Better living through science - or not.

Recently I've found myself doing this whole experimental routine in the men's room - will the toilet flush automatically?  Where's the sweet spot to get the tap to emit water? If I move my hands counter-clockwise will it get hotter?* Let's see, is the soap manual or sensor-based?  How do I get a paper towel? (How do I get the paper towels to stop?)

And every time I go through my robot-influenced dance performance in front of a paper towel dispenser, I think of this prophetic section from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

A loud clatter of gunk music flooded through the Heart of Gold cabin as Zaphod searched the sub-etha radio wavebands for news of himself.  The machine was rather difficult to operate.  For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology  became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive - you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same programme.

Seriously, is the bathroom a place where you want to "wave your hand...and hope"?

- Sid

* Wait, this may be a brilliant idea.  Let's get on that, Science.
 

It's not over 'til it's over.

I'm currently about two-thirds of the way through The Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton, one of the books that I purchased with a gift certificate from this year's birthday gifts. Hamilton writes a modern version of what I think of as "space opera" - vast, sweeping, dramatic plot lines, epic settings, and a cast of thousands.*

The plot of The Great North Road starts on a more intimate level, with the discovery of a corpse in the river Tyne, which flows through the English city of Newcastle. The victim, a clone of the elite North family, has been killed in a distinctive manner: a five-bladed weapon of some sort (perhaps a knife-taloned hand) has punctured his chest and shredded his heart.

However, this is not the first time the authorities have encountered this particular modus operandi. A similar crime occurred twenty years earlier on the planet St. Libra, where another North clone was killed, along with his entourage. The sole survivor claimed that an alien monster was responsible, but due to the lack of evidence, the police decided that she was the actual murderer and incarcerated her.

The discovery of the corpse gives new credence to her testimony, but the authorities are still uncertain. In Newcastle, the police investigate the crime, while the elite Human Defense Army sends an expedition through the Newcastle gateway to St. Libra in hopes of discovering evidence of a hidden alien presence that may somehow have penetrated gateway security to wreak havoc on Earth.

However, the two streams of investigation seem to be contradictory. In Newcastle, the police discover that a cab was used by local gang members to dispose of the body, and trace it back to the scene of the crime, an apartment owned by an ex-girlfriend of yet another highly placed North clone. Meanwhile, on St. Libra, members of the HDA expedition are being picked off one by one under mysterious circumstances by some unseen menace that lurks in the jungle and leaves five-bladed wounds in its victims.

Logic says that both of these subplots cannot be correct - it's either a power struggle between North clones or an alien menace, a paradox which is puzzling the characters in the book as much as it's puzzling me. I'm looking forward to seeing how Hamilton resolves the situation.

Famed Golden Age science fiction writer/editor John W. Campbell once commented on the fact that it would be impossible to write a valid science fiction murder mystery, because there are too many ways that an author can cheat: time machines, teleportation, and so on.**   Hamilton has a bit of a tendency towards deus ex machina plot resolutions, and I'm hoping that he doesn't disappoint me by pulling some unlikely alien rabbit from his trans-dimensional hat during the final act.

- Sid

* In traditional space opera such as the Lensman series by E. E. Smith, the characters can actually be analyzed in terms of soprano, tenor, etc. Aliens would be the equivalent of dragons or some similar Wagneresque bit of scenery.

** In spite of which, there are several very good science fiction murder mysteries which seamless integrate exactly those sorts of SF memes and use them to create valid plot lines. Examples would be Larry Niven's ARM series, Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man, or The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov, which was written as a direct response to Campbell's comment.
 

Rosetta.

"Kudos to you, European Space Agency, and get off your butts and do more space stuff, NASA!"

Dodger Leigh, The Daily Byte

I confess that I was completely unaware of the impending touchdown of the Philae lander on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko this morning until I read about it in Chris Hadfield's Twitter™ account - feel free to take away my geek card.

The lander was launched from the European Space Agency's cometary probe Rosetta, and in spite of some problems with the thrusters intended to hold the lander on the surface while an anchoring harpoon was embedded in the surface, Philae successfully touched down on the comet - albeit with a couple of bounces. This marks the first landing ever on the surface of a comet, and is the culmination of a ten year, 6.4 billion* kilometre journey that began with Rosetta's launch on March 2nd, 2004.

Rosetta and its little brother* will spend the next 17 months investigating Churyumov–Gerasimenko, collecting detailed information on how the comet changes as it makes its way toward the Sun.  In addition, scientists at the ESA hope to learn more about the origins of the planets from this chunk of rock that predates the birth of the solar system.

To see some amazing shots of the comet's surface, pay a visit to Rosetta's Flickr™ gallery.  Included in the gallery is a very cool selfie by the probe from October, showing one of its 14 metre wings, which collect solar energy to power the craft, and a shot of the comet in the background.

© European Space Agency

Selfies with comets, selfies on Mars - is it just me, or are the robots having all the fun when it comes to space exploration? 

- Sid

* Yes, BILLION.

** Or sister, hard to tell from the photos.

 

Gnomic Statements XI.

 Let's all just take a moment and be afraid of the crazy lady, shall we?

- Sid
 

Requiem.

On Friday, October 31st, Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo crashed during a test flight over the Mojave Desert.  The pilot, Peter Siebold, escaped with severe injuries.  The copilot, Michael Alsbury, died in the crash.

Since then, there has been a lot of talk in the media about the fact that space travel is inherently risky, and that although the death of Michael Alsbury is tragic, this will not deter us from the quest to expand humanity's horizons through the exploration of space.

Blah, blah, blah.

Space travel IS risky, no doubt about that.  People have died before this*, and there is every possibility that people will die in the future.  However, at some very fundamental level, Virgin Galactic's approach to space travel leaves a bad taste in my mouth, a bad taste which has very little to do with the expansion of horizons. The decision to sell tickets to space to the elite few who have a quarter of a million dollars in discretionary funds is like some odd precursor to the society pictured in last year's dystopian film Elysium, where the rich live in orbit and the poor are condemned to the wreckage of Earthbound civilization.

I don't want to diminish his death, but I can't help but feel that Michael Alsbury died so that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie could spend six minutes in space.

- Sid

* Some of those people have died at Virgin Galactic. In 2007, three people died and three were seriously injured when an engine exploded during a test.