Majel Barrett Roddenberry has trekked her last star. Condolences to friends and family.
Congrats To Gwynne Shotwell
She’s just been named president of SpaceX. Interestingly, they didn’t have a president before (and the page hasn’t been updated yet). Well, they do now.
I think that she’ll do a good job. When I first met her, years ago, she was Gwynne Gurevich, and an engineer at Microcosm. She’s come a long way. And with all due respect to the competition, she’s got to be the hottest space company president ever. She may have to wear her skirts a little lower now, though.
Valve Problem Solved
John Carmack has a new post up describing what he thinks is the reason for the Pixel failure a few weeks ago at the LLC.
Our systems run the propellant valves through a set of relays controlled by a watchdog microcontroller, which drives the valves closed if the main computer doesn’t continuously toggle a keep-alive signal bit. We found that with the valves on the bench, we could get interruptions to the current when we tapped on the relays in the electronics box. We believe that acoustic vibrations from the operating rocket engine could cause the contacts on the relay to intermittently lose contact.
A couple points. First, this demonstrates the need to test components in their operating environment. But more importantly, these are the kinds of things that you learn only with a lot of experience and testing, something that NASA can’t afford to do with their vehicles because a) they throw them away after each flight and b) they’re as expensive as hell. That’s why reusable vehicles, and approaches like Armadillo’s and XCOR’s hold the key to both low cost, and reliability, goals that NASA will never achieve with their current approach.
The Latest Bailout
Just in time for the holidays. Congress has to step in to keep the North Pole from going under:
“These are grim economic times for everyone, but even more so for non-profit toy manufacturers in the Snow Belt,” said Kringle. “Our accountants have indicated that we are on track to exhaust our reserves of cash and magical pixie fairydust by December 23. Oh deary me.”
Kringle and UET union president Binky McGiggles presented a draft emergency bailout plan to the committee calling for US $18 trillion in federal grants, loan guarantees, and sugarplum gumdrops that they said would keep the company solvent through December 26.
“We believe this proposal shows that management and labor can work together to craft a reasonable, financially responsible short-term survival plan,” said McGiggles. “After the new Congress is seated in January, we would be happy to return to present a long-term package to get us through April.”
Kringle warned that failure to approve the plan would have dire global economic consequences.
“Oh goodness,” said an emotional Kringle, fumbling with his glasses, “think of all the children who will wake up sad and angry and confused on Christmas morning, with nothing in their stockings. Let’s just say I wouldn’t want to be their parents. Or a someone answering your switchboards on December 26.”
Where will the madness end?
Of course, if Santa isn’t too big to fail, who is?
The Yawn
Explained. It’s for thermal management of the brain.
Prepare To Be Shocked
Ezra Levant says that the Canadian Human Rights Wrongs Commission has a double standard.
Ray LaHood?
That’s the latest rumor for SecDOT. I’m looking at his committee assignments from when he was in Congress, and see nothing to indicate any expertise or knowledge of transportation issues. The only relevance that the NYT points out is that he’s overseen pork transportation projects on the Appropriations Committee (my characterization, not theirs). And he’s a Republican. But he’s from Illinois. And he’s of Arabic (Christian) descent.
Is this just a token to show bipartisanship by the incoming administration? I have no idea what this implies (if anything) for space transportation regulation. I’d be willing to be that he’s never given it a moment’s thought, which can be both good and bad. It’s good in the sense that he won’t come in with any agenda, but he’ll have to be educated. I’d like to know if he has any natural tendencies when it comes to regulation in general.
[Thursday morning update]
Here’s more on LaHood. Apparently he does have some history in dealing with aviation/airport issues, but nothing about space or spaceports.
Depressing Aerial Photography
At least to me.
Here’s a before and after of the demolition of the old AC Spark Plug plant this year on Dort Highway in Flint. The view is toward the southeast.
I didn’t work there. I worked in the oil filter plant farther east on Davison Road, that isn’t in this picture. But I lived just a few blocks from there for the first decade or so of my life. That road that bisects the plant is Averill, and I lived two blocks north and two blocks east of the intersection of Davison Road and Averill.. If you follow Davison Road a few miles east, you end up in Michael Moore’s home town of the same name. The engineering building, where my uncle worked, can be seen in the top picture, on the corner of Averill and Davison (and the Red Rooster, one of the best restaurants in town, that I only ate at once, was across Averill). My father worked in the HQ building on Dort Highway (which was also called Dixie Highway — it came down from Bay City and Saginaw, and continued south to Detroit, and thence all the way to Florida), in personnel.
Anyway, it’s all history now. It’s hard to imagine the town without that facility — it was there all my life until now.
105 Years
Is Our Secretaries Learning?
I guess it’s too much these days to expect a Secretary of Education to know basic English grammar:
I want to thank our mutual friend John Rogers, who’s been a mentor and friend to me since I was 10-years-old. He gave my sister and I the opportunity to start a great school in the Southside of Chicago, and that has become a model for success in urban education.
I know it’s a nit, but after all the Bush bashing for the past eight years, I can’t resist.