WHAT'S NEW Friday, February 13, 2004

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 13 Feb 04   Washington, DC

1. NUCLEAR WEAPONS: THE LOOPHOLE IN THE NONPROLIFERATION TREATY. 
Abdul Qadeer Khan, "father" of Pakistan's bomb, and a popular
national hero, had a little business on the side selling nuclear
technology to countries that don't like us, like Iran, Libya and
North Korea.  In return for a pledge not to make nuclear weapons,
the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) allows such countries to
develop "peaceful" atomic energy programs.  But simply shortening
the fuel cycle can turn a power reactor into a plutonium-239
factory, and enriching uranium fuel can be continued to produce
weapons-grade uranium-235.  President Bush wants nuclear powers
to plug that "loophole" by only providing nuclear fuel to those
countries that renounce both enrichment and reprocessing. It's a
great plan, but its not clear why nonnuclear nations would agree
to it.  Libya renounced its nuclear program to get sanctions
lifted, but some nuclear wannabes post beware-of-dog signs and
keep their hands under the table to look like they've got a gun.

2. SPACE EXPLORATION: IT'S TIME FOR ANOTHER "AUGUSTINE REPORT."
Among aerospace executives who addressed the first public hearing
of President Bush's new space-exploration advisory commission was
Norm Augustine, former Chairman of Lockheed Martin. 13 years ago,
he chaired the Advisory Committee on the Future of the US Space
Program.  The 1990 "Augustine Report" ranked space science above
space stations, aerospace planes, and a manned moon/Mars mission
called for by George I (WN 14 Dec 90).  Commission member Neil
deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium, asked about
the cost of a Mars mission.  Augustine said he hadn't done enough
analysis, but if he had to bet, he'd bet that the entire $15B
NASA budget for ten years would not be enough.  Bush II is
proposing an extra $1B per year for five years, plus $11B saved
from scrapping the shuttle and finishing the space station. 
That's  about $134B short.  The recommendations of the "Augustine
Report" should have been followed.  We'd be far better off today.

3. CLONING: SCIENTISTS IN SOUTH KOREA CLONE MATURE HUMAN EMBRYOS.
It was a year ago that Clonaid Inc., owned by Raelians, announced
the cloning of baby Eve (WN 3 Jan 03). Raelians believe the first
humans were cloned by space aliens.  (Ever notice how funny other
people's religions are?) That was a hoax, but this looks like a
real breakthrough in therapeutic cloning. Embryonic stem cells
with the same DNA as a donor mother were derived.  In spite of
great medical promise, it's already stirring up controversy in
the Senate, which is deadlocked on whether to ban such research. 
But whatever we do in the U.S., it now seems inevitable that
reproductive cloning of a human will happen sometime, somewhere. 
Immortality is an easy sell, and this is as close as you can get.


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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