Trip Report: NewSpace 2012

[Okay, I'm late with this, but the information won't go away just because I'm a week or two late reporting it. Major caveat: These opinions are my own, and do not reflect those of NASA, my employer, or any other organization.]

The NewSpace Conference began as the annual gathering of citizen advocates of the Space Frontier Foundation (SFF), but also has become a place where investors, entrepreneurs, and technologists go looking to start businesses. How does this differ from the International Space Development Conference (ISDC), which I've attended numerous times and chaired last year? As Inigo Montoya might say, "Allow me to 'splain."

Politically, SFF is the major libertarian space organization, so the conference very much focuses on free-market approaches to space development. The National Space Society, which hosts ISDC, is more of a middle-of-the-road, Democrat/Republican organization. NSS isn't entirely focused on private sector development of space; they also support government (meaning NASA) driven activities. NSS is more of a "big tent," interested in multiple technologies and approaches to space. This difference in philosophy is likewise reflected in the formats of the two conferences. With so many diverse interests involved, the ISDC is often broken into multiple tracks and, as a result, multiple rooms. With NewSpace, the conference has essentially one focus, and its sessions are held in one room. Not saying one's better than the other, just observing a difference.

And, to repeat, NewSpace is all about using the free market to get human beings to settle the solar system. In recent years, that message is getting a larger audience. One SFF member told me that attendance has grown from around 75 to 450 in only a few years.

Philosophy
Given the free-market focus, one might presume that the audience is treated to a long series of Ayn Rand lectures. In fact, I can't recall Rand's name being invoked once, or any other philosopher for that matter. Individuals espoused philosophies, but they were their own or existing philosophies expressed their own way. Free-market principles have gone native.

Economic Development
NewSpace 2012 is held in Silicon Valley, the community of high-tech companies inhabiting the southern end of San Francisco Bay. Since the 1970s, the area has been an incubator for bright engineering ideas, from silicon chip-based integrated circuits to personal computers and mass-produced software (you might have heard of Steve Jobs). The area is also known for its aggressive venture capital market--the investors go where the money is, and the money is very much in technology. Today it is home to Apple, Google, Intel, and other high-tech giants, not to mention NASA Ames Research Center.

In the last ten years, some folks who got rich developing software, hardware, or web applications have put their money into space. What's happening now is that others are starting to get into the game, and the Space Frontier Foundation is making efforts to help that along by leading a space business plan competition, which awards prizes to space-based or space-related businesses. The rules can be found here, but the biggest draw for the 55 competitors was that the first-place winner received $100,000 and the second-place winner won $10,000. Much of the Friday session was taken up by the presentations and Q&A by the judges. The winners were announced at the gala on Friday.

Again, the SFF's focus on free-market solutions to space allows it to concentrate on this type of competition.

Working Out the Roles of Government and the Private Sector
Given all the rugged individualism and focus on the private sector, it might surprise you (as it did me) how many government officials attended NewSpace, especially from NASA. This is because the Obama administration has continued the Bush administration's policy of encouraging private companies to launch cargo and crew members to the International Space Station. Not only that, the Federal Aviation Administration has had a keen interest in expanding the licensing of commercial launches as well as suborbital launches to the edge of space. (Lest you think the libertarians are warming to government, I heard at least one person say that the government's primary interest in supporting all this activity is to grow the tax base and avoid the high cost of NASA.)

The businessfolk in the room were interested in government performing the following roles:

• Sharer of new technologies: Nearly all of the basic research and development for space technology was developed by military officers or government civil servants (Werhner von Braun was Director of Marshall Space Flight Center, not a contractor). NASA and its predecessor organization NACA have done a lot of the original R&D, discovered basic principles of a science or technology, and then once they proved them out, made it available to the American public or the private sector to exploit for mass production. This practice goes back nearly 100 years, as NACA was formed in 1915. NASA is still doing research, and the session given by James Reuther, Acting Director of the agency's "game-changing" technology program was well attended.
• Purchaser of products and services: Aside from basic R&D, government doesn't produce a whole lot. Farms, construction materials, cars, trucks, airplanes, trains, processed foods, computers, and millions of other small products are built by individuals or companies in the private sector. It's even written into many government procurement laws that if an equivalent product or service already exists to perform a certain task and that product or service costs less than what the government could do it for, the agency in question has to purchase the private product/service first. Such is the logic behind the NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program and its follow-ons CCDev and CCICap. More on that later.
• Early adopter of new technologies: Sometimes NASA, Department of Defense (DoD), or other government agencies will mandate that new technologies be incorporated into test programs. This provides economic development and "pushes the envelope" of what current technologies can do. Government might win by getting something cool at a low cost, the company wins by having a guaranteed buyer. There was quite a bit of talk about "public-private partnerships" as well.
• Builder of infrastructure: There are things government can do more effectively or willingly than the private sector simply because there's no profit in it. Airports come to mind, along with seaports or (once upon a time) power systems, canals, or air traffic control systems. Another form of "infrastructure" would be legal regimes, regulations, and standardized "rules of the road" for conducting business. For example, NASA and the FAA reached an agreement on how commercial space-launch services would be certified for passenger safety. Businesses prefer consistency in the rule of law so that they know what it will cost to comply with government regulations. The NASA/FAA agreement was welcome, but many in the audience were concerned that the specific rules for passenger safety had not yet been nailed down. Stay tuned.

What was refreshing was to hear the rational debates that were being held about the proper role(s) of government in the private sector.

Where the Technology's Going
It's hard to overlook the rockets--we don't get to space without them--or the people who are building them: Elon Musk, David Masten, John Carmack, etc. However, rockets are expensive, especially if you want to build them so that they carry enough mass into space to do something useful and so that they don't explode. So if you're smart, you don't get into the rocket-building business. As I said, it's expensive. It's also complex--rocket science, after all--and requires a lot of industrial capability that is not easy to build or acquire. However, that is not what the people competing in the Space Business Plan Competition were doing. They were looking for ways to play in space for considerably fewer dollars.

For example, the presentations I watched focused on nano-scale materials to increase germ resistance on surfaces inside space habitats; a "smart propellant" for satellite thrusters that would only activate when a current is passed through it; and a crowd-sourced "cube sat" (satellites 10 centimeters to a side), which was a project Science Cheerleader and I supported.

In each of these cases, the competitors were not aiming to build a big, friggin' rocket, space station, or anything like that. Their goal was to specialize in some tiny part of the market that had the potential for massive growth. Materials are everywhere. Cube sats are becoming more common as "Moore's Law" continues to double the number of transistors per computer every 18 months. The aim, as with everything in Silicon Valley, is to develop the "killer app," that one really cool and useful technology that suddenly everyone must have. Consider Facebook, or YouTube for example.

Throughout the "NewSpace" sector, entrepreneurs are hoping to recreate this industry in the Silicon Valley image so that, eventually, more and more private citizens have access to space. This is still not as easy as some would prefer. The rocket equation is a lot more resistant to technological advances than Moore's Law because most computers are not trying to accelerate to Mach 25 before entering an environment with high radiation, no gravity, and no air. Still, the true believers are hopeful, as am I, that some genius will produce that killer app or apps that enables rockets to be as common as laptop computers. I'm not holding my breath, mind you, but I can hope.

Space Launch System
I'm going to keep my remarks short on this, but at one point, I was faced with a PowerPoint slide that read, "SLS Delenda Est: The Senate Launch System [sic] must be destroyed." Obviously I've got some hard work ahead of me in my day job.

The Big Picture/Vision
As I noted earlier, the Space Frontier Foundation is interested primarily in free individuals settling throughout the solar system under a regime of personal freedoms and laissez-faire capitalism. Other individuals speaking in the "visionary" sessions focused on the future we're likely to face with ever-advancing computers, nanotechnology, biotechnology, and robotics--the Singularity, or something approaching it. As Arthur C. Clarke once put it, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." At the rate technology is advancing, all I can say is prepare to be astounded.

Listening to the talk at the conference, the future would seem to belong to the smart, the rich, and the tech-savvy--the smart people's 1 percent, if you will. That's great if you fit into one of those categories. The question I asked during the last session was and is: "What do you do with those who are none of the above?" I didn't get a satisfactory answer from anybody on the panel. Perhaps they didn't see my intent, but there are folks out there who are unknowingly or willfully uneducated--whose jobs will increasingly be replaced by ever-smarter machines. What's to become of them? The number of niches being filled by advanced technology will continue to increase. If you can't afford all the cool toys or your culture or religion forbids them, how do you coexist with "magic?" I have no answers, either, but that's a conversation that needs to be had as we continue our quest to send people to live beyond Earth.

Summary
NewSpace was enjoyable because I had a lot of friends there and because there were a lot of interesting things going on. There's a real future being made in the entrepreneurial sector of space. How it all unfolds, only time will tell.

Collaborative Government and Space

In some ways, I’m a pragmatist. My conservative attitudes would prefer not to see government as the primary spender and actor in space activities, but the economic situation is what it is. Uncle Sam is the 800-pound gorilla in the room when it comes to space spending. So the question that occurred to me was, “How do you get more government agencies that have a vested interest in space to push for more space-related spending?”

Most people, if they think of the federal budget at all, assume that the only space spending the U.S. Government does is on NASA. However, nearly all government agencies have activities that affect, or have their operations affected by, space technologies. For example, the Department of Commerce regulates space tourism; the Department of Agriculture relies on LANDSAT data to forecast crop yields and environmental health; the Department of Defense (DoD) uses satellites for everything from communications to directing smart weapons to their targets; the Department of Labor tracks job descriptions and employment trends for technical personnel. And so forth.

So my thoughts ran something like this: someone should review all of the agencies in the U.S. Government and determine exactly what parts of their activities are directly affected by space-based activities. From there, look for a way to connect all of those activities on the web (hat tip to Darlene for her emphasis on open government) so all of them can see the connections/overlaps. Open government web sites should make that process easier.

Darlene directed me to the Data.gov site, which allows citizens to pull up all of the reports from the “Open Government” sites the Obama administration has set up. You can search for specific reports, search the “raw data” by keywords, or even a database dedicated solely to “geodata” (satellite imagery of the Earth). Unfortunately, the sorts of data I discussed above are not available on the Data.gov or NASA’s open government site…at least not yet. Hm. Might have to do some clever digging and sorting of my own before I go making suggestions.

Regardless of the present state of affairs, what needs to happen is for all of the agencies affecting or affected by space to meet—in person or maybe through some sort of online forum/summit/collaborative environment—and discuss needs, policies, and long-term plans that would meet and simplify the government's requirements for space-based products and services.

For example, let’s say multiple agencies depend on a particular satellite constellation to conduct business and transfer information. Or, more likely, suppose different agencies are using different constellations instead of all using the same one. How much taxpayer money would be saved by sending data on one service instead of many? Or perhaps several agencies decide/discover that they would benefit from having access to a heavy-lift launch vehicle that could launch an entire satellite constellation all at once. Suddenly a space vehicle/infrastructure project would have multiple constituencies fighting for it instead of just the NASA lobby. From such discussions, multiple federal agencies could come a list of requirements for both the satellite system and its launch vehicle. One hypothetical example might be:

“The U.S. Government has identified the need for a communications satellite constellation capable of handling X bit rate of data traffic with Y encryption and an ability to be on station within Z days of tasking.

“This system would further require a heavy-lift launch vehicle with A capacity able to launch B times a year within C days.

“Such an integrated system would enable D, E, F, and G agencies to:

• Reduce redundant capabilities/costs by $X billion,
• Meet cross-cutting data handling capabilities/long-term goals, and/or
• Share costs / information between or among agencies.”

The advantage of meeting uniform needs, standards, and requirements for a large customer, as my private sector friends are eager to point out, is that it drives specific technological innovations, mass production, interoperability, and ultimately lower costs.

In addition to identifying government needs for space hardware, a government-space forum could be used to identify places where existing laws and regulations conflict with each other, stifle development (e.g. International Traffic in Arms Regulations/ITAR), or affect public safety.

This forum also could attract policymakers interested in consolidating or developing the nation’s space policies in the future. Experts could be included from public policy think tanks from the left and right (as well as space advocates eager to advance particular forms of space development) to arrive at integrated plans for legislation. Rather than just have NASA and, maybe, the National Science Foundation and DoD at the table talking about space, the entire government could have space on its mind, which it should anyway. :-)

This is not quite as glamorous or “sexy” as advocating for rockets that go where no one has gone before, but it is one way to play the government game to the advantage of space exploration. After all, if you had mass-produced tools that improved space operations for Earth applications, it is entirely likely that such capabilities, once built, can and will be used for exploration. Funny how that works out.

Bart Leahy is a technical writer. The opinions expressed in this editorial are his own.

Potpourri XLVIII

Jeez, get off the net for a couple days, and all sorts of stuff backs up my inbox...

Checking the books...tip o' the fedora to Lin, for forwarding an alternate way to ensure accountability in your local government schools: don't ask to see the budget, ask to see the check register.

Another from Lin: an editorial by David Brooks on the Obama administration's ongoing takeover of the private sector.

This message/link from Scott is perfect as is:

This http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/107459-0/ is from Pravda, and talks about America’s descent into Marxism. They ought to know.

The Herpa DC-3 got stuck in the "Illinois gumbo" (mud) on its tour around America.

The Singularity really IS near: a robotic scientist makes the first independent contribution to science.

Where's the outrage? The President goes out on a fundraising trip--never cheap, no matter if he goes by car, train, or plane--and the taxpayers are helping him jack up the budget deficit and the President's carbon footprint.

Speaking of the President, a reporter fan got unruly when the Secret Service wouldn't let her get close enough to hand him a letter.

French President Nicholas Sarkozy appoints a global warming skeptic to a key government environmental post. Signs of sanity in Le France.

Europe's most expensive hotel opens. Wow. Here's the official site if you'd like to see more. Again, wow.

My Google Alerts returned a lot of articles on Ares I-X and ISDC this week. That's good, since I didn't attend most of the sessions. Got to keep up somehow. And away we go:

• Kennedy Space Center Director Cabana thinks the Ares I-X launch "has a good chance" of launching in September.
• Spaceflight Now discussed the impending turnover of Launch Complex 39B to Ares.
• Jeff Greason, CEO of XCOR Aerospace, spoke at the International Space Development Conference about the need for the media and the general public to "chill out" about flight tests, including Ares I-X. Tests are there to find problems and learn how to fix them.
• Rand Simberg's Transterrestrial Musings covered ISDC.
• Web feature from NASA.gov on modal tests for Ares I-X.
• Universe Today posted a NASA-developed Ares I-X image (Media Fusion, in point of fact).
• This is an article from last year, but it provides an overview of the Ares I-X manufacturing done on Ares I-X at Glenn Research Center in Ohio.

What has NASA done for the environment lately? Check this out:

NASA SATELLITE DETECTS RED GLOW TO MAP GLOBAL OCEAN PLANT HEALTH

WASHINGTON -- Researchers have conducted the first global analysis of the health and productivity of ocean plants using a unique signal detected by NASA's Aqua satellite.

Ocean scientists can now remotely measure the amount of fluorescent red light emitted by phytoplankton and assess how efficiently these microscopic plants turn sunlight and nutrients into food through photosynthesis. Researchers also can study how changes in the global environment alter these processes at the center of the ocean food web.

Single-celled phytoplankton fuel nearly all ocean ecosystems, serving as the most basic food source for marine animals. Phytoplankton account for half of all photosynthetic activity on Earth and play a key role in the balance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The health of these marine plants affects the amount of carbon dioxide the ocean can absorb from the atmosphere and how the ocean responds to a changing climate.

"This is the first direct measurement of the health of the phytoplankton in the ocean," said Michael Behrenfeld, a biologist who specializes in marine plants at Oregon State University. "We have an important new tool for observing changes in phytoplankton every week, all over the planet."

All plants absorb energy from the sun, typically more than they can consume through photosynthesis. A small fraction of this extra energy is re-emitted as fluorescent light in red wavelengths.

Using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite, scientists have now observed "red-light fluorescence" over the open ocean. MODIS is the first instrument to observe this signal on a global scale.

"The amount of fluorescent light emitted is not constant; it changes with the health of the plant life in the ocean," said Behrenfeld.

Scientists previously used satellite sensors to track the amount of plant life in the ocean by measuring the amount and distribution of chlorophyll.

"Chlorophyll gives us a picture of how much phytoplankton is present," said co-author Scott Doney, a marine chemist from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Mass. "Fluorescence provides insight into how well they are functioning in the ecosystem."

With this new measurement, the scientists discovered large areas of the Indian Ocean where phytoplankton were under stress from iron deficiency. They were surprised to see large portions of the ocean "light up" seasonally as phytoplankton responded to a lack of iron in their diet. The amount of fluorescence increases when phytoplankton have too little iron, a nutrient in seawater. Iron reaches the sea surface on winds blowing dust from deserts and other arid areas, and from upwelling currents.

The research team detected new regions of the ocean affected by iron deposition and depletion. In the fall and winter and especially the summer, significant southwesterly winds over the Indian Ocean stir up ocean currents and bring more nutrients up from the depths for the phytoplankton to feed on. At the same time, the amount of iron-rich dust delivered by winds is reduced.

Climate change could mean stronger winds pick up more dust and blow it to the sea, or less intense winds leave waters dust-free. Some regions will become drier and others wetter, changing the regions where dusty soils accumulate and get swept up into the air. Phytoplankton will reflect and react to these global changes.

"On time-scales of weeks to months, we can use this data to track plankton responses to iron inputs from dust storms and the transport of iron-rich water from islands and continents," Doney said. "Over years to decades, we also can detect long-term trends in climate change and other human perturbations to the ocean."

Potpourri XXXVI

This one is pretty good, and sadly, mostly true: the shenanigans in the space business are akin to a soap opera. This might become a regular link on this page. I like this writer!

Whups...a metal cargo container was sucked into a 747 engine.

The AP is saying that the pilot of the plane that crashed in Buffalo was less experienced/competent, and that this was the result of the airline cutting costs by getting rid of senior, higher-paid pilots. Scott, who has some experience with the aviation business, tells me that this is, more or less, drastically untrue. I'll post any follow-ups as warranted. From a sheerly capitalistic point of view, airlines want the best pilots they can get because crashes are really, really bad for business. Fatal, if you will. A veteran pilot is higher paid, but less likely to make a rookie mistake. But just wait--the Obama administration will use this as an excuse to increase government control over the airline industry. If I were an airline exec and a government official came to me offering financial assistance, I'd run like hell the other way.

Capitalism Magazine is reprinting one of my favorite extended speeches from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. As a work of fiction, it's almost impossible; as a work of philosophy, it has a lot to say. This is a speech by one of Rand's capitalist heroes who's working to undermine a socialist system building in America. It's a moral defense of money and it's sad that such a thing even needs explaining today. Worth reading.

Tip o' the fedora to Martin for finding this: http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/. It includes some production pics of work by Rick Sternbach, vehicle designer of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

This letter from the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to Chris Scolese, the Acting NASA Administrator, explains the rationale for the new "blue ribbon" panel that is going to review NASA's human spaceflight program. What's interesting about this letter, and the reason I forwarded it to Darlene the Science Cheerleader, is that it specifically calls for the panel to accept inputs from the public on America's direction in space. There is supposed to be a web site for this, but I haven't seen anything yet. But still, BOLO (Disney acronym for "be on the lookout") for this great opportunity to let your government know what you think about our human spaceflight program. I hope, if you're a reader of this blog, that you support it, but if you're not, you should still make your opinion heard. I have no idea what will be done with public input, but the more they get, the more they'll have to respond to it or at least take it into account.

Some Cool Stuff Over at ScienceCheerleader.com

Darlene the Science Cheerleader has some cool stuff on her site today, including:

• A list of technology-related bills pending legislation in Congress.
• A posting and video about participatory democracy.
• I've posted this before, but it's of a piece with the other two: the Office of Science & Technology Policy has a web site that encourages people to offer suggestions on how to make government more collaborative, like, for instance, reinstating the Office of Technology Assessment (a standard cause of Your Humble Narrator).

Additional Thoughts About Reviving the Office of Technology Assessment

Darlene the Science Cheerleader sent the following response to my suggested legislative language for reinstating the Office of Technology Assessment:

Bart,

Thanks for getting this going. I'm in full support of the language but I'd like to see more emphasis on opportunities for "public debate" and participation at the ground level as policies are crafted. See the Danish Board of Technology's legislative language:
http://www.itas.fzk.de/deu/TADN/TADN895/inst2.htm

Love to hear your thoughts...

What's interesting to me is that Denmark's Board of Technology language/reason for existing is quite similar to mine. Here's theirs:

According to the Act, the Danish Board of Technology has four main goals:
(1) to monitor the technological development;
(2) to carry out comprehensive Technology Assessments of the possibilities of technology and the consequences for society and the individual citicen;
(3) to initiate and perform technology assessment studies independently;
(4) to communicate the results of the work to Parliament and to the various decision-makers in society and to the Danish population to support and stimulate a public debate on technology.

Here's mine:

The Congress hereby reinstates the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) to
identify:

• Scientific or technical issues of public interest, including their extent and primary and secondary impacts--positive and negative;
• Known and potential sources of those issues;
• Known and potential mitigations and solutions to problems;
• Study methodology, figures of merit, bases of estimates, relevant equations and experiments, and results;
• Known and potential impacts--positive and negative--of proposed solutions,
  including:
  --Technical impacts, including but not limited to maturity of the science involved, technology readiness level, and research & development needs;
  --Economic impacts, including but not limited to primary and secondary research and development costs, taxation or regluatory costs, equipment costs, and profits;
  --Legal, regulatory, and other governmental impacts, including including but not limited to new laws/regulations, reinstatement of defunct laws, stricter enforcement of existing laws, creating, restructuring, or closing government agencies, or striking down of existing legislation or regulations; and
  --Potential societal, moral, philosophical, and cultural impacts.

Upon researching and collecting the associated information of a given issue, the OTA shall then:

• Report results, including minority opinion(s), to Congress in plain English;
• Offer supporting testimony before Congress, if requested;
• Document and archive reports in the Library of Congress and publicly
  accessible outlets.

Nice to know I was in the ballpark, anyway.

The tricky part, which Dar noted was missing somewhat from my mission statement, is a specific statement or mechanism for including public participation in any OTA debate. Perhaps a good place to state would be in the "whereas" statement/introduction, which is usually where the philosophical rationale for a law is stated. Say, something like this:

"Whereas the Congress recognizes that the importance of science and technology to the future of this nation;

this body will be required to vote on issues relating to the legalization, regulation, or taxation of new science and technology;

the people of the United States should have the right to have their voices heard and concerns directly included in any decisions regarding science and technology policy;

and no other body currently advises the Congress on these issues to the level necessary for informed decision making, ...

That might work. However, public participation presents challenges. These include:

• A web site, while useful for 72 percent of American households, would still leave the 18 percent who do not have internet access--or, possibly, other electronic means of communication--without a voice. How do we reach them? Nationwide public "town hall" meetings? You won't catch everyone, but it's a start.
• How should OTA filter public responses? Obviously profanity and spam would have to be excluded. What about comments that are not germane? For example, they ask for inputs on global warming, and someone posts a comment about nanotechnology that, while interesting, has nothing to do with global warming policy. Delete it? What about comments that are off the radar? OTA seeks public input on nanotechnology, and the respondent wants to know when we're going to release the aliens we have held prisoner in Area 51. Delete? Ignore? Include?
• Another thing, which will drive my more science-minded friends nuts, but means a great deal to my churchgoing friends: if we're going to address moral issues, that will mean accepting comments from people who might not know a lot about the technical/scientific theory involved in X report, but who know enough to realize that it violates a fundamental tenet of their faith. This sort of thing means that religiously minded people will, indeed, have a voice in the political decisions affecting science and technology policy, which is necessary if we're going to continue to have a government that represents the interests of everyone.
  
  For example, one of the first things President Obama did right out of the gate (March 9, 2009) was reverse President Bush's policy on federal funding of stem cell research. Here's the exact language he used:

It is a difficult and delicate balance. Many thoughtful and decent people are conflicted about, or strongly oppose, this research. I understand their concerns, and we must respect their point of view.

But after much discussion, debate and reflection, the proper course has become clear. The majority of Americans – from across the political spectrum, and of all backgrounds and beliefs – have come to a consensus that we should pursue this research. That the potential it offers is great, and with proper guidelines and strict oversight, the perils can be avoided.

This might sound like calm, reasoned statesmanship, but when you get right down to it, the president said, "I hear what the other side is saying, but I'm overruling you." And that, as they say, was that. Where was the open debate there? This is one of the exact situations that should be addressed by OTA: to prevent arbitrary decisions from above without any form of public debate.

• Is there to be any minimum threshold of experience, education, or interest for citizens commenting on science and technology issues? Ideally, there shouldn't be. However, let's say the town hall meetings do take place, and an OTA panel hears from some folks who have no idea what the heck they're talking about? My more elitist colleagues might say, "No way!" I say, "You might as well let in everybody." After all, if we're not going to have any minimum standards for voters--like education, property, ability to speak English, or legal ID--except for being a warm body over the age of 18, then we're going to have to keep the standards for who speaks to the OTA at the same level. That, or go back and rescind the 26th Amendment and modify a couple others as well.
• Given the previous bullet, one might as well establish a "public notice" clause in the OTA legislation, which would say something like this:
  
  "As part of soliciting public comments on study topics, the OTA shall post a public notice on a publicly available government web site, which shall accept germane commentary from voting citizens on the designated up to 30 calendar days from the posting of the notice.
  "In addition, the OTA shall make available to the press public notices containing the exact language and deadline noted in the web site notice.
  "Furthermore, on topics of particular national interest, the OTA may convene public hearings at a minimum of 10 non-contiguous states to ensure that individuals without internet access are granted a forum for expressing their views."

How's that?

Potpourri XXIX

Well, let's see what's lurking in the Bartish parts of the Internet.

This link from Nickomundo: The new 2010 version of the Tiger Woods Wii game has what amounts to Frisbee Golf (they call it "disk golf" to avoid copyright infringements). I'm sorry, but I'm going to put up my Stick in the Mud flag and say that I think that's stupid. But then I'm not a big fan of real-world Frisbee Golf, either. Glad Nick's happy, though.

Space junk might put Space Shuttle Atlantis at risk.

Blimps are back. However, the Defense Department tends to call them "airships" or "aerostats." Probably because "blimp" isn't dignified enough. This from the people who gave us the walkie-talkie (or, as one comic has put it, the "whammie kablammie").

The President's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) says the President is waiting to hear from you on how to make the government more collaborative. Along similar lines, there's a group called "World Wide Views on Global Warming," which is seeking inputs from private citizens on what to do about it. The internet will make this sort of participatory democracy more common, which will no doubt drive elitists in the world's governments up the wall. Good.

Tip o' the fedora to D2: AOL has some free music--whole albums--up on their site. This includes the whole album of "Songs Around the World," like the "Stand By Me" song I posted earlier.

There's a memo circulating out there that says someone in the White House knew that the low flybys of Air Force One might cause a panic. Obama will never take responsibility, of course. The President has said it was a "mistake," but that is not the same as an apology.

Folks are starting to say nice things about the pollution reduction obtained by an oilseed crop called camelina. Good grief! How long would a year's crop last in the high-density, worldwide aviation business? And has anyone done any long-term studies on the effects of these organic-based fuels on jet engine maintenance? How much cropland meant for growing food would be sacrificed to this...stuff?

New from Hu:

• The Indian armed forces are focusing on guerrilla warfare. They know what sorts of wars they'll be fighting in the future.
• Boeing's Airborne Laser (ABL) program is possibly facing the chopping block, but testing continues nonetheless.
• Pontiac, requiescat in pace.

Guess that's it for now. More to come, I suppose.