guest log: (...) a giant leap for exploitation

One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.
Destiny has its funny ways: 40 years from that first legendary moonwalk in the year of the much more terrestrial departure of the "moonwalker"...
Two different but strong symbols of one same culture: the american dream, the possibility of reaching the impossible, of physically touching the sky starting from nothing.

The culture also where things are not what they seem. A black man that looks white, an old man that wants to be an eternal teenager. A science mission that nobody will ever remember as scientific but that only served to the purpose of showing the strength not only of a country but of a whole political, economical and ethical system. A mission so similar to a hollywood movie to be surrounded by the myth of a setup.

One giant leap for mankind, but in what direction? It is undeniable that that day the whole western world held its breath and dreamed of whole new frontiers of knowledge and freedom. The movement of the students, then in its most intense and creative years, surely dreamed of a different freedom that seemed only a step away that night in front of the television as well as the next day in the streets with thousands of people.

But there is probably no better symbol than the mission to the moon to relate the exploitation of scientists and of the concept itself of science to a more general defense of a political and economical model. That was not a step for mankind, but a step ahead of the Western block with respect to the Eastern one, not a sign of unity but of division, not of brotherhood but of predominance. And all this defended (at least waiting to see whether it worked or not) under the shield of "science" and "progress".

The whole rush to space, as the cold war in general, gave to the great science that was produced in those years on both sides, its character of competition and suspect and secrecy, and highlighted the necessity for scientist to accept the concept of "production" to survive.
The cosmonauts...a childhood dream or one more shiny commercial?

- ailu

was "whitey" really on the moon?

today is the day of the moon landing, but for some people the question still remains: were "whitey" really on the moon?

for the ones who are following my blog (who like 3 people?), remember that i mentioned the "whitey on the moon" by gil scott heron. who criticized the fact that scientific advance on space travel advanced despite and probably due to the inequality and poverty in U.S. (USSR also).

some are actually not even sure about that:



you probably heard the conspiracy theories that the apollo 11 mission is the greatest hoax in the history, because U.S. government taped everything in a stage.

well, while writing my last post i realized that the lunar laser ranging experiments that measure the distance between earth and moon makes use of the reflectors that have been put on the moon by apollo 11 mission.



sorry to disappoint the skeptics but scientists are using the machinery that is set up on the moon by the apollo 11 astronauts. to be fair, the signal that arrive from the reflectors are very weak. and it is very hard to precisely aim for the reflector, a lot of painstaking analysis goes into finding the exact photons that bounce off the reflector.

coincidentally i found this guardian article from last month, reporting the cancellation of funding of mcdonald laser ranging station at fort davis in texas. national science foundation apparently does not find the science case strong. apparently laser experiments will continue in the future at apache point in texas and observatoire de la côte d'Azure in france.

p.s. thanks to giulia for giving me the idea for this post, and claudia for excessive ranting about the most ridiculous things on the moon.