Book: "A City on Mars" by K&Z Weinersmith

[Keith Lofstrom]

Subtitle: "Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle
Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?"

I haven't finished this book yet. I can only swallow
so much cherry-picked snarkiness in one sitting.

Way too much "space advocates will not learn more before
they deploy vast world-destroying space systems"
(my snarky paraphrase) ...

... seemingly using hypothetical space technologies that
some of us discussed decades ago, but untested, open loop
and at gigantic scale. This is sorta like extrapolating
from Verne to Apollo Programs In Every City, without
intermediate learning and development.

The Weinersmiths (biologist Kelley Smith and cartoonist
Zach Weiner, married with clever merged surname) may have
talked with some of you at space conventions.

Hundreds of citations, dozens of names I recognize, but few
former L5-Society space settlement advocates, and fewer
from the last decade. For example: Heppenheimer 1980,
Livingston 2006, Pyle 2012, Mankins 2014, Globus 2017,
Zubrin 2021.

Bioscientist Kelley Weinersmith earned her BS in Biology
at Bowling Green State University in 2004, and probably took
a required semester of physics in 2001. BGSU currently uses
Halliday and Resnick Physics 10th edition for undergraduate
science majors. Perhaps they used the 6th edition in 2001.

I was taught from the 3rd edition of H&R as a college
freshman in 1974. I also have a 2005 7th edition; 1050 pages,
5 pages about Kepler orbits. That isn't academic astronautics
and space technology training.

(full disclosure: I also read the 3 "red-book" volumes of
Feynman physics as a senior in high school, choked on some
of it, but most lingered)

It is unlikely that those H&R orbit pages were taught in a
one semester course, and that Kelley W. remembers any of
that two decades later. Livingston and Pyle are named in
the acknowledgements, but not in the index, not quoted.

Seemingly, the Weinersmiths spent their time at space
conferences looking for silly stuff to lampoon and cartoon.

----

I don't write about this because "Weinersmiths Are Bad",
but because we (as individuals) SHOULD improve our PERSONAL
messaging - as should technology developers in general.

We should learn how to explain ideas, especially the
tentative nature of new ideas. We should help others
understand that new engineering ideas iterate for a long
time before they deploy, and much longer still before
they mature at large scale. The vast majority of new
ideas are (or should be) strangled in their cribs.
There will be PLENTY more where those came from.

----

After some of you also read this book, let's discuss it
off-list.

Keith L.

--
Keith Lofstrom kei...@keithl.com

[Keith Henson]

On Fri, May 31, 2024 at 10:28 PM Keith Lofstrom <kei...@keithl.com> wrote:
>
> Subtitle: "Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle
> Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?"

> I haven't finished this book yet. I can only swallow
> so much cherry-picked snarkiness in one sitting.

> Way too much "space advocates will not learn more before
> they deploy vast world-destroying space systems"
> (my snarky paraphrase) ...

Sort of like the proposals to stop AI research. But while that races
right along, space settlements are most likely the far side of the
singularity.

snip

> Bioscientist Kelley Weinersmith earned her BS in Biology
> at Bowling Green State University in 2004, and probably took
> a required semester of physics in 2001. BGSU currently uses
> Halliday and Resnick Physics 10th edition for undergraduate
> science majors. Perhaps they used the 6th edition in 2001.

> I was taught from the 3rd edition of H&R as a college
> freshman in 1974. I also have a 2005 7th edition; 1050 pages,
> 5 pages about Kepler orbits. That isn't academic astronautics
> and space technology training.

That's amusing. I had no idea H&R was still being used. I still have
my copies of the second edition. On the other hand, college physics
has not changed much in the last 60 years.

> (full disclosure: I also read the 3 "red-book" volumes of
> Feynman physics as a senior in high school, choked on some
> of it, but most lingered)
>
> It is unlikely that those H&R orbit pages were taught in a
> one semester course, and that Kelley W. remembers any of
> that two decades later. Livingston and Pyle are named in
> the acknowledgements, but not in the index, not quoted.
>
> Seemingly, the Weinersmiths spent their time at space
> conferences looking for silly stuff to lampoon and cartoon.
>
> ----
>
> I don't write about this because "Weinersmiths Are Bad",
> but because we (as individuals) SHOULD improve our PERSONAL
> messaging - as should technology developers in general.

That's extremely difficult, harder for a lot of us than the H&R
course. Most people don't want to hear about living in space or
solving energy with power satellites.

An alternative is to make a lot of money from the new ideas. That
impresses people.

> We should learn how to explain ideas, especially the
> tentative nature of new ideas. We should help others
> understand that new engineering ideas iterate for a long
> time before they deploy, and much longer still before
> they mature at large scale.

Some do, some don't. Some such as the LLM gestated for decades before
becoming the fastest adopted application ever to hit the net.

KeithH

The vast majority of new
> ideas are (or should be) strangled in their cribs.
> There will be PLENTY more where those came from.
>
> ----
>
> After some of you also read this book, let's discuss it
> off-list.
>
> Keith L.
>
> --
> Keith Lofstrom kei...@keithl.com
>

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