The devastating earthquake in Chile that killed almost 700 people probably also shifted the Earth’s axis, say NASA scientists, permanently making days shorter by 1.26 microseconds. But since a microsecond is one-millionth of a second, you may not have noticed.

Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, says he has done the calculations. Gross says the earthquake, which measured 8.8 on the Richter scale, moved large amounts of rock, altered the distribution of mass on the planet, and moved the Earth’s axis by about 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters or 3 inches). The change in axis directly impacts Earth’s rotation, and the rate of the planet’s rotation determines the length of a day.

To explain this phenomenon, scientists used an ice skating analogy: When a skater spins on ice, he draws his arms closer in to his body to spin faster, because the speed of his rotation is dependent on the way mass is distributed across his body.

Scientists point out that the duration of a day can change depending on different geological events.

CNN reports:

The magnitude 9.1 earthquake in 2004 that generated a killer tsunami in the Indian Ocean shortened the length of days by 6.8 microseconds.

On the other hand, the length of a day also can increase. For example, if the Three Gorges reservoir in China were filled, it would hold 10 trillion gallons (40 cubic kilometers) of water. The shift of mass would lengthen days by 0.06 microsecond, scientists said.

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Image: iStockphoto

Darth Vader's Starfighter? Not quite. Click for larger. Credit: ESO

That’s what NGC 936 is being called by the ESO, quite fitting I’d say!  Check out their press release below.

The ESO is also reporting there was no damage to any of the ESO observatories, and that is very good news indeed.

The ESO press release:

Glowing in the cosmos at a distance of about 50 million light-years away, the galaxy NGC 936 bears a striking resemblance to the Twin Ion Engine (TIE) starfighters used by the evil Dark Lord Darth Vader and his crew in the epic motion picture Star Wars. The galaxy’s shiny bulge and a bar-like structure crossing it bring to mind the central engine and cockpit of the spacecraft; while a ring of stars surrounding the galactic core completes the parallel, corresponding to the wings of the TIE fighters that are equipped with solar panels.

This galaxy harbours exclusively old stars and shows no sign of any recent star formation. Bars such as that observed in NGC 936 are common features of galaxies; however, this one is significantly more marked than average. Although a perfect symbol for the dark side of the “Force”, it is still debatable whether this galaxy is dominated, like most others, by a large amount of dark matter.

This image has been obtained using the FORS instrument mounted on one of the 8.2-metre telescopes of ESO’s Very Large Telescope on top of Cerro Paranal, Chile. It combines data acquired through four wide-band filters (B, V, R, I). The field of view is about 7 arcminutes.

Our planet is a weird place. I can imagine visiting Antactica, seeing nothing but white ice and gray rocks for days on end… but then, how would you react when you saw this?

Yegads! That is a part of Taylor Glacier, specifically the Blood Falls, located in the dry valleys of Antarctica. Apparently, a lake was covered by the glacier about 2 million years ago, trapping the microbial life inside. They have evolved independently of outside life for all that time, and were discovered due to a few leaks from under the glacier.

The water coming out is red due to iron, and is incredibly salty with almost no oxygen in it. The microbes — 17 different kinds have been found there — must use sulfur as a catalyst instead of oxygen, which has never been seen before.

It’s always surprising when an entirely alien ecosystem is found on Earth. It makes me hopeful that when we start to explore other planets, we’ll find life in splendid and incredible varieties. Nature is clever, vast, and has had a long long time in the lab to experiment. If we can find things so alien in a place so familiar, what will happen when we explore a truly alien world?

Image credit: United States Antarctic Program Photo Library

Check out the latest Carnival of Evolution (with two items from the Loom) over at Mauka to Makai!

See here. We’re honored to be part of such a distinguished list, along with James Hansen, Thomas Levenson, and other writers we admire.

I know mentioning Al Gore, let alone linking to him, is like throwing red meat into the pit of denialists, but Gore’s Op Ed in today’s New York Times is really quite good. I wonder if he reads my blog? He hits a lot of the points I have the past few days… though he doesn’t mention the troglodytes in the South Dakota and Utah legislative bodies.

The only point he makes I’m not sure about is the capping of carbon emissions, simply because I haven’t looked into the issue. One more thing on my to-do list.

Anyway, I will be much amused, I’m sure in a schadenfreudelicious sort of way, about the comments that will ensue below. I know! Let’s make it a game! Score ten points for every comment that makes fun of "Inconvenient Truth" without addressing the content of the Op Ed, 20 points for anyone who clearly didn’t read the Op Ed but comments anyway, 30 points for a comment thoroughly rebutted by science (either previously known or pointed out in a subsequent comment) but ignored by the commenter, and 100 points for someone who comments making fun of Gore’s name. First person to 1000 points wins!

What do you win? A planet 1° Fahrenheit warmer than it was a century ago! Hurray!

“The “Monty Hall Dilemma” (MHD) is a well known probability puzzle in which a player tries to guess which of three doors conceals a desirable prize. After an initial choice is made, one of the remaining doors is opened, revealing no prize. The player is then given the option of staying with their initial guess or switching to the other unopened door. Most people opt to stay with their initial guess, despite the fact that switching doubles the probability of winning. A series of experiments investigated whether pigeons (Columba livia), like most humans, would fail to maximize their expected winnings in a version of the MHD. Birds completed multiple trials of a standard MHD, with the three response keys in an operant chamber serving as the three doors and access to mixed grain as the prize. Across experiments, the probability of gaining reinforcement for switching and staying was manipulated, and birds adjusted their probability of switching and staying to approximate the optimal strategy. Replication of the procedure with human participants showed that humans failed to adopt optimal strategies, even with extensive training.”

Thanks to Rebecca for today’s ROFL!

Image: flickr/Let_Ideas_Compete

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This week’s addition to The Science of Kissing Gallery features the first comic book! This kiss was drawn by artist Benjamin Marra and appears in Night Business. He writes:

In this particular scene we have Leonard Masterson, boyfriend to one of the main characters and soap-opera actor, on the set of his soap “The Lives We Live,” kissing his costar, while taping an episode.

Check out more of Marra’s fantastic artwork here. My personal favorite is the fold-out featured in Rolling Stone.

Submit your photograph or artwork to the Science of Kissing Gallery and remember to include relevant links.

I am off to points unknown putting my Sooper Sekrit Project ™ into action, so I don’t have time for a lengthy post. Instead, go to the 143rd Carnival of Space, hosted at Next Big Future. Space! Astronomy! Science!

“In the quiet town of Springfield, noted for its substandard nuclear power plant and eccentric citizenry, Drs. Julius Hibbert and Nick Riviera frequently come in contact with Springfield’s everyman, Homer J. Simpson, and his family. Homer, who works at the power plant, is known for his love of donuts and Duff’s beer. Like the forces of good and evil battling for the soul of medicine itself, these 2 physicians are polar opposites. Julius Hibbert is an experienced family physician with a pleasant, easygoing manner, while Nick Riviera is an ill-trained upstart who is more interested in money than medicine. Knowing that appearances can be deceiving (and first impressions rarely correct), we explored this question: Which of these 2 physicians should Canada’s future physicians emulate?…The true medical hero for whom we search is Julius Hibbert’s foil, the enterprising Dr. Nick Riviera, an international medical graduate who attended the Club Med School. He practises with an enthusiasm that is matched only by his showmanship. Unfortunately, this has led to 160 complaints from Springfield’s narrow-minded Malpractice Committee, but artists like Riviera are rarely understood in their time. Dr. Nick, as he is known, may be a tad weak on anatomy. “What the hell is that?” he asked after making the incision for Homer’s coronary artery bypass. However, he does possess all the requisite traits for the doctor of tomorrow: he is resource conscious and he gives the customer what she wants… … In these turbulent times, we need a hero to guide us into the next millennium. As a profession, we must shed the dark past embodied by Dr. Hibbert — a wasteful, paternalistic and politically incorrect physician. Instead, the physician of the future must cut corners to cut costs, accede to the patient’s every whim and always strive to avoid the coroner. All hail Dr. Nick Riviera, the very model of a 21st-century healer.
“See you at the operating place!””

Read the full text here.

Thanks to Myrian for today’s ROFL!

Image: Hugh Malcolm/Canadian Medical Association

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At its most general, the word “constellation” refers to a group of celestial bodies which appear to form a pattern in the sky.  Not all familiar, easily-recognized patterns are constellations.  For instance, the Big Dipper isn’t a constellation, although it is (coincidentally) part of a constellation.  The Big Dipper is a “stand alone” pattern called an asterism.

NGC 290 Star Cluster, NASA/ESA HubbleSite

Many people think of the Zodiac when they think of constellations, but that’s fairly limiting.  The Zodiac (used in Astrology) consists of only the twelve constellations that roughly line the ecliptic.  Since 1922, the International Astronomical Union has recognized 88 constellations.  The ancient Greeks were familiar with more than half of these, and some archaeologists now believe that our ancestors were depicting on cave walls the patterns they saw in the night sky some 17,000 years ago.  While it’s not possible to know what meaning (if any) prehistoric man attributed to these patterns, the drawings themselves are believed to have been of religious or social importance.

Path of the point of vernal equinox along the ecliptic over a 6000 year period - Image D.Bachmann, all rights reserved

In early Greek and Roman civilizations, knowing the constellations could prove to be very important.  Before the invention of the compass, the only way you could navigate (by land or by sea) was by studying the positions of familiar celestial bodies; the Sun, the Moon, the stars, the constellations.  Linking the constellations to stories of heroes, villains, monsters, and exciting legends made them more familiar; easier to recognize and remember.  The legends themselves usually contain “add on” stories telling how that particular subject came to be a constellation; for example, Cancer the crab was made a constellation by the goddess Hera, who sent him to distract Hercules while he was fighting the Hydra.  Cancer was stomped to death, but Hera made him a constellation as a reward for his effort and sacrifice.

I’m sure that made Cancer feel tons better about being stomped to death by Hercules.

There are about 35 “former” constellations that, for one reason or another, didn’t make it on the IAU list of 88 recognized constellations.  Some of these are well-known (Argo Navis – as in Jason and the Argonauts), and some not (Machina Electrica – yes, an electric generator).

Bode, Machina Electrica - Image Credit Michigan State University, Physics and Astronomy Dept

Whatever importance we give the constellations in modern science or philosophy, every human culture has them.  Even the Australian Aboriginal culture, the oldest continuous culture in the world, has an astronomical tradition.  We have always looked to the night sky, found our friends, and told stories about their adventures.

This is the website for the International Astronomical Union, linking directly to the page with the chart of all the constellations (the 88 recognized).  It gives you a star chart of each to view, one to download, and boundary coordinates for each constellation.

If you’re interested in reading the stories behind the constellations, this link will take you to Ian Ridpath’s Star Tales.  A very interesting read, and well worth looking over.

A new game may help soldiers in that problematic campaign–winning the hearts and minds of people in occupied countries. The game, developed by the University of Texas and backed by the U.S. Army, gives American soldiers deployed abroad some lessons in foreign customs and cultures. This is the opposite of a first-person shooter game; the Pentagon calls it a “first-person cultural trainer” game.

Air-dropped into foreign lands, soldiers often find themselves at a loss, knowing neither the local language nor the cultural conventions. The new 3D simulation game is intended for soldiers to learn the niceties in Iraq and Afghanistan, where a friendly relations with locals could make the difference between life and death.

Wired reports:

It’s a project that’s been in the works for three years, and uses cultural data provided by the military. The goal of the game is to enter a village, learn about the social structures and relevant issues, and then “work with the community” to successfully finish assigned missions.

The player’s main goal is to avoid alienating or scandalizing the community, and to win people over instead. The player also has to rate the characters he meets on the missions on a scale of four emotions: anger, fear, gladness and neutrality. The game developers have worked to make the characters’ reactions realistic, but the game’s critics still worry that soldiers who learn virtually will fail to understand real cultural cues, which are often more complex and nuanced.

The Pentagon has lately made a serious push into what some call “militainment.” The U.S. military, which spends about $6 billion each year on developing games, had a surprise hit when it created the game “America’s Army” to help in its recruitment process. The game, which can be downloaded for free, tracks U.S. soldiers as they duck and weave through dangerous enemy territory. Players fire AK-47’s and kill the bad guys, but unlike real life, anyone who gets shot in the game can start over. And as Peter Singer points out in a report for the Brookings Institution, 70,000 young Americans signed up for the army last year, but almost 4.7 million people spent Veterans Day playing war at home.

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Image: University of Texas

MILD SPOILERS FOR THE NEW DOCTOR WHO. If you want to remain Whoally pure, then go away.

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I just got word that the new series of Doctor Who will start on BBC America here in the States on April 17. All I know about the UK premier is that it’ll be around Easter (I may know more next week). The BBC confirms that the first three episode titles will be The Eleventh Hour and The Beast Below, both by Steven Moffat, and Victory of the Daleks by Mark Gatiss. Guest stars include Alex Kingston (River Song is back!), Sophie Okonedo, and Tony Curran.

Yay!

The invention of the microscope allowed scientists to peer into the tiniest of cells. Now, imagine a device that can not just look into minute cells, but can also listen in on their activities.

A team of scientists is building a “micro-ear” that uses tiny beads and lasers to amplify and measure vibrations on a molecular scale. The team hopes the new device will become standard lab equipment soon, allowing scientists to listen to the movement of bacteria such as E. coli as well as microorganisms that cause diseases like sleeping sickness [The Daily Beast].

The micro-ear is based on an established technology that uses laser light to measure tiny forces. The “optical tweezers” work by suspending very small glass or plastic beads in a beam of laser light. Measuring the movement of these beads as they are jostled by tiny objects allows measurements of tiny forces that operate at molecular scales [BBC]. The optical tweezer is so sensitive, it can measure a piconewton force, which is a millionth of the force that a grain of salt exerts when resting on a tabletop [BBC]. But unlike the optical tweezer, where one single laser beam measures the forces exerted by tiny objects, the micro-ear would use a circle of bead-bearing laser beams to listen to the object in question.

Scientists say this circle of laser beams can pick up the motion caused by bacteria as they use their flagella to motor forward. That motion causes the ring of electrically-charged beads to wobble by different amounts, and all those wobbles are measured using a high speed camera. That output is then connected to a speaker, so that researchers can hear the bacteria’s vibrations. The device has already picked up Brownian motion, letting researchers listen to atoms and molecules sloshing about in a fluid. The new micro-ear could also help scientists understand how harmful bacteria move, and how drugs can be used to stop them in their tracks.

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Image: iStockphoto

This is totally cool: an animated simulator that lets you make model solar systems! It’s put together by the PhET Interactive Simulations group at — hey! — the University of Colorado at Boulder.

All you have to do is put in the masses, locations, and initial velocities of the objects (up to four) and then hit "go". What you’ll probably find is that for almost any parameters you use, you won’t get a stable system. You’ll fling off the tiny moon, or drop a planet into the star, or collide two planets (when you do, one survives after a brief comical flash). There are preset conditions that will put together a stable simulation, so I suggest you start there and then tweak the numbers. The most fun thing is to fiddle with the mass and see what happens.

You’ll note a slider that says Accurate vs. Fast. That has to do with bin size. Basically, a simulation like this calculates the force of gravity of each object on every other object using Newton’s law. But it needs a time interval to do this: where will all the objects be after some period of time? You can pick that time step, but the smaller the time step the more accurate it will be. That’s because gravity works continuously. If you take the Earth’s current position and velocity and ask where it will be a year from now by just adding a year to the program, it’ll extrapolate the Earth’s current velocity direction! The program will take that velocity (about 30 km/sec) and multiply it by one year, and get a distance of about a billion kilometers. It’ll then place the Earth there. But that’s not right, because the Earth orbits the Sun; the Sun’s gravity is continuously changing the direction of Earth’s motion. So the smaller the time step, the more accurate the program will be.

At least, I think that’s what’s going on here. I’ve fiddled with programs like this before, and that’s what I’ve found. Roundoff error can be bad too; because the program can’t do the calculations exactly — the decimal value has to cut off somewhere — every step has a little bit of error in it. That adds up, and after a few orbits things can go wonky. This one does a pretty good job of that, it looks like.

Anyway, go play god with your very own cosmic erector set. It’s fun, and before you know it a long time will have passed… but you might get a feel for orbital mechanics. It’s worth it.

There are now some 51 comments at the Point of Inquiry forums on the latest show. But so far none are getting into what I found most intriguing in my interview with Mike Mann.

When I asked his views on the “really energized global warming movement on the web” at around minute 31:30, Mann suggested something that has been on a lot of our minds—namely, that although it may appear that online climate deniers are really fired up right now on the web (hence all the comments on everybody’s blog), he suspects some of it is astroturfing:

The anti-science industry has fully exploited the resources made available by the World Wide Web. So it isn’t coincidental. It isn’t like that’s an organic thing that has emerged from grassroots anti-climate change activists….

In the exchange, which runs about 2 minutes, I tell Mann I too have my suspicions, but at the same time, am skeptical and would want to see some solid proof before I fully buy into this idea. After all, there really is a groundswell on the political right at the moment (see the Tea Party movement) and that is surely also spilling over into the climate denial blogosphere. And that would be, I guess, “organic.” So the question is, how could we tell the two apart?

Meanwhile, if you haven’t yet I encourage you to listen to the Mike Mann interview here, and to subscribe to the Point of Inquiry podcast via iTunes.

When it comes to packaging a precious TV or even a pricey vase, mushrooms aren’t the first things that pop to mind as a durable alternative to Styrofoam or cardboard. But a company called Ecovative Design has used mushroom roots, the part of the fungus that’s called the mycelium, as a sturdy material that can be used for packaging. The creators say that the process is so simple, they grew the first samples under their beds.

The first step in creating the packaging, called the “Eco Cradle,” is to grow the thin, hair-like mycelia by feeding them agricultural waste like buckwheat hulls, rice hulls, or cotton burrs.

Discovery News reports:

After about a week or so, tons of tiny white fibers appear. The material is then dried to halt the growing process, creating packaging with impressive durability that is also biodegradable and compostable.

The creators claim the entire process uses about 10 times less energy per unit of material than the manufacturing of synthetic foams–making this fungal product an environmentally friendly option to Styrofoam. They add that the packaging can also be molded into different shapes, providing the best protection for delicate objects. Ecovative says it will start making packaging for two Fortune 500 companies this spring.

While the all-natural material is made from mushroom parts, Ecovative notes that the stuff shouldn’t be tossed into your stir-fry. You could eat it, the company notes in its FAQ, “but it’s non-nutritious and doesn’t taste very good, so we don’t recommend it.”

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Image: Ecovative Design

Less than two months after the earthquake that shook Haiti, and only hours after a quake causing small tsunamis occurred near Japan, the largest of 2010’s seeming barrage of big seismic events hit Chile. The 8.8 earthquake is the fifth largest since 1900. “We call them great earthquakes. Everybody else calls them horrible,” said USGS geophysicist Ken Hudnut. “There’s only a few in this league” [AP].

According to seismologists, the confluence of earthquakes these last couple months are probably coincidental; they’re all separated by too great a distance to be directly related. However, some say the latest quake is related to the 1960 quake in Chile that remains the largest ever recorded, a 9.5 on the Richter scale. Both earthquakes took place along a fault zone where the Nazca tectonic plate, the section of the earth’s crust that lies under the Eastern Pacific Ocean south of the Equator, is sliding beneath another section, the South American plate [The New York Times]. That massive event increased stress on other parts of the fault line, which continued to increase as the two plates converged at three and a half inches per year.

As of this writing, the Chilean death toll has soared past 700 and led to a state of emergency in the country. But despite the fact that the quake carried hundreds of times more power than the January quake in Haiti that killed more than 200,000 people, Chile will probably see far fewer casualties. One difference, experts say, is that Chile’s seismic history has caused the country to enforce stricter building codes than Haiti did. “Earthquakes don’t kill people, buildings kill people” [Wall Street Journal], says David Wald of the USGS. In addition, the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince was only eight miles from the epicenter of its devastating quake. Chile’s major cities were about three times further away.

Luckily, people in the Pacific were also spared a deadly tsunami, which are common with this kind of quake. Unlike the Haiti episode, which was caused by a laterally moving slip-strike fault, Chile’s was a thrust-fault quake, says seismologist David Schwartz, noting that the vertical motion produced by thrust-fault quakes often produces tsunamis. “When they slip, the fault that causes the earthquake breaks the surface, and pushes the water up,” he said. “It pushes an awful lot of water. And that water has to go somewhere” [The New York Times].

It’s still not entirely clear why this quake only generated modest tsunamis–researchers measured a 4-foot water rise in Japan, waves 6.5 feet higher than usual in Tonga, and tsunamis of only 3 feet in Hawaii, where authorities evacuated coastal populations as a precaution. Geophysicist Emile Okal speculates that part of the reason may be that the tsunami was generated in a relatively shallow part of the Pacific off Chile. “Locally this doesn’t change anything,” he said. “But as the tsunami propagates into the really deep water of the Pacific Basin, [the shallower origin] does decrease its amplitude somewhat” [National Geographic News].

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Image: CIA World Factbook

Jane McGonigal thinks they can help. She’s a game designer who gave a talk at the TED conference this year (although her talk isn’t up yet).

McGonigal makes some good points in this short video, especially about how dealing with things in a video-game environment — like failure, or social interactions — can be greatly helpful when one eventually has to deal with them in the real world. She also helped put together Urgent Evoke, a large-scale multiperson game where you collect achievements by performing world-saving tasks.

The kids these days, they love their gaming. So it makes sense to ask how that passion can be put to good use. Personally I’m fascinated by the prospects of using games to teach people science. Not just facts and features of the real world — although those are important — but the scientific method of hypothesis-testing and experiment. Games already feature exactly those features, of course; everyone who figures out the “laws of nature” in the game world is secretly doing science. It wouldn’t be that hard to tweak things here and there so that the techniques they were practicing connected more directly with science in the non-virtual reality.

Over at Universe Today, Nancy Atkinson has written an interesting piece on whether NASA should consider extending the Shuttle program, which is currently planned to end in September of this year (or thereabouts, depending on delays). After that, NASA will rely heavily on private companies to ferry cargo to orbit, and eventually humans as well.

My thoughts on this are already a matter of record: I don’t think NASA should be in the business of doing anything routine, and several companies are gearing up to take over flights to low-Earth orbit (or LEO as it’s called). Space X may be ready as early as late this year for unmanned trips to the space station.

However, no private company has yet made a cargo launch capable of reaching ISS, and there may still be a gap in our ability to get into space. Extending the Shuttle program sounds like a good idea, but I have three concerns: safety, money, and NASA’s ability to extend it.

1) Safety. As far as that goes, I’m no expert, but the people on the blue-ribbon Augustine Commission certainly were. In their report last year to President Obama they said:

However, one option [we examined] does provide for an extension of the Shuttle at a minimum safe flight rate to preserve U.S. capability to launch astronauts into space. If that option is selected, there should be a thorough review of Shuttle recertification and overall Shuttle reliability to ensure that the risk associated with that extension would be acceptable.

In other words, as long as it’s safe, and the schedule isn’t too fast to preclude handling safety concerns, it’s not so bad (and in the UT article, Shuttle Integration Manager Mike Moses agrees). OK, so perhaps that’s an option. However, even so…

2) Money. The Shuttle is very expensive, and there isn’t a lot of money for it in the budget, even if we radically overhaul what the President submitted. I’m not sure I see how we can give money to the private companies so they can develop their tech at the same time we keep the Shuttle running. That would delay the companies’ advancement, which would extend the Shuttle further. That’s a snake eating its own tail.

Still, some folks want to fight to extend the Shuttle in the budget. I had to smile a bit when I read this quote by U.S. Representative Suzanne Kosmas:

President Barack Obama’s budget proposal was not acceptable as is because it would cede the United States’ leadership position in spaceflight in the short term — and possibly the long term.

I disagree with this statement, since within a year we’ll be using U.S. companies to send cargo to the ISS, and humans in three. We already can’t put humans in space all that often with the Shuttle, and once it retires this year (a plan that has been in effect a while now, since the Bush Administration) there will be a long gap before NASA could put people in space anyway. But I also happen to be a tad skeptical about opinions from politicians when their districts include NASA centers. I’m not saying I don’t trust her, but I am saying that the most vocal people I have heard in Congress are from folks who fall into that category (such as Alabama politicians).

However, that looming gap in space capable launches is almost on us. Extending the Shuttle might have traction politically, which means financially. But…

3) Ability. Can NASA even do this? The program has been winding down for some time; even one launch pad has been converted to use by Constellation, which itself may never get past the blueprint stage (I disregard here the Ares 1-X which many consider to be nothing more than a publicity stunt). Lots of workers have been looking for other jobs. And I wonder if the administrative side of NASA would even be able to figure out how to put together another launch or series of launches in time before Space X can start lofting cargo. I’m not clear on how quickly they could turn this around, even if Congress told them "Go" today. And, of course, Congress is not known for being light on its feet either.

So my thinking is that even if it’s safe, and politically expedient, I’m not clear on its worth. It depends on how much it would cost, how possible it is logistically, and if it makes sense to spend a billion or so per launch of the Shuttle when it would be far cheaper to hitch a ride on a Soyuz or three while we wait for industry to catch up.

So I’m not sure how this would work out. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays in Congress, and as it does, I’ll be paying attention.