How likely is NASA to have a safe, effective lunar lander within three years?

The Artemis Program projects the first manned lunar landing in half a century within three years. But, NASA is just sending applications for the design of the landing craft out to corporations at this time. There is no actual lunar lander currently, nor even a specific, accepted design for one. Is it realistic to expect a thoroughly safe and tested lunar landing craft to be developed in such a short period of time? I'm asking economists rather than aerospace engineers, because they would seem to have considerable training and expertise, without necessarily being heavily invested themselves in NASA or this project. Any thoughts?

How likely is NASA to have a safe, effective lunar lander within three years?

The Artemis Program projects the first manned lunar landing in half a century within three years. But, NASA is just sending applications for the design of the landing craft out to corporations at this time. There is no actual lunar lander currently, nor even a specific, accepted design for one. Is it realistic to expect a thoroughly safe and tested lunar landing craft to be developed in such a short period of time? I'm asking physicists rather than aerospace engineers, because they would seem to have considerable related training and expertise, without necessarily being heavily invested themselves in NASA or this project. Any thoughts?

What NASA really has in mind with the Artemis Program

The Artemis program is touted by NASA as the next step in manned space flight. Supposedly, it will be a low cost follow-up, after more than half a century, to the Apollo program. For a tenth the price, a lunar program as intense as the Apollo program can now be pursued, supposedly, anyway, as a result of the "wonderful" new reusable space rockets built by your friend, and mine, Elon Musk. The first woman and the first "person of color" will be landed on the Moon. All very, very politically correct, indeed. And all, of course, very, very, very far from the actual truth, indeed. Disinformation about the manned space program is something of a grand tradition within NASA, of course. The Apollo program was, according to Neil Armstrong anyway, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Actually it was simply one small step for mankind. No one really benefited from it other than the scientists and engineers at NASA. The Space Shuttle program was supposed to make space travel as inexpensive as conventional air travel, because of -- wait for it Elon -- "total reusability". Actually the Space Shuttle was even more expensive than conventional rockets because of reusability. The International Space Station was the first permanent colony in space, the gateway to the New Frontier. Does anyone know any significant benefit from the International Space Station to anyone other than NASA related employees? The really interesting thing about the Artemis Program, if you look into it, is that there are no actual planned manned landings on the Moon, at all. None. The thirty-five billion dollars is to be spent entirely on unmanned missions to survey the Moon and to land pieces of a planned permanent manned lunar base, without actually sending any astronauts there to inhabit it. There is no technology or money to do that. Not yet, anyway. You see, that's why the program's so much less expensive than the Apollo program. No one is actually going to go to the Moon, in the Artemis program. Oh, there are "proposals" to land astronauts on the Moon. Just no money or technology to do it with, at the moment, anyway. And, these things generally take decades to develop, so, don't hold your breath if you're expecting anyone on the moon in the next decade or two. So, in ten years we'll have the makings of a permanent lunar habitat, but, no way to get astronauts there, or to supply them. NASA is hoping that somehow this will inspire people to "take the next step". Best of luck with that, guys!

What if there were no legal restrictions on possession or production of nuclear materials?

Supposing there were no legal controls over the production and possession of fissionable materials -- usually isotopes of Uranium and Plutonium. Any corporation or individual with sufficient resources could devlop and refine fissionable materials with weapons grade potential for the purpose of developing atomic and thermonuclear explosives. I'm not at all convinced we would destroy ourselves. I think the social taboo against using nuclear explosives for destructive purposes is so intense by this stage, that

COVID vaccines facilitate the spread of COVID mutations

This is a very basic point in evolutionary biology. Survival of the fittest, according to Darwin, directly implies that the mass extinction of competing organisms facilitates the survival and spread of any organisms that survive. Hence vaccines that result in the extinction of standard types of COVID, necessarily facilitate the survival and spread of those mutated versions of COVID that are not specifically and directly affected by those vaccines. And, we can see this fact in the very unusual and consistent pattern of COVID infections and deaths. Normally, respiratory diseases peak in the winter, gradually taper off in the spring, and have very low rates in the summer, then progressively become worse in the fall and early winter. In contrast, COVID rates begin to pick up again in early summer. This is because the standard versions of the disease have all been extinguished by vaccines, which provides an open playing field for the development and spread of mutations, which become very dangerous well before normal peak levels normally occur in the winter. As soon as the disease is almost wiped out, the mutations begin to explode, and by early summer they are extremely active, with no natural or artificial immunity to oppose them. This is not to say with certainty that there aren't any benefits from the vaccines. But, they are causing problems, as well. Over-medicating can be as bad, or worse, than under-medicating. As we know from excessive use of antibiotics, mutations can result from overmedicating that are much more dangerous than the original disease, and are medication resistant. Natural immunity is broader spectrum than any vaccine can provide. We may need to consider the possibility that increasing the strength of our natural immune systems is a better approach to dealing with COVID than overreliance on artificial vaccines.

Is Elon Musk's "Starship" going to keep blowing up?

This isn't a rhetorical question. I'm actually not sure what the answer is. I suspect Elon isn't either, actually, in this particular case. You see, he's building a rocket twice as big as any ever built before. So, to some extent, this is uncharted territory. Elon doesn't really know, and can't really know, whether what he's trying to do is really practical or not. It's perfectly possible that the limits of this particular technology -- liquid fueled rockets of the type perfected by Werner von Braun in the early 1940's for the Nazis -- have been exceeded, and this big a rocket cannot, and never will be practical. Or, it may be that this is just a glitch, or a kink, that can be worked out, in time. Personally, I rather hope it keeps blowing up. The technology is inherently limited. Once we accept this fact -- that liquid fueled rockets are not humanity's future -- we can move on. Probably to nuclear powered rockets. Personally, I think we should give Project Orion another try. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion) Little A-bombs and H-bombs could almost certainly be used to power spacecraft in deep space. Now, of course, these nuclear explosives are still very expensive. But, surely, if the government monopoly on nuclear explosives were broken, and we let the "magic of the marketplace" apply, these costs could be dramatically reduced. All we need to do, is let entrepreneurs like Elon Musk mass produce H-bombs, and we could probably build real starships! And, after all, Elon's only stoned on meth about half the time, so, what could possibly go wrong? This is the true future of humanity! It's like Albert Einstein said: "When you ask simple questions, and answers are also simple, you know you hear God thinking."

What if the Napoleonic Wars had been fought with the same savagery as the Thirty Years War?

About 10% of the total population of Europe was exterminated in the Thirty Years War, about eight million people. In the most critical areas of Germany where the Thirty Years War was fought, population dropped by 50%. In other words, genocide was the standard approach to warfare in the Thirty Years War. As following the Black Death centuries earlier, total European population dropped following the Thirty years War, from the previous century. In contrast, total losses from the Napoleonic Wars, 150 years later, out of a much larger population base, with a much higher degree of industrialization, much larger armies, and deadlier military technology, were perhaps three million people. Why were the Napoleonic Wars so much less deadly than the Thirty Years War? The Napoleonic Wars lasted almost as long as the Thirty Years War. Humanity's capacity for destruction was clearly much greater. Historians note that following the Thirty Years War, European nations deliberately avoided total wars of annihilation. In particular, annihilation of civilian population, was generally avoided, if possible, and if convenient. The Thirty Years War probably represented a watershed in terms of the ability of invading armies to quickly, readily and easily annihilate civilian populations. Portable heavy cannons and artillery, convenient hand held firearms were making sieges of towns and fortresses much easier and quicker than they had ever been before, in human history. And, once subdued, these technologies made it very easy to kill human beings en masse. So, that's exactly what invading armies did. They killed everybody. Literally, everyone. Up to a point, the religious nature of the wars provided a rationale for that. The enemy where heretics, and heretics had to be condemned to death to purge their eternal souls and save them from eternal hellfire. But, when you come right down to it, most people would exterminate everyone else on the planet, given the chance. So, really, this behavior simply represented the fact that our technology had finally caught up with our natural aspirations. However, there is a downside to exterminating all your enemies -- that is, everyone else, other than yourself. First of all, everyone else is very likely to do the same thing, to you. So, you won't be around to enjoy your triumph, probably. Also, with everyone dead, and everything destroyed, there really isn't much to enjoy yourself with, is there? And, this is what the "victors" noticed, at the end of the Thirty Years War. There wasn't anything, or anyone, around, to really "win". So, the nations of Europe decided that however appealing exterminating all your enemies might be -- genocide, that is-- and however possible it might be, ultimately, it doesn't achieve anything very useful, at all. So, European nations decided not to do that anymore. Genocide, that is. As a standard method of warfare, anyway. And, to a large extent, they haven't really engaged in this kind of systematic destruction of civilian populations en masse, since. From time to time, yes, for practical reasons -- Sherman's march to the sea, in the American Civil War, for example -- or on whim, with a particularly disliked group like Hitler did with Jews and Gypsies. But, as a standard approach -- "Hey, we've taken the city, time to kill everyone in it" -- no, not really. Doesn't work very well. So, although the Napoleonic Wars were certainly total, industrialized wars, just like the Thirty Years War, or, perhaps, much more so, they were, actually, much less destructive. Because, total war or no, European nations did not see any purpose at all to going back to exterminating all civilians they could get their hands on, any chance they got. Nobody won, then, ever. This may have some relevance to nuclear warfare. After all, when the U.S. first got hold of nuclear weapons, they used them the first chance they got, and loved the results. Total Destruction! Wow! Great! Then they thought about that a bit. "Hey, if we could destroy them totally, why, by God, somebody else could destroy us totally, too!" Not good, that. So, the U.S. decided they'd rather not use them again, if possible. They thought about it, during the Korean War, but, decided against it. Possibly because the USSR had nukes, by then, and they'd probably use them too. And, over time, although nations have threatened each other, they seem most disinclined to use nuclear weapons, ever, even against nations that don't have them, whatever those nations do, or however threatening they may be. Because, ultimately, even national destruction, and personal death, really aren't as bad as destruction of the entire human species, are they? But getting back to the Napoleonic Wars. Suppose, Napoleon et al. did decide to do it the Thirty Years War way. Kill any and all civilians you can get your hands on, every chance you get. So, let's say some 50 million dead out of a total European population of 150 millions. A third of the total European population. I think this would have been perfectly possible, if they'd really wanted to do it that way. Effectively, continental Europe would be thrown back a century. Britain would be totally dominant, as the only untouched region. Probably, Britain would have been powerful enough to reconquer America, and establish a truly universal world empire. It might have lasted for centuries. Any thoughts?

What if Ronald Reagan, Margret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II hadn't decided to destroy the Soviet Union to end the "Cold War"?

As late as 2005, scholarly books were being written and published extolling the extraordinary virtues and prophetic gifts of the great Western leaders who brought the Soviet Union to its knees. After all, the West "won" the Cold War. That proved, for all time, that the West was superior, and always would be. Never again would dictators threaten the world. Never again would the world be threatened with the possibility of nuclear war. It had been proven, for all time, that "democracy" was the proper system of government for the entire world, and that Capitalism was the proper economic system. Communism was dead, because Communism didn't work. Now, these books were still being written just a few years after the schizophrenic seventeenth son of a wealthy Saudi construction contractor managed to almost singlehandedly bring the entire U.S. to its knees in 911. And, after the U.S. had involved itself in two unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, respectively. However, just a few years later, with the rise of Vladimir Putin, and increasing aggressiveness in Communist China, it was becoming quite clear that Communism was far from dead, and that the collapse of the Soviet Union had led to precisely what most people had always said that it would -- increasing world instability and increasing danger of nuclear confrontation, worldwide. Indeed, many American leaders were already regretting the demise of the Soviet Union, and looking wistfully back to the comparative stability and predictability of the Soviet regime. The fact is, the contemporary Communist-Capitalist distinction is simply a restatement of the distinction between centralized and decentralized social systems, a distinction that is quite literally as old as time. And, neither is necessarily better than the other. Sometimes centralized systems work well, and sometimes decentralized systems work well. Depends on situation and circumstances. Now, I'm not disputing that the USSR was on the wrong track for sure, by the 1980's. Among other things, its leaders had no idea what they were doing, at all. So, there was certainly going to be some kind of a readjustment. However, I think it's likely that the attitude of Ronald Reagan, Margret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II did have something to do with the fact that the USSR not only lost Eastern Europe, but also lost so much of its territory, that Russia had controlled for centuries. So, let's suppose that these "visionaries" didn't set about destroying the USSR, as their primary goal. How would this have changed things? Would Russian territorial integrity have been maintained? Would this have been a good thing for the world?

Why do we need a distinct subspecialty of Theoretical Physics?

All sciences use theories and models. Some of these theories and models have limited very specialized application within the field, some have extremely broad implications -- e.g., Darwin's Theory of Evolution in Biology, Freud's psychosexual theories in psychology and psychiatry, Karl Marx's Dialectical Materialism in Economics, Quantum Mechanical electronic orbital analyses in Chemistry. However, Physics would appear to be the only science in which Theoretical analyses are given the distinction of being a unique subspecialty in which professionals make a career of specifically, and exclusively developing theory as an end in itself, and as a means of advancing knowledge of natural science in itself, with or without experimental justification or foundation. Why is this the case? Why is it necessary? Why should the objects of study for physicists require and/or benefit from theoretical analysis in the absence of experimental foundation more than in any other science?

A Communist invasion of South Korea may be imminent

The assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe seems a bit odd, somehow. I mean, the Japanese don't use guns. Even criminals don't tend to have guns, in Japan. It's not a gun culture. Also, the Japanese haven't really had political assassinations since the 1930's, when the military took over the country. It's a very stable society, very respectful of authority in general. Also, the population in Communist China was dancing in the streets over Shinzo Abe's murder. He was a militarist, a Japanese Hawk. And, the Chinese still remember what happened the last time there were hawks running the show in Tokyo. Possibly as much as 10% of the total Chinese population exterminated by the Japanese Devils, from 1937 through 1945. Indeed, the Communist Chinese government actually told the people to stop dancing in the streets over Shinzo Abe's assassination. It was bad manners, you know. Not good for international relations. Not good, at all. Still, that doesn't entirely rule out the possibility that Chinese military intelligence might have had something to do with Shinzo Abe's death, does it? After all, they're not likely to brag about it. And, no doubt, they're perfectly capable of covering their tracks, and not leaving any fingerprints that might tend to incriminate them. The timing seems a bit coincidental with all the threats and counterthreats flying between Beijing and Washington, regarding Taiwan, the war in Ukraine etc. Is it at all possible that the Chinese might be trying to send a little message, here? Like "get the Hell out of our faces, or you'll wish you had!" During the Korean War, just prior to full scale Chinese intervention there, Chinese forces made limited small scale assaults on American forces moving up towards the Chinese border. They were trying to get the Americans to stop. Is the assassination of Shinzo Abe anything like that, by chance? I think we've reached a point where nuclear weapons are totally unusable. It's not just MAD, mutually assured destruction. It's that any use of nuclear weapons at all, ever, against anyone, might lead to an escalating pattern of use of such weapons, that, ultimately, would exterminate the human species. And, no one really wants that, do they. So, it's just a matter of who has the best conventional weapons, and who has the best disciplined armies. We can have all the conventional wars we want, again. And, may the best nation win! Now, the Chinese definitely believe they are a better nation than the U.S. is. So, why not simply drive the U.S. off the Asian mainland, in South Korea? What's stopping them? What a great opportunity to get the U.S. out of their faces. And, I don't think there's any question that combined Chinese and North Korean forces would totally crush the U.S. and South Korean forces there. The 8,000 artillery pieces trained on Seoul would annihilate the South Korean capitol in days. And the communists could just roll in. Just like the Russians are doing in Ukraine.

Elon Musk is the happy father of twins

I'd always wondered what the Neuralink company was for. I mean, it didn't make any sense at all. Neural implants -- which don't work -- to cure a disease -- Autism -- which doesn't really exist. Naturally, it's been a total disaster financially. But, now we really know, what it was all about. It was all about getting Elon Musk another cute "squeeze" under his control economically. And, now he's even had twins with her. This is really playing the world's oldest profession in a particularly upscale way -- "senior executive" -- BBWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!!!! The thing is, if Elon's willing to found entire dysfunctional companies merely to acquire cute prostitutes as their "senior executives", what exactly are the limits to his capacities for exotic sexual harassment? Is there any woman, anywhere in his vicinity that he wouldn't see as being subject to purchase? Is there any woman, anywhere in his vicinity that he wouldn't attempt to purchase? Is there any woman, anywhere in his vicinity, that he hasn't attempted to purchase?

What's the best bet for a fundamentally new energy source from physics?

Antimatter doesn't look particularly promising. There just isn't enough of it, anywhere, as far as we can tell. Controlled nuclear fusion looks like a problem of not being able to have your cake and eat it too -- we can't get commercially viable levels of energy production from nuclear fusion without creating, effectively, a dangerous nuclear bomb. Antigravity won't be practical unless gravitons exist, and we don't know that they do. So, what really exciting fundamentally new sources of energy does physics present to us on the horizon? Anything?

What if use of nuclear weapons really was, literally and actually, "unthinkable"?

What I mean here is a bit different from the Cold War scenario, in which Russia and the U.S. were extremely reluctant to use nuclear weapons because of the threat of mutually assured destruction. What I mean is a bit more like an instinctive inability to use nuclear weapons, regardless of immediate consequences. Because of some perception of the likely long term consequences -- annihilation of the human species. So, whether or not we feared immediate annihilation, we would fear long term consequences of a similar type, making it psychologically impossible to use nuclear weapons. Now, we can know what's going on in our own minds. But, not other people's. So, although we might know that we would never use nuclear weapons, we could never know with certainty that other people would not. So, even if no one could possibly use nuclear weapons, they probably would still be built, to use mutually assured destruction to be doubly sure. So, suppose that following the atomic bombings in Japan in 1945, everyone on the planet conceives, quite suddenly, that these weapons must never be used again. I think they still would be built. And, I think the H-bomb would still have been developed. However, the instinctive certainty that they could never be used again, would have changed things. The U.S. would be aware that its monopoly of the A-bomb gave it no real security. Hence, there would be less of an American demobilization after 1945 in Europe. The U.S. would feel the need for substantial military forces to balance off the Soviets. In China, the U.S. forces would become directly involved in the fight against Mao Zedong and the Communists. With no real nuclear deterrent, the U.S. cannot accept a communist China. The U.S. would be defeated, eventually, with massive losses in China, leading to an early decline in U.S. power in the world. Russian and Chinese communists would become dominant in the world by the mid 1950's. All of Indochina goes communist by 1955. A buildup of Western European military forces maintains an uneasy balance against the Soviet forces in Eastern Europe. In most ways the world's development parallels OTL, but, with less U.S. power, and more Communist Russian and Chinese power.

Is the ultimate government agenda of antiabortion policies the mass sterilization of women?

As a general rule, governments have minimal interest in individual rights. Individual rights are not what governments are about, after all. Governments are about power, control and long term social trends. The individual as such is only significant to governments insofar as as he/she is useful to government leaders in terms of their long term agendas. Hence, we should be extremely skeptical about any government policy couched in terms to suggest a deep concern for individuals. In particular, we should be very deeply skeptical about governments presuming to protect the rights of the unborn. After all, in most cases these unborn entities scarcely resemble people at all, and are of no apparent use to governments. And, also, governments claiming a deep respect for religious rights generally are only interested in these religions insofar as they are of use to them. So, any religious strictures on abortion rights would only tend to interest government leaders when these religions proved to be of political use. In Communist China, the government actually has, at times, instituted mandatory abortion policies in order to curb overpopulation. And, overpopulation is definitely public enemy number one in most parts of the world, currently. Overpopulation threatens government power through social instability, crime, depletion of limited resources, mass starvation, war etc. So, it seems particularly puzzling in the U.S. at this time, to see such a strong tendency to curb abortion. Generally, this is couched in terms of protecting the rights of the unborn, or protecting religious rights, but, this is probably pure hypocrisy, something that government leaders are very good at indeed, particularly in the U.S. The U.S. Supreme Court has asserted that protecting women's abortion rights is "unconstitutional" -- somehow, the Supreme Court sees "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" as enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, for women, as in no way being inconsistent with women being legally compelled to bear the children of their rapists. Many, including myself, would see this as simply ridiculous. So, what exactly is going on here? Bear in mind, because of the emphasis on open public discourse in the U.S., and comparative freedom, virtually the only way to compel anyone to do anything is by very systematic disinformation. So, let's assume that in the U.S., like most places on the planet, overpopulation is a deep concern. But, in general, women still want to have the ability to bear children. In the U.S. forced abortion to reduce overpopulation would be considered an intolerable restriction on human rights. So, why not, instead, put forward a supposed defense of human rights, that effectively forces women to self-sterilize, in order to avoid the intolerable situation of being forced to bear unwanted children? If women are forced to bear any and all unwanted children by law, might this not be sufficient to compel a very significant portion of the female population to self-sterilize, hence yielding a very real reduction in the production of children that the government does not want or need? And might the U.S. government claim that it was defending the rights of the unborn and religious rights, and defending the U.S. Constitution, in doing so? You bet they would! Now, it is said that we should never believe anything the government says, until they officially deny it. Wise words. So, possibly the question should be put to SCOTUS: "Is the ultimate government agenda of antiabortion policies the mass sterilization of women?" And when they say, as they certainly will, "No, of course not!", then we will know that it is true.