Build Us a Death Star

If you build it, Darth Vader will come (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Following the re-election of President Barack Obama, the White House started receiving endless petitions, many of which asked for permission for different states to secede from the U.S.

If a petition receives at least 25,000 signatures in 30 days, then the White House is obligated to review and respond to it.

Well, a petition inspired by Star Wars has reached this signature threshold and should hear from the White House soon. The petition asks the federal government to “secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016.”

Of course, the reasoning behind the petition is sound given the current state of the economy: “By focusing our defense resources into a space-superiority platform and weapon system such as a Death Star, the government can spur job creation in the fields of construction, engineering, space exploration and more, and strengthen our national defense.”

I’m not sure how the administration will respond, but it sounds like a good idea to me. After someone gives me my own Millennium Falcon, that is.

To infinity and beyond

Voyager (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

35 years later, Voyager 1 is heading for the stars – Yahoo! News.

I am a sucker for a good science fiction story. And when it’s science fact, I get even more tickled.

After spending 35 years in our solar system, the Voyager 1 spacecraft will make human history by becoming the first man-made creation to venture beyond it.

That’s right, folks. Voyager 1 is going interstellar. And soon, we may have data from deep space to go with all the information the Mars rover Curiosity is gathering on the Red Planet.

This is a momentous time for NASA and America‘s space program. Is it as momentous as landing on the moon? Only time will tell.

All I know is we’re one step closer to me finally acquiring the Millennium Falcon! Star Wars, here I come!

My inner nerd awakes…

Will Curiosity kill the economy?

Late this past Sunday, the Mars Rover Curiosity touched down on the surface of the Red Planet without a hitch. This one-ton, rolling laboratory represents NASA’s first astrobiology mission since the Viking probes of the 1970s and was more than eight years in the making. It now rests on the Martian surface and has already started to beam back interesting and exciting images like this one:

I admit that my feelings about the rover and its mission are rather mixed.

On the one hand, this is an amazing human achievement that resulted from great ideas, hard work, spot-on science and almost unimaginable technology. The 352 million mile trip to Mars took eight months and landing on the planet’s surface involved a complex series of steps to ensure it made it in one piece, which it did. For the next few years—and maybe as long as a decade if its plutonium power source holds up—Curiosity will explore the Martian landscape and beam any discoveries it makes back to Earth. The data we receive should be helpful in developing and implementing a manned mission to Mars sometime in the foreseeable future.

I’m not going to lie. The science fiction buff inside me was thrilled by this news. Aside from believing that “Total Recall” might actually come true—and I of course mean the original, Schwarzenegger vehicle, not the new Colin Farrell remake—it’s pretty cool to think that something humans created is now cruising around a different planet. And every picture Curiosity sends back is more spectacular than the last. I even find myself scouring the photos to see if I can find evidence of some nosy Martian spying on our roving creation. Nothing yet, but I’m still optimistic.

Of course, the flip side of the story—and what bothers me about the whole mission—is that the rover and everything required to get it to Mars cost roughly $2.5 billion dollars, and additional costs could be required later. Although I support NASA and the Space Program, it’s hard to justify spending so much when our current unemployment rate is more than 8% and so many millions of people are out of work. Yes, it’s nice that we have the technology to explore other planets, but what about the planet where we currently reside? I’m certain that $2.5 billion or more could be used to help families survive during these tough economic times. And while thousands of jobs may have been created during the development of Curiosity, I’ve heard that maintaining and monitoring the rover will involve fewer than 800 employees from this point forward. Is it all that important that one of our machines tools around a dusty, uninhabitable planet like Mars while some Americans are starving to death or drowning in debt?

So I’m torn. I love the fact we’re exploring Mars with some success, but struggle with the idea that it’s costing so much at such a bad time for our country. My hope is that someday, we find a way to better manage our finances while also budgeting for things like space exploration. Honestly, though, I can’t see how we can afford to do both, at least until our economy improves.