NIAC at NASA 12 Jun 2009 Frank Sietzen at NASA Watch (a great blog, by the way) has asked if the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) should be revived. Most of his readers say yes. NIAC was where they came up with designs for wacky spacesuits, propulsion systems, and so on. It was poached to pay for the idiotic (there! I said it) COTS program by former head Mike Griffin. I think something like this is needed, but it needs to be where political, both internal and external, interests cannot reach it, so I suggest situating it at a suitable university with separate funding. NASA’s ability to look forward has always been compromised by military and political interests, and most of its disasters have been due also to this. What do you think, dear readers? Politics Technology
Politics What must a citizen know? 3 Jan 2008 The previous Australian junta introduced a “citizenship test” for those wanting to become naturalised Aussies. It includes such gems as who Don Bradman was, who wrote a song that isn’t even officially our anthem (Waltzing Matilda – Tom Wait’s version is way better), and other fluff. About one in eight… Read More
Evolution Expectorated! 16 Feb 2008 A real journalist reviews a media conference held for the new pro-ID film Expelled: Freedom of expression is unseemly at an Expelled press conference. There was no give-and-take, no open marketplace of ideas, in fact, scarcely any questions at all. Ruloff and Stein batted one softball after another out of… Read More
Accommodationism The “developmental hypothesis” of belief acquisition 29 Jan 201420 Feb 2014 In the last two posts I have discussed why members of belief-groups have silly beliefs (that is, beliefs that the wider population finds silly), and why those particular beliefs, whatever they are, are the ones they believe. In broad terms, the answer is that these are arbitrary, costly hard-to-fake signals… Read More
Not unless they employ philosophers, which is a bad bet for an engineering project. No, I was thinking of ASU, which has a large space project going on (they did the Mars Rovers), or someone like that.
Could the aforementioned philosopher maybe offer perspective on the ROI between sending delicate bipeds into space vs. an armada of much cheaper but insensible robots? I mean anyway, whether there’s an institute or not.
That, too, is something NIAC could consider. I personally think that near-earth human space travel is a good thing. Interplanetary is something else.