The Case for Liberal Arts Majors in the Space Business

"NASA hires engineers, they don't hire writers."
--K. E. Leahy (a.k.a. Mom)

"I've got plenty of engineers. What I need is somebody who can write."
--Col. Robert M. Weimer, U.S. Army (Ret.)

I have one of the more unique jobs at NASA, in that my job is to write conference papers, outreach materials, presentations, and speeches for the Ares Projects. Some of my non-techie friends are baffled about this: "How do you write about all that stuff if you don't know rocket science?" On the one hand, they're right, and I spend at least one editing cycle having a subject matter expert going over my stuff to make sure it's not technically wrong. However, it's also to my advantage not to be completely fluent in "Engineerish," "Scientistese," or even "Governmentese." Why? Because my audience is not other engineers. I operate in that broad, hazy territory between rocket geek and normal person.

I actually wanted to be a science fiction writer when I graduated with a B. A. in English lit. That didn't quite work out because I didn't know enough about science or engineering to make that stuff plausible, nor did I understand people well enough to write about them effectively. Good thing I didn't quit my day job.

But English majors still have their place in the universe--yes, even in the uber-techie world of NASA's Constellation Program--and there are even ways to apply the English lit-crit skills that we learn instead of math or chemistry. For example, a general education in linguistics, semantics, and other courses that focus on the structure of language can enable the writer to "understand" engineering without doing the math. What follows will probably horrify my engineering customers, but they cannot argue much about it, because I get more and more right all the time.

Let's say you've got some hypothetical hieroglyphics in front of you, like this:

"It has been determined that the potential for degradation of pofcore performance is increased by drendelation of starboard riffleclamps under increased thermal environments."

Now some of these words are made up (and if they are real, my apologies--they're there to make a point, not describe a rocket). But a wise enough reader can extract a few things from this sentence:

• You can see that some sort of performance is degraded by drendelation. You don't know what drendelation is right now, but that's not important. You need to deconstruct the sentence some more to get the whole picture.
• "Increased thermal environments" is a lofty, engineerish way of saying something has been heated up. You know: sort of like "In today's contemporary society vis a vis..." is English Professorish for "Today."
• The long string of prepositions actually provides a trail of breadcrumbs that leads you back to the actual meaning. It's not just "drendelation" that is reducing X performance, but drendelation of the starboard riffleclamps. And that drendelation is caused by increasing heat.
• "It has been determined" is just more passive voice. Depending on the audience, the subject, and the purpose of your document, you can provide an actor for who is doing the determining. For example: We determined, The Ares Projects determined, or NASA determined.
• So now we can more or less determine what the primary subject, verb, and object of this sentence are:
  Subject: the starboard riffleclamps
  Verb: degrade
  Object: performance
  The rest of the words can be moved around to suit the editor's preferred word order, like so:
  
  "The engineering team determined that the starboard riffleclamps could degrade pofcore performance because they become drendeled (or experience drendeling) when they are heated."
  
  And imagine that: the sentence even flows better. Who'd have guessed?

Now again, I know nothing about engineering. And obviously I know jack about riffleclamps or any other imaginary technology. Engineers DO write in English, though it is the job of the discerning technical writer to sort out what that English is doing, and how all the parts fit together. This is literally how I "taught" myself engineering, first in the defense business and then later in the space business. Mind you, I knew bits and pieces from reading this or that bit of Clarke or Heinlein, but a lot of my rocketry education came from puzzling out what subjects did what things to what objects until the engineering terms came more naturally. Once I could piece together the words and what widgets did what things, the rest was wordsmithing, and I know that stuff.

The point is, technical writing can be done by non-engineers, and done with great facility. And when it comes to learning the hard stuff, there are definitely more direct and logical ways to go about it than the one I just outlined (though sometimes textbooks don't cover the items I'm asked to write about or edit). However, aside from making the engineerish clearer to a non-technical audience, where I believe liberal-arts majors make their best contributions is in tailoring their content for particular audiences. That requires a bit of imagination and "character research," as you have to a) find out who your audience is for a particular application, and then b) imagine what might motivate your particular reader/listener to care about the subject enough to read further.

And I would have to say that the stereotype of the engineer as having no sense of poetry or "mission" in their work is just that. I'm surrounded daily by people who translate the poetry of mathematics or physical shapes into actual hardware that sends people into space. There are days I wish like heck I could do that. Many of them can even verbally rattle off some very profound answers about why they got into the space business or what the space program means to them. They just don't like to write. To which I say, "Great! More job security for me."

Slight Change in Plans

Got a brusque but interesting call from the travel agent who booked my airline ticket today. My layover in Memphis before heading off to Amsterdam has stretched from three or four hours to seven hours. Good thing I got a free pass for the Northwest World Club. Just have to make sure I don't enjoy myself TOO much...

Potpourri LXI

A plethora of potpourri from the space biz today, so let's get rolling.

Courtesy of Martin, a Seth Borenstein story in USA Today on the return of "Shuttle-C," a cargo version of the Space Shuttle that goes back at least to the late 1980s.

The Augustine panel will be having a public meeting in Huntsville July 28. Another opportunity to let your voice be heard on the American human space flight program.

Uranium on the Moon? Maybe, says I...

Technology Review is repeating the Orlando Sentinel's story that Ares I-X is doomed. Sigh. It must be true, I saw it in a newspaper!

If you want to be depressed about the state of the world, you can check out this site (ref: Greg).

From R2D2, on location from a relaxing vacation in Michigan, a recommendation on a Bloody Mary recipe:

Ingredients
1/2 cup tomato juice
1/4 teaspoon OLD BAY® Seasoning
1/8 teaspoon lemon juice
your favorite vodka
(optional)

Directions
In a glass, mix tomato juice, OLD BAY and lemon juice over ice. Add vodka and imbibe.

Yum!

An update on the Kansas City Space Pirates, competitors I observed at the 2006 X Prize Cup.

An article on the young man who won the NASA/NSS Space Settlement competition. Nice kid, but he talked very fast. Those of you who have met me will appreciate what that means. I'm not exactly Mr. Mellow.

A Paul Spudis presentation on why we should go to the Moon.

A blog from Air & Space Magazine that more or less agrees with my notion that we ought to focus on the mission first, and then worry about the rocket horse race.

There are reports of Michael Jackson fans committing suicide. The Down-Under Defense Expert (DUDE) suggests that this might be a fine example of what I'd call Darwinian selection...but only if they didn't reproduce first.

From Lin: An invitation from "Thomas Paine" to send tea bags to your elected officials.

Potpourri LX

The Ballad of Bill Arcenaux? As Dr. OZMG would put it, "Furreal."

The Supreme Court reversed a ruling by Sonia Sotomayor and the 2nd Circuit Court, which ruled that a group of white firefighters were denied promotions because they passed a firefighter test while minority candidates did not. This won't affect her future career on the high court, but it is interesting to note for future reference.

Father Dan pointed this out to me, though he cited the original Orlando Sentinel story. Another hatchet job by the Sentinel. Is it possible to sell newspapers without sensationalism? Apparently not.

One thing I wish NASA pushed harder was what they (and by extension we, the American taxpayers) plan to do on the Moon. Here are some thoughts by Dennis Wingo and others. I don't always agree with Dennis, particularly on the Constellation architecture, but he has some interesting thoughts regarding the Moon.

The International Space University and Singularity University's opening ceremonies will be on Ustream.com this evening. I presume they'll save the stream after the live feed.

The New Nine: NASA has selected this year's class of nine astronauts. They don't say if those astronauts are to fly for the Constellation Program or Shuttle, just "future space exploration." Frustrating.

A Swiss team is unveiling a solar-powered airplane. Cool! Kinda hard to fly at night, though...

Book Review: The Anti-Federalist Papers

I'm rather ashamed that I got through all of The Anti-Federalist Papers before I got through all of The Federalist Papers, but these things happen. I ended up reading the Anti book after some libertarian friends on Facebook tried to convince me that the U.S. Constitution was, in fact, a coup d'etat, a statement with which I vehemently disagree--and still do, come to think of it. However, I already had this book on my Kindle, so the conversation more or less prodded me to read. The Federalist Papers, of course, are the articles written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay under the group pseudonym "Publius" to persuade the people of the United States to fully reform the Articles of Confederation by adopting a wholly new Constitution. Those works succeeded and, in my view, constitute some of the most profound political thinking ever written on this continent.

But let us give the Anti-Federalists their due. They, too, had some profound insights into human nature and its effects on politics. Like the Federalist Papers, the Anti- version is not particularly easy reading, written as they are in a somewhat windy 18th century prose. But the language is still recognizably American English, and carries with it many of the same underlying political assumptions and sources that were used by the Founders to write the Constitution we use today, including Montesquieu (which I'm also in the proces of reading).

We tend to forget that it was not just a matter of Madison, Hamilton, and Jay trying to persuade Americans to accept their new vision, but they were fighting those who preferred things as they were with simply a few adjustments. The Constitutional Convention most definitely exceeded its mandate, which was to reform the Articles because the nation was experiencing political and economic turmoil in the late 1780s.. However, to call that a coup d'etat, when the Constitution required adoption by vote by all of the States is stretching the point a little too far.

Still, what was it that the Anti-Federalists disliked so about the Constitution? What did they see as contemporaries of Publius that we, looking back through the awe of History do not? Here are their primary objections, and many of them are on-target and prophetic--just 200+ years too early to be taken seriously:

• They objected strenuously to the right of the U.S. Congress "To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof." It was thought all such "necessary" laws as the Congress might create could supersede and eventually eliminate the power of state laws.
• They objected to the lack of a Bill of Rights prior to signing. These were eventually written by George Mason.
• They thought that the terms of office for the House of Representatives, Senate, and President were all too long.
• They felt that federal taxes on top of state taxes would make the people poorer.
• They wanted the states to have the right to censure and recall their Senators if they should prove unsuitable or too independent.
• They felt that the President would become little more than an elected monarch and that he held too much power.
• They felt that the Supreme Court held too much power by virtue of its right to "interpret" the Constitution with no higher appeal.
• They felt that the Supreme Court's Justices would eventually eliminate the right to trial by jury, one of the few legal practices Americans proudly retained from the British.

In short, they felt that the new federal government, so constituted, would trample on the rights of the individual 13 States to make their own laws, govern their own people, and collect their own taxes. The 10th Amendment notwithstanding, the arguments of the Anti-Federalist Papers hold up pretty well over the course of nearly 233 years, though to the credit of the writers of the Constitution, it took nearly that long for most of the fundamental weaknesses in the structure to be undone or exploited.

One might ask, what did the Anti-Federalists want? What sort of government did they hope to protect? The Articles of Confederation owe some of their heritage to the constitution of Switzerland, which consists of several small cantons (the equivalent of states) with very different local cultures and traditions. For example, Switzerland comprises French, German, and Italian consitutents, as well as Catholic and Protestant citizens. For the sake of peace, independence, and the common defense, the Swiss have strong local governments and a weak federal government. This allowed--and continues to allow--Switzerland to maintain its local cultures and traditions without a lot of meddling from the central government.

This was the model early Americans strove to emulate. True, no one hears about Switzerland conquering anybody or making huge changes to its neighbors or the world at large, but they have stubbornly guarded their freedom and way of life for nearly 500 years--and many Americans would have preferred it that way. The lack of European-style ambition along the lines of Germany or France was one of the things that separated Americans early on in our history. This changed, of course, and the Constitution had some hand in that.

It's difficult to read the arguments of the losing side--after all, who cares? But my libertarian friends would say that many of the problems they identify (and I agree with) today--such as excessive federal power, taxation, and military overreach--are fundamental and inevitable offspring of our 222-year-old Constitution, and therefore need to be called into question. I would beg to differ, and merely suggest that the current President and Congress at least make some effort to operate within the Constitution as writ. It might also be of value to eliminate the XVII Amendment, which called for direct election of Senators--making them once again answerable to the states--and maybe add a clause regarding the States' rights to recall their Senators.

The reason why no one takes "states' rights" seriously anymore--and hasn't for over a century--is because the Confederate States of America picked the absolute worst cause in the world upon which to stand on their rights: slavery. If they had been fighting excessive taxation, government regulations, or some other issue, the federal government might not have reached the levels we've seen in the 20th and 21st centuries, and the Civil War might never have happened. Alas, we must live within our history, and it is very difficult to resurrect a political doctrine that is almost as far gone as the buggy whip. Nevertheless, The Anti-Federalist Papers still deserve to be read today. These writers--including George Clinton, Robert Yates, and others--saw many of our problems today well before their time.

European Vacation Planning, Continued

Some progress since this morning...

I'm about two months out now (amazing!). With the trip paid off, I've got a few things still left on the to-do list, with number one being to save up enough spending money for the trip. After a slightly hectic late May/early June, I'm back on track with that. Other items include:

To Do

• Practice packing
• Practice hand-washing clothes
• Replace/get a backup pair of eyeglasses
• Call credit card companies, let them know I'll be overseas
• Transfer money from savings to checking to cover the trip expenses
• Pre-pay some bills so I won't be late with anything in September
• Work on my frickin' languages (bad Bart! Bad!!)

To Buy

• Rain jacket
• Neck rest (a fellow business traveler told me that I'd need a "stiff" one--otherwise there really wasn't much point)
• Shout/stain remover Bought 6/28
• Lock for backpack
• Bar soap/container
• Folding umbrella Bought 6/28
• Packmate (i.e., something to collapse/condense my clothing)
• Clothes freshener (for those days when I can't quite manage to wash anything) Bought 6/28

Hard to believe the trip is nearly here. I've been at this for nearly two years now. Wild. The goals are to have fun, relax, see beautiful things, learn stuff, have decent food/beverages, buy stuff for myself, family, find stuff to write about, and/or friends--not necessarily in that order. Anyhow--woo hoo! Should be quite a 40th birthday present to myself.

GVHD--Not for Sissies

So while I've been wrestling with various crises large and small at work, my little buddy Morgan has been undergoing some nasty side-effects from her "graft vs. host disease (GVHD)." Her dad described them thusly:

Rashes, boiling skin, severe pain, inability to walk, talk, eat or drink, fits of rage and anger have all been a part of Morgan’s daily experience for the last few days.

On the plus side, Morgan seems to be recovering from this craziness as well. Hang in there, kiddo!

Letter to My Senators on the Energy Bill

I just submitted the following letter to Senators Sessions and Shelby (R-AL). My reasons are my own, but I encourage you to find your own words to stop the energy bill from going any further.

Senator Shelby:

I am appalled, but alas, not surprised that the House has passed the cap-and-trade bill. I sincerely encourage you to fight this bill and not allow it to be passed into law. The reasons for doing so are many, and all worthy of repeating:

--It is an unprecedented and unnecessary intrusion of government into the private sector.
--It raises the cost of energy, which will increase the cost of EVERYTHING ELSE in our economy, from transportation to manufacturing to farming. This is the worst possible thing government could do in an already-ailing economy.
--There are NO “green” technologies currently available that provide the amount of energy this nation needs to maintain a high level of technology or standard of living. Therefore, the only result will be a direct curtailing of future prosperity for all Americans.
--Global warming is still a subject very much in dispute, given a leveling off or cooling of temperatures in the last eight years.
--A “consensus” by activist scientists does not constitute scientific proof. Theories are proven by data and verifiable experiment, not incomplete computer models.

I strongly encourage you, Senator Sessions, and the other Republicans in the Senate to stop this legislation. There are things that can and should be done to meet the nation’s growing energy needs, including drilling for more oil on American lands, like off the coasts and in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge; investing in basic energy research, including space solar power and helium-3 derived fusion; and reducing regulations on new nuclear power plants.

Senator, stopping this bill does not represent “fear of the future,” as President Obama asserts. It is a principled stand against making the future more fearful. I look forward to supporting you in this vital battle for our nation’s future.

Sincerely,

Bart Leahy

Random Links for a Weekend

Need wine? This site is a cousin of Shirt.Woot.

And do you feel the need to translate yourself into a Star Trek character? Try this.

From Tina: Another look at the cap-and-trade bill. Bottom line here is as expected: if you raise the price of energy, you raise the price of everything else, because you need energy to do everything. This needs to be stopped in the Senate, or a LOT more people will be hurting and unemployed. You can find contact for your senator here.

Potpourri LIX

Getting close to a two-month countdown on the European vacation. Woo hoo! My buddy R2D2 sent a packing checklist. I'll add it to the pile. Gosh knows I need all the help I can get.

New from Hu:

• Gizmodo update on the Constellation Program.
• A couple editorials from Buzz Aldrin on Constellation, one in Discover, on on CNN.com.

From Blake, a couple episodes of Robot Chicken's version of Star Wars, here and here. NOT for kids.

And from Jeff, a new reader, a new site. He describes it as follows:

My blog deals with current news on NASA Space Missions,International Space News, Shuttle & Station,Moon & Mars,Solar System,Earth,Universe,Aeronautics,Science & Technology International Space Station, NASA, Shuttle & Station, Moon & Mars, Solar System, Universe.

Thanks for reading!

Tip o' the fedora to Rick Moore for finding this: my single concession to the recent news on the passing of Michael Jackson, the complete video of Captain EO, a Francis Ford Coppola/George Lucas 3D film that appeared at Epcot's Journey Into Imagination in the '80s.
Part I
Part II

Here's a hangover we'll regret in the morning: the House passed the carbon cap and trade (e.g. energy tax) bill 219-212 this evening. Say goodbye to cheap everything, if the Senate passes this. If the Senate does not pass it, that will be through the concerted efforts of motivated private citizens willing to get involved and make their voices heard. My letters and emails will be in the mail tomorrow.

Book Review: NewSpace Nation

Here's a clever way to get your political tract out to the public: put it on Kindle and charge a few bucks. I say clever only to the extent that I allowed myself to be persuaded to buy it (Kindle really IS bad for impulse book buyers).

So what do you get for your $4.99 (more than I paid for the complete works of Aristotle, Plato, or the King James Bible, by the way)? Basically, you are treated to a part-philosophical (libertarian), part-economic tract that discusses the basics and virtues of "New Space" companies--that is, smaller entrepreneurial firms formed in the last 10-15 years that are not making the bulk of their money through government contracts.

This unique economic niche includes groups like the Rocket Racing League (and the companies producing their racers and engines), Zero-G Corporation, and Virgin Galactic (which is hardly "small" in the financing sense, given Sir Richard Branson's deep pockets--a point Mr. Krukin hedges by noting that defining a "NewSpace" company is sometimes more art than science).

Each section cites the company web site and other details. Essentially what you've got here is a handy marketing brochure for the private space industry, albeit a brochure that you pay for.

For people unfamiliar with the libertarian point of view, the author Jeff Krukin describes the advantages of this new upstart segment of a 50-year-old industry as follows:

• Market segmentation
• Emphasis on private customers rather than cost-plus government contracts
• Free, expanding markets / economic development
• Job creation
• The simple focus on profit rather than maintaining political support, which is an annual battle for NASA
• New resources

Perhaps now is a good time for a tract like this, given the government's increasing desire to downplay capitalism in favor of government regulation of industries. Gosh knows I'm a big fan of capitalism, and miss it more every day. However, this text is a little overpriced, given its length--430 "locations" (pages) at the font size I use--and the much lower price for much longer products on the Kindle site. Still, it's a good thing to have, if only as a reference for keeping one's message short, punchy, and to the point. A- for message, C+ for execution and price/value.

Say What?

My buddy Doc and I had a brief, relatively conflict-free discussion about healthcare legislation yesterday, something that excites me about as much as talk about someone else's diet. However, Doc has interesting thoughts, so I held on. He did make one assertion that just astounded me: he told me that Medicare/Medicaid were underfunded! Wow. I didn't have the figures in front of me at the time. I do now. From the Congressional Research Service:

The President [Bush]’s 2009 budget estimates current law Medicare net outlays of $413 billion in FY2009. The budget includes Medicare legislative proposals with estimated savings of $12.2 billion in FY2009 and $178 billion over the five-year budget window. (Emphasis mine.)

Dang. $413 billion. That's just over $1,375 per American citizen, which covers most private insurance premiums for a year, if that's the way the program were run, but of course it's not. Direct handouts or insurance vouchers to citizens could work if they were allowed to purchase private plans, but that's not how federal bureaucracies work. Last time I looked, 72 cents out of every dollar in Medicare/Medicaid goes to covering overhead--government employees.

But let's go back to just talking money. Not everyone is being covered by Medicare and Medicaid. So that means that MORE than $1,375 of federal dollars per person are being spent on Medicare/Medicaid insurance. When is enough enough?

*

On the plus side, Doc and I get along on a sheer geekitude level (he's much more savvy on both English lit and science fiction than I am, plus a master on things like comic books and the internet), and he did have a couple of cool links of interest, which I must share:

• Last Exit to Nowhere, a site that sells shirts for companies or organizations that appear in movies. For example, Cyberdyne from Terminator or the Tyrell Corporation from Blade Runner.
• Shirt.Woot, which offers up a variety of clever logos from random(?) artists, which visitors vote on. The logos that get the most votes get their shirts published.

These are both akin to CafePress, which neither of us could think of at the time. Self-publishing for t-shirts: the internet is an interesting place.

Reader Response on Energy and Its Opponents

Jim Aach, a nuclear power engineer who has written a book on nuclear power (fiction, by the looks of it), had some additional thoughts on my previous posting regarding energy alternatives.

You're doing the math on actual energy supply vs. demand, which is the first disqualifier if you want to participate in the current energy debate. You might find this an interesting, inside look at one of those wacky power sources you listed. RadDecision.blogspot.com

When I asked for clarification on which math he meant, Mr. Aach graciously filled in the blanks:

What I meant was - it's one thing to pick this energy source over that energy source, but many don't go the next step and figure out how much of it you actually need to maintain the baseload energy supply and peak load. I believe I figured out once you'd need 200,000 of the largest wind turbines made just to replace nuclear in the US.People miss combining two key numbers in the math. Any electric power source will have it's rated output and its availability factor. Rated output is the best it can put out - like a one Megawatt (MW) windmill. Most folks stop there. But windmills only have a 20% availability factor - that is, on average they are producing only 20% of their maximum power. So you actually need five 1 MW windmills to average one MW of output. (Then there's the problem of unpredictable and intermittent output, and the fact that electricity may be the only commodity critical to western civilization that can't be stored well. You're either making it right now, or you haven't got it.)

Once you take all that into account, a lot of the alternatives start generating huge
numbers (a million windmills, a big chunk of Arizona covered in solar panels) which brings up issues of resources to build and maintain the stuff, etc.

Nice to know someone's reading out there.

Potpourri LVIII

New from Hu: The Senate has decided to side with the Obama administration in retaining $500M in NASA funding, which the House had cut, pending the outcome of the Augustine panel's recommendations. That should make life interesting.

Welcome to Singularity University...a theoretical acceptance letter from Ray Kurzweil.

Robert Zubrin, a hero of mine and relentless supporter of sending humans to Mars, is not happy with the "detour" to the Moon, and wants to talk to the Augustine Panel about it.

Energy and Its Opponents

NASA "scientist" (the quotes are on purpose--he shifted from serious scientist to advocate years ago) has been arrested along with actress Darryl Hannah and others for obstructing traffic in a protest against coal power. Hansen is upset about global warming and its potentiallly catastrophic effects on the planet (ignoring the catastrophic effects brought about by another Ice Age).

We need a little rationality on the energy debate, which we are unlikely to get, because the two "sides" of the issue are at serious cross-purposes:

1. Global warming is happening! It's serious, deadly, and we need to act NOW to prevent an even greater catastrophe!
2. Climates are changing all the time via "weather." Why don't we collect more data before we make a bad decision that does more harm than good?

Then there's the fact that global climate change advocates' solutions for the problem lead inevitably to a contracting of the Western way of life. Consider their treatment of the primary forms of energy used today:

1. Petroleum: A finite resource that is the primary creator of pollution and global warming.
2. Nuclear: Too dangerous due to potential meltdowns (even though Three Mile Island, the worst nuclear power accident in American history, never hurt a single human being).
3. Coal: It's "dirty," and must be eliminated.
4. Natural gas: A finite resource, essentially a form of petroleum, and so must be subject to restrictions or rationing.
5. Hydroelectric: Dams can drown or destroy animal and plant habitats (human habitats are conveniently ignored).
6. Ground-based solar: Ideal (even though it produces less than 1% of U.S. energy needs and is essentially useless on cloudy days, at night, and at higher latitudes with lower amounts of sunlight).
7. Geothermal: Okay (but limited to places where geothermal vents are present).
8. Wind: Ideal (even though the wind doesn't blow all the time, and if we want to keep our economy functioning at the current levels, we'd need hundreds of thousands of them--oh, and where are we going to get the energy and petrochemicals necessary to manufacture these windmills?).

These sources haven't been used yet, but protests can't be far away...

1. Space-based solar power: No organized lobby against SBSP, though I can imagine it will be objected to on public safety and military grounds ("It could be used as a weapon to fry people!").
2. Helium-3 fusion: Another energy source so far lacking an enemy. However, it is nuclear power (you know--like that sun that's providing solar power?), and so must be evil, even if it hasn't been accomplished yet.
3. Tide and Ocean-thermal electric conversion (OTEC): Tidal energy hasn't gotten a lot of attention, but would probably get negative points for cluttering up rich people's beachfront property. OTEC would require very large, oil derrick-like structures over the deep places in the ocean. You run a cable down to the cold regions of the deep ocean, and the temperature difference creates a potential difference, and thus electrical current. No doubt these structures would be protested for being ugly in the middle of nowhere.

Anyhow, I can only assume that those who protest all useful energy production must have a death wish. The internet takes energy. Creating plastic computers (you know: Macs) requires energy and petrochemicals. Creating high-productivity fertilizers to improve crop productivity and feed the hungry millions of the world requires energy. Creating new pharmaceuticals to keep everyone healthy requires energy plus complex chemistry, often found in petrochemicals. CAT scans, MRIs, and other medical wonders require energy to operate and energy to manufacture. Coffee makers require energy to manufacture and operate. Even bicycles and basic garden tools require energy to be produced--energy often provided by hydrocarbons (aka petroleum). Trucks, trains, and aircraft require fuel to transport necessary goods to stores.

We cannot cut ALL of the high-density energy resources from our economy, or millions, nay, billions of human beings will starve for lack of food, transportation, and medicine. The upcoming "cap and trade" legislation is simply a tax on energy, and it will hurt everybody in the name of a cause that has yet to close its scientific case. When are we going to say "Enough!"?

Potpourri LVII

From the nine corners of the globe, Rhetoric & Rockets continues its proud new tradition of feeding potpourri to all 20 of its regular readers. Thanks!

And now for something completely different from the DUDE*, a story about a man who got into it with a clothes dryer and lives to tell the tale.

(*DUDE = Down Under Defense Expert)

New from Hu (and discussed on this blog a week or so ago): Orion Propulsion announces that it has completed qualification tests on its attitude control system for Bigelow Aerospace's Sundancer space station.

Also from Hu: SeaLaunch has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Not good.

A very long but entertaining article by GQ Magazine on what NASA's been up to, space-wise.

Must be seen to be believed: Buzz Aldrin, Snoop Dogg, and space hip-hop. As Dave Barry would say, "And I'm not making this up."

Everything you wanted to know about the F-35's weapons systems except how to defeat them.

From my AIAA news feed:

• LCROSS Will Stream Live Its Approach To Moon.
• Work Continues On Ares I-X Launch Pad.
• Orion Propulsion Develops Environmentally Friendly Propulsion System.
  

The Swirl

First, I invite you to read Jeff Foust's latest piece on the Augustine Human Space Flight panel. Go ahead, I'll wait...

Now I'll throw my own shrimp on the barbie--gingerly, of course. I've got a stake in this business in the form of a day job. There's been enough attention paid to this matter that one can't help admire the tempest in a teapot. The contenders for leading America's next generation of space exploration include:

• The Constellation Program as currently built: the Ares I crew launch vehicle for sending human beings in the Orion crew exploration vehicle into orbit, and the Ares V cargo launch vehicle, which can place the Altair lunar lander into orbit, along with an Earth departure stage (EDS). Missions to the International Space Station would require only Ares I and Orion. In a lunar exploration scenario, Ares V would launch Altair and the EDS into orbit. Next, Ares I launches Orion into orbit; Orion docks with Altair, and then the EDS fires its engine to send Orion and Altair toward the Moon.
• United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed-Martin, has suggested replacing Ares I with the "heavy" version of the Delta IV evolved expendable launch vehicle, which is already in existence, but doesn't have all the extra bells and whistles to make it "human rated."
• A group of NASA and non-NASA people have proposed a Space Shuttle-based archiecture called DIRECT, which would maximize existing equipment by putting four Space Shuttle Main Engines on the bottom of an external tank, and then putting the Orion on top. A new upper stage would give the Orion enough oomph to get it into orbit for lunar missions. For lunar missions, two DIRECT vehicles would be used, with one launching Altair, one launching Orion and the Earth departure stage (I believe).
• Others have suggested using wholly commercial launchers and spacecraft to support the International Space Station via the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. The most likely candidate, if proven successful, would be SpaceX's Falcon 9 launcher and six-person Dragon spacecraft.

And no doubt there are others. An impressive array of choices--more than America had ten years ago, at any rate--but how does one decide? I myself am a proud, self-proclaimed "English major" (M.A. University of Central Florida '02, lest you think my low-key pose is real). I'm not an engineer, I'm a policy guy.

It seems to me that the bigger picture is being lost in the swirl over the choice of rockets. Everyone's so concerned about the "horse race" between the various vehicles that they're overlooking where the horses might or should be going, which is really the most important part of this discussion. I love our space science programs--the rovers, the orbiters, the telescopes--but I would dearly love to see human beings (yes, Americans) plant Old Glory into an asteroid or Mars or the Moon again. We did it when I was born, f'r gosh sakes, certainly we can improve on that performance after 40 years!

But the bigger questions aren't just about flags and footprints. We had that, won a race, and then closed down the production lines for the Moon rockets because we thought the job was done. As a space advocate, beg to differ. We've learned more about the Moon in the past 40 years. We know that the place is rich in energy, actual (solar) and potential (helium-3, which can be used for fusion). It might have water ice, which would make long-term bases and settlements possible up there. That's what the LCROSS mission will hopefully find out in October.

But what are we going to do when we're up there? That's where the conversation has always fallen flat (one can see the results in the International Space Station). Here's a step-by-step progression of what's possible with current technology--whichever rockets we choose to build:

1. Science performed by robotic vehicles, including Earth observation, planetary science, and astronomy.
2. Robotic "virtual" entertainment (e.g. tele-operated rovers moving around the Moon under the control of private citizens back on Earth).
3. Human exploration of other worlds, including the Moon, asteroids, and Mars.
4. Space resource development, including investigating space solar power, helium-3, platinum-group metals, and anything we haven't seen yet for use in solving problems here on Earth.
5. Basic science taking advantage of the near-vacuum and low gravity of the Moon or other bodies in the solar system.
6. Manufacturing of new products taking advantage of the space environment.
7. Handling or storage of materials too dangerous or precious to leave on Earth, such as nuclear waste, biotechnology, nanotechnology, cultural artifacts, or genetic "libraries" of all life on Earth.
8. Space commerce, including space hotels, tourism, off-world banks, and space salvage--none of which require a permanent human presence in space to maintain.
9. Space settlement, meaning permanent human habitations in orbit or on the Moon, Mars, or asteroids for scientific, commercial, or cultural reasons.

If I were President, I'd want to learn from the panel where the country should go and what we should do in space. From there, the hardware selections become more or less academic. If I had my choice, I'd keep shooting for the Moon, Mars, and beyond--let NASA keep doing what it's doing. I don't have a problem with a "mixed fleet" to low Earth orbit and the Space Station until the commercial sector gets established. Redundant capability to LEO might not be efficient, but it gives the country several options. But we need to keep NASA focused on the frontiers of science and engineering. Otherwise, what's the darned point?

Potpourri LVI

Yikes! Major Metro wreck on the Red Line in DC.

Woo hoo! The launch video segment of this show was written by and visually conceived by yours truly (i.e., I storyboarded the camera shots, and the graphics people actually made them happen). The show borrowed the video from the Ares I-X site. The guy pretty much borrows my stuff word for word. Nice to see my work get out there, one way or another. I'm stealthy that way.

Klingon kradles for your kiddies. No, really. Not exactly OSHA approved.

An unexpected side-effect of the GM bankruptcy is that the Test Track attraction at Epcot is now without a sponsor. Never mind the loss of jobs or the waste of billions of taxpayer dollars or the fact that the government is socializing the American auto industry--this is important stuff!!!

Darlene the Science Cheerleader has a link to online lectures from top scientists. Worth checking out, if only to get yourself off Facebook!

New from Hu. This really requires no further comment: NASA moon bombing violates space law & may cause conflict with lunar ET/UFO civilizations...

This appeared in Newsweek, of all places (not exactly Obama enemies). Their blog is reporting that the Administration is not honoring its pledge for "openness," one of their constant critiques of the Bush administration.

I'm shocked, shocked...

From Father Dan, a YouTube video on a lawsuit to tear down a veterans' memorial cross in the middle of the Mojave Desert. The advocacy site for this issue can be found here. Welcome to the United States of the Offended.

Also from Father, a living cartoon. Enjoy.

New Mexico's spaceport had its official grand opening. I've driven through that particular expanse of nothing, north of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. The fact that the spaceport guys managed to convince the locals to raise their own taxes to build this thing is astonishing to me, but a hopeful sign if it works.

Oh, good grief...another sci-fi series might get a reboot: Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. The Bart Hand is about to be raised in the meeting so I can ask, "Is this really necessary?"

Quick Thoughts on Iran

I've been having this heretical thought for a few days now, and it was interesting to see it confirmed by Jerry Pournelle:

We know that the Tehran demonstrators claim the election was rigged and that their man won. We don't know a lot more.

Suppose...just suppose: despite the overly hurried ballot counting and the appearance of corruption in the election process, that the ballots were actually recounted by a reasonably neutral third party and it turns out Ahmadenijad really did win the election. Win or lose, I must argue against John McCain and others who say that we "must" support the protestors simply because they appear to support things that we want. Or, more to the point, it appears that they don't support our enemy, Ahmadenijad. If honestly counted ballots were to turn against them, we might sympathize, but we cannot say unequivocally that the protestors in the streets are right.

This is why "We are friends of liberty everywhere, but guardians only of our own" matters. We do not need to be putting the prestige of the U.S. government behind uncertain election results. It is not our responsibility to get in the middle of every crisis that erupts in the world, especially when that crisis is in a nation that has steadfastly disliked and fought an undeclared war against us for 30 years. When your enemy is in the process of hurting himself, stand back and let it happen.

The outcomes are numerous, but range from triumph of the dissidents to a recount to a coalition government to a vicious crackdown of the protestors to something else that we haven't thought of yet. It would be bad form and bad policy to stick our noses in where they didn't belong. The very act of intervention could turn the result against us, and leave us in an even worse situation (imagine it's possible, because it is) with whoever comes out on top of the ensuing struggle. This is Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle as applied to politics: you can either observe the position or the trajectory of a situation, not both, and the mere act of observing could change the outcome.

Does this mean do nothing? No. We can and should do everything we can to keep the lines of communication open, especially from private citizens using the internet. If the Ahmadenijad/Khamenei government continues cracking down on protests and communications with the outside world, there are things we can and should do within the U.N. and the Persian Gulf region to ensure that information continues to flow and the outcome is more to our liking. But we really need to sit this one out. If it was our job to right every wrong and dethrone every tyrant in the world, Ahmadenijad would be out of office already, as would many of his neighbors and allies. A political party and ideology was roundly defeated recently because of a counterinsurgency following a victorious war against another dictator. Does Obama really want to extend the Bush Doctrine in that way? I don't think so.

Random Images from the Florida Trip

The images that follow are random to the extent that Blogger.com has a bass-ackwards photo-uploading application that only allows you to load five pics at a time and then you're never sure what order they'll load. Oh yes, and the app also shoves any uploaded images to the very top of the blog, which means you have to drag all your images to wherever you want them. I like the site generally, but some of the specifics make me crazy. In any case, the images below are actually in reverse chronological order because undoing the work isn't worth the effort. However, at some point Blogger.com and I are going to have words...

Okay, so on my last day at KSC, I borrowed a Flip camera from the Public Affairs Office (PAO) and needed to return it so they could use it for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter launch. The Media Center at Launch Complex 39 opens at 0800, and I was there at 0730. So I sat in the shade, looked up, and saw all these buzzards lurking around on the rooftops. I mean, really. I could make a comment about the media or something, but really--these were flat-out vultures hanging out there.

American flag, space shuttle on the launch pad...HOO-wah! A little moment of patriotism to brighten the day!

The media site for LC 39 is about two miles away from the launch pad, across the street from the Vehicle Assembly Building. The Shuttle now uses LC 39A only. LC 39B has been turned over to the Constellation Program for the Ares I-X flight.

Below is LC 39B. The three tall antenna-looking structures are actually really friggin' big lightning rods--over 500 feet tall.

Since I was in the media center, I decided to take some pictures inside as well. This is where reporters go to be "live" for Shuttle launches.

This is one of the covered barges NASA uses to transport the Shuttle's External Tanks.

Took a brief tour of the Kennedy Space Center. I got a free day pass for STS-127, but it didn't cover the IMAX theater or tours. The picture below is a front-end view of the Saturn IB--Apollo's equivalent to the Ares I crew launch vehicle.

A view of the KSC "Rocket Garden."

I got in a little time at University of Central Florida. This terrapin shell in the lobby set off my creative juices, and I considered posting the following ad underneath it:

"Foreclosure sale: shell, 2.5 square feet, lived in once, no points, financing negotiable, open to all buyers, reptiles welcome."

The library entry way/lobby has gotten rather upscale since I graduated in '02. The coffee shop here is new.

20 years ago, my dorm snack shop at NIU got two six-packs of Jolt Cola a week. I bought one of them, and I was considered a little wound up. Now they sell vending machines codifying the caffeineated lifestyle. Progress?

The building below is where I spent most of my time at UCF: Colbourn Hall, where the English Department resides. My tour was quiet because classes were out (thus the lack of people in the photos). It was also difficult for me to judge whether some of the buildings were new since I graduated or just new to me. I was very task-focused at UCF, and didn't see a lot of the rest of the campus.

This is what a Shuttle "scrub" looks like at 0300 when you haven't even left your hotel yet. The second scrub happened at around 0130. I was NOT amused, as I'd given up quite a bit of sleep. The scrubs bumped the LRO launch, so on a trip that theoretically allowed me to see Shuttle and LRO launch, I saw neither. True, I was there for work, but jeeeeez. LRO launched an hour after I got home. I know, b!#$@, b!#$@, b!#$@. On the plus side, I did get to hang out with Dede, Fred, KT, Father Dan, and Marilyn during my down time. And the weather was the way I like it in central Florida: hot und schticky, ja!

That's about it on my pics for this trip. I got some others from the Vehicle Assembly Building, and I'm still awaiting approvals on my pictures of the Ares I-X Launch Control Center. But I'd have to say this was a rather uneven week in terms of fun. So it goes.

Updates on Morgan

While I was out of town, Morgan has been experiencing something called GVHD ("graft vs. host disease"), which is where the cancerous bone marrow of the leukemia patient sort of dukes it out with the new bone marrow from a healthy donor. Morgan's side effects include a nasty rash on her face, feet, hands, and lower extremities and a great deal of pain. After some time out of the hospital, she is back in. Sheesh. Poor kid. When is enough enough?

More on the Human Space Flight Panel

New from Hu:

"The White House's Human Space Flight Plans blue-ribbon panel (the 'Augustine panel') has posted the material from their first public meeting on the future of NASA's spaceflight program, which was held on Wednesday. NASA officials presented their Ares I rocket plans and their belief that they can work around its design flaws, with projected development costs ballooning to $35 billion. The panel also heard several alternative proposals, such as adapting already-existing EELV and SpaceX rockets to carry crew to orbit; these proposals would have better safety margins than the Ares I, be ready sooner, and cost NASA less than $2 billion to complete, but are politically unattractive."

Potpourri LV

I learned to dislike the New York accent after hearing people yell at me with it while checking in at Disney's Dixie Landings Resort. This story didn't change my mind much.

Been awhile since I've looked at this, but it's a good reference. If you're interested in survival skills for a variety of disasters--hurricanes, terrorist attacks, nuclear war, etc.--this site gives you a starting point.

If you're interested in counteracting some of the force-fed global warming rhetoric thrown your way, you might consult The Skeptic's Handbook.

And finally, a little political humor for your day. JibJab.com does a pretty good of zinging candidates and political figures from both sides. This time they take on our "super hero" president. Thanks to Mitch for sending this one!

Potpourri LIV

Despite a week away from the home computer, I found little that required my readers' attention. Be grateful: I probably had a few hundred emails to sift through. Still, I thought I would share the following. Enjoy.

News from Hu:

• The Augustine Human Space Flight panel is coming to Huntsville/Decatur to visit Marshall Space Flight Center (the Ares Projects) and the United Launch Alliance (ULA) plant to check out the Delta/Atlas production lines. The visit is making life at MSFC very exciting, to say the least. Fortunately, I missed most of The Swirl (as I call it) because I was on travel.
• The $400M budget cut to Constellation is still in NASA's 2010 budget.

From Lin, who has a new web site:

• The American Thinker opinion site has an article on fusion. I love the notion of fusion power. Unfortunately, like space solar power, it's always been "just 20 years away." And we've been working on fusion for something like 50 years, SSP for 40.
• Another American Thinker editorial on gun control in India.
• A new hydrogen-electric car developed in an "open-source" fashion. Fascinating, but tiny. It'll get you places, and maybe a friend, but don't plan on taking anything with you.
• An obituary for Common Sense. I'd better tell my mom. She'll be all kinds of upset.

From Melissa, a video of a guy with seriously scary acrobatic skills.

From my Google news feed, a couple stories on Ares I-X:

• NASAWatch: Ares Struggles Ahead with Ares 1-X [sic] Launch.
• NASAOrbit: NASA Prepares to Assemble Ares I-X Rocket.

From Yohon: a service called eScrip, that allows you to automatically donate 5% of your total restaurant bill to a community group.

And while I've been out of the loop on the news, it's been hard to ignore the massive protests going on in Iran. The Obama administration has wisely kept their nose out of it, for the most part. Maybe someday the U.S. will relearn the value of John Adams' dictum that "We are friends of liberty everywhere, but guardians only of our own." I wish the lovers of freedom well, but hope, if they succeed in unseating the tyranny in their country, that they will back off the virulent anti-Semitism and anti-Israel stances that have characterized Mahmoud Ahmadenijad.

That's it for now.

Paradoxes

The explosion must be powerful enough to lift, but controlled enough to be useful.

The tanks must be pressurized to hold as much propellant as possible, but not so much that they leak. The metal must be thin to reduce weight but not so thin that it bursts under pressure.

The propellants must be energetic, sometimes poisonous, but not so caustic as to make them impossible to handle.

The most powerful and useful propellant and oxidizer are elements necessary for life: hydrogen and oxygen. But at the temperatures and pressures at which they are kept for rocket travel, they are below freezing and deadly. Their cold is nearly the cold of space of space itself. Liquid hydrogen, allowed to burn, creates a fuel-air bomb mixture; liquid oxygen is aggressive in its corrosiveness. Ignite them and they produce a fire to rival the surface of the sun.

The shape of the rocket is determined by the nature of its flight. It must present as little surface area as possible moving forward to reduce wind resistance as it plows through the atmosphere at unbelievable speed to break free of Earth's gravity. To steer the contraption, directional controls are located in the rear, an arrangement that produces clumsiness on land. The controls must react quickly, faster than a human being, really--so that the travelers are at the mercy of their hopefully well crafted machines.

Most of the mass must be dedicated to propulsion--getting the beast off the ground, along with its fuel and control systems. And somewhere along the line, the rocket must carry a useful payload. Without it, the rocket is merely an experiment in ballistics and Newton's Third Law.

The best rockets built have a mass fraction of 0.90. That is, 90 percent of the rocket is dedicated to non-propulsion hardware. And most times we cannot even manage that. We must sacrifice scientific payloads for life support systems or stronger structures.

Then there is space itself. Materials that behave one way in the relatively benign and predictable atmosphere of Earth outgas or turn brittle in hard vacuum. Thermal management is a pain. On the sunward side of a spacecraft, the temperature is 250 degrees Fahrenheit. On the shadowed side, the temperature is -250 degrees, so spacecraft must have sophisticated radiators to release heat into the bitter cold, or they must rotate like a chicken on a spit, and then the structure must cope with repeated expansion and contraction through differential heating.

Did I mention acceleration? Human beings can withstand, at best, four or five times the force of Earth's gravity before their performance is impaired. We black out at 7 g. Mere machines can be built to handle many times that value, but every weld must be perfect, every angle accounted for, every scrap of junk and dust removed to ensure that the circuitry and wires not merely survive, but do what they're supposed to do.

Then there's radiation. The sun is a big nuclear reactor. Protected by the Earth's atmosphere, magnetic field, and SPF 15 sunblock, sunbathers can still get cancer. In space, beyond the Van Allen Belts, little protection exists, and shielding adds weight. Radiation mutates biological tissue. It kills. It disrupts electronic computers and communications. It weakens metals, making them brittle. Radiation is not kind to space travelers.

The space environment itself has deleterious effects on human beings without spacesuits. Exposed to vacuum, human lungs explode, blood boils and freezes. The longest an unshielded body can survive in space is 30 seconds.

The distances and speeds involved in space exploration are outside of most people's experience. You can talk about being 250 miles above the Earth, but to circle the entire planet--over 24,000 miles--in an hour and a half doesn't really compute. The distance to the Moon is about 240,000 miles--ten times around the Earth. You can almost wrap your head around that number. The distance to Mars, though, can be as far as 250 million miles away. It's so far that a radio signal traveling at the speed of light would take 22 minutes to reach Earth one way. And some people dream about going to the far planets or the nearest stars, where light-speed distances are measured in years. Crews must work out most of their problems on their own or on a substantial time delay.

All of the worlds in our solar system have atmospheres unsuitable to human life. Like the empty space between them, they will kill. If the death isn't by vacuum, it might be by pressures greater than the deep ocean, temperatures hot enough to melt lead, or poisons that would scald the lungs.

So this is this environment space advocates seek to enter--this is the universe we intend to explore. It is so far lifeless, barren, hostile, and unwelcoming. It requires supreme acts of technological virtuosity to reach, let alone survive in space. There is little immediate promise of welcome or gain.

And yet we dare to go. Despite the danger. Despite the loneliness and isolation from others. Despite the cramped quarters, limited life-support ssytems, and potentials for crew conflicts.

We go to learn and to challenge ourselves. At some deeper level, we even go because of the danger, to prove to ourselves or others that we are not afraid, that we are willing to challenge fate. That we truly have the minds, the moxie to go where no one has gone before...and return to tell the tale.