What's New Sep 18, 2009

WHAT’S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 18 Sep 09   Washington, DC

1.  NORMAN BORLAUG: THE DEATH OF THE GREATEST AMONG US.
He died Saturday at the age of 95. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, 
Gregg Easterbrook described him as "the very personification of human 
goodness." He was that, but he was also a brilliant scientist and tireless 
teacher of poor farmers in distant lands.  His own education began in a one-
room schoolhouse in Iowa. His work in agronomy led to the Green Revolution 
and saved perhaps 1 billion lives. In accepting the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize, 
however, Borlaug warned against complacency: "we are dealing with two 
opposing forces, the scientific power of food production and the biologic 
power of human reproduction. . . Man also has acquired the means to reduce 
the rate of human reproduction, effectively and humanely . . . but has not 
yet used this potential adequately.  There can be no permanent progress in 
the battle against hunger until food production and population control 
unite in a common effort."

2.  MISSILE DEFENSE: OBAMA REVISES MISSILE DEFENSE STRATEGY.
The Bush plan to deal with Iran was based on the belief that long-range 
ballistic missiles capable of hitting Europe and the US were in the works.  
Long-range ballistic missiles are an awesome threat because they are stupid 
and cold, which makes them impossible to fool and difficult to see, except 
during the launch phase.  But apparently our intelligence was bad.  When 
has it been otherwise?  How many missile-defense systems has the U.S. 
conceived, and how much did they increase our security?  The National 
Missile Defense in Alaska, installed because of angry noises out of North 
Korea, was never turned on since no one believed it would work anyway. 
Meanwhile, the only credible defense against ballistic missiles is the 
threat of massive retaliation.  So why would anyone attack us with ICBMs?  
The return address is on the package.  We would know who to obliterate.  
Not so with terrorist attacks. The new plan is to defend against Iranian 
missiles of shorter range that threaten Europe and parts of Asia.  

3.  NASA: REVIEW OF U.S. HUMAN SPACE FLIGHT PLANS.
For those who believe it's not exploration unless there are humans on 
board, the summary report of the Augustine Commission, which came out last 
week, was not encouraging.  To quote from the summary: "The committee has 
found two executable options that comply with the FY 2010 budget.  However, 
neither allows for a viable exploration program.  In fact the committee 
finds no plans compatible with the FY 2010 budget profile that would permit 
human exploration to continue in any meaningful way."  Well, that's about 
as clear as you can get.  Unless there is a substantial increase in budget, 
there will be no Constellation, no Ares, no sending humans back to the Moon 
anytime soon.  Forget Mars.  

4.  ISS:  WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED FROM OUR INVESTMENT? 
NASA has issued a 266 page report on research accomplished during the 2000-
2008 assembly phase of the ISS.   Of course, assembly of the ISS has 
recently been completed.  An appendix lists the papers resulting from this 
work. Most, but not all, are from the proceedings of NASA conferences, but 
some are from respected, peer-reviewed publications.  However, I do not 
believe any major field of science has been significantly affected by this 
work, which is not so much wrong as just unimportant.
 

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
---
Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org
What's New is moving to a different listserver and our
subscription process has changed. To change your subscription
status please visit this link:
http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnew&A=1