Oh, What a Year!

Once again we arrive at the point in Earth's journey around the Sun that we turn the page from one year to the next. And each year, it seems like events can't become more ominous yet more promising or just down right weird. 2010 is another one for the record books.

January brought a devastating earthquake to Haiti and a political upset in Massachusetts that would be a harbinger of things to come. February brought a proposed new direction in space which sparked a roaring controversy through much of the year. The Mid-Atlantic US almost seemed like a settlement on a strange wintry world when two back-to-back storms (one and two) created a "Snow-maggedon/Snow-pocalypse".

While the snow melted, March brought another kind of storm to DC as the fight over an intrusive, expensive and potentially lethal health care plan came to a head. Citizens rallied en masse to say "No Way", but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted on ramming it through by the narrowest of margins so that we could then "find out what's in it." Passage did not change the unpopularity of this debacle as many Congressional Dems lost their jobs and (thankfully) Pelosi now loses the Speakers' gavel.

April brought a disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that would last many months and affect many peoples' livelihoods.

September brought about a seeming consensus on America's direction in space, but left legal clarity and full funding in doubt.

October brought a happy conclusion to the dramatic story of the Chilean miners trapped underground for over two months.

While the foreign threat to life and security continued to make itself present, the November mid-term elections turned largely on economic doldrums and issues of the role of government and the direction of our culture. Nationwide, the results ended Democratic domination of national politics and saw a Republican resurgence in many states.

December saw a breakthrough for the commercial space sector that represents one distinctly positive trend for the future. A post-Christmas snowstorm brought havoc to much of the US Northeast.

These are only a few highlights of a tumultuous year. We need to remember that any positive development in history is only a step along the way while fending off new threats and calamities. And with God's blessing, let's get ready for an exciting 2011 as another opportunity to fight for a culture of life, a rebirth of freedom and an expanding frontier.

Christmas Winter Storm

The coastal storm is brushing the DC Area and causing major disruptions further to the northeast.

Have a Holy and Merry Christmas!

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus
that the whole world should be enrolled.
This was the first enrollment,
when Quirinius was governor of Syria.
So all went to be enrolled, each to his own town.
And Joseph too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth
to Judea, to the city of David that is called Bethlehem,
because he was of the house and family of David,
to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.
While they were there,
the time came for her to have her child,
and she gave birth to her firstborn son.
She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger,
because there was no room for them in the inn.

Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields
and keeping the night watch over their flock.
The angel of the Lord appeared to them
and the glory of the Lord shone around them,
and they were struck with great fear.
The angel said to them,
"Do not be afraid;
for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy
that will be for all the people.
For today in the city of David
a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.
And this will be a sign for you:
you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes
and lying in a manger."
And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel,
praising God and saying:
"Glory to God in the highest
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests."

Luke 2:1-14

A Memorable Christmas in Modern History

NASA

Christmas Eve 1968 saw three men go where no human beings had gone before.

Two Christmas Favorites

Here are two stirringly beautiful Christmas music videos by Enya and Trans-Siberian Orchestra I first posted last year and would like to share again.




Trans Siberian Orchestra - Christmas Canon

shadow | MySpace Video

Omnibus Bill A Stuck Pig

Public Domain Pictures.net

The huge omnibus spending bill the Democratic leaders of the outgoing Congress were rushing to pass so that we could then find out what is in it has been stopped dead in its tracks. Looks like they're scrambling on the Hill to pass another short term continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown.

Interestingly, this rejection of business-as-usual comes on the 237th anniversary of the original Tea Party.

Commercial Space Field Heating Up

Responses to a recent NASA solicitation for its next round of Commercial Crew Development program, called CCDev 2 indicate increased interest among established and new space companies in providing commercial human spaceflight. There has been particular attention paid to the unexpected announcement of Orbital Sciences Corporation's proposal for transport to Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

If even some of these proposed ventures are carried out, the next few years will be quite interesting and exciting time in humanity's expansion into space.

MD GOP Convention

Just catching up but I participated in last Saturday's Maryland Republican Convention in Annapolis (after some fun hospitality suites the night before). As it followed the recent statewide elections, this was the convention to select party leadership.

After a spirited but friendly competition among several candidates, both well known figures and rising stars, the convention selected outgoing state Senator Alex Mooney as Party Chair. Senator Mooney is known for being forthright about his conservative convictions and for his fundraising prowess. The contests for Party Chair and the other leadership offices were influenced by an influx of new people, some from the Tea Party movement, into county central committees.

A New Giant Leap

Photo credit: NASA/Kevin O'Connell

History was made today with the launch and return to Earth of the SpaceX Dragon capsule, which will carry cargo and likely eventually people to the International Space Station (ISS) and possibly other destinations in space. Today's flight marks a major advance toward a new form of partnership between NASA and the commercial sector in conducting space endeavors.

Clark Lindsey has posted numerous reports and comments on the flight here and here.

Meanwhile, the first stage of Orbital Sciences Corporation's Taurus II rocket has arrived at Wallops Island, Virginia for its first planned launch next summer. Like SpaceX, Orbital will be carrying cargo to the ISS for NASA.

Congratulations to the SpaceX team and all who played a role in today's accomplishment. Here's a video of today's spectacular launch.

Late Term Abortionist Not Welcome Here

The notorious late-term abortionist, Leroy Carhart, has set up shop at an existing abortion facility in the town of Germantown, here in Montgomery County, Maryland. This development is receiving national attention and Carhart has already been greeted by a large rally in opposition to his practice.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington is rallying additional peaceful opposition and hopefully this situation will draw increased attention to the human life issue in this community.

The Tax Deal

There is a wide range of reaction to the compromise on tax legislation that President Obama announced (even if somewhat grudgingly) on Monday evening. The editors of National Review say that the proposed deal is a "Qualified Victory" for conservatives.

Of course, the President does deserve a thumbs up for giving his liberal base conniptions. Socialist Bernie Sanders vows to try to filibuster the bill. But so does Republican Senator Jim DeMint, for fiscal reasons. We'll have to see how this all plays out.

Arsenic and "Life As We Know It"

A NASA press conference today featured several scientists describing a newly discovered life-form that defies previous assumptions about what is required for life to thrive.

Describing her research, Wolfe-Simon said "what I've presented to you today is a microbe doing something different than life as we knew it."

"I was taught as a biochemist that all life on Earth, all life we know of, to harken back to the 'pale blue dot' ideas of Carl Sagan, all life we know of is here so far," she said. "And if there's an organism on Earth that's doing something different, we've cracked open the door to what's possible for life elsewhere in the universe. And that's profound. ... This microbe substitutes arsenic for phosphorous in its basic biomolecules. What else might we find? What else might we want to look for?"

Hanukkah and Our Attitude about the Future

(This is a post I originally made in 2003 and feel is worth repeating each year, especially in light of some very dark anti-human views of the future vs. ongoing and emerging developments that can provide resources for future generations.)

Rabbi Daniel Lapin has a provocative column in WorldNetDaily on a message of Hanukkah that is relevant to people of all faiths. He shows examples, ancient and modern, of how a pessimistic Malthusian worldview have been repeatedly disproved by the Creator's providence of material resources and the ingenuity to utilize them to provide for the future. Rabbi Lapin says:

It only seemed that we lacked sufficient copper, whale oil or wood. In reality, our God-given ingenuity developed exciting new technology that eliminated our need for each commodity just as it was becoming scarce.

Hanukkah's miracle was that, day after day, the Temple's menorah just kept on burning in spite of an apparent shortage of fuel - a metaphor, surely, for all apparent shortages that can be overcome with faith. Hanukkah invites us all to express gratitude to the Creator whose beneficence is boundless. It stimulates discussions that can spur our spiritual growth. It reminds us that with His gift of creativity, challenges become optimistic opportunities to partner with God in creatively solving all material shortage.

WikiLeaks Impact

Jonah Goldberg assesses the impact of the colossal Internet secrets leak.

Politically, the one advantage for the White House is the sheer volume of the leaks. If these stories came out one by one, there’d be room for them to flare up as full-fledged controversies, but with a quarter of a million documents, each story robs oxygen from the next.

Still, the (relative) lack of surprises is hardly an exoneration for anybody - not for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has declared himself an enemy of the United States, nor for the Obama administration, which seems utterly lost about how to deal with him.

Advent 2010 Begins

Yesterday marked the first Sunday of Advent, a time of preparation for the coming celebration of our Savior's coming at Christmas. Pope Benedict XVI welcomed the season by calling for respect for nascent human lives..

Dear brothers and sisters, our coming together this evening to begin the Advent journey is enriched by another important reason: with the entire Church, we want to solemnly celebrate a prayer vigil for unborn life. I wish to express my thanks to all who have taken up this invitation and those who are specifically dedicated to welcoming and safeguarding human life in different situations of fragility, especially in its early days and in its early stages.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A special day set aside in our nation to give thanks to God for all His gifts to us.

Here's an interesting Thanksgiving column by the late Jerry Falwell describing some of the key people who shaped this Thabksgiving tradition. The fact that I found this column on a Baptist web site linked by a Catholic news portal site shows the growing cooperation among Christians which is yet one more thing to be thankful for.

Have a good time with family and friends and don't eat any more than I would. ;-)

Patterns in History and the Early 21st Century

Do historical events tend to follow cyclical trends over decades long periods? Are there certain opportunities for nations and humanity in general to make sudden, quantum leaps in exploration, large scale development, etc? Ever heard of a "Maslow window"?

Professor Bruce Cordell and a group of contributors maintain a web site called 21st Century Waves which is dedicated to tracking current trends in light of the past couple of centuries and make some interesting predictions about the next 10-20 years.

The authors explain their analysis as follows.

Long-term patterns in the economy, technology, and exploration over the last 200 years appear to have predictive power for the 21st Century. In particular, a roughly 56-year cycle was identified, where macro-engineering projects (e.g., Panama Canal), significant human explorations (e.g., Lewis and Clark), and major military conflicts (e.g., Civil War) tended to cluster together, near economic booms. The bottom-line forecast is that the decade from 2015 to 2025 will be the analog of the 1960s, bringing a global focus on achievement in space exploration and a Camelot-like zeitgeist.

The social/psychological force behind this pattern is explained this way.

This long-term approach to 21st Century space forecasting is based on the concept of a "Maslow Window", in which each successive economic boom (typically peaking every 56 years) does two things: 1) it fuels the societal affluence required to spur large-scale technology and engineering activities, and, more importantly, 2) it creates widespread ebullience by briefly elevating society to the highest levels in Maslow’s hierarchy. This ebullience creates the atmosphere of social well-being and confidence vital to undertake and support large, complex, risky, expensive, multi-year programs and explorations. The confluence of societal affluence and ebullience is seen only infrequently in modern times, when peaks in economic activity (following a 56 year cycle) triggered the four great explorations (Lewis and Clark, Dr. Livingstone in Africa, the Polar Expeditions, Apollo Moon) of the last 200 years.

I was in my childhood and early youth during the last "Maslow window", so the excitement and optimism of the early space age seemed normal to me and the following let down was really puzzling and disappointing. This may have shaped my personality and explain how, at least in some respects, I tend to be a stubborn optimist.

As you can see, this analysis does raise questions about events that occur outside of these 50-60 year patterns (e.g. WWII, the late 20th Century computer/information age boom) and how to deal with the downside of how these positive cycles end. What would a major 21st Century military conflict look like with more nations and other forces possessing Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs)? How would an expansion into space be sustained after a brief forward thrust? Can greater engagement of the commercial sector be the way to sustain our presence in the Solar System?

The 21st Century Waves site is frequently updated to document how current events such as the recent financial collapse and current economic doldrums and even the recent mid-term elections play into this analysis.

I've placed the site in my side bar in the space section (though it is difficult to easily categorize) so it will be interesting to see if and how these predictions play out over the next few years.

The Day Hell Froze Over

Well, one year ago today was the day a chill was cast on the subject of man made global warming, with the release on the Internet of a collection of e-mails and documents that became known as "Climategate".

Even before then, the view among scientists and the public was far from the "consensus" portrayed by much of the Media. A couple of good sources of information are Climate Debate Daily, which features articles from proponents and skeptics, and Climate Depot, a site with a definitely skeptical point of view which culls many articles from various sources.

As I've said before, climate science is a complex field that certainly merits vigorous research and monitoring, but is far from being "settled" so as to justify drastic upheavals to economic and social policy. National, security, economic growth and general environmental stewardship are all good reasons to be more efficient in use of resources and to develop new energy sources, but those can be done in a way consistent with respecting life and liberty.

Don't Touch...

The topic of new TSA screening procedures at airports is getting plenty of attention. Charles Krauthammer
expresses the growing frustration of many in the public about what is and is not being done to thwart terrorism.

We pretend that we go through this nonsense as a small price paid to assure the safety of air travel. Rubbish. This has nothing to do with safety - 95 percent of these inspections, searches, shoe removals, and pat-downs are ridiculously unnecessary. The only reason we continue to do this is that people are too cowed to even question the absurd taboo against profiling - when the profile of the airline attacker is narrow, concrete, uniquely definable, and universally known. So instead of seeking out terrorists, we seek out tubes of gel in stroller pouches.

Meanwhile, a couple of articles examine the questions of radiation safety and privacy protection with the new scanning machines.

Finally, here's a timely humorous video from Iowahawk.



I'm glad my upcoming holiday travel will all be within easy driving distance and I hope they get this whole thing straightened out before I fly again.

Brian Marsden, RIP

Dr. Brian Marsden, astronomer who specialized in cataloging discoveries of asteroids and planets at the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, died yesterday at age 73. I recall well having him on a panel I chaired on Near Earth Objects at the 2005 International Space Development Conference.