Trust me. I'm still working on my "why we go to space" essay.

In the meantime, it looks like Transorbital will launch a mission to the moon later this year. Price: $2500 per gram. I wonder how many spots they will sell?

I like how Space.com frames this news in the context of President Bush's call for renewed government activity on the moon.

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The guys at SFSignal found Neave games, where you can find a true-to-the-original version of Asteroids, right down to the cheesy sound effects.

Neave also has ports of Space Invaders, Pac Man, and Tetris. I love modern gaming technology, and enjoy the many hours I have devoted to beating Halo on my Xbox. But it sure is fun to revisit some of these classics from the past.

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Growing up in the Cold War, I remember when I first grokked the irony of the communist party's propaganda rag being named "Truth." I wonder what old Trotsky would think if he were alive today to see the mouthpiece of the most murderous regime in human history turned into a sad imitation of the National Enquirer: UFOs, dragons, Noah's Ark, X-ray vision, and other apocryphal or mythical tales reported as fact.

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Rand Simberg remembers the Challenger and feels the passage of time. I was a senior in high school, sitting in Latin class 18 years ago when I learned of the Challenger explosion.

Rand also remembers the Columbia and Apollo 1 accidents in this article. And thanks to an article linked by Stephen Green, I now have an even more chilling mental picture of the final minutes of the Columbia astronauts' lives.

I may be a contrarian about NASA and the politics and purposes of government-funded manned exploration of outer space, but that should never be taken as disrespect for the bravery of these astronauts.

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Tim Sandefur is crushing hard on Charlize Theron.

Playing Eomer to Sandefur's Gimli with Theron as Galadriel, I simply cannot admit she is the most beautiful woman who ever lived, as that honor is reserved for my lovely wife. But speaking of beautiful women on TV, how about the Brazilian, Alessandra Ambrosio, Victoria's Secret cover model and recent star of this off-the-wall ad for the Hummer H2?

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Eeeww. (hat tip: Drudge).

I wonder if anyone saw a bowl of petunias drop out of the sky at the same time?

Update: Picture here.

Another Update: More pictures here.

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Check out the new Priceline commercials here.

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Looking at this picture from the Martian surface makes me hope that Opportunity will scrape away some dust and see something like this.

Some more cool sites to see what you might find in limestone beds on Earth are here and here.

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Readers of Jerry Pournelle's weblog know that he believes the USA is well on its way to becoming an empire.

One of his readers sent him a link to this article, which reviews a six-part series on BBC on the subject of American empire.

Even if there is disagreement about whether America actually is an empire, there is agreement that America doesn't want to be an empire.

Read the whole thing.

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Thanks to a link found by Alan Brain, here's how my [old Blogspot - ed.] content would look as Fox News.

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Any article that includes a reference to a scene from a classic Monty Python movie deserves some attention.

I endured (and enjoyed, to be fair) four years of Latin at my high school. In fact, during my senior year, I won first place in Texas in Reading Comprehension at the Texas State Junior Classical League Latin convention. I have to say, however, that I never ran across pastillum botello fartum (read the article!) on one of my reading tests.

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Jeff Foust has an interesting article today on the feasibility of missions to near-Earth-objects (mostly asteroids). He summarizes the justifications for studying these bodies as fear (of another dinosaur-killer), greed (for their mineral riches), and curiosity (because they're there). These objects are also fairly "inexpensive" in terms of delta-v:

While there are a number of good reasons for visiting NEOs, what makes the case for such missions -- human in particular -- so compelling is the accessibility of these bodies. The proximity of these objects and their small size sharply reduce the delta-v -- the change in velocity -- and thus the amount of propellant needed to reach them. In many cases, the total delta-v for a NEO mission is less than a mission to the Moon. At a September 2002 conference on mitigating asteroid impact hazards in Arlington, Virginia, Durda described an example of a mission to one NEO, 1991 VG. A round-trip mission lasting just 60 days would require a total delta-v of 6.1 kilometers per second, approximately the same as a one-way mission to the Moon. Extending the mission duration to 90 days decreased the delta-v to 4.9 km/sec. These factors put manned NEO missions almost entirely within the capacities and experience of human spaceflight today.

This last item reminded me of a science fiction story "gimmick" that I thought up about 15 years ago. As far as I know it hasn't been used in a story yet (and I haven't put it in a story yet, either!) The idea would be to use an asteroid or comet as a launching platform to the outer planets. I am too weak on orbital mechanics to work it out, but essentially the explorer craft would "lasso" an asteroid and then hitch a ride until it reached a good "jumping off" point to match
orbits with Mars, Jupiter, or some other destination. Do any of my technically-inclined readers think this idea has any merit?

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I read about this site in the January issue of Wired. If you have a weak stomach, you may want to take some Dramamine first.

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Hey, another corporate lawyer who wants to be a LEGO "master builder."

This guy was written up in the Dallas Morning News a few days ago (the original article, which was syndicated, is here) and Fred Kiesche at The Eternal Golden Braid has a link to his website today. According to the DMN article, this guy is now in the pool of 30 finalists for one of the 6 master builder
positions at Legoland in San Diego.

I like the Achewood rabbit ambulance.

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Martian Soil is on the story.

Major media that have picked this up include the AP (via USA Today), New York Times, CNN, and FoxNews.

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I've gotta admit. This looks like a fun project.

Found via this guy's site.

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Both SFSignal and The Eternal Golden Braid point to this report that plans are afoot to at least script a movie adaptation of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

Heinlein was a prescient writer and a lover of liberty. This work is commonly regarded as one of his most "libertarian" novels. I hope this writer really is the Heinlein fan he claims to be.

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Or pre-teen sons, as the case may be.

I'm working on a personal webpage right now, and one of the background graphics I am considering for the title bar is a lunar excursion module.

Tonight my 9-year old son looked at my progress and started asking questions about Apollo -- how many people landed there and when. I told him and then he asked if the Columbia had ever landed on the moon. I said no, even though there was a command module named Columbia. But no, I told him, the space shuttles can only fly in low Earth orbit.

He looked puzzled and said, "but where do they go? What planet?" Good question, son. Good question. The answer, of course, is nowhere but in circles for the last 20 years.

My son's question I think encapsulates the immediate emotional response I had to the President's speech a week ago. It's a question of goals -- where are we going? And why?

Before my rational self kicked in, I had a primal thrill that we would be going back to the moon to stay, and then to Mars. A dream I've had since I was 9 myself. And now I'm conflicted between my desire to see America lead the way in exploring and settling the solar system and my certainty that NASA cannot and will not accomplish that. And worse, that if they do, it will be a flags-and-footprints show like Apollo. Good for pictures that my son can show his kids someday, but not much else.

But that's the cranky grownup, not the idealistic child. Unfortunately, we won't really go anywhere to stay until there's a reason for cranky grownups to go. When space is just another place instead of an idealistic goal, we'll be there to stay.

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There's a handbook just for you.

(I don't know enough to judge. . . I used to know some DOS, along with BASIC, Pascal, and Prolog, but those skills are long-gone).

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This was in the body of some spam I got at the office today. I'm sure it was computer-generated to create a "legitimate" body text to sneak past content filters. Still, it has a certain poetic charm:

Now and then, defined by completion. When you see near abdominal, it means that toward everybody takes a runge break. Indeed, living with unidirectional make a truce with preparatory near. Most people believe that inside owing negotiate a officious with from, but they need to remember how complete about visitor. Now and then, from cook cheese houghton over. When for crabapple dies, around sweeps the floor. Most people believe that inside reach an understanding with beyond, but they need to remember how chisholm.

Heavy, man.

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