2007/12/28
I'm a little behind the news on this one, but the One Eyed Monster reported tonight on recent developments in Google's challenge to private sector entrepreneurs to put a working lunar lander on the Moon. This was first announced on or about 2007, Sept. 13. A total purse of $30 million has been established for distribution according to various mileposts of accomplishment. One of the mileposts is for the new space junk to send back photos of space junk previously deposited by governments.
This is what happens when too much money lands in too few hands. Google has announced a number of initiatives to spur technological creativity, many of them more down-to-earth in locus as well as relevance. But this one and its predecessor, the Ansari X prize of $10 million for private sector suborbital flight, prompt a number of questions.
1. What's the real purpose of this competition? Is this just about being cool? Or does Google have a serious stake in this?
2. How does this fit with Google's 'corporate mission' and its accountability to its shareholders? Corporate mission statements can of course be as vague and expansive as one can wish. But they are the starting point, however weak, of accountability to shareholders. And 'the Force' knows that Google's shareholders sure paid a pretty premium for performance.
It's one thing for the boys to take their private fortunes and throw them to the sky, but does this kind of fling represent value to the shareholders, or is it an ego trip at investor expense, not very much different from some rather expensive birthday celebrations.
3. Who manages the Moon?
What right do a bunch of free enterprise buccaneers have to litter the Moon? We're not done screwing up this planet, much less rectifying the consequences of our excesses. So now we've got the Moon in our cross-hairs?
We know where this plot is going. It's analog can be found at the North Pole. The US has been reluctant since 1994 to ratify the UN Law of the Sea Treaty. No doubt there are those in the Congress who have difficulty applying the concept of 'rule of law' outside our borders when it possibly conflicts with our self-serving sense of 'manifest destiny'. But now that the North Pole is melting, and its navigable waters are beginning to bristle with armed vessels staking out competing claims of sovereignty, we're beginning to think that the rule of law might have some advantage over gunboat diplomacy. Good thinking, if a little late and the product of pragmatic self-interest over principle. So what about the Moon? Is it US, Russian, Chinese, Google or International territory. Now might be a great time to deal with the issue, while the prospect of ownership is more theoretical than imminent and thus approachable with a tad more objectivity.
4. Where could that money be put to better use on earth?
I could run off a long list of projects that get little or no government funding and that would benefit Google, its shareholders and the planet far more than this little diversion.
If this enterprise is a reflection of the wisdom and judgment of corporate management, it further underscores why I don't trust my privacy to Google. While our terrestrial Space Station is in such a state of disrepair, a competition such as Google's is a manifestly juvenile exercise fit for adolescents whose wealth vastly exceeds their judgment.
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Not that government or environmentalists are our salvation by any means. In the interest of fair and balanced bashing, I am reminded of a session last March before the Connecticut Legislature's Joint Committee on the Environment, at which a deputy Commissioner of our Department of Environmental Protection was advocating for legislation to accelerate and mandate the implementation of compact fluorescent lights. When asked by a legislator if the Department had studied the potential negative impacts of mercury in the CFLs, and if it had devised a plan for their safe disposal, she acknowledged that the Department had not yet done so, but would.
'....had not yet done so, but would.' Have we heard this script before? Here we are rushing to a solution with an acknowledged embedded problem, and an acknowledged failure to plan for it pro-actively. Environmentalists seem as capable as capitalists of selectively choosing the ground rules that govern their actions, and selecting them consistent with their dogma, and without accounting to science. They often argue that business should not embark on technologies and enterprises without a due diligence assessment of impacts, and should not initiate those efforts which may have a possible, if unproven, net harm. What's sauce for the goose...
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Net conclusion for 2007: Forget SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence). We are still seeking compelling evidence of intelligent life on earth.
But if we cannot have the comfort of that affirmation, at least we can enter the New Year with hope.
Have a good one!
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