7/23/2003:

Intermediate Word:  rill  (a) small stream  (b) rocky hill  (c) steep-sided river bed  (d) a riddle
Difficult Word: - limpkin - (a) shore bird  (b) shellfish  (c) very small child  (d) phlyctena

Should America Rule the Heavens? - SpaceDaily  Left:  For a brief few moments America had the moon in its hands but it retreated and allowed a vast investment to be reduced to little more than eye candy.  My previous column, on military contractors in Iraq as likely developers of space infrastructure, set off a firestorm of controversy. Along with mindless ideological flaming and some equally mindless ideological praise, several readers wrote in to present thoughtful analytical challenges to my views. Perhaps the best, most thought-provoking response came from The Mars Society/San Diego's co-founder, Dave Rankin. Rankin directly challenged one of the fundamental tenets of this column, asking, "Rather than striving to create a space frontier where the established order can't apply its laws, might not future residents in space, at least Americans, be better off creating colonies where they enjoy the protection of the constitution and laws of their home country?"

Missile Defense Strategy Not Feasible Warns American Physical Society - SpaceDaily  Intercepting missiles while their rockets are still burning would not be an effective approach for defending the U.S. against attacks by an important type of enemy missile. This conclusion comes from an independent study by the American Physical Society into the scientific and technical feasibility of boost-phase defense, focusing on potential missile threats from North Korea and Iran.  The short time window available for disabling an enemy missile means that interceptor rockets would have to be based close to enemy territory to have a chance of intercepting the missile in time, if it is possible at all.

Dust Deals Droughts, Deluges  - SpaceDaily  Left:  This image from NASA's Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) instrument show dust coming off regional land sources in Africa as they follow their path across the Atlantic. The TOMS instrument aboard the Earthprobe TOMS satellite, captured these images of the dust event from June 17, 1999, as it leaves Africa.  Dust from the Sahara Desert in Africa may help modify clouds and rainfall both in Africa and across the tropical North Atlantic, as far away as Barbados, according to a study that uses 16 years of data from NASA satellites, ground measurements and computer models.

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