IN THE spirit of 鈥渋f you want something done properly, do it yourself,鈥� your
humble columnist would like to risk breaking his arms patting himself on the
back for his incredible prescience. Faithful readers will recall that recently I
boldly predicted that President Clinton was so smitten with a story he heard on
CNN about an implantable chip that might restore Stevie Wonder鈥檚 vision that he
was bound to ask for more money from Congress to develop the technology
(快猫短视频, 25 December 1999, p 85).
Talk about hitting the nail on the head. In his State of the Union address to
Congress in January鈥攁 speech he uses to set forth his legislative
agenda鈥攖he President singled out the retinal chip as one of a dozen or so
new technologies that held great promise for the future. Then he got to the
bottom line. 鈥淭o accelerate the march of discovery across all these disciplines
in science and technology, I ask you to support my recommendation of an
unprecedented $3 billion in the 21st Century Research Fund, the largest
increase in civilian research in a generation.鈥�
If I ever get around to giving stock tips in this column, you鈥檒l want to pay
close attention.
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RUSSIA and the US signed an agreement on 2 September 1993 to cooperate on
space research. In particular, Russia agreed to help build NASA鈥檚 International
Space Station. Politicians predicted great things from the agreement, as is
their wont. NASA administrator Daniel Goldin and his Russian counterpart Yuri
Koptev stood side by side at the signing ceremony in Washington, where Goldin
happily shared his enthusiasm for the partnership.
鈥淚 spent the major portion of my career working on weapons and tools of war,鈥�
he said, 鈥渁nd I am absolutely delighted to be working with Mr Koptev and the
wonderful engineers in Russia. This is an historic moment, and I鈥檓 just very
excited. Mr Koptev, I want to give you a hug.鈥�
That was then. This is now. Working with the Russians has turned into one
long nightmare for NASA. Every step of the collaboration has been fraught with
problems. The latest problem, a two-year delay in a critical living module the
Russians are supposed to be building, may be the last straw. It appears Goldin
is seriously considering writing the Russians out of the space station.
One suspects Goldin is yearning for the days when he was building those
weapons.
A SLOGAN can be a very dangerous thing, especially when it implicitly
predicts the future. The US government鈥檚 National Weather Service (NWS) recently
learned that the hard way.
Early this year, the NWS got itself a new multimillion-dollar supercomputer.
With much ceremony, the service鈥檚 director, John Kelly Jr. hailed it as a step
toward 鈥淎merica鈥檚 No Surprise Weather 厂别谤惫颈肠别鈥�. It was a catchy slogan, brimming
with all-American can-do spirit and bluff confidence. Within days, Kelly and the
rest of the service were eating a breakfast of crow. One of the supercomputer鈥檚
first tests came during a late January weekend. The NWS predicted a light
dusting of snow, nothing to get excited about. But, come Monday morning,
portions of the East Coast were under a foot of snow. Ignominiously, the
building housing the supercomputer in suburban Washington was right in the thick
of it; within view were highways clogged with snowdrifts and commuters crawling
through blizzard-like conditions.
Meteorologists put a brave face on it, pointing out that the supercomputer
isn鈥檛 up to full speed yet and is still using old mathematical models. Service
officials say they鈥檙e not ready to give up their slogan, although there have
been some alternative suggestions, such as the 鈥淔EW Surprises Weather
厂别谤惫颈肠别鈥�.
This column suggests something simple, like: 鈥淧rediction is difficult,
especially about the future . . .鈥�