Not cool, moon.

I’m being tormented by a heavenly body. I wish I could say that Jessica Alba has been tickling me constantly, but no such luck. It’s just the moon. Yep, Luna has been finding ways to make my life miserable.

We recently upgraded from Hillbilly style newspaper window coverings to ultra deluxe roller blinds. They were cheap and a snap to install, what with my mad handyman skills and awesome power drill.

But, as with any recessed curtain that doesn’t conform to micrometer tolerances, there’s a small gap on either side in between the fabric and the window frame. This gap, small though it may be, is like a red rag to a bull for the moon. It’s able to reflect sunlight over a distance of about 385000 km into a 2-3mm gap right onto my pillow, which is where I usually put my head when I’m trying desperately to sleep. 2mm over that distance is mind-bogglingly accurate.

Also, we have a wide but short window above our bed. Between the eves and the house next door there’s a tiny gap where if you put your head in just the right spot you can see the sky. That spot, again, happens to be my pillow, and I’m sure that the moon has been changing orbit so that it parks itself directly in front of that gap. It’s like being woken up by high-powered spotlights.

But the other night the moon found a third way to exploit the law of maximum inconvenience. We have a spare fridge in the garage, and I’m always wailing on Suzanne and the kids to “shut the freakin’ door” when you’ve finished getting drinks out. The other night, as we’re about to go to bed, Suzanne orders me into the darkened garage and says “Look at that. LOOK!” There was a thin sliver of light shining onto the garage door, perfectly placed so that it seemed to be coming from the fridge. “You left the door open!”

“No way,” I thought. I’m never that tardy. I’m the one who closes doors and turns off lights. I’m the only one who can be relied upon to maintain order in this chaotic household. I couldn’t have left the fridge door open, it’s such a rookie mistake.

Sure enough the door was closed. But where was the light coming from? Sure enough I looked back out through the darkened house and saw the laughing, taunting face of the full moon on the horizon. It had found the tiniest gap through the rear houses, clear through three doors inside the house and onto the garage door. It had conspired against me again and taken advantage of Suzanne’s desire to catch me out at my own game.

Curse you, moon!

STS-135, the last in a long ling of Space Shuttle missions, takes off in less than 12 hours time. I have mixed emotions.

On one hand, it’s sad to accept that NASA will, at least for a time, have no manned space capability. They simply won’t be able to launch their own astronauts into space and will be completely reliant on Soyuz. It’s also sad that Obama overturned the one good thing George W Bush did in office when he scrapped NASAs future manned missions. America has different priorities, I suppose. For example, The US spends more on air conditioners for their troops in the Middle East than they do on NASAs entire budget.

On the other hand, I’m kinda happy that the Shuttle is being retired. Coming out of the Apollo programs of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s a need was identified for a reusable manned orbiter that could shuttle astronauts, experiments and equipment into low earth orbit.  The premise for this need was to reduce the exorbitant cost of the “one and done” space capsules of earlier NASA programs. But at $500 Million per launch, it was anything but cheap. And the turnaround time was designed to send dozens of missions into orbit yearly, but that schedule was certainly never delivered. The money spent to maintain the Shuttle program has cost many other unmanned and scientifically significant missions their own chance at success.

So we’re left with an fairly impotent Space Administration with no real goal to aim for, and no foreseeable future perhaps until changes are made to US foreign policy which might free up some cash.

All the Space Shuttles, except Enterprise

You know, as much as I’ve derided Twitter over the last couple years, it really isn’t all that bad now that I’ve started using it.

Granted, since Twitter is the world’s largest intellectual toilet bowl, you do get a lot of shit. But you occasionally get gems like these:

Yep, that’s Mike Finke who, like any regular traveler at an airport, whipped out his device and Tweeted that he’d arrived (I can’t believe I just used that word…. “Tweeted”). Only this wasn’t from gate 17 after a 14 hour flight across the Pacific… it was from the Kennedy Space Center after a two week mission on the Space Shuttle! Astronauts are just like everyone else, I guess.

And this is Ron Garan, part of Expedition 27/28 on the International Space Station which STS134 was visiting. He watched the landing From Spaaaaaace!

Also, I’ve been retweeted twice in a row. Here’s my latest after watching the Canucks get humiliated in Boston:

Retweets certainly get around fast.

Too bad for Luongo, one of the heroes of Team Canada in the Vancouver Olympics. Series is now tied at 2-2 (at the time of writing this) as they head back to Vancouver. I hope they win. I need a new Vancouver jersey to replace my old one to commemorate. It’s the only current Canadian team I don’t have.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of of the first manned space flight by Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, Soviet pilot, cosmonaut and hero.

This article is a good biography on Gagarin, giving some insight into his childhood, his upbringing and his motivations.

During the course of training, Gagarin had shown that he was the most flexible and adaptable to command — and to surrounding circumstances. He knew how to fit in – yet stand out. He had a chameleon-like ability to adapt physically and mentally to every situation – and to maintain lines of communication with the parallel structures. He was quick on the uptake, capable of improvising the proper response and meeting people’s expectations.

This article from Forbes says that all going well, by December 2012 a bunch of Israeli scientists will have landed a probe on the Lunar surface thereby making “the Jewish State the third nation (after the U.S. and Russia) to land a probe on the moon.” The story may confuse some people or lead them astray due to some subtle American linguistic imperialism. Israel may in fact be the third, but only after the Soviet Union and the US, not the other way around. The Soviets landed first, with Luna 2 in 1959. It wasn’t until Ranger 4 in April 1962 that the US reached the moon.

Funny thing is that after July of this year, the US will be incapable of launching their own astronauts into orbit. Only Russia’s Soyuz will remain.

Been getting a few hits on this page from people searching for “Pale Blue Dot”. Something must have been televised a few nights ago and Carl Sagan’s words must have inspired a few people the same way I was inspired as a youngster.

Today is the 53rd Anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1. It was a spherical satellite of modest size and weight, yet the seemingly innocent beeping it emitted was enough to invoke mass hysteria in the West.

Let’s compare Sputnik to the current state of the art in Space Exploration, the International Space Station.

Sputnik 1	ISS
Built by: Soviet Union	Involved partners: USA, Russia, Canada, Japan and 11 participating ESA Countries
Mass: 84 kg	Current mass: almost 400 tons
Dimensions: 39cm radius sphere with four 2.5m antennae	Current dimesions: 50m x 110m x 20m
Total orbits: 1440	Current orbits completed: more than 68000
Crew members: 0	As of October 4, 2010, 195 individuals have visited ISS, including the three current Expedition 25 crew members. NASA astronaut Frederick W. Sturckow has visited four times while 15 people have visited three times, and 66 people have visited twice.
Total cost: nobody really knows, since it was a military mission.	Estimated cost: ranges between 35 and 160 Billion dollars, making it the most expensive object ever created
Payload:instruments capable of measuring the thickness and temperature of the high upper atmosphere and the composition of the ionosphere. Also, a radio transmitter than went “beep, beep, beep”	Facilities for research and experimentation in Human Research, Biology, Biotechnology, Physical and Materials Sciences, Earth and Environmental Science, Education

In between these two marvels, we’ve seen craft carry dogs, monkeys, and men into orbit. We’ve seen them land on the moon, Mars, and Venus. They’ve intercepted asteroids and comets, and have scurried through Lunar and Martian dust. Telescopes like Hubble and Chandra have gazed into the far reaches of the universe. Next year, a Russian/Chinese mission will be launched to return samples from Phobos. It’s inspiring and breathtaking living is these times of discovery and wonder.

I’ve been watching the Star Wars saga with the kids over the last couple weeks, starting with A New Hope through to Return of the Jedi, and starting again with The Phantom Menace through to Revenge of the Sith. You know, the way the maker intended.

Seeing them all one after the other has been very entertaining and refreshing, and has reinforced the reasons I love Star Wars.

Let’s get this straight: Star Wars is the story of Anakin Skywalker. Sure, there’s lots of other characters including heroes and villains. Even the most obscure characters have their own legion of fans, for instance Bespin’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-him “Ice Cream Maker Guy”. But take away Anakin Skywalker (and therefore Darth Vader) and you have nothing. Star Wars would be a mere shell of a story with no real beginning, no middle and certainly no ending.

But, worthy of mention and indeed of study is the story of the rise of Emperor Palpatine, including the downfall of the Republic and the inception of the First Galactic Empire. As we shall see, Palpatine applied some very simple rules in order not just take power, but to have the power given to him.

Two books I read a while ago and still own are “None Dare Call It Conspiracy”  by Gary Allen, and “The Unseen Hand” by Ralph Epperson. Both fascinating reads. Allen’s book is a basic introductory guide to conspiracy theory but in the 21st century now seems outdated and simplistic. Epperson’s book is more detailed and broad. Both books should still be taken with a grain of salt, but they’re still worth a read. Epperson’s premise is that given all the awful historical events (wars, governmental policies etc) that happen despite governments being expected to prevent them, there are two explanations that these events still happened:

1) The events overwhelmed them, and could not have been prevented; or

2) The events were allowed to occur because the officials wanted them to occur.

Granted, Palpatine and the Galactic Empire are fictitious but the methods he used in his rise to power aren’t completely unbelievable. Epperson quotes a 1951 book by Jan Kozak, who details a five part program to seize control of a government, and illustrates how a slight variation of this program was used by Adolf Hitler. Yes, I Godwinned my own article.

The program goes like this:

1) The first step consisted of having the conspiracy’s own people infiltrate the government (the “pressure from above”)

2) The second step was to create a real or alleged grievance, usually through either an action of government of through some situation where the government should have acted but didn’t

3) The third step consisted in having a mob created by the real or alleged grievance that the government or the conspiracy caused demand that the problem be solved by a governmental action (the “pressure from below”)

4) The fourth step consisted in having the conspirators in the government remedy the real or alleged situation with some oppressive legislation.

5) the fifth step is a repeat of the last three.

Examining the first three movies of the Star Wars Saga, we know that Palpatine started off as a Senator in the Galactic Republic, representing Naboo. He was careful not to advance his career too quickly, content to be seen as a petty and small provincial and mostly flying under the radar. The first step of infiltrating the existing government had been achieved.

Palpatine used his Sith Lord alter ego, Darth Sidious, to create a crisis between the Trade Federation and his home planet of Naboo. Revealing himself as a Sith Lord to the Nemoidians, and making it quite clear that he held some power over the Senate, he orchestrated a blockade and invasion of Naboo requiring intervention. Step two, the real or alleged grievance, was in play.

This is where Palpatine’s path from the described method varies a little. As we see in The Phantom Menace, Sidious was surprised and disappointed that the Jedi were involved so quickly by Chancellor Valorum in this struggle and it upset his plans. Knowing how the Senate operated and that they would be bogged down in negotiations, innuendo and bickering about the allegations against the Trade Federation, he manipulated the young Queen Amidala into moving for a Vote of No Confidence in Chancellor Valorum. Unfortunately for Palpatine, Amidala ultimately succeeded in taking back control of Naboo, and he’d lost his apprentice, Darth Maul, to the Jedi but by the end of The Phantom Menace, Palpatine had succeeded in replacing Valorum as Chancellor.

If Palpatine was going to take control of the entire galaxy, he needed a way to enforce the control. But the Republic had never possessed or needed an army. He needed a way to get this army, so as Darth Sidious and with the aid of his new apprentice Count Dooku he created a Separatist Movement. Dooku united several commercial organizations and star systems to revolt and form a Confederacy. These pledged their armies to Dooku, and made the Confederacy a threat able to overthrow the Republic which would never allow the creation of their own army. Simple-minded Jar Jar Binks was manipulated into moving for a vote to give emergency powers to Palpatine, which Palpatine “reluctantly” agreed to. His first act with this new authority was to “create a Grand Army of the Republic to counter the increasing threats of the Separatists”. This army had already conveniently been created on Kamino. The third step in subverting the government was complete: the senate begged Palpatine to solve the Separatist threat (the real or alleged grievance) by governmental action.

The fourth step was to conduct the Clone Wars, playing both sides. Eventually the army was told to execute “Order 66″, a secret command to exterminate the Jedi. Remember, the Clones were loyal to Palpatine, not the Republic. He rinsed and repeated the steps to create the First Galactic Empire to the thunderous applause of the Senate after demonstrating that the Jedi were the enemy. He used a variation on these steps to seduce Anakin to the Dark side, offering his knowledge to allow Anakin to save Amidala’s life. He used his new apprentice Darth Vader to assassinate the Separatist leadership to bring peace to the galaxy. Of course Palpatine could bring peace to the galaxy, since he was the one who created the strife! In A New Hope, the Emperor dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic had been swept away. The Galaxy was under control of the Sith with Darth Vader and the Imperial Navy/Army as enforcer and Palpatine alone on the Emperor’s throne.

Could this happen in our own country? In our own workplace? Perhaps in our own families? Has it already happened? Keep your eyes open and see who has the most to gain from strife and why people ally themselves the way they do. Why do these events continually happen? Cue Mr X from the Oliver Stone movie, “JFK”:

That’s the real question, isn’t it – “Why?” – the “how” is just “scenery” for the suckers … Oswald, Ruby, Cuba, Mafia, it keeps people guessing like a parlor game, but it prevents them from asking the most important question – Why?  Why was Kennedy killed?  Who benefitted? Who has the power to cover it up? …

I could watch this for hours. Or at least 45 minutes at a time while the International Space Station is in the sunlit part of it’s orbit. Tito, Shuttleworth, Olsen, Ansari and others each paid around $20M for this view for about 10 days. If I was a brazillionaire, I think this would be money well spent. Just the training alone would be worth the price of admission. I wouldn’t want to be called a “space tourist” though, just too demeaning. I’d prefer “intergalactic space hero” or perhaps just “cosmonaut”.

In a press release from yesterday, NASA indicates that “mission controllers have not heard from the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit since March 22″ and, due to the time of the year “there is a very distinct possibility Spirit may never respond.” Spirit an Opportunity landed on Mars in January 2004. Not bad for what was meant to be a three month mission.