Friday, April 14, 2017

Islam in Space and Won't That Be Fun

The United Arab Emirate plans to send a mission to Mars unless their people wreck this one first.  (RT:  UAE launches space program to boost colonization of Mars by 2021)

At first Muslims would not go to space because they did not see how Sharia Law could work in low gravity since they would not be able to stone people to death.  However, they have since reviewed and determined putting someone out the airlock from a spaceship will be just as good because they saw they would be able to watch the agony as the person ran out of oxygen and his eyeballs froze.  They reasoned, this could be even better.

That's the Donald Trump view but what do you expect from someone who looks at Kate Smith as the height of the culture when she was nothing more than a caterwauling fat lady who should have grown a beard and joined the circus.

As a musician who has no material and no imagination to create any, the first refuge is patriotic songs about godding since that will always land a few pigeons.

Ed:  was ist godding?

Acting godly while you waste civilians.


Conversely, a Muslim man from Florida is one of the brightest people I ever met and I've hung with some really smart mofos even though my writing doesn't give an iota of evidence of that.  An interesting pastime at the bank, in fact the only interesting pastime, was engaging in philosophical discussions with my Muslim friend, my Catholic friend, and my heretical self.  Nothing else of any value came out of the bank years but that part was real.

The UAE has launched an ambitious space program aimed at sending a probe to Mars by 2021 and settling the Red Planet by 2117. The kingdom’s rulers see the hi-tech venture as a sign of hope and inspiration for the entire Arab world.

Until recently, only a handful of leading world powers funded and promoted space exploration programs, including the US, Russia, China, Japan and the EU. Other nations, especially those in the Middle East, have long been excluded from global scientific mainstream, but now the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has joined the race.

- RT

Ed:  Trump will bomb it before they launch so much as a bottle rocket

Prob'ly so.  Either he or one of those micropenile generals in the Pentagon.


Horace Bury is a Muslim in space and of course you know that from the required reading of "The Mote in God's Eye" and we can cheerfully report he came back in the sequel, "The Gripping Hand."  Bury was an important figure in the first novel and he's a major figure in the sequel.  The perspective he offers in both is fascinating.

Sci fi is brought into this since the UAE has no ability to build even a bottle rocket so the only way into space is to buy launch services elsewhere.  They can afford it but that won't do much more for them than the ability to put cable TV satellites in orbit and so what.  There's no immediacy to the news and here's some more sci fi.

The national space program should give boost to the UAE’s Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) – an ambitious project aimed at making the kingdom the first Arab country to reach Mars by 2021. In February of this year, the UAE’s prime minister said that the EMM is also studying the possibility building the “first inhabitable human settlement” on Mars within the next 100 years, settling the Red Planet by 2117.

- RT

The UAE will be on Mars in four years.  Righty, right, mates.  Say hello to Matt Damon when you get there.

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