WHAT'S NEW Friday, April 30, 2004

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 30 Apr 04   Washington, DC

1. NASA SCIENCE: IS THE SPACE AGENCY BECOMING JUST A THEME PARK? 
For a million years our species was confronted with a world we
could not hope to understand.  Now, almost within the span of a
single human lifetime, the book of nature has been thrown open. 
We aspire to solve the great mysteries: dark matter, dark energy,
why there is mass, the big bang, and the origin of life.  We long
to know.  Instead, according to the New York Times, experiments
to unravel these great mysteries have been assigned low priority,
along with anything that has to do with global warming.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/27/science/space/27NASA.html .
This will allow NASA to focus its resources on human exploration,
pandering to a public weaned on Star Trek.  NASA's priorities
will delay real exploration by decades, vastly increase costs,
and put lives at risk.  You might suppose NASA would hold off
until the President's Commission on Moon, Mars and Beyond makes
its report in June http://www.aps.org/WN/WN04/wn041604.cfm .  The
Moon/Mars Commission, was apparently mere window dressing.  The
only appeal open to scientists is to members of Congress.

2. MISSILE DEFENSE: GAO REPORT SAYS TESTS HAVE BEEN UNREALISTIC. 
We started to use interviews with our usual fictitious experts
from the Missile Defense Agency, Puff Panegyric and General
Persiflage, to tell this story.  But we could not invent dialogue
that measured up to quotes in the Washington Post from General
Kadish, Missile Defense Agency director.  Explaining why tests
don't affect plans to deploy: "You can't operationally test the
system, until you put it in place."  We have extensive computer
modeling based on test results, he says.  But How do we know the
models are valid?  "Because they accurately predict the test
results."  Maybe there's a better way.  Why not test the system
against the ISS?  If it works, we immediately free up some of the
$11B promised when ISS and the shuttles are retired.  

3. NUCLEAR WEAPONS: NORTH KOREA NOW REPORTED TO HAVE EIGHT BOMBS.
How many would you like?  When justification was needed to invade
Iraq, the intelligence consensus was that the country bristled
with weapons of mass destruction.  Now, with the Pentagon getting 
ready to deploy a missile defense in Alaska, the Washington Post
reports that the intelligence estimate of nuclear weapons held by
North Korea is about to jump from two to eight.  How do they get
eight.  Well, they know how many fuel rods N. Korea has, so they
calculate how much Pu that could breed.  It's easy, we can
calculate the number of bombs in every country with a reactor.

4. DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS: CONSUMER REPORTS LISTS THE "DIRTY DOZEN."
A cover story in the May issue of Consumer Reports identifies 12
supplements that should be banned, increasing pressure to amend
or repeal the obscene 1994 Dietary Supplement and Health
Education Act http://www.aps.org/WN/WN02/wn010204.cfm .




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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