by Neville Raymond
In our American democracy, those who hold the keys to the White House can be said to fall into two groups.
There are the millions of citizens who dutifully show up at the polling booth. And when they cast their vote, it is invariably for someone who stumps around the country, telling everybody what they want to hear, and then doing just the opposite.
Then there is the handful of oligarchs who handpick the guy that the voters will rubberstamp as their next president. And it is invariably someone who shows up at the doorstep of their mansion or penthouse suite, hat in hand, promising to do whatever they want him to do - even if it is the exact opposite of what the people want.
Oh sure, you’re feeling bad right about now that you’re in the wrong group. As Mel Brooks says, it’s good to be the king - maker, that is. But don’t be too envious. The process is hardly as risk-free as it appears.
I mean, look at John F. Kennedy. The kingmakers put him into the Oval Office. He owes his political fortune to them. And yet he turns around and does something incredibly rash and stupid. Like issuing a directive to pull troops out of Vietnam. Or overriding the Federal Reserve to have the government print its own money interest-free. Or threatening to smash the CIA to smithereens. Sheesh! Talk about biting the hand that feeds you! What could the poor oligarchs do but salve their outraged sense of betrayal with an assassin’s bullet?
If you think about it, it has got to be their worst nightmare. They may know how to pick ‘em. But not necessarily how to make ‘em stick with the program. The problem with crowning a young, charismatic, eloquent upstart as the leader of the free world is his undeniable power to inspire the people. What if he starts believing in his own rhetoric? What if he is carried away by the momentum that he has whipped up in his millions of supporters? What if, God forbid, he lives up to the expectations of all the people who voted for him - and in doing so, stabs the oligarchs in the back?
Now that would be bad news - the kind that no network would ever want to broadcast, no matter how staunchly it adheres to the motto, if it bleeds, it leads! Surely there has to be way of cracking down on these presidential loose cannons before they do any real damage. Assassination is all very well and good - if you can pull it off. But just look at how messy the last one turned out. It’s almost fifty years later and they are still talking about it - and hardly anyone believes the government’s side of it any more!
Of course, you can always put a brain-dead dummy - or a heart-dead doormat - in the Oval Office. Someone like George W. Like little Mikey in the old TV cereal commercials, he’ll eat anything you put in front of him. He has a cast-iron stomach for any line of crap that would makes a normal person want to gag. But then look at where it gets you. You cheapen the high office of the presidency. And you wind up with the most despised President in the history of the United States.
There has got to be a better way. You would think that with all those think tanks at their disposal, the oligarchs would come up with a smarter solution. And perhaps they may have, at that. Go with a charismatic leader, if you have to. Get the people all fired up and ready to storm the Bastille. And then, to make sure that your man knows when to bring everybody back to earth with a thud, have an insurance policy up your sleeve. Something to hold over the President’s head if all that public acclaim and popular enthusiasm goes to his head. Something right there in the Constitution, in black and white, that would immediately get him fired from the job. Like what, you wonder? Well, how about that he is not born on American soil? That would do it. Then, if he should refuse to play ball - if he should dare to go so far as to actually reform the healthcare system or abolish the Fed or end the war in Afghanistan and Iraq or do any of those things that would uphold the Constitution and serve the interests of the American people - you have a slam-dunk mechanism for making sure he’s history. It doesn’t have to be anything as messy as a coroner, all bought and paid for, ready to sign off on his death certificate. It could just be some Kenyan official waiting for the signal to step forward with his original birth certificate.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Man Is a Nuisance in Space
by Neville Raymond
Forty years later, the idea of man on the moon remains as fabled (at least, for some) as the existence of the man in the moon. Now if only the rest of us could hear what Dr. James Van Allen was trying to tell us…
The 40th anniversary of the moon landing has come and gone, not without rekindling the debate on whether it actually took place. There is a lot to rehash on both sides. One way to decide the feasibility of manned space flights is to go to the horse’s mouth. James Van Allen. Remember him? He is the man who discovered the giant bands of radiation that ring the earth. He came to the world’s attention in the late 1950s, when instruments he designed in his basement lab and placed aboard the first U.S. satellite, Explorer I, registered the intensity of the radiation belts that are named in his honor. If anyone would know whether they pose an impassable barrier to space travel, you would think he’d be the one. Right?
So what does Van Allen have to say? Well, let’s see. A couple of years before his death he published an article in a journal of science and technology which questioned the validity of human spaceflight. Its title speaks volumes: “Is Human Spaceflight Obsolete?” Say what? Here is a pioneer in space science. And in the afterglow of what is arguably man’s greatest triumph, the manned mission to the Moon, he is wondering if manned spaceflight is over and done!
How can that be? Is he really saying that this Holy Grail – brimming with the heady wine of lunar conquest – is an unrealistic objective that serves no compelling cultural purpose or national interest? Is he really so sour on the whole idea that he claims it is not worth pursuing? Or is he, with the cunning of Aesop’s fox, trying to console us for the fact that manned spaceflight is presently beyond our technological reach?
This much we know. Even way back in the early 1960s, in the first flush of his discovery, when Dr. Van Allen was featured on the cover of Time, he had no illusions about the scope and intensity of the radiation that girdled the earth. He understood that it could very well be the flaming sword that bars humanity from entering into deep space. And after fifty years of space exploration, his jaundiced view of manned spaceflight indicates that nothing has since occurred to change his mind. But here’s the rub. He doesn’t come right out and say that man is never going to crash the Van Allen Belts to chase his dream of manned space flight. NASA would have his head on a platter for that. But he does the next best thing – he does his damnedest to discourage man from the very possibility of trying! Now that says a lot for someone who avowed, “I’m one of the most durable and fervent advocates of space exploration.”
Let’s see if we can sort this out from an everyday perspective. Have you ever tried to break up with a girlfriend who is like something out of Fatal Attraction? You’re not the sort of person who wants to hurt her feelings. Moreover, you don’t want her getting hysterical or going ballistic. How do you frame the message that deep-sixes the relationship?
You don’t call her impossible to live with, do you? You don’t say that you would sooner drink poison than marry her. You don’t blurt out that being around her makes you want to choke on your vomit! That could very well be true, as far as it goes. But you’re not stupid enough to say something like that. That would be cruel, impolitic – and besides, she might lose it and bean you with her handbag.
Forty years later, the idea of man on the moon remains as fabled (at least, for some) as the existence of the man in the moon. Now if only the rest of us could hear what Dr. James Van Allen was trying to tell us…
The 40th anniversary of the moon landing has come and gone, not without rekindling the debate on whether it actually took place. There is a lot to rehash on both sides. One way to decide the feasibility of manned space flights is to go to the horse’s mouth. James Van Allen. Remember him? He is the man who discovered the giant bands of radiation that ring the earth. He came to the world’s attention in the late 1950s, when instruments he designed in his basement lab and placed aboard the first U.S. satellite, Explorer I, registered the intensity of the radiation belts that are named in his honor. If anyone would know whether they pose an impassable barrier to space travel, you would think he’d be the one. Right?
So what does Van Allen have to say? Well, let’s see. A couple of years before his death he published an article in a journal of science and technology which questioned the validity of human spaceflight. Its title speaks volumes: “Is Human Spaceflight Obsolete?” Say what? Here is a pioneer in space science. And in the afterglow of what is arguably man’s greatest triumph, the manned mission to the Moon, he is wondering if manned spaceflight is over and done!
How can that be? Is he really saying that this Holy Grail – brimming with the heady wine of lunar conquest – is an unrealistic objective that serves no compelling cultural purpose or national interest? Is he really so sour on the whole idea that he claims it is not worth pursuing? Or is he, with the cunning of Aesop’s fox, trying to console us for the fact that manned spaceflight is presently beyond our technological reach?
This much we know. Even way back in the early 1960s, in the first flush of his discovery, when Dr. Van Allen was featured on the cover of Time, he had no illusions about the scope and intensity of the radiation that girdled the earth. He understood that it could very well be the flaming sword that bars humanity from entering into deep space. And after fifty years of space exploration, his jaundiced view of manned spaceflight indicates that nothing has since occurred to change his mind. But here’s the rub. He doesn’t come right out and say that man is never going to crash the Van Allen Belts to chase his dream of manned space flight. NASA would have his head on a platter for that. But he does the next best thing – he does his damnedest to discourage man from the very possibility of trying! Now that says a lot for someone who avowed, “I’m one of the most durable and fervent advocates of space exploration.”
Let’s see if we can sort this out from an everyday perspective. Have you ever tried to break up with a girlfriend who is like something out of Fatal Attraction? You’re not the sort of person who wants to hurt her feelings. Moreover, you don’t want her getting hysterical or going ballistic. How do you frame the message that deep-sixes the relationship?
You don’t call her impossible to live with, do you? You don’t say that you would sooner drink poison than marry her. You don’t blurt out that being around her makes you want to choke on your vomit! That could very well be true, as far as it goes. But you’re not stupid enough to say something like that. That would be cruel, impolitic – and besides, she might lose it and bean you with her handbag.
So what do you do? You take the time-honored approach that every sensitive soul uses. You know, the one spoofed by George Costanza in Seinfeld that can be summed up in five little words: It’s not you, it’s me!
“What do you mean,” she says with a touch of asperity. You would like to leave it at those five words, but you do owe her a little clarification. So you say, “I’m not in your league. I’m not game for a relationship. It takes too much out of me. Besides, I’m hard to please. I’m too touchy and easily bruised. I’m impossible to live with.”
You see how it is done? You use “I” statements and make yourself the source of the problem. You’re the fly in her ointment. You’re the one who’s not relationship material. It is thus in her self-interest to dump you – because hey, when it comes right down to it, you’re just more trouble than you’re worth.
When you look at how James Van Allen couched his opposition to manned space flight, you can’t help suspecting that he is guilty of this approach. He knew better than anyone else that the radiation rings named after him are death traps for any bio-organism stupid or reckless enough to venture through. Which is why forty years later space stations still give them a wide berth by orbiting well below them. But the Van Allen Belts are the least of our problems. Even if a way were found to do an end run around them, humans would still not be home-free. For these radiation bands are the final outpost guarding our planet from the solar wind, galactic cosmic rays and the like. To pass through the Van Allen belts would be like taking a flying leap out of the frying pan whose sides offer at least a measure of protection against the cosmic fire.
Any starry-eyed aspirations that man may have about space travel had to be nipped in the bud. Van Allen wanted us to know that the romance of man on the moon was doomed. He knew that it could not and would not happen – at least, not in the 20th century. But he also knew that he couldn’t just blab the truth. There was too much invested in manned space travel. Billions were riding on Apollo. And the pride and prestige of a whole nation was on the line. After all, America did have the bragging rights for a man on the moon.
And so Van Allen did what every man knows to do, when he wants to break off an unworkable relationship that may come back to haunt him. He didn’t make it about the impossible hazards of deep space. He makes it about man himself and the impossibility of keeping man happy and comfortable in space! He doesn’t come out and say, “Deep Space is hell. There are so many nasty particles floating around that man doesn't stand a snowball's chance.” He flips it around and makes it all about this fantastically high-maintenance creature called man. He insinuates that man is not deep-space material. I believe the exact words that Van Allen used were “Man is a fabulous nuisance in space right now.” Then, in case anyone missed the point, he spelled it out: “He’s not worth all the cost of putting him up there and keeping him comfortable and working!”
It was cleverly done! Man is advised to stay the hell out of the cosmic kitchen. Not because no organism alive can take the heat but because man is a delicate flower that is more trouble than it’s worth! Even his use of the word “nuisance” is a giveaway. It comes from the same root as noxious. Deep space is the most noxious environment bar none! And yet, not daring to make it about that, Van Allen makes man the noxious one, the one who is a nuisance! Forget about all the wrong stuff that permeates space. Man lacks the right stuff to make it there! As much as he dreams of space from afar, the intimacy of real contact will kill him in a heartbeat! He is too thin-skinned to weather solar storms and solar winds. All that "Right Stuff" moonshine may make for a stirring Hollywood movie, but honestly, man is too much of a mama’s boy to cut his apron stings to mother earth and withstand the full brunt of galactic cosmic rays and solar radiation.
What then is Van Allen’s solution? It is a space-age version of what a man says to a woman when he wants her to believe that she can do better. Let space be probed by rugged machines! That was the way to go, Van Allen told anyone who would listen. Man should step aside and let machines take over! Seriously! The Moon doesn’t need men of flesh and blood. She is better off with explorers made off sterner stuff – like titanium and steel! She deserves explorers that are rigid and impervious, with shiny hard edges and sleek sides. She needs robots that can withstand all the heat that the sun dishes out in an airless vacuum! Not delicate darlings that are felled by the first micrometeorite that comes along. Not fragile cells that are fried by the first blast of solar wind. Not sensitive tissues that curl up and die on the unprotected lunar surface. When it comes to the foreseeable future of space exploration, man is a non-starter, biologically speaking. But robots? Robots are just what the good doctor Van Allen ordered! They have no tissues to damage with all those cosmic rays! They have no cells to mutate, no muscles and nerves to overrun with armies of solar particle events!
You have to hand it to our intrepid scientific discoverer. He carried off a fine balancing act. He was too smart to raise NASA’s hackles by going with Plan A: “You’re not going to get man out of low earth orbit!” At the same time, he wasn’t going to keep his mouth shut. And so he went under the radar with Plan B: ”Just get the idea of man in deep space out of your head!”
As it turns out, he was right on the money. The tight security that you would have to arrange for a George W. Bush to pay a visit to a theater of war in the Middle East is a stroll in the park compared to all the elaborate precautions that you would have to take to put a man into the hostile environment of deep space. Lead shielding many inches or even many feet thick. Highly pressurized suits that cripple movement. Air conditioning units that are prohibitively unwieldy! The list goes on and on! With that kind of payload no rocket is ever going to get it up! Faced with that kind of insurmountable challenge, even a rocket scientists has to throw up his hands in despair!
Let’s face it. No matter how complicated the inner workings of a robot may be, it is nowhere near as complicated as putting a man into space. The fact is that man in deep space is nothing less than an albatross around NASA’s neck – a gargantuan headache – a nerve-wracking effort that will tax our technological abilities and financial resources to the breaking point and leave us with nothing to show for it! Who needs that?
Or as old Van coyly put it, “Man is a fabulous nuisance in space!”
“What do you mean,” she says with a touch of asperity. You would like to leave it at those five words, but you do owe her a little clarification. So you say, “I’m not in your league. I’m not game for a relationship. It takes too much out of me. Besides, I’m hard to please. I’m too touchy and easily bruised. I’m impossible to live with.”
You see how it is done? You use “I” statements and make yourself the source of the problem. You’re the fly in her ointment. You’re the one who’s not relationship material. It is thus in her self-interest to dump you – because hey, when it comes right down to it, you’re just more trouble than you’re worth.
When you look at how James Van Allen couched his opposition to manned space flight, you can’t help suspecting that he is guilty of this approach. He knew better than anyone else that the radiation rings named after him are death traps for any bio-organism stupid or reckless enough to venture through. Which is why forty years later space stations still give them a wide berth by orbiting well below them. But the Van Allen Belts are the least of our problems. Even if a way were found to do an end run around them, humans would still not be home-free. For these radiation bands are the final outpost guarding our planet from the solar wind, galactic cosmic rays and the like. To pass through the Van Allen belts would be like taking a flying leap out of the frying pan whose sides offer at least a measure of protection against the cosmic fire.
Any starry-eyed aspirations that man may have about space travel had to be nipped in the bud. Van Allen wanted us to know that the romance of man on the moon was doomed. He knew that it could not and would not happen – at least, not in the 20th century. But he also knew that he couldn’t just blab the truth. There was too much invested in manned space travel. Billions were riding on Apollo. And the pride and prestige of a whole nation was on the line. After all, America did have the bragging rights for a man on the moon.
And so Van Allen did what every man knows to do, when he wants to break off an unworkable relationship that may come back to haunt him. He didn’t make it about the impossible hazards of deep space. He makes it about man himself and the impossibility of keeping man happy and comfortable in space! He doesn’t come out and say, “Deep Space is hell. There are so many nasty particles floating around that man doesn't stand a snowball's chance.” He flips it around and makes it all about this fantastically high-maintenance creature called man. He insinuates that man is not deep-space material. I believe the exact words that Van Allen used were “Man is a fabulous nuisance in space right now.” Then, in case anyone missed the point, he spelled it out: “He’s not worth all the cost of putting him up there and keeping him comfortable and working!”
It was cleverly done! Man is advised to stay the hell out of the cosmic kitchen. Not because no organism alive can take the heat but because man is a delicate flower that is more trouble than it’s worth! Even his use of the word “nuisance” is a giveaway. It comes from the same root as noxious. Deep space is the most noxious environment bar none! And yet, not daring to make it about that, Van Allen makes man the noxious one, the one who is a nuisance! Forget about all the wrong stuff that permeates space. Man lacks the right stuff to make it there! As much as he dreams of space from afar, the intimacy of real contact will kill him in a heartbeat! He is too thin-skinned to weather solar storms and solar winds. All that "Right Stuff" moonshine may make for a stirring Hollywood movie, but honestly, man is too much of a mama’s boy to cut his apron stings to mother earth and withstand the full brunt of galactic cosmic rays and solar radiation.
What then is Van Allen’s solution? It is a space-age version of what a man says to a woman when he wants her to believe that she can do better. Let space be probed by rugged machines! That was the way to go, Van Allen told anyone who would listen. Man should step aside and let machines take over! Seriously! The Moon doesn’t need men of flesh and blood. She is better off with explorers made off sterner stuff – like titanium and steel! She deserves explorers that are rigid and impervious, with shiny hard edges and sleek sides. She needs robots that can withstand all the heat that the sun dishes out in an airless vacuum! Not delicate darlings that are felled by the first micrometeorite that comes along. Not fragile cells that are fried by the first blast of solar wind. Not sensitive tissues that curl up and die on the unprotected lunar surface. When it comes to the foreseeable future of space exploration, man is a non-starter, biologically speaking. But robots? Robots are just what the good doctor Van Allen ordered! They have no tissues to damage with all those cosmic rays! They have no cells to mutate, no muscles and nerves to overrun with armies of solar particle events!
You have to hand it to our intrepid scientific discoverer. He carried off a fine balancing act. He was too smart to raise NASA’s hackles by going with Plan A: “You’re not going to get man out of low earth orbit!” At the same time, he wasn’t going to keep his mouth shut. And so he went under the radar with Plan B: ”Just get the idea of man in deep space out of your head!”
As it turns out, he was right on the money. The tight security that you would have to arrange for a George W. Bush to pay a visit to a theater of war in the Middle East is a stroll in the park compared to all the elaborate precautions that you would have to take to put a man into the hostile environment of deep space. Lead shielding many inches or even many feet thick. Highly pressurized suits that cripple movement. Air conditioning units that are prohibitively unwieldy! The list goes on and on! With that kind of payload no rocket is ever going to get it up! Faced with that kind of insurmountable challenge, even a rocket scientists has to throw up his hands in despair!
Let’s face it. No matter how complicated the inner workings of a robot may be, it is nowhere near as complicated as putting a man into space. The fact is that man in deep space is nothing less than an albatross around NASA’s neck – a gargantuan headache – a nerve-wracking effort that will tax our technological abilities and financial resources to the breaking point and leave us with nothing to show for it! Who needs that?
Or as old Van coyly put it, “Man is a fabulous nuisance in space!”
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