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The BBC reports on abstinence programmes in the US and the center of discussion around those programmes:

“Is it a legitimate response to a clear medical danger, or is it a moral crusade, driven by a specific interpretation of Christian values?”

The BBC throws in an interesting and worrisome anecdote from one of the leaders of an abstinence program (The Silver Ring Thing):

“Denny confides that he believes that the end of the world is nigh and that Christ will return within a generation.

And so where does abstinence fit into that vision? Well, abstinence, he says, is a tool to reach young people for God, safeguarding them for the Second Coming. ”

Amazing that these things can be said and done in the 21st century: that’s that century where science allowed us to put rovers on Mars.

It’s Tuesday alright and the Aerial Archives are still not available: well, the website itself appears to be quite busy. A shame.

Also, last Sunday, I watched the second installment of the ‘Battlestar Galactica’ pilot. As told earlier, I was pleased with the show but wasn’t the only person to notice that the sound wasn’t quite alright all the time: I had a hard time to follow conversations and the only way out was to (constantly) play with the remote control.

Alfons managed to make it through the movie ‘Wing Commander’. I discussed it earlier over here.

“However I do recommend watching the movie: there is a huge difference between producing a video game and a movie. Wing Commander (the movie) sets a neat example of things gone wrong. Terrible.”

Almost related: Last night Space Channel showed the first part of the pilot of Battlestar Galactica. I have no clue what the fuzz is all about, but I think the hard-core fans of the older series are plain wrong: I was surprised about the details of space travel and space combat. It’s finally done right, I think. Not that I watch too much TV anyways. I actually don’t consider myself an SF freak.

The most anticipated launch of a website for 2004
must be the Aerial Reconnaissance Archives. The BBC says the Archives will be online by Monday. However: there is no way to get to that site but Google already lists the site as the number one hit. It’s either down or ‘slashdotted’. Aside of that: Aerial has been misspelled too as ‘Arial’, as you can see in the picture above. I wonder what the Web designers were thinking.

But if you feel so inclined and do have to view a couple of them: the BBC (who I blame for all of this slowness) has a couple photos available. Amazing pictures, featuring Normandy, Pegasus Bridge (that’s where British Airborne troops successfully held a key bridge) and Auschwitz.

Marshall Brain wonders about the administration’s plans to go back to the moon within 16 years. He thinks this is way too long compared with the progress made in the 60s:

“There was no NASA, no Internet, no microprocessors, no graphite composites, no cell phones, no Microsoft, no space stations….

Yet, despite our total ignorance and lack of technology, we went from NOTHING all the way to man on the moon in just 11 years. It is unbelievable when you think about it.”

The other day I was wondering about the same, while discussing the topic with others. If you think about it: NASA has all the experience, most likely calculations to put vehicles in orbit around the moon, land them and send them back with, like this. What did they do with that experience or the calculations? Why aren’t we on the moon already?

I keep thinking that the reason for this lag (so to say), is that the NASA (or the US administration) had other priorities in the mid Eighties.

Via Slashdot comes the Mars Scorecard (link to Slashdot discussion), which starts with the following entry.

Various scattered reports detail an invasion force of hundreds at Grovers Mill, NJ from Mars on 1938 October 31 around 01:50:00 UTC.

But serious. The first image of Mars that came back from a human made spacecraft, well, that was in 1965 when the Mariner 4 did a Mars flyby. Compare that image with the quality of today’s rovers.