The Swirl

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Potpourri LVI

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm shocked, shocked...

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

Also from Father, a living cartoon. Enjoy.

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

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

Quick Thoughts on Iran

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

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

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

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

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

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

Random Images from the Florida Trip

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A view of the KSC "Rocket Garden."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Updates on Morgan

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

More on the Human Space Flight Panel

New from Hu:

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

Potpourri LV

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

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

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

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

Potpourri LIV

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

News from Hu:

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

From Lin, who has a new web site:

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's it for now.

Paradoxes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Correction to a Previous Post

Tim Pickens and David Hewitt offered up a correction on The Revolution Might Not Be Televised. I stand corrected.

The methane test is being led by nasa as a summer academy.We are providing a facility and personell to assist in the testing. The thruster was a unit we developed under a MSFC SBIR [Small Business Innovation Research] Phase II.

KSC Tour

It’s hard to get a sense of scale for the Vehicle Assembly Building because it’s this 500-foot-tall structure in the middle of the Florida swamp land. It’s imposing, though. The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center bus tours like to tell tourists that you could play football on the American flag painted on the side…it’s 209 X 110 feet. 6,000 gallons of paint. No foolin’.

This was my first view inside the VAB. There’s no other way to say it: this building is BIG! Nearly fifty floors, enclosed by tons of open-air steel. The entry I came through opened into the open-air passageway between the four “high bays,” where the Space Shuttle and Ares I-X hardware is stacked.

The Ares I-X “super segments” are in High Bay 4. Ground-floor access is restricted because the team is hard at work assembling the hardware and doesn’t have a lot of time for tours.
From five floors up, you can get a better feel for things, though it becomes a challenge taking decent photographs when you're unsteady with open-air heights (lesson learned, and not a pleasant one). Once the first stage motor is stacked, the next section of the rocket to be stacked is “super stack 1.” The segment all the way in the back with the upside-down cone on top will be placed atop the segment at center, behind the catwalk, which is the fifth segment simulator. After that, the segment closest to the camera—the interstage, which houses the Roll Control System—will be placed atop the frustum and carried over into High Bay 3, which is across the airway between the high bays.

The stacks will be lifted up to a “window” in the bay over 200 feet in the air, translated horizontally through this window for High Bay 3, and then lowered onto the first stage motor. The aft skirt and aft motor segment have been stacked and need to be placed upon the mobile launch platform, which is already in the bay, awaiting Ares I-X.

This segment will go atop “super segment one.” It has a plastic cover on top of it to provide climate control for the avionics hardware inside of it. The segment is lifted by itself because it also contains massive steel plates for ballast.

Steve Davis, Deputy Mission Manager, is the one pointing to the frustum.

After the ballast segment is moved over to High Bay 3, the next segment to be carried over will be the upper stage simulator, the stack of four “tuna cans” at center.

Two more segments complete the upper stage simulator (the two segments in back, with the American flag decal on the lower segment).

The last piece of the rocket to be stacked will be the crew module/service module/launch abort system simulator.

Although Ares I-X is only a test vehicle, the exterior includes simulated exterior hardware, like thrusters, which will be included in the final, operational Ares I. The more realistic the exterior, the more closely the rocket will fly like Ares I. Even something as small as a thruster can affect the air flow around the rocket and affect its flight through the atmosphere.

The segment parts are marked to make certain that the right parts are in the right place.

“Clocking” marks are also included to ensure that the segments are aligned at the correct position relative to one another. The curvatures of these 18-foot-diameter cylinders is correct within .05 inches.

This is the “birdcage” fixture used to lift the crew module/launch abort system simulator.


I just thought this was a helpful sign. Note the fine job of focusing at this point.

Space Shuttle hardware is being stacked in one of the other high bays. The Mobile Launch Platforms stand about five stories (~50 feet) tall. The Ares I-X first stage is about 174 feet tall, and the rest of the vehicle will stretch another 153 feet above that. The Ares I-X rocket is a big thing.


This is the view of the new platforms KSC has built to accommodate Ares I-X in High Bay 3.

This is one of the fire holes in the mobile launch platform. Normally, this would be the hole through which the Space Shuttle main engines would fire. It will not be used for Ares I-X.

*

So just imagine what a treat it is to have one of your least-favorite anxieties come into direct conflict with the job you love. That's what makes for a bad day, as well as for bit of a conflict in my work, which is a whole 'nother issue, but that's my problem, not yours.

Hitting the Ground at Warp Speed

Morgan is out of the hospital, eating well, and wanting to get out and do stuff. In short, she's acting a regular kid (albeit of the high-energy variety) and exhausting her mom. Morgan should be listed as "see also" synonym for the word "resilience." Go get 'em, tiger!

The Revolution Might Not Be Televised

One of the cool things about living in Huntsville, Alabama, especially if you're a space geek like me, is that you've got relatively easy access to very smart people who know a lot about building things that go into space. One of those very smart people is a member of the Huntsville Alabama L5 Society (HAL5), former member of Project HALO, and now president of a private space company, Orion Propulsion: Tim Pickens.

Pickens was the guest speaker at this month's HAL5 meeting, and as usual he drew a crowd. Part of that might have come from the title of his talk: "Greening the Aerospace Community," in which he talked about developing green(er) propellants for getting rockets into space. He talked about aerospace companies looking for the "Holy Grail" of rocket propellants--they want the maximum energy for the minimum mass (what rocket scientists would call "high specific impulse"). Orion Propulsion is testing a methane-oxygen engine, using a cadre of college students from University of Alabama-Huntsville.

Marketing Orion Propulsion
Pickens spent a great deal of his time promoting his company, perhaps rightly so. For a company with fewer than 40 employees, Orion has a lot of unique capabilities, including designing, building, and testing new rocket designs. They have contracts with commercial (Bigelow), defense, and NASA (Ares) customers, and are executing them. These include attitude control systems for Bigelow's "Sundancer" inflatable space station, roll control thruster systems for the Ares I crew launch vehicle built on a contract through Boeing, and a small-sat launcher for the Department of Defense. What's fun about Orion is Pickens' willingness to experiment on new hardware and designs, often on what would be a shoestring budget for a government project.

Origins of Orion: SpaceShipOne and Beyond
Project HALO's work on hybrid rockets (solid/HTPB rubber fuel, nitrous oxide oxidizer) caught the attention of Burt Rutan earlier this decade, when he was looking for a rocket engine that a pilot could turn on and off, like a jet engine. Hybrids allow that ability by shutting down the flow of oxidizer, killing combustion. Pickens and a couple of Project HALO team members headed out to Mojave California to supervise propulsion development for SpaceShipOne, the first privately built vehicle to reach space three times. On the strength of that success, Pickens was able to come back home to Huntsville and start, with the help of his wife, Orion Propulsion.

And Pickens is not satisfied with the remarkable progress he's made with his woman (wife)-owned business so far. He's excited by the challenges involved in designing fuel tanks that allow for long-term storage of cryogenic (super-cold) propellants, which are needed for NASA's Altair lunar lander. "Some folks say they're redoing Apollo. That's a lot of bull." He also believes in the usefulness of building completely reusable fly-back first stage boosters, which were considered for the Space Shuttle. But again, he thinks small-scale prototypes are the way to go: "If you can't build a small-sized model fly, you might as well not fantasize about building a big one."

A Vision for Space Hardware Development
As I noted in my blog on young people and the space business, it's this willingness to experiment that gives smaller, "New Space" companies like Orion a leg up on the big aerospace companies or NASA when it comes to recruiting a new generation of graduates coming out of the nation's engineering schools. One typical example came from Pickens' building of a high-voltage exciter, which he wanted to use for an engine igniter. The item he wanted to purchase from an established aerospace company cost $15,000 and weighed 3 pounds. There were features on the "legacy" hardware he needed, but the electronics were 30 years old and "clunky." So what Pickens' team did was take what he wanted from the other company's hardware "and put my stuff on 'em." Pickens' new unit cost $3,000 and weighs half a pound. "Multiply that out by eight or ten thrusters, and you're saving somebody a lot of weight."

Young people don't want to spend ten years of their life designing one tiny part of a very large and complex system; they want to get their hands dirty and have a hand in building the whole thing. Small-scale engines and experiments like Orion's liquid oxygen-methane engine are exactly what fresh-out-of-school engineers are looking for when they come to NASA, and don't always find. While following traditional paths to aerospace legitimacy such as joining a "mentor-protegee" relationship with Boeing and getting Orion AS9100 certified, Pickens has fought to maintain a "Skunk Works" type of environment at his company.

In the end, this was the message Tim Pickens had for his audience, more than talking about the values of environmentally friendlier propellants ("If you're going to fine me for my CO2 emissions, you better have a machine you can turn on to undo the emissions I made"). "I know why Elon [Musk, CEO of SpaceX] is trying to do everything in-house...You need to do some of things I've been a proponent of." And the way to do that, according to Pickens, is to start small, get your hands dirty, and be willing to fail. “We are not allowed to fail. No one wants to pay for that on their watch. Tax payers especially. Maybe this is an artifact of some programs gone bad! Private industry is allowed to try new things that might be different and risky, but the payoff could be huge.” No doubt we will hear more from Pickens and Orion Propulsion in the years ahead. I'm looking forward to seeing what revolutions they produce, even if no one outside the space community ever hears about them.

Potpourri LIII

I'll be heading off to KSC for Ares I-X work, the STS-127 launch, and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)/Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) launch. Busy, but fun! Anyhow, I should have all sorts of fun pics to post, either during the trip or afterward.

My Google Alert feed turned up a few more Ares I-X stories:

• From the Times of the Internet from North Olmsted, Ohio.
• From the Bad Astronomy blog.
• From UPI.

News from Hu: North Korea plans another nuke and missile test (not yet a nuke missile test) if the U.N. decides to clamp down on them with sanctions.

Stuff from Down Under Defense Expert (DUDE):

• Want to win a three-month vacation? Become an expert on New Zealand.
• A summary of European Union election results...go figure. America shifts to the left, and the rest of the world goes conservative, or at least center-right.

And some additional thoughts about the goat blog:

• The Mitsubishi ad link will probably stop working next month when they “run out of Tritons.” Here’s a link that’ll probably survive longer, and the picture is bigger. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6Qs1A07RPo&feature=related
• The “Not much else? You can drink it.” Was in reference to you saying something like “There’s not much else to do with that much milk.” Maybe change it to “Not much else? You can drink the milk.”
• Where I say “Bring the buck in for two weeks every year,” it would be more accurate if I had said “Bring the buck in for a week twice each year…”
• The sentence “An average-size back yard will provide enough forage for a goat but not a cow.” would read better if I had written “An average-size back yard will provide enough forage for a goat but not for a cow.” [Note: the DUDE is a much better semanticist than I am.]
• To be completely grammatically correct you’d want to say “It is not TMI, he said petulantly.” he said petulantly. Or “He quoted himself in his reply: It is not TMI, he said petulantly…
• Don’t forget to credit Monty Python for my non-petulant comment or their attorneys will descend upon you and “…make castanets of your testicles already.”
• “That sort of farmers…” should have read “That sort of farmer…”
• You could put a bit more emphasis on the para-survivalist angle. That’s what got me started on the subject with you. Look at it this way: you only need five or six silver dollars for a healthy, milking doe.
• And how does one become an expert on goats? I’m certainly not one. But my friend's mother taught me some of that, there’s a goat cheese operation just down the hill from me, and Mrs. DUDE's bro keeps a couple of goats.

From Father Dan, a YouTube video of a turboprop model King Air.

A variety of links from Lin:

• http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20090611/pl_ynews/ynews_pl383/print
• http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090610/pl_mcclatchy/3249623/print
• http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20090609/cm_uc_crpbux/op_3310250/print
• http://news.yahoo.com/s/weeklystandard/20090602/cm_weeklystandard/sayitaintsolarry/print

From Fred, a story about a world-record number of people dressing as Smurfs. Yiiiii.

SpaceX has been assembling its Dragon spacecraft.

From Sarah Palin's Twitter account a link to a Heritage Foundation report on why we should drill for oil in that postage-stamp section of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Our government is becoming certifiably insane on energy matters. They don't like oil companies drilling in American territory, but insist on energy independence. They complain about higher food prices, but insist on ethanol subsidies and higher energy taxes. They don't want to damage the environment, but they support windmills, which kill birds and bats, and ground-based solar, which is subject to weather and nighttime darkness. Oh yes, and they don't want to hear about space solar power, helium-3 fusion, nuclear power, or any other high-energy alternative. Like I said: insane.

NASA announced the results of their lunar art contest.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is now declaring the H1N1 (swine) flu virus a "pandemic." As I understand it, this does NOT mean the virus has gotten more dangerous. It just means that it's now appearing in more places on the planet.

Arthur Laffer, inventor of the Laffer Curve, warns us about oncoming inflation and increased interest rates. This was predictable, of course, if you were watching Obama's budget balloon.

The Obama administration is looking at reading captured terrorists at Guantanamo Bay their Miranda rights. Look for civil trials and acquittals in the next couple of years.

Oh yeah, and the Obama administration has this idea of capping executive salaries throughout the private sector, even in companies that the government does not currently control. That means, if you're an executive and you don't have a government job, President Obama thinks you're probably making too much money and need to have that money taken away from you. You laugh now, and say, "Good! Stick it to the man!" But if the government is willing to pass these kinds of laws on "executives," however defined, it isn't that big a stretch to say that they'd be willing to pass them on every job.

And rather than end on that downer, let's try ending on a high note.

Can't Stop the Serenity

Joss Whedon has signed onto a global charity benefit where people pay to see his movie Serenity and donate to Equality Now, which promotes women's rights everywhere. And when you look at the condition of women's rights in some places of the world, it becomes clear how good things are in the West.

Goats?

I hadn't planned to write about goats this week. However, when people ask writers "Where do you get your ideas?" a conversation with South of the Equator Scott provides an object lesson. It started with a humorous Mitsubishi ad Scott sent me from New Zealand. I asked Scott if anyone was d@mnfool enough to take Mitsubishi up on their offer of a free goat rather than an extended warranty, roadside assistance, etc. To which Scott replied,

That’s a good question; I wonder if anyone calls their bluff. You’d have to be a knucklehead to forego thousands in extras on the truck for a $25 goat, though. Even a doe nearing the final few years of her milk production can be had for $50 and you’ll get at least 4 litres/day from her.

I really didn't need to know how much milk a goat produces. No, really. Ever. But anyway, I responded that a goat might be useful to have around for making feta cheese, and not much else. Scott took some umbrage:

Not good for much else? You can drink it. Once you’re converted to goat’s milk you won’t drink cow’s milk anymore. You can make almost any type of cheese with it, not just feta. Don’t forget butter, yogurt, and ice cream.

Fat globules in goat milk are much smaller than in cow milk. That allows for a natural homogenization, which causes less cholesterol to get into your system than with cow’s milk. The pH is slightly alkaline, as is human milk; compared to the slightly acid pH of cow’s milk. That makes it handier to feed babies. The lactose is different and there’s less of it which helps the lactose-intolerant.

Goat milk has many more trace minerals, way more Vitamin A, and some other stuff I can’t remember just now. Survivalists and para-survivalists prefer goats because a gallon of milk per day is much handier for a family to use compared to the 6-7 gallons you get from a cow. An average-size back yard will provide enough forage for a goat but not a cow. It doesn’t need to be flat ground, either.

Goats just don’t lend themselves to large-scale commercial milking which is why you don’t see much of it in stores. The mother of a longtime buddy of mine had a day job at MSFC and founded Fromagerie Belle Chèvre just up the road from you in Bethel. She retired and sold it; apparently it has expanded and is doing well. Mrs. Scott and I visited her when she still owned it; I can tell you the cheese was great. See http://www.bellechevre.com/index.php.

So, okay, there ya go. More useful information on goats. Plus, I now have a day trip to try when I get back from Florida to try out some goat cheese. But I've never heard good things about the taste of goat's milk, and I said as much to Brother Scott. Silly me.

It does taste nasty if the buck is around. Bring the buck in for two weeks every year, and then send him back to the stud farm you rented him from. When they mate it’s the doe’s dry period anyway (you allow the doe's system 40-50 days’ rest each year) so there’s no milk to taste bad at that time. Once the does are back in milk it’ll taste fine.

Um, yeah. That really WAS too much information, and I said so. The barrage continued:

It is not TMI, he said petulantly.

A cheap source of good fresh milk, butter, yogurt, cheese, and ice cream. Just the thing for a para-survivalist with a decent-sized back yard. And you don’t need a lawn mower, but you do need a good fence. Something you can put into your blawg.

TMI indeed! I am forced to call your cheesy-leather second-hand electric donkey-bottom-biter animal-food-trough wiping TMI appellation a silly thing and blow my nose at you.*

That'll teach me. I thanked Scott and offered to throw another goat on the barbie for him. You know this is only going to end badly, right?

Goat on the barbie indeed. I also sent the ad to a rancher buddy in Texas. He told me the price of goat meat is holding up well, fresh meat going to Mexico and frozen to the Middle East.

I should have thought to tell you that when I listed the benefits, but the meat you eat (includes cattle, sheep, etc.) comes from young castrated males, not intact females. Buy a doe and milk her. Buy meat at the butcher’s. It’s much less hassle.

And don’t forget you can mix their poop with their stomped-down used bedding straw and sell it. Gardeners pay big for that stuff because it’s non-stinky, non-gooey, and is the second-highest in plant nutrients after sheep poop.

Next time you have a free couple of hours and are headed north stop in at Fromagerie Belle Chèvre and tell them you know somebody who’s a long-time mate of the son of the founder emeritus. That oughta be good at least for an extra mouthful of sample cheese if not for a discount. That sort of farmers is the type who’ll be glad to show you around provided they’re not rushed off their feet.

When my buddy’s mother had the operation she was milking Oberhasli goats. The breed originated in Switzerland and they’re exceptionally sure-footed, even by goat standards. They’re also cute, in a goofy, brown with black, ears-like-handlebars sort of way.

How the heck does this guy know so much about goats? I have no clue. Scott's a good friend. He's a retired military dude. Mensa-smart, as his writing makes clear. But really--goats? How does one become an expert? I guess we read different books. Or he's become a goat herder in New Zealand. Anyhow, the point is not to mock Scott, but to share a little of his knowledge and sense of humor. I really do have some interesting friends. And yes, I expect a follow-up message or two in response to this blog. It's almost inevitable.

Potpourri LII

The weirdness continues...

The Orion launch abort system (LAS) is under criticism.

Brief commentary from South of the Equator Scott:

[N]ow that the world is climbing out of recession, despite what’s been happening in Washington, how long will the US government keep trying to impose its communist ways on everything and everyone?

Thankfully, voters in Europe have rejected Labour/the libs/the socialists in the latest round of elections. It’s looking like the US will be the only socialist government standing after a year or so.

Also from Scott, a Bloomberg column about Obama's relationship with the economy.

New from Hu: a do-it-yourself manual for building Apollo 11. Every home should have one.

The NASA Human Spaceflight Panel will be holding a series of town halls, er, public meetings regarding NASA's human spaceflight program. Locations include:

June 17, 2009 - 9am - 5pm EDT
Public Meeting (Washington, D.C.)
July 28, 2009
Public Meeting (Huntsville, AL)
July 30, 2009
Public Meeting
(Cape Canaveral, FL)
August 5, 2009
Public Meeting (Washington, D.C.)

A planet might have been found in another galaxy. Wow. I mean, really. Wow.

I encountered a couple of "future-minded" societies on Facebook recently, including:

• The Venus Project
• The Zeitgeist Movement

Both of these groups seem to have big problems with capitalism and money. They also steer clear of religion and a lot of philosophy, except where it emphasizes progress or getting along. And, if you dig deeply enough, you find admiration for Marxism, socialism, etc.

Here's my moral objection to such socialist schemes: it substitutes the freedom for individuals to choose what they want for the freedom of "experts" in government to decide what is "equitable" or "fair." Individuals are not created equal in abilities. They are morally equal under the law. It's the difference between Rawlsian social justice ("If society were allowed to collapse and/or hit the reset button, free people would choose for everyone to have material equality") and the American Founders' belief in equality of opportunity ("Society comprises human individuals with different, unequal capablities--we're going to make everyone follow the same set of rules to achieve their own levels of achievement or incompetence"). Some folks don't like the Founders' experiment--many of those folks are, distressingly, in positions of political power.

There was a short-lived TV show starring Malcolm McDowell and Rhea Pearlman ("Pearl") where they actually had a Rawlsian experiment: set in a classroom, McDowell tried to teach his students (including Pearlman) the nature of justice by having everyone grade each other's papers. Pearlman led a student "revolt," which ended with her making a self-righteous speech about how it was wrong, immoral, etc., for the prof to insist that individuals judge each other's papers objectively, and that the only "right" solution was for everyone to give each other A's. I found myself screaming at the TV set, "No, no, no! You've missed the whole point!"

And here's the point: let ALL of the students grade everyone else's paper anonymously by applying a price to said paper: $5 for an A, $4 for a B, etc. Let the market decide whose products are better. The cumulative decisions of individuals, making individual decisions about quality, will come up with a better answer than some notion of "fairness." Because, again, everyone is not created equal. Would you really insist on paying $5 for a $1 item? No. So why do you find it reasonable for the government to tell you that it's more "fair" to buy from X supplier instead of Y because X is disenfranchised somehow or is a favored friend of the government?

That's all for now. Heading to Florida Friday. Huzzah!

I Didn't Realize I'd Dated Her...

Someone on Facebook posted an entertaining and slightly painful editorial from someone named Kimberly Pruitt at The Onion. I hadn't realized I dated this person, but the specific turns of phrase make me wonder.

Potpourri LI

I'll see how much I can post before crashing tonight. Serves me right for starting late.

Using psychology to save you from yourself--example: paying a teenager $1 a day for each day she's not pregnant.

Rick Steves has received my final payment, so the trip is locked. Now I just need to keep setting aside spending money. No sweat.

Virgin Galactic aims to fly 50,000 passengers in its first decade of travel. Swell. Let's see them fly one first.

NASA scientist and environmental doomsayer James Hansen is discussed in the most recent Weekly Standard.

This little girl has reputedly tested out as having a 160 I.Q. How the heck do you educate kids like this? Not under No Child Left Behind, that's for sure.

The Human Spaceflight Review panel is now on Twitter. Still time to provide your input on NASA's human spaceflight program.

This is a more politely worded response to the "Mars will be as big as the Moon" hoax than I would have provided.

My NSS/writing buddy Marianne Dyson was on Great Day Houston show.

Will the private sector provide the big breakthroughs in space? Maybe. Another article on The Space Review talks about the issues affecting civil space.

Tip o' the fedora to South of the Equator Scott for this one: Mitsubishi has an amusing web ad in New Zealand. Should be visible at the lower-right of the page.