Futurist Transhuman News Blog

Nimbus II and Lunar Orbiter 1 Imagery: A New Look at Earth in 1966, Moonviews

“To date some of the images taken by Nimbus II have been enhanced and mapped into Google Earth. One date in particular was of interest to the LOIRP – 23 August 1966. As the images were enhanced and dropped into Google Earth it became clear that we have imagery that overlapped in time to show the weather on that late August day as evening crept up on Africa and Europe. In New York City, just over the Earth’s limb as seen from lunar orbit, the Beatles were preparing to play at Shea Stadium …”

Keith’s note: The “Town Hall” concept that the White House originally considered for the President’s 15 April trip to Florida has been replaced with something a bit more like the recent health care summit. No word yet as to who will participate other than senior Administration and NASA officials and local and state politicians. You can bet that the White House advance team will pre-screen and hand pick almost everyone in attendance so as to limit the opportunity for random outbursts and YouTube moments. But they can’t do much about what happens outside the meeting site. Word has it that Stephen Metschan, one of the team of non-rocket scientists behind the DIRECT concept is out trying to organize some sort of rally or protest meeting to coincide with the White House event. Stay tuned.

Keith’s note: There was a press conference today on Capitol Hill at which a number of members of Congress spoke out in opposition to President Obama’s recently announced space policy. For the most part nothing new was said. However, Rep. Gene Green (D-TX-29) made some odd comments.

At [0:53] in this video he says “We have had some discussion on the House floor about English-only in our own country. I do agree that we should have English-only on the moon.” Then at 2:57 he says “Every year, we take an astronaut with us and go to middle schools. I have a majority Hispanic district in Houston Texas and east Harris County. And to see those students, middle-school kids, sixth, seventh and eighth-graders, they won’t pay attention to me or even Hispanic business folks that go in and talk about what they need to do to be successful. But when you take an astronaut there, whether Hispanic or Anglo and they go in their jumpsuit and they talk about space, they talk about their experiences or their science effort. Those sixth, seventh and eighth-graders, particularly in minority schools, pay attention. I don’t want to lose that hope.”

First of all, his comment about “English only” on the Moon is just plain silly. Who is he to say who can go to the Moon and what they say when they get there? Secondly, Green is apparently not well versed in how space is explored these days. NASA has prided itself on its international cooperation. The ISS is multi-national and multi-lingual and the very program he seeks to retain, the VSE, openly sought international participation. Lastly, given his overt reference to his large hispanic constituency and education, what sort of message is Green sending to those kids when he says that they won’t be allowed to speak the language of their parents and their ancestors on the Moon? I guess Rep. Green never read the Twitter posting by Jose Hernandez from space en Español.

Video clips of comments by: Rep. Olson, Rep. Wolf, Rep. Bishop , Rep. McCaul , Rep. Culberson, Rep. Posey, and Rep. Green

NASA Dives Into Its Past to Retrieve Vintage Satellite Data, Science (subscription)

“Last month, researchers working out of an abandoned McDonald’s restaurant on the grounds of NASA Ames Research Center recovered data collected by NASA’s Nimbus II satellite on 23 September 1966. The satellite soared over Earth in a polar orbit every 108 minutes, taking pictures of cloud cover and measuring heat radiated from the planet’s surface, and creating a photo mosaic of the globe 43 years ago. The resulting image is the oldest and most detailed from NASA’s Earth-observing satellites. It’s also the latest success story in what researchers call techno-archaeology: pulling data from archaic storage systems. Once forgotten and largely unreadable with modern equipment, old data tapes are providing researchers with new information on changes in the surfaces of Earth and the moon.”

“… They cleaned, rebuilt, and reassembled one drive, then designed and built equipment to convert the analog signals into an exact 16-bit digital copy. “It was like dumpster diving for science,” says Cowing, co-team leader at LOIRP. In November 2008, the team recovered their first image: a famous picture of an earthrise taken by Lunar Orbiter 1 on 23 August 1966. The team’s new high-resolution version was so crisp and clear that it revealed many previously obscured details, such as a fog bank lying along the coast of Chile.”

In response to a thoughtful comment from Tim846 from last time, I’d like to steer the discussion of open technology towards how to create not only transparency but also stimulate participation in open technologies led by an Open NASA.

Before I get into a specific roadmap, a couple prerequisites need to be installed for successful open participation to happen:

• First and foremost, breakdown perceptual barriers. Help people to see that their participation is possible, valid, and valuable, be it at a university, a small business, or in a garage. Instill the Carmackian philosophy of “ITERATE!” that has made rapid development of software so successful and is used in hardware development at Armadillo. Like my high school Science Seminar mentor Mr. Ron Le May always says–”Do anything, do it wrong, do it better. Repeat.” Thinking about a problem and justifying why it’s too hard to do for two months doesn’t get you nearly as far as trying something rough, learning from it, and iterating for two days.
• Manage projects. Have open project managers (someone at NASA and/or a capable non-NASA participant) that know the field and are committed to engaging outside participation. They will help ensure participation happens and happens effectively.
• Benefit Americans first, keep the investors happy. While some open projects could greatly benefit from worldwide participation, NASA is funded by American taxpayers and the fruits of that funding should therefor benefit Americans first where applicable. This will guarantee that an Open NASA is sustainable, as its investors will feel and see their money going to productive use for their own benefit. It also creates opportunities for congresspeople in non-Florida/Alabama/Texas/California/Maryland states to benefit their constituencies and want to support Open NASA. As a result, it may be necessary to restrict participation of some projects to only American entities. While not fool-proof, a simple verification form and log-in system could help to limit and allow access to the right audiences where necessary.
• Use the Internet as the primary medium for participation. Although this prerequisite may seem obvious, in comparison with conferences, academic journals, grant opportunities, industrial partnerships, privately recruited efforts, and other forms of participation with NASA, the Internet has the largest and broadest potential audience to reach people who can help drive innovation and technology development and its cost per participant is thus much lower. The Internet can also stimulate additional innovation through mutation (“let’s try this instead”, or “I misunderstood and something else happened”), differentiation (“they already did that, but let’s try it a different way”), and competition (“we can so do this first”, or “we can totally do this cheaper”).

These things said, here is a candidate participation roadmap we have been considering for Aerogel.org. For reference, we are currently most of the way through 1 and partway through 2, 3, and 4 on that project. Thus as apparent from our experience, the roadmap is serial-ish, but all steps could (and maybe should) be approached with a degree of simultaneity. Each step is design to widen the target audience by creating a stronger foundation upon which harder-to-involve participants can become involved.

1. Empower. Create transparent reference content first. Provide people with as much information as possible about the underlying science, the technology of interest, how it works, what’s been done, what’s happening now, and where problems and challenges lie . Those with the interest and resources now have the information to start getting involved.
2. Invite. Utilize social media and online collaborative tools to create a community of researchers/experimenters interested in a given topic. Combine this experience with the original tutorial/reference media to create a live reference and collaboration platform. Facilitate rapid dissemination of results, discussion of problems, and questions with RSS, user profiles, forums, and live feeds. Minimize work being reproduced and understanding being rederived. Seed the effort with top experts and existing or related researchers in the area through targeted invitations but make open to all.
3. Reduce. As in the do-it-yourself (DIY) community, create a space on the platform to encourage and communicate how to create, simplify, and/or access the basic tools necessary to do the research.
4. Recruit. Use the state Space Grant Consortia to outreach to schools and industry in each technology space to help increase awareness of what technology opportunities are available for open participation. Direct them to the appropriate online media.
5. Breakdown. Open project managers could break big problems down into little problems that many people could solve, or proportionally direct/sign-up participants to work on the same problems where more bandwidth is needed (“you four clean up the garage, you two clean up the kitchen, everyone else find and something else to clean”).
6. Incentivize. Open project managers could set goals and reward those who attain them first or best. Create coveted titles and awards. Use prizes to leverage costs. Small things could go far. Think micro X Prizes or Centennial Challenges. Even better–create prizes that are the tools needed to do the next level of the work (“prize for achieving highly aligned growth at 20 cents/square centimeter is a thermal evaporator with which you can scale your results!”). Create opportunities for participants to become involved with larger institutions based on merit. Offer merit-based scholarships and/or grants to promising researchers.
7. Solidify. When good results are obtained, differentiate them from speculation and conversation the same way the academic community does–publish. Match projects with good open journals and provide participants with the knowledge and tools to be able to transition their results to open academic publications. Open project managers could then monitor, compile, prominently display, and make easily accessible important results to advance work.

What do you think?

Obama facing uprising over new NASA strategy, Reuters

“U.S. President Barack Obama is trying to tamp down an uprising in politically vital Florida against a new strategy for NASA that has rankled space veterans and lawmakers and sparked fears of job losses. … It is making for a potentially explosive environment when Obama travels to the Cape Canaveral area on April 15 to host a space conference with top officials and leaders in the field. “What reception will they get? Not good,” said Keith Cowing, editor of nasawatch.com, a website that closely monitors the U.S. space agency. “It’s a gutsy move. It’s Daniel in the Lion’s Den.”

Falcon 9 Engine Test Update, SpaceflightNow

Keith’s 8 March note: SpaceX is apparently going to attempt to hotfire all 9 first stage engines in its Falcon 9 rocket in preparation for a launch later this month. A test that had been planned for today but it has been postponed until tomorrow. Several days ago some cork insulation came off of the first stage during a tanking test. That will have to be replaced before the vehicle is launched.

Keith’s 9 March note: The static test firing is planned for 1:00 pm EST today.

Obama Plans Florida Forum to Discuss NASA’s Future, NY Times

“Joseph R. Fragola, a safety consultant, said the review had found no critical flaws for Constellation. “Money is the problem,” he said. “It’s not technical.”

- More Inconsistencies From the Ares 1 Risk Guru, earlier post
- Hanley Changes His Story On Ares 1 Safety – Again, earlier post

Which track for NASA?, Huntsville Times

“President Barack Obama plans to affirm his administration’s commitment to space exploration and NASA next month in Florida, the White House said Monday, but the space agency plan cancels the 5-year-old Marshall Space Flight Center-managed Ares rocket program. And Obama’s plans are at odds with Alabama’s senior senator on Capitol Hill – Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa.”

Analysts point to politics over Obama’s NASA conference, Houston Chronicle

“Nelson took to the Senate floor late Monday to welcome Obama’s April 15 visit and praise his plans to seize leadership of the space program, even as he went on to excoriate unnamed presidential aides and “the budget boys from OMB” for allowing the chief executive to create “the perception that the president had killed the manned space program.” Nelson added pointedly: “There is outright hostility (in Florida) toward President Obama and his proposals for the nation’s human space program.”

Nelson hopes Obama clarifies space vision, Florida Today

“Despite a commitment to extend the life of the International Space Station to 2020 and increase NASA funding by $6 billion over five years, Nelson said last month’s poor rollout of the administration’s new direction for NASA allowed critics to frame it as the end of U.S. human spaceflight. “He’s got to clear that up,” Nelson said. “That is one of the misconceptions that the president is going to have to correct.”

Obama Plans Florida Forum to Discuss NASA’s Future, NY Times

“The president’s upcoming space meeting here in Florida provides a chance for meaningful progress,” said Representative Suzanne M. Kosmas, whose district includes the Kennedy Space Center. She requested a meeting when she and others in the state Congressional delegation met last month with Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, and John P. Holdren, Mr. Obama’s science adviser.”

Obama’s plans for NASA changes met with harsh criticism, Washington Post

“They made a mistake when they rolled out their space program, because they gave the perception that they had killed the manned space program,” said Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who disagrees with that perception but wants the Obama plan modified. Nelson said the president should declare during the Florida conference that NASA’s goal is to send humans to Mars. Nelson noted that the Interstate 4 corridor through Central Florida is critical for national candidates. “I think it has a lot of repercussions for the president. If a national candidate does not carry the I-4 corridor, they don’t win Florida,” Nelson said.”

Keith’s note: The buzz at KSC and among the Florida Congressional delegation is that President Obama will hold a “Town Hall” style meeting on 15 April and that he will use that event to announce that he is authorizing one additional space shuttle mission after the four remaining flights currently on the shuttle manifest. This would stretch out employment for shuttle workers by as much as six months – well into the Summer and early Fall of 2011 – just as the 2012 presidential campaign season is starting to fire up.

The question I have to ask is why do this? In so doing it just opens the door to delaying the shut down of the shuttle program initiated by President Bush. If the White House wants to do one additional launch, then why not do three or six? Adding one launch simply buys you six months or so of workforce retention but the end result is still the same. If the intent is to shut down the shuttle program, then NASA should do so and move on to a new way of getting into space. If, on the other hand, the White House wants to develop a true shuttle-derived launch vehicle like the sidemount, one that purposefully uses existing shuttle infrastructure and workforce, then that is another issue. Alas, no one has yet given me a reason to do this other than to keep people employed. While it may be a humane thing to do now that Constellation won’t be there with a safety net, this is not the way to try and shift paradigms. Rather, it is a way to stall that shift.

Obama’s plans for NASA changes met with harsh criticism, Washington Post

“Congress must approve NASA’s strategic change. Lawmakers in Florida, Alabama and Texas, states rich in space jobs, have sharply criticized the Obama plan as a job-killer. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) says that under Obama’s strategy “America’s decades-long dominance of space will finally come to an end.”

Introduction of S. 3068 by Sen. Hutchison, Congressional Record 3 March 2010

“The legislation I am introducing today would ensure that a final decision on the timing of the space shuttle retirement, or even the number of missions it might still be required to fly, would not be made until the issues involved are fully considered and resolved and we are fully convinced that the shuttle’s capability is no longer needed. In particular, we must answer the question of how we support, maintain, and fully utilize the ISS, not just in 5 or more years, when any new commercially-developed vehicle might be available, but right now, as we are about to cut the ribbon on it as a finally completed research facility.”

Keith’s note: In this post by Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation staffer Jeff Bingham (51D Mascot) on nasaspaceflight.com he notes that “The Hutchison Bill, by its very structure, is written so as to be the “core” of a broader NASA Authorization Bill, and it is fully planned and expected, going in, that it will likely be “absorbed” into that larger NASA Authorization Bill, which will likely be reported by the Commerce Committee, once it is satisfied with it, and it goes through the process known as “mark-up” (amendment and endorsement by the Committee) as a new and separate bill.”

What’s next for NASA?, Mario Livio, Baltimore Sun

“In recent days, some of those criticizing NASA’s proposed budget have tried to paint a picture of an agency without a vision. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. NASA’s far-reaching ambitions in space science have been, and will continue to be, truly inspiring”

Keith’s note: While Livio does make a number of cogent points about space science, I find it a little odd that he can make statements about the agency’s overall “vision” while making zero mention of human spaceflight. If some members of Congress have their way, NASA will need to find more money somewhere – and that somewhere may well be space science. Perhaps then he’ll take the time to look at the other things that NASA does. I am rather certain that Livio was in the audience last night at the Air and Space Museum for the premiere of Hubble IMAX 3D – a movie that was equally balanced between human and robotic spaceflight. I guess he missed all of those space suited astronauts working on the gem of his institute’s research – one of whom works down the hall from him at STScI …

Space shuttle can fly beyond 2010, if money is there: NASA, AFP

“The US space shuttle fleet can continue flying beyond NASA’s September 30 deadline if the money is made available to keep it going, a US space agency official told reporters Tuesday. “I think the real issue that the agency and the nation has to address is the expense,” said Space Shuttle Program Manager John Shannon, noting the shuttle fleet costs the National Aeronautics and Space Administration 200 million dollars per month to maintain it in working condition. “Where that money comes from is the big question,” he added.”

Obama’s New Mission for NASA Sets Off Intense Criticism, Fox

“It’s amazing that we’re headed down a path where we’re not going to have any vehicles at all to launch from the Kennedy Space Center for an extended period of time,” John Shannon, NASA’s space shuttle manager said at a news conference. “And to give up all the lessons learned, the blood, sweat and tears that we have expended to get the space shuttle to the point where it is right now where it is performing so magnificently,” he said.”

Keith’s note: With the popularity of retro TV shows such as “Mad Men” comes a second look at how we used to advertise things in the 1960s – products, ideas, etc. The early space age was an exciting time when we were doing things no one had done before – and we were pretty proud of doing it. Some of the artwork is rather classy and, with a few tweaks, might even work today. If you go to this page at io9 you will some examples of ads from the dawn of space exploration.

Reaching for the Stars When Space Was a Thrill, NY Times

“… Or the American Bosch Arma Corporation showing off, in Fortune, its “Cosmic Butterfly,” a solar-powered electrically propelled vehicle to ferry passengers and cargo across the solar system. Most Americans never saw these concoctions, but now they have been collected and dissected by Megan Prelinger, an independent historian and space buff, in a new book, “Another Science Fiction: Advertising the Space Race 1957-1962.” It is being published on May 25 by Blast Books.”

Ex-NASA Official Pleads Guilty in Contracts Case, WS Journal

“A former high-ranking National Aeronautics and Space Administration official pleaded guilty in Mississippi to designing contracts that netted him more than $270,000 in illegal profits. Liam P. Sarsfield is a former chief deputy engineer in Washington, D.C. … Mr. Sarsfield will be sentenced June 24. He pleaded guilty to one charge of acts affecting a personal financial interest.”

Ex-NASA official pleads guilty, AP

“The U.S. Attorney’s office would not comment on whether Sarsfield is cooperating with authorities in the case against Stadd. However, Sarsfield was charged in a criminal information, which is filed by prosecutors when the defendant has agreed to waive grand jury indictment and plead guilty. They are often used when a defendant is cooperating.”

NASA Presolicitation Notice: Engineering Services: Liam P. Sarsfield, earlier post from July 21, 2005

“NASA/HQ intends to award a purchase order to Mr. Liam P. Sarsfield. The authority is 10 U.S.C.2304(c)(1) “only one responsible source.”

I’m SO excited to share details about NASA’s newest, coolest, never-been-done-before sustainability initiative, LAUNCH:Water.

Accelerating Innovation for a Sustainable Future.

We’ve been working on this project for some time — an innovative collaborative process to “launch” ideas, or disruptive green technologies, that address some of this planet’s growing pains.

All props to NASA’s Robbie Schingler, who envisioned a barcamp-type atmosphere to discuss sustainability challenges. We’d been looking for ways to tell our Space Station green story, and this concept fit the bill. We pulled together a team of creative folks, all bringing together different strengths, to birth theLAUNCH:Water incubator we’ll debut next week.

We wanted a TED-style event but with teeth, where we can chomp into issues and mash-up new approaches and solutions.

We created LAUNCH as a global initiative to identify and support the innovative work that is poised to contribute to a sustainable future. We want this process to accelerate solutions to meet urgent challenges facing our society. That’s the goal: to make a difference, leave this world better tomorrow than it is today.

We chose water as a logical starting point because it’s an issue we deal with on Space Station every day in orbit. Not only is water a critical commodity for our orbiting pioneers, but for so many living on our home planet.

Scarcity within a hostile environment is something we Earthlings and space travelers share.

So what is LAUNCH:Water? We are working with our founding partners, USAID,State Department, and NIKE, to allow 10 water-related emerging technologyinnovators the opportunity to present their ideas to a small group of thought-leadersfrom varied disciplines for a two and a half day conversation about possibilities. We break into small impact rotations to discuss content-focused issues/opportunities that affect each innovator individually. We have a team working with the innovators to develop how we shape these impact sessions for maximum benefit. Our hope is to use these structured conversations to leap-frog these ten innovators further down the path toward success in solving water issues facing our planet.

Why NASA? Because we’re problem-solvers — against all odds.

We solve problems. That’s what we do. I like to call it our brand reduction sauce– after all the ingredients are thrown into the pot and cooked and the essence is left behind. So why not convene a group of expert problem-solvers in various disciplines to address issues we face both on Earth and in the heavens above? LAUNCH is a gathering of problem-solvers to solve one MAJOR problem:

how to sustain life ON and OFF Earth.

We’ll live-stream the innovators’ presentations on Tuesday March 16th and Wednesday March 17th, so you can be part of this glorious experiment with us. We have a LAUNCHorg twitter account that we’ll keep updated, as well.

I’m looking forward to meeting all the innovators in person next week. I’m particularly excited about one of the innovations that bubbled up in the process: Manna Energy, run in his spare time by astronaut Ron Garan or @astro_ron on Twitter. You can go to their website or @MannaEnergy twitter feed to learn how they’re deploying water filtration devices in more than 400 schools in Rwanda, along with biogas generators and high efficiency cookstoves at 300 locations. Gives me goosebumps.

We’ll have so much to share as we move toward our inaugural event next week. We plan to serve “recycled water” just like our astronauts drink on Station, BTW. I guess we can’t serve it in paper cups or plastic bottles — neither are friends of the environment. Yet, if we serve in glass cups, we’ll have to wash them with water and detergent — not nice to the our planet either. Our most sustainable option will be to squirt “reformed urine” directly into the mouths of our guests. Now that will be a sight to see, won’t it? Good thing we’re live-streaming the event.

Stay tuned for frequent updates from the field.

Crosspost on BethBeck’s Blog and GovLoop.

NASA Idea Brainstorming Tool, Open Government at NASA

“NASA is seeking input on the creation of the NASA Open Government Plan. As outlined in the Open Government Directive, this brainstorming tool is a mechanism gain input on how to make the key principle of openness a meaningful pillar of NASA’s mission, and how to implement participation, transparency and collaboration activities such that NASA becomes more relevant, efficient, and accountable. Key ideas and suggestions developed through this process will be prioritized in the NASA Open Government Plan.”

NASA rethinks $1.5B enterprise data center contract, Washington Technology

“NASA has announced it’s reworking its strategy for acquiring an enterprise data center, and has postponed the release of a final request for proposals for what could have been a $1.5 billion contract. NASA said its plans for the NASA Enterprise Data Center (NEDC) program didn’t meet its enterprise needs. The agency said it made the decision after a reassessment in light of leadership changes and new requirements from the Office of Management and Budget regarding cloud computing, greening information technology, virtualization, and federal data center guidance.”

NASA Reworks $1.5B Enterprise Data Center Plans, Web Host Industry Review

“NASA said it is looking to develop a data center plan that will consolidate all data centers, systems, applications, as well as include a data center architecture and full enterprise assessment. This would give the agency the chance to design an infrastructure strategy according to its business requirements and use technologies like cloud computing to cut energy costs.”

Ex-NASA Official Pleads Guilty in Contracts Case, WS Journal

“A former high-ranking National Aeronautics and Space Administration official pleaded guilty in Mississippi to designing contracts that netted him more than $270,000 in illegal profits. Liam P. Sarsfield is a former chief deputy engineer in Washington, D.C. … Mr. Sarsfield will be sentenced June 24. He pleaded guilty to one charge of acts affecting a personal financial interest.”

Houston mayor plans visit with NASA chief, Bay Area Citizen

“Houston Mayor Annise Parker will take the community’s fight to save the Constellation program straight to NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden next week, while a group of Clear Lake area businessmen will make a similar trip to Washington March 22. Parker’s trip to the nation’s capital comes as Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership President Bob Mitchell, who will head the Clear Lake delegation, works to rally Texans to save America’s manned space flight program.”

‘NASA-enabled’ is new mantra, Huntsville Times

“Late last week, reports said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden was working on a “Plan B” in the face of bipartisan congressional opposition to the Obama plan, but Bolden denied it. Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas, has introduced legislation that would keep the space shuttle flying to 2015 and keep parts of Constellation, specifically the Orion crew module and the heavy-lift rocket needed for exploration beyond Earth orbit.”

Following criticism, Obama to host NASA forum on ‘next steps’, The Hill

“While the White House did propose an additional $8 billion for NASA as part of its new budget, some lawmakers are apoplectic that the boost comes at the expense of NASA’s Constellation program — a project commissioned in 2005 by former President George W. Bush, who tasked the agency with plotting a second trip to the Moon.”