The website isn’t very beautiful, but the short videos are awesome. They really demonstrate some of the mixture of apathy and enthusiasm that “kids” in college feel. Plus they sorta tug at the heartstrings of smart people.

Anyway, here’s a link to the videos themselves: Space Walking

http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/tct/2006/12/23/0612230276.php

The motivation here is strictly energy and economic in nature, and not science.

Sure, it won’t lead to a warp engine. But it will employ a huge number of physicists, who are bound to make fundamental advances of some sort. And it’s harder to be apathetic about exploring the galaxy. Until, of course, it’s generally realized that it’s not going to happen. But that public realization could take many years.

If the objective is colonization of space, well, then again there is no argument – that of course takes people. But it is my hope space colonization can be retarded for as long as possible, until we can find the wherewithal for solving some of our political and social problems here on earth rather than seeding these monsters throughout the universe.

Manned missions would offer only cheap political thrills for the unlettered and no inspiration to young people interested in physics – our topic here. Trying to inspire kids with trips to the moon is like trying to lure you theoretical physicists away from your next conference with some circus tickets. They know better and they deserve better, as does physics itself.

The Internet does not draw kids away from science. It obviously makes science far easier for children to access and learn. I remember hitchhiking to a tiny library in another town several miles away wherein I could behold its single book on calculus. The Internet is nothing but fabulous for science and curious kids.

In his same book, Dyson tells how the government pays him huge sums of money for his scientific studies from which he draws very sound and deeply considered advice, advice, he says, that the government *never* takes. So it’s All Aboard for Mars!, kids, unless some smarter and better motivated people can take charge of things. Maybe we would do better to find ways for encouraging retired physicists to enter politics (yuk!), and then things might naturally work out better for physics and young physicists.

There will be lots of challenges, but there may also be exciting solutions. E.g., an article in a recent issue of “Analog” magazine proposes using “high-temperature” (~200 Rankin) super-conductors to create magnetic radiation shields in the bottom of a polar crater.