Moon Rocket Launched, Exercise, About BaseballTV

 On December 7th,1972, Apollo 17 launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Being the sixth lunar landing mission, it would be 53+ years before a return mission was sent there.  Artemis II lifted off early yesterday evening without incident, and its passengers are well on their multi-day circling of Earth's unusual, unitary natural satellite.  It was still broad daylight at launch time, and while sitting in our front yard facing east we saw absolutely no sign of the spaceship or its trail for several minutes following the launch.  Obama said we didn't need to go to the moon because "we've already been there', which I thought was wastefully dismissive if not arrogant.  This morning I finally arose at six, running in place for four minutes and brewing a K-cup of coffee.  A man is coming over to our house to remove the old plastic shed and rendet the back yard a simpler place without such an encumbrance.  I read some pages in Joshua Khan's Shadow Magic, intending to go further into it today.  For me, it has too many convoluted plot twists: who's the real culprit, and how does its ending slide into the next book?And I plan to watch some MLB regular reason baseball on that subscription channel, come afternoon or early evening.  And a modest attempt at some c-v home floor exercise should do the trick as well.  And how about a little more sleep, no? Let's see, I'll do four more minutes running in place and then I'll give it a nice break...  

Weekly Short Stories: 1996 Science Fiction, Part 10

Here are my reactions to more of anthology editor Garner Dozois' picks from the year 1996 as they appeared in his The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fourteenth Annual Collection...

DR. TILMAN'S CONSULTANT: A SCIENTIFIC ROMANCE by Cherry Wilder

This is one of two stories (Foreign Devils the other) that fit within the genre of historical fiction, but while the one below goes into alternative outcomes, this one posits explanations for for actually happened in pre-World War I Austria and Russia as a Russian noble family visits a sanitarium in Austria on behalf of one of their own dwelling there.  It seems that someone has discovered a cure for the affliction commonly known as schizophrenia, but he is a mysterious presence within the sanitarium and the cure's secret may well vanish among the tumultuous events going down at that time in history.  I think the author captured the atmosphere of that era very well with this story...

SCHRÖDINGER'S DOG by Damien Broderick

The famous word picture supposition called "Schrödinger's Cat" by physicist Erwin Schrödinger to Albert Einstein in 1935 in a discussion on quantum mechanics suggested two alternate, simultaneous universes, one with a living cat and the other a dead one...separated by a random quantum event.  This is taken in this story to its gruesome conclusion at some time in the near future as scientists literally apply the same principle to terminally ill humans...

FOREIGN DEVILS by Walter Jon Williams

Anyone interested in Chinese history, especially that of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, will enjoy this take on the decline of the Chinese Empire as Western countries, with imperialist fervor, carve out for themselves economic favors and colonial enclaves.  But behind the power struggles at the Chinese royal court is arising a new form of Foreign Devil...I wonder what H.G. Wells would have thought of this bizarre application of his famed tale of extraterrestrial invasion...

IN THE MSOB by Stephen Baxter

At the risk of prematurely giving away this brief tale, the abbreviation MSOB stands for Manned Space Operations Center.  Doesn't ring a bell? Maybe that's part of the point of it all as a very old and frail man is verbally abused by his seniors home caretakers and discovers that...for a too brief moment...the outside world would like a word or two from him, and a possible photo opportunity.  Cynical as many SF stories are, this one squarely hits the target as it projects into the future the state of the manned space program...

Next week I will conclude my look at science fiction from 1996...

Artemis I Successfully Returns, Future Lunar Missions Scheduled

The Artemis I NASA mission to the Moon and back was finally completed with a successful splashdown return on December 11th.  It was unmanned and designed to test the SLS launch rocket and Orion spacecraft and systems, as well as the Earth-based command center.  After some delays lasting months, it was finally launched on November 26th, with the Orion craft eventually making many lunar orbits over a span of six days, performing various maneuvers and taking spectacular photos both of the Moon and Earth off in the distance before returning to Earth.  I'm happy to see this concerted return to human deep space exploration after nearly half a century of doing little more than go around Earth in low orbit.  The next Artemis mission is scheduled for May, 2024 and will featured a human crew that will also orbit the Moon and return...after that, the way should be open for the first human landing on our Moon the following year, for the first time in 52+ years.  This time around, hopefully, we'll keep our presence there permanent with a planned Moon base.  The media coverage for all this is scant, with little popular interest...I'm not sure that this is a bad thing after thinking about it: it's all those voices complaining about investing money, time and effort into space exploration instead of pursuing their agendas that has, in large part, created this unnecessary gap in human deep space exploration and settlement.  May the future Artemis missions continue to be successful...

Rocket Launch, Football, and Tennis on TV Today

NASA's planned launch of its Artemis I mission to the Moon and back earlier this week was scrubbed for technical issues and rescheduled for today, with 2:17 pm being the start of a two-hour launch window.  We'll just have to see whether other technical problems arise as well as keep an eye on the weather during this pretty stormy season for central Florida.  I'll be watching to see what happens...NASA television has a live feed, and you can see it on YouTube, they say.  I'm wondering whether the Weather Channel will cover it...they tend to clog up their weekend schedule lineup with prepackaged, annoying shows.  The mission, which will send the Orion spacecraft on a six-week voyage to circle the Moon with mannequins inside before returning, is the first such attempt since Apollo 17 sent three astronauts there in December 1972.  As I wrote before, the plan is to mimic the Artemis I flight in 2024 but using live astronauts, and then land humans on the Moon's surface in 2025 for the first time in more than 52 years...it's about time!

On a completely different note, being a long-term Gainesville resident, today I'm treated to the start of the hometown University of Florida football season with a traditional home game this evening, this one a more difficult assignment with the Top Ten Utah Utes coming into town to play the Gators.  Florida has a new head coach in Billy Napier and I'll probably be watching some if not most of the game in my living room on TV.  While on break at work around 5:30 yesterday afternoon I noticed two fighter jets flying around low and fast...I wonder whether they will be part of a pregame show.  The U.S. Open tennis tournament will be ongoing as well...maybe there will be an interesting match on ESPN...

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Later, around 12:30 pm: They've already scrubbed today's rocket launch...next window on Monday.  Let's see whether they can at least get the football game in...

Artemis I Moon Mission Launch Delayed Til Friday

Today's scheduled launch of the Artemis I mission to the Moon and back was scrubbed because of engine bleeding.  The next window for launch is this Friday around noon, followed by an opportunity Saturday afternoon should that also not work out.  What, you say, there's a Moon mission?  It's been in the works for years and has already been delayed due to politics and cost overruns, but since President George W. Bush wisely set our sights once again on our nearest celestial body to visit and, this time, establish a base, this project of NASA's has become the victim of political tampering and, apparently, mismanagement.  When Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, he promised, while campaigning in Florida, not to mess with Bush's space plans.  But once elected, in 2010 he dismissed a return to the Moon, explaining idiotically that "we've already been there" and essentially scrapping the project in favor of privatization of the space program. The latter in retrospect turned out to be a healthy thing with Elon Musk and his SpaceX, among other companies, stepping up to develop advanced rocketry and space technology for their own planned missions, including Mars and asteroid exploration.  President Trump reinstated Artemis and we're now on a multi-track manned space program, with one company (Boeing) focusing on the Moon and the other (SpaceX) with its sights on Mars...cool. Unfortunately, our media seems more concerned with what the Kardashians are up to than granting adequate coverage to today's planned launch as well as our space program in general.  Last Friday I quoted a noted business figure as stating, "Done is better than perfect", but made a couple of exceptions: operating rooms and nuclear facilities.  I'd like to add rocket launches to that, but the general public, used to immediate gratification in our pushbutton digitalized modern world, tends to regard delays like this as imperfection instead of a necessary part of the process.  Well, I'm looking forward to seeing whether the launch takes place this Friday...at least the Weather Channel is giving it the coverage it merits.  With mannequins instead of live humans aboard, the rocket, launched from Cape Canaveral, will send the Orion spacecraft to the Moon, where it will orbit and return after six weeks.  Ordinarily, my politics tend to side with the Democrats, but regarding our space program the Republicans seem to be the driving force toward progress in recent years, a turnaround from when President Nixon axed the final planned Apollo Moon missions that President Kennedy had envisioned.  Frankly though, I'd just as soon everybody from both parties be on the same page and support our space efforts, but that's just fantasy thinking, I guess.  Should this Artemis I mission be successful, they're planning to send a manned crew in 2024 with Artemis II, and then try landing on the Moon in 2025...assuming the politicians don't interfere, that is...

Quote of the Week...from Neil Armstrong

I fully expected that, by the end of the century, we would have achieved substantially more than we actually did.                                                                     ---Neil Armstrong

Neil Armstrong, the first human being to stand on the moon's surface, was born this day in 1930...the same year of my mother's birth.  While she passed away in 2002, Armstrong was around until 2012...and had some choice comments about the state of our space program, including the above quote.  I grew up in the sixties and seventies, observing the space race to the moon between America and the Soviets...and then the public disinterest in our space program almost immediately after Armstrong had set foot on the moon. Not only that, but both political wings became cool to the space effort, the Right arguing that it was too expensive and the Left that the money should be spent at home helping the poor. Since the last Apollo moon mission in December 1972, humanity has gone no further than low Earth orbit...that's nearly 50 years!  President George W. Bush presented a plan to return to the moon, establishing a permanent base there...that encouraged me.  Then Barack Obama assumed the presidency and scrapped Bush's ambitious plans, opting to encourage private corporations to develop the primary manned space technology and missions.  Elon Musk's SpaceX corporation took up the challenge and has been launching people into space from U.S. soil after us needing to hitch rides for years off Russian rockets...and he has plans to send people to Mars.  And although private industry, not the government, is providing much of the tab for space exploration now, we're continuing to hear complaints...even from Prince William of England...that those rich people shouldn't be spending their money investing in space exploration but should be using it to help people at home.  Fortunately, I think Musk and other business leaders have the vision to continue with their efforts to expand our frontiers, not only to the moon but also to Mars and the moons of the outer planets.  I wonder what Neil Armstrong would have to say about where we are now. I'm still entertaining hopes of seeing humans reach Mars in my lifetime...

Four Astronauts Slated for Space Launch from Cape Canaveral Sunday Evening

Tomorrow evening (Sunday)  Shannon Walker, Victor Glover, Michael Hopkins, and Soichi Noguchi (pictured from left to right)...the last from Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency...are scheduled to take off from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida in SpaceX's Crew Dragon craft, at the top of the Falcon 9 rocket as it represents the second manned flight launched from United States soil this year, after the earlier successful May 30th launch which returned August 2nd.  Like that mission, this one will transport the astronauts to the International Space Station...the plan is for them to stay there until their return to Earth in the spring.  The launch was delayed from October 31st due to engine issues within the Falcon 9 rocket, and then again from tonight's planned launch because of concerns that high winds would interfere with booster rocket recovery...tomorrow's launch time is set for 7:27 pm Eastern Time. I'm going to try to see it from my backyard here in northern Gainesville if the weather permits.  I am gratified that America is gearing back up again for space exploration with astronauts and look forward to future missions to the moon and Mars.  Hopefully, the incoming Biden administration won't mess with our space objectives and allow a continuity of missions that has been sorely lacking in the past whenever one president left office and another stepped in.  And what about that Space Force begun under Trump? We'll see...

The above picture of the four astronauts on this flight is a public domain release by NASA that appeared in the pertinent Wikipedia article...

Historic American Space Launch Astronauts Returning This Afternoon

After two months at the International Space Station, Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, the first two American astronauts to launch from U.S. territory in nine years, are returning to Earth this afternoon, reentry in the atmosphere to commence at 1:51 and splashdown at 2:48, somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida panhandle coast around Pensacola and Panama City.  They successfully launched from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral on May 31 and will be in the same Crew Dragon capsule when they return...a joint team from SpaceX corporation and NASA will pick them up from the ocean...the rescue process should take about an hour and then they'll be flown to Houston.  I'm about to watch the TV coverage of it all...I was going to mow the lawn but one of the northern bands of Tropical Storm Isaias, which is creeping up the Florida east coast (and which caused the proposed splashdown site to switch to the Gulf from the Atlantic), just swept through us with rainfall...think I'll just stay indoors and watch the tube.  C-Span is covering it all live although I imagine the other cable news channels will break from their typical news stories to temporarily feature it as well.  I was happy two months ago with the successful launch, but a mission isn't truly a success until the astronauts are back at home, safe and sound...well, I might have to qualify that in this pandemic era...

Second Try Today to Launch 1st U.S. Manned Space Flight Since 2011

After a weather-caused delay of last Wednesday afternoon's scheduled launch of the Crew Dragon mission to the International Space Station, another attempt is ongoing today, planned liftoff at 3:22 pm from Cape Canaveral, Florida.  Unfortunately, the first manned space launch from the United States since 2011 has for today a high possibility of being scrubbed as well, the meteorologists predicting stormy conditions at the site, Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center.  Should the launch, carrying American astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken in the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule and powered by the company's Falcon 9 rocket, be delayed once more it will take place on Sunday...weather conditions should be much improved by then.  I'm not sure which stations will carry the event other than C-Span and The Weather Channel...I've picked the latter since the weather is definitely the overriding factor determining a liftoff this afternoon.  C-Span's coverage will start at 11 this morning and The Weather Channel at 1 pm...CNN has an hour-long window scheduled at 3.  I think I'll check out C-Span when their programming kicks in and then switch over to The Weather Channel a couple hours later.  I've been able in the past to see nighttime Space Shuttle launches from here in Gainesville, but I'm not sure about the Falcon 9's visibility over such a large distance and during the day...still, I'll go outside and check it out whenever they do finally decide to give it the final countdown, assuming of course it's not storming here as well...

First American Manned Space Launch Since 2011 Scheduled for May 27th

At 4:32 pm on Wednesday, May 27th, assuming no delays, a two-astronaut crew will launch from Kennedy Space Center on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket as they take their Crew Dragon capsule for a rendezvous with the International Space Station...the first manned launch into space from the USA since the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011.  SpaceX's head honcho Elon Musk has spearheaded America's return to space exploration...in cooperation with NASA...and has dreams of traveling and even settling Mars in the not-so-distant future.  Whether it's the moon or Mars we get to first in our eventual return to space travel beyond low Earth orbit, I'm okay with either...but first we need to get our butts off the ground and into space again instead of paying Russia $80 million for each American they launch into space for us.  This story was buried deep in the news amid the coronavirus onslaught...thought you might enjoy have something positive to look forward to in the near future.  I think Boeing has also been working on manned space rockets...good, the more the merrier as long as the companies don't trip over each other to the program's detriment.  I think regardless how this upcoming  presidential election comes out we should establish a modest, permanent presence on the moon and keep aspiring to deeper space exploration...guess it's about time I put the NASA Channel on my Roku...

Upcoming Militarization of Space Will Finally Make It Interesting

I was standing outside the other evening looking at the clear sky, full of the bright wintertime stars and recognizing old celestial friends from my childhood...they never seem to change.  But the vastness of space, the great distances between stars and even the planets in our solar system, and the lengthy span of time it times to travel in anywhere in space...combined with that seldom (or very slowly) changing nighttime celestial theater...all contribute, sad to say, to a general apathy toward astronomy and space exploration on the part of the general public.  Instead, people would rather go watch the latest Star Wars movie, where the fictional characters can cross vast regions of space in the blink of an eye and...well, since there's always a war going on, then that's exciting, right?  And so with what seems to be an incremental militarization of space and our president's call for a "space force" to counter actions by Russia and China we may be finally...and dismally...finding a way of looking at astronomy and the space program as something more interesting...and deadly.  But let's face it: every crucial development in human transportation, from riding horses and other animals through steam locomotion, trains, ships, motorized vehicles, dirigibles, planes, and submarines, has always been quickly applied to war-making and gaining an advantage over the adversary...sooner or later we should have known that space would be the next military frontier.  As a matter of fact, shooting rockets into space was a direct outgrowth of the Nazi Germans' V-2 rocket program whereby scientists and engineers like Wernher Von Braun developed a new type of locomotion for war use...after World War II he and others were picked up by the U.S. and the Soviets to work on their own Cold War projects.  And being able to project missiles accurately over very long distances directly led to the race to the moon between the two sides in the 1960s...

Well, the people have spoken and they think space warfare is interesting and maybe a nonmilitarized space future with comprehensive international cooperation and goodwill would be just too boring to attract their attention and enthusiasm.  And since...at least here in America...public opinion counts for a lot in what our elected politicians decide to spend money on, I'm afraid that folks are in danger of getting in "real" life what they happily spend their money to achieve in "reel" life.  Now I'm not criticizing the president's 2018 plan for a space force...it may indeed be necessary and I'm not in a position to go over all the classified information about what other countries are doing up there...but maybe it's not going as planned as the current spending deal just negotiated between the politically-divided Congress and the White House cut a whopping $32 million in appropriations for it from the $72 million the administration asked for...

Just Finished Reading Space by James A. Michener

I had never read anything before by acclaimed author James A. Michener (1907-97), who wrote many historical novels that opened up the world and the past to readers...I just finished my first Michener book, Space, from 1982: I think I just discovered a "new" author to follow...move over, Stephen King and Agatha Christie.  Space chronicles the lives and experiences of several fictional characters as they pass through real historical events and processes, including the Apollo moon missions of the late sixties and early seventies, and ending following the first successful Space Shuttle flight in 1981.  Michener gives an incredible portrayal of the crucial October, 1944 Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines between the Japanese and American navies...I felt at times I was there in the midst of it all (well, not really).  Further in the story we read how some German scientists and engineers involved with rocketry development...and suspected of heavy water experimentation...escaped to the west at war's end and were picked up by the Americans. Skipping some years, the experiences of American fighter pilots in the Korean War and the later test-flying of new aircraft...nearly as deadly as the war...are described in detail.  Then the author relates how the early Eisenhower administration deliberately prohibited rocketry development and how that president abruptly turned about-face following the Soviets' successful launch into space of their Sputnik satellite in 1957 and instituted NASA.  Then the race is on to send men into space and ultimately to the moon and back.  After success with our Apollo missions, Michener accurately describes the snowballing public disinterest about space travel and a building anti-science movement in the seventies emphasizing the paranormal, UFOs, the New Age movement, and religious fundamentalism...

I've always had an issue with historical fiction, being a history buff myself and wanting to internalize the truths from history.  But if fictional characters are experiencing the real historical events...and even some things that never really happened are depicted in the story as having happened, then I have a task on hand in mentally sorting out what's real and what isn't.  Michener added manned missions that didn't really happen in order to allow his fictional astronauts to play a larger role in his story...but I already knew enough about that part of his narrative to filter out fiction from truth.  But with the naval battle, the escape of the German scientists, Korean dogfighting, test piloting, and the political narrative I'm much fuzzier about distinguishing between historical truth and the author's brilliant imagination.  Then again, I can easily look these topics up on the Internet and read about them or explore more purely historical books that focus on these themes...

At least in this book, James A. Michener wrote in a plain, easy-to-follow style that rewarded my diligence as he revealed his extensive research and preparation and enlightened me as never before about his chosen topic.  My favorite parts of Space were (1) Michener's detailed description of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, (2) young John Pope's fascination with the stars as a boy (I identified strongly with that), and (3) the later heated division among the space community as to the direction of the program: continued manned flights or a concentrated effort to explore the cosmos through unmanned probes.  I'm looking forward to soon starting on another Michener novel after seeing how well he handled this one...

By the way, I just read that Michener's Space was adapted to a TV miniseries in 1985, starring James Garner.  Look it up if you want, but for me I'm happy with the book...

The Barriers of Space Exploration

As I have mentioned a few days earlier here, I'm now in the process of rereading many of the late science fiction writer Isaac Asimov's book series about robots, the Empire, and Foundation...which he wrote over a span of four decades and number around fifteen volumes.  Their unifying theme is the advancement of humanity in space travel and settlement, something necessitating an innovation that current science...according to the theory of general relativity...says is impossible: travel at faster than the speed of light. The common belief that the light barrier can be somehow circumvented is partially due to the earlier notion of a sound "barrier", which never really existed and was disproven after aircraft first "broke" it decades ago.  In reality, space exploration is still possible while slower-than-light travel drastically restricts our ability to reach even nearby star systems, but in my opinion there are two another barriers almost as formidable as the light barrier, and which have hampered our space program ever since the mid-1960s: the boredom and budget barriers...

While the Gemini phase of the Apollo program to the moon was going on in the mid-sixties, TV networks would preempt their regular programming for hours-on-end and...along with merciful interruptions for commercials...would show on-screen simulations of what was going on, with the scratchy sounds of astronauts and ground control communicating back and forth. In the meantime, Star Trek was a popular alternative and showed a different picture of space travel using the warp drive to get around all that wasted time and always having suspense and character drama to rivet the viewer's attention.  Even when the moon landing first happened on July 20, 1969, and millions across the world were watching the events live, once the astronauts got out there on the surface and made their statements, there wasn't really much to report on...or stay tuned in for.  By the time of the Apollo 13 mission in early 1970, the networks began to curb their coverage due to lack of viewer interest.  Then-President Nixon cancelled the final three Apollo moon missions (18, 19, and 20) and was going to cancel Apollo 16 and 17 as well when Caspar Weinberger, budget director at the time, persuaded him not to.  Since then we've been in low-Earth orbit...when we could actually shoot a rocket up into space, that is.  President George W. Bush laid out an ambitious plan to return to the moon and establish a more permanent presence, but his successor Barack Obama scrubbed that plan, stating that "we've already been there".  And the current president, Donald Trump, has reset the focus to go back to the moon.  But suppose he loses in 2020?  His successor would doubtless change everything once again...

The public at-large wants Star Wars, Star Trek, and space-themed video games, but the reality of space travel can challenge their patience and ever-dwindling attention spans.  And with success inevitably comes the political fallout...from both conservatives and liberals...as people ask whether the money spent for the space program could be better used in other areas.  In a speech the other day commemorating the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing, Vice-President Pence said that the return mission to the moon will take place in 2024.  Sure, unless another president comes along and turns everything upside-down. Sigh...here we go again...

Space Program is Each President's Political Toy

I find it pretty frustrating that with each new administration in Washington our space program gets turned topsy-turvy as the incoming president almost always has a different emphasis and ideas as to where he wants to go with it.  With the last four presidents, Bill Clinton cared little about getting humans out of near-Earth orbit while George W. Bush set into motion plans for a more powerful rocket to take us back to the moon...this time for a permanent base...while retiring the Space Shuttle.  Barack Obama then abruptly ended that, breaking a campaign promise he had made to Floridians just before the 2008 election, and changed the emphasis to outsourcing rocket-building and the manned space programs to private firms like Space X and focusing instead on going to Mars and the Asteroids much further into the future.  And now Donald Trump has steered the program back to the moon, with the idea of establishing businesses there as well as a platform to eventually make trips to the Red Planet.  Although I am totally on board with our current president's program...and each president does have undue influence over our space efforts since NASA is an agency within the Executive Branch...I also am skeptical that it will stay in place beyond his tenure in office.  Whoever succeeds him, I'm sure, will want to put their own personal stamp on the space program...something I find extremely counterproductive as it causes massive changes of our goals every few years.  No wonder we've been stuck having to depend on the Russians to launch our own astronauts into space for so long!  We desperately need to be able to make our space program not such a political toy for each president to play with...and wreck in the process.  In this I am referring primarily to manned exploration and settlement of other worlds, efforts that need a continuity of bipartisan political support spanning many years for them to bear any fruit.  Naturally, I'm hearing next-to-nothing about this problem in the already-overheated, much-too-early presidential race from the other candidates.  Here's an issue on which that I can stand with Trump...unfortunately, his program may be doomed if he loses the 2020 election just because he himself pushed it...if he loses, his successor will doubtless turn around and change everything once again.  Sigh...

Some Places We Visited in Washington, D.C. in October

The other night I was watching C-Span as they replayed the laying in state of the body of President George H.W. Bush in the Capitol Rotunda.  Having just visited there for the first time six weeks ago, it was interesting seeing all these famous public figures gathered in the same room I was just standing in. As a matter of fact, whenever I now see on TV anything concerning Washington D.C. I try to discern exactly what it is they're depicting...this is especially true for the news networks like CNN as they often present a live background of some part of the city, usually around the Capitol building or the White House.  Our brief visit there just wasn't enough to explore the many sights and attractions...aside from the Capitol, we did take that nighttime open-air bus tour and, on the last full day, explored two museums and a garden along Independence Avenue west of the Capitol.  At the close of our earlier Capitol visit late in the afternoon, Melissa noticed there was a tunnel linking it to the Library of Congress across the street...but the workers there were closing the doors for the day.  We rushed over and just got in, quickly walking down the tunnel while the "closer" kept ushering us and other lagging tourists onward.  I'm glad we got in: the Library of Congress is not only is a famous repository of books, but it is also a great historical museum...we strolled the exhibits, many of which displayed original copies of centuries-old literature describing the exploration and settlement of the New World.  That's a place I'd like to revisit to explore further...unfortunately, at the time I was experiencing a horrific toothache that interfered with my enjoyment of the library but not my appreciation of it.  I got that toothache taken care of the next morning with a root canal at a dentist only a short walking distance from our hotel...I was somehow able to dissociate the chronic pain from our touring, a talent that I had believed only Mister Spock of Star Trek fame possessed...

We naturally missed most of the many Smithsonian museums in town, but did manage to tour through the two nearest ones to our hotel, lying adjacent to one another on Independence Avenue: the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Air and Space Museum.  Both were interesting, although I was surprised to be more drawn to the one about the American Indian...that's another place that merits a return visit.  One funny experience was at lunchtime at their cafeteria, with different stations offering native cuisine from different areas in the Western Hemisphere.  The longest line of customers by far was at the Plains counter, where they were gung ho on serving beef: plate after plate I saw featured cheeseburgers and fries!  The Air and Space Museum had a series of terrific exhibits about the history of aviation, in particular the planes used by both sides in World War I & II, with some of them on display within this gigantic building.  I thought the "space" part of the museum well-exhibited, too, although it saddened me that there was very, very, little to see of what we've been doing lately in space...hopefully with the projects to send people to Mars in the near future, this will all change...

Before visiting those two Smithsonian museums on Friday, Melissa and I strolled through the United States Botanic Garden, which featured plants from all over the world, many of them responsible for producing the food and drink we consume.  I'm sadly a near-complete ignoramus when it comes to botany, but I was intrigued by what I saw there...I especially liked all of those weird types of cacti.  The photo I inserted at the beginning is of a section in this garden...

No doubt about it: I liked Washington, D.C., even if all the politicians I might have recognized were out of town at the time of our visit.  I also liked their terrific underground transit system, the Metro, and noticed that they also have a very good 24/7 bus system...a most pedestrian-friendly city!  I think the next time I visit I'd like to try out some areas north of the Mall, including some of this city's recommended eating places...oh, and I think I'd like to jog the perimeter of the Mall as well...

Weekly Short Story: A Suppliant in Space by Robert Sheckley

A suppliant is defined as someone who makes a humble plea to an authority or power.  Science fiction writer Robert Sheckley's 1973 short story A Suppliant in Space carries this meaning and provides a piercing satire on the state of our contemporary society with regard to doctrinally rigid social mores and militarism.  The inflexible dogmatism is from the world of Ferlang, in a nearby galaxy.  One of its inhabitants, named Detringer, has been convicted and banished to deep space for basically thumbing his nose at his society and acting out in a foolish manner.  He manages somehow to cross the void between his galaxy and ours...and lands on a planet about the same time that humanity's first interstellar expedition...replete with a military team in case they feel they have to destroy somebody...gets there.  And then the fun begins...

The dialogue between Detringer and Earth's bellicose Colonel Ketterman is classic, with the Ferlang exile twisting logic into contortions around the military man.  How it all ends...well, you'd better read it for yourself.  Instead I'd like to point out that the military and war have always been themes of not only our space program, but also of most of the movies we've seen about space exploration.  The race to the moon in the 1960s was an outgrowth of the grim competition in the Cold War between the East and the West for ballistic missile accuracy and range.  No doubt once permanent stations and settlements begin on the moon, Mars, and other worlds, the rumbles of war will never be very far away, sad to say.  Part of me is very enthusiastic about what seems to be America's renewed commitment to manned space travel and exploration...and part of me is anxious about the weapons of war spreading to space, not only creating the possibility of armed conflict there but also casting a threatening shadow over the only planet we currently have to live on, our precious Earth...

I found A Suppliant in Space in the anthology Donald A. Wollheim Presents the 1974 Annual World's Best SF (DAW Books).  It also features Detringer's talkative robot companion, who predates Star Wars' C-3PO by four years...as well as the socially-challenged scientist/civilian commander of the Earth crew. This story is probably in other collections as well...you'll probably get a kick out of it like I did...

Weekly Short Story: Presposterous by Fredric Brown

Preposterous is a 1954 short story...a short, short story...by Frederic Brown, whom I've previously reviewed for his short story The Weapon.  It doesn't quite fill up a page...but it doesn't have to, for the message here doesn't take very many words to express.  A father is berating the mother for having tolerated their son's reading of trashy pulp science fiction magazines.  Why, this material just puts crazy, impossible ideas in children's minds and then what are they good for?  After finishing his brief tirade, dad leaves for work...and the piercing irony of his complaints sets in...

Humanity has the quality of being very adaptable: people tend to quickly adjust themselves to whatever circumstances they find themselves in.  On one end, poverty and suffering becomes normal...but on the other so does great wealth...just look at the reality TV shows full of folks surrounded by riches...but who are utterly unappreciative of their material blessings and constantly bicker with each other.  And with innovations that improve the quality of our lives, such as smartphones, the Internet, and drastically improved medical knowledge and procedures, it takes very little time for them to be treated as simply the status quo and not things to be marveled at. For example, by the time that Apollo 13, the moonshot that was aborted in transit due to an explosion in the Service Module, was launched, the population was already so jaded with this third moon venture only nine months after the first one that television networks wouldn't even cover it in prime time...

You might think that with all of the tools we have been given to improve our lives that our attitudes toward each other would also respond in kind...but I see the same old entrenched arrogance, grievances, and prejudice coming out of people's mouths and on social media...another innovation also widely taken for granted.  But what does this have to do with Frederic Brown's story Preposterous?  Its final short...but packed...paragraph lays out a different future human scenario...but with the same old type of complacent, unimaginative, and unappreciative (but adaptable) people the world is loaded with today...

I own the book From These Ashes, which is a collection of all of Frederic Brown's short science fiction (he also wrote in the mystery genre)...some stories like Preposterous and The Weapon have profound messages, some are primarily escapist entertainment...and some are just plain silly.  You might find this story on the Internet, but I'm not sure whether the copyright is still in effect and if any such websites are on the up and up...

Just Finished Reading Fallen Angels by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn

Fallen Angels is a 1991 science fiction novel by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn...none of whose works I had read before.  Its premise is intriguing: at some time in the not-too-distant future, society has turned its back on scientific and technological advancement in favor of pro-green environmental extremism and pseudoscience.  In the process, the space program is abandoned...literally: there are two space stations stuck out there in Earth orbit, with no ability to land and resupply.  Meanwhile, with a man-made ice age quickly advancing over the land, the "aliens", as they are now derisively called, become the scapegoats as they send ships from time to time into the atmosphere to "scoop" needed nitrogen from the air.  On one such mission, Alex and Gordon, both conditioned to living in the free-fall zero gravity of space, are shot down by a missile from the ground and crash land on the advancing ice glacier, somewhere in North Dakota.  An underground science fiction fan club..."underground" because interest in science and technology is now considered antisocial and psychologically aberrant...undertakes a rescue operation.  So a whole cast of characters gets introduced as well as those from the various factions of government vying against one another to be the ones capturing the "alien enemy".  The rest of the story traces the quest to find a way to return Alex and Gordon safely to their home in space, but its main theme is a discussion of the merits and shortfalls of different viewpoints concerning how science and technology have affected our environment...with the authors' prevailing judgment coming down in favor of pollution and global warming.  For, you see, their contention is that Earth has been in an ice age for millennia and the only thing that has been holding back the glacier advance has been humanity's development of fire, agriculture, and civilization...thereby causing a heating effect and impeding the ice.  An intriguing idea, I might say...but it's easy to be right when you're writing a book of fiction and, presto, there are the advancing ice sheets after man-made pollution has been thoroughly eliminated.  But I happen to live in the real world, and the ice around the poles is in fast retreat, not advance...

Although some of the assumptions expressed in Fallen Angels sound dubious to me, I greatly appreciated how they paid tribute to the great science fiction writers of the past...names like Theodore Sturgeon, Cordwainer Smith, Clifford Simak, Isaac Asimov, and Ray Bradbury, to mention just a few.  I also liked how Gordon would speak things sometimes half in Russian...after all, the space station is a joint Russian-American project.  And the idea of society "helping" those who hold what it sees as deviant opinions by confining and drugging them is not all that far off from being real: watch the movie A Beautiful Mind to get a hint of what I'm talking about.  But let's not take this all too seriously, and just about every story has its own built-in flaws: if their authors didn't publish them until they were perfect, we'd never have anything to read...

SpaceX Rocket Launches Successfully from Canaveral After Delay

Sunday morning the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the Dragon spacecraft containing supplies and experiments for the International Space Station, successfully launched after a day's delay.  The original 10 am Saturday launch target from Cape Canaveral was scrubbed at the last minute when a technical complication arose...SpaceX CEO Elon Musk himself made the decision to back off the launch...better to be safe than sorry.  This pioneering company has already had its share of setbacks, including a launch pad explosion last year that destroyed a $250 million satellite. The plan is to eventually transport people into space using the Falcon 9 and Dragon, but I think the company would like to first drastically improve its reliability...

Our previous president, Barack Obama, is often accused by those on the political right of being a socialist and wanting more and more state control over businesses.  Yet in 2010 he essentially privatized our space program by first ditching the plans of his predecessor, George W. Bush, which involved a highly centralized project to establish a permanent moon base, and then placing the future of space exploration into the hands of private companies, SpaceX rising to become the most notable and ambitious of them.  Their goals are very bold: to send a manned mission to Mars and back within ten years and to follow that by settling the Red Planet in the 2030s.  But wait...here comes yet another president onto the scene...

Donald Trump hasn't spoken much about the American space program, except to criticize Obama for scrapping Bush's Constellation moon project.  Does he intend to continue along with his immediate predecessor's privatization/Mars goals or will he veer off in a different direction?  Being pretty gung ho about space exploration, I'm hoping he'll do both: keep our eyes set on Mars while returning to the moon in a more permanent fashion.  But we really don't know what our new president will do, do we?  After all, during the final days of his first presidential campaign in 2008, Barack Obama traveled through Florida and assured the people in the Space Coast area that he would not upset his predecessor's plans...and then proceeded to renege on his word once he stepped into office.  If Trump wants to change my opinion of him in a positive way, he at the very least will not backtrack the way Obama did and will honor the continuity through successive administrations that our space program so desperately needs...

Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Profound Twitter Post

I was looking at Twitter today and, following the announcement of the death of Gene Cernan, the last human being to stand on the moon, noticed that famous astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson had posted something pretty profound:

In 1927 Lindbergh flew from NY to Paris. 45 yrs later, in 1972 we last walked on the Moon. 45 yrs later, in 2017 we… we… we...

Truth be told, we have done nothing to push back the frontiers of human space exploration since President Nixon had curtailed the Apollo moon program to only six landings...other than low Earth-orbit projects like the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station  or by the use of unmanned, remotely controlled probes.  The irony of all this is that Spiro Agnew, Nixon's vice-president, at the time seemed to be very excited about the space program, once predicting that we would reach Mars by 1989.  But it wasn't until several presidents later, with the administration of George W. Bush, that serious efforts were undertaken to plan and build a return mission to the moon, as an intermediary step to go to Mars and beyond.  Yet soon after Barack Obama became president, he scrapped Bush's moon plans...sarcastically (and foolishly) stating that "we've already been there"...and laid out a different personal vision of where HE wanted the country to go...asteroids and eventually Mars, using private companies and leaning on Russia to help us with space launches for several years.  And I think you're seeing where the main problem regarding NASA and our manned space program lies.  NASA is a government agency in the executive branch, and the president has direct control over its priorities and projects.  So with each new president comes a different emphasis and very little continuity of vision and mission...

Tyson's tweet accurately puts it all out there: from 1927 to 1972 our frontiers went from the first transatlantic plane flight to the last of six moon landings...and in the 45 years since then we haven't even kept what we had accomplished, instead now barely able to even get out of our own atmosphere.  And now here we go again with a new incoming president who, I'm confident, will once again "reset" the agenda for NASA in a different direction from his predecessor's.  I don't see much hope of getting out of this rut as long as our space program remains the private football of the sitting president, to kick around however he or she sees fit.  In the meantime, we can always count on our good, dependable friends the Russians to help us out, right?