civil War started 147 years ago. Some will say it ended with Obama's election (thus nicely forgetting that Africans were enslaved in English America 390 years ago). But what about the plutocratic civil war? The one of the rich against the people? Is that finished too? As it turns out, the racial war is a particular case of that war of the rich against the poor. God, in the fourteenth century had told the Pope that Africans could be enslaved, and the Pope dutifully wrote a bull recommending that, and the invasion of Africa. That was most pleasing to the plutocrats in Portugal. Like in Iraq with the oil nowadays, there was money to be made in Africa with sugarcane. In the Americas, it's the rich who acquired millions of African slaves, to produce very profitable tobacco. Those slaves were extremely expensive to purchase: the rich in America committed the crime of slavery, it's not everybody who did it. Most people had nothing to do with it.
President Washington, who got started in the military and real estate, playing the Brits, the French, the Indians, and the average Joe in a masterful game, finished as a big slave master, and the richest man in the USA. He resisted his friend Lafayette's entreaties to outlaw slavery. Twelve US presidents owned slaves (yes, more than 25%).
It's not just the Bush team that came short in recent years, but the entire plutocracy has finally shown its ugly face for everybody to contemplate. Flushed by increasing bubbles, the plutocracy became ever more arrogant, so arrogant, it had decided to conquer the world physically, or at least where the oil was. As the American people initially applauded the decision, the plutocracy became ever more arrogant, and engaged in ever more dangerous and abusive financial practices. Thus it finally tripped in Iraq, and in banking corruption unbound. Apparently not satisfied with the enslavement of Africans, now most Americans had also to be treated as means to ever greater riches. It's no coincidence that the people has chosen one who would have been looked at as a slave a little while ago: the entire American people has good reason to feel enslaved now. Most Americans feel black, in more ways than one.
The Plutocracy forced God fundamentalism on the people ("In God We Trust" was imposed in 1956). Thus God could tell Bush to invade Iraq. So, sure the Bush team was going from blunder to blunder, but that was a method of government, born of total contempt. It was taken for granted that the plutocracy would keep on governing: by making people naive and uncritical. Even at this late hour, it has asked for a trillion dollars for itself, so it could pay its bonuses past and present (those total more than 110 billions, according to respected newspapers).
Thus there is a bigger picture than slavery and racism. Slavery and racism originated in Pluto's world. They were literally political and psychological derivatives that plutocracy used as an exoskeleton. The greater war of rich against poor is far from won: many mass psychological structures of the USA support the plutocracy, not the People. Just look at the coins; they do not trust the People ("E Pluribus Unum" was the original slogan of the USA). Instead the coins order us to trust "God", the one that brought us slavery and the invasion of Iraq.
Well, it may be time to remember that Rome did not have racism, but Rome had plutocracy, and ultimately, that plutocracy destroyed Rome.
Patrice Ayme.
The racial Civil War started 147 years ago. Some will say it ended with Obama's election (thus nicely forgetting that Africans were enslaved in English America 390 years ago). But what about the plutocratic civil war? The one of the rich against the people? Is that finished too? As it turns out, the racial war is a particular case of that war of the rich against the poor. God, in the fourteenth century had told the Pope that Africans could be enslaved, and the Pope dutifully wrote a bull recommending that, and the invasion of Africa. That was most pleasing to the plutocrats in Portugal. Like in Iraq with the oil nowadays, there was money to be made in Africa with sugarcane. In the Americas, it's the rich who acquired millions of African slaves, to produce very profitable tobacco. Those slaves were extremely expensive to purchase: the rich in America committed the crime of slavery, it's not everybody who did it. Most people had nothing to do with it.
President Washington, who got started in the military and real estate, playing the Brits, the French, the Indians, and the average Joe in a masterful game, finished as a big slave master, and the richest man in the USA. He resisted his friend Lafayette's entreaties to outlaw slavery. Twelve US presidents owned slaves (yes, more than 25%).
It's not just the Bush team that came short in recent years, but the entire plutocracy has finally shown its ugly face for everybody to contemplate. Flushed by increasing bubbles, the plutocracy became ever more arrogant, so arrogant, it had decided to conquer the world physically, or at least where the oil was. As the American people initially applauded the decision, the plutocracy became ever more arrogant, and engaged in ever more dangerous and abusive financial practices. Thus it finally tripped in Iraq, and in banking corruption unbound. Apparently not satisfied with the enslavement of Africans, now most Americans had also to be treated as means to ever greater riches. It's no coincidence that the people has chosen one who would have been looked at as a slave a little while ago: the entire American people has good reason to feel enslaved now. Most Americans feel black, in more ways than one.
The Plutocracy forced God fundamentalism on the people ("In God We Trust" was imposed in 1956). Thus God could tell Bush to invade Iraq. So, sure the Bush team was going from blunder to blunder, but that was a method of government, born of total contempt. It was taken for granted that the plutocracy would keep on governing: by making people naive and uncritical. Even at this late hour, it has asked for a trillion dollars for itself, so it could pay its bonuses past and present (those total more than 110 billions, according to respected newspapers).
Thus there is a bigger picture than slavery and racism. Slavery and racism originated in Pluto's world. They were literally political and psychological derivatives that plutocracy used as an exoskeleton. The greater war of rich against poor is far from won: many mass psychological structures of the USA support the plutocracy, not the People. Just look at the coins; they do not trust the People ("E Pluribus Unum" was the original slogan of the USA). Instead the coins order us to trust "God", the one that brought us slavery and the invasion of Iraq.
Well, it may be time to remember that Rome did not have racism, but Rome had plutocracy, and ultimately, that plutocracy destroyed Rome.
Patrice Ayme.
Monday, November 3, 2008
WHY THE USA IS NO ROSY FUTURE.
A NEW MAN DOES NOT MAKE A REPUBLIC.
Mr. Obama lived overseas for a little while as a child, and then had a long, exceptional, highly instructive childhood in Hawaii (See "Our Friend Barry" by Constance Ramos). Hawaii has long been known as a rare case of multiethnic integration. All this makes Mr. Obama's mind uniquely qualified to practice mental flexibility.
But one man will not a new world make. Comparing Switzerland, with its highly democratic system, and the awkward United States presidential system, one may doubt that the future lays in the direction of the personalized US presidency. Sure, the US Presidential system was ideally suited to Presidents Jefferson, and Jackson, and their antidemocratic maneuvers. Sure, their conquests of immense Indian lands made the USA a great power. And sure that is what the Europeans wanted (France, in particular, wanted a mighty America, that came in handy later). Sure, by making dirty deals in 1945 (with Stalin and Ibn Saud), President Roosevelt insured US supremacy for a generation or two. The waters have gone below those antidemocratic bridges to the present, the USA as a world country. But it remains that the US Presidency is both too strong in its antidemocratic ways, and too weak against the plutocracy.
The lesson of the Bush years has not been drawn. With W the lesson is that not much of a man, not much of a mind, can lead an entire democratic nation astray. But the Bush saga started two generations ago, when both of W's grandfathers collaborated with the Nazis at the highest level (Prescott and Mr. Walker). The lessons of the collaboration between some of the mightiest US citizens and Nazism was not seriously investigated, let alone drawn. But it is the heart of the problem. The present financial crisis is just another manifestation of the same elite going too far. Once again.
We have here in the USA a system where plutocracy is strong, and the democratic institutions are omnipresent, but weak. One man will not change this. It will take a nation. The conscience of a nation, not just of one liberal. Now, of course, that man, the president, could turn into a great teacher. The tenacity of hope.
Patrice Ayme
Patriceayme.wordpress.com
P/S: Novus Homo was a well known concept in Rome. The most famous was Cicero, and his hands got nailed on the Senate door by Marc Anthony. No Novus Homo never changed the republic (or the empire). Augustus, or Constantine were pretty much their dad's sons.
Mr. Obama lived overseas for a little while as a child, and then had a long, exceptional, highly instructive childhood in Hawaii (See "Our Friend Barry" by Constance Ramos). Hawaii has long been known as a rare case of multiethnic integration. All this makes Mr. Obama's mind uniquely qualified to practice mental flexibility.
But one man will not a new world make. Comparing Switzerland, with its highly democratic system, and the awkward United States presidential system, one may doubt that the future lays in the direction of the personalized US presidency. Sure, the US Presidential system was ideally suited to Presidents Jefferson, and Jackson, and their antidemocratic maneuvers. Sure, their conquests of immense Indian lands made the USA a great power. And sure that is what the Europeans wanted (France, in particular, wanted a mighty America, that came in handy later). Sure, by making dirty deals in 1945 (with Stalin and Ibn Saud), President Roosevelt insured US supremacy for a generation or two. The waters have gone below those antidemocratic bridges to the present, the USA as a world country. But it remains that the US Presidency is both too strong in its antidemocratic ways, and too weak against the plutocracy.
The lesson of the Bush years has not been drawn. With W the lesson is that not much of a man, not much of a mind, can lead an entire democratic nation astray. But the Bush saga started two generations ago, when both of W's grandfathers collaborated with the Nazis at the highest level (Prescott and Mr. Walker). The lessons of the collaboration between some of the mightiest US citizens and Nazism was not seriously investigated, let alone drawn. But it is the heart of the problem. The present financial crisis is just another manifestation of the same elite going too far. Once again.
We have here in the USA a system where plutocracy is strong, and the democratic institutions are omnipresent, but weak. One man will not change this. It will take a nation. The conscience of a nation, not just of one liberal. Now, of course, that man, the president, could turn into a great teacher. The tenacity of hope.
Patrice Ayme
Patriceayme.wordpress.com
P/S: Novus Homo was a well known concept in Rome. The most famous was Cicero, and his hands got nailed on the Senate door by Marc Anthony. No Novus Homo never changed the republic (or the empire). Augustus, or Constantine were pretty much their dad's sons.
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