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What I think about Obama's proposed NASA budget

Let me answer by analogy ...  I'm sure you can fill in the blanks.

I now live in east Houston.  I used to live in west Houston.  It's no secret that I used to live in Dallas and I've traveled there before. 

I liked Dallas.  Dallas is not a perfect place, but I think it's a good thing that I could prove that I could live there like I can live in Houston.  Houston is also not a perfect place, but having people in two places is a good idea, because it would be bad if there was a natural disaster in Houston, and people only lived nowhere but Houston. 

I also don't think I need to make Houston a perfect place before I decide I need to go to Dallas, just like I didn't think I needed west Houston to be perfect before I moved to east Houston.

So someday, I'd like to go back to Dallas -  maybe for short visits, maybe to live there. Certainly others will want to go to Dallas, whether I go or not.

Dallas doesn't have everything Houston has, but it does have a few unique things that Houston probably doesn't have.  So, going to Dallas - either to visit for periods of time, or to live there - has its own merit, simply because it isn't Houston.

I'm sure that when I want to go to Dallas, I really want to go to Dallas.  I could go there by going through Austin, San Antonio, Waco, or even out of state.  All those places also have merit, but Dallas has its own unique merit, and I could get to those other places from Dallas as I could from Houston - maybe even easier than from Houston.

When I decide I want to go to Dallas, I have a number of choices on how to get there.  I could drive, I could take the bus, I could fly in an airplane.  Clearly, how I get to Dallas dictates what I can do once I get there.  But the decision on how to get there is different than the decision on going there in the first place.

My current car has high mileage, so it might not be so reliable to get me to Dallas (and back).  But, it will allow me to drive around Houston.  So, assuming I want to go there by car (because going there other ways doesn't allow me to do the stuff I want to do), I might want to buy a new car, or a used car.  If no cars existed that were reliable enough to get me to Dallas and back, I might build a car - or hire someone out who could build me that car.  I'd probably go with the least expensive option.  But notice - I needed to decide to go to Dallas before I could even decide on whether to build or buy a car! 

Whoever builds the car needs certain technologies that assured that I could get to Dallas, do the stuff I want to do while I'm there, and get me back.  This would include good tires, some sort of engine to allow the car to be motorized, heating (and most importantly, air conditioning!  This is Texas, after all) ... the kinds of things that will make it more likely for any car to get to Dallas and back, or allow me to stay in Dallas.  I could test out those technologies by driving my car around Houston (and that idea has merit).  But deciding to test those technologies by driving around Houston, even if they could be used to drive a car to Dallas, is different than deciding to go to Dallas (or Austin/San Antonio/Waco, for that matter)!

In the final analysis, deciding to go to Dallas is the most important decision.  How we go to Dallas, or what technologies to use in our vehicle to go to Dallas ... those decisions are important, but they are not (literally)the driving decision.  Even WHEN I get to Dallas is not tremendously important (especially from the perspective of getting there just to get there ... after all, I've been there before), as long as it is within a reasonable time frame for me to do the new things I want to do when I get there. And if I focused on those decisions, while ignoring the question about what to do with them once they are developed, I would be showing a lack of vision.

Other thoughts here (much of which, I agree with).

P.S.  Another good analogy ... "Operation Overlord Canceled"

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Catching up: My Mom and Dad’s 50th

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TeenACTS retreat -July

This past year, I was fortunate enough to go on two ACTS retreats - one as a retreatant, and one as a “retreatee”. My wife was also fortunate enough to do the same thing (men and women go on separate retreats).

“ACTS” is an acronym which stands for Adoration, Community, Theology, and Service. An ACTS activity typically consists of a weekend retreat where retreatants engage in discussions, activities, and prayerful reflections centered about the Sacraments and Roman Catholic liturgy/catechism. It is a powerful event for both the retreatants and the “retreatees” (former retreatants who assist in all preparation and execution of the retreat).

Most ACTS retreats are for adults. However, in July, both my wife and I were fortunate enough to assist in our parish’s first ever Teen ACTS retreat, with our oldest son being one of the retreatants. It was a beautiful experience that I highly recommend any adult or teen take the opportunity to do if they get the chance.

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The backlog

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Swarmed by Ants at Mission Control!!!

Just to make the reports sillier, the ants were named after the entymologist (I think I got that spelling right?!?), whose last name was Rasberry.

The ants do not look like Raspberries (aaah, a different spelling). Instead, they're called "crazy ants" - smaller ants that tend to move quite a bit quicker than an average Texas fire ant, and tent to wobble as they move about.

To add to all the hysteria, the Crazy Ants are apparently stowaways that got here from the Houston Ship Channel, which is why they are at JSC, and they are apparently attracted to electronics.

Speaking of Fire Ants, that's one good thing about them - they apparently eat fire ants. So maybe they are a good "alien"?

;*)

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One of the top ten ...

ISS considered one of the top ten satellites orbiting the Earth (includes the Moon)

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What if he does show up with it when he says he will?

According to this article, SpaceX and Elon Musk will attempt another countdown attempt sometime between the end of this month to the beginning of the next.

As I've said before - great! I hope they're successful.

On an equally important note: as some of you know, there is currently a planned gap between the retiring of NASA Space Shuttle flights and the start of NASA's successor vehicle, the Orion, of anywhere from 3 to 5 years (all depending on governmental funding). The Orion is designed similar to an Apollo capsule, but larger: it's meant to carry 4 crewmembers. The vehicle is boosted to orbit on a Solid Rocket Booster and External Tank designs based on Space Shuttle efforts.

When NASA is ready again for missions to the Moon, another follow-on vehicle (Ares V) will be used to lift lthe Altair Lunar Lander to orbit. Ares V is also designed around more SRBs and the Shuttle's External Tank. Orion and Ares V will rendezvous and dock with each other, and then go in tandem to the Moon. But before the Lunar missions can start, NASA will use Orion by itself to keep the crew on the Space Station.

But what to do about the Space Shuttle to Orion launch gap, and the need to have crews on the ISS in the meantime??? Currently, NASA is dependent on the Russian Soyuz vehicles to provide the "lifeboat" function needed on ISS. And there's an issue with the Soyuz vehicles - the last two vehicles used for returning the crew to Earth have undergone problematic "ballistic reentries",which expose the crew to much greater g loads then the nominal entry profile (as well as other potential risks). So, "staying the course" may have technical risks above and beyond Russian launch dependency.

Enter SpaceX and Elon Musk. They are currently building a vehicle under NASA's COTS program which will provide unmanned logistics support (propellant, food, water, etc) to ISS. However, the COTS program has a possibility of requesting a human-rated vehicle - which NASA is currently studying whether to do or not. To make things more interesting, SpaceX's CEO has already stated that he could "eliminate" the gap.

Now, I am not working with COTS in any way, so I have no true technical insight as to whether Musk's statement is a boast or a highly probable event. But what if he does show up with a workable, human-rated vehicle in 2011? What of all the design efforts into Orion - and why would NASA need it 4 years later?

It makes me wonder whether the $ being spent on Orion might be better programmed straight into Ares V.

P.S. - Here's a neat video of the proposed SpaceX/Dragon rendezvous and docking for ISS. Check it out!

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Will this mean that shootouts are too expensive?

A couple of months ago, an interesting article popped up in the NY Times. The editors of Freakonomics (Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt) noted that the rising cost of metals extended to ammunition as well.

And looking at the comments, apparently Chris Rock and JSpeilburg had the same observation!

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Mandy and Lester ... and doing the right thing

Normally, I don't take my moral cues from commercials. But this video is a good one, and is part of Liberty Mutual's "Responsibility Project".



It's not normally seen on TV, but it is sponsored by Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. As a result, it's probably the best type of advertisement I've seen - helping Liberty Mutual's viewers make the connection between doing the right thing and what their company is promoting that it stands for.



You can check out more about the Responsibility Project at http://www.responsibilityproject.com/about/, and from the Responsibility Project Blog.
http://www.responsibilityproject.com/blog/.

No Comment | Posted in » inspiration, interesting  

The Windy state

From Houston Business News, 4/15/08, Survey: Texas leads nation in wind capacity .

Hooray! We're number one!

And I believe it - there were windmills all over the Pecos Mountains and on the edge of the caprock when we went on vacation in 2006. And guess which University is going to be running the wind research institute down near Corpus Christi? Nice setup, eh?

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How my boys will sell me on Wii - to get fit!

According to the cnn.com technology page (5/10), the folks at Nintendo have been able to incorporate all sorts of fitness exercises into the Nintendo Wii.

I wonder when the inevitable exercise injuries & lawsuits will start? :*/

No Comment | Posted in » interesting  

On the pollution front

See, it's not Houston's fault. From the chron 4/12 Study: Sea salt a key ingredient in Houston pollution



And as I thought, it's those Chinese new starts that are really doing it. Instapundit (4/15) points it out ... China now top polluter

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Two words - Haloween Costume

From Boing Boing ...Voice-changing Dalek helmet

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Old subway cars as artificial reefs - is this OK?

Slashdot reports on Old Subway Cars as Artificial reefs.



Call me crazy, but with a probability of gas prices continuing to increase, with an increased need for mass transit, wouldn't it make more sense for old subway cars to be used as something like, say, reused subway cars?



Let the fish & coral get their own mass transportation systems!

No Comment | Posted in » interesting  

Read price charts & dream yourself a business tycoon with Inspectd ...

From Freakonomics (4/15). I think I made $20k in about 25 deals ... Inspectd. You may not waste any real money, but you can waste plenty of time with it ...

No Comment | Posted in » interesting  

Transportation meddling

From Boing Boing (4./12)Cities making red-light cameras more profitable by making them less safe



And from Techdirt (via Slashdot) (4/12), a title about pretty much the same thing.



I remember talking to a Transportation Engineer when I worked at the Texas Transportation Institute while I was in college. He told me about similar shenanigans along Texas Highways when small municipalities would adjust the speed limits so that the towns could be "speed traps" and the town could use those highways as "revenue enhancers".

Problem was, if a Transportation Engineer rated a piece of the highway as being able to maintain a certain speed limit, AND an accident was attributed to the municipality lowering the limit significantly lower than what that rating was, the municipality AND THE COUNCILMEMBERS WHO VOTED FOR THE LOWERED SPEED LIMIT could be held JOINTLY and INDIVIDUALLY LIABLE for any loss of life or property attributable to that lowered speed limit.



I would think the same thing would hold about traffic lights and/or cameras.



We'll see how all this goes ...

No Comment | Posted in » interesting  

Like looking at an alternate universe ...

What a strange bunch of things I've found on the internet lately.

The first thing I found was something called 43things.com, and an associated site - 43places.com. 43things.com and 43places.com are interesting sites - it allows you to decide 43 things that you want to achieve, and 43places.com lets you track 43 places you'd like to visit.
As I filled out my personal 43things and 43places, it occurred to me that I would like to visit Miami again. You see, I lived there during part of my youth - 5th and 6th grade, to be exact, and Miramar, FL, to be exact - back in '73 and '74. So I filled out Miami in my "43places" appropriately.

As I filled out my 43things, one of the things I wanted to do was connect up with old friends. So the next logical thing to think of was to connect, or at least see, what my old friends from Miramar were doing. But how to do that?

Well, my next thought was an old buddy of mine, Joe Piaggio. (Joe Piaggio is just a name I can't forget.) The next logical thing was to use google.com to see if there was any posting of his name in the big, grand internet universe.

And that's when it happened.

One of the interesting posts mentioning a "Joe Piaggio" was of the Miramar HS senior class of 1980 reunion. Apparently, they had taken the pictures from their HS yearbook and posted them on the internet in anticipation of their 20 year reunion ... 6 years ago.

So I looked at them. It was an alternate universe.

Basically, I was looking at pictures of people I knew 30 years ago, but 6 years after I knew them. So, I had to take the mental image of what I remembered them like, and age it 6 years.
Voila! Alternate universe!

What was more astounding was two other facts:
1. These were people who looked quite a bit like people who I did graduate from in Texas in 1980 (no real surprise there, the hairstyles/looks/etc would have been the same).
2. If I were to meet these people today, they would no longer look like what these pictures look like, any more than I look like my HS senior class photo (26 years onward).
The whole thing was surreal.
I began to remember names, and was actually able to place about 8 people ... but of course, they didn't look quite like I remembered (although some looked familiar ... Joe Piaggio did).

It sorta made me wonder "what might have been" ....

Damn this Internet thing!

No Comment | Posted in » interesting, life