Dear Friends,
The shock of any unspeakable tragedy can be felt around the world, but the shooting in Aurora hit particularly close to home, since I live not too far from there, nor far from Columbine. I had students who lost friends at Columbine, and almost certainly know someone who knew someone from Aurora. Last year, while teaching at Space Camp in Alabama, I met a teacher from Norway as she dealt with the aftermath of the horrible shooting there. Events like these remind of us of the horrors that human beings are capable of inflicting on one another even in the most “developed” nations. Far worse still occurs in other places, and has been done in the past.
It is easy to lose faith in the human race at times like these, but it is also important to remember that we are not all bad. When we put our minds to it, we are capable of doing incredible things. Perhaps a bullet analogy isn’t the best right now, but it comes up in one of my favorite examples of human achievement: On Christmas Day, 2004, the Cassini spacecraft released the Huygens probe, which then spent 21 days coasting through the space around Saturn as it approached Saturn’s moon Titan. On January 14, 2005, Huygens arrived at Titan, where it plunged into the atmosphere, deployed a series of parachutes, and, after a 2 1⁄2-hour descent, landed on the surface of this world that lies nearly a billion miles from Earth. To scale, hitting a moon the size of Titan from Earth is the equivalent of shooting a gun and hitting a dime from a distance of 2,500 miles away. And we didn’t just hit it; we landed upon it softly enough to take pictures of the surface. That is simply amazing, and all done for no other reason than to enrich the human spirit.
Whenever I think about the failures of the human race, I go outside, look up at the stars, and think about landing on Titan — and on what our world would be like if we always focused our energies toward the positive. As the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility. It is only in the past few decades that we have achieved sufficient power to wipe ourselves out, or to drive our entire civilization into chaos. But that same power could be used to build a future that would give our children and grandchildren a world beyond our wildest dreams, and a future that would ultimately take our descendents to the stars. We have the blessing and the curse of being the generation that has been placed at this turning point in human history, which means it is up to each and every one of us to help our civilization make the right choices. It’s a fact encapsulated in my favorite quotation from H.G. Wells: “Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.”
With that in mind, I’ll turn now to my space news update, but with a few added tidbits relating to the future of the human race. Today’s contents:
1. Op-ed on This Year’s Weather and Global Warming
2. William Raspberry on Civility
3. August 5/6 landing of Curiosity on Mars
4. The Silliness of Doomsday 2012
5. Book and Planetarium Show Updates
Best wishes,
Jeff
PS. Just as I was about to send this off, I saw the news that Sally Ride has died. She was a hero to millions, including me, and I am deeply saddened by this news.
1. Op-ed on This Year’s Weather and Global Warming
Polls show that this year’s weather is causing a lot more people to “believe” in global warming. But a single year’s weather can be a statistical anomaly, so no one should make judgments on that basis. Rather, make judgments based on the long-term trends we are seeing over decades, and on the fact that the basic science of global warming is simple and well-understood. With in mind, I hope you’ll read my op-ed that was published in yesterday’s Denver Post, which I have posted here.
2. William Raspberry on Civility
One of my favorite columnists, William Raspberry, passed away last week. The Washington Post has reposted a number of his columns. One in particular that I hope everyone will read deals with civility in our interactions — something too often missing in today’s society. I urge you to read it here.
3. August 5/6 landing of Curiosity on Mars
The most ambitious Mars mission ever, Curiosity is a huge rover that may help us understand whether Mars has or ever had life. But it can do that only if it successfully executes the most technically complex remote landing ever attempted. It will all occur in a period of about 7 minutes on the night of August 5 or morning of August 6, depending on your time zone: the landing is at 10:31pm Pacific Time, 11:31pm Mountain time, etc. To learn more and watch live reports from the landing, go here.
4. The Silliness of Doomsday 2012
Are you still concerned about the world ending in December? Click here to get the answers to any questions and concerns you may have. Bottom line: We have real human-created problems to worry about, but don’t waste another moment on claims of an impending doomsday. As I’ve posted previously (from a source that I don’t recall): Throughout history, the end of the world has been predicted countless times by thousands of people, and so far, 100% of them have been wrong.
5. Book and Planetarium Show Updates
For those who care (which probably only means my mom), a few updates on my latest projects:
- Math for Life won the 2012 Colorado Book Award (general nonfiction)
- The Wizard Who Saved the World won a 2012 Nautilus Silver Medal and a 2012 Mom’s Choice Award
- Although the full show is not online, you can see several clips about the Max Goes to the Moon Planetarium Show: Watch the trailer for the show; learn about the behind the scenes of the show with CU Science Update – Max Goes to the Moon; and see interviews with astronaut Alvin Drew and me on Denver Fox News and Denver Channel 2.
- Finally, in case you are interested in learning more about the idea in my opening letter of us being placed at the “turning point” in human history, please note that this is topic is addressed in detail in my book Beyond UFOs.