Skip to main content

Make Space Great Again



Maybe Trump actually wants to create a sex slave colony on Mars?  How else to explain this recent executive order.

This is an administration that has gutted its energy department, making it clear there is no room for science except when it comes to nukes.    Scott Pruitt has actually launched a program to formally challenge climate change science, and is in the process of dismantling the EPA as we know it.  This is the most anti-science administration since Reagan, who similarly went out of his way to eradicate the sustainable energy initiatives started under Jimmy Carter.  It's a wonder the solar panels are still on the roof of thee White House, but give Trump or Bannon or Rick Perry time to discover they are there.

Yet, Trump is rekindling the National Space Council, which was disbanded in 1993 over internal frictions between NASA and the NSC.  The Pere Bush and subsequent Clinton administrations decided to go with NASA.  But, the oddest thing is making Mike Pence chairman of the revived council, a man who has about as much interest in science as does Robert Davis Steele, who actually forced NASA to issue a response to his ludicrous claim that it had established a child sex slave colony on Mars.

In the Age of Trump it seems we are compelled to respond to any allegation no matter how absurd, as there are actually people out there who believe this shit and if you allow it to gather stench it can soon stink up the whole place.  Not that it does much good, as these idiots will believe what they want to believe.  Many still insist the moon landing was a hoax.  Yet, they think the government is covering up the existence of UFO's.

How the new space council will operate under Starship Fleet Captain Pence is anyone's guess?  The executive order offers no clue.  Most likely this will be a cynical way to funnel money to defense contractors under the guise of a "space program."   However, the Trump family could be looking for a quick exit if things turn out as bad as Stephen Hawking says, giving the green light to put Elon Musk's SpaceX program and Mars mission into warp speed.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

O Pioneers!

It is hard not to think of Nebraska without thinking of its greatest writer.  Here is a marvelous piece by Capote, Remembering Willa Cather . I remember seeing a stage production of O Pioneers! and being deeply moved by its raw emotions.  I had read My Antonia before, and soon found myself hooked, like Capote was by the simple elegance of her prose and the way she was able to evoke so many feelings through her characters.  Much of it came from the fact that she had lived those experiences herself. Her father dragged the family from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883, when it was still a young state, settling in the town of Red Cloud. named after one of the great Oglala chiefs.  Red Cloud was still alive at the time, living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, in the aftermath of the "Great Sioux Wars" of 1876-77.  I don't know whether Cather took any interest in the famous chief, although it is hard to imagine not.  Upon his death in 1909, he was eulogi

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Colonel

Now with Colonel Roosevelt , the magnum opus is complete. And it deserves to stand as the definitive study of its restless, mutable, ever-boyish, erudite and tirelessly energetic subject. Mr. Morris has addressed the toughest and most frustrating part of Roosevelt’s life with the same care and precision that he brought to the two earlier installments. And if this story of a lifetime is his own life’s work, he has reason to be immensely proud.  -- Janet Maslin -- NY Times . Let the discussion begin!