What's New Robert L. Park 24 Sep 2010

WHAT=92S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 24 Sep 2010   Washington, DC

1. DYSPROSIUM WAR:  CHINA HALTS RARE EARTH EXPORTS TO JAPAN.
Japan today announced that it is releasing the captain of a Chinese fishi=
ng=20
boat arrested two weeks ago in disputed territorial waters of two=20
uninhabited islets you've never heard of in the East China Sea.  China=20
quickly declared economic war, suspending shipment to Japan of dysprosium=
,=20
a rare earth metal of which you=92ve also never heard.  Dysprosium is hig=
hly=20
valued for its magnetic coercivity, a property of which you=92ve also=20
probably not heard. Dysprosium is important in the production of hybrid=20
cars, such as the Toyota Prius. So why do rare earths have to come from=20
China? They don't; rare earths (the lanthanide series plus scandium and=20
yttrium) are actually fairly abundant in the Earth's crust, but 20 years=20
ago China began marketing rare earths at well below production cost,=20
forcing mines outside China to shut down, creating a monopoly.  For other=
=20
nations, including Japan, to resume mining would involve consierable=20
delay.  The word "dysprosium" is derived from Greek meaning, "difficult t=
o=20
get at."=20

2. DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:  I AM WRITING TO VOLUNTEER MY SERVICES.=20
Boeing announced that it=92s going into the space-tourism business with S=
pace=20
Adventures to take astronauts, who seem to have little else to do, to the=
=20
ISS along with tourists who have way too much disposable income. The stor=
y=20
in the NYT last week said this would "bolster the Obama vision for NASA."=
=20
That part of the story must be wrong Mr. President, your vision is grande=
r=20
than that.  Since the space race is long over, you may be worrying about=20
what to do with the astronaut corps, as well as that goofy pile of hardwa=
re=20
we put in low-Earth orbit for reasons now forgotten.  To help, I skipped=20
lunch today to make you a things-to-do list: 1) send DSCOVER to the L1=20
point, it's way past time; 2) drop the ISS in the Philippine trench befor=
e=20
someone else gets hurt; 3) commit a number of large telescopes to=20
identifying potentially Earth-crossing objects and to refining their=20
trajectories; 4) forbid astronauts to go near Mars, although a robotic=20
sample-return mission would be nice; 5) install a sonar on Europa to look=
=20
beneath its  frozen ocean; 6) start putting together a giant segmented=20
telescope at the L2 point to study extrasolar planets; additional segment=
s=20
can be added by future generations.  Let me know when you've finished the=
=20
list and I'll skip another lunch.

3. MEMO TO SCRUTON:  AT LEAST HAWKING GOT THE RIGHT ANSWER.        =20
An op-ed by Roger Scruton in The Wall Street Journal this morning was=20
titled, "Memo to Hawking: There=92s Still Room for God." An English=20
philosopher, Scruton is a visiting scholar at the ultraconservative=20
American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC.   "Almost no one," he=20
writes, "believes there is a rational scientific theory that tells us how=
=20
the universe emerged from nothingness."  No one, that is, except those th=
at=20
might be expected to know, physicists, who labor to make such a theory=20
possible.  In addition to Kant, Scruton invokes Newton and Einstein to ma=
ke=20
his point, but unlike philosophy, physics is tightly bound to observation=
. =20

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
---
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