Friday, June 4, 2010

The Sirens keep calling us to Titan


We only finished our Birds and Bees series a few days ago, going into detail about Saturn's moon, Titan. Now this headline breaks (directly under a 17):
The idea of scientists finding a "hint of life" should not be surprising. RedIce had just posted an interview with Richard Hoagland where he talked about those ever-present "drips" of disclosure.
While listening, I was reminded specifically of the Birds and the Bees Parts Four and Five, where we looked at the connections between Kurt Vonnegut's Sirens of Titan and Alan Moore's Watchmen.

The first link that comes up when you google "Moon of Titan" under the "News" heading today is this article from io9. And just who is that peeking at us from the upper-left corner of their page?


PS: Let us not forget that in Sirens of Titan, the President of the US is facing an economic disaster and decides to stimulate the economy with a new age of space exploration.

Well, we have today's economic news...
...coupled with today's success of SpaceX's Falcon 9:

Falcon 9 is designed to compete with launch vehicles such as the Atlas and Delta from United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. SpaceX, led by PayPal Inc. co-founder Elon Musk, plans to use the rocket to carry into orbit its Dragon spacecraft, which is intended to take cargo to the orbiting outpost after the space shuttles are retired and may later ferry U.S. astronauts.
SpaceX’s vessels are part of Obama’s new strategy for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which calls for the agency to develop systems capable of taking humans to Mars while helping entrepreneurs build vessels to carry astronauts to the space station.

And finally: Not to stretch it here, but just for the record, I see that "io9" website as "109" or Roman numeral X + 9.
SpaceX + Falcon 9?
Just saying.


Last one to Titan pays for the pizza.


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