OJAI, Calif. -- Former astronaut Charles P. "Pete" Conrad, who in 1969
became the third man to walk on the moon, uttering an exuberant "Whoopie!"
as he stepped on the lunar surface, died in a motorcycle accident. He was
69.
Conrad, who also flew two Gemini missions in the 1960s and commanded first
Skylab mission in 1973, crashed on a turn Thursday on Highway 150 near Ojai
and died five hours later at Ojai Valley Community Hospital.
Like Glenn, Conrad's passion for space exploration never diminished. In
1995, he formed several companies with the goal of commercializing space.
"He was going back to space as an entrepreneur, trying to create ways for
rockets to launch inexpensively and manage satellites," Mrs. Conrad said
Thursday evening.
NASA selected Conrad, an aeronautical engineer and Navy test pilot, as an
astronaut in 1962, three years after the first seven astronauts were
announced. He piloted the eight-day Gemini 5 mission in 1965, which set an
endurance record in orbiting the earth. A year later, Conrad commanded
Gemini 11, which docked with another craft during orbit and set a space
altitude record of 850 miles.
As commander of the Apollo 12 mission in November 1969, Conrad earned the
distinction of being the third man to walk on the moon after bringing the
lunar module down in the moon's Ocean of Storms ...
When the 5-foot-6 Conrad stepped onto the surface four months later, he
exclaimed with his trademark sense of humour: "Whoopie! That may have been a
small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me."
Conrad and astronaut Alan Bean spent seven hours and 45 minutes on the lunar
surface. Among their tasks was installing a nuclear power generating station
to provide a power source for long-term experiments.
During the 28-day Skylab flight in May-June 1973, Conrad established a
personal endurance record for time in space by bringing his total flight
time to 1,179 hours and 38 minutes. He called his last mission in space the
most satisfying, working to repair the damage Skylab suffered during its
lift-off.
After retiring from NASA and the Navy in 1973, he worked as chief operating
officer of American Television and Communications Corp. in Denver and later
for McDonnell Douglas Corp., the aviation manufacturer.
The Philadelphia native is the third of the 12 original moon walkers to die.
James Irwin of Apollo 15 died in 1991 and Alan Shepard of Apollo 14 died a
year ago.
Conrad, who divorced his first wife, is survived by his second wife, three
sons and seven grandchildren. A son preceded him in death.

Eugene Cernan left the final bootprint that may ever appear on the surface
of our dusty satellite. Yet Cernan has been heralded for far more than this
milestone. He is not only one of the most accomplished of the astronauts—he
journeyed into space three times, on Gemini 9, Apollo 10, and Apollo 17—but
one of the most eloquent in describing his otherworldly experiences.

First Woman On The Moon, a project by Aleksandra Mir, will take place on 28
August 1999. For one day only, heavy machinery and manpower will transform
the flat beach at Wijk aan Zee into a moonscape with hills and craters. The
moon will extend across 300 m x 200 m of sand, beneath the smoke of the
IJmuiden steel industry. The First Woman On The Moon is a performance,
sculpture, environmental art, large-scale entertainment and a playground for
children. The project has been realized through help and sponsorship from
the local community: the local council provided the permits, and the machine
companies, the catering staff at the beach pavilion, hotel owners and the
tourist board all contributed. Locals and internationals, art and non-art
audiences, journalists, feminists and tourists are invited to come to Wijk
aan Zee to bear witness to this event. First Woman On The Moon is being
transmitted out into the world like an historic event, to post offices,
universities, ministries and anyone interested in space travel. The
preparations for the project may be closely followed on Casco's web site in
English, French and Spanish. A map and other tourist information is also
available. For those who will not be able to attend on 28 August, First
Woman On The Moon is above all a media event; just as with the first landing
of a man on the moon, people will ask themselves whether the images they are
seeing and the messages they are hearing are actually real. And as with the
studio-like, flash photography that remained after that event, the
photographic 'remains' of the First Woman On The Moon will have to be tested
on the accuracy of their depiction of the facts.

In her projects Aleksandra Mir investigates the relationship our generation
has with the values and norms of the 'radical' years of the 1960s. Cinema
for the Unemployed from 1997 was a project in which a film programme of both
old and new disaster movies was played at a theatre during office hours
(entrance was free to the unemployed). This was an investigation into the
way unemployment was understood in the 1990s: an unwanted tragedy, or a
conscious choice for freedom. The moon landing of 1969, together with the
Vietnam War, Kennedy's assassination, the Prague Spring and the student
riots, is one of the historic events that shaped this era. Extensive
reporting in the media has led to these public events being engraved on our
collective memory. In a similar way, First Woman On The Moon refers to the
power of the media in the construction of our history.

Labels: design, history, nature, obits, pix, science, space

 
The Danger of Knowing for Sure
Whoo-hoo! Looks like The Ascent of Man DVD is on its way
(Here is a reminder of why I want it - an earlier post about AoM)
A special joint edition of The Millenium Project and Quintessence of the Loon
September 12, 2001



I can remember the first time I saw the image at the right of the screen. It comes from the television series The Ascent of Man and the particular episode was called "Knowledge and Certainty". It shows Jacob Bronowski reaching into a pool of black mud, black because it contains the ashes of people murdered as the result of an insane belief system. In the middle of the 20th century civilisation was threatened as an entire country seemed to go mad, and millions of people died as a result. A new word was invented [OK, no, but hold that off for now.], "holocaust", to describe something which even today almost defies belief - that someone could propose, and execute, a plan to destroy a large part of the world's population simply because they had the wrong genealogy - their parents and ancestors were the wrong sort of human.

Some people thought that Bronowski was making a play on the words in the series title and showing that, as well as an ascent of humankind towards civilisation, there was always the possibility of a descent back into primitivism and savagery. This point was certainly being made, but the main idea was contained in the title of the episode - "Knowledge and Certainty". Bronowski was making a distinction between science and non-science - between knowing something with confidence and knowing something with certainty. The Nazis knew with certainty that they were right. Science, and its handmaiden skepticism, is based on the principle that knowledge is testable and that ideas and beliefs can be rejected and replaced if they can be demonstrated to be wrong or outdated. It is a process of continuous learning. Yes, science can have bad outcomes, but those bad things can be challenged and changed if necessary. When ideas cannot be challenged then learning, improvement and the correction of mistakes are impossible. There is no way back.

On 11 September, 2001, civilisation was again attacked when hijacked aircraft were flown into the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon, and again we were presented with indelible images that will stay in our minds forever. At the time of writing, the people behind this atrocity are unknown, although there are suspicions and clues. For my purpose, however, it does not matter who did this or whether the motivation was political protest, religious bigotry, racism, extortion, whatever. What is important is that the people who did this were absolutely certain that they were right. The hijackers entered the planes in the certain knowledge that not only were they going to die themselves, but that they were going to kill an unknown number of strangers, people who had never harmed them in any way. It must take a special kind of madness to train for months for a suicide mission, to be so absolutely certain about your belief that there is nothing that could change that belief, regardless of the consequences to you or anyone else.

You might say that I am talking about extremes here, just as it would be extreme to use the examples of human behaviour that we have seen over the years in Cambodia, Rwanda, Ireland or the collection of tribes that used to be called Yugoslavia. Yes, they are extremes, but they are all examples of the failure of rational thought. It is not just civil wars, however, that exemplify the problem. Agricultural production was damaged for decades in the Soviet Union because ideology decreed that the science of genetics be rejected, and the same country held on to an inefficient economic system long after its faults and weaknesses had been demonstrated. People are campaigning against the development of an AIDS vaccine because they think the loss of millions of lives is irrelevant when placed against their belief that all vaccines are evil. Others hang on to ancient superstitions and medical systems with no proven effectiveness and proudly state that these things must work because they have not changed for centuries. Countries with enormous natural and human resources are held back by religious traditions which may have been appropriate when armies fought with spears. People have their savings stolen daily by liars who pretend to contact their dead loved ones or who promise miracle cures for incurable diseases.

Skepticism is sometimes confused with cynicism. Skeptics are seen as people who don't want to believe anything. This is incorrect - skeptics, like scientists, are people who just want to be confident that what they believe and know is the most likely thing that accords with reality. Put another way, a skeptic is someone who likes his facts to be correct. It is difficult to change long-held beliefs and it can be distressing to find out that you have an emotional investment in something which is wrong. Sometimes, however, it is just necessary to put away childish things, because there can be real danger in knowing things that just ain't so.

Peter Bowditch
September 2001

It ain't so much the things we know that get us into trouble. It's the things we know that just ain't so.
Some people know that Artemus Ward said this; some people know that Josh Billings said it;
some people know that Mark Twain said it; some people know that Will Rogers said it;
before I looked it up, I knew that Ralph Waldo Emerson said it.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
1 Corinthians 13:11

Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
1 Thessalonians 5:21

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.
Oliver Cromwell, 3 August, 1650

www.ratbags.com/skepticism
Text copyright © 2001 Peter Bowditch



www.ronrecord.com/Quotes/bronowski.html
Jacob Bronowski Quote From the "Knowledge or Certainty" episode from the 1973 BBC series "The Ascent of Man", transcribed by Evan Hunt (extracted)

... It is said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That is false: tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. *This* is where people were turned into numbers ... And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality--this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.

Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known; we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge or error, and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we *can* know although we are fallible ...

Labels: bronowski, history, science, tv

[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 10/17/2003 06:26:00 pm

Sunday, May 18, 2003

 
Changing Climate FAQ
A quick FAQ on the 'myths' propagated to make people feel better about the dangers of changing climate.

UPDATE: Link changed with time.

Global Warming Myths and Facts ( www.environmentaldefense.org/ page.cfm?tagID=1011)
PDF 'More Myths and Facts' (www.environmentaldefense.org/ documents/ 4418_MythsvFacts_05.pdf)

www.environmentaldefense.org/campaign/gw/article.cfm?article=gwmythvsfact

I've heard people say that 'climate change' is being used as a euphemism (an euphemism?) for 'global warming' because it's more generalised and anodyne. They say that global warming sounds scarier.

I disagree. For a start, when there's floods and blizzards and record low temperatures, you hear people say that that disproves the idea of global warming, when it may be evidence for it.

I think calling it 'global warming' is a mistake, people in cooler climates just think, 'hey, that'd be nice'. It's increasing the energy put into the system:
the Highs get higher,
the Lows get lower,
the Drys get drier,
the Winds get blowier,
and whole systems that are balanced get tipped, and who knows which way they'll go?

EXAMPLE: There's some thought that if certain changes happen in the temperature of the atmosphere & water, that the Gulf Stream which carries warm water & air from the tropical part of the western side of the Atlantic to the cool-temperate part of the eastern side will no longer operate. The climate of the British Isles would revert back to that of, say, Norway, instead of being kept closer to that of, say, France.
Whereas a lot of Brits think: 'Warming? Mmmm, nice.'

A few of the other sites discussing this,which give different examples, other aspects & viewpoints:

home.earthlink.net/~brucensara/NonlinearChange.html

Sudden Climate Change?
"When 'climate change' is referred to in the press, it normally means greenhouse warming, which, it is predicted, will cause flooding, severe windstorms, and killer heat waves. But warming could also lead, paradoxically, to abrupt and drastic cooling:

home.earthlink.net/~brucensara/NonlinearChange.html

The New Scientist
Global Environment Report: All you ever wanted to know about climate change

www.newscientist.com/hottopics/climate/climatefaq.jsp

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
Ocean & Climate Change Institute: Abrupt Climate Change
Most of the studies and debates on potential climate change have focused on the ongoing buildup of industrial greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and a gradual increase in global temperatures. But recent and rapidly advancing evidence demonstrates that Earth’s climate repeatedly has shifted dramatically and in time spans as short as a decade. And abrupt climate change may be more likely in the future.

www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/ct_abruptclimate.htm
(This lists links to articles of interest, including a FAQ: Common Misconceptions about Abrupt Climate Change.)

Labels: climate, links, science

[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 5/18/2003 01:31:00 pm

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