Flit

POSSIBLY WORTH CHECKING OUT Noted

POSSIBLY WORTH CHECKING OUT

Noted columnist Gwynne Dyer will be speaking at U of T this Wednesday, at 7:30 pm, on the "Prospects of Disarmament." It's at the Brennan Hall auditorium at 81 St. Mary Street. Just FYI, if you live in Toronto. (I have another engagement earlier, but I'm hopeful I'll still be able to make it down.)

TRENCHANT There is something noteworthy

TRENCHANT

There is something noteworthy a rocket can do that the shuttle cannot. A rocket can be permitted to fail. What if a billion dollar spaceship wipes out on a "routine" mission "commuting" to space with some puny little satellite? Cooper fears it might drive a stake through the heart of the manned space program. Would the public stand to lose a quarter of the fleet in a single day? Would it fork over another billion dollars to build a replacement? Would it stand for spending millions to train astronauts to be truck drivers, only to lose truck and drivers both? The prospect makes the old rockets seem kind of nice. One of the old throw-away jobs could go haywire, and spiral down into the ocean off the Bahamas, and everybody would feel miserable and millions would be wasted and everybody would go back to work. Lost. it, dammit-but then nobody ever expected it back.

--Gregg Easterbrook, Washington Monthly, April, 1980. Read Easterbrook's take on the Columbia disaster here.

APOLOGIES TO MY ONE REMAINING

APOLOGIES TO MY ONE REMAINING READER

For me it seems, to paraphrase Lennon, blogging is what happens when I'm NOT making other plans. When regular life recedes, I'll be back.