Nirmal Jayasinghe

Looks like the shuttle Atlantis, previously scheduled to leave on 27th, would get delayed further. Now it seems a storm is brewing [not kidding]. They hope to keep the shuttle on the launchpad at Kennedy, using the Rotating Service Structure as a shield it seems. However, the shuttle program seems as fragile as ever.

Since start of missions in early ’80s, NASA lost two shuttles so far, not a very impressive safety record for such a complicated STS. Although they hoped to cut costs by making the vehicle reusable, I wonder whether there’d been any real saving, taking into account the two losses as well. I don’t have hard evidence, but I’m sure a shuttle mission costs way more than a ‘one-shot’ Soyuz mission. Actually what NASA should’ve done was to keep something more robust, like the Apollo, for manned mission to orbit and some automated heavylift booster [Delta V?] for weightlifting. All Russian heavylift missions are such, aren’t they? Sure the shuttle has an impressive cargo capability, but it wasn’t really necessary. What would’ve really been useful were a permanent space station [ISS is way back on schedule] in orbit, a robust way of getting people there [like the Soyuz], and another [probably automated] way to send up cargo there. If they did, the ISS would’ve been completed yonks ago, some serious research would’ve been done up there to pay up the buck spent [at least partly] and things would seem reasonable to send people back to moon, even as a fantasy.

What’s happening right now is we haven’t got a really reliable system other than the Soyuz to go up, no really reliable cargo heavylifter, and almost no space station. And now NASA is dreaming about a stupid Crew Exploration Vehicle or something to send up people permanently to Moon in something like 1 1/2 decades. This seems disastrous. If they get this policy rooted properly, I’m sure most of really important programs [unmanned planetary probes, Mission to Plane Earth etc.] would face severe fund cuts. That’s what it seems so far. Time Mr.Griffin started using any wisdom gathered through his five masters qualifications!

The institute where I’m an undergraduate, the Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology, has two main campuses, at Colpetty and Malabe. Some degree programs are held exclusively at Malabe [Information Systems], and some at Colpetty [Computer Systems & Networking/CSN]. I’m a CSN undergraduate, and both campuses are kind of the same distance to me [Malabe is a bit farther]. So we were at peace in both campuses, and then the unbelievable happened.

The management has decided to shift all Computer Systems & Networking third- and fourth-years to Malabe. This was anyway a decision that had to be taken someday. The Colpetty campus [located in BOC Merchant Tower] is overcrowded. And then there’s this security problem. The dual claymore mine attack was in very near vicinity to Colpetty campus but fortunately no student got hurt. And nowadays you can’t walk around the place without running the risk of being run down by the President’s Motorcade [or someone else's].

But unfortunately, there’s another facet to the problem. Some of the students have traveling difficulties to Malabe, especially ones who are from the Moratuwa side of the Galle Road. So they’re point-blank against the shift. According to sources, there are well and enough students who like to shift, too. They back the move, while the others try to get it canceled. So the sides are almost at war.

Another thing that is common to all the people who would be shifting is the possibility of a ‘culture shock’ at Malabe. The Colpetty campus has a freer, liberal style of life [both students and faculty] but at Malabe it seems more like ’state university’. It’s a bit threatening atmosphere which prevails at Malabe. There seem to be heated arguments over the course web forums. Malabe campus promises dedicated and shared facilities including ones for general purpose computing, but as it seems lab hours are packed full at Malabe.

And there’s the problem with students who are working and are attending the weekend program. Some lab classes are held at weekday evenings, so they just have time to finish there work at 5.00pm and run into the lab at 5.30. At Malabe they won’t have that luxury. There’s a nice traffic jam from Colombo to Malabe at that time. And what’s more, there are no buses to Colombo from Malabe after, say, 7.30-8.00pm. At Colpetty we can get out virtually at anytime.

The decision, it seems, is final. It had been taken, and the shift will be done, says Professor Lalith Gamage, our MD/CEO. The opposition is furious, and the supporters are on the verge of physical cheer. So time will decide whether we go, whether the students will persuade the management, or what. Presently the buzz is quite loud.

My lecturer on operating systems engineering came up with a disturbing idea last Sunday. Looking at the glazed faces of the class after a heavy bout of process scheduling techniques, he said “For a developing country, democracy can be the worst possible thing”. Then he asked the class how many agreed with him. Only about one or two. Then he went on to explain why.

            Democracy is bad for a developing country because, he said, that then everybody wants to have their own say and nothing gets done. In a sense it is true [is that the reason India is lagging behind China?]. For a country to get out of the vicious pit of the third world, we need a dictator. Of course not ones like Hitler, but like Mahathir Mohommad or Li Quan Yu. Guys who know where they’re headed, and selfless [I once read that, seeing all the cows and bulls roaming Colombo streets, Li Quan Yu had asked Dudley Senanayake "why don't you ban them?" Dudley had replied, "Oh, you have to let them spoil the streets otherwise the voters would be upset with me!"] They may not have been “open” dictators, but in a sense they were, said my lecturer. Spit out a chewing gum in Singapore, 50 whacks. [Well looking at the state of Sri Lankan roads, it should be at least 100 here :-)] To do stuff like that, direct people with an iron hand, we need some dictator-like guy.

            Of course when you get developed,  you can go for so-called democracy. It’s like gala kadagena yanawa [running aimlessly altogether]. Actually even in countries like United States, there’s no democracy like the Capitol Hill wants other countries to deploy. On the surface it looks nice, but when you go inside, it’s something else. The man got both his masters’ and PhD in the good ole US of A, so he must’ve known what he was talking about.

            What he said maybe right. But then it might be a dream just like that of “pure democracy”. It might be that much difficult to find selfless and well-oriented dictators, to guide a country from 3rd to 1st world.

At last the Air Force pilots seem to have enough work so they don’t feel guilty about the payment they receive! I guess in the last several weeks the LTTE got more “bombs in the real places” than they ever did. Last night or so I hear their Sea Tiger main base is destroyed by airstrike. Well now where are we headed? Of course we can’t say war is good. It should be stopped at the first possible point. But, can we always be puppets in LTTE hands? For the first time the forces have shown that with proper leadership, they can do anything. All the LTTE attacks at GOSL force positions in North were halted with heavy losses. But can we finish this only by war? What should we do more to get over this? Possibly as a country we can’t be warfighting for ever.

Vasu said a nice thing at the peace procession [which ended up in gutikeliya] held in Colombo recently:

“We fought to open a water resource that affected 15000 people. Now hundreds have died and over 100000 are displaced, with millions worth of property destroyed”

Sure this can’t be won only by war.