Bulletin: NASA Human Space Flight Review

Joel's a blogging machine!

Pull the Saturn V out of mothballs. It seems to have worked just fine and every space museum in the country has one on its front yard.

Or maybe dust off that Capricorn Mars Mission technology. Oh, yeah, that one didn't work out so well. At least not for OJ.

I saw the Kit title and had a sudden vision of people flying in space - kinda like Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, only without the suit. Now that would be a space flight program.

I've never really been that excited by the "Grand Strategy" (Not to be confused with the "Grand Idea" which is something else entirely.)

First of all, the stated reliance on the tried and true so as to reduce risk seems to negate the common argument that NASA is all about developing exciting new spin-off technologies.

Second, that we have already been to the moon diminishes, fairly or not, the perceived excitement of the mission. This reduces, again perhaps unfairly, the ability of this strategy to truly inspire.

Of course, as we have discussed before, I'm not really a big fan of manned spaceflight anyway. I would rather spend the money on cool new space probes that can do some true exploring.

I mean, given the choice between sending more people to the moon or sending semi-autonomous spacebots to drill through the ice crust of Ganymede, well, the spacebots will get my vote every time.

I guess we have to decide whether the space program is far-seeing or a circus for the rubes to watch on TV.

I hope the Prez pulls the plug on manned spaceflight and lets NASA focus on unmanned probes. For Pete's sake, let's be adults here and quit acting like kids who wanna be spacemen. We chug along wasting money putting people in space and no one really cares, until there's a tragedy.

I agree with RD, Jumper and akg, but... in today's environment of entertainment, perhaps to get funding for any sort of exploration we need the possibility that consumers will be interested in the mission.

I use a certain strategy in undertaking big projects; I don't announce a very large and important and expensive project, because to do so invites scrutiny and reporting (realize, please, that I am not advocating a lack of needed reporting and transparency. Rather, in big projects, it is quite possible to spend *all* the project manager's time reporting, and not actually forwarding the project. It is this sort of recording to which I object.).

Instead, I cut the same programme into many many small increments. This allows me to get funding, avoid excessive reporting, and deliver quick wins.

" NASA is all about developing exciting new spin-off technologies."

Actually, no: NASA's mission is exploration, including manned exploration. Technology is developed as it appears to be necessary, but mission success comes before efficiency (unless efficiency is defined as part of the mission).

The thing about going to Mars is that it is more than likely to kill people -- and odds are, it would kill either no one, or everyone in a crew. The Moon is a reachable target, with rewards of its own and significant challenges that are less than the challenges of Mars, enough to let "us" survive our mistakes while "we" develop solutions. Of course, there is that pesky Moon Treaty -- so it's not permissible to mine the Moon for the high density of light elements on the crust. Lunar live-off-the-land techniques would be applicable to mining asteroids, which are a more negotiable component of the Outer Space Treaty and possibly easier to reach than Mars.

I hope President Obama will fully back up manned space exploration.
Unmanned space probes are useful, but do not carry the "excite potential" of manned space exploration.
We need achievements that excite the imagination and interest of young people in engineering and science. We need the best and brightest to enter those fields, instead of becoming hedge fund managers.
Once that happens we will have enough scientists and engineers to solve our many problems on Earth.

Where is radz when we need him as much as we need ScienceTim?

Radz? You out there?

I agree that unmanned probes are a superior tactic to accomplish reconnaissance-level exploration. But what is the strategic goal? We need to decide *why* we are exploring space. That decision will enable us to decide whether the tactic of unmanned exploration is all we need to satisfy our long-term goals.

I am in the camp that thinks that we should be exploring for the purpose of enhancing the realm of human experience, and that includes letting actual humans experience it in reality, not just virtually. Efficiency is a misplaced notion when it comes to deciding which experiences to have in your life -- the most efficient life is an empty life, and the most efficient way to live it is to die soon. I want a better life than that, and I think that our species deserves better than that. That means learning how to expand the experience of individual people, and that includes learning how to live and work in space.

We already have enough scientists and engineers. What we don't have is an allocation of resources that allows them to use the skills that we have encouraged them to develop. Which is why I am an advocate of enhanced K-12 science education for the kids who are *not* intending to become scientists and engineers, but almost all of whom will have the chance to be voters, if they choose to do so.

Okay--sorry for the history lesson, but I had to correct someone else's reminiscence from the hockey punch-up yesterday. The first time the Caps beat the Montreal Canadiens was February 19, 1980 (not, as alleged, in the 1976-77 season). Late in the 3rd period, Bengt Gustafsson stick-handled the puck through defenseman Gaston Gingras' legs and beat the goalie with the clincher, 3-1. I was there, and we went into the old Cap Centre's Capital Club afterwards and had champagne.

I want a database of names. I bet those who want the most to kill the space program now will protest the most when the Chinese take over the Moon.

Phew! Finally catching up. I have a busy day, ride up the mountain,fix and eat supper, go to Lowe's with Mr. T, and I'm 2 and a half kits behind.

SciTim, do we truly have enough engineers and physicists and other scientific types? I will take your word for it and be comforted. Didja see the story last week about how higher education in India is not producing graduates with the skills that the country needs? Scary thought, that.

I brought the netbook to the mountains and am trying to acclimate to it. The space key has to be pushed hard to work. I'm typing verrry slowwlllyyy.

Quick hide the brains!

Cueing up cutesy-pie stuff:
http://cuteoverload.com/2009/04/29/rainforest-fluffballs/

While I respect the men and women that work in this field and i find space interesting the notion of humans living in space is the dumbest idea well on earth. 1) There are far too many humans to ever justify or think we can migrate any useful amount in space 2) we have a hard time feeding our selves on a nice plant 3) we have a perfectly designed pant here why not just take care of it 4) cost of space is insane..

space is fine for study to some extent.. personally the fact is that humans while complex themselves from a science stand point are very simple and basic when it comes to needs and survival. im not talking about paris hilton idiot types .. im talking about the the avg global human.. we are a strong and resilient species... food water and a tribe and we are good... oh.. air is nice too and thats whats mostly missing in space..

how about spending those space bucks here on earth.. i think we have enough answers about where we are, who we are and where we come from.. lets worry about how we are going to stay here.

My nephew who is in the Air Force academy and enjoying completion of his first year told me he wants to be on the first manned mission to mars.He told me,now that 1 year is down,he is actually considered a person again.

I said we should watch "Red Planet" together,I thought that was a great movie and I loved it at the end as Val Kilmer is blasting off he say "F*** this Planet"

A common lament in physics departments across the country is that there are many more of us than there are jobs. I know that some years ago, I applied for several academic jobs in which one of my competitors was a guy who would have been immediately tenure-tracked and granted tenure at the earliest opportunity, were this still the 60-70's, despite the fact that he has a difficult personality. He's also several years older than me -- we should never have been in the job market at the same time, and certainly not for no-name universities in the sticks. As it happens, neither of us got those jobs, although he later married the winner of one of them.

A sizable fraction of humanity never emigrated from anywhere to anywhere else. A few emigrated, then they reproduced in place. So, there's nothing significant about the fact that hardly any of us will ever migrate anywhere.

Now this is something boodlers can appreciate:

http://www.slate.com/id/2217815

"A sizable fraction of humanity never emigrated from anywhere to anywhere else"

Interesting thought, ScienceTim. Does this imply something about those who do try their luck on new shores (like the early colonial settlers) versus those who remain in place, maybe making only small lateral shifts? More ingenuity, bravery, recklessness...?

Are you aware of any studies on the matter of immigrant's psychology? If the move is prompted by simple bog necessity (die or move), that may mitigate the effect.

If there is an increased motivational factor, I wonder how many generations on the new terra firma snuffs it out?

*whistling tunelessly, edging ever so slowly toward the bunker...*

Most of my familiarity with immigrant research revolves around scholastic achievement motivation. But, I think it is fair to say that, generally, in communities where things are going well the highly motivated and highest achievers choose to stay and maximize the situation. When things deteriorate the motivation to achieve overcomes affiliation motivation (they are willing to leave their social networks in order to accomplish more as individuals).

Howdy again to rangerAw! good questions. Not that you asked me, but I think emigration has different components dependent on circumstances. There are some emigrants (eg the Oklahoma Land Run folks) who essentially strike out for new territory because they haven't been very successful in the old. There are others who are successful but relish the challenge or cry out for exploration or just want to see what's new.

Welcome back to capsfan - though to be close to on-Kit you need to integrate hockey and space travel: hockey on Mars? hockey and asteroid mining? As you know, I don't know enough about hockey to provide a halfway convincing example of true integration.

Also howdy to Pi!! Wotta handle. If you haven't been a Boodle lurker you shoulda been.

Finally, I heartily second ScienceTim's desire for more science education for kids who don't plan to be scientists. The more educated populace, the more potentially educated voters, the better off we all are. I speak from sad experience.

From pi: "i think we have enough answers about where we are, who we are and where we come from."

I have to disagree. I think we have a lot of questions, a lot of beliefs, a lot of dogma, but not many answers. Now, whether we need to have answers to all those questions is an entirely different matter. However, if you're looking for answers, so far every answer seems to raise a new set of questions. As a former philosophy type I think this is all to the good. In some sense, life is a search for better questions.

I completely agree, however, with your suggestion that we learn to stay on the planet we've got. I don't know that this needs to be exclusive of space exploration but we sure do need to focus on where we are - even if we don't have all the answers as to who we are, what it is, how we got here, or why we're here.

Tim said "Actually, no: NASA's mission is exploration, including manned exploration. Technology is developed as it appears to be necessary, but mission success comes before efficiency (unless efficiency is defined as part of the mission)."

But, it's the potential for those exciting spin-offs that make the expenditures more palatable to apatheticists. Seriously, for most people the origins of the universe are a "don't know, don't care" situation (unless alien abduction is involved). Necessity will always be the mother of invention, make extraordinary things necessary and extraordinary things will be invented-you know, like Tang.

Calling CqP- a few days ago the mrs-o.org blog featured a close up of the fabric used for the dress Mrs. O wore to the post inaugural National Prayer Service. Swooning, it's a Kona Bay cotton and I have 2 yards of it in my quilting stash!

I feel some bunker redecoration coming on.

humans cannot survive in space in their current form.1600 pounds per square inch of preasure make us the way we are now,space flight past the moon would make you a cripple,everyday in space costs a percentage of bone mass no amount of exercise can replace.man must breed humans for space or send machines with the ablity to recreate the human race on a planet able to support life,these problems are known but,ignored.

The moon is lovely tonight if there are clear skies in your area - about as close as I come to being on kit.

Won the Gardening Basket at Pasta Night, includes a Canadian Alamanac (Harrowsmith's), did have a section on the astronomy highlights for the next year - so I am as close to being sciencey as I can get.

I just love the Boodle!

Good night Al.

Oh, yay, dmd! My tree peony has 3 flowers this year - one was showing color this morning and now is about half open.

I got nothing for this Kit. I would rather see robots go to Mars, but I suppose we have to have some human element too. There's always the space station. And the Star Trek movie...which I cannot get Mr seasea excited about going to see, at all - he's the big fan of the TV series.

Sorry, this post went on too long, so I had to break it up. Feel free to skip it if you like. - bc

I'm on record as being in support of manned space flight, and not just because of any perceived New Space Race with China. I think they have a good chance of beating us back to the Moon, if that matters to anyone (I did note the Lunar theme at the Olympic opening ceremonies last summer.)

Sure, manned space travel between planets and even stars looks pretty difficult now, I imagine much as sea travel between continents must have been thousands of years ago, when dugout canoes and papyrus ships were the height of seafaring technology.

People kept investing in sailing, pushing the boundaries back, learning and improving the arts and sciences of seamanship. Eventually migrations were practical -- and not much later, so was intercontinental commerce.

I believe imperialism and large sums of government and proto-corporate money played significant roles in the development of seafaring technologies and - again - the sciences on which they're based. Eventually, the kinds of things no one could do became the kinds of things only governments and religious orders could do, then the kinds of things that large corporations could do, eventually becoming things that citizens could do -- or afford to pay for.

Many years ago, there were remote and inhospitable places on this Earth that people barely dared to dream they'd visit/explore, much less learn to live there. In addition to being insatiably curious, humans are a pretty clever, hardy, and adaptable species, and figured out how to survive and thrive in many places that some thought were wastes of time and money to visit. With the state of global climate change being what it is, it's a pretty useful thing to have scientists stationed in Antarctica these days, isn't it?

Manned space travel isn't easy and isn't cheap, though some governments and corporations such as Space X and Virgin Galactic are working on more affordable solutions for those first baby steps.

End Pt. 1.

bc

bc

Pt. 2

So, what do I think of NASA's review? Seems to me that 90 days is too short a time to come up with better answers than we have now, though I've always been more of a fan of liquid fuel than solid rocket engines. I'd trade off the simplicity, efficiency, and relative inexpensiveness of solid fuel engines for the control (including modulation of vibration harmonics) of liquid fuel engines, particularly when people's butts are in the seats.

I'd advocate keeping the Shuttle flying indefinitely but infrequently to avoid a long dependency on the Russians for sole access to the ISS and to maintain a significant man-rated heavy-lift capability, to continue to develop Ares/Constellation/Orion systems as planned for Earth orbital and Lunar missions, to maintain a permanent presence on the Moon, and to get serious about developing long-duration manned deep-space flight hardware. Orion's nice, but nobody's flying that beercan to Mars.

More later.
[Please note that the words "Warp Drive," "anti-matter," "wormhole," "solar sail," "hyperspace," "space elevator," "tachyon" and "balanced budget" were not used in the construction of this comment. Thank you.]

bc

Seafaring-longitude-accurate time keeping-standard time-Swiss mania for precision-patents-Einstein's simultaneity thought experiment. Just sayin'.

The boodle loves you back Yoki.

bc has me wavering from my manned flight apathy

Toodles and sweet dreams!

We'll emigrate to space if the commercials are good enough:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bom8ekI90E

I forgot to complete my thoughts on spin-offs -- certainly they happen, and certainly they are a big part of the value of the space program. I'm just sayin' that you don't invent a new technology if you don't have to, even if the old one isn't as good as you'd like -- the question is "will it work well enough?"

mark77, one thing is certain: blanket statements that some aspect of space travel is simply not possible to cope with have been routinely proven wrong. The problems of weightlessness on human physiology are from ignored -- you must not have been paying attention. There is lots of attention given to the astronaut's physiology and the effects of weightlessness during extended stays in the ISS, with continual monitoring. Various bits of machinery are employed to try to avoid the problems, particularly including resistance training. The problem has not been beaten, but that is far from saying it has been ignored.

Get Mr. seasea to read Ann Hornaday's review. She waxes eloquent and verbose on the subject of how the ST movie stays true to the sensibility and character of the series, while bringing something new to the screen as well. However, I am very disappointed to see that it's another damned time-travel episode. Except in the most capable of hands, time-travel tends to lead to lazy writing. To see time-travel done right, read "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed" by Alfred Bester, or watch the Futurama movie "Bender's Big Score".

I have theories on immigrant psychology, but no expertise, so I welcome what frosti had to say on the matter.

What I was trying to say (and in retrospect, I see I didn't really say it) is that the fraction of a human population that migrates anywhere, after the rise of urbanization about 10K years ago, is pretty small. Colonial groups split off from the main population, do the colonial thing, and then reproduce to fill the niche. Nomadic groups migrate more en masse, of course, but generally over well-established territories -- they do not do mass-exploration, with the entire populace suddenly moving to entirely new territory.

And now for something completely different: Kim O'Donnel's recipe for Rhubarb Buckle!!!!

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/mighty-appetite/

Last thoughts for the evening -- starting with a cliche, but one that I subscribe to:

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Did you ever notice the way humans are made? Seems to me that with these long limbs and high-set sensory organs, we're made for movement and for seeing and comprehending information from long distances.

For travel. For exploration. For looking up and out.

I think that curiostiy and restlessness are parts of our nature, on personal and social levels. Seems to me that when we humans don't expand our phyisical and intellectual horizons and just stand pat and stay put, we end up fighting over known/established resources and power rather than learning about our world, finding *new* resources and challenges and exerting ourselves pursuing them.

Simplistic perhaps, and certainly not always the most sensible choices, but there are elements of human nature that we ignore at our peril.

But no one ever said the human condition was easy, or that it was ever going to make sense.

If there's a choice about squabbling over the diminishing resources we have now or expending some extra resources - while we still have them - to see what's over the horizon, to learn, to seek, and maybe find something useful, worth knowing. I vote for seeking knowledge, even if what we learn on the trip is about ourselves and have a little better perspective on where we fit in to Everything.

bc

It looks like I close this joint down at night!

Two things:

[1] per the mom's challenge:

"to be close to on-Kit you need to integrate hockey and space travel" -- not difficult.

My father was a hockey player + Canuck, the latter of whom (If not from the big city) can be likened to aliens, at times (hear, "Going Back to Saskatoon" by the Guess Who, a Winnipeg band, for an idea.)

[2] What is a "boodle" and a "kit"? [I know what "Rickrolling" is, so I'm not hopeless :)]

You're boodling right now, rangeragainstwar.

Kit and boodle is short for "kit and kaboodle."

What Joel posts is the kit; all blog comments are bundled up in the boodle.

Thank you, W. Gnome.

"Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag..."

There are usually a few of us up late Mr. ranger.

Nice to see the moon tonight,6or 7 days of straight rain has a tendency to make one's brain a little soggy.

Packing for moving is going slowly,tough when you have to do it all yourself.Oh well,brick by brick I guess.

waiting for laundry to be done,then off to bed.

The midnight train just rolled through. Time for a train song, with a hot solo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZPvMagOIU

I favor robots in space. And the International Space Station, now that it's large enough and sufficiently well equipped to be useful.

Hello Green,

Glad you can enjoy the moon despite your onerous moving project. I will wish you luck putting one foot in front of the other.

'Member guys, it's me, Lisa, writing under ranger's nom de plume. If I had more initiative & time, I'd look into getting my own handle :)

we try to keep the boodle open 24/7, but we do doze off sometimes...

i feel ambivalent about manned space exploration because the costs/benefits seem a little too high on the costs. plus, can we really afford to spend the money when we need to solve global warming issues? what about making sure what we have is well-maintained and secure? (for example, do we have the reserves to take care of the space station if it gets damaged by space junk? will we need to build an expensive protection system around it?)

i'm just skeptical.

"I favor robots in space" --

Yes, we've got to put them somewhere, and as long as they have non-rusting components, there should be no worries. . . We could even interface with them now and again via Twitter or some such platform.

Couple of days ago, there were 2 people with high temperatures travelling in a flight from London to Bn. The local health authority declared them swine flu free after thorough testing. However, they still have to be quarantined for 10 days in a hospital. The 200 passengers on the plane have to be quarantined as well.

For 10 days, they can’t do anything or go anyway. I’m sure they can watch TV. However, there is nothing on TV to watch. I think after that period, those who didn’t die of boredom would be transferred to the psychiatric ward because they have gone mad.

On immigration :

I was travelling from Singapore to Los Angeles via Hong Kong in 1992. The flight was less than half full and I had thought to myself that I could lie down to sleep after Hong Kong. Fat chance. After Hong Kong the flight was so full, there wasn’t any empty seat on the plane. The Hong Kongers lugged on board figurines of deity, ancestral tablets, urns, vases in hand carry paper bags. They were like refugees. I suppose in their minds, they were refugees. Hong Kong was to be returned to China on 1 July 1997 and there were all kinds of speculation as to what will happen to the residents of Hong Kong. Many of them have relatives who had suffered greatly in the mainland and they don’t want that to happen to themselves. There was mass exodus the few years before hand-over.

On my flight, majority of the Hong Kong passengers’ destination was not LA but Vancouver. Because flights flying direct to Vancouver were fully booked for the months ahead, they had no choice but to go through LA. I was eavesdropping. Actually, I wasn’t eavesdropping. They were talking too loudly for me to ignore their conversation.

"I’m sure they can watch TV. However, there is nothing on TV to watch." Funny.

Who knew about the white squirrels?
http://whitesquirrels.com/cart/

Someone mentioned China going to moon. I noted they have an actual goal beyond just messing around; it's to mine helium 3 for fusion power, they have stated.

It's easy to be tempted by imaginings that American astronauts will get to Mars and walk around and stumble upon some sandworms that were somehow missed by the rovers. I would caution that we should compare this goal to what the Chinese are proposing. If we are just going to be idiots we can do that quite well here.

I support robotic missions. Manned missions involving robot repairmen are probably the most likely at present. (Repairpeople?) Regarding deteriorating bone mass, centrifugal "gravity" is the only way to go; resistance training is not good at preserving bone. Better than nothing.

I want Cruithne mission! (stamps feet)

I wanted to post this before I forget. Newspapers have been getting revenue from various Public Postings laws, and here's an article about legislation to stop requiring such printed notices:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003965837

One of the values of the Press that is often overlooked is its role as what I call "certificate." The printed newspaper serves as an archiveable record in its own right. It's a lot harder to counterfeit than electrons and ephemeral websites which are mutable. Which reminds me of a discussion I had with a photographer over the disappearance of various photographic emulsion technology as it is replaced with digital technology: the role a negative or print plays as "document."

'Morning, Boodle. TGIF.

Not a whole lot on the front page or op-ed columns. Under the category of "with friends like this who needs enemies" the Dems are already attacking Obama's budget cuts. Can't wait for the Repubs to weigh in. Krauthammer is going off as usual about Hamas, and Gene Robinson wonders when O will come out for gay marriage.

Alrighty, then. It's time for

***********
Today in Nautical and Aviation History

May 8, 1911: Navy Capt. William I. Chambers, officer in charge of aviation, prepares a requistion for two Curtiss biplanes. Design specs: 45 mph speed, land and water landing capability, and capacity for a pilot and one passenger. The first plane so procured, the Curtiss A-1, becomes the Navy’s first airplane, and May 8 becomes officially recognized as the birth of U.S. Naval aviation.
1942: The first carrier-to-carrier battle in history (there were only four) begins after American and Japanese fleets spend three days searching for each other in the Coral Sea, and then launching nearly simultaneous air strikes. The IJN Shokaku is badly damaged while the USS Lexington (CV 16) is so badly hit she is sunk by U.S. destroyers to prevent her capture. The battle is a tactical draw, but a U.S. strategic success for denying Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, to the Japanese. Had the Japanese taken New Guinea, Australia was next.
********

What's for breakfast? I smell coffee in the Ready Room.

For rangeragainstwar
http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2738

God loves us so much more than we can imagine through Him that died for all, Jesus Christ.

Morning, friends. Perhaps over the weekend I can read the kits. I can hardly check in, so we'll see. Of course, understanding what I read is a different subject altogether.

We have to get ready for school. We were late yesterday morning, don't want to do that two days in a row.

I'm so tired. My dad went to the doctor yesterday, and got new medications. He's going broke trying to pay for meds. He hasn't used the ones he ordered this week, and I don't think we can take them back. He came back with a bag. I hope he swallows them. That's the kicker.

I need coffee. Move over, Mudge. I do hope everyone has a dynamite weekend. Slyness, Martooni, Scotty, and all the gang, good, good, morning. *waving*

We love you too, Yoki. Drew Peterson charged. Will wonders ever cease. Time to start.

G'morning and happy Friday to all.

Blueberry muffins and fresh strawberries await you in the ready room, Mudge. It was time for a break from ham biscuits, good as they are.

We're up and sorta moving. I need to fix breakfast so Mr. T can run and get mulch. Fortunately, there doesn't appear to be any rain in the area.

Rainforest, your story about flying from Hong Kong is interesting. There are lots of Chinese in Vancouver; they've been there for a long time. It's one reason Vancouver is such a cool place. I love that city.

I think we should send an unmanned spacecraft where no unmanned spacecraft has gone before.

Good morning, Boodle!

Launched into low, very low, actually extremely low orbit this morning.

Watching the Boodle's six o'clock: Obama's Afghanopakistani policy and troop increase is receipe for disaster.

I am trying to sell the USAF a wedding reception detector to help them find juicy civilian targets.

Brag

Good morning boodle!

Brag-though it has been classified secret to levels that are secret themselves, experts are pretty sure the USAF already has one of those. The results kind of speak for themselves.

HA!
While facing aft as I zoomed over the Andes, found this:

http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KE08Df02.html

Brag

Just a few quick thoughts.

I firmly believe that unmanned probes, if audacious enough in scope, can fulfill our daily requirement of inspiration and intellectual challenge just as well, if not more, than manned spaceflight.

Also, I am not convinced that the higher goals for manned spaceflight are even well served by the manned space program as currently envisioned.

For us to have any hope of doing anything really impressive with fleshy bits in space, a tremendous amount of scientific advancement has to occur. My fear is that the current strategy doesn't foster development of the fundamentally new technologies required to go further than the moon.

RT, are you suggesting we've never sent an unmanned probe to Mianus?

And first Manny, now this...

http://www.boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/articles/2009/05/08/former_red_sox_great_dom_dimaggio_dies_at_92/

Where have you gone, Dom DiMaggio?
Red Sox Nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
Woo woo woo.

*SIGH*

*off-to-what-could-be-an-extended-meeting-but-it's-still-TGIF Grover waves* :-)

Good morning y'all. Twittering robots in space, rangerAw - I like it. Oh - I really meant that hockey/space integration for capsfan but am impressed by your embrace of it.

Brag, is it winter there yet? Better order those Boodle-knitted goods now.

Here's a random technical problem, possibly solvable through spin-off NASA technology: Since the Great Boodle Reformat, sometimes I can copy and paste the links and sometimes I can't. It appears to be purely random, as if at the whim of the Gods of WaPo Internet.

Scotty, it's alway available for exploration.

A little magic for your Friday fun
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/17-05/ff_neuroscienceofmagic?currentPage=all

Off to a long day, but Mr. F arrives this afternoon to help out with our annual robotics fund raiser tomorrow. Pancakes with real maple syrup anyone?

The US grew from more than just a seed and grow strategy.

My understanding of immigration to the US is that it came in waves from different regions at different times based on the economic and political climate of the source countries. At points in US history over half of all residents were foreign born. And children born in the US are kids that aren't born in the country of origin, thus taking away from the population growth of those countries.

At various times, emigration from Italy, Ireland, and Eastern Europe was significant enough to empty and depopulate individual villages. But lots of people know way more about it than I do.

http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/history/migration/chapter52.html

People keep forgetting that I found Mianus.

http://livebythefoma.blogspot.com/2008/07/visit-to-mianus.html

It was right where I thought it should be.

It's here. Right here. Highly probably cases of swine flu.

In the school district in our area--San Antonio's Northside Independent School District. The schools named in the article from our local NBC affiliate--not our local paper this morning--are all around us.

http://www.woai.com/content/health/story/Highly-probable-cases-of-swine-flu-found-in/t5CJkO9-hU-KroAbqEd-5Q.cspx

SAN ANTONIO – Northside ISD officials say the health department has found five “highly probable” cases of swine flue (H1N1). The students range in age from 4 to 11 and attend Blattman, Cable, Esparza, Howsman, and Knowlton Elementary Schools

LL: The public was informed yesterday by the tardy CDC about the underlying medical conditions of the toddler from Mexico who died in Houston from swine flu and the pregnant schoolteacher mother from Harlingen, Texas. In her case, we don't know how severe Judy Trunnell's asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, and psoriasis were.

Gee, I had astham-like problems when the mulch fire raged for weeks and have had eczema on and off for decades. My sister has rheumatoid arthritis, the gene certainly from our maternal grandmother.

And to the AP reporter who did the story, including others with chronic underlying medical conditions who came down with swine flu but didn't die: Is Down Syndrome a chronic medical condition or a genetic disorder that can cause some medical problems?:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gD1ZJvhHO6wfvF42FQf6V4E9eISgD981MJA02

No, we haven't forgotten, yello, since you keep reminding us. You would think that after the word is used one or twice the word's novelty and entertainment value would be over, kaput, finished. By now, the word is code, and I think we all know what the code means...

The NYT last night had some great, fresh reporting by Donald McNeil about the origins of swine flu:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/health/08flu.html?_r=1&hpw

Grafs from McNeil's reporting:

Scientists on Thursday described 11 cases of Americans who were infected before the current outbreak with swine flus that partly matched the new epidemic strain that emerged in Mexico in March. The first case was in December 2005.

In articles published online in The New England Journal of Medicine, virologists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention described those cases, most of them in young people in the Midwest who touched or were near pigs. All had a “triple reassortant” virus that combined human, swine and avian flu genes.

The H1N1 flu now spreading out from Mexico [Would it also be appropriate to include California with Mexico?] also has those genes, as well as genes from Eurasian swine.

Good morning, Boodle. Good morning, Cassandra dear. I'm sending you energy thoughts to help you keep up with the g-girl.

Off to prepare for my big meeting of today, and then it will be time to play with my friends.

Have a lovely Friday, Al.

Good morning, Boodle. Good morning, Cassandra dear. I'm sending you energy thoughts to help you keep up with the g-girl.

Off to prepare for my big meeting of today, and then it will be time to play with my friends.

Have a lovely Friday, Al.

Good morning, all.

As far as discontinuing American manned space flight goes, I liken it to parenthood:

I'd waited until everything was perfect, I'd never have had children.

And I'd add this - all the remote cameras and probes and recorders are wonderful, and the data they gather are precious and thought-provoking.

But it's not the same as Being There.

I have not forgotten the feeling I had as a boy -- of looking at the Moon and knowing there were people there, however briefly.

Call me Old-Fashioned, but the idea of the Human Virtual Experience doesn't cut it for me. I think life is to be lived, to be exerienced, and if need be, *given* pursuing it.

As much as I love language and reading and images and data, it can not completely capture what it's like to stand on the summit of a mountain and look out at the vista or to hold your child for the first time; to experience anything for the first time.

Perhaps that will change, but it hasn't yet.

bc

Slyness, thanks for the Klingon linguistics link. I enjoyed reading it, and I know the author! (in a professional acquaintanceship way, nothing particularly close.)

Jumper, I didn't know about the white squirrels in Brevard, but I've seen them in Austin:

http://www.albinosquirrel.com/texas/

I wonder if they're the same? People in Austin called them albino, but I'm pretty sure they're just white, or even a much paler than normal gray.

This week, Science has a special issue on "Plant-Microbe Interaction". Here's the first paragraph from the introduction (by Pamela Hines and Laura Zahn):

"Plants, like other organisms, including animals, live immersed in a thriving community of microbes. The diversity of fungi, oomycetes, and bacteria with which plants interact brings both plague and benefit. The more we understand how plants tame, thwart, and succumb to their bugs, the more likely we will be able to extract new resources for antimicrobial treatments and manage agricultural challenges (Editorial, p. 691)..."

I note that, oomycetes, which used to be "fungi", aren't anymore.
_______________

Science's news story on the 2009 flu virus includes some interesting ideas from Ruben Donis, "head of CDC's chief of the molecular virology and vaccines branch". A pie chart of H1N1 genes and their origins shows 17.5% from Eurasian swine virus.

Donis is from Argentina. He noted that Buenos Aires is entering its winter flu season.

Looks like Joel's been doing a good job with the flu.

OK, enough's enough. Does anybody here know enough about *&%^%$#@&^ Internet Explorer to explain to me why the normal refresh button up top (next to the house icon) does NOT actually refresh anything, but that only hitting Ctrl-5 does? What's that all about?

Bia, the eyes look pinkish. I'd assume they're actually cream-redhead squirrels (not all albinism is 100%).

Their fur reminds me of the ghost bears on Princess Royal island (Canada), who were identified at last to be a sort of genetic redhead, they'd "tan" reddish in the summer.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/ghostbear/html/save.html

Sorry, Mudge. My refresh button works fine - I just can't cut & paste links.

Except when I can.

Perhaps it is a subtle reminder not to rely too heavily on technology for anything, including exploration. Which leads me to wonder, with all this talk of manned space exploration, what happened to manned undersea exploration? Where's Jules Verne? What about people down in those deep volcanic trenches?

Or perhaps the whimsical and variable reliability of our computers' buttons and bows is some sort of secret Internet-inspired code, shared among our computers. They may know more than we think.

They're laughing at us.

I always suspected as much.

Sorry. I just picture our computers, gathering virtually at a no-humans bar in some obscure corner of the Net. They settle in with their beers.

"Hey, guess what I did today! He's been using that "refresh" button so much, I got tired of it and made him use the F- key! Boy, you shoulda seen his face!"

"Well, mine's always opening new pages. Cut and paste, cut and paste all the time - and then she only reads a little bit and boom! she's done. I fixed that. No more cut and paste for her."

"I got you beat. Today for no reason at all I quit accepting email. Just didn't feel like it. I'll give it a day or two then start taking a few at a time."

I see a lot of concern raised over the vast wealth spent on NASA, compared to our needs for solving problems here on Earth like global warming (set aside the fact that NASA launches most of the Earth-observing spacecraft that contribute to our understanding, as well as building a good fraction of the most important satellites and instruments for this purpose, plus the fact that we learn a lot of our fundamental atmospheric physics from studying the atmosphere of other planets). How does the NASA budget stack up?

FY2010 Budget requests:
Agriculture: $25.7B
Commerce: $13.8B
Defense: $533.8B
Education: $46.7B
Energy: $26.4B
HHS: $78.4B
Homeland Security: $52.2B
HUD: $43.7B
Interior: $12.0B
Justice: $24.0B
Labor: $13.3B
State: $53.9B
DoT: $73.3B
Treasury: $13.4B
VA: $112.8B

Total: $1123.4B

Out of this total, the FY2010 NASA budget request is $18.9B, 1.7% of the total budget. Out of every dollar of your taxes, less than 2 cents go to an agency that is an investment in our understanding of the Earth and the universe and seeking the future of humanity. Whether that strikes you as a large investment is up to you.

New blogging heads tv kit!

Science has a great little essay, "Astronomy:
A Reprieve—and Risk" by Andrew Lawler, on the upcoming Hubble maintenance mission. The final paragraph gets into humans playing "an important role in future robotic missions".

Ivansmom, that explanation makes perfect sense to me! I can imagine what the netbook has to say about me: "Good LORD, she types slow! And what's with her inability to get the spacebar to work? It's not like it's difficult! Sheesh!"

Not quite finished with spreading mulch. The rain I could have dealt with. Lightning, not so much. When this band of showers moves through, we'll go back out. Mr. T works from above, throwing shovels full down. I stand on the crosstie wall below and direct the mulch to the best spots. My frontside is covered.

Wondering how the reversion back to actually hiring people to work at DoD rather than hiring cost plus consultants will have on the budget.

By the way, the reality of our current situation is being highlighted... 10 year T-bill interest rates are moving higher as they head to the mid-threes.

Petroleum is more than inching back up on the futures market. There seems to be a realization that money should no longer go to the big banks and back into the pockets of the ultra-wealthy, but to the people.

Stimulus money needs to reach those in need and those who can start or retain employment for those in need.

At the same time, let the bankers who sold out their regional banks to the national units, take their money and save their stock value by buying back their units and return them to regional servant status.

As I mentioned last year, I think the only way out of this will be through a round of inflation that will return many of the loans on personal assets such as property to a positive status from upside down or valueless.

A classic cycle will take place where the economic impact of the inflation will be hardest on the poor and those relying on fixed incomes.

Ahh, the use of language...

Heard the following on CNN while I was working around the house, but the story's on the web, too.

Let's see, swine flu first erupted in two California counties along the Mexican border and the first cluster case in Texas occurred in neighboring Schertz, but the CDC is just now getting around to offering information--in Spanish--about swine flu, via a town hall. There must be a great, appropriate dicho that expresses how doofus the questionable leadership of the CDC is.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/05/white-house-to-host-spanishlanguage-town-hall-.html

The Obama administration will host a Spanish-language town hall meeting at 9:15 a.m. PDT Friday on the H1N1 flu outbreak, unofficially known as swine flu.

Univision anchor Edna Schmidt will moderate the meeting, which will be webcast live on www.whitehouse.gov.

Parts will be aired on Univision's nightly news and on the Sunday "Al Punto" show.

During the program, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and experts from the Department of Homeland Security will talk about the virus and the government's efforts to control its impact.

LL: The Mexican government is just getting around to giving its citizens who speak information about swine flu:

AP: Officials also wanted to make sure parents, many of whom speak Tzotzil and not Spanish, were informed about swine flu and ways to deter it.

From the same reporting by AP:

Mexico's government, which raised the death toll to 44, said it was not letting its guard down and that all returning students would be checked for swine flu. It gave an additional $15 million to Mexico's 32 state governments to buy whatever is needed to disinfect classrooms and provided educators with a guide on ways to protect schools from the virus.

But at a public high school in the southern city of Oaxaca, an Associated Press reporter did not see any returning students wearing masks, and no doctors or health officials checked people at the door or distributed sanitizing gel.

Orange plastic desk chairs remained covered with grime. Classrooms were packed with as many as 50 students.

"They say they washed the floors with soap and water, but you can't tell, the classrooms smell bad," said Sandra Hurtado, a freshman.

I can imagine this one computer north of here saying...

I heard my boss singing out in the halls and rotunda today. Christmas carols and songs. Imagine that. Voice was O.K.

We know that we serve her by accepting all sorts of her input of legalese. We know she's studied constitutional law, graduated with a law degree (though she doesn't tell anyone here it's Harvard, but she lets the fact loose via the Internet).

Do you think she concentrated on that part of the U.S. Constitution about the separation of church and state? Do you think she used us to reach the internal server where she could apply for a permit to perform CHRISTMAS songs in the Capitol? Nope, bypassed the law and the keyboard completely.

Ohh, the abuse of "the system" we could report if only we could talk like humans! And you should hear what the other personal computers in federal offices in Washington, D.C. are saying, what they're telling us!

Today's dicho:

La experiencia es la mama de la ciencia.

Translation:

Experience is the mama of science:

Of course, I still like the one that California's Dolores Huerta used in San Antonio, referring to Obama:

Al nopal solo lo van a ver cuando hat tunas.

Translation:

You only visit the cactus when it's bearing fruit.

Loomis, do you ever freak yourself out?

Let me drop ship a roll of tin foil to you.

AND, I didn't know that Harvard was such a bad place. I guess I should take all the Harvard stuff down 'round the house.

Ivansmom--Summer is definetely over. Weather been good, misty, cold mornings sunny approaching noon and warm afternoons. Temperature plunges after sunset. I say we are ten days into cheating and shortening winter.

Good afternoon to the Boodle!

rainforest: Excellent observation that after 10 days quarantine in hospital watching t.v. it'd be time for the head docs.

Mudge: May I recommend Firefox over IE? It has cleared up many problems for me. I enjoyed your history moment -- do you happen to be AF or Navy?

DNA_girl: perfect cartoon

Braguine: Thanks for the Asia Times on the re-branding of the Long War (what we call the "PWOT" -- Phony War on Terror.) We'd actually just mentioned that phenomenon recently.

Yep, New Kit!

:-)

Space travel is more about discovery than migration. Having people on different planets and in space will be a means to control events and take charge of resources. If we want to control populations, there are other means that work. But robots do not compete with human presence, the add to it and support it. When we have the technology, we will be ready to send a person. Until then, a robot will map the way.