Robert Sharp

The Apollo Plus 40 Twitter Feed reminds me of the Orwell Diaries project.  Each pulls a piece of history forward to the present day, where you can experience it in real-time. (via Kottke).

My inner autistic feels slightly uneasy about the the disparity between dates and day.  For example, The Eagle Lunar Module landed on the moon at just after 8pm EDT, on 20th July 1969, which was a Sunday evening (see Mark’s Livingston’s date-to-day converter).  However, I’ll presumably be reading a tweet announcing “the Eagle has landed” late on the evening of Monday 20th July 2009.  Sunday nights and Monday nights feel very different.

The BBC screened couple of TV programmes a few years ago, Dateline Jerusalem and Bethlehem Year Zero, that operated on a similar timeshift concept for the Easter and Christmas stories.  Not quite real-time, though.  It strikes me as a new way to consume other types of art too:  perhaps reading the entire oeuvre of a given writer by purchasing their books exactly 40, or 50, or a 100 years after the initial publication.  Hansard, the Houses of Parliament archive, would be the perfect resource for an extended “on this day” type feed.

What’s freaky about the Internet, or specifically, the Internet where everyone uses permalinks, is that everything is already pre-archived, ready for this kind of treatment at a moment’s notice.  Many is the time when I have accidentally thought that an archived news story is happening at that moment.  With TV, film and radio, there are certain giveaways like picture and sound quality, colour balance, or even accents and pronounciation, which date the archived item.  In print, the age of the page is easy to discern, by the graphic design style if not by the yellowing of the parchment.  Meanwhile, the division of design and content on the Internet means that old text is constantly inserted into modern designs.

I’m not sure which I like best - going back in time to experience the sights and sounds of a forgotten era; or having the old narratives brought forward into a twenty-first century setting.  There’s room for both, of course, but different approaches conjour different feelings, and teach us different lessons.

From Dr McCoy to the Real McCoy.  Another Space Shuttle mission has just launched from Cape Canaveral.  They’re off to the Hubble Telescope.

Atlantis on the pad, ready for STS-125

Two astronauts have the twittering bug.  Mission Specialist Mike Massimino is on Atlantis, while Mark Polansky is the commander of STS-127.   Earlier this year, their colleague Sandra Magnus posted a blog from space.

Thus, right before dawn there is total black and as you look out the window it is as if neither the Earth nor the heavens are there. You just exist, floating in an endless sea of black with one bright light, the sun, illuminating the way. Nothing beyond the light exists. It only lasts a moment, though, as the sun rises higher over the nearing horizon. The Earth starts to pick up some of the rays at last and reappears out of the darkness awash in a faint gray color. Drawing closer you can notice that any high clouds in the atmosphere glow orange or red as they too find the morning sun. It is possible to see the terminator as you cross it. The grey of dawn gives way to the bright blues and whites of day that are so distinctive of our water planet. Looking back in the direction from whence you came, the darkness of night is still noticeable. Only looking forward does the day shine clearly. Soon the night is gone as the Space Station continues on its never-ending trek across the planet. The heavens are now just a dark velvety curtain against the brilliant colors of Earth. No stars are visible. They are there, though, waiting for the night which will come in another 45 minutes or so, to show themselves again.

Lovely.

Anyway, Godspeed Atlantis.

Update

Goddamit! Yet again, I was let down by the online streaming video, crashing as loads of people logged on at the last moment. It happened with STS-116, and it happened with the PopeCam.

Via Michelle, I hear that 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy.

This seems a good opportunity to post a link to the Light Cone RSS Feed:

From the moment of my birth, light [that I could have influenced] has been expanding around the Earth and light [which could influence me, from an increasing distance of origin] reaching it — this ever-growing sphere of potential causality is my light cone.

Not quite a Total Perspective Vortex, but still awesome (in the old sense of that word).

Elsewhere, the Boston Globe’s fantastic Big Picture blog recently ran an advent calendar of photos from the Hubble Telescope.

An obscure star designated V838 explodes in 2002

ATLAS Hadronic endcap Liquid Argon Calorimeter

The Large Hadron Collider at Cern is being switched on tomorrow. Stephen Hawking says it is safe, and that the machine will not create a black-hole that will suck the entire world in on itself. It is the perfect Douglas Adams scenario. We could all be anihilated by ten past nine tomorrow morning, and no-one will bring the milk in.

Can you imagine just how embarrassing such an event will be for humanity? One moment, we are daring to behold the secrets of the universe, edging closer to the mind of God. The next, we are all squashed, star dust again - only this time, your base materials will be blended with those of your office colleagues and that beige laser printer on the filing cabinet. Perversely, it might actually be the one moment where human beings discover a true understanding of one another. Six billion people united in a single thought: “Whoops.” Perhaps that moment will be worth it.
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Like Conor at the Liberal Conspiracy, I can’t really get behind this clamour for a windfall tax on oil companies. I would love to have a dig at Big Oil, but something grates.

Its not that I am like Tim Worstall, who has barrels of faith in the market to sort the problem out fairly. Oil extraction and distribution is a sort of cartel, not a free market. In any case, such a market takes time (maybe measured in decades or centuries) to do its ‘thing’, and in the meantime it is probable that excess profits will accumulate while everyone else is suffering from a recession.

No, my problem is that arguing for a windfall tax is surely another way of saying that you want to change the rules retrospectively.

Economists often argue that to change the rules, and to impose a windfall tax, simply breeds uncertainty in the market, and cause the oil companies to under-invest. Its an irritating argument against taxation, because it has an air of a threat about it: “don’t tax us, or we will mess up your economy”. In the case of a windfall tax, which everyone (even the oil companies) assumes will be a very rare occurrence, it is less believable than (say) the case of top-rate tax-payers. So I can see how the campaigners might discount this economic argument.

But leaving aside the economic risks that a windfall tax entails, surely changing the rules is simply wrong wrong wrong, no further discussion required? Imposing some kind of law (in this case, a tax law) retrospectively is the stuff of wild-eyed dictatorships, surely. Windfall taxes are short-cuts. An easy, lazy solution to a complex situation.

Play by the rules… and if you feel you must change the rules, do so only at the start of the game. If we percieve a problem with the way our country operates, its fine to legislate so that it doesn’t happen in the following tax year. Nationalise the oil companies if we must, or tax them at 99%. Whatever. Only this: we must to legislate for the future, not the past.

There’s a familiar saying, which goes something like “you can judge a society by the way it treats its most vulnerable”. Well, an alternative might be that we should judge ourselves by how we treat our most despised. The oil giants are certainly some of the most resented institutions in the country, but to subject them to anything other than the rule-of-law is not, I would suggest, cricket. Compass should leave the oil companies with this year’s profits, and get busy lobbying for a law that would redistribute future profits. That’s the right way a democracy should approach this problem.

Update 3rd September

The only counter argument that has piqued my interest has been that a large portion of the oil companies profits have arisen because of preferences in the system of allocating carbon credits via the European Emmissions Trading Scheme. However, while this is a definite argument for going after excess profits, I’m not sure it justifies doing so retrospectively, as a windfall tax would.

My second point about the Embryo Research Bill controversy is one of irritation.  The issue of whether Gordon Brown should have allowed Labour MPs a free vote was portrayed in the media as a battle between the Prime Minister and the dark forces of Catholicism.  Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor vocally insisted on a whip-less vote.

In the binary world of most political reporting, the result of this was that taking moral issue with he Embryo Research Bill was seen as the preserve of Catholicism. However, it is perfectly possible for atheists to have moral objections to the Bill too. The idea that morality can only derive from revealed religion is a great meme that needs to be challenged. The idea that atheism and secularism can be equated with the cold, amoral march of science is equally bad, but its a connection that Cardinals and Popes keep making. They should be challenged on this point.

At last Gordon Brown has found his way out of the ridiculous political cul-de-sac he had wandered into with regard to this embryo legislation.  A few thoughts on the ethics and politics of the issue.

First, I think we can all agree that the debate has been clouded by hyperbole and hysteria.  The legislation as it stands does not give scientists license to create their own little Island of Dr Moreau.  As I understand it, human genetic material is not being spliced with other species to create Greek-style chimeras.  Instead, it is proposed that human DNA will be inserted into animal cells, which are free of that animal’s genetic material.

I think it is important to make the distinction between two scientific-moral considerations here. The first concerns the identity of a set of genes: whether it is morally permissible for scientists to alter that gene, and whether its identity changes when they do. The second consideration is how the gene (regardless of whether scientists have altered its sequence or not) is allowed to develop, and for how long.

A cell is made up of many things.  In addition to DNA genes there are mitochondira and other structures which allow the cell to produce energy and function properly.  But we know that it is in the DNA that the potential for life is stored.  Genes are the instructions for life, while other matter inside the cells are tools for releasing that potential.  It is only in the DNA that identity rests, and that identity will remain regardless of where it is placed. So it seems to me that the current ethical controversy falls into the second category described above.

I think the animal cell is a sort of ’surrogate’ that bears a similar relationship to the duplicating genes as a surrogate mother would to a baby that she carries.  Although a surrogate mother is essential for the development of the foetus into a baby, the instructions by which the baby grows are supplied from elsewhere.  The genetic link between the biological mother, father and child remains unchanged.  Likewise with this proposed microbiological technique:  The genetic link remains secure. Scientists are not ‘playing God’ by altering genetic material. Like surrogacy, all we are doing is allowing existing genetic material to grow in a new environment. If it can lead to medical breakthroughs in cancer treatment or Altzheimers, then it should be allowed.

Of course, “it’s just a surrogate” has moral limits too.  My stomach would turn at the thought of allowing such cells to develop into a foetus or a child, just as it would if someone were able to grow a human baby inside a non-human surrogate (say, an organgutang or a Huxley-esque vat of goo). Future ethicists may not be so squeamish.

Today’s Metro reports on a woman who can remember every detail of her life. Like many things in the Metro, its recycled news, in this case at least a couple of years old. Nevertheless, its a captivating story, reminiscent of Jorge Luis Borges Funes the Memorius:

We, in a glance, perceive three wine glasses on the table; Funes saw all the shoots, clusters, and grapes of the vine. He remembered the shapes of the clouds in the south at dawn on the 30th of April of 1882, and he could compare them in his recollection with the marbled grain in the design of a leather-bound book which he had seen only once, and with the lines in the spray which an oar raised in the Rio Negro on the eve of the battle of the Quebracho. These recollections were not simple; each visual image was linked to muscular sensations, thermal sensations, etc. He could reconstruct all his dreams, all his fancies. Two or three times he had reconstructed an entire day. He told me: “I have more memories in myself alone than all men have had since the world was a world.” And again: “My dreams are like your vigils.” And again, toward dawn: “My memory, sir, is like a garbage disposal.”

Forgetfulness is sometimes a blessing.

Here are two responses to the Apollo moon landings. First, Richard Nixon’s famous address on the optimism that the moon landings inspired:

Because of what you have done, the heavens have become a part of man’s world. As you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility, it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquility to Earth. For one priceless moment, in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one.

The moon landings are probably the foremost example of what can be achieved when humans endeavour to co-operate. It is a story that has everything: from the insights of Gallileo and Newton; the imagination of Jules Verne; to the Leadership of Kennedy; to the bravery of Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins; to the scholarship at MIT that built the computer guidance systems on the Apollo craft; to quick thinking of Jack Garman and Steve Bales, who made a correct, key decision regarding some obscure computer error codes, as Neil Armstrong’s Eagle hovered over the moon’s surface.

However, the poet Gil Scott-Heron was not impressed. He penned this indignant plea to spend the money on something different:

Was all that money I made las’ year
(for Whitey on the moon?)
How come there ain’t no money here?
(Hmm! Whitey’s on the moon)
Y’know I jus’ ’bout had my fill
(of Whitey on the moon)
I think I’ll sen’ these doctor bills,
Airmail special
(to Whitey on the moon)

While it is surely worth a few billion dollars to bring mankind together as one, it is a lofty and imprecise ideal. Scott-Heron’s words ring in the ears, and anyone who is eager to journey back to the moon in our lifetime, or perhaps even to Mars, will have to justify the expense.

As I have said before, I begin with the idea that if one is going to design and build rockets, it would be more satisfying if we were to put astronauts in them, rather than nuclear warheads. It would also be more exciting, and (I think) more healthy for the collective human psyche. Spending several billions on “an ego trip” (as Bob Marley sang it), is a reprehensible thing when compared to the need for schools, a health system here in the UK, or AIDS medicines and mosquito nets in Africa. But compared to Trident, which is designed for the singular purpose of destruction, it is easier to argue that it would be money well spent.

Cancelling Trident and creating a bona fide British Space Programme would surely be an easy task, since the skills required for one project are easily transferred to the other. There is a place for rocket scientists and computer guidance systems engineers. And surely submariners would make perfect astronauts, accustomed as they are to spending long periods of time sealed in claustrophobic capsules?

Supporters of the nuclear deterrent remind us that for Britain to maintain an influence on the international arena, we need to be members of the nuclear ‘club’. Much of the argument is over what strategic advantage the submarines give us (if any), and whether it is relevant when our arsenal is dwarfed by that of the United States. Clearly if we were to cancel Trident in favour of a space programme, that programme would fare better politically and economically if it had some strategic importance too. Indeed, although the American’s cited the noble causes of ‘discovery’ and ‘wonder’ as the justification for their Apollo Programmes, the scientific and military imperatives were just as strong - As were the propaganda benefits.

One strategic project could be a replacement for the Galileo Project, the European satellite-navigation system that intended to rival the USA’s Global Positioning Satellites. The Galileo Project is in crisis, and it needs to be either replaced or reinvigorated. OK, so it is not quite an Apollo Mission… but the creation of a strategic technology that can be used in peace-time as well as war, seems to be a more imaginative side-step for a country like Britain, and certainly a better use of our rocket fuel. Once we’ve succeeded in that arena, we can set our sights higher, to the stars.

One of the reasons for being at the various Edinburgh festivals is the opportunity to get ahead of the ‘curve’ on films, plays and actors that are destined to become successful in the coming year. I saw Murderball before everyone else, and it was festival audiences who provided a seal of approval for Black Watch before it went on a lengthy tour of Scotland, England, and television.

This year the gem was In the Shadow of the Moon, a documentary about the Apollo Project. It was actually made by a British film-maker, but features interviews with several of the astronauts who journeyed to the moon. It also includes some newly-released and restored NASA footage of the voyages. It is due for release in the US where it is set to be a success, one which encourages a little bit of patriotism in a country that has been hit with a bout of Iraq-induced self-doubt.

Noticeable by his absence from the film is Neil Armstrong, who is a notorious recluse. This is annoying at first, but when one ponders the enormity of what he did, I think it is an unsurprising result. Who could resist grabbing him by the collar and shouting “MAN, YOU WALKED ON THE FUCKING MOON!” He has probably been subjected to that kind of hysteria for many years.

And in retrospect, Armstrong’s non-participation is a blessing, in that it gives the other Apollo astronauts a chance to shine (no pun intended). Michael Collins, in particular, explodes the notion that he was somehow “unlucky” to be left on the Command Module while Armstrong and Aldrin made history. The intelligent musings of Collins and the other astronauts on the nature of their heroism and how they dealt with the enormous pressure to succeed is what makes the film so inspiring - After all, they have experienced the nearest thing to a Total Perspective Vortex that humans can create, and the footage they brought back from the moon is a delight to behold, especially on a large cinema screen.

My favourite quote is from Alan Bean, the fourth man on the moon.

Now, I never complain about the weather. I am just glad that there is weather.

Though the funniest is Charlie Duke’s once-and-for-all put down to conspiracy theorists:

We went to the moon nine times. Why would we fake it nine times?

He has a southern drawl that makes it work. Wise, yet human.

Astronaut Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin walks on the Moon, 1969.