For those who thought my blog was only political...surprise. I am an engineer. I spend each working day like all engineers...improving yesterday's technology and creating tomorrow's. When the MSM disparages, misrepresents, over emphasizes the bad or just plain screws it up regarding science and technology, the hairs on the back of my neck rise up.
Media scare tactics and gloom-and-doom tirades are the bane of my existence. They can kill progress fast because at best, they only tell partial truths. Unfortunately, the press loves junk science because it sells. As with all subjects, they feel whole story...the truth...just isn't always as interesting or worth telling.
Every now and then, someone from outside the MSM gets it right. The link below is one such case. It is an essay by Dr. Robert Zubrin, formerly of NASA, now a leading proponent of increasing our manned exploration of space, and making Mars the next destination. I have read this before, but am doing so again in the wake of the latest shuttle mission and the press hungrily looking for the chinks in NASA's armor.
A New Martian Frontier: Recapturing the Soul of America
Please do read it and comment. All the whiners and cowards and nay-sayers out there - especially in the MSM - who want to shut off funding to NASA don't, won't or can't see the point...or don't care. We need this - our continued vibrancy and existence as a nation and species depend on it. Anyway...I digress too much...just have a look.
I will be talking more about science and technology in the future, too. Don't worry, though...politics and history are still passions...and they'll still be discussed here.
Media scare tactics and gloom-and-doom tirades are the bane of my existence. They can kill progress fast because at best, they only tell partial truths. Unfortunately, the press loves junk science because it sells. As with all subjects, they feel whole story...the truth...just isn't always as interesting or worth telling.
Every now and then, someone from outside the MSM gets it right. The link below is one such case. It is an essay by Dr. Robert Zubrin, formerly of NASA, now a leading proponent of increasing our manned exploration of space, and making Mars the next destination. I have read this before, but am doing so again in the wake of the latest shuttle mission and the press hungrily looking for the chinks in NASA's armor.
A New Martian Frontier: Recapturing the Soul of America
Please do read it and comment. All the whiners and cowards and nay-sayers out there - especially in the MSM - who want to shut off funding to NASA don't, won't or can't see the point...or don't care. We need this - our continued vibrancy and existence as a nation and species depend on it. Anyway...I digress too much...just have a look.
I will be talking more about science and technology in the future, too. Don't worry, though...politics and history are still passions...and they'll still be discussed here.
I followed the "Deep Impact" mission earlier this summer, though it got the usual perfunctory press coverage and ho-hum level of interest that, unfortunately, has become the norm for anything coming out of the space program.
ReplyDeleteHave we lost our sense of wonder, or did we just get so wrapped up in our day-to-day skirmishes with life on this planet that the rest of the galaxy is no longer relevant? It's absolutely amazing to me that we figured out how to hit a moving object in space so precisely, and then went and did it. I found Deep Impact awe-inspiring. We can whack a divot in a comet, without blowing it to smithereens. Amazing. It's intriguing to wonder what else we can do, where else we can go. Bring on Mars. I agree; we need it.