Rumi Nations

On the same day that the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity landed on Mars after a nail-biting Entry, Descent, and Landing sequence, there are now reports of a shooting incident involving two rovers. The mission managers in JPL, CalTech issued a terse press release which simply said: "There has been a shooting incident involving our rovers on Mars." This has confounded the American public who did not even know that the rovers were equipped with guns in the first place. Sources inside JPL have given some hints as to how this might have happened. The sources say the rovers are equipped with guns which they are programmed to use for 'self defense' in case of appropriate emergencies. The software inside the 'brains' of the rovers has algorithms which try to identify any Little Green Men nearby and if any creatures resembling the LGM are detected by the rovers, they are authorized to shoot at the LGM in self-defense. The rovers are allowed to take this dec...

One more leopard dies in India . Another leopard was burnt to death . This has become common place and these incidents do not even make it to the mainstream media. So, what chance does wildlife have in India? I am thinking about the reality of life for Indians and trying to guess where saving tigers or leopards would fit in in their spectrum of priorities. Let's look at a few lives across the economic spectrum. Think of the guy who runs a tea stall or a cigarette stall or does ironing of clothes. Income per month: 5,000 rupees. Family members: one wife and three kids. What are his priorities? A grown up daughter at home who needs to be married off. The kids in school who need money for books and fees. The wife has been falling ill. There is talk of widening of the road and so the stall might need to be relocated. Does this guy wonder about the vastness and beauty of the cosmos? Does the guy wonder if there's life elsewhere in the universe? Does the guy think about the d...

The Tevatron is going to close. The Superconducting Supercollider never came to fruition. Remember the scare when the LHC began running — all that talk about how black holes might get created at the LHC that might accidentally devour the planet. It’s commonplace to hear all and sundry pontificating about the benefits and harms of science to society. Religious people somehow feel automatically qualified to interpret god’s intentions and talk casually about the universe. Scientists however are a different species. They like to be humble and polite and mostly profess ignorance about much of the world and indeed, much of the broad tapestry of science. This is quite admirable of course and in tune with the spirit of science. But this creates a vacuum. And that vacuum is more often than not filled by opportunistic egomaniacs. It’s in this context that one must look at the lives of a few exceptional scientists. A few names stand out easily: Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Steven...

For Sagan, talking about Mars must be as familiar territory as one's 'back of the hand' to use an old saying. Sagan coveres the history and evolution of our understanding of the Red Planet. All the expected stuff such 'The War of the Worlds' by H. G. Wells to famous Martian canals 'discovered' by Perceval Lowell. Sagan talks about Robert Goddard and Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. And then the modern age of Martian exploration with the Mariner landings. And what an awesome achievement that is! Audacious and impossible-sounding dreams of a century ago are a banal reality today. Sagan describes the topography and geology and ecology of Mars — about how it came to be a cold and barren planet in spite of having conditions that are seemingly clement for life to arise. The search for life on Mars continues of course. I am sure like Sagan that one day we'll be the Martians — and all that that implies. I look forward to unmanned aerial vehicles flying in the thin Martia...

So, India found water on the Moon!!! That was the over-simplied headline in all the newspapers and on TV channels. However, the reality is, of course, as usual a little bit more complicated than that! The simple truth is that a NASA payload, the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) found spectroscopic evidence of trace quantities of water on the Moon. This is not really all that of a revolutionary finding. In fact, this was kind of a discovery waiting to happen or waiting for confirmation. It is of course not as if anyone has found great flowing rivers or oceans of water on the Lunar surface - that ain't gonna happen, ever!!! The fact is this: the Moon is not where the game is as of now in terms of space exploration! All the big boys of space (U.S., Russia) have explored Moon in the sixties. The game, if India wants to play, is on Mars right now. It really is a simple matter of how much resource(a.k.a. money) you are willing to put into it. Space science is pricey and nations have to decide...