Random

Something fun and delicious from Greg Reynolds, the InstaPundit: a lamb and Guinness stew recipe.

The NASA Budget, Continued

This is a follow-up to my blog from yesterday on President Obama's budget. I've finally gotten caught up on my news reading, and assuming the reports are correct, here is my take on things. Please refer to the disclaimer above as far as the relationship of my opinions to NASA, my employer, or any other space-related organization...this is Bart, Private Citizen, writing.

• Killing Constellation: The President has proposed a budget that would drastically scale back or delay the schedule of the Constellation Program, which was tasked with going to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Constellation has several major components, including launch vehicles (Ares), a crew exploration vehicle (Orion), a lunar lander (Altair), surface systems (hardware like power and habitat systems needed for living and working on the Moon), extra-vehicular activity (EVA--spacesuits), and ground systems. It takes a lot of money, in normal-person terms--not Department of Defense terms--to design, build, test, and field all this stuff. It also takes time. The less money you give these activities, the longer they take or the less likely it is that they will be done at all. Having not seen the budget, I can only guess that Constellation has either received a total cut or enough of a cut that any NASA-run return to the Moon would not happen until my five-year-old niece is old enough to start complaining about her kids' taste in music.
• Increasing Funding for Commercial Launches to the International Space Station (ISS): This is actually a smart idea and could/should have been done by the Bush Administration. Right now the only way to get human beings and the stuff they need to live and work on ISS is by the Space Shuttle, which will be retired after ISS is completed; crew/cargo launches by the Russians; or cargo launches by the Europeans' Automated Transfer Vehicle or, soon, Japan's cargo vehicle. But really, once Shuttle is retired, the only nation capable of flying people to and from the space station after 2011 will be Russia. This reality is just now occurring to normal (i.e. non-space) people. So what are the options?
  --Build a new rocket to replace the Space Shuttle. NASA has been doing this since 2005, in the form of the Ares I crew launch vehicle. Ares I, on its current development schedule, will not be ready to send astronauts to ISS until 2015 according to NASA plans. A presidential review panel thought that it would be more like 2016-2017. That would mean depending on Russia, et al., for at least five years, but at the end of that time NASA would again be able to send people up there.
  --Rely only on international partners until the ISS retires.
  --Encourage/pay for American private-sector aerospace companies to build launch vehicles (rockets) and spacecraft (crew capsules) to get astronauts and cargo to ISS. Some of this is already being done under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, which was designed to help new companies--outside of the usual big players like Boeing and Lockheed Martin--develop these capabilities. Two companies are getting money under COTS, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences. SpaceX is the only company of the two developing both a launch vehicle, Falcon 9, and a spacecraft, Dragon.
  
  If the Obama administration is proposing more money for COTS, which seems like an easy funding vehicle since it already exists, that money could go a couple different directions:
  --Accelerating SpaceX and Orbital's work.
  --Paying to modify Boeing/Lockheed rockets (now built under a joint operation called United Launch Alliance) to launch a Dragon or Orion capsule to ISS. This money, reportedly $6 billion, could go toward "human rating" the Atlas or Delta launch vehicles, essentially adding some more bells and whistles to them to make them safe and reliable enough to put humans on top of them.
• Extending ISS Operations: This, too, makes sense. Under current plans, ISS would be completed in 2010 and then only enjoy four or five years of full-scale science and engineering operations before being closed down and deorbited (dropped into the Pacific). This presents several problems, including the difficulty of safely deorbiting a 400,000-pound space station and violating the international agreements the U.S. signed, which said that we would keep ISS operational for ten years after full assembly, which would be 2020.

Now a more ambitious person might ask, "Why don't we fund Constellation, COTS, and ISS?" A more pragmatic person--say, a politician--will stick his or her finger in the air, try guess which way the political winds are blowing, and guess (correctly) that the public isn't interested in government spending on a Moon mission "when there are so many more important things to be done here on Earth," like creating jobs. Let's pause for a moment, and savor the tragic irony of that position. Contrary to the public perception that money spent on NASA is wasted on "space," money spent on space hardware is spent mostly on salaries for people, products, and services on EARTH: high-education, high-paying jobs that would result in industrial and consumer spending now and technology advancement and spinoffs in the future.

So where does this leave us? If the President gets his way--and don't count on that--the extensive launch facilities at Kennedy Space Center would be converted to support Falcon 9, Atlas V, or Delta IV launches to ISS. The rocket-designing workforce in Huntsville, which is eager to build Ares I and the much larger Ares V for exploration missions, would be looking for jobs at ULA in Decatur. A bunch of people in Houston currently supporting Space Shuttle missions would lose their jobs, but those helping build Orion would keep theirs, and eventually NASA would again need mission control operations to support Orion missions to ISS. But for now, a lot of jobs in Florida and Alabama and Texas would be shifted to other duties or cut outright. In an economy with 10 percent unemployment, such a decision, on top of killing America's long-range ambitions for space exploration, would not be particularly popular with some segments of the electorate.

Others, like my friends at the Space Frontier Foundation (SFF), are thrilled that the government is finally getting out of the "space operations" business. I've had my moments of doubt on that issue myself. In an economy that is healthy and with a workforce that's aging, retiring the Shuttle made sense--the older folks could retire and make room for the young punks eager to prove their stuff in the marketplace. And yes, there are things the private sector can do better, like keep their eyes on the ball programmatically. They don't argue every year as to whether their goal is to make money or not. Even if management and employees change regularly, everyone knows the business is there to make money.

The government, meanwhile, has an argument about the budget every year. Some years, they want to focus on increasing employment in Florida; other years they want to spend more on environmental monitoring; in more forward-thinking years, they want to spend money on fundamental research into aerospace, space science, planetary science, and other forms of astronomy; and sometimes they think it's a good idea to send people into space. It's a chaotic way to run a business, which is why governments are not the natural mechanism for exploiting space as a long-term concern. However, exploration is an iffy proposition for businesses. Payoffs are hard to determine. Obtaining funding for purely speculative ventures is difficult or impossible without a guaranteed return on investment. Governments are also now the only organizations willing or able to fund blue-sky engineering projects like single-stage-to-orbit rockets, in-space nuclear propulsion, or large-scale outposts in orbit or on the Moon.

The previous two paragraphs explain why I have no problem with a "mixed fleet" or "mixed economy" in space. There are things government does very well, like fund basic research and development, which offer no payoff or incentives to the private sector to accomplish. This would include things like building new exploration launch vehicles or launch vehicle technologies. Government also can fund basic infrastructure, like the first outpost in low-Earth orbit, on the Moon, or at the bottom of the sea. It is also responsible for maintaining the peace, collecting taxes, and regulating things like civil law and consumer protection. The building of ISS, Constellation, space telescopes, and NASA research centers, along with setting up the Office of Commercial Space Transportation fit these functions quite well. However, there are things that private enterprise can do much better, like improving efficiency in routine, known services, such as launching cargo and (eventually) crews to ISS. The private sector can better design, build, test, and field smaller products and services for known applications, like spare parts, accounting services, or employee cafeterias. Private businesses are also best at improving upon and mass-producing new technologies once the basic principles are known.

The sticking point for the SFF is Ares I, which they see as competing with Atlas, Delta, etc. And on a purely apples-to-apples comparison of capabilities, they might have a point: Ares I and human-rated commercial rockets would both be able to launch human beings to ISS. However, while the private sector sees that capability as redundant (true), government sees that as a strategic (national security) capability, which exists outside of questions of profit or loss. Let's say, for example, that Russia and the U.S. start a diplomatic tussle, and the U.S. government no longer considers American crew members on ISS "safe." Uncle Sam would want the on-call ability to launch a rocket to ISS to retrieve those crew members. Would a private-sector comapany, its investors, or its insurers allow a private rocket and spacecraft to head into a situation that likely spelled a danger to, and loss of, company property? Possibly--but only if government was the insurer--at which point we've got a nationalized space prgoram, which was exactly what the private sector guys are trying to avoid. So: there are reasons to have a government-built and -operated rocket that can go to ISS.

But SFF overlooks the primary purpose of Ares I, which is to support missions, in tandem with Ares V, to the Moon, asteroids, Mars, or wherever. If Congress can get access to ISS more cheaply via Delta IV, they will take it...but others will still want Uncle Sam to be able to do it, just in case.

And lastly, the big point I hear the rocket guys in Huntsville argue all the time is that no private company has launched a crew or cargo ship to ISS, leaving out the important word: yet. Until that "yet" happens, the private sector needs to cool its jets, so to speak, on making claims of superiority over NASA; meanwhile, NASA needs to accept that eventually they will lose their monopoly on human access to Earth orbit. Assuming the 2011 Obama budget passes as written, the private sector will have to, as my friend Tom Olson put it today, "put up or shut up." And in the meantime, a bunch of aerospace workers in Florida, Alabama, and Texas could be facing a very tough 2011.

This ain't over.

Potpourri CXX

Blogger's cut and paste function is working again. Huzzah!

Some of you might notice that Amazon.com purchase windows now appear on this blog. The reason for that is simple: I have been deemed suitable to become an Amazon Affiliate, and thus can start making some modest money from this site after 3 years. The way the system works is that I post my reviews along with the Amazon app. If my review so moves you, click on the purchase button on the Amazon app, and I get some (not a LOT of) money for your purchase. Buy early! Buy often! I have vacations to take! :-)

NASA adds Israeli technical expertise to lunar science research at Ames…

Still doing research for the novel. One tool that would be supremely useful for any long-term settlement on Mars (or the Moon, for that matter) is a rapid prototyping machine, which allows you to build a part--assuming you have a complete 3D computer model of it--and build it up layer by layer by some once-classified process. There are a couple of different rapid prototyping techniques, including selective laser sintering and stereolithography.

Here's a book a customer referred me to: How NASA Builds Teams. I've only just started it, so a review is awhile away yet, but one thing the book itself promotes pretty heavily--and which is interfering with my enjoyment of the reading, quite frankly--is the heavy-handed and relentless marketing of the author's online consulting resources. For example, even something simple like a personality test (which I don't really need--I recognize their take on things from Disney and know myself well enough to know where I fit on their 2X2 grid) requires that you submit the names of five other people to get the results so he can start peddling his wares to even more people. Annoying.

The new toy from Apple is finally out there. Here's Apple's site and a Fox News article on the iPad.

Speaking of NASA, Hu forwarded a blog from CNN, which in turn quoted an Orlando Sentinel article stating that the Constellation Program budget will be slashed. And along those same lines, my libertarian pals at the Space Frontier Foundation posted a news release praising the "death sentence for Ares." Sorry, guys. This ain't over.

On a happier space note, the Huntsville Alabama L5 Society is getting started on this year's Yuri's Night event. More details coming soon, to the YN site and this blog, as appropriate!

Need to make a choice between multiple alternatives, not sure how to prioritize them? Consider this site, sent to me by the amazing Dr. OZMG.

Speaking of OZMG, I sent her this little moment of funny from John Cleese (via Joanne Manaster) on how the brain works. Kinda reminds me of how some of my science classes have gone.

And lastly, from Father Dan, a Virtual Wall--an electronic version of the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial--that lets you locate and link to names of people you know.

And that will do for now. I might, with a little luck, get 8 hours or more of sleep tonight, which is brilliant.

NASA Budget

I've gotten a variety of requests/questions over the last couple of days wanting to know what I thought was going to happen with the NASA budget and whether I have any special insights or perspectives. Insights? No. I get my information from the internet or (worse) NASAWatch, like the rest of the agency. As far as my perspective, it boils down to this: until NASA gets told to cease and desist on Constellation and do something else, I will continue to do my job as well as I am able. I think Steve Cook, former Ares Projects Manager, has this one exactly right: the President's budget submission is the beginning, not the end of the debate. Those of us fortunate and crazy enough to work for NASA directly are in for another 6 months of suspense...or more. How do you keep a space geek in suspense? I'll tell you after the budget passes.

Potpourri CXIX

Here's what today's surfing sampler turned up...

Scott “Doc” Horowitz on the role of commercial spaceflight.

Airline industry hoping for stability in 2010…them and everybody else.

NASA looking at VASIMR engine for lunar tug.

Democrats are about to become Born Again Budget Cutters just in time for the 2010 elections…who’s buying this?

This story on Endeavor includes a note that the U.S. Air Force is trying to make weather data from White Sands Test Facility classified. Really? Ever heard of Las Cruces, New Mexico?

The Wide-Field Infrared Explorer (WISE) has found its first near-Earth object (NEO).

There will be temporary flying restrictions around the Super Bowl in Miami February 7.

Very cool image of Sun during an eclipse.

You’ll miss capitalism when it’s gone…

Never mind asteroids, the Obama administration failing in its efforts to prevent WMD proliferation.

The mother of the cast member who died in Walt Disney World’s monorail crash is suing the company.

Zero gravity furniture?

Jerry Pournelle on parties, platforms, and conservatism.

Just an interesting group of folks to work with: Zero Point Frontiers Corp. They were very gracious about helping me correct some technical points on my in-work novel.

Potpourri CXVIII

Another interesting day! Yes, it's crazy and sometimes depressing in this world, but there are wonders to behold that our grandparents' could scarcely have imagined.

Let's start with space stuff. Space tourists are featured in a Sundance Film Festival movie. Always nice to see that.

From Kelley: a "Big Dream Gathering." Looked interesting.

Given any thought to electromagnetic pulse (EMP) lately? This group has.

Worried about asteroid impacts? Here's a Jeff Foust editorial explaining why the government isn't, so much. Others, however, want to set up an asteroid defense agency. Along those same lines, a doctor in Virginia got a nasty surprise in the form of a meteorite through his office roof.

The number of people on the "no-fly list" attempting to fly is increasing lately. Worried yet? This could be a sign of another al Qaeda attack. Maybe.

A blogger writes a letter to "Astrology." Funny.

Private space stations edging closer to reality...

"Chemical Ali," one of the folks in Saddam Hussein's menagerie infamous for using chemical warfare against Iraq's native Kurd population, has been executed.

I've been taking a much-needed break from conservative talk radio, but I saw that the most famous liberal talk radio network Air America, has filed for bankruptcy.

And now for something completely different: an alternative point of view on the "Twilight" book, which I confess not to have read. I'm good. Not a big vampire fan anyway. (Warning: strong language in this review.)

The rumors continue to swirl about what President Obama will or will not do with the space program. I like one of my customer's takes on the matter: "Those who know are not talking, and those who are talking don't know."

And that'll do for now. Be careful out there, and be good to those around you.

Potpourri CXVII

Continuing to clear out my inbox...way too much going on these days.

First up from the Space Frontier Foundation, an editorial suggesting that President Obama exhibit "political courage" and kill the "boondoggle" that is the Ares I crew launch vehicle. Sorry to break it to my SFF friends, but in the midst of ten percent unemployment, political courage will be anything BUT present. Do they really think they're going to forcibly disemploy 7,000 civil servants and contractors in a hotly contested state like Florida just prior to the mid-term elections? Sorry, I don't see it happening. And until SpaceX or the Delta IV/Atlas V rockets have launched a crew to the International Space Station, NASA and the government won't consider them "proven" systems. Gonna be another long year.

Meanwhile, speculation continues on the future of NASA's budget--more money? Less money? Less additional money than they hoped? Friends and family ask me if I know what's going to happen. Answer? No. I can probably tell you in vague terms who the players are and what they want the government to do--like the SFF above--but as far as who has the President's ear and what that person or group of persons will tell him to do, I haven't a clue. And then there's Congress to consider. This is a surprisingly complex business for such a small industry.

The world's coolest jobs? Well, maybe. Not gung-ho to be a medical marijuana tester, but that's me.

From Berin Szoka: An editorial on the Supreme Court's recent ruling in Citizens United v. FEC (the Federal Election Commission) on allowing companies to make political ads defending their interests. Little hint here--it's called free speech.

Another state-level web initiative to provide more government transparency--this time on the State of Florida's budget. As the Down Under Defense Expert (DUDE) puts it, "Believe it when you see it." Speaking of which, when I tried to open the link to www.TransparencyFlorida.gov, I got bupkis. The site wouldn't open. Great transparency.

From Regina, some educational resources:

• A catch-all site for teachers looking to augment their in-class resources.
• Teacher resources from Annenberg Media.
• The federal government's site for citizens to order government information publications (Pueblo).
• Another teacher resource...this one seems to focus mostly on "social studies."

And finally, miscellaneous links from my regular surfing:

• Recommended by Doc for its general entertainment value: MentalFloss.com.
• A one-person stealth plane, courtesy of NASA.
• A sign of the Apocalypse is upon us: the late Ted Kennedy's Senate seat has gone to a Republican. Of course the Apocalypse probably really won't happen until the Cubs win the World Series, but that's just me being goofy.
• Good news for my friend Anthony: Hong Kong remains the freest economy in the world. What do they know that America has forgotten?
• NASA is making space program artifacts available to museums and other educational institutions. Hmmm. And speaking of making space program artifacts available, NASA is also lowering the price of retired Space Shuttles. Is all this really a good idea?
• From D2, your word of the day: narratology.
• Senator Russ Feingold has suggested delaying the Constellation Program. Oh, goody.
• According to a Rasmussen poll, the American public generally favors cutting back on the space program. Right, because cutting that 0.57 percent of the budget is gonna make a whit of difference when we're spending gazillions on bailing out banks, fighting wars for oil, and increasing the size of government healthcare. Priorities, people. Gotta focus on priorities--those space geeks are obviously getting too much of your money!
• Jerry Pournelle on a variety of topics.
• The lead story on the front page from the Huntsville Times one day this past week. Oy.

Potpourri CXVI

The week's pile has gotten thick again, so 'twould best if it were done, that it be done quickly...

Another good find from Tracy on outreach. This article suggests that the problem with outreach isn't with audiences connected to the internet, but with the technologically and educationally underserved. Meanwhile, people who already have access to the web or decent education are likely to already be familiar with the state of space exploration, nanotechnology, or other developments. As Darlene the Science Cheerleader puts it, "the rich get richer." The trick seems to be to reach underserved audiences through nontraditional means.

Here's a slight way to participate in your space program...you can go to this site and select the design for a patch to commemorate the final Space Shuttle launch.

None of us is as dumb as all of us: One of my graphics buddies at NASA pointed out some artwork developed by guys who gathered surveys in several different countries, asking what types of art people liked, what subject matters, what colors, etc...and then also what types of art they didn't like. This is as close as one can get to art by polling data.

From my NASA PAO feed, a notice from Glenn Research Center that there's a competition for high school students to put an experiment on a "BalloonSat."

I got on this mailing list awhile back, and occasionally it comes up with useful stuff. Here's a blog on the effective use of Twitter as a communication/outreach/sales tool. Bottom-line question any organization should answer before jumping into this social networking technology is: "What are you trying to accomplish?" If you can't answer the question coherently, you're just following trends without analysis, and that's a Bad Thing.

I saw this posted by one of my technophile English major buddies, Rudy: it's called SIKULI, and it appears to be a graphic user interface (GUI) of sorts. There's a YouTube attached that speaks ins Programmerese, which is completely unintelligible to me. If it makes sense to you, congratulations. It's supposed to make YOUR life easier. For those of us struggling to remember what we named and how we filed a document, it's a little advanced.

From Douglas Mallette: an article on using carbon nanotubes to make batteries from fabrics. Cool!

The internet is now in space--the International Space Station, that is. What's next?

From Regina, an interesting do-it-yourself experiment in tea bag rocketry (political pundits, keep your nasty comments to yourselves).

From the Down Under Defense Expert (DUDE):

• An interesting article from Der Spiegel entitled "The World Bids Farewell to Obama." It's a summary of German perspectives on the Obama administration's future reaction to the Republican taking of the late Senator Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts. I wouldn't count out Mr. Obama just yet. It's not that I'm rooting for him, it's just that anyone who can take down the Clinton machine is not someone to be taken lightly.
• A Financial Times article on the United Nations waiving the first deadline for meeting carbon emissions.
• The Times of London is reporting that a U.N. official is apologizing for saying Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035.

The Senate of New York is increasing the amount of legislative information available to the public on the internet.

The OpenNASA folks have a blog about "how little information is available via our agency-wide employee directory." The types of information that interest the writer (Jessy Cowan-Sharp) include "who you are, what you're working on, trades or skills, and side projects." Well, good luck getting anyone over 40 or so to fill in that type of information, my friend. Sometimes it's sensitive/classified, and sometimes the over-55 crowd at NASA doesn't take all that tag cloud stuff seriously, nor do they necessarily want to share the information.

NASA data suggests that the first decade of the 21st century was the warmest on record.

I have some other stuff in my inbox, but I think I'll punt for now. Have a pleasant evening.

Attention Citizen Scientists--Science for Citizens Now Open for Business!

As promised, Darlene the Science Cheerleader has unveiled her latest web effort to engage the general public in science projects and policy. Science for Citizens.net (SfC) is a place where individuals interested in doing some sort of science project from home can "go shopping" for a project that appeals to them. The site offers projects in a wide variety topics, including animals, archeology, astronomy and space, biology, birds, chemistry, climate & weather, computers & technology, ecology & environment, food, geology & Earth science, insects, nature & outdoor, ocean & water, physics, science policy, and sound.

The site includes a search and advanced search function, with options that allow the user to filter for free or low-cost projects, activities for kids, outdoor activities, "hot projects," or do-it-yourself (DIY) projects that require the participant to build/make something. The page also allows you to sort by level of difficulty and zip code.

Just for grins, and given the interests of this site, it won't surprise you that I looked at "astronomy & space" and "science policy." One project that came up was the "Galaxy Zoo," which is a no-cost effort that allows the participant to classify galaxies according to their shape. Note to Dar: it wasn't immediately obvious where the search results were--they appear beneath the search window. Also, the very first item listed was the "laser harp," which was a "hot project," but not something that's really astronomy space--possibly because SfC doesn't have a lot of projects to recommend yet--but I guess right now the page needs to refine its search engine. I didn't find any projects related to science policy, but I'd be mighty curious to see what those look like. That said, there is a tab for groups or individuals to add a science-from-home project, but you need to become a SfC member to do so. Other tabs, dedicated to video and other resources, do not have content yet, but to be fair to Dar and her partners, SfC is still in its "beta" phase. Presumably the SfC team will be adding content as they go forward.

Other tabs on the page include blogs by the site's creators (Dar and her partners) as well as SfC members. If you have comments related to the theory or practice of being a "citizen scientist," these blogs are for you.

Since the content is still in its embryonic phase, one might ask what the point of SfC is, or who would be interested in using it. I'll answer the audience question first, then get back to the philosophy behind the site. I see SfC as being a great clearing house for parents, students, and even non-child families interested in doing some sort of science project from home--I can see home-schooled kids, especially, finding this site useful as more projects are added.

What has interested me about Dar's work in this area is her belief that the nation is better off having more individuals conversant with, and able to understand and practice, science and engineering. It has become increasingly obvious as our society's technologies progress that more and more social and political decisions will be affected by, or directly related to, science and technology. It would be of great value to our elected officials, and to the citizenry from which they arise, if more people understood how science and technology work, and can make reasoned, informed arguments for or against the use of particular sci/tech. Scientific laws/facts about the world and universe around us are what they are. How we choose to use or act upon them are not neutral--they involve human values and other issues...but, again, if you don't know the science behind something, the most you can offer is a knee-jerk reaction based on emotion or propaganda from someone who DOES or (worse) DOES NOT understand the science and tries to manipulate one group or another based on pure emotion. Dar is trying to combat that sort of demagoguery, and I firmly support her in that quest.

So if you have a need for, or interest in, encouraging your (or your kids') inner scientist, Science for Citizens.net will give you the resources to tap into that interest. And along the way, you just might find yourself becoming better informed about the increasingly complex future that awaits us.

Product Reviews: iPhone and Kindle 2 (Follow-Up)


After much shopping and soul searching, I broke down on December 22 and bought an Apple iPhone. I have resisted Apple products mostly because I don't appreciate being called an illiterate heathen (or the equivalent) because I use Bill Gates products. I'll stick with Gates just because I hate being condescended to. At any rate, I went around and around on this. I knew I needed a smart phone because I wasn't likely to make enough money to hire an administrative assistant to maintain my calendar, and I found myself missing things in email just because it wasn't in my hand THAT INSTANT. Amazing how communication technologies can quickly change our expectations of what's possible.


The Apple Store people at Bridge Street Town Centre were nice, if a little cocky about their products (note my earlier statement). However, I had already shopped around for the Droid and the rest of the Verizon smart phones, and most of them drove me up the wall with their infant-finger-sized keys and lack of capability as compared to iPhone. So I relented. I had no contract with Verizon, and they had not fixed a texting issue I'd had for over a year, so they weren't on my happy list. The only gripe I'd heard about iPhone was that AT&T's coverage was sporadic--the current theme of Verizon's commercials. Otherwise, the product worked.

So I asked as many questions as I could while at the Apple Store, the primary one that came to my technical writer's mind being, "How big is the manual for this thing?" The sales dude rather smugly informed me that Apple had gone green/paperless, and that the entire tech manual was online. Great, I thought, until your internet is down. But nevertheless, I was reassured that the interface was intuitive and that I wouldn't need a manual for much. They handled transferring my phone number, had me set up that day, and shazaam! After taking the machine home and fiddling around with some buttons for a couple hours, I found that, in fact, everything the Apple had told me was true:

• The interface is intuitive...at least to someone who has worked with graphical user interfaces over the past several years. My father, barely comfortable with the internet, just said no. To do most of the things I wanted to do--call people, send text messages, add the Facebook app(short for application)--I could do by futzing around pushing buttons that seemed logical and, in fact, were. I consider this a testimony to the designers of the iPhone interface.
• The machine works.
• The apps cover a wide variety of interests and activities, and many of those apps are free.
• The bulk of what I've used my home computer and phone for--text messaging, emailing, and accessing Facebook.com--I can now do from one machine, nearly anywhere in the country.

My favorite "iPhone moment," the one that sold me on the product as an impressive tool, happened in Orlando, when I was scheduled to meet D2 for lunch at a place called The Ravenous Pig, a restaurant she'd raved about but I had never visited. I started by looking up the restaurant on the Yellow Pages app (free). The YP app had both the restaurant's phone number and a "Directions" key. When I pressed it, the machine asked if I wanted directions from my current location. I pressed "Yes," and a map was generated there on the screen. I was sincerely impressed.

Now this isn't to say I haven't had my "moments" with the iPhone. The least-attractive feature so far is the actual phone feature itself. I have the Leahy Ear, which means I'll be looking for a hearing aid in about 20 years. But even so, the sound quality on the phone is not great, and it took a little gratuitous fiddling with buttons and asking a few friends (no, I did NOT use the online help, more on that in a minute) to finally get the volume turned up. A minor annoyance, but still a practical issue, considering this is an iPhone.

Second, the online help is not easy or intuitive. It took awhile to find the correct set of keywords to get the answer to the question I wanted (e.g. "How do I get the music on my iPod onto my iPhone?").

Third, the tiny screen is nearly useless for a long stretch of web surfing. My buddy Doc did show me how to expand the screen, which is a pretty clever combination of using two fingers to "stretch" the image on the screen, but it was not immediately obvious.

Fourth, I've had a recurring problem with the Facebook app getting "stuck" on one screen and not returning to its "home page." The only way to clear the problem seems to be to make sure I exit the app FROM the home page. Otherwise, I have to delete the FB icon from my iPhone desktop, reset the phone, and reset some other things as well. Not a major issue, but an annoyance for a habitual FB user like me.

Fifth, by allowing me to transfer my iPod music to the iPhone, Apple has in essence left me with a useless piece of equipment. My buddy Dr. OZMG is having problems with her iPod and doesn't have an iPhone, so she might be the lucky recipient of the now-orphaned iPod.

But the bottom line is that iPhone has convinced me of the quality of Apple products. That won't turn me into an Apple snob. The home PC is due to be replaced, and I will probably still resist buying a Mac, but the iPhone has another fan. Buy it!

*

I've posted Kindle product reviews here and here, and I still keep getting requests from friends on Facebook asking what my impressions of the product are. Hopefully, these links help. However, I would say that I've had less time to read and use my Kindle than previously. Life has become a little too busy. I still like paper books and want my local Barnes & Noble to remain open. I canceled my monthly Wall Street Journal subscription, not due to any discontent with the product--it's a fine newspaper--but I just don't have the time to read it. Which is also why I don't read the Huntsville Times and didn't subscribe to any local papers in Northern Virginia or Orlando. Life is just too busy, and the internet provides quite enough information as it is. That said, the WSJ cost only $14.99/month for Mondays-Saturdays (no Sundays or advertisements), so it's a worthwhile addition to your Kindle if you've got the time and inclination to use it. And even with a Kindle app on my iPhone, I still prefer the original, with its bigger, non-backlit screen.

Bottom line, if you're a book geek who's not afraid of a little technology and wants to keep several volumes on hand while traveling, Kindle is still a good toy to have.

Potpourri CXV

Nick Skytland posted this link, and I rather liked it. It's about communicating your passion--why you do what you do--and how you communicate that to others. It works for space advocates or anyone else, I believe. I passed it along to the amazing Dr. OZMG. I'll be interested to see what she makes of it.

And from the damned-if-we-do-damned-if-we-don't files, the Down Under Defense Expert (DUDE) forwards this story from the UK Telegraph reporting that France is accusing the U.S. of "occupying" Haiti as part of our efforts to feed and stabilize the country. Gad.

*

Otherwise, this evening I'm trying to sort out my morning notes for the novel I've been writing at 0545 most mornings. I skipped this weekend because I needed a break. I figure as long as I devote time to getting work done, I can safely say I'm writing.

I don't know if it's smart or giving it away or whatever to talk about what I'm writing about, but it's a new era, and the internet has done strange things to the act of constructing communication products. We'll see how I do. I'm not going to give away plot details, but I will share what sorts of things I'm investigating and what progress I'm making. Someone else could take the same elements and create something completely different. That's why multiple people can make money writing the same type of fiction.

I'm looking at a story of the near future (25-50 years from now), focused primarily on the planet Mars, though other locations could be brought into the mix as well. I can draw upon the knowledge I've gained writing public papers, presentations, and pronouncements for Ares, but also extrapolate from the action going on in the private sector. I like to have at least a fiction writer's knowledge of what I'm talking about, so I've got some research to do on a variety of topics, even if it's just for that "telling detail" that lets SF fans know that I've done my homework. These topics include:

• Mars chemistry/dust
• Lunar chemistry/dust
• Mars geography
• Astronaut psychology
• Mars exploration and landing vehicles, as well as outpost habitats and other structures
• Spacesuits
• Space physiology
• Web 2.0/3.0
• Mission control operations

So those are just some of the topics I've got to be smart on, never mind all the other little fiddly bits that will flesh out my characters and my "world." There are other things I want to investigate over the course of this story:

• Changing/overcoming the typical NASA model of crew makeup from the "two engineers and two scientists in a tin can."
• I'm interested in electronic media and how it affects how people socialize. I've noticed behaviors and changes in myself that have come about only through electronic media, and others that have been improved or made worse through text/data alone. How would such media affect astronauts 45 million miles from home?
• In addition to the concepts I mentioned in my first entry, I am curious about the philosophical, cultural, and even spiritual aspects of human beings living on other worlds. How would the world's leading civilizations react to its citizens being "out there?" I'm actually writing about Americans, but I can at least touch on some of the international aspects of things.

I know, it's a lot to cover. I might end up doing this as a series of short stories. Fun to experiment, anyway.

Potpourri CXIV

Extra-long edition of Potpourri ahead, as I haven't written here in a week, but first up, I've got a hot item from Darlene the Science Cheerleader that she wanted me to respond to ASAP.

She referred me to a blog posting (and the report it was based on, but I'm a little behind at the moment to read it) about the state of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education and the workforce. A new report from Rutgers University--which I'll read eventually, really--finds that the "pipeline" of students receiving STEM-related has remained relatively steady over the past few decades. The problem, as Dar notes in her fun, punchy style, is that not enough of them are getting jobs in the STEM disciplines after graduating.

I would take one exception to a suggestion Dar had that STEM-based companies just need to pay more. The amateur economist in me doesn't believe the economy works that way. There are two sides to the issue: supply and demand. If the findings of the Rutgers study are accurate (I've seen some OECD stats at work that might say something different), then the problem is not with supply, but with demand. Compared to the number of STEM grads produced by China and India, regardless of the quality of the educational institutions that produced them, the U.S. is woefully behind countries three or four times our size in population. The common refrain at U.S. tech gatherings is that "India has more honors students than we have students." That statement in itself can probably be scrutinized, but let's assume it's true, and that the U.S. is going to need a lot more STEM student, honors or otherwise. That means the education pipeline/student supply is either fine or below optimum for our needs, so there is still some work to do. The problem must lie on the demand side of the equation.

The demand for STEM students is driven by the U.S. private sector and the technologies they produce. Prior to World War II, most scientific research in the U.S. was funded by private organizations like the Guggenheim Foundation, which funded Robert Goddard's early experiments in liquid-fuel rockets. It was only when the nation found itself in a two-front fight for its life against nations that were directly funding science and engineering research and development (R&D) that the U.S. Government became THE player in funding basic science research, where it remains today, according to a National Science Foundation report my coworker Tracy found.

There are a couple of ways you can increase the money available to STEM careers: you can allow the federal government to spend more (which, on basic science, still isn't a bad idea) or you can provide incentives to the private sector to fund more applied R&D. Or you can do both at once by, say, increasing overall expenditures and research incentives on a space program that does really challenging things, like develop single-stage-to-orbit launch vehicles, space-based solar power satellites, and/or more exotic exploration missions and technologies. Kids will jump at the chance to do something cool, and companies won't mind doing the cool things, since they tend to increase their bottom lines and allow them to recruit high-caliber talent. And yes, there are doubtless other industries you can do this with, like Earth-based energy or biotechnology, but this nation has had serious arguments about both. NASA, on the contrary, enjoys wide appeal and support. Connect that ambitious go-where-no-one-has-gone-before stuff with serious career opportunities, and even the skeptics might agree that science and engineering, not high finance, is the way to personal and financial success in this country. And wouldn't that be great to see!?

*

On to other things, and I've got a lot of 'em...

Actually, I've got a bunch of stuff from Dar. She was participating in the Science Online 2010 conference this week, so she picked up all sorts of useful stuff/sites. I need to go to this next year--it sounds like a hoot!

• The first bit is a blog on how to "take your blog to the next level." If that means I go from 15 to 150 readers, I'll be happy. :-)
• She also provided a link to a blog that discusses the impact of social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) on reporting in Haiti and its potential for assisting science reporting.
• Another link is a directory of every type of collaborative tool available to the general public and various government entities. That doesn't mean that all of these tools will be linked; but at least now people would know, in theory, who's doing what with whom. Progress of a sort.
• Here's an interesting engineering competition for kids: design something using bubble wrap!
• Here's an article that blames mean gym teachers on childhood obesity and later adult resistance to exercise. Gotta confess, while I was on the scrawny side during childhood, it has taken the care of a good woman to make me give a darn about exercise. I sure didn't get motivated to exercise based on my joyful experiences with high school physical education.
• And lastly, Dar has a new video introducing some of the Philadelphia Eagles cheerleaders who are studying or working in STEM fields. The video is cute, and Dar asks some off-the-wall questions, but trust me, she's playing dumb. Crazy like a fox.

Here's something Tim Bailey from the Florida Space Coast Chapter posted in Facebook: a space "unconference" where, according to the site, "participants decide the topics, schedule, and structure of the event. Well, that might save some folks a lot of work (can I do that for ISDC?).

Saw this on Facebook, but can't remember who posted it...the Patterson School of Diplomacy provides workshops/simulations for students to brainstorm how various organizations would cope with various disasters--the day after Independence Day, an invasion of zombies, or an attack by vampires (this year's hot pop culture phenomenon).

The speculation and swirl around the Constellation Program continue. The speculations might or might not be true. All I know is that from my day job point of view, we've got our heads down with orders to "keep coloring" until we get new direction.

First it was sex (Lisa Nowak), now we've got reports of drugs at NASA. If we can find a way to get Steven Tyler out of rehab and Aerosmith back together for a reunion concert, say, by the Vehicle Assembly Building, we could have rock 'n' roll, too. Then the public would take NASA seriously as a pop culture phenomenon. I kid. Slightly.

New from Hu:

• A 2D trailer for the new 3D movie about the Hubble Space Telescope. That should be fun!
• A Navy Times article about the U.S. relief mission to Haiti, led in part by the U.S.S. Carl Vinson, one of our aircraft carriers.
• An article speculating on the existence of liquid diamond oceans on Uranus and Neptune. This is similar to Arthur C. Clarke's depiction of Jupiter having a diamond core in 2010: Odyssey Two.
• Ah! And speaking of 2010, Hu also forwarded an article lamenting the fact that the world wasn't yet up to the advances Clarke predicted in his novel.

The final competition for the Huntsville edition of the "Future City" competition is this weekend. Alas, I will be out of town, but these kids really come up with some ingenious stuff.

From Father Dan, the Newseum's Flash site for seeing the front pages of newspapers from across the U.S. and around the world.

From D2, a site created by Konica providing, among other things, exquisitve visuals of the Venus de Milo, which I had the privilege of seeing in Paris...and not photographing nearly as well. Also from D2, an article about an iPhone app that senses pressure on your bed and will wake you up at the proper time in your sleep cycle to prevent any jarring wakeups. Sounds great!

From Jason Clark on Facebook, a very long YouTube video (51 minutes) on human computation. Sounds interesting, but I haven't had 51 minutes to spare to watch it yet.

You really need to read Mike Boyd's columns on the Aviation Planning site if you're interested in an alternative perspective on the "whole body scanner" craze now sweeping the federal government after the underpants bomber nearly took out a plane on Christmas Day. If you think TSA is helping make things safer, Boyd will provide you with some good arguments why you should reconsider that perspective. Boyd's page is also a regular link posted on this site as a handy reference. (Warning to my liberal readers: Boyd does not agree with you. Warning to my conservative readers: he isn't too kind to Bush administration appointees, either.)

Speaking of space and education (at least I did in my opening essay), the Space Florida group is worth checking out. They provide resources to teachers--mostly in the Kennedy Space Center area--to get their students engaged in STEM educational subjects.

Miscellaneous links that have piled up in my inbox:

• Oy…Pat Robertson is about as helpful to conservatism as all the racist email “humor” I get re: Obama. Really, the real problems of the world are bad enough—this is not helping. At all.
• Are you rich? Not sure what to do with your bonus this year? CNN Money offers some suggestions.
• “Green” wine?
• Satellite imagery of Haiti earthquake devastation.
• Light from faraway planet detected
• From Martin: an article title "Reagan Was Wrong," attempting to explain how Ronald Reagan's brand of populist conservatism held within it the seeds of its own destruction. Interesting point of view, and I'm not even sure I disagree. However, the author makes a few mistakes about Reagan's philosophy, such as his "mistrust" in the inherent religious character of the American people--nothing could be farther from the truth. What infuriates many on both sides of the aisle today is that Reagan brought serious churchgoers into the Republican "big tent."
• From Twila...this isn't quite a palindrome, which must be spelled the same way coming and going, but it is a piece of writing that can be read forward and backward.
• A poetry recommendation from the ever-delightful Dr. OZMG.
• From the wise gnomes at NeedCoffee.com, an interview with the Wells Fargo VP responsible for the first ATM in Antarctica.
• From Father Dan, an article suggesting that an airport in Jacksonville, FL, could be the next spaceport for horizontally-launched suborbital tourism.
• In-flight wi-fi, etc.
• NASA looking at multiple spacesuit designs
• Russia sets aside money to build a rocket with a nuclear engine (about time someone did!)
• China announces that it has successfully conducted a missile interception test…anti-missile defense advocates take note.
• How did the first man in space die?
• You never know where Moon rocks will turn up…
• From Bruce, some links to Ares I-X images:
  --Ares I-X Development Test: Flight Day Launch Journal (photo gallery) - collectSPACE: Messages
  --Ares I-X: Launch preparations and updates (photo gallery) - collectSPACE: Messages

And believe it or not, that is NOT everything that was in the inbox. However, the stuff I did post is the "freshest" and most interesting. No need to bore you unnecessarily. Salud.

Novel Writing

To refresh my creativity and fulfill one of the items on my "bucket list," I've started work on a science fiction novel. To date, I've written one novel-length work and one book-length nonfiction book, both unpublishable for matters dealing with trademark violations or employment agreements rather than quality (I'd like to think). In any case, my primary fiction outlet has been short science fiction, with "short" getting up to as high as 60,000 words, but a novel is something else. That's usually 120,000 words or longer these days.

A science fiction novel requires a lot more work. As I noted in my previous entry, the SF author must be technically accurate (but innovative) as well as interesting and readable. Oh yeah, and entertaining. And all this technical background must feed into believable characters that the reader cares about, solving realistic problems or engaging in plausible relationships...at least that's what the good stuff does. I have set myself quite a task.

My ESL tutoring student wanted to know how I was approaching this work, since novel writing is quite a bit different from short story writing. In truth, I've never written a novel before, so this is new to me. I have different things that need to be done to make this story work.

Characters and plotlines I can work out without a lot of research. There are characters I have in mind, experiences I want them to have, and outcomes I want them to achieve. That means sitting down before the keyboard or wandering the street or staring into the void while I imagine the details of these imaginary people's lives and how they will unfold.

The science and technology will take more research. I am now blessed to work at NASA and to be more familiar with space technologies and how they work. Which ones do I use? Which ones seem most plausible? How will my characters interact with them? Another blessing in my current line of work is that I'm surrounded by smart people who know the hardware and can correct me if my descriptions or speculations go off the reservation.

Additional research will be needed to consider future history. What's going on today? What do I think is likely to happen with politics, culture, and behavior in the next 25 years? Do I project my preferred vision for the future or just what I think is most likely? What lessons do I teach (without beating people over the head)? What warnings do I give? What trends do I think are important?

This is all part of what SF writers call "world building." As with historical fiction, detective stories, or any other type of fiction, your characters need to behave realistically within the constraints--philosophical, technical, cultural--imposed by the genre and milieu you're creating. If I've done my job right, at the end, my readers will have some feeling for that other world, its people, and the lessons to be learned from both.

So what kind of story do I want to tell? Without getting into specifics, I'll try this: I am interested in the psychological and social effects of human beings living on other worlds. The "new frontier" and other analogies are used to sell space to the public, but the reality is quite different. It's not just the environment that must be contended with, but the personalities of the people in the tuna cans, the mission they must perform, the conditions inside those tuna cans, and the time the crew has been given to achieve the mission. And as Kim Stanley Robinson demonstrated so ably in Red Mars and its sequels, there is two-way feedback to consider between the explorers and the people back home. So I want to understand what it will mean for people in the 21st century to live and work in space.

On the character level, there are several stories I want to tell, most of which revolve around the theme of learning to get along with the people around you. It's a paradox that happy people don't want or need to explore. Dissatisfied, restless people are the ones who feel the wild urge to explore other worlds far disconnected from most others. And yet if you fill a spacecraft or space colony with restless, cranky individualists, what sort of social dynamic does that set up? Ten years of working in and observing the space advocacy community has convinced me that achieving peace and cohesiveness would be neither easy nor necessarily achievable. And then you throw on top of that the high-powered drive required to be accomplished enough to be a NASA astronaut, and you can see why it's surprising that the Lisa Nowak situation wasn't the first.

And then there's this: nearly 15 years ago, when I was feeling useless and put-upon by my career, I said, "Hold on, pal. Quit your b!tch!ng. If this isn't the life you want, what the heck DO you want?" And I answered myself, "I wanna go into space." The answer to that question probably marked my transition to adulthood because nearly every professional development action I took after that fed that particular goal in one way or another. After a lot of hard work, shazaam! I finally got the space job I wanted. Not going into space, obviously, but working for the space business, anyway, so that much was right with the world.

But the more I've read and watched this business, the more I understand what's involved in being an astronaut or even a space tourist, the more I realize that I don't think I want to go into space. Falling sensations, confined spaces, isolation from others...really? You wanna do that forever? Now I'm not so sure. So there are practical considerations here. Since I first decided I wanted to go into space, my life has made a quantum leap in improvement. I am not that same restless, cranky 25-year-old who wanted to get the heck away from people and explore for the sake of exploring on my own. I have more connections here on Earth now, more happiness, less angst. And then there are all the psychological issues listed above. Plus the simple physical risks that one must endure: acceleration, low to no gravity, radiation, little to no atmosphere, dust and finer particles that create havoc with one's breathing, or just flat-out poisons in the atmosphere that we don't know about yet.

Am I saying that no one could or should try to live in space? No. I'm just not sure I should be the one to go. But you never know. Until the story is finished, I'm not sure where I'll end up. So there are lots of things to consider in this exercise. It's work, but it's fun work, because I'm daydreaming on paper and sharing my ideas on paper. I just need to do a little writing every day. No sweat.

Potpourri CXIII

LOTS of stuff to clear out of the inbox. A visit with Dr. OZMG looks like it is going to be snowed out, so I might as well write.

Regarding my previous post on coping with burnout, D2 sent this article. One of the ways I personally am trying to work on burnout is to start writing a science fiction novel. As usual, it's ambitious, complex, and quirky, and will cover several issues. I might use the blog here as a way to track my progress as well, but writers are notoriously shy (and rightly so) about sharing rough drafts, so the most I might say is what I've been up to or what sorts of sources I'm using to educate myself. One thing I'm also using to keep myself honest is a "small, attainable goal" support group on Facebook recommended by Dr. OZMG. A novel is a difficult thing to do, and SF brings an additional layer of complexity, in that the author must be a) technically/scientifically correct, b) innovative in pushing the envelope of future technology, and c) interesting and readable in his descriptions. I love a good challenge. :-)

Also from D2: an online lecture by a quantum physicist on why quantum physics violate comon-sense logic. God's universe is a very strange, marvelous place.

Looking to live in another country? The Down Under Defense Expert (DUDE) sent this link on International Living listing the best countries to live in and some more detailed explanations of their choices.

Also from the DUDE: an article on the "Israelification" of airport security.

NASA has an open opportunity for academic institutions to pursue grants for developing science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education opportunities in connection with the Summer of Innovation event in 2010. Along similar lines, the Obama administration is ponying up more money for STEM education. This year, when the government is spending in ways that make drunken sailors blush, that might be great. Sustained funding will be a bigger problem once the President and Congress become Born Again Budget Cutters.

The internet is spawning some interesting ideas in philanthropy. For example, instead of spending a ton of money on Super Bowl commercials, Pepsi plans to participate in the Refresh Project, asking readers to suggest how they should spend the money on worthy causes instead. Also, a group called Syntiant4G has created a YouTube video to promote a mentorship program that combines for-profit and nonprofit ethos. Interesting!

From Tracy, an article on the "secrets" of innovation.

From my NASA Public Affairs Office (PAO) feed, the Fermi telescope investigators think they can use pulsars as a "galactic GPS" system, given their precise rotations. Speaking of telescopes, the Kepler telescope has located its first five "exoplanets" (that'd be planets circling other stars, not our own). Kepler was designed specifically to locate Earth-like planets in other solar systems. It's a marvelous, heady time to be alive--so many wonders to discover!--stay tuned.

Also from the NASA PAO, a notice that a moon rock collected by Apollo 11 will be taken up to a new, permanent home on the International Space Station. This same piece of rock was carried to the top of Mount Everest by former NASA astronaut Scott Parazynski. You might ask, "So what?" Well, jeez. Consider the number of adventures involved in moving that little rock around. If being the first man on the Moon, a person who has scaled the tallest mountain on Earth, or someone who has been to the International Space Station won't inspire you, then I can't help you. The short, Bartish answer is that "Greatness matters. Achievement matters. As long as individuals are willing to try to do great things that NO ONE else could do, what might they inspire other individuals to do that they had never considered possible?"

My fellow tech blogger Darlene Cavalier the Science Cheerleader is starting a new web site soon called ScienceforCitizens.net, which will promote opportunities for private citizens to get involved in conducting science at home and (probably) also encourage them to get involved in the science decision-making process. I like the way Dar puts it: "A whole lot more goes into setting science policies than the pure science: economics, values, and other societal implications that come into play in a big way. Scientists themselves ought to have more access to Congress, for example, but there needs to be put in place a deliberate mechanism to inform--and then solicit--input from the public." The Science for Citizens site is still a work in progress, but you can sign up for update emails now. I believe Dar is looking for partners to promote this cause, so if your organization is interested in supporting her work, by all means email her, either through SfC or her primary page, ScienceCheerleader.com.

On one of my random New Year's Eve weekend Facebook posts, I suggested that it was long past time for someone to develop wine pairings for junk food, as some of us don't always do high-quality snacks at home. Jennifer the PAO Maven pointed me to this article on Food & Wine.com. Awesome.

More from the world of space...the Mars Spirit rover is starting its seventh year exploring Mars. It might be common knowledge, but bears repeating: Spirit and Opportunity were both designed to operate for 90 days. That is some outstanding engineering. I'd want these people designing and building my car, but then they and I would miss out on the other cool stuff they might achieve. If you wonder why I have no problem working for NASA, it's stuff like this.

I haven't discussed politics in awhile here, mostly because it's been boring me and I've got more important things to concentrate on. However, this link from the Heritage Foundation is worth checking out...in case you're interested in how federal government spending is trending. The graphs are not good. One thing not discussed by Heritage is the increase in science and science-related education under Obama, which I consider a good thing, if sustained over the long haul. I've been told that the last time the U.S. went in big for science and research and development spending was under Ronald Reagan (note to my friends who think Republicans are anti-science). Our nation's leadership now depends on large and sustained investments in science and technology. And students aren't stupid. If they see that there's money to be made in STEM, they will return to those fields.

That's about now for this dose of Potpourri. Sorry it's so long, but I got a little behind in my postings. Happy 2010! Let your year be filled with happiness and marvels.