From Mike Griffin.
I wonder what color the sky is on that planet? I’d fisk it, but I’m trying to finish up my space safety paper, and I’m getting ready to go to the AIAA conference in Pasadena tomorrow (and possibly Wednesday and Thursday, depending on how useful it seems).
NASA has to hope that Curiosity doesn’t find any. This is part of a broader issue. People who want to settle Mars had better hope we don’t find life there, or the biologists and greens will be decrying the “genocide” we might cause by contaminating the planet.
There are only five days left to fund their initial project at Indiegogo.
[Mid-morning update]
For those curious, here’s some background.
There’s a good article over at the Washington Times by Guy Taylor on the prospects for NASA after the election. I’m quoted extensively, as is Bob Walker.
That’s the rumor about the disposition of Lt. JG Armstrong’s earthly remains.
I think it would be more appropriate to inter him on the moon, but that’s still a little pricey right now.
When I first heard that Los Angeles had won the competition to house an orbiter at the science museum on Exposition Boulevard, I scratched my head, trying to imagine how they were going to get it there. At the Space Technology Expo, the museum had a booth, and I asked the young lady working there. “Oh, we’re still working it out.”
[shocked voice] “You didn’t have to submit a plan with the proposal?”
“No, not a detailed one.”
At the SpaceUp LA a couple weeks ago, we saw a description of the plan, using a very precision crawler, in which it was noted that a “few” trees might have to be removed.
Well, “a few” has turned into four hundred mature trees, and the locals, justifiably, aren’t happy about it. I wonder how much support the project would have gotten if they’d known this up front?
Anyway, one of the amusing things about the LA Times piece is the technical ignorance on display:
Several alternatives for the Oct. 12 move were considered but ultimately discarded.
Taking the massive shuttle apart would have damaged the delicate tiles that acted as heat sensors.
Ummmm…no.
The tiles are not “heat sensors.” They are heat protectors, insulating the vehicle from the hot plasma of entry. The heat must be shielded against, not just “sensed.”
A tribute to one space hero from another.
I have to say, I am inspired to see the back of Barack Obama. But the view is more inspiring the more distance there is. Remember that nine weeks from yesterday.
Here’s an interesting discussion. I’ll doubtless have a lot more to say about this (I’m pitching Popular Mechanics to do a piece) but for now I’ll just note this:
Focusing NASA
A strong and successful NASA does not require more funding, it needs clearer priorities. I will ensure that NASA has practical and sustainable missions. There will be a balance of pragmatic and top-priority science with inspirational and groundbreaking exploration programs.
If I were an SLS supporter, I’d read those words and mess my pants. There are actually a lot of other interesting, and encouraging tea leaves in it. I think that our educational effort may be starting to pay off.
[Early evening update]
For whatever reason, the link to the “debate” is FUBAR. I hope they’ll fix it, but I have it on another machine, and I’ll repost if I can. But the above is a cut’n’paste from it.
My thoughts on it or, rather, the lack of it, over at PJMedia.
Here’s what I have for my space safety paper:
ICBMs were never designed to be highly reliable, because to do so would have dramatically increased their costs (many hundreds of them were built), and it wasn’t necessary for their mission. They were designed to be launched in massive numbers, and if a few out of a hundred didn’t make it through, that was all right, because they were often redundant in their targeting (that is, more than one missile would be aimed at a key target). Some estimates at the time of the reliability of the Titan II was only 80% or so (that is, one in five would not deliver its payload to the designated target), based on the fact that eight of its initial thirty-three test launches were failures. The early manned spaceflights were performed on modified versions of them (specifically, the Redstone and Atlas for Mercury and Titan II for Gemini). But what was good enough for a weapon as part of a fusillade of dozens or hundreds wasn’t perceived to be for a single flight carrying a human, particularly with recent memories of nationally televised ignominious failures of rockets on the launch pad. Thus was born the pernicious (and now obsolete) concept of “man rating,” which confuses the space industry and obfuscates policy down to this very day.
Is there anything inaccurate in that?