everyday

Are you ready to celebrate? Well, get ready: We have ICE!!!!! Yes, ICE, *WATER ICE* on Mars! w00t!!! Best day ever!!

http://twitter.com/MarsPhoenix/statuses/839088619

1. The upcoming US Presidential election is weighing heavily on my mind. I haven’t written much about it because I have yet to finalize my thoughts on the candidates.
2. The impending economic recession is worrisome
3. Is ethanol, or perhaps cellulosic ethanol, the way to go to secure energy independence? Does it even matter?

via: Wired

An interesting article at Wired Magazine (online) talks about using Cellulosic Ethanol to mitigate our dependence on foreign oil. This is definitely worth a read. The primary road block to using this alternative fuel is cost. The simple solution - raise the cost of foreign oil! I have talked about cost being the motivating factor behind most all that we do, and this is simply one more case where that proves to be true. Unfortunately, it is political suicide to even hint at a whisper of mentioning anything related to increasing the cost of foreign oil through increased taxes. That being said, I doubt we will see cellulosic ethanol based fuel on the horizon for quite some time.

via: The New York Times

The New York Times has an interesting article on testing human embryos for two different types of hereditary cancers. From what I understood of the article, they take an embryo in a very early stage (8 cells), remove one of the cells and test it’s DNA for the particular gene(s) that causes the cancer. Currently they are testing for a form of breast cancer and a form of colon cancer. The subjects of the article have a history of the colon cancer in the husband’s mother’s family that has killed many of his mother’s siblings. The couple learned that this gene had a 50% chance of showing up in their child, so they decided to shell out the $15,000 to have the genetic testing done.

I know this testing will not sit well with many people, especially religious types, and that is fine. My personal opinion is that we (humans) have been given the gift of infinite capability and choosing not to utilize this gift is the biggest sin we could ever commit.

via: /.

NASA has released a new set of “Blue Marble” images entitled, “Blue Marble: Next Generation“. The new set of images includes cloud free views of the entire earth for each of the 12 months in our calendar. This shows an interesting view of how our planet changes with the seasons.

NASA’s servers are probably being overloaded and will continue to be for a while (a day or two). There are some mirror sites available at the referring link above.

We need to build nuclear reactors like they are going out of style! Pebble Bed Nuclear Reactors are theoretically fail safe, small, and can be located anywhere. I would place one of these reactors in every town across America! We are so far behind the technology curve when it comes to nuclear reactors that we are positioned perfectly to start a massive build up using this technology.

Of course this doesn’t preclude the use of other technologies as well. For instance, I think that it should be mandatory for all new buildings to incorporate solar collectors into their roofs and, escpecially in the south-west, a serious review of building practices to create more thermally effecient homes.

There are negative enviromental impacts of electricity generation regardless of the technology used to produce it. I think that utilizing nuclear reactors affords the least impact of any current technology. Now before you start thinking, “What about electric cars? or hybrids? or fuel-cells?”, think about where the power for that electric car, hybrid or fuel cell powered vehicle comes from. The answer is, more than likely, fossil fuels, specifically petroleum based products.

NASA is all set to announce a plan to return astronauts to the moon by 2018. Normally I would be excited about this sort of affair, space travel and all, but this is anti-climactic. We have already been to the moon and short of establishing a permanent presence there for scientific and commercial gains; I see no reason to return. President Bush had announced earlier, a broad plan to return astronauts to the Moon and eventually to Mars. Why? Simply visiting these heavenly bodies is no longer sufficiently challenging, we should be pressing for permanent settlement of both the Moon and eventually Mars. Landing on the Moon was accomplished on July 20th, 1969. That will be nearly a half century between the first Moon landing and the proposed 2018 landing. Imagine if other fields of research were planning on reaching the same goals in 2020 that they did around 1970? NASA is good at two things, spending enormous amounts of money on and pushing the envelope of research in space (and the latter is questionable of late). It should not be NASA’s goal to re-accomplish tasks that it had successfully achieved 50 years ago.

This goal is an ill-conceived, ill-timed, and uninspired attempt by a failing presidential administration to attract attention to space, and arguably lure attention away from other current events. President Bush is attempting to re-create the scientific and exploratory fervor of the early 60’s instilled in our nation by President Kennedy; unfortunately President Bush has missed the mark. And don’t forget that we currently have a grounded fleet of Space Shuttles and an all but useless Space Station floating high above. It is my opinion that we ought to finish what we started with the International Space Station, figure out a way to get into space without burning piles of money, and start colonization of the Moon, Mars and any other rock we can get to.