Tag: News

Life on Mars Remains a Dream

Exploration is part of our DNA. There are parts of the planet that we don’t know well. That said, there are not so many spots where a human foot has not trod. The mysteries of the deep ocean remain to be better known. Only we more often look heavenward than we study deep waters.

Looking up at the night sky the fascination with a twinkling red dot runs through history. It’s surprisingly recent that the notion that Mars might be inhabited prevailed. A 100 years ago a scientist might be frowned upon but wouldn’t get locked up for such a conjecture.

The possibility of Martian life still gets discussed. If existing, it would be extremely rare and unlike the life we take for granted on Earth. Discoveries are more likely to tell us about the history of Mars than the present.

A search for other civilisations goes on. Today, Mars is a planet for robots. Rovers and other contrivances are best equipped to deal with the harshness of the natural environment. If the radiation doesn’t get you the wide-ranging temperature fluctuations will. Humans are not well suited to live in extremely harsh environments.

On a trip to Phoenix in the United States about 30-years ago, I drove out into the desert. This was to have a look at the Biosphere[1]. A curious experiment in human behaviour. The experiment attempted to reproduce what it would be like to live as extraterrestrials. We’d be the alien civilisation on Mars. Living in a huge greenhouse on Earth. As much as to say this brave but shaky experiment proved that extraterrestrial living is very hard. In fact, impossible in the way it was conceived. The lesson from such empirical experiments is to value our unique circumstances even more. Polluting and trashing Earth is about the stupidest act “intelligent” but fragile beings could do.

There are plenty of extremely harsh environments on Earth. Wisely we (humans) choose not to live in them on a permanent basis although we like to make documentaries about them. For example, there must be an exceptional motivator to get people to live in a box in Antarctica.

It’s reported that Musk says that Space X will go to Mars next year. Adding more robots to the Martian population. In the field of exploration this makes sense to me. What doesn’t make any sense at all is the determination to put humans on the surface of Mars.

The only civilisation that is likely to inhabit Mars successfully, in the next century, is an android one. Every sign is that the capability of robotic life will advance ever more rapidly. They can be designed to thrive where we would fall by the wayside. What better use can we put our future robotic friends to than advancing exploration?

Putting a date on the first human footsteps on Mars is about as ridiculous as last century’s imaginative speculation about a Martian invasion. Although, such popular stories make great science fiction.

POST: This remote station has had reported problems. A case in point. Antarctic scientists plead for help after colleague ‘threatens to kill’ team members | The Independent

[1] https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/01/29/living-in-a-bubble-did-this-failed-90s-experiment-predict-the-future

The Human Touch

One of the most irritating aspects of bureaucracy is codification. What I mean is the need to tick a box that describes you or your problem. Restaurants, retailers, charities, religions, politicians and government departments all do the same. Sophisticated or crude administrative systems fall back on the same methods.

It’s immensely unsatisfying. Applicable to me, at this stage in life, is the age tick box. It doesn’t matter where the questionnaire or data gathering exercise comes from there’s always this box that starts at 65 years old. The previous box finishes at 64 years old.

This fits the respondent into the next step-up in age. Following from this simple date is a whole plethora of assumptions about the nature of a persons’ likes and dislikes, needs and wishes. An unsympathetic algorithm can then crunch numbers and send adverts for sheltered retirement homes, medication and certain types of undemanding travel opportunities.

Now, I could join the chorus of cries against bureaucracy. That would be popular but dumb. It’s a bit like the textiles we put on daily. We could go around naked as the day we were born. Trouble is that our present society doesn’t work well in the case where everyone is naked. Cold too.

So, it is with bureaucracy. It’s not going away anytime soon. The best we can do is to hunt for better ways of collecting data and making it useful for decision-makers and those who want to sell us something. Or even political parties that are keen to target us with their messages.

In the News this week is as good a sketch for an updated Yes Minister as any. Revolution is afoot. Suddenly the pen pushers who tie you up in red tape are going to be replaced with super-efficient algorithms and artificial intelligence to return us to paradise.

I think that’s the only reason Adam and Eve had to leave the garden of Eden. Nothing to do with apples. Well, not the ones that hang on trees. It was an iPad that had fallen though a time warp. Filling in a questionnaire on happiness it seems that one of them ticked the wrong box.

I see a difficulty with replacing civil servants with robotic algorithms and artificial intelligence. It might be the case that for routine activities, where the pattern of human behaviour is straightforward and well understood, a set of operations can be undertaken with a high degree of confidence that a good outcome will be provided.

Where I see the difficulty is that humans are notoriously messy. Inclined to irritation and not the least bit logical in their personal lives. Nothing that has been said this week is about truly eliminating bureaucracy, although that’s the illusion. It’s more about mechanising it using whizzy technology that’s so much better that that which has gone before (so they say).

Let’s just grow-up. We need public administration. We need it to work well. Fundamentally, it takes people to make it work. People who are motivated to work for the public good. People who are adaptive, caring and enabled to do a good job. Give them the tools to do the job. But are we kidding ourselves if we think complex algorithms and artificial intelligence are our saviours?

Dealing with Difficult Individuals

Dealing with an objectionable person. There’s a title for a book. Could be 101 things you didn’t know about objectionable people or maybe objectionable people for dummies. I can see it now. Airport bookshelves full of such books. You know those colourful sections on management and self-improvement books that you don’t often see in “normal” book shops.

It’s something I suffer from when travelling. I see an enticing book title in the moments of boredom waiting for my flight to come up on the large electronic display board. The ridiculous thought goes through my head after reading a random page. Now, this erudite tone, obviously read by millions, will help me be a better person. Naturally, the book’s future is to sit in a cardboard box and be moved around, never to be read again.

Back to my theme. How to deal with an objectionable person. Of course, the context matters a lot. If I said the person is your boss, then one approach might be in order. If the person in question is a world leader, you and I are a little removed from impacting the prevailing situation. Quite different. Never-the-less, why not have an opinion?

There’s strength in numbers. Through the whole of human history. Let’s face it, we are puny creatures when faced with natures most threatening circumstances. What we do is gather together and hey-presto[1] suddenly solutions start to bubble to the surface. I’m not talking about escaping a woolly Mammoth. More of a woolly Man-mouth.

Unity is powerful. Trouble is that unity is difficult to assemble. It becomes somewhat easier to assemble when a real threat is looming. An example that is of the moment is Canada. Over the last few weeks Canadians, if the media is to be believed, seemed to be becoming unified. I expect the same is true of Greenlanders.

Europeans are, as we often are, struggling to find unity. It’s there at the core but it’s beset with voices of doubt and voices of unfriendly adversaries. Over intellectualising is a common trait of mature democracies. We like to study the woolly Mammoth before we run away or make a lot of noise and throw spears at it.

Here’s a potential solution for dealing with an objectionable person, or more than one. It’s a borne of primitive schoolboy politics. Smart folk will wince. Push that to one side. Lets’ face it, smart folk have led us down the path we are currently on.

Send them to Coventry[2]. I don’t mean literally send them to the ancient English cathedral city in the West Midlands. If you are fed-up with hanging on every word of someone who is a menace, one approach is to stop listening and walk away. That English idiom about sending someone “to Coventry” is to deliberately ostracise. Avoid their company and act as if they aren’t really that important. You’ve bigger fish to fry.

Just like that. A good way to deal with Colin Robinson[3] is to walk away before it’s too late.

[1] https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/hey-presto.html

[2] https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/phrase-sent-coventry-originate-from-12137441

[3] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11582982/

Navigating Change

Theres’s wisdom in having flexibility when making decisions. Being too high bound by ridged beliefs or a dogmatic creed isn’t a way of sustaining success. The saying, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” is attributed to John Maynard Keynes. It’s nice to have a quote like that to validate the wisdom of flexibility. Is it always true? Well, this is not a physical law like Force equals Mass times Acceleration. So, using the word “always” is not the least bit appropriate.

In the first months of 2025 the US seems to be going through a cycle of extreme plasticity. It goes like this; propose policy that’s drastic and disruptive and that shocks or puts everyone on edge. Let it ride for a day. Watch what happens. Then either double-down or reverse the whole move and start something else equally shocking. Meantime saying how great the achievement has been even if there’s no positive achievement.

Conventional wisdom isn’t wrong because it’s conventional. Reacting to conventional or traditional ways of working by deeming them automatically bad doesn’t add up. I know it’s conservative philosophy, but wisdom is acquired over time.

You could say, I’m burdened with being rational (or reading too much). That’s not wrong. What’s difficult is that a rational person must stretch the imagination a long way to see any good coming from a rapid cycle of change, often for the sake of change.

Setting the cat amongst the pigeons (or bull in a China shop) makes economies and financial systems quiver. Without a certain amount of understanding, or the perception of understanding, assessing risk becomes almost impossible. That’s the first months of 2025.

Where’s the vision? Maybe underlying the impulsiveness is a desire to get from here to there as quickly as possible.

75 years ago, after WWII, America entered a “golden age”. Baby boomers, technology and a sense of optimism drove the good times. The 1950’s ushered in a commercial exposition. Modern marketing and a proliferation of brands changed society, both in America and across the globe. Over the past decade, there’s not been that shiny newness or unbounded naivety that captured the imagination of the time.

If the overall vision is to get back to those times, then reality is going to bite. A sea change in circumstances could happen but it’s unlikely to be the one painted above.

Navigating Political Extremes

There’re arguments that can be made for stability. There’re arguments that can be made for disruption. I don’t think it matters if you are a socialist, centrist, conservative, liberal, oligarch or demigod. The virtue of one over the other is a temporary state of affairs. If this were not the case it would be unlikely that civilization, such as it is, would have ever got this far in its development.

Now, I have discounted the untenable. That is that stability becomes stasis. A moribund inability to do anything, totally regardless. It’s also the case for disruption so catastrophic that that we truly are in an end-of-the-world scenario.

“This too shall pass” has a long history. The temporary nature of everything is encapsulated in those four words. Or as Judas Priest put it “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin”. A thumping beat and screaming chords make great driving music. Put this on a Sony Walkman in the 1980s and the batteries would be flat in minutes.

Am I saying that Biden was stasis and Trump is catastrophic? Maybe. What is it in our minds that mean we flip from one extreme to another? These are question that erudite columnists are wrestling with as they chew over what’s happened with no idea of what’s to come.

In the British system of governance moderation wells up from centuries of tradition and custom and practice. As we are seeing it hardly matters who is in power, history runs so deep that it shapes every move. I never thought I’d have a good word to say for being a country that does NOT having a written constitution. Today, I’m rethinking how it can be advantageous to make things up as we go along.

Writing down sets of rules can be helpful in guiding decision making. Underlying this is the assumption that there’s some continuity and that those rules have a kind of universality. That’s mighty difficult to do given the passage of time.

The problem with writing down sets of rules is that they create something to be circumvented. Let’s use a river plunging over rapids as an analogy. If there is a forceful enough flow of water, it will go around or over any rocks in its way. Strident political forces, ranging from the crude to the cunning, have little difficulty in circumventing established custom and practice. What’s often called the “liberal media” may be horrified even as the river tumbles downhill with increasing speed. Predicting the future with a past perspective doesn’t work.

“This too shall pass” is a motif to hang onto. Just as the river eventually leaves the rapids so we might experience a steadier period ahead.

Look out for extremes. Milking my analogy as far as I can, changing everything, all at once, and relentlessly, is a proven route to disaster. Institutions, accepted norms and the fabric of society getting smashed up on the rapids, forever and a day is the definition of disaster.

Understanding Aviation Safety

The recent dramatic events in Toronto brought to mind the equally dramatic event of Air France Flight 358 back at the latter half of 2005. Then a large aircraft was destroyed but the crew and passengers got away without fatalities. The combination of bad weather and poor decision-making led to a catastrophic runway excursion.

I remember that the year 2005 shook the aviation community. There was a whole succession of fatal aircraft accidents across the globe. In Europe, Helios Airways Flight 522 was particularly tragic. Errors led to the crew suffering hypoxia and as a result the aircraft and everyone onboard was lost. In Italy, lives were lost as an ATR72 aircraft ran out of fuel and plunged into the Mediterranean Sea near Palermo.

West Caribbean Airways Flight 708 fell from the sky killing all on-board. Kam Air Flight 904 hit a mountain killing all on-board. In Indonesian, Mandala Airlines Flight 091 crashed. A few passengers survived but many people were killed on the ground.

I sincerely hope that 2025 is not going to turn into another 2005. However, I do take the view that there is a cyclic element to the occurrence of fatal accidents. We are often proud to be able to say that the time (number of years) between one cluster of aviation accidents and another grows as overall safety improves but we are a long way from zero-accidents.

The global aviation industry is an incredibly safe industry when considering how many passengers are carried every year. However, zero-accidents remain an illusion however it might be touted as the ultimate goal.

As safety practitioners try to be ever more pro-active in our safety regimes there’s inevitably a reactive element to aviation safety. The aftermath of the 2005 experiences led to ICAO holding its first high-level safety conference in 2010 in Montréal. There have been two more such conferences since. One in 2015 and one in 2011.

The results have been to push the aviation industry towards a more pro-active management of safety. It’s not just the industry. In cases, the regulatory weaknesses that exist in individual States has needed to be given attention.

Add all this up over the last 20-years and you would expect everyone to be pro-actively managing aviation safety. Sadly, that’s not the case as some States and organisations are still managing the transition to a more pro-active approach. Some are so resource constrained that they are more inclined to talk about aviation safety than to act upon it.

Regulatory weaknesses exist in some unlikely places. Additionally, with the fashion of the time being to cut “red tape” at every opportunity, more troubles might be just over the horizon.

I’d like to see a break between the association of what is regulatory and what is considered bureaucracy. The two are not necessarily the same. Regulation and standards are synonymous. And what we know is that there is no successful complex industry without standards.

Please let’s not wait for the next accident report to tell us what to do.

Toronto Regional Jet

The bubbling cauldron of social media is overflowing with comments on the regional jet crash in Toronto. So, far 2025 is starting as 2005. After a period when aviation safety results were admirably good, we now enter a period when events conspire to show us that we should never take aviation safety for granted. Obviously, the question gets asked – is this a statistical blip or is something more concerning happening?

As would be expected the Canadian air accident investigators are gathering data. No doubt there will be preliminary reports. Much evidence is available to help the air accident investigators determine probable cause. This evidence available includes a plethora of video footage. The ubiquity of the mobile phone has led to a situation where videos circulate on social media before they get into the hands of professional investigators.

Speculation on this major accident ranges from the Trumpian – I saw a video therefore I know what happened to the more considered comments about how well the cabin crew did in evacuating the broken aircraft under horrendous conditions.

Certainly, the landing appears to have been a hard one. The weather condition, as seen on the pictures doing the rounds, was windy but not stormy in the sense of poor visibility. Snow cleared from the runway. Surrounded by a landscape of white.

Luckly the aircraft slid down the main runway. That dissipated energy to an extent that most passengers were not badly hurt and therefore able to escape the wreckage. Another fortuitous part of the sequence of events was the absence of a fire at the time of evacuation.

I need to be careful in using the word – fortuitous. The investigators will put together the exact sequence of events but there’s no doubt in my mind that credit should be given to the good design of the aircraft. Generally, accidents and serious incidents are more survivable that people might initially think. This is NOT simple luck. Although, for individuals’ luck may play a part in their fate.

Structures and Cabin safety experts spend their working lives thinking about the – what ifs. The objectives set for aircraft designs maximise the opportunities for survival. Cabin crew can fly for a lifetime and never experience a catastrophic event. When they do their training kicks in, and lives are saved. My thanks are to all those who work tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure that aviation safety isn’t taken for granted. Those who do the serious business.

POST: Agreed. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/20/us/flight-attendants-safety-plane-crash/index.html

The Evolution of Air Traffic Control

Until civil air traffic started to grow the need for its control wasn’t the number one consideration. The pilot was the master of the skies. A basic “see and avoid” approach was taken. See another aircraft and avoid it at all costs. Note, I am talking about the early 1920s.

If you want a nice exploration of how it all started keep an eye on the site of the Croydon Airport Visitor Centre[1]. The first London airport was not Heathrow or Gatwick. No, there’s a stretch of grass, a hotel, industrial units and out of town shopping standing on the site in Croydon of the first London airport. 

Firstly, we can thank Marconi for the first radiotelephony. Providing a means for pilots to speak to airports enabled the development of Air Traffic Control (ATC)[2]. It got going out of necessity because there was limited space on the ground and many aircraft wanted to take-off and land.

Aerial navigation took off in the 1920s. A hundred years ago. WWII drove advancement in every aspect of technology. After WWII, the basic having been established, an international body was established to set standards for international flying. That’s where today’s ICAO originated.

Radar and VHF radio transmissions were the cutting-edge technology that enabled air traffic to grow. Radio navigation aids developed as did automatic landing systems. So, by the time the jet-age started there was a whole selection of technology available to manage air traffic. Not only that but the standards required for these systems to interoperate around the globe were put down on paper.

That legacy has served aviation remarkably well. Incremental changes have been made as new capabilities have been developed. Most notable of that evolution is to return elements of control to the cockpit. A traffic alert and collision avoidance system (TCAS) does just that. It provides a safety net.

What we have available to manage dense airspace and busy airports is a complex, highly interconnected, interdependent set of systems of systems and procedures that is not easy to unravel. Each part, in each phase of flight, plays its role in assuring safe operations.

News and rumours are that quick fixes are being demanded in the US. Responding to recent accidents and a perception that all the above in antiquated, a well know tech guru has been thrown at the “problem”. I shouldn’t be a cynic, as having a fresh pair of eyes looking at the next steps in the development of air traffic management should be good – shouldn’t it?

It’s my observation, as an engineer who knows a thing or two about these things, is that any simple solution means that the parties have not thought long enough about the problem. In this case there are no quick fixes. However, there’s likely to be incremental improvements and they will not come cheap. 

[1] https://www.historiccroydonairport.org.uk/opening-hours/

[2] https://www.historiccroydonairport.org.uk/interesting-topics/air-traffic-control/

Legacy, A Cautionary Tale

English is full of pithy phrases that echo through the pages of history. One of the greatest contributors to this phenomenon was Shakespeare. Lots of quips and quotes and snippets of wisdom come from his numerous plays (and other literary imitations).

The phrase or maximum that I have in mind is: “Beware of an old man in a hurry.” It’s not the only one on the same basic theme. My dad used to say that there’s “No fool like an old fool”. Honestly, as a child I had no idea what he was getting at. I guess it was to sum-up an observation of someone’s behaviour. It’s not a complementary saying.

There’re several ways of interpreting the “old man in a hurry” saying.

For one, and I’m just about to clock 65 years, the way the world seems is conditioned by the fact that one’s final moments are a lot closer than they were as an ambitious young man.

Another interpretation is that we might expect an older person, with more experience, will be guided to make better life decisions. However, in reality, the reverse is so often true.

I could go as far as to say that the “beware” part is to beware of imbedded prejudices and reduced peripheral vison that can come with age.

Doing a quick bit of research the source of this short English saying is not ancient wisdom from a Greek scholar or scribbling Roman sage. Not even a contemplative Medieval monk.

No, it’s a young British Conservative politician talking about an old Liberal. In fact, probably the most successful old Liberal that has ever graced Parliament. The one who left this county with the world’s biggest Empire. When he passed at 88 years, Britain was the most developed, most prosperous nation and biggest manufacturer the world had ever known. If we were ever to call to Make Britain Great Again, we’d call for an old Liberal. MBGA doesn’t exactly flow of the tongue. Anyway, GB (Great Britain) endures as a name.

The young British Conservative politician was Churchill’s father, Randolph, and the old Liberal was an energetic, fired-up Gladstone.

Can I now use “Beware of an old man in a hurry” as I reflect on the week’s News? Does President Trump see the world as a racing clock? Knowing that mortality looms. Knowing that any marks that are to be made need to be made – now. The “long-game” is for others to play.

When time is almost up the tendency to rashness can be understood. A lot depends on whether the subject of legacy looms large in the thinking of a leader. Through the millennia legacy has mattered a great deal to leaders.

Gladstone’s success was marred by the eventual destruction of the Party he led. He did transform government from a boys-club of privilege, at least in part, but the future of Ireland became his achillea heel. As a Liberal, he found building a powerful country didn’t mean granting privilege for politician’s and friends’ private businesses but ensuring that the working class were represented.

Trump’s haste, and lack of longer-sighted goals, appears real. Constitutions, democracy and the public good will endure. Mean-time hang on to your hats.

Challenges Facing Supersonic Flight

Congratulations go to “Boom” for their supersonic jet flight[1]. Civil aerospace hasn’t ventured into this space for some time. Breaking the sound barrier is not an everyday occurrence in the civil world. There may be an international market for such new aircraft as much as there’s a market for fast cars and expensive boats.

However, I do not think a supersonic flight is the future of civil aerospace. It’s not mainstream. The environmental objectives for the future of aviation are ambitious. Generally, that means getting people from A to B in as clean and efficient a manner as is feasible. That does not include going ever faster and faster.

This new aircraft type is likely to be solely made in America. So, it does fit with the current political direction of the administration in the US. A triumph of technology. President Trump’s instinct to get rid of rules and regulations may work in the favour of Boom. However, in the end, the deciding factor will be – will the international marketplace want such a new aircraft type?

I certainly recall amazing ambition of the people who brought us the Eclipse aircraft[2]. Small light jets were going to be everywhere. Like a Silicon Valley revolution for the aerospace industries. That didn’t happen as predicted because the economics didn’t stack up. I don’t recall rules and regulations being the problem.

Even so, BOOM technology will have a hard job meeting international safety and environmental standards. I seem to remember that’s not new for supersonic flight. Even if the advancements made improve noise performance, there’s emissions and contrails to ponder.

There is another consideration too. It’s the problem Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) is facing now. To capitalise on their capabilities, these aircraft technologies require the reorganisation (modernisation) of national airspace. Plus, agreement at international level[3].

Supersonic flight over the world’s oceans may get agreement. Supersonic flight over national territory is a much harder sell. Some fliers may pay to slashing their travel times on-route. Going round and round in a stack, waiting to land, with conventional aircraft all around, will soon dispel any excitement.

Good luck to Boom. If civil use is minimal, no doubt defence applications will be numerous.

[1] https://boomsupersonic.com/

[2] https://www.eclipse.aero/about/

[3] https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/Pages/default.aspx