According to Space.com, a pair of scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center believe they have found strong evidence that life may exist today in Martian caves.

Carol Stoker and Larry Lemke have submitted their paper for publication in Science, and the paper is currently under peer review.

Their evidence is a circumstantial case based upon methane signatures and comparisons to similar caves and methane signatures on Earth, where microbes account for the methane.

I am of mixed feelings on this. I think discovering life elsewhere would be fantastic, but I am worried that Martian life will lead to a quarantine of the planet, thus foreclosing settlement by humans for the foreseeable future.

Guess I'll have to back out of that Valles Marineris condo development deal now...

Posted by: JohnL at 10:36 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Two days ago, Congresscritter James Oberstar introduced /bss/d109query.html|">a bill to "enhance" the safety of the infant commercial space flight industry. Here's a sampling of his verbal diarrhea (via SpaceRef):

"We can and should protect the safety of passengers on space flights in this new and emerging industry, without placing unreasonable limitations on industry development. I urge my colleagues to join me in working to pass this important legislation."

(emphasis mine)

It's clear from the context of Oberstar's comments that he's not merely concerned with range safety (i.e., innocent bystanders). No. He wants to use the blunt instrument of federal regulation to "protect" the safety of early passengers on commercial spaceflights.

Yeah, right. We all know what a good job the government does at protecting passengers in spaceships. (Cheap shot, I know. But I'm not sorry). I'm not sorry, because there is one trait of government that I simply cannot abide, regardless of party affiliation: nannyism. Manny, in Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, put this unsavory aspect of government, as a reflection on human nature, most eloquently:

Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws -- always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: "Please pass this so that I won't be able to do something I know I should stop." Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them "for their own good" -- not because speaker claimed to be harmed by it.

In a nascent industry like this, which is just an exotic form of "extreme tourism," participants should be allowed to make up their own minds about risk tolerance. Asshats like Oberstar either (a) want to strangle the private space business in the cradle (look for donations from entrenched contractors like Boeing/LockMart) or (b) are stupid enough to think there is such a thing as safety regulations for experimental spacecraft that do not impose unreasonable limitations on commercial space flight startups. Either way, he should be turned out of office.

Posted by: JohnL at 11:01 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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When I was a kid, wishing that the Space Shuttle would just take off already (this was circa 1980), I kept thinking to myself: "someday I'll make lots of money and then I'll be rich enough to build my own spaceship." Alas, that hasn't happened, but apparently other members of my generation thought the same thing.

Here's a nice article about one of those generational peers, Elon Musk, the CEO and CTO of SpaceX. Like Jeff Bezos, Musk is turning his dot.com riches into hardware and business plans to develop the final frontier.

While Bezos, Rutan, and others focus on the suborbital market, Musk has been looking at ways to make orbital access cheaper by an order of magnitude. Reading through the Fast Company article, it's fascinating to see how he is implementing an entrepreneurial, fast-growth company mentality in building space hardware.

You may have seen this quote elsewhere, but it's worth repeating: "Many times we've been asked: 'If you reduce the cost, don't you reduce reliability?' This is completely ridiculous. A Ferrari is a very expensive car. It is not reliable. But I would bet you 1,000-to-1 that if you bought a Honda Civic that that sucker will not break down in the first year of operation. You can have a cheap car that's reliable, and the same applies to rockets."

Of course the proof of the pudding will be in the tasting. And that tasting is scheduled to take place later this month, with the first scheduled launch of a Falcon I to take place.

Posted by: JohnL at 10:14 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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