Into the Future

By Jerry Pournelle

July 18, 2005

(Into the Future :  Page 1 of 1 )

Column 300

Deep Impact and Lucifer's Hammer

The month began well, with NASA bringing off a triumph reminiscent of the old glory days when we expected everything and got more. NASA's Project Deep Impact wasn't quite like "Deep Impact" the movie, with Robert Duvall brilliantly playing a thinly disguised Pete Conrad, but it was exciting enough, and the fountain of matter spewing from the comet should tell us a lot about what comets are made of. At the moment there's so much dust it's a bit early to tell, but "dirty snowball" (or Hot Fudge Sundae) still seems reasonable. Whatever the answer, we have asked the question properly, and NASA and JPL deserve plenty of credit.

We can also congratulate them on Pathfinder and Sojourner, which continue to operate long past their planned useful lives.

Perhaps the awful times are over. No more sending up probes with part of the team calculating in English units while others insist on Metric, and neither bothering to tell the other; or the probe that locked its landing gear in plenty of time for landing, while another team used the "landing gear locked" as a signal to shut off the engines, thus dropping a Mars Lander from 50,000 feet (or 15,240 meters) onto the surface. I mention these embarrassments not to detract from the latest triumphs, but to remind everyone that without some adult supervision even the smartest people can do some awfully silly things. Just like computers. Also, I confess some gratification when both scientists and science writers talked about Lucifer's Hammer.

Alas, it is also clear that NASA thinks it will take a very long time and a lot of money to return to the Moon, much less go to Mars. As one of my readers put it, every man who has walked on the Moon may well be dead before another goes there. And yet I remember when we had never been there at all, and I was thought mad to say I would live until we got there.

The Future of Weapons of Mass Destruction

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