In yesterday's NYT, NASA-affiliated scientist William S. Marshall, wondered why no one seems to care about NASA's discovery of water on the moon.

Almost as surprising as NASA's announcement is the lack of attention it has received. Thirty years ago, a development like this would have been heralded as one of humanity's greatest discoveries.

Marshall hypothesized that astronomers were disappointed because they couldn't see the impact plume and that the rest of us were too distracted by problems on Earth.

Marshall should stick to astrophysics.

Mr. Marshall, I was raised on science fiction. Nothing could get me more excited than the idea of real space colonization, even without galactic empires, robot wars, or cute furry aliens. But you and your folks really need to make a better case for a lunar base if you want me to get behind it.

First you tell us that the moon will become "a high-speed transportation hub for the solar system." That's fantastic. A high-speed transportation hub will help clear the congestion on the popular Earth-Jupiter space route. Unfortunately, you haven't made clear why we need so many trips to the solar system, which has frankly turned out to be a pretty boring place. The most happening planet other than earth is a cold sandy virtually airless desert. We should keep exploring the solar system to be sure, but it's pretty hard to get excited about.

Next, you tell us that a lunar habitat is important "for our species' survival":

Humanity needs more than one home because, with all our eggs in one basket, we are at risk of low-probability but high-consequence catastrophes like asteroid strikes, nuclear war or bioterrorism.

It's nice to imagine astronauts chilling in the comfort of their swank moon base while Earth goes up in flames, but let's be serious. A lunar base would not survive a NASA management shuffle let alone a 2012-style apocalypse back home. Yet if we were to somehow build a self-sufficient base that survives on water and moon rock while avoiding solar radiation, we could surely build terrestrial shelters that would survive any bio-nuclear-asteroid catastrophes.

Consider the side-effects of the Apollo program: it drove the development of small computers, doubled the number of doctoral students in science and math in about a decade and marked a new stage in relations between the Americans and Soviets.

So a lunar base will mark a new stage in our relations with who, the North Koreans? Spell this one out for me. As for the technology, sure, developing a lunar base would require us to develop new technology. But if spending money on moon research will indirectly foster new technology, couldn't we just skip the moon part and invest directly in technology research?

No Mr. Marshall, the important difference between 30 years ago and today is not the visibility of any plumes or the number of terrestrial problems on our minds. The difference is that we've been to the moon already, and it's just not that interesting. So if you want to get us excited about space colonization, you need to move beyond gray rock and red sand, beyond doomsday scenarios, and beyond indirect technological advances. You have to give us something to dream about again.

Cross-posted at dagblog

Friday, November 20, 2009. 145 evangelical, Catholic, and Orthodox Christian leaders have signed the "Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience," in which they declared their shared opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. Though only hours old, the declaration has already been declared "historic" by those whose job it is to designate historic declarations. Several reasons were cited for the historic designation of the declaration:

• It is divided into sections with important titles, like "Preamble," "Declaration," "Religious Liberty," and "Life."
• Famous people have signed it, including fifteen Catholic bishops, one Orthodox primate (not the monkey kind), and child psychologist James Dobson.
• It refers to more or less historical things like Christian leadership against Roman infanticide, Christian leadership against black slavery, Christian leadership for women's suffrage, and Christian leadership for civil rights for every human being "regardless of race, religion, age or class." (Hmm, I think that they forgot one.)

While some may quibble with the Manhattan Declaration's historical accuracy, no one can dispute its inherent historicness. In addition, the declaration is also noteworthy for its futureness, envisioning a time when religious institutions will be forced to do really, really bad things by "soft despots." The signers vow that they will follow Martin Luther King Jr. in disobeying any law that would require their institutions to "bless immoral sexual partnerships" or "participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act." The day that those soft despots force the nation's churches to engage in embryo-destructive research will be a dark one indeed, and we owe our gratitude to these courageous religious leaders who are willing to face imprisonment or even loss of tax exempt status for resistance to such immoral hypothetical laws.

Thus does the Manhattan Declaration join the lofty ranks of other proud historic-futuristic declarations like the Declaration of Independence, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Emancipation Proclamation (which while not technically a declaration has been awarded the designation of honorary declaration in light of its declarative qualities). Thank you, Christian leaders, for overlooking your petty theological squabbles to unify against our common enemies: desperate women, homosexuals, and all those judges, politicians, and newspeople who facilitate their immoral practices.

Witness history and sanity unravel in happy unison at my Persecution Politics series at dagblog.com.

Six months ago, I wrote a column decrying President Obama's compulsive bowing before foreign leaders and monarchs. After my editorial onslaught, the administration appeared to take note, and I thought that the matter resolved.

But now, as reported in the headline of the ever relevant Drudge Report, Obama is back to his old bowing games, shaming the nation with his obsessive genuflection. Here he is with Japan's Emperor Akihito, bowing almost to the ground like a shogun-era peasant before a guy whose dad bombed Pearl Harbor. Then he followed up the deep bow by jigglin' his noggin' like a drunken bobble-head to the Empress. These people don't even have an economy anymore!