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
Biology Darwin and the female body 29 Sep 2009 Paul Griffiths reviews: Natalie Angier Woman: An Intimate Geography, Melbourne, Scribe, 2009 (464 pp). ISBN 9-781-92137-241-4 (paperback) RRP $32.95. Hannah Holmes The Well-Dressed Ape: A Natural History of Myself, Melbourne, Scribe, 2009 (368 pp). ISBN 9-781-92137-252-0 (paperback) RRP $35.00. Read More
Ethics and Moral Philosophy Urkkkh! 19 Aug 201219 Aug 2012 If words were water, I would be paddling hard up to my ears being nibbled by piranha as an alligator came for me. So I haven’t said much here for a while. There’s this paper, this book, this contract, this report and this tendency for me to post comments elsewhere…. Read More
Politics Caste in India 2 Mar 2010 3 Quarks Daily has an excellent essay on the evolution (cultural, of course) of the Varna and Jati system in India. This is often referred to by westerners as “the” caste system. 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.