Wandering Soul

And so are you! Yes, you. You control the Information Age. Welcome to your world.Don’t believe me? Check Time magazine’s website. The annual honour for 2006 went to each and every one of us, as Time cited the shift from institutions to individuals - citizens of the new digital democracy, as the magazine put it. The winners this year were anyone using or creating content on the World Wide Web.

The Great Man theory of history is usually attributed to the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle, who wrote, “The history of the world is but the biography of great men.” He believed that it is the few, the powerful and the famous who shape our collective destiny as a species. That theory took a serious beating this year.

The magazine did cite 26 People Who Mattered, from North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il to Pope Benedict XVI to the troika of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. And Richard Stengel, the managing editor, said if the magazine had decided to go with an individual, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would the likely choice.

It is not the first time the magazine went away from naming an actual person for its Person of the Year. In 1966, the 25-and-under generation was cited; in 1975, American women were named; and in 1982, the computer was chosen.

The 2006 Person of the Year package hits newsstands today. The cover shows a white keyboard with a mirror for a computer screen where buyers can see their reflection.

NASA is going to the same old moon, with a spaceship that looks similar to a 1960’s Apollo capsule, but the space agency said that it’s going to do something dramatically different this time: Stay there!!

Unveiling the agency’s bold plan for a return to the moon, NASA said it will establish an international base camp on one of the moon’s poles, permanently staffing it by 2024, four years after astronauts land there. Why? Two reasons, according to NASA - prepare for future exploration, with Mars the next stop, and expansion of human civilization.

The destination will mostly be the moon’s south pole because it’s sunlit for three-quarters of the time. That offers a better location for solar power, plus the site has possible resources to mine nearby. To get to the moon, NASA will use two vehicles - the Orion exploration vehicle and an attached all-purpose lunar lander that could touch down anywhere and be the beginnings a base camp.NASA’s exploration chief Scott Horowitz says that the lander is like a pickup truck. You can put whatever you want in the back. You can take it to wherever you want. So you can deliver cargo, crew, do it robotically, do it with humans on board.

The estimated time frame for NASA’s lunar plans are:
2009 - a first test of one of the lunar spaceships.
2014 - the first manned test flight of the Orion crew exploration vehicle, but no moon landing.
2020 - the first flight of the four-astronaut crew to the moon.

For four years, the lunar base won’t be built up enough for long visits, so astronauts will only spend a week at a time. But after that, NASA envisions people living on the moon for six-month stints.

NASA also hopes that hydrogen, oxygen and other moon resources can be used as supplies for the lunar outpost. Eventually, getting oxygen there may be simple enough that it could be turned over to a commercial supplier. NASA’s vision for the moon is more than just American astronauts - it includes space travelers from other countries and even commercial interests, if possible.

Well well, the day isn’t far when we will get to see hoardings and neon signboards advertising the newest restaurant or the nearest oxygen supply depot on the moon. And imagine astronomers will look at the moon through a telescope and identify the Lunar Ritz. Nice!