2008_02_01_archive

While the sniping against the Vision for Space Exploration continues

from the planetary science community (yes, I'm refusing to call it by

that other name), NASA has wisely turned to an ad agency to help

better sell it. A good move, IMHO, as NASA PAO has never shown very

much skill in public relations.

I wonder what sort of ideas that Don Draper, from my favorite show

about Madison Avenue, would have?

posted by Mark at 8:06 PM

Apparently John McCain, who wants very much to be the Republican

nominee for President, once toyed with the idea of leaving the

Republican Party. Perhaps someone should ask McCain about this and

perhaps extract a pledge that he not contemplate it again, especially

if elected President.

posted by Mark at 1:13 PM

Another image from the new Indiana Jones film. Cate Blanchett looks

very annoyed with the Man with the Whip. And what are those guys in

1950s American Army uniforms doing there?

posted by Mark at 1:07 PM

Captain Ed has some thoughts about the recent terror bombing, where Al

Qaeda used two women with Downs Syndrome as conveyers of the bombs.

The people who would used mentally challanged women in this way are

not human beings, in my considerate opinion, and have placed

themselves beyond human civilization and its rules.

posted by Mark at 12:48 PM

Rand Simberg has a piece taking note of the various anniversaries,

good and bad, that seem to have happened this time of year. A couple

of howlers in his piece needs to be corrected:

Moreover, because of NASA's refusal to use existing commercial

launch vehicles such as the Boeing Delta and Lockheed Martin Atlas,

which would have spread the fixed costs of maintaining those

systems over a larger number of flights, the costs to the

Department of Defense for satellite launches will go up. This seems

to be not just ignoring, but perverting the requirement to support

national security with the new program.

Rand is referring to the Delta IV and Atlas V respectively,

colledtively known as the EELV. NASA has determined for various

reasons having to do with lift and safety, that neither of these

vehicles have sufficent capability to launch an Orion space craft to

Low Earth orbit. Furthermore, Rand seems to have forgotten that the

original rationale for these two two launch vehicles was to launch

both military and commercial payloads. The predicted commercial market

has not entirely panned out for the EELV, hence the higher than

expected launch costs. Hardly NASA's fault. NASA has, however,

commited to using EELVs for various scientific and other payloads,

including the deployment of a lunar GPS system.

Rand goes on with:

Beyond that, there are reportedly serious technical issues with

NASA's chosen approach, from an overweight crew module, to an

underperforming launch system that may shake itself and the crew

module apart.

What Rand neglects to add is that these sorts of issues crop up in

just about every development project, particularly of launch vehicles.

The Saturn V had vibration probems. The original lunar module had

weight problems. Both of them were fixed, as one would presume that

problems that seem to worry Rand about the Ares launch system and the

Orion space craft will be fixed.

Even in the commercial area, technical problems crop up. SpaceX's

Falcon 1 have had two launch failures, for example. SpaceX's engineers

have ascertained the causes of these failures and are fixing them. It

is noted that no one who is having Internet vapors over the Ares is

having the same over the Falcon. There seems to be, perhaps because of

a double standard, more of an understanding that problems will occur

in rocket development in the private sector than at NASA.

posted by Mark at 11:50 AM

Berkley wants to give the US Marines the royal order of the boot, and

Senator Demint is is not pleased.

DeMint said he will draft legislation to rescind any earmarks

dedicated for the City of Berkeley in the recently passed

appropriations bill -- which his office tallied to value about $2.1

million. He said that any money taken back would be transferred to

the Marines.

DeMint's office provided a preliminary list of items that would be

subject to his proposal:

-- $975,000 for the University of California at Berkeley, for the

Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service, which may include

establishing an endowment, and for cataloguing the papers of

Congressman Robert Matsui.

-- $750,000 for the Berkeley/Albana ferry service.

-- $243,000 for the Chez Panisse Foundation, for a school lunch

initiative to integrate lessons about wellness, sustainability and

nutrition into the academic curriculum.

-- $94,000 for a Berkeley public safety interoperability program.

Of course cancelling the earmarks is good policy regardless.

posted by Mark at 10:33 AM

This is the sort of bone headed bureaucratic move that makes one

despair. NASA has had this tendency to make even the most exciting

things it does seem--well--boring. Changing the Vision for Space

Exploration, which one admits has a certain poetry, to United States

Space Exploration Policy, which has that colorless, gray feel to it

could only have come from someone who never read poetry, or saw an

epic movie, or read science fiction.

posted by Mark at 9:18 AM

Five years ago the skies over Texas were illuminated with the flying

funeral pyre that was the Columbia. Here is what I had to say at the

time.

The funeral pyre of the crew of Columbia STS-107 streaked across

the Texas sky like some horrible comet. In ancient times comets

were considered to be a prelude to Earth-shaking events, the rise

and fall of empires, or the birth and death of kings. What turns of

history this tragedy will set in motion no one can predict. One can

offer, though, some suggestions of what should be.

Read it all.