Recent American and Japanese missions have begun to map and sample the south pole of the moon, since it is currently considered the best candidate for a permanent Lunar base. Here I present a sketch of the south pole, with steps in Lunar base development: On the diagram I describe five steps in base development.
Rough diagram of Luna South Pole development Read More »
Here is an example of an item that we need to develop and test extensively: spinning habitats. Herman Potocnik suggested this system of creating false gravity through spin in 1929, and the ‘wheel-in-the-sky’ space station became a popular motif of pulp sci-fi book and magazine covers in the 1950s. But so far as I know,
Colonizing Luna: from engineering to planning Read More »
Eight years ago I wrote a series of short essays about different elements of a permanent base on Luna. I have just re-posted those essays, back-dated to when I wrote them. Reading them, I am struck by how much has changed in 8 years: the U.S. has retired the Shuttle program, so for the moment
Colonizing Luna: Economies of Risk Read More »
Americans have been deeply divided along political lines in the past: the film Lincoln is all about the brutal factionalism preceding the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. Why is the current Congress so divided and ineffective? I suggest that a major factor is the pattern of urbanization and voluntary self-segregation of households
Congressional deadlock of self-segregated American communities Read More »
In my courses I try to tell the story of urban modernity through a series of sub-stories. One of these is about how the Industrial Revolution happened. In 2012 I explained the Industrial Revolution thus: the key technology of the Industrial Revolution was the steam-engine; the key innovator of the steam-engine was Watt; and the
Watt, innovation, and the Industrial Revolution Read More »
My favorite scene in the Harry Potter series of films happens towards the end of the third film, Prisoner of Azkaban, when the very-unlikable Professor Snape finds the three protagonists at the base of the Whomping Willow tree. He is about to bust them for rule-breaking when Ron Weasley points out that another teacher (Lupin)
Elementary School Teachers and the Apocalypse Read More »
[This is another political-economy posting, but it does not follow the previous postings as a series. After all, this is a blog; just thinking out loud here] This morning I had an epiphany about the changing structure of global production, trade, and prestige-politics in the 21st century. The argument: a shift in governing made intellectual
Intellectual Property as key factor in modernity Read More »
In this post I continue to use historical research to challenge present political rhetoric. Matt Groening paints a vivid picture of a businessman from the 1980s in Futurama. It is satirical, but satire is only so funny because of that disturbing ring of truth in the description of homo economicus and his contemptuous disregard for
How did the ‘political’ get removed from political economy? Read More »
This is the first in a series of postings about political economy. Over the past year I have been teaching about globalization. So I have had to clarify my own understanding of where we got ideas about macroeconomics and the debate between those who want to continue regulating national economies and those who want to
Economic intervention vs. deregulation: empirical comparisons Read More »
Ananda Lee Tan referred me to current critique of environmental discourse: Bill McKibben sounding the Rational-Protestant alarm of Doom & Gloom, and three rebuttals to his argument–not refutations of threat of climate change, but of the finger-wagging rhetoric of McKibben which is so unlikely to motivate the broad spectrum of Americans into adjusting our lives
Making sustainability awesome Read More »