WHAT'S NEW Friday, May 21, 2004

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 21 May 04   Washington, DC

1. SPACE RACE: HOW FAR IS IT TO THE MOON -- MEASURED IN YUAN?  
China launched taikonaut Yang Liwei into Earth orbit on 15 Oct
03, becoming only the third nation to join that exclusive club
http://www.aps.org/WN/WN03/wn101703.cfm.  In the jingoism that
followed there was talk of space stations, Moon bases and trips
to Mars.  Even in the U.S., President Bush rose to the challenge
http://www.aps.org/WN/WN04/wn011604.cfm announcing a return to
the Moon and on to Mars.  But now, Wang Yongzhi, chief designer
of China's space program, reveals that China's manned space
program has already cost 18 billion yuan ($2.18B).  The Moon is
just too many yuan away; China now plans to build a space station
of their own in 15 years.  According to a Reuters story out of
Beijing, China had expected an invitation to join the
International Space Station.  We have a golden opportunity to
make amends for having blackballed China on the ISS, while at the
same time removing the greatest single obstacle to U.S. space
exploration: just give the ISS to China.  Let the ISS paralyze
China's space program.

2. HOMEOPATHY: DEMONSTRATORS IN BELGIUM RESORT TO MASS SUICIDE. 
A Special Report in the current issue of Skeptical Inquirer looks
into the ultimate protest by a group of skeptics.  They objected
to a decision by the major health insurance companies in Belgium
to begin covering the costs of homeopathy in response to popular
demand.  Depressed by the willingness of the insurance companies
to encourage quackery, the 23 skeptics resigned themselves to
committing mass suicide by drinking a cocktail of lethal poisons
including arsenic, snake venom and deadly nightshade.  To the
horror of the homeopathists, they even increased the potency in
true homeopathic fashion by preparing a 30C solution of the
cocktail.  That means the cocktail was diluted one part per
hundred and shaken, which was then repeated sequentially, 30
times.  All newspapers and TV stations were invited to watch the
death agonies of the 23 deranged suicides, who included a number
of prominent citizens and professors of medicine, "and a few
normal people armed only with common sense."  The media coverage
was excellent, but the suicide attempt was a failure. 

3. SHUTTLE: RETURN-TO-FLIGHT IS RUNNING A LITTLE BEHIND SCHEDULE.
NASA originally hoped to fly the shuttle again by March '04, and
to conduct as many as four missions in 2004.  Now they hope to
fly by March '05.  They don't yet have a system to inspect and
repair the shuttle's heat protection system.  It's like trying to
see if your bald spot is growing.  As a last resort they may have
to rely on spacewalks for inspection, or resupply the ISS using
robotic shuttle missions.  The robots always win in the end.

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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