Friday, November 25, 2005
It was less than a year ago, that President Bush announced his
bold plan to send people to reexplore the Moon and then explore
Mars (WN 16 Jan 04) The plan
is not going well. First, we're told, the International Space
Station must be finished as the US promised, even if it is just a
Disney World ride for too-rich tourists. That means 18 more
shuttle flights, which aren't happening due to new cracks in the
foam. If the ISS is ever finished, it can be dropped in the
ocean. NASA will then get on with a crew exploration vehicle to
go to the moon, where we were 36 years ago. But that leaves a
four year gap between the shuttle and the crew exploration
vehicle with no Americans in space. Would anyone notice?
In 1987, Norman Newell, a paleontologist at the AMNH, shared the
Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award of the AAAS for his
early and persistent campaign to alert scientists to the threat
posed by creationism to scientific education. At that time, the
Louisiana "equal time" law was before the U.S. Supreme Court
(WN 19 Feb 87) . This week,
with the Dover School Board ID case before a Federal Court in
Pennsylvania, the AMNH opened an exhibit on the life of Charles
Darwin, featuring a live specimen of the storied Galapagos
tortoise. Corporate sponsors for such educational exhibits are
usually easy to find, but the Darwin exhibit reportedly had to
rely on individual donors and private charities for the $3M the
exhibit cost. Although the ID controversy frightened off
corporate donors, a Creationist Museum near Cincinatti,
apparently had little trouble raising $7M for an exhibit
featuring Adam and Eve.
President Bush went to Congress early this month to ask for $7B
to prepare the nation for a possible outbreak of Asian bird flu
(WN 4 Nov 05) . The federal
government has since become the world's biggest customer for
Tamiflu, produced by the Swiss pharmaceutical giant, Roche. That
was good news for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who doesn't have
bird flu. He doesn't have stock in Roche either, but he does
have millions of dollars worth of stock in a company named Gilead
Sciences, having been Gilead's Chairman prior to joining the Bush
administration. Low-profile Gilead Sciences owns the rights to
Tamiflu, which it outsources to Roche. There is little evidence
that the antiviral drug would help much in a flu pandemic.
To cope with its budget problems, NASA will delay the launch of
the infrared telescope. State Department permission is sought to
launch JWST on the European Space Agency Ariane 5 rocket.
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