First Impressions of Ares I-X


I will no doubt have more to say about the very successful Ares I-X mission today, but I reserved my first-person, first-impression thoughts for a special posting to ScienceCheerleader.com, while the feelings were still making my typing fingers quiver. Click here to have a look.

Image courtesy of me. Ares I-X busting through Mach 1.

Actions vs. Intentions

This conversation grew out of a story writing and editing session I had. I was trying (politely, of course) explain that the ending this person had selected for her character was boring because his salvation/resolution came from outside--the ever-dreaded deus ex machina. What I was trying to explain, as patiently as possible, was that her character had to earn his salvation. Finally, I tried another example. I said, "Look, let's say you had a million dollars in your estate, and you wanted to give it to your kid."

Horrified, she said, "I wouldn't do that!"

I asked, "Would you just give it to them when they turned 18, or would you make them earn it?"

"Earn it!" she said firmly. Then she added, "I don't think I'd even tell them I had it. I wouldn't want them to be spoiled."

"Great," I said, and then related the example back to her character and why an unearned reward did nothing for him. The discussion of earning vs. rewards continued, and we meandered into politics, partly because she had a utopia she wanted to include in her story.

"I'm very concerned about social justice lately," she said. "I just saw the Michael Moore movie, Capitalism: A Love Story." Rolling my eyes, I let her continue. "I don't think capitalism works."

There after followed a five-minute explanation of her feelings regarding the homeless, how they needed "dignity" and shouldn't be thrown out on the street. "They should have the basics: food, shelter, dignity." Dignity was a big thing with her. But she didn't want to talk or think about "rich or poor" or where the money would come from--you know: the actual cost of feeding the welfare state. She just wanted people to have enough money or possessions at the end of life to have dignity. This was the same person who didn't want to tell her own child that she had a million bucks, but she was willing to do whatever it took for social justice to prevail. I didn't have time to ask her these questions, but I couldn't help wondering afterward:

• If fictional characters or your own kids learn and value something earned more than something given to them, why wouldn't the total strangers you want to supply with "dignity?"
• If you wouldn't give your own kid $1M without them earning it (if then), why would you expect rich strangers in this country to give other total strangers enough money to have "dignity" at the end of their lives?
• How much should "dignity" cost, anyway?
• If you're so protective of your theoretical million dollars, why are "the rich" or "big businesses" greedy and evil for being the same way?
• Has it occurred to you that religion--which is increasingly being driven out of the public sphere--once drove the rich and poor alike to engage in private charitable giving before the government started taking more and more for the welfare and doing the giving for them?

I did ask her this: "If people get more satisfaction from earning and earning comes mostly from (private-sector) jobs, why shouldn't entrepreneurs and businesses be allowed to keep more of their money so they can hire more people?"

"They need to pay more taxes to pay for the social safety net."

I said, "They are, and so am I. The president thinks the way you do, and is raising taxes. As a result, businesses don't have as much money to hire more people. That's why unemployment is nearly 10 percent."

She shook her head in disbelief. "I don't think so. They're just cutting jobs to raise profits."

Great googily moogily! How do you argue with someone who has swallowed anti-economic thinking whole? Does she not understand that money that could have been spent on creating more goods and services (and thus jobs) is now diverted to unproductive activities like taxes and lawyers to cover their butts in the face of new regulations? Obviously not.

This is not just a gap in philosophy, it's a gap in fundamental knowledge, possibly willful, possibly not, but it illustrates dramatically why the political classes and the people they purport to represent are increasingly talking past each other. Wow. There's some real food for thought.

Potpourri CIX

An interesting mix of stuff this evening, so let's get started.

This is filed under "humor," for reasons that mystify and horrify me. The guy is joking about the conservative obsession with "freedom" by taking it to ridiculous extremes, but then turns around and makes truly bad ideas (like government-run healthcare) and actually make them sound worse. How, exactly, is this humorous?

A researcher in Australia claims that modern humans are a bunch of wimps. I can hear the Neanderthals now: "You kids had it easy. Why, when I was your age, we had to hunt mammoth for three or four days at a full gallop, in six feet of snow, with glaciers crumbling underneath us...now you kids have it soft with that global warming thing..."

One of my next future vacation stops. Very cool!

If you feel the need to hear one more time how there's scientific "consensus" that "global warming is an absolutel fact," feel free to read the latest brow-beating from the International Panel on Climate Change.

New from Hu: I like this blog on Ares I-X. It sort of crystallizes the moment for me.

Speaking of Ares I-X, Bob Ess (Mission Manager) and Ed Mango (Launch Director) will be giving a mission status briefing on Friday, October 23, at 5 p.m. Eastern Time.

From Yohon, an article on the new electronic book reader from Barnes & Noble, with the added question on whether I'm ready to trade in my Kindle. Answer: not bloody likely. Besides, I like the idea of keeping my physical book shopping (B&N) separate from my electronic book shopping (Amazon). Competition keeps capitalism thriving and prevents monopoly behavior.

Ares I-X Rollout

I try not to talk about my day job much because quite frankly I like to keep my work life separate from my blogging life, but today is a little different. After three years or so of writing conference papers for the Ares I-X flight test, I watched the rocket actually roll out to the launch pad today and it is now a week away from lifting off. This is a major deal, not just for NASA (or me), but for the country as a whole. We've needed something to inspire us for awhile...something beyond politics, something we could all look upon with pride, as an actual achievement. Ares I-X just might be it--the first test flight (but not the last, if I can help it) of the Constellation Program.

Why is this flight important? Allow me to backtrack a little bit, to when we lost the Space Shuttle Columbia. People in the media, in the White House, and in the general public were asking, "Is going into space worth all the risk? All they ever do is go around in slow-motion circles in that space station up there." The Columbia Accident Investigation Board took the nation and its leaders to task for not doing something more ambitious. After all, if astronauts are going somewhere new and exciting--doing something worthy of a spacefaring nation--then yeah, any heroic losses might be deemed acceptable.

The Bush Administration came out with the "Vision for Space Exploration," which gave NASA the mission of restarting Shuttle (safely), finishing the International Space Station (ISS), building a new crew exploration vehicle, and building a base on the Moon in preparation for more ambitious missions to Mars. They theoretically promised NASA increased funding to do the job, with LOTS more funding after Shuttle retired. In 2005 NASA got a new administrator, Mike Griffin, who put together a study to decide what vehicle types would be best to execute the series of missions Bush tasked NASA to accomplish.

The study came up with new rockets that would eventually be known as the Orion crew exploration vehicle, Ares I crew launch vehicle, and Ares V cargo launch vehicle. Ares I would launch crews into low-Earth orbit (LEO) to support both ISS and missions beyond low-Earth orbit. Ares V, a rocket bigger than the Apollo-era Saturn V, would launch a lander into orbit along with an upper-stage rocket that could send the lander and the crew off to the Moon, asteroids, wherever. This two-launch concept is what NASA has been building for the last four years.

Ares I is the rocket being built now. It's needed first, and soon, because we're planning to retire the Space Shuttle as soon as the ISS is completed. Now there's a lot of debate going on in Washington about whether to keep Ares I, Ares V, Orion, and the rest of what's called the Constellation Program. The Obama administration tasked the Augustine Human Spaceflight Review Panel with reviewing the current plans and making recommendations about what to do next. Will we continue with Constellation? Turn over low-Earth orbit to commercial companies and international competitors? Or something else entirely? The Panel doesn't have the final word--Congress and the President do--so if you care about whether America keeps doing great things with people in space, it's not too late to have your voice heard. The Congressional switchboards are always open. :-)

So where does Ares I-X fit into the picture? Ares I-X is the first development test for Ares I. It's not a full-up launch vehicle, as it lacks an upper stage, a five-segment solid rocket booster for the first stage, and an Orion spacecraft on top. But the point of the test is not to get into space, the point of the flight is to get the beast to lift off and fly in the proper way and direction, under control, within the atmosphere. While the rocket might look like many others you've seen (long and cylindrical, pointy end on top, fire coming out of the bottom), Ares I does in fact have a different design from any rocket tried before. The upper half of the rocket is about six feet wider than the bottom. A human-rated rocket has never flown with only a solid rocket motor for the first stage. So there are a few things that this rocket will test that engineers haven't done before. They need to:

• Fly and control a rocket that is dynamically similar to the Ares I
• Test the separation system that splits the first stage from the upper stage and see how the rocket reacts to that separation.
• Test larger parachutes on a much longer five-segment motor (the Space Shuttle boosters have four segments and are shorter and lighter than Ares I's first stage).
• Control the rocket's roll and also see how much roll a single-solid first stage can create.
• Build and test new ground operations equipment and procedures for a rocket that is quite different from the Space Shuttle.

All of this must be done new for the first time in nearly 30 years. The very first flight of the Space Shuttle had a crew on board because they needed people on board to fly the orbiter home--but that was a huge risk at the time. Development testing allows NASA to go back to the more incremental form of testing that Wernher von Braun favored--where you test part of the rocket, make sure it works, and then test the next stage--before putting people on top of it.

Ares I-X has a four-segment solid rocket motor from the Space Shuttle's inventory and a hollow fifth segment simulator that both simulates the length of the Ares I first stage and houses most of the avionics that control the vehicle. The upper stage, crew module, and launch abort system are all simulator hardware, shaped to look as much like Ares I as was possible when the design was conceived three years ago. The upper sections also have hundreds of sensors aboard that will measure temperatures, pressures, vibrations, noise, winds, and any other forces that could affect this rocket in flight. Some of the data these sensors collect will be transmitted down to the ground "live," and some will be stored on board in that first stage avionics module and will be picked up when the first stage splashes down in the ocean.

What can you expect to see on this flight? If all goes well--and there are hundreds of people working around the clock at Kennedy Space Center right now to ensure just that--the first stage will ignite just like the Shuttle's boosters, and the rocket will move upward past the tower. It should take about six seconds from the time the hold-down posts release until the aft skirt clears the tower. Once past the tower, the roll control system (RoCS) will rotate the rocket 90 degrees to orient the rocket the way Ares I would fly and to point the antennas so they can send their data to receiving stations on the ground. After that, the rocket will continue accelerating upward and outward at Mach 4.7 (over 3,500 miles per hour) toward the Atlantic, the booster firing for about two minutes, just like Shuttle.

Then, just over two minutes into flight, a ring of explosive charges on top of the first stage will ignite and a set of smaller rockets on the aft skirt of the first stage will fire forward to split the first stage from the upper stage and pull it backward. The upper stage will continue downrange like a cannonball, and eventually fall into the ocean. The first stage booster will fall toward the ocean, and the main parachutes will open when it's about 3 miles above the ocean. Total mission time, just over five minutes.

And that's it? I can hear people ask. Yeah, but anyone who has ever been to a live launch will tell you that that's plenty of excitement for five minutes. And it's a bunch of things we haven't done before with a rocket that has never flown before. Are there dangers? Are there risks? Are there things that can go wrong? Of course, because it's a test, and it's never been done before. But jeez, what's life without a little risk? And if we really want to set America back on the path to being an exploring, spacefaring nation, it's definitely a step in the right direction.

The launch window opens at 8 a.m. Eastern Time (12 noon Greenwich Mean Time) on October 27, and lasts for four hours. Tune in, and have a look at what your space program has been up to while you've been ignoring it. They just might surprise you.

Oh, yeah...I will heading down to Florida to support Ares I-X starting Thursday. Is this a cool job, or what?

Thoughts on Dachau

The following is an edit of some of my thoughts after my visit to the Dachau concentration camp in Germany, outside Munich.

Cruelty sanctioned by the state is that much more horrific because there's no one to appeal to short of another state (assuming they care) or God. And what if Hitler had won the war, and the evil had gone on and on?

"Picture a boot, stamping on a human face, forever."
--George Orwell, 1984

The evil didn't stop with mere physical abuse. Humiliation and degradation go hand and hand with the operation. Bodies are meagerly clothed in institutional striped uniforms; heads are shaved, gold fillings removed; the people are underfed and then made to work as slaves. More beatings for poor work or slacking off or passing out from exhaustion. Survival is obtained through favors or kowtowing or luck or a raw, relentless will to live.

But all those qualities need not matter. Illness might come, or injury. Lacking a healthy immune system, positive attitude, or adequate medical care, one might go from the infirmary to the firing squad or the gas chamber. Naked, bewildered, disbelieving to the end that their own countrymen (or any men) would do such a thing, they nevertheless walked into rooms made to look like showers, and from those shower heads came a particularly nasty pesticide, Zyklon B. People would push and claw their way toward the door to escape. Those not crushed succumbed to the gas.

The horror didn't end for some. The chambers had to be emptied and cleaned, which meant some prisoners--tattooed on their arms, like the dead--were ordered to remove the bodies and then bury them or throw the bodies into industrial ovens.

Every day like this for six years or more. Some deny it happened, and some just wish it would. How dare they? How dare anyone?

*

The camps required a wicked mutation of science and engineering. Someone had to develop Zyklon B. Someone had to experiment to determine the right concentration of the gas to kill X number of people. Someone had to determine how long it would take to kill the occupants and how long it would take the gas to dissipate before reopening the chamber. Others had to make the poison. Others built the chambers. Others had to determine where they would be placed in the camps and how to handle the rounding up of prisoners. And someone had to write everything down--the orders and procedures.

Human minds did this, calmly, rationally, methodically. Every step of the way there were men who did the work, signed off on it, and moved the horrid mechanisms down the next step in the chain. So what if you loved your country? So what if you hated your enemies? Was engineering death at such a personal level worth it?

I make no claims to purity of intention, that I could somehow have been "the good German." That step in the process where I mention writing down the processes? That would've been the technical writers of the day. One of my grad school professors included a section in his book on technical communication ethics on procedures written for a mobile gas chamber the Nazis tried to develop. The person who had to write that stuff--what kind of nightmares did he have? But he did the work anyway.

*

And the question still comes back: how does a person or a party manage to twist a nation's conscience so? "Nazi" is thrown around as an epithet today as if every political enemy were automatically as evil as Hitler, probably because Hitler did not start with big things off the bat. He started small. And human nature is not that different across distances of time or nationality. It can start with not liking a particular already-unpopular group of people. You don't say anything because, while you don't exactly hate that group, you don't exactly like them, either. And if, say, the government started targeting that group for extra taxes, punishing fines, or hostile treatment, well, you're likely to shut up because you don't have a dog in that fight. The day might even come when you personally benefit from the government's campaign--they take property and possessions from the unpopular group and give it to you. You are now in the government's pocket, as they well know. You've accepted their moral premise, and you've profited from their (and your) moral lapse. How can you speak against the government now? And when your country goes to war with someone else, welll, you're all the more likely to volunteer to fight and fight hard, because you don't want to be on the losing side. After all, you know what you did. And if you get letters from your wife that the people in X group have disappeared and there are rumors of death camps, that's just wild speculation, enemy propaganda...but you can't help wondering how true it is. After all, you know what you did.

*

But all these attitudes still have to come from somewhere. A people's moral and ethical compass isn't lost all at once. That compass is directed by religion and philosophy. Drop religion, as so much of Western Civilization has done, and you're left only with philosophy, and the 20th century produced some of the nastiest schools of thought in human history. The beliefs of these schools include beliefs that:

• The state is more important than you.
• It's better to remain silent and keep your place than stand up for a fellow human being and be forced out of it.
• The use of force is okay as long as you're not on the receiving end of it.
• Everything the state tells you about a particular group is the truth and commands your obedience when that state orders you to kill.
• God does not exist, so you must get what you can out of this life; protect yourself, your family, and your possessions with every bit of strength you can muster...or entrust them all to the state or a leader for protection.
• Everything the state tells you is a lie, and only self-appointed demagogues can clear away the corruption and indecision of mere elected leaders.
• Your own security is worth protecting at any cost.
• The state's security is worth protecting at any cost.
• A powerful, charismatic leader is worth trusting to any end if you believe his cause is just.

Dachau is a stain on all of us, not just the Germans or Western Civilization, but upon all human beings. Philosophy led the way, science and technology merely cleared the path.

*

What got to me were the damned ovens. It's one thing to hear about them or read about them, or even just see a picture; it's another thing to be there in the room with them, or to walk through the gas chambers and realize that the things actually existed. In fact, what bothered me the most was how clean everything at Dachau was...almost as if they could open for business at any moment.

A couple on my tour had visited a village in France called Oradour-sur-Glane. There, in June 1944, four days after D-Day, soldiers of the 2nd Waffen-SS Division Das Reich rounded up over 600 French citizens and massacred them. General Charles de Gaulle, after visiting the site, ordered the bodies buried, but the town to be left as it was...as a reminder. Oradour-sur-Glane was not on my tour, but I'd be tempted to go there at some point. Seeing things as they were, even after 60+ years of time had worn things away, seems to bring home the point better than this spruced-up museum place at Dachau. It's just too clean to be believed or even, really, accepted.

Below are some other pictures I took during my brief time there. The compound is massive when walking it on your own, but small when you consider how many people they crammed in there at one time. The administration, prison buildings, walls, and guard towers are mostly intact--in fact, the U.S. Army kept prisoners in the prison building up through the mid 1950s. The barracks have been torn down, with two reconstructions built. There were 30 long shacks in all, the outline of each depicted by concrete perimeters (the original foundations?). A long row of poplar trees fills the aisle between the two rows of buildings...unlikely to be original. The prison building is now a museum, which includes maps, pictures, equipment from the camps, memorial stones and flowers sent by various cultural and military groups, and art inspired (if one can call it that) by the camps.

This piece is a little creepy, featuring as it does emaciated, burnt-looking corpses. In fact, corpses, barbed wire, and madness are prominent in all the visual representations found at the camp, including at some of the religious sites.

The uniform worn by prisoners.










One of the pictures from the museum. No apologies for the horrific nature of it. That is why we visit these places--so we don't forget.









Another image from the museum, this one drawn by one of the prisoners, shows the beating of one of the prisoners by several guards. Again, this was done by agents of the government, acting under the express command of the highest levels of leadership.










The camp has several religious buildings attached to it, including a Jewish shrine, a Catholic shrine, a "Reformed Christian" church, a Catholic nunnery, and an Eastern Orthodox chapel. There was a service occurring at the latter when I arrived, but out of respect I didn't take any pictures.

The gateway to the Jewish temple. Note the spikes.

Exterior of the Jewish temple/shrine. Visitors walk down a ramp to the interior, as if walking into the grave.

This is the Reformed Christian Church at Dachau. I don't understand the symbology, but there are half-crosses all around the building. Otherwise, the place seems to lack rational shape or symbol. Is that a message in itself?

Another terrifying piece of sculpture: distorted bodies pieces together in all directions like some barbed wire experiment gone horribly wrong.

One of several guard towers still in place.

"Arbeit macht frei," the motto at the gates of Dachau, Auschwitz, and all the other camps, I believe, means, "Work makes you free."

The smokestack from the damned ovens.

If those things were going as often as was estimated, there is no way the local people did not know. Expressions of denial were not sufficient for the American soldiers who saw these places, and rightly so. Everyone in Germany was--and is--required to visit one of the camps to rub their noses in it so they never forget. Good.

I confess, I came out of the camp wanting to bomb the country flat. But then I thought about it and realized that, no, living memory and constant reminders are absolutely necessary. How sick and unfortunate it is that human beings need such reminders. Not just the Germans, but all of us. But need them we do, to remind ourselves of what cruelty we are capable of...even bombing a country flat.

Potpourri CVIII

Heads up! The Ares I-X rocket is due to roll out to Launch Complex 39B tonight at 11:01 p.m. (Central Time), assuming the winds hold. If all goes well, the launch window will start at 8 a.m. October 27. Huzzah!

Also in NASA news, much to my surprise, the Augustine Human Space Flight Panel's final report will be made public October 21. We shall see what we shall see. This email (allegedly) from the Constellation Program manager is worth reading if you're wondering what the internal opinion of the Panel at NASA is like.

An article from The Space Review argues that we don't necessarily need a heavy-lift vehicle for exploration.

Here's something completely random from my buddy Gwen: a birthday calculator.

A good editorial from the Wall Street Journal on technologies that can change the future, among them space solar power.

A few links from Claire:

• Want to know what the federal debt was on a particular date? Check this out.
• Here's a GAO report on the outlook for future federal income (taxes) and outlays (spending).
• And if you'd like to know the state of the federal debt right now, there's this site.

That's plenty to make you sweat, if long-term or even short-term economic issues concern you.

A Variety of Links on Education

One can start here (or Google), by searching for an article titled "Fierce battle a preview of U.S. debate on education" on teacher quality and its effects on our schools.

Follow it up with this article regarding Bill Gates and Obama, and then this one from Forbes, also on teachers.

And to finish, there are Jerry Pournelle's thoughts. It seems like such a simple thing: get rid of the poor performers! But taking a dues-paying member from the National Education Assocation (the teacher's union for government schools) is like taking candy from a particularly irritable baby.

Why Conservatives Fight Nationalized Healthcare

If just providing healthcare coverage were the emphasis of the Democrats, conservatives might not have that much of an objection to the matter. In fact, if the government just provided vouchers for uninsured people to go out and purchase a private insurance plan, the bill could probably sweep through Congress with bipartisan support (never mind the fact that Democrats control both houses and that Republicans can't stop anything at the moment).

However, the wizards of smart on Capitol Hill are not content to do just that. They want government to be the sole provider of healthcare, so that instead of multiple private companies deciding whom to cover based on business decisions, we will have one provider deciding whom to cover based on political decisions. Consider a little-mentioned addendum to the existing bill, which would punish individuals for lifestyle choices like smoking or obesity. Now admittedly people who smoke or overeat will most likely end up with more health issues down the road, which will cost more to care for...to that extent, the government is acting like business in that it is trying to reduce expenses. However, unlike government, a private insurer does not have the legal power to punish you for your lifestyle choices; they can only withhold coverage. The government position comes down to control: you must have healthcare insurance--it might be the law eventually, and you will meet the government's behavior/fitness guidedlines, or you will be punished.

Regardless of the high-sounding words surrounding government health insurance, it is not just about the insurance, it is about controlling the behavior of the recipients of said insurance. A government-run program, not forced to make a profit, can and will out-compete private insurers, thereby driving the private insurers out of business. A mandatory government program can and will punish those who do not participate in it or follow its regulations. A private citizen, faced with needing health insurance and having no choice besides the government plan, will be forced to obey all of the laws, rules, and regulations attached to that plan or face some sort of penalty. How, then, is this any different from forcing people to do what the government wants?

Freedom used to include the freedom to err or use one's freedom badly. However, regulations on smoking, fatty foods, alcohol, or whatever comes next allow government to take away your freedom "for your own good." (While it's mostly a big, dumb action movie, I highly recommend the Sylvester Stallone sci-fi film Demolition Man as an excellent example of what can happen to a society when it is regulated minutely.) Government-run health insurance is not just about making sure you've got a way to pay for doctor visits. It's about controlling your behavior, and it needs to be reined in before it's in place and nobody--not even our cigarette-smoking president--can stop it.

Potpourri CVII

Ares I-X is currently scheduled to roll out to Launch Complex 39B Tuesday, October 20, at 12:01 a.m. I will be driving down to work on October 22 and will stay as long as needed. Huzzah! The rollout was delayed by 24 hours due to challenges with a hydraulic accumulator. However, from what I've heard on my end, that work is going well, so we'll just have to see what effect, if any, this has on the October 27 launch date. Looking forward to it! I plan to at least take pictures during the event. Not sure beyond that. Going to have a lot of writing to do, I suspect.

Looking to buy myself a small wine refrigerator. I've heard good things about Sears' Kenmore model. Other suggestions welcome...keep in mind, again, the limited space in my apartment and desire not to go crazy on spending here.

Here are a couple more editorials about the Limbaugh/St. Louis Rams fracas, one by Limbaugh himself, one by someone on the Wall Street Journal editorial board.

Here's an editorial on the Augustine Panel by a group of very smart people.

From Doc, an article on finding and selling old wines in Paris.

From Lin: the Social Security Administration is withholding a cost of living adjustment (COLA) for the first time since 1975. I guess I fibbed to my mom back in 2004. I told her then that I didn't think Social Security would cut off in her lifetime, but most likely wouldn't exist in mine. At the rate our government is spending money, it might get cut off in a decade!

NASA is hosting a lunar excavation robotics competition as part of its Centennial Challenges program. This is a very cool thing because it engages young people in practical work and helps NASA get people outside the agency to help them develop hardware that will be needed for future exploration.

Apparently technical writers have among the least stressful jobs in the country. Who knew?

NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) has a new map showing our solar system's location in the Milky Way.

An article from The Space Review on the "why" of space exploration. I've been writing a long rant on the dismal state of space advocacy, but I don't think I'll publish it. Why add to the despair?

Over There vs. Over Here

It's a bit difficult to gauge the quality of life in Europe vs. here while on travel because bed-and-breakfast hotels are not always a good indicator of what "normal people" expect in the way of amenities...I would say that the number of bathrooms per hotel room has increased compared to when my parents were traveling overseas. Only had to share a bathroom once. But here are some things that caught my eye while on walkabout.

Bathrooms/Toilets/Water Closets (WCs)

Speaking of bathrooms, "WC" is the typical sign for locating bathrooms in Northern Europe. "Toilette" is more common in Italy and France. People are people, though, and if you look desperate people can generally guess what you're looking for.

The smallest facility I saw on my trip, aside from the closet on the A330, was a commode on the canal cruise boat we took in Amsterdam. In Corniglia, Italy, I encountered what amounted to a porcelain indentation in the floor. In Paris I found a men's room commode with no lid. That means balancing yourself or giving the rim a good wipe-down.

And yes, many of the hotel rooms had bidets with hot and cold running water. As long as you don't get them too near the bowl, they can also be used to rinse your clothes in one if hand-washing them in your room.

Cars, Trucks, Scooters, etc.

It might not surprise you to learn that there aren't a lot of American-made cars in Europe. In fact, I saw only one Chevrolet dealership, and that was in Paris. Given the narrow streets and soaring prices for gas (petrol)--€1.60 per liter, which comes out to around $8-10 per gallon, it's hardly surprising the behemoths like the Hummer or Navigator are not common. In the cities, the Smart Cars are popular for to-and-from traffic, but you wouldn't want to buy groceries or something would have to be ditched. They're so small you can park them perpendicular to the curb in some cases.

Bicycles swarm the roads in Holland. I saw a multi-level garage just for parking bikes, and our guide said there were something like 4,000 in that one structure. Craziness!

In Rome, it's scooters/mopeds, some of which have their own windshields. I did see a flyer for a Harley Davidson enthusiast gathering in Amsterdam, so there's one American product over there, anyway. One pleasant thing I found on the continent, as opposed to England, was the lack of car exhaust smells, especially diesel, in the city centers. Oh, and this was strange to my American ears: in Amsterdam, there was a remarkable lack of car horn honking!

Architecture

One thing I liked about the big cities I saw was how much of their older characters they've maintained at their cores. In Amsterdam, it's still neat row houses (houses were taxed by the side of their facades, so homes are long and narrow) nestled between canals, lots of brick streets, and gabled rooftops. Thanks to uneven ground settling and the ages of the structures, several buildings are leaning quite a bit--to the point of looking slightly tipsy.

In Venice and Florence, the old city cores have maintained many buildings in the designs that were prevalent at the heights of their power and influence. For Florence, that would be the 13th and 14th centuries; for Venice, the 14th through 16th centuries. Venice impressed me--though caused me to slip a bit--through the use of marble sidewalks.

One of the images below is of the well in the courtyard of the Doge's Palace in Venice. A well is a well--it's not anything particularly exciting, just a place to draw up water--and yet it's a work of art unto itself.

What interests me most is how much more effort is put into making public structures attractive--beautiful, even. The severe functionality of modern architecture leaves one cold at times. Sure, an entire skyline of sleek, shining skyscrapers can be visibly stunning. That is the American contribution to architecture. However, the strictly utilitarian ethos has its down sides. Ornament is a thing of the past, unless it's some equally abstract sculpture or blandly esoteric painting. A shopping mall in France, by the way, looks depressingly like many malls here in America: blah.

Other Things

Little thing I noticed in public buildings in Europe: most of the doors open inward, not out. In America, doors open out to ensure ease of exit in case of a fire or emergency. I guess the theory in Europe is to ensure ease of access--to let people in. Just an odd little difference.

I spoke a bit with the night clerk of my hotel in Paris, a loquacious man who had spent his first ten years in America before moving to France. He said that he and his friends admire America a great deal, mostly because "anything is possible." However, he and his friends think that we're too focused on making money all the time. The down side of life in France would be the speed at which people can advance themselves. For example, if an employee in France has a bright idea for making more money or improving a product, they're told to "come back in a year, we're not ready yet." Well, you know how that works in America: rather than sit on a new idea, the aspiring employee will get frustrated and either take their idea to the competition or start their own business to make it happen.

What my talkative night clerk and his friends miss about the fluid, dynamic social structure of America is that it is fueled by money. Money is the great equalizer. We believe (or used to believe) that "If you build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door." Money can buy position and standing and respect while one's forebears might get you, at best, a political career. We are not as concerned with tradition here, we focus on results. Just because our father was a plumber or a civil servant doesn't mean you have to be. Birth is not destiny here. You might not be the boss now, but you could be someday! And the way you advance is by making or helping your company make more money. And to echo what Rick Steves says about Europeans, I wouldn't trade passports with anyone from Europe, either.

But as I noted a couple days ago, I do appreciate the Europeans' sense of balance: life's not just about your job, but about experiencing life, enjoying relationships, sharing meals and fine conversation. Americans talk about their jobs first. (I asked my tour guide what Europeans talk about, since work seems to be low on their conversational interest meter. She laughed and said, "They talk about sex, politics, and religion," all the things that are considered taboo and impolite here.) I'm not about to become a slacker, but I might change how I spend my leisure time. Rather than walk the neighborhood with a book in my hand, I just take the iPod and enjoy the scenery and the physical act of walking. I'm not flying off the handle at every little thing that bugs me. I've chilled out a little bit. I'm trying to bring the same focus on the new that I had on Europe back here. If you live your life as a tourist, then anyplace can become more interesting. So yes, there are always new things to learn, here or abroad. The question is: do you have a mind open enough to learn them?

Potpourri CVI

I got this extended note from the Moon Society, which deserves reading. While Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin might be a little overexposed, he's a very smart man, and his thoughts on space exploration deserve some attention.

Group: The Moon Society
Subject: Moon Society Endorses Aldrin's Proposal for a Lunar Infrastructure Development Corporation
Buzz Aldrin published a proposal for a public/private/international plan to open the Moon for exploration and development in the Huffington Post

http://digg.com/d3176tD

Below are key excerpts:

• “I propose instead America call the world to the Moon. In a new global effort to use the Moon to establish a global space consortium with a lunar surface facility as its epicenter, “
• “... competition, in an Apollo-style race back to the Moon, would be a fruitless exercise in national hubris whose rewards, if we “won”again, would prove fleeting”
• “I am proposing a different way back to the Moon: international collaboration. “
• “... the goal of creating a new public-private partnership todevelop the Moon. I call it the Lunar Infrastructure DevelopmentCorporation (LIDC). The purpose of the LIDC would be to enable thenations of the Earth to join together and return to the Moon as an international cooperative venture. The LIDC will pool the financial,technical and human resources of its member nations to build the lunar communication, navigation and transportation systems needed for human exploration of the Moon. It would be a public/private global partnership to make the Moon accessible to all humanity. The LIDC will build the communication and navigation satellites needed by future lunar travelers, develop fuel depots using lunar LOX – perhaps derived from the recently discovered lunar water-and construct habitats that will shelter space travelers while on the surface. It will enable a sustainable human presence on the Moon that will be accessible to all the nations on Earth."
• “Unlike the International Space Station (ISS), which is governed by complex treaties, the LIDC will have the same flexibility as an NGO in working with different nations and private entities to finance build and operate the facilities and equipment needed for lunar exploration. “
• “To do so [i.e., honoring the astronauts of the Apollo Era Missions] doesn’t require rerunning a long-ago Cold War race in which America plays the role of a space-going Colonial power.

Moon Society Officers and Directors, who collectively make up the Management Committee gave the Moon Society's official endorsement. The email vote was unanimous.

As Ben Nault, Director from Tucson, put it: “Probably the main reason the ISS is still "alive" and supported by Congress is that it is part of a number of international agreements. Backing out of these agreement would have financial, political and diplomatic repercussions on the US. Therefore, having an international component helps large complex programs survive the transition to different administrations and different congressional moods. The international angle gives long-term "sustainability" to the Lunar Infrastructure Development Corporation.

“In asking for Committee member support, we pointed out significant similarities with our own proposal, also strongly endorsed byCommittee members, for an International Lunar Research Park. Bothproposals are for public/private/international collaboration. There are, of course, those who would prefer a NASA-stand alone effort, and those who would prefer a purely private enterprise approach. But a reality check shows that the public/private/international approach will be much more robust, and stand a much greater chance of becoming a permanent beachhead on the Moon. It is also much more likely to lead to the first civilian industrial settlement.And that is precisely the Vision of the Moon Society. The Moon Society urges other pro-space organizations, the public, and the media to support Buzz Aldrin's proposal.

For more on the Moon Society International Lunar Research Park proposal, see: http://www.moonsociety.org/reports/beyond_nasa.html

Thank you for your support

http://www.moonsociety.org/

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New from Hu:

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average has finally hit 10,000, a number it hasn't reached in a year. That's still not the high it reached during the Bush administration. Still waiting to hear when this becomes "Obama's economy."
• CNN/Money ran a business profile piece on Huntsville, Alabama.
• The Airborne Tactical Laser (ATL) has hit a moving target from the air. Sha-ZAAAAM!!

The Constellation Program has a pretty cool 12-minute video explaining some of the roles flight testing have in making a better space program.

Your useful piece of trivia for today: 62 years ago today, Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager broke the sound barrier--750 miles per hour in level flight over the high desert of California--in the Bell X-1. Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff, the book or the movie, is still the best portrayal of the seminal moment in aviation history. Saaaa-lute!

There's a web site out there that depicts every space mission ever sent to other worlds of the solar system. Very cool!

NASA is again looking at technology development for reusable launch vehicles. Good! Actually, a meeting I was in today gave every indication that the Obama administration is interested in spending more money on science and technology development research. About bloody time.

From my AIAA news feed:
Some Astronauts Annoyed At SpaceX's Dragon
The Orlando Sentinel (10/14, Block) reports, "Asked what bugs them most about NASA outsourcing the job of flying crew to the International Space Station, some astronauts roll their eyes and say: 'Dragon,'" the manned capsule being built by SpaceX, because of the fear of being "little more than human cargo" since the ship is fully automated. "SpaceX has hired its own former astronaut, Ken Bowersox, to make Dragon more astronaut-friendly," a move the article describes as a "clear example of how serious it is about leading a new commercial era in American space exploration." The article, positively describing SpaceX's efforts, notes the "biggest concern" of "astronauts, NASA officials and some members of Congress" is that "SpaceX ships are rivals to Ares and Orion, a view SpaceX dismisses." Bowersox describes the ships as "enablers" for NASA to conduct exploration.

From the Wall Street Journal:

• God vs. Science isn’t the issue…
  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704429304574467320574576460.html
• Sudden Change, Big Effect http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107204574469473830302630.html

From Lin: Sheriff Arpaio, the tough-guy from Arizona, vows to continue sweeps to capture illegal immigrants while the Obama administration would prefer that he not.

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Some late-breaking news from the Drudge Report: Rush Limbaugh has been dropped from a group bidding to purchase the St. Louis Rams. The sole reason for this is his political views, however tactfully or tackily expressed, and the negative publicity they generated. The campaign run against him and the restraint of trade that this campaign has now created sets a very ugly precedent: the NFL has just announced that Limbaugh's cash is good only at the ticket gate or the bar, it won't be accepted in the front office. I wonder what would happen if another conservative ever decided to invest in a football team. Heck, I wonder what would happen if I ever decided to. It will be interesting to see what the fallout is from all this. Limbaugh won't take it lying down: of that I am reasonably certain.

Vietnam, Afghanistan, and What to Do Next

Jerry Pournelle has link to a thoughtful piece on what lessons American leaders should learn from Vietnam and apply to Afghanistan. And, as always, Pournelle's comments are worth reading. How's this for a hook? "Those who hadn't known that the US won the war in Viet Nam especially need to read this."

Changes Since Europe

This posting was prompted by a question from Karen the World Traveler (and English cottage owner). Her specific questions were:

Do you think your trip has made a change in you at all? Do you see yourself going back to anyplace in particular or do you see yourself going to some new places in Europe? Or elsewhere? I am just wondering if your recent experiences have made a world traveler of you??

Guess I'll take these on one by one. There was certainly a lot to think about over there.

Do you think your trip has made a change in you at all?

Oh, most definitely. I'm much more relaxed. My must-do-it workaholism is temporarily at bay. It's not that I don't take my job seriously; I do. I just don't take it as seriously--as if work and only work are worth living for. That's a good thing to learn before I push myself into a heart attack by age 50. And the trip was an excellent reminder that there are plenty of worthwhile things to see and do here on Earth. Space is not the be-all and end-all of existence. And given my recurring discomfort with man-made heights, perhaps I'd be better off staying on ol' terra firm anyway.

As regular readers of this blog will note, I did a lot of studying for this trip--languages, history, art--so I would know recognize and appreciate what I was seeing when I got there. It forced me to have a more balanced perspective on life. It's not all about the words in my head. There are people to meet, foods to try, places to go, exercises to do, a God to give due honor to, etc....oh yeah, and it wouldn't hurt to share the whole shebang with someone so everything isn't locked up in my head all the time. I would say the trip definitely helped my progress toward a more balanced life, progress that was probably long overdue.

I find myself walking more. I did the math, and I think I walked about 14 miles this past weekend, so I picked up a hiking/exercise habit. And that can only be to the good, as I was approaching Homer Simpson levels of "fluffy."

Do you see yourself going back to anyplace in particular or do you see yourself going to some new places in Europe? Or elsewhere? I am just wondering if your recent experiences have made a world traveler of you??

There are things I missed on this trip due to lack of time or money. I would've liked to see:

• The International Space University in Strasbourg, France.
• Peenemünde, Germany, the site of the V-2 missile launches, which happens to be near...
• Greifswald, the home of my maternal grandmother.
• Munich...you know: Oktoberfest and all that happy stuff.
• The Large Hadron Collider, currently the world's largest atom smasher.
• The Globe Theater in London to see a (recreated) Shakespearean play as it was meant to be seen.
• Salzburg, Austria, home of Mozart and, yes, the von Trapp family.
• A live opera...something by Mozart or Puccini. I'm flexible.
• Prague, Czech Republic, just because I've heard it's a beautiful place of culture.
• Ireland, ancestral home of most of Dad's side of the family (Leahy? Dorsey? Ya think?).
• Greece, birthplace of Western civilization.
• And a whole list of stuff I missed on this trip because there wasn't enough time, like the Arsenal in Venice, Versailles, the Pitti Palace in Florence, the D'Orsay Museum, the Moulin Rouge, Normandy, Mont St. Michel, etc., etc....

So yeah, I've got the travel bug. If I keep living below my means here, that allows me to travel well over there. Now that I know I can function well over there with a decent amount of preparation, I'll probably do it again. There are also places elsewhere in the world I'd like to see, like Hawai'i, New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, and wherever else my fancy takes me. There was a couple on my tour in their 70s, and they were climbing to the top of the dome of St. Peter's. I should be so vigorous!

My parents have encouraged a love of travel in me and my sister, both to see beautiful places and to expand the range of our experiences. Colleen did her European "Grand Tour" in 2001 (pre-9/11), so we've both gotten a taste of that part of the world. As a writer, I appreciate travel because the sites, sensations, and experiences expand the space of the imagination. Nothing can be more rewarding or worthwhile.

The Merits and Demerits of Facial Hair

I have never really given facial hair much thought, except as a nuisance to be removed daily since I was around 17. My father, being a former Army reservist, seems to have picked up a military dislike for facial hair. I don't recall my mother or sister liking facial hair, either. In any case, I tried a mustache when Disney finally allowed them. Being mildly vain, I removed it the day after someone mistook me for my mother's spouse. And truth be told, the mustache looked pretty cheesy. I didn't have a grooming kit, so it was a thick, bushy thing that matched the grey on top of my head. I dispensed with the notion of further growth, and went back to clean-shaven. I also recalled Ayn Rand's comment that a person wearing a beard was concealing something.




Then I took this European vacation. I had three weeks off to try a full beard...or at least a Van Dyke (what most Americans mistakenly call a "goatee"--I was corrected on this by a fellow beard wearer). Like the aforementioned mustache, this thing came in grey, and even a little white. But I thought, what the heck, I'll come back with it and see what kind of reactions I get. I was a bit surprised that people reacted so positively. It added age to my face, but also apparently a bit of "gravitas." Some ladies don't like facial hair of any kind, and have made their opinions quite clear to me. However, they're outnumbered, so it'll stay for the time being.


Do a little digging, and you find that facial hair has differing connotations in different places and times--of course so do different styles, but that's a whole 'nother issue. "Greybeards" at NASA are usually older subject matter experts (who, given NASA's early history, were mostly men). In some cultures, beards convey maturity, wisdom, or even sacredness. The Greeks wore beards until conquered by the clean-shaven Macedonian Alexander the Great, who feared that soldiers might hide weapons in their facial hair. The medieval Japanese considered beards to be something worn only by barbarians. In some "bearded cultures," a clean-shaven face conveys boyishness, immaturity, or effiminacy. Beards made a comeback in the U.S. with the Beatniks and Hippies. I recall an old '50s TV show--possibly The Donna Reed Show--where her husband came back from a business trip with a mustache. The missus was horrified and wouldn't speak to her husband until he shaved it off. The American political and military cultures favor clean-shaven faces (some of this is practical for the military--facial hair can collect lice and interfere with a soldier's ability to get a smooth fit/seal on his gas mask). No American president has worn facial hair since William Howard Taft, though President Obama wore a five o'clock shadow to give his speech to the Arab world.


As for me, I'm just sticking with the masculine/maturity/wisdom angle. Any "edge" an English major can get in a roomful of engineers couldn't hurt. And if the ladies like it, far be it for me to complain. Still, it amuses me how much something like facial hair can affect one's perceptions of another person.

Merchandising!

If you're interested, the Ares I-X patch is available for sale online. Kinda rude. I thought that was just an internal NASA product...