Missing A Sense of Perspective

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When I read the headline that Adolf Merckle, a German industrialist, had committed suicide over recent financial losses, I wasn’t too surprised: after all, accounts of businessmen jumping to their deaths after the 1929 stock market crash are legendary. When I read the early report, though, I thought there had to be more to the story.

The original story I saw highlighted Mr. Merckle’s $9.2 billion fortune and losses that were reportedly in the “hundreds of millions.” It seemed almost impossible to me that someone would choose suicide over losses that amounted to less than a tenth of their wealth.

And, as I suspected, there was more to the story. According to this Bloomberg report, “Merckle, 74, spent December negotiating with banks he owed about 5 billion euros ($6.7 billion) to save the family empire he built over four decades.”

So he was struggling with the potential loss of over 70% of his personal fortune. That’s a lot, no doubt, and quite a shock to the system, but it still would have left him with a cool $2 billion or more. That’s a quite different position from folks who start off with fewer zeroes and end up with next to nothing.

Maybe my perspective is skewed because I don’t have a lot of zeroes behind my personal fortune. (In fact, like many people, my personal fortune is effectively nil, since most of what I have is largely owned not by me, but by the bank that holds the note on my house.) And maybe there’s still more to this story, more than will ever come out. But it’s a cautionary tale, and a warning that we should maintain a sense of perspective that emphasizes what we still have, rather than what we’ve lost.

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Fallow Ground

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I confess to a degree of anticipation and trepidation I hadn’t thought possible, with respect to what I will find when I do my first editing pass on MARE NUBIUM. I’m letting the book lie fallow for awhile — turning my attention to some short fiction I’ve neglected over the last few months — and I find myself both anxious to get back into it and nervous that when I do, I won’t like what I find.

I told some of my fellow Literary Boot Camp alumni that I didn’t have this reaction when I wrote my first novel. This one seems more significant to me, for some reason.

I can’t put my finger on why, except at this point in my life I think I have more riding on this novel than on the first one. That one was a shot in the dark; this one was more carefully aimed and more carefully written, and how it fares when I start sending it out will pretty clearly indicate whether I’m dreaming an impossible dream, or one I might actually achieve.

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Fifty Years Ago in Space History — Luna-1

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Fifty years ago today, on January 2, 1959, the Soviet Union launched its Luna-1 mission from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It was the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon, and the first to escape Earth’s gravity and go into orbit around the Sun as an “artificial planet.”

You can read more about Luna-1 at this NASA page.

[BREAK, BREAK]

With lunar exploration in mind, do you know of any editors or agents looking for a novel about lunar exploration and survival? If so, let me know or point them my way … I’ll be shopping my new novel around soon.

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The End — of the Year, and My Novel

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I toasted the New Year early with cold medicine, and despite some occasional fuzzy thinking throughout the evening I finished writing my novel tonight at about 10:30 p.m. EST.

MARE NUBIUM — THE SEA OF CLOUDS now goes into some light editing before I release the draft to a few trusted readers. Hopefully the review and revision process will take less time than the writing did.

So, with thankfulness that I was able to meet that goal before 2008 expired, I say: Happy New Year!

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Day New Mon

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Okay, it’s really “denouement.” Apologies to everyone who took more French than I did … or, for that matter, more English.

Why is wrapping up loose ends so bloody tough?

The novel is 125,000 words long now. I think by the time it’s done — by midnight tomorrow, if I have my way — it’ll be right around 130K. I’m writing what I think will be the last chapter, in which two characters have to decide whether to stay at the lunar colony or give up and go home.

Tomorrow night could be a big celebration indeed … or it could be a frustrating evening of working while everyone else celebrates, because I’m determined to get this thing done!

So I’m going back to work on it now.

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The Year-End Deadline Loometh

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Only three days left (counting today) if I’m going to finish writing MARE NUBIUM this year. I worked on it some over Christmas weekend, but probably have one or two chapters to go before it’s done.

What I thought would be a 100K-word novel is now a hefty 120K and still growing, which means my first task for the new year will be to edit it down a bit … providing I finish it in the first place.

So, back to work!

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Forty Years After: The Flight of Apollo-8

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In our continuing but intermittent series of space anniversaries,* today — 21 December — is the 40th anniversary of the launch of Apollo-8.

On this date in 1968, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on the first-ever circumlunar flight. They were the first human beings to leave the Earth’s “sphere of influence” (i.e., its gravity), and the first people to see the far side of the Moon with their own eyes.

Not only were they the first people to take pictures of the Earth from the vicinity of the Moon, but they were also the first crew to spend Christmas in space. In their Christmas Eve television broadcast, they took turns reading from Genesis:

William Anders:

“For all the people on Earth the crew of Apollo 8 has a message we would like to send you.

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
“And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
“And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
“And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.”

Jim Lovell:

“And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
“And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
“And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
“And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.”

Frank Borman:

“And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
“And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.”

Borman then added, “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you – all of you on the good Earth.”

They returned to earth on 27 December. You can learn more about their mission here.

I consider it a shame that today, 40 years after their pathfinding mission, we don’t have people living on the moon and have only a tiny contingent living in space. I think it’s a shame because I want to be one of them; but since I can’t, I content myself with writing about people colonizing that frontier.

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*If you’re new to the series, we primarily only do big anniversaries, i.e., those in multiples of 5.

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North Carolina Residents: Beware Another Tax Idea

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A couple of days ago Michelle Malkin wrote about a proposed law here in North Carolina that would assess fees on motorists based on how far they drive in a year. She included some very sound objections to the idea in her post, Nanny State alert: Meet the mileage police. My only quibble with her is over her characterization of it as a “nanny state” action, because its aim is not to protect us from ourselves or anything else; instead, it’s more a “greedy state” action, because it seems to be aimed solely at increasing revenue.

Why do they need to increase vehicle tax revenue? Because in the wake of high fuel prices, people started driving less … meaning less consumption … meaning less tax revenue. They want to make up shortfalls in the state government’s income.

On the surface, it seems fine that people who drive more should pay more — after all, people who use more electricity pay more. But while we may think of roads as public utilities, “consuming” your share of the road does not require someone to lay out the new roadway ahead of you or produce more roadway behind you because you’ve used it — unlike electricity that has to be generated and then is used up, or water that has to be treated before and after use. Once the road is built, it continues to exist for a long time, and the wear and tear of one vehicle at a time seems too miniscule to meter.

Speaking of the possibility of “metering” our vehicles, how much more state bureaucracy would be needed to collect this tax? The data collection, tax assessment, payment processing, accounting, disbursement, and tax fraud investigation would probably cost far more than this tax would ever produce. (I say that based not on knowledge of the numbers of people involved or any other specific facts, but rather on my own assessment of the inherent tendency of government offices to develop extra layers of oversight and other non-value-added functions.)

The same day that Ms. Malkin presented her argument against the tax idea, Raleigh area blogger Tabitha Hale took aim at the proposal in her post on Red County, NC Road-Use Tax A Privacy Violation? She looked at the issue from a different angle, considering the longer-term view in which GPS-capable data recorders would one day download driving patterns that would be used to assess the tax. Her argument against the bill is also a sound one.

The best case scenario would be for this proposal to be pulled from the table entirely; next best would be for it to die in committee; and next would be for it to be voted down. It seems little good can come from it. Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped our government in the past from passing laws that have caused more harm than good.

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The First Broadcast from Space: 50 Years Ago

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Today’s installment in our recurring series of space anniversaries is the launch of Project SCORE, fifty years ago today.

On December 18, 1958, the Project SCORE — Signal Communication by Orbiting Relay Equipment — satellite was launched on a USAF Atlas rocket from the Eastern Space & Missile Center in Florida. The US Army Signal Research and Development Laboratory at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, designed the payload.

The mission featured the first messages broadcast from space, including the voice of President Eisenhower saying,

This is the President of the United States speaking. Through the marvels of scientific advance, my voice is coming to you from a satellite circling in outer space. My message is a simple one. Through this unique means I convey to you and all mankind America’s wish for peace on earth and good will to men everywhere.

You can read more about Project SCORE here and here.

I think back to ten years ago at this time, and I had just come off a tour in which I helped operate two of the most sophisticated and secure communications satellites ever built — the first two Milstar satellites — and started a tour in which I would be using Milstar for nuclear command and control. In terms of space communications, we’ve certainly come a long way in a relatively short time.

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The Real Aviation Day

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National Aviation Day is supposedly August 19th, because that’s Orville Wright’s birthday, but I submit that today is the real Aviation Day.

One hundred five years ago today — December 17, 1903 — the Wright flyer made its first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.* Up until that day, August 19th was destined only to be National Bicycle Day.

In honor of Aviation Day, take a second to say a special prayer for the passengers and crew of an aircraft you see flying overhead. Or maybe listen to “Jet Airliner” or “Leaving on a Jet Plane” or something by the Jefferson Airplane. đŸ˜‰

And for those interested, today also qualifies for another installment of our “This Day in Space History” series. Five years ago today, UHF Follow-On Flight 11 became the first U.S. military payload to be launched by a Russian-designed rocket engine. Its Atlas-3B booster used a Russian RD-180 engine to launch the spacecraft.

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*Where, if all goes well and the money holds out, we will vacation this summer.

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