Here’s a fun little online game for fans of the Iraqi reporter who threw his shoes at Gee Dub on his surprise visit to Iraq this week. It’s not in English, but you can actually adjust the trajectory and force at which you chuck the shoe at Bush.http://flash.vg.no/grafikk/2008/bush/kast_sko.html
Starving Granola
Okay, here’s another new blog update that I’ll try to make a regular staple, much as I do with my Space Updates and what not.
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I’m an outdoorsy type of person. It’s not even funny, some might even judge it to be unhealthy. Hey, at least I get to breath some fresher air than some naysayers may have access too; recirculating around their room countless times under the hum of the air conditioner.
I need my space. I’m probably the only person who was born and raised in an urban setting that finds a scene like this to be completely sexy.
Call me crazy. Call me a Kansan. (Or call me both!)
Despite appreciating the flat and brown that city slickers look right through, sigh, and say “there’s nothing out here,” I probably couldn’t live outside of Dodge City (which is about that flat) for very long. It’s the fact that it is en-route to perhaps one of the least recognized states in the union, New Mexico, that I’ve grown to love the space that Earth can provide so much.
Often confused with the country that bears a similar name, its usually just shrugged off as having nothing more than high deserts, nuclear bombs, and aliens. There’s much more; hence its nickname, “The Land of Enchantment.” As the pictures at the end of this post will show, there is quite a contrast between the landscapes New Mexico can provide.
The easiest way that I can explain my obsession with New Mexico and other states in the desert Southwest is how a cocaine addict might have first gotten hooked on the good stuff. New Mexico is only a gateway drug to the beauty farther West, and a rather spectacular beauty at that.
I make it out there one or two times a year to visit some relatives living outside of Santa Fe, but for as long as I can remember, there has always been an anticipation in going, and it’s perhaps that anticipation that has compelled me to blog about it. I love New Mexico and the wild, untamed landscape it still provides - in everywhere corner of the state. It’s got space, fresh air, and some of the most under-appreciated but spectacular scenery in the entire country. I guess that’s why you could call me a starving granola.
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Pictures:
“Dry, flat, brown and beautiful” - http://www.travelpod.com/users/technotrekker/overland05.1142502480.01-flat.jpg
Santa Fe Mount Baldy - yours truly, please give a shout out if you use it on your page 
Jemez Canyon - http://pictopia.com/perl/get_image?provider_id=318&size=550×550_mb&ptp_photo_id=292860
Obama≠NASA: Testing the limits
As was noted in one of my latest blog posts, the Obama transition team has been weighing their options from a financial standpoint and one of their targets is the Ares I rocket currently under development by NASA. Understandably, NASA has been getting a little skiddish over the thoughts of having the axe taken to the Constellation Program. It’s rapidly becoming clear that the current NASA administration and the Obama transition team are not getting along. What this means for the Constellation Program is anyone’s guess at this point. Whatever happens in the next few weeks between NASA and Obama will surely determine the course of America’s space program for the years and decades ahead.
Here’s an excerpt from a report compiled by the Orlando Sentinel’s space blog:
NASA has become a transition problem for Obama
posted by Robert Block
CAPE CANAVERAL – NASA administrator Mike Griffin is not cooperating with President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team, is obstructing its efforts to get information and has told its leader that she is “not qualified” to judge his rocket program, the Orlando Sentinel has learned.
In a heated 40-minute conversation last week with Lori Garver, a former NASA associate administrator who heads the space transition team, a red-faced Griffin demanded to speak directly to Obama, according to witnesses.
In addition, Griffin is scripting NASA employees and civilian contractors on what they can tell the transition team and has warned aerospace executives not to criticize the agency’s moon program, sources said.
Griffin’s resistance is part of a no-holds-barred effort to preserve the Constellation program, the delayed and over-budget moon rocket that is his signature project.
Chris Shank, NASA’s Chief of Strategic Communications, denied that Griffin is trying to keep information from the team, or that he is seeking a meeting with Obama.
He also insisted that Griffin never argued with Garver.
“We are working extremely well with the transition team,” he said.
However, Shank acknowledged Griffin was concerned that the six-member team – all with space policy backgrounds – lack the engineering expertise to properly assess some of the information they have been given….READ MORE
Testing Democracy
While I’m one of many Americans who opposes the federal bailout of the Big Three automakers, I’m not looking at this situation as just how the taxpayers dollars are going to be put to work. I’m also looking at the upcoming decision by Congress on how to use those funds as a fundamental test of democracy.
When the United States government was first established, it was noted that the opinions and motives of the general public are not static, but rather are turbulent and oscillate with the zeitgeist of the era. In a poll released today, 61% of Americans are against the bailout of the Big Three. The opinions of the automakers and supporters of the bailout are that if it isn’t passed, the Big Three will surely go bankrupt and bring America with them. The CEO of Chrysler even claims it could spark a depression.
The decision now rests in the hands of our elected officials. Do they follow the opinions of their constituents, or do they make a decision they feel is in the best interests of the country? Only time will tell if their decision proves to be the wisest for the future (or fate?) of the country. This isn’t just a pivotal exercise of democracy in the modern day, but rather it is an exercise which has played out and been repeated over the last 230 years. I pray that the wisdom to make the right decision is with the Congressmen and women who will cast their votes in the days ahead on this issue.
Obama Cutting Back On Constellation?
President-elect Barack Obama has submitted a questionnaire to NASA inquiring about the progress of the Ares 1 and Ares V rockets and the implications of cutting back and essentially canceling the Ares 1 rocket all-together. This issue will no doubt divide space advocates, but I for one am quite excited about this turn of events.
Barack Obama’s initial space policy early on in his campaign involved cutting funding to NASA’s Moon, Mars, and Beyond initiative, or Project Constellation, and then funneling those funds into the education system to boost science and math scores; a fair trade-off, and a great opportunity for the private sector. As the days of excessive government spending end, so shall the days of over-budgeted NASA endeavors. The bureaucracy and the simple dependence on taxpayers’ dollars to fund NASA programs is enough to make any space enthusiast’s blood boil. I know I’m sick of it.
America needs to maintain its supremacy in space exploration. As recently as this week, India became the third country to pledge landing its own astronauts on the Moon by 2020, along with the United States and China. In order to maintain supremacy, we must meet this goal of returning to the Moon. Unfortunately, in this day and age, the workings of the federal government and management structure at NASA will limit the capabilities of Project Constellation.
NASA is wanting to return to the Moon this century using the methods of the last. There’s nothing wrong that way of doing things, but during the 1960’s when the Apollo program was being developed, NASA might as well have been a branch of the military with the amount of funds and priority it was being given. Most of its workforce was in their 20’s and the management structure consisted of men aged in their 30’s. Today, few in management are younger than 40. The reason I point this out is that those in management who are older, unfortunately, lack the ‘youthful energy and imagination required for work in deep space.’(1) Short of restructuring NASA’s management structure, there isn’t much that can be done now and still ensure a return to the Moon by 2020. At the current rate, NASA will land humans on the Moon by 2025 or later.
There is a viable solution, and it’s oftentimes overlooked or at least under-appreciated. The private spaceflight industry has been maturing since President Bush made his declaration that NASA needed to send humans to the Moon by 2020 back in January of 2004. XCOR Aerospace of Mojave, California announced today that they would be selling tickets to paying costumers who wish to travel to suborbital space for $95,000. Virgin Galactic will be selling tickets for rides on SpaceShipTwo for $200,000, and those prices are likely to decrease with XCOR’s announcement. SpaceX is currently developing the Falcon 9 launch vehicle which will loft into orbit the Dragon spacecraft. In an arrangement with NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, or COTS program, SpaceX is already receiving up to $278 million to develop Dragon into a vehicle capable of delivering supplies and eventually crew to the International Space Station.
Here’s my solution, one which is shared by several aerospace engineering students at my university: scrap Project Constellation. Funnel available resources from NASA’s budget into companies like SpaceX that actually have the management structure and ingenuity to get a spacecraft developed on time. If NASA misses a deadline, who cares? They’ll keep getting money until the job is finished or cancelled. If SpaceX misses a deadline, they go out of business. Government agencies can’t go out of business unless their services are no longer needed; private companies can go out of business. One other company had been participating in NASA’s COTS program, Rocketplane Kistler (RpK). RpK has since been excluded from the program for failing to raise required funds to supplement NASA’s contributions. It amounts to simple business.
SpaceX proved their technology is a viable alternative with the successful launch of its Falcon 1 rocket this summer. Granted it was the fourth try after three other attempts failed, SpaceX has proven they have what it takes to be successful. Furthermore, their Falcon 9 rocket is being readied for a test flight in early 2009 from Cape Canaveral. NASA’s Ares 1 was initially slated to be tested next year as well, but that has since been pushed back to allow one final use of the launch pad in May 2009 for one final space shuttle mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.
The point is, whether it is through SpaceX or some other private venture, the technology already exists that NASA is needlessly pursuing on their own budget. This is the time for the commercial spaceflight industry to boom. The American entrepreneurial spirit represents NASA’s best opportunity to get to the Moon on time and to even potentially arrive a few years early. It’s viable enough I’m willing to wager my future career on it.
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References
(1) Schmitt, Harrison H. Return to the Moon. New York, NY: Copernicus Books, 2006. Page 3