Planetary journalism

Congratulations to George Musser, friend, colleague and occasional blog commentor, on winning the American Astronomical Society's Jonathan Eberhart Planetary Sciences Journalism Award!

Surrogates soon

Next on my list of films to see: Surrogates. At Scientific American, George Musser notes that the movie touches on various tech-related human issues, including "how comment boards lower the standards of civility."

Apollo and Mars

George Musser, friend and colleague from Scientific American, points out that the U.S. might already be on Mars, if we'd built on the Apollo technology rather than replacing it with the shuttle. Harrison Schmitt made a similar point to me in my piece on Apollo missions that never flew -- though Schmitt, unlike Buzz Aldrin, thinks bypassing the moon now to aim at Mars would be a mistake. I tend to think Mars just isn't going to happen anytime soon, and that learning how to live on and use the resources of the moon will get humans to Mars in due course. Back in the 1990s, I was persuaded otherwise for a while by Robert Zubrin's arguments for a direct-to-Mars approach, but the nineties were a heady time and some realism is needed as well.

String theory explained

Coming soon: The Complete Idiot's Guide to String Theory, by George Musser, my friend and colleague from my part-time work at Scientific American. If anyone can make sense of this subject for a general audience, it's George.