Daily Archives: May 6, 2020

The best political reads to keep on your bookshelf – Spectator.co.uk

Posted: May 6, 2020 at 6:42 am

As Michael Gove is well aware, a great book collection especially a political one has got to stir the pot in order to be at all useful. Gove is the latest politician to fall victim to the bookshelf police after his home library came under scrutiny on Twitter. His critics were soon up in arms about everything from the number of books about dictators to the presence of Holocaust denier David Irving in his collection. It seems that in 2020 we are not allowed to read or keep a book whose arguments we dont wholeheartedly agree with.

If, like Gove, we were going to construct a bookshelf of political tomes that actually sharpened our arguments and ideas rather than simply pacified the social media crowd, what would this collection look like?

Weve put together a list of must-reads, covering everything from free speech to Brexit (remember that? No, me neither).

When journalist Fleming Rose decided to commission a Danish cartoon competition to depict the prophet Muhammed, he could not have predicted the chain of shocking events that his actions would unleash or the strange self-censorship that many in the West impose over issues deemed too controversial to go near. In The Tyranny of Silence, Rose scrutinises his own motives for publishing the images and produces a robust defence of freedom of speech in the process.

Alongside his political career, Hague has created a successful sideshow in political biography. I highly recommend listening to his impressive biography of Wilberforce on Audible. He reads it superbly, which cant be said for all audible authors, most of whom are wise to call in actors for the job. His earlier biography of William Pitt the Younger did much to put Britains youngest Prime Minister on the political map and, whilst Wilberforce was already a leading light in British political history, this biography lays bare the ways in which he had to master the political and cultural mechanisms of the day to bring about radical change.

The late Sir Roger Scruton was always something of an outlier in the academic community a respected philosopher with Conservative convictions. This prescient book unpacks the forces that led to the Brexit vote at a time when the rest of us were still grappling with what exactly caused the result. He charts the philosophy that drove Brexit back to differences between British and European approaches to citizenship which he argues came about as a result of common law and the establishment of protestantism. Brexit, in Scrutons view, is the rational outworking of British history not a freak event brought about by an ill-informed populace, as many on the remain side have sought to argue.

Populism is a word that has come into its own over the last decade. Generally used by critics to denote any electoral result that upsets their own political sensibilities, its a term that neatly sums up the era running up to Covid-19. You couldnt ask for a more erudite guide to the term than Goodwin who impartially charts the rise of populism right back to its roots. He debunks the myth that the movement is fleeting and that young people are not attracted to it all the while keeping his book unstuffy and jargon-free. A must read.

This is the go-to account of the referendum campaign for anyone interested in Brexit. Shipman does a sterling job of giving each side a fair hearing quite a feat given the tensions that existed between remainers and leavers at the time.

From its intimate portrayal of David Camerons shock and dismay at losing from within the walls of Number 10 to the now infamous role of Leave campaign co-ordinator Dominic Cummings in shaping Leaves winning strategy, Shipmans fly-on-the-wall account will be the book that politicians turn to remember what happened when and why. I also enjoyed the throwaway details of Wetminsters eating habits. Who knew Brexit was essentially fuelled by takeaway pizza and curry?

Whilst we all like to think that we construct our political belief systems in an entirely rational manner based on the facts we have available, Jonathan Haidt would beg to differ. He unpicks the lefts characterisation of the right as evil and asks what it is about left-wing ideology that insists on characterising its opponents in such morally stark terms; those who espouse a conservative ideology are not just wrong, in its view, but morally bankrupt. Leaving no stone unturned, he then trains his scalpel on religious conviction in a similarly eviscerating manner.

This is a clever, easy read for those who find political tribalism a bit nonsensical at times. Mumford exposes the ethical contradictions that lie at the heart of many of our political divides fromassisted dying, social welfare, sexual liberation, abortion, gun control to the environment, technology and justice. Its a book that will leave you questioning where exactly you sit on the political spectrum.

A book that contains a positive account of the impact of colonialism is bound to have the social media crowd calling for the gallows. British civil servant Sir John Cowperthwaite is credited with helping to transform Hong Kong from a poverty-stricken backwater into one of the most prosperous nations on earth before its handover to China in 1997. But how did this change in fortunes come about? This book unpicks the economic policies that enabled Hong Kong to flourish a top read for political anoraks and capitalist zealots alike.

Published in 2005, this comic novel is the closest well ever get to an inside track on the PMs off-beat sense of humour. The title shows how he was gamely poking fun at religious orthodoxy long before his famous letter box remark. The novel centres on the State visit of an American president which goes awry when a would-be terrorist slips through the Palace of Westminster security gates. The book received a somewhat mixed reception when it was published but its a fun read, especially now that the author serendipitously finds himself in the top job hed clearly always dreamed of. Plus, the title will have your eagle-eyed Zoom friends outraged in no time at all.

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The best political reads to keep on your bookshelf - Spectator.co.uk

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China plans to have space station by 2022 – The Canberra Times

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China plans to send four crewed space missions and four cargo craft to complete work on its permanent space station within about two years, officials say after the launch of a new spacecraft aboard the latest heavy-lift rocket. The announcement by the country's crewed space program further cements China's aspirations to rival the US, Europe, Russia and private companies in outer space exploration. The unmanned spacecraft and its return capsule were flung into space aboard a Long March 5B rocket in its debut flight on Tuesday from the Wenchang launch centre in the southern island province of Hainan. The capsule is reportedly an improvement on the Shenzhou capsule based on the former Soviet Union's Soyuz model and can carry six astronauts rather than the current three. China earlier launched an experimental space station that later crashed back through the atmosphere, and plans to build a larger facility with multiple modules to rival the scale of the International Space Station. China's burgeoning space program achieved a milestone last year by landing a spacecraft on the largely unexplored dark side of the moon and has plans to launch a lander and rover on Mars. The program has developed rapidly, especially since its first crewed mission in 2003, and has sought cooperation with space agencies in Europe and elsewhere. The US, however, has banned most space cooperation with China out of national security concerns, keeping China from participating in the International Space Station and prompting it to gradually develop its own equipment. The new Long March 5B rocket has been specially designated to propel modules of the future space station into orbit. China is also among three countries planning missions to Mars for this summer. The United States is launching a lander, China has a lander-orbiter combo, and the United Arab Emirates is sending an orbiter. Spacecraft can only be launched to Mars every two years, to take advantage of the best possible line-up between Earth and its neighbouring planet. Australian Associated Press

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China plans to send four crewed space missions and four cargo craft to complete work on its permanent space station within about two years, officials say after the launch of a new spacecraft aboard the latest heavy-lift rocket.

The announcement by the country's crewed space program further cements China's aspirations to rival the US, Europe, Russia and private companies in outer space exploration.

The unmanned spacecraft and its return capsule were flung into space aboard a Long March 5B rocket in its debut flight on Tuesday from the Wenchang launch centre in the southern island province of Hainan.

The capsule is reportedly an improvement on the Shenzhou capsule based on the former Soviet Union's Soyuz model and can carry six astronauts rather than the current three.

China earlier launched an experimental space station that later crashed back through the atmosphere, and plans to build a larger facility with multiple modules to rival the scale of the International Space Station.

China's burgeoning space program achieved a milestone last year by landing a spacecraft on the largely unexplored dark side of the moon and has plans to launch a lander and rover on Mars.

The program has developed rapidly, especially since its first crewed mission in 2003, and has sought cooperation with space agencies in Europe and elsewhere.

The US, however, has banned most space cooperation with China out of national security concerns, keeping China from participating in the International Space Station and prompting it to gradually develop its own equipment.

The new Long March 5B rocket has been specially designated to propel modules of the future space station into orbit.

China is also among three countries planning missions to Mars for this summer. The United States is launching a lander, China has a lander-orbiter combo, and the United Arab Emirates is sending an orbiter.

Spacecraft can only be launched to Mars every two years, to take advantage of the best possible line-up between Earth and its neighbouring planet.

Australian Associated Press

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China plans to have space station by 2022 - The Canberra Times

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How long will the 1st astronauts to ride SpaceX’s Crew Dragon be in space? No one knows exactly (yet). – Space.com

Posted: at 6:41 am

Two NASA astronauts will make history this month when they become the first crew to fly to the International Space Station in a private spacecraft. But exactly how long their historic mission will last has yet to be determined.

On May 27, astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken will board SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft and launch toward the orbiting laboratory. The test flight is scheduled to lift off on a Falcon 9 rocket at 4:32 p.m. EDT (2032 GMT), and If all goes according to plan, the capsule will dock with the station about 19 hours later.

While NASA and SpaceX have been planning this Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission for years, there is one key aspect of this mission for which they do not yet have a plan: the amount of time that the astronauts will spend in space before heading back to Earth.

Related: Take a walk through SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship

Behnken and Hurley could spend anywhere from one month to 119 days at the International Space Station, but the exact duration of their mission won't be determined until they are already in orbit, NASA officials said in a mission briefing on Friday (May 1). So, they could be returning to Earth at the end of June or as late as Sept. 23.

To decide on a date for the return flight, NASA and SpaceX will be evaluating not only the state of the Crew Dragon spacecraft in orbit, but also the progress on SpaceX's Crew-1 capsule. That vehicle will carry the first operational flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft, which will transport four astronauts of the Expedition 63/64 crew to the International Space Station. (So far, no launch date has been set for the Crew-1 mission; Demo-2 must return safely before Crew-1 will be able to fly.)

"Really the decision point is, hey, is Dragon healthy? Is the vehicle performing well, the Dragon that's on orbit? And then we'll be looking ahead to that next mission, the Crew-1 flight, and looking at the vehicle readiness and trying to determine what's the smart thing to do relative to the mission duration," Steve Stich, deputy manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said at the mission briefing.

"It's a little bit of a variable, but it's one that I think we can manage well," Stich said of the Crew-1 capsule status. "We would like to fly a mission that is as long as we need to for a test flight but also support some of the space station program needs and augment their crew capability to do science in other operations at the station."

Regardless of how the timing works out with the arrival of the Crew-1 mission, the Crew Dragon used for the Demo-2 mission cannot stay docked with the station for more than 119 days, Stich said, because its solar arrays are not designed to withstand degradation in space for more than 120 days.

"Any solar array in low Earth orbit tends to degrade a little bit over time," Stich said. "It turns out the atmosphere has a little bit of oxygen in it it's called atomic oxygen and so there's a little bit of degradation in the ability for the cells itself to generate power. And the particular cells on the trunk for a Dragon, based on analysis capability, kind of a worst-case prediction, we think we can get about 120 days capability out of those."

However, the operational version of the Crew Dragon spacecraft, like the one that will fly the Crew-1 mission, is designed to last 210 days in space. That matches the on-orbit lifespan of Russia's Soyuz crew capsules, which have ferried NASA astronauts to and from the space station since the space shuttle program ended almost a decade ago.

The Demo-2 mission comes a little over a year after SpaceX successfully launched an unpiloted Crew Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station for the Demo-1 mission. If all goes well with Demo-2, SpaceX could begin regularly ferrying astronauts to and from the orbiting lab as early as this summer.

Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and onFacebook.

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How long will the 1st astronauts to ride SpaceX's Crew Dragon be in space? No one knows exactly (yet). - Space.com

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