I got interested again in space exploration and development way back in 1977 when I read a book by physicist Gerard K. O'Neill titled The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space. That book laid out a case for building large rotating space stations -- called space colonies -- that could be as large as 5 miles long and 2 miles in diameter. By rotating them, it would feel -- roughly -- like Earth normal gravity inside. With a properly created biosphere inside, it would seem like living on Earth. What would the people in these colonies do to benefit people on Earth? One big idea was building space based solar power stations that would power the Earth cleanly and cheaply.
As the years progressed, I learned that such things, if possible, are far in the future. One group I joined was the L5 Society. Back in the early 1980s a common saying was "L5 by '95." We were young and very optimistic. I now sometimes say "L5 by '95 -- 2495." Since the 1980s we have learned we have much to learn about creating independent biospheres. Some of the Mars crowd is working on that. I think that is a good thing -- but it will take a long time.
Could people on Mars -- assuming they could get there -- do anything to benefit people on Earth as much as this? I and others doubt it -- at least in the near term future. Terraform Mars? Please.
All Dressed Up For Mars and Nowhere To Go by Elmo Keep goes into the problems with sending humans to Mars in far more detail than I can do in a short Slashdot post.
This has been known for years. Women in Aerospace held a forum on this topic on an easy to remember date -- September 10, 2007. Before I walked in to the event, I knew that when TSA tested its own "security" by trying to smuggle guns through, the guns got through over 90% of the time. That day I also learned about a college student who had smuggled high explosives onto planes just to show he could. The people there that day were furious at this farce.
Some Women in Aerospace members have significant political connections. How the farce of the TSA has survived this long I do not know.
I have worked in IT for most of my adult life. Before getting into IT though, I actually worked as a physicist and did grad work first in physics and then, believe it or not, in social psychology. That, plus a few art hobbies (think photography and writing), managed to get me into the people side of IT in particular and science and tech in general.
Back in 2006 I became a leader of a committee in the Governor's Workforce Investment Board in Maryland. I and my team learned a great deal about problems in aerospace in particular and tech fields in general. I have stored the written documents of my committee on my blog. My page Aerospace Initiative Home Page is a useful introduction to my committee's work. That page has links to my committee's work. There is a great deal there.
I also wrote a much briefer public policy paper Aerospace Workforce Issues that is a quick summary of what I and my team discovered.
Very briefly, poor, sometimes abusive management and poor work life balance is causing young people to stay away from tech fields in general. Worker abuse also causes projects to fail. Exhausted workers do not perform well. People here might try reading Stanley Coren's Sleep Thieves to learn more about this. Demarco and Lister in Peopleware bring this up as well.
I woke up this morning thinking about my wonderful mother who passed away on Friday, February 27, 2009.
Now I learn that Leonard Nimoy has passed away. My family helped me grow up in so many ways. Leonard NImoy and Star Trek also had a significant positive influence.
I can't think of anything more to say other than I miss Leonard Nimoy as much as I can -- which is quite a bit.
Nearly a century ago in the United States we tried the full scale prohibition of alcohol. It was a disaster that in some ways is still harming the country.
We have been trying a War on Drugs for some decades now. It was via Slashdot that I learned that back in the 1990s the politically and socially conservative National Review had come out against the War on Drugs, describing it as a failure that was harming the country.
Oh -- I don't smoke. I never have. I have even seen the harm heavy smoking can do to people. My wonderful Uncle John died from a heart attack at 65. What would I do though? Try to help the people like Uncle John with their problems rather than engage in another disaster like Prohibition of Alcohol or The War on Drugs.
There is much truth in what you write. I got involved in this crowd back in the 1970s after reading Gerard K. O'Neill's The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space. It was a thought provoking, impressive book. My involvement, though, was moderate and independent. While, at the beginning of my interest, I wanted to get to L5 by 95, I eventually realized that it would not be L5 by 1995 but more like L5 by 2495. O'Neill made significant proposals that appealed to me. Instead of adventure trips to the Moon or Mars, he -- and others -- proposed doing things like building space based solar power satellites to benefit humans on Earth. They are still in the future, but could come about in the future. There are many problems to solve, though.
Sending people to Mars? Let's see. Mars does not have a geomagnetic sphere to protect it from solar outbursts. People will die if they are on the surface when one of those things happens Martian atmosphere is very thin. At ground level atmospheric pressure is only 1% of Earth. That is not nearly enough. Martian gravity is less than half of Earth's. Is that enough? We shall have to experiment.
There is one place on Earth that explorers have explored since we have had written records -- Antarctica. It wasn't even discovered until 1820. The first expedition to Antarctica was the Scott expedition a century ago. We started building bases there after World War 2. Quite a few humans have now lived there -- at least for a short time. Same gravity, same atmosphere, same geomagnetic sphere. Just much colder.
The optimist in me thinks we humans will, eventually, live and work in places other than Earth. It is going to take a good bit of learning, though.
I must step in here and make a few comments because I am both a tech person and an artist. How did that happen? When I was graduating from Rutgers with a degree in physics, my parents gave me a nice 35 mm camera outfit. A decade later the Princeton Ballet was paying me for my ballet photos. Photography has always been an important hobby of mine. It has also helped me in important ways at work. It has helped me to develop an artistic side that communicates better than too many tech people. It also helps me to understand society -- both the larger one and the tech one -- better than most.
Let me point people to my Flickr site where I am known as Chuck Divine. There are over 40,000 images there. My Science Fiction Art has gotten me attention in Washington, DC art circles.
I eventually got into IT, partly because I was good at it, partly because I liked doing it and partly because I could make a decent living at it. My career has taken me to all sorts of places -- including NASA. At NASA where I saw some good people doing good work -- and some screwing up so badly that it caused major accidents like that which happened to the Space Shuttle Columbia. Do check out the report of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. It is a well done analysis of a tech organization that needs significant reform.
I have also gotten involved in the STEM problem. Some of us are calling it the STEAM problem. The A stands for the Arts. It seems that scientists and engineers with an artistic side are more productive in their tech field than people without that side. They also work better with other people, tech and not tech. Some years ago I wrote a public policy paper titled Aerospace Workforce Issues that gets into this topic in some depth.
Let me finish by telling people here that people who know me describe me as bright, friendly and a bit shy and quiet -- most of the time.
That's more than enough for now. I hope I have been able to get some tech people to consider opening their minds a bit.
Some people have been listening to Da Vinci for centuries.
How's that? Da Vinci was a brilliant man who left us not only some wonderful paintings but also a wealth of writings. To listen to the real Da Vinci, all you need to do is look at his art or read his writings -- carefully, with understanding, of course.
Hearing some lab's claimed reproduction of his physical voice really doesn't help us to understand the man or his thoughts.
One can easily argue our national priorities are considerably out of whack. Easterbrook argues there are better places to spend the money than the projects which have been proposed. He might be right. But it's easy to argue that the proposed projects do have value.
A moon base might not help Mars exploration. But a moon base can begin the process of using lunar resources to support both exploration and human needs on earth. There's more to space than scientific exploration.
The James Webb Space Telescope might focus on the distant universe and questions of esoteric value. Planet finding, on the other hand, will have little real impact on humanity as well, at least in the near future. Both projects do have worth, however.
Of greater interest to me is comparing NASA funding to other things our society does. Back in October the Washington Post proposed canceling Bush's Vision for Space Exploration, and cited the need for health care for poor children as a worthier alternative. What few people recognize is that health care spending in the U.S. is 100 times the NASA budget. Health care spending is also increasing annually at multiples of the NASA budget. If poor children aren't getting decent health care, that's the fault of the health care industry, not NASA.
NASA, while far from perfect, does appear to be struggling to improve and is making some progress towards that end. It would be nice if other American activities -- for example education -- showed the same kind of work at improvement.
Business men claim that there is a lack of engineering talent grown here in the U.S. What they really mean is that there is a lack of U.S. engineers who are willing to work 60 hours a week for coolie wages - which is why they hire foreign engineers, programmers etc.
Too true. Some businessmen realize that these kind of conditions drive off talented people. Some do not. The ones who do not are the ones doing real harm to technical fields and the country in general.
Veteran also wrote:
Technical people get very little respect in the U.S. Last week's Battlestar Galactica - where an engineering officer was promoted to command showed the way that the "people people" view technical people: "they only know how to deal with machines", "its all about the people - don't forget that" Of course "people people" are not technical people for the very simple reason that they can't be. The technical people who go into management tend to be technical incompetents who couldn't cut it where they were.
While there is some truth in this statement, I didn't see the same episode in the same way. People tell me I have both technical and people skills. Yes, today that's not as common as I (and others) think it should be.
I viewed the Pegasus commander not as someone with high technical skills and poor people skills but more as some addicted to tight control of people and completely inflexible. That's a recipe for disaster in a leader. He didn't listen to people. He wanted everyone held to his beliefs. He thought even nontechnical people would perform better if they were held to rigid codes of conduct.
For a real world example of what I'm talking about, I suggest a rereading (or initial reading if you haven't already done so) of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report. That report severely criticizes NASA for not listening to staff. Listening is a people skill, not a technical skill. I've heard current NASA Adminstrator Griffin expound on the need for people in his organization to listen. He did this is a public forum, by the way. I don't know what happens behind the scenes.
Interestingly enough, some of the best technical people I know also demonstrate a people side. You'd be surprised, for example, how many of us dabble in some sort of art (writing, acting, photography, etc.) as a hobby.
Thanks for the tip. It was the first time something like that had happened to me. It never even occurred to me to balk. What's a bit weird is that I do have a definitive rebellious streak.
I'll start with a personal story. I tend to take a long time to purchase an automobile. In 1998, for example, I decided it was time to buy a new car. The automobile I owned was 7 years old and starting to show problems. I began by doing some reading. GM gave me the opportunity to briefly test drive a number of models at one time. After doing that, I reviewed automotive literature (e.g., Car and Driver) about what was available and what the staff thought of various automobiles. I was beginning to be inclined to a moderately economical sports model. C&D said nice things about the Camaro. Months passed. I read some more. Looked at a Toyota and a Honda. They were a bit more than I wanted to spend. Finally, a local dealer was running a sale. I showed up and found out I could get an even bigger discount because my company was a nonautomotive GM subsidiary. I wound up with a new Camaro at a great price. Over the next five years my mechanic told me the car, with proper maintenance, would last 200K miles. I was a bit surprised at that. Anyway, the automobile was more than satisfactory.
Then in 2004 I was rear ended -- badly by a truck. The car was declared a total loss. Since I hadn't even been thinking of buying a new vehicle, I was thrown for a loop. The other guy's insurance company gave me three days to get a replacement vehicle. I asked friends what to do. They advised me to buy a second hand Camaro from a reputable dealer. That's what I did. I'm still happy with the replacement. Still, though, I think I would be happier if the insurance company had given me more time to think about what I would do. I could see myself going with a new Toyota or Honda, rather than an identical vehicle. Since I wasn't given the time, though, I simply repeated my decision of five years earlier.
People in my area (Washington, DC) are stressed out from too much to do and too little sleep. I see people making all sorts of decisions that are at best unwise, at worst destructive. Sleeping on a decision, taking the "luxury" of time, both conscious and unconscious, would, I think, improve the quality of decision making around here. Some of us do manage to do that. I can see better results by doing that rather than the mode where people are always "on." 24/7 looks like folly, not dedication.
I lost track of the fine films that didn't make the list.
In the space/SF genre alone they picked "Star Wars" over "2001: A Space Odyssey"? Star Wars was fun -- but it wasn't any 2001.
Charade was good -- but top 100? Once Upon A Time In the West? Ditto.
The Purple Rose of Cairo? Please.
I'd have to go back and remember films that really touched me. That would take entirely too long for this message. Suffice it to say I'm not impressed with their list.
When Europeans moved to North America, they did solve some real problems. Granted, we still have problems, but they are different than the ones Europeans had circa 1000 A.D. It's a fairly trivial exercise to show things are much better now.
OK, what can moving into space do for humanity? First, there is the not putting all our eggs in one basket factor. Secondly, we can try new things. Some of our experiments will succeed; some will fail. Successful experiments can be emulated. Our failures can teach us what not to do.
Starting back in the 17th century, the part of North America governed by first England and now the United States and Canada tried doing some new things with regard to government and society. These experiments proved so successful that parent societies in Europe adopted many of the new ideas first tried in North America.
We haven't acheived any sort of utopia, but we have made significant progress.
It's probably true that Trek fans are more intelligent than sports fans.
Lest the nerds on/. get too arrogant, though, I think I should point out that this is likely because sports fans comprise a much larger demographic. Interest in Trek (and SF, for that matter) is characteristic of people of above normal intelligence only. There are plenty of intelligent sports fans. It's just that there are plenty of sports fans of normal intelligence as well. That's not nearly as likely with regard to Trek.
First off, let me say that I'm an astrophysicist. I value "good astrophysics data" more than anyone else. I think Hubble should remain in a functional state, at least until a replacement (with detectors in more than just a couple frequency ranges) can be put into space. I also believe that going to the Moon right now is a waste of time and money.
I'm going to make a brief comment here.
Going back to the Moon will have some research value. To say we've exhausted what we can learn about the Moon is simply not true. Is it the best place to put our research bucks now? Probably not. Other areas would probably yield more bang for the buck.
Will going back to the Moon excite the public about space exploration? Again, not as much as the new Cassini mission or a search for life on Mars.
But the value of returning to the Moon is not in research. It's much more in building space infrastructure. Today what we can do in space is limited quite severely to what we can launch from Earth. If we return to the Moon, we can perhaps start using space resources. That will greatly expand what we can do in space. To do much in space, sooner or later we're going to have to start using what we find out there, rather than just using what we can haul up from Earth.
Why don't I favor going straight to Mars? To get to Mars with anything approaching present day technology requires very long travel times. When things go wrong (and they will go wrong) it's a long way to go for help.
In the early years of the settlement of the Americas by Europeans, quite a bit went wrong. Whole colonies were wiped out. It took a long time to get to the point where we are today. And that effort was made in a physical environment not fundamentally different from the environment the Europeans left behind.
Space is very different from Earth. Mars is very different from Earth. I want our mistakes to be made in ways that will allow us to recover from them and learn from them much more quickly. That means returning to the Moon -- and staying.
There's another value to this work. The public can get excited about research. But they are more likely to support work that holds out the possibility of real material benefit to them.
If 400-500 years ago Europeans had only sent explorers to the western hemisphere, do you think support would have continued for very long? Exploration is only one valuable human endeavor. There are many more things that humans do that have equal or greater value.
Support space research -- but don't stop there. Support space exploitation as well. You'll wind up with far more research than we can currently support.
I will, perhaps foolishly, jump in with two real book recommendations.
The shorter of the two is Stanley Coren's "Sleep Thieves." It goes quite heavily into the various consequences of sleep deprivation. It's quite scary.
The longer of the two -- and probably more informative on the biology of sleep -- is William Dement's "The Promise of Sleep." Dement is viewed by many as the leading sleep researcher in the United States.
It will take you much longer to read this books than take the linked for test, but you'll be much better informed. You might even be able to marshall substantial arguments against a PHB's death march.
Both books also have tests to take to find out how sleep deprived you are. There are also recommendations for treating this condition.
Both are available from your favorite book seller.
I'm on record for saying that working 100, 80, even 60 hours per week regularly is dysfunctional and counterproductive. There are other management fads that are likewise dysfunctional and counterproductive.
To what extent is outsourcing being driven by staff resistance to management demands? What kinds of demands are being resisted?
This question can be put to both the pro and anti sides.
Been Running A Very Long Time
on
Running for Geeks
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I got into running into 1974 for health reasons. I was 28 and wanted to lose a few pounds around my middle.
It worked like a charm. In less than two years I went from a very flabby 155 to a very trim 139. I later on went up into the 140s. Yes, my build is very thin. Most men should not try to get down to my weight unless they're much shorter than I (still about 5'10").
You don't need to be a marathoner to get real benefits from running. In fact some people claim that running a marathon can actually be bad for your health. I finished the DC area Marine Corps Marathon in 1996 -- and wound up sick in bed with the flu a little over a week later. But running 36 miles/week (6 days of running 6 miles a day) can be very good for you.
I will give some suggestions:
First, get a good physical exam before you start.
Buy two pair of good shoes and alternate each day. Retire shoes when each pair hits 500 miles.
Do some weight training. I have to work on keeping my upper body strength up.
Eat properly. Go easy on the junk food. Yes, I still eat some, but it seems I eat a good deal less than most people.
Get enough sleep. At least 6 to 8 hours per night. Both your mind and body will thank you.
Try swimming -- if you're body breaks down, swimming can replace running. I spent 40 minutes in the pool this morning because the weather here is lousy.
You may not like running after giving it a try. It may also be bad for your joints. If this happens, quit running -- but try something else. I might have to quit running when I'm 85 -- but I'll still be able to swim.
When I started running all those portable techie toys weren't available. How did I cope with the boredom? Well, to be honest about, sexual fantasies really helped. Just thinking about the woman I was dating at the time certainly helped pass the time. Other kinds of thinking also help pass the time.
You might try joining a running club. Some of them are pretty good. They help provide friends with the same interest -- and companionship for long runs.
This looks very interesting. He's the head of a real company that's still fairly small. Small companies, being much less bureaucratic, are friendlier environments for creative work and pioneering investigations.
Olsen looks like a remarkably intelligent man with a good background in the kinds of science he will be exploring up on ISS. He's also led the development of products that the real world wants and needs.
The space business needs more Olsens. Today there are entirely too many bureaucrats with no vision and no ability to connect with the larger world.
The real point of the Bush policy changes is to promote reform at NASA. Terminate the shuttle program -- and redirect resources to achieving lower costs to orbit. Terminate ISS -- it's not turning out to be a real benefit for science or much of anything else.
I can easily support a manned mission to Mars. But it must be part of a space effort that is more broad based than the current work is. To achieve that, we're going to have change the way we do things. The spectacular project that sometimes succeeds, sometimes doesn't, offers little hope for this style of action.
NASA's predecessor, NACA, helped make revolutionary progress in aeronautics by sticking to technology development and working with nascent aeronautical companies to develop real airplanes that could be used for a wide range of activities by a wide range of organizations. We need the same kind of work from NASA.
Within the U.S. one sees work frequently organized along lines of authoritarian hierarchies. You can see this in academia, in government and major corporations. There seems to be a trend to doing more things this way in the U.S.
This type of organization also seems more likely to result in problems in the U.S. Good people are more likely to leave a work place where they're expected to obey PHBs. Problems can be surpressed in such environments.
Whether this will continue well into the future is open to debate -- the very presence of more individualistic people in the U.S. could act to change this trend. It has in the past.
Do check out the Columbia Accident Investigation Board report at http://www.caib.us/. Or, after February 1st, go to the main NASA site and look for the links to the CAIB report.
My mother is 88 years old. You would not believe some of the scams that target the elderly. The ones I've seen are, surprisingly enough, quite legal. For example, selling reports on lotteries you may have won or soliciting for charities that keep practically all the money for themselves.
Some of the elderly do have difficulty distinguishing between reality and fantasy. Most do not. For those who do it's partly it's because of problems that happen to people who grow quite old -- and sometimes it's due to having grown up and aged in an era in which normal people were not targeted by frauds.
If the man in this story was, say 43 or 53, I'd be much harsher. But, by 73, he could be suffering from some problems that limit his ability to understand reality.
What should be done? Damned if I know for sure. But I think younger relatives should keep a close eye on their elders. That way you can limit the damage done to Mom or Granddad by this kind of scum.
For instance, the Wright brothers' flight was not the first heavier than air craft to fly. That record belongs to a small experimental glider near the beginning of the 19th -- not 20th -- century. The first manned heavier than air vehicle? What today we would call a hang glider was flown in 1870.
The Wright brothers' claim to fame is as the first repeatable, controlled, powered heavier than air flight. All that is important. Earlier efforts contributed to their accomplishment, but were essentially only experiments in learning the basics of flying.
The Wright brothers also eventually publicized their work. Pearse seems, according to the reports, a bit of an eccentric who didn't call much attention to his work. That's important too. A discovery you don't tell the world about is only half done. Others must know about your work and be able to replicate it.
We now know that Viking journeys to North America preceded Columbus' voyage by some centuries. But, again, they didn't follow up their voyages or make them known to the world at large. We also suspect some fishermen made it to North America years before Columbus. But, again, they didn't tell the world.
Repeatability and disclosure are vitally important parts of discovery. One wonders what poeple 5000 years from now will say about our time. They might remember the Chinese (or New Zealanders perhaps) as the real fathers of space travel -- and make a brief footnote for the academics about a certain event in 1969.
Slashdot Mirror
I got interested again in space exploration and development way back in 1977 when I read a book by physicist Gerard K. O'Neill titled The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space. That book laid out a case for building large rotating space stations -- called space colonies -- that could be as large as 5 miles long and 2 miles in diameter. By rotating them, it would feel -- roughly -- like Earth normal gravity inside. With a properly created biosphere inside, it would seem like living on Earth. What would the people in these colonies do to benefit people on Earth? One big idea was building space based solar power stations that would power the Earth cleanly and cheaply.
As the years progressed, I learned that such things, if possible, are far in the future. One group I joined was the L5 Society. Back in the early 1980s a common saying was "L5 by '95." We were young and very optimistic. I now sometimes say "L5 by '95 -- 2495." Since the 1980s we have learned we have much to learn about creating independent biospheres. Some of the Mars crowd is working on that. I think that is a good thing -- but it will take a long time.
Could people on Mars -- assuming they could get there -- do anything to benefit people on Earth as much as this? I and others doubt it -- at least in the near term future. Terraform Mars? Please.
All Dressed Up For Mars and Nowhere To Go by Elmo Keep goes into the problems with sending humans to Mars in far more detail than I can do in a short Slashdot post.
This has been known for years. Women in Aerospace held a forum on this topic on an easy to remember date -- September 10, 2007. Before I walked in to the event, I knew that when TSA tested its own "security" by trying to smuggle guns through, the guns got through over 90% of the time. That day I also learned about a college student who had smuggled high explosives onto planes just to show he could. The people there that day were furious at this farce.
Some Women in Aerospace members have significant political connections. How the farce of the TSA has survived this long I do not know.
All,
I have worked in IT for most of my adult life. Before getting into IT though, I actually worked as a physicist and did grad work first in physics and then, believe it or not, in social psychology. That, plus a few art hobbies (think photography and writing), managed to get me into the people side of IT in particular and science and tech in general.
Back in 2006 I became a leader of a committee in the Governor's Workforce Investment Board in Maryland. I and my team learned a great deal about problems in aerospace in particular and tech fields in general. I have stored the written documents of my committee on my blog. My page Aerospace Initiative Home Page is a useful introduction to my committee's work. That page has links to my committee's work. There is a great deal there.
I also wrote a much briefer public policy paper Aerospace Workforce Issues that is a quick summary of what I and my team discovered.
Very briefly, poor, sometimes abusive management and poor work life balance is causing young people to stay away from tech fields in general. Worker abuse also causes projects to fail. Exhausted workers do not perform well. People here might try reading Stanley Coren's Sleep Thieves to learn more about this. Demarco and Lister in Peopleware bring this up as well.
Enough -- probably way too much -- for now.
I woke up this morning thinking about my wonderful mother who passed away on Friday, February 27, 2009.
Now I learn that Leonard Nimoy has passed away. My family helped me grow up in so many ways. Leonard NImoy and Star Trek also had a significant positive influence.
I can't think of anything more to say other than I miss Leonard Nimoy as much as I can -- which is quite a bit.
Nearly a century ago in the United States we tried the full scale prohibition of alcohol. It was a disaster that in some ways is still harming the country.
We have been trying a War on Drugs for some decades now. It was via Slashdot that I learned that back in the 1990s the politically and socially conservative National Review had come out against the War on Drugs, describing it as a failure that was harming the country.
Oh -- I don't smoke. I never have. I have even seen the harm heavy smoking can do to people. My wonderful Uncle John died from a heart attack at 65. What would I do though? Try to help the people like Uncle John with their problems rather than engage in another disaster like Prohibition of Alcohol or The War on Drugs.
Anonymous Coward,
There is much truth in what you write. I got involved in this crowd back in the 1970s after reading Gerard K. O'Neill's The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space. It was a thought provoking, impressive book. My involvement, though, was moderate and independent. While, at the beginning of my interest, I wanted to get to L5 by 95, I eventually realized that it would not be L5 by 1995 but more like L5 by 2495. O'Neill made significant proposals that appealed to me. Instead of adventure trips to the Moon or Mars, he -- and others -- proposed doing things like building space based solar power satellites to benefit humans on Earth. They are still in the future, but could come about in the future. There are many problems to solve, though.
Sending people to Mars? Let's see. Mars does not have a geomagnetic sphere to protect it from solar outbursts. People will die if they are on the surface when one of those things happens Martian atmosphere is very thin. At ground level atmospheric pressure is only 1% of Earth. That is not nearly enough. Martian gravity is less than half of Earth's. Is that enough? We shall have to experiment.
There is one place on Earth that explorers have explored since we have had written records -- Antarctica. It wasn't even discovered until 1820. The first expedition to Antarctica was the Scott expedition a century ago. We started building bases there after World War 2. Quite a few humans have now lived there -- at least for a short time. Same gravity, same atmosphere, same geomagnetic sphere. Just much colder.
The optimist in me thinks we humans will, eventually, live and work in places other than Earth. It is going to take a good bit of learning, though.
Enough for now.
I must step in here and make a few comments because I am both a tech person and an artist. How did that happen? When I was graduating from Rutgers with a degree in physics, my parents gave me a nice 35 mm camera outfit. A decade later the Princeton Ballet was paying me for my ballet photos. Photography has always been an important hobby of mine. It has also helped me in important ways at work. It has helped me to develop an artistic side that communicates better than too many tech people. It also helps me to understand society -- both the larger one and the tech one -- better than most.
Let me point people to my Flickr site where I am known as Chuck Divine. There are over 40,000 images there. My Science Fiction Art has gotten me attention in Washington, DC art circles.
I eventually got into IT, partly because I was good at it, partly because I liked doing it and partly because I could make a decent living at it. My career has taken me to all sorts of places -- including NASA. At NASA where I saw some good people doing good work -- and some screwing up so badly that it caused major accidents like that which happened to the Space Shuttle Columbia. Do check out the report of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. It is a well done analysis of a tech organization that needs significant reform.
I have also gotten involved in the STEM problem. Some of us are calling it the STEAM problem. The A stands for the Arts. It seems that scientists and engineers with an artistic side are more productive in their tech field than people without that side. They also work better with other people, tech and not tech. Some years ago I wrote a public policy paper titled Aerospace Workforce Issues that gets into this topic in some depth.
Let me finish by telling people here that people who know me describe me as bright, friendly and a bit shy and quiet -- most of the time.
That's more than enough for now. I hope I have been able to get some tech people to consider opening their minds a bit.
Some people have been listening to Da Vinci for centuries.
How's that? Da Vinci was a brilliant man who left us not only some wonderful paintings but also a wealth of writings. To listen to the real Da Vinci, all you need to do is look at his art or read his writings -- carefully, with understanding, of course.
Hearing some lab's claimed reproduction of his physical voice really doesn't help us to understand the man or his thoughts.
One can easily argue our national priorities are considerably out of whack. Easterbrook argues there are better places to spend the money than the projects which have been proposed. He might be right. But it's easy to argue that the proposed projects do have value.
A moon base might not help Mars exploration. But a moon base can begin the process of using lunar resources to support both exploration and human needs on earth. There's more to space than scientific exploration.
The James Webb Space Telescope might focus on the distant universe and questions of esoteric value. Planet finding, on the other hand, will have little real impact on humanity as well, at least in the near future. Both projects do have worth, however.
Of greater interest to me is comparing NASA funding to other things our society does. Back in October the Washington Post proposed canceling Bush's Vision for Space Exploration, and cited the need for health care for poor children as a worthier alternative. What few people recognize is that health care spending in the U.S. is 100 times the NASA budget. Health care spending is also increasing annually at multiples of the NASA budget. If poor children aren't getting decent health care, that's the fault of the health care industry, not NASA.
NASA, while far from perfect, does appear to be struggling to improve and is making some progress towards that end. It would be nice if other American activities -- for example education -- showed the same kind of work at improvement.
Veteran wrote:
Too true. Some businessmen realize that these kind of conditions drive off talented people. Some do not. The ones who do not are the ones doing real harm to technical fields and the country in general.
Veteran also wrote:
While there is some truth in this statement, I didn't see the same episode in the same way. People tell me I have both technical and people skills. Yes, today that's not as common as I (and others) think it should be.
I viewed the Pegasus commander not as someone with high technical skills and poor people skills but more as some addicted to tight control of people and completely inflexible. That's a recipe for disaster in a leader. He didn't listen to people. He wanted everyone held to his beliefs. He thought even nontechnical people would perform better if they were held to rigid codes of conduct.
For a real world example of what I'm talking about, I suggest a rereading (or initial reading if you haven't already done so) of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report. That report severely criticizes NASA for not listening to staff. Listening is a people skill, not a technical skill. I've heard current NASA Adminstrator Griffin expound on the need for people in his organization to listen. He did this is a public forum, by the way. I don't know what happens behind the scenes.
Interestingly enough, some of the best technical people I know also demonstrate a people side. You'd be surprised, for example, how many of us dabble in some sort of art (writing, acting, photography, etc.) as a hobby.
Thanks for the tip. It was the first time something like that had happened to me. It never even occurred to me to balk. What's a bit weird is that I do have a definitive rebellious streak.
I'll start with a personal story. I tend to take a long time to purchase an automobile. In 1998, for example, I decided it was time to buy a new car. The automobile I owned was 7 years old and starting to show problems. I began by doing some reading. GM gave me the opportunity to briefly test drive a number of models at one time. After doing that, I reviewed automotive literature (e.g., Car and Driver) about what was available and what the staff thought of various automobiles. I was beginning to be inclined to a moderately economical sports model. C&D said nice things about the Camaro. Months passed. I read some more. Looked at a Toyota and a Honda. They were a bit more than I wanted to spend. Finally, a local dealer was running a sale. I showed up and found out I could get an even bigger discount because my company was a nonautomotive GM subsidiary. I wound up with a new Camaro at a great price. Over the next five years my mechanic told me the car, with proper maintenance, would last 200K miles. I was a bit surprised at that. Anyway, the automobile was more than satisfactory.
Then in 2004 I was rear ended -- badly by a truck. The car was declared a total loss. Since I hadn't even been thinking of buying a new vehicle, I was thrown for a loop. The other guy's insurance company gave me three days to get a replacement vehicle. I asked friends what to do. They advised me to buy a second hand Camaro from a reputable dealer. That's what I did. I'm still happy with the replacement. Still, though, I think I would be happier if the insurance company had given me more time to think about what I would do. I could see myself going with a new Toyota or Honda, rather than an identical vehicle. Since I wasn't given the time, though, I simply repeated my decision of five years earlier.
People in my area (Washington, DC) are stressed out from too much to do and too little sleep. I see people making all sorts of decisions that are at best unwise, at worst destructive. Sleeping on a decision, taking the "luxury" of time, both conscious and unconscious, would, I think, improve the quality of decision making around here. Some of us do manage to do that. I can see better results by doing that rather than the mode where people are always "on." 24/7 looks like folly, not dedication.
I lost track of the fine films that didn't make the list.
In the space/SF genre alone they picked "Star Wars" over "2001: A Space Odyssey"? Star Wars was fun -- but it wasn't any 2001.
Charade was good -- but top 100? Once Upon A Time In the West? Ditto.
The Purple Rose of Cairo? Please.
I'd have to go back and remember films that really touched me. That would take entirely too long for this message. Suffice it to say I'm not impressed with their list.
I must disagree.
When Europeans moved to North America, they did solve some real problems. Granted, we still have problems, but they are different than the ones Europeans had circa 1000 A.D. It's a fairly trivial exercise to show things are much better now.
OK, what can moving into space do for humanity? First, there is the not putting all our eggs in one basket factor. Secondly, we can try new things. Some of our experiments will succeed; some will fail. Successful experiments can be emulated. Our failures can teach us what not to do.
Starting back in the 17th century, the part of North America governed by first England and now the United States and Canada tried doing some new things with regard to government and society. These experiments proved so successful that parent societies in Europe adopted many of the new ideas first tried in North America.
We haven't acheived any sort of utopia, but we have made significant progress.
It's probably true that Trek fans are more intelligent than sports fans.
Lest the nerds on /. get too arrogant, though, I think I should point out that this is likely because sports fans comprise a much larger demographic. Interest in Trek (and SF, for that matter) is characteristic of people of above normal intelligence only. There are plenty of intelligent sports fans. It's just that there are plenty of sports fans of normal intelligence as well. That's not nearly as likely with regard to Trek.
bobhagopian writes:
I'm going to make a brief comment here.
Going back to the Moon will have some research value. To say we've exhausted what we can learn about the Moon is simply not true. Is it the best place to put our research bucks now? Probably not. Other areas would probably yield more bang for the buck.
Will going back to the Moon excite the public about space exploration? Again, not as much as the new Cassini mission or a search for life on Mars.
But the value of returning to the Moon is not in research. It's much more in building space infrastructure. Today what we can do in space is limited quite severely to what we can launch from Earth. If we return to the Moon, we can perhaps start using space resources. That will greatly expand what we can do in space. To do much in space, sooner or later we're going to have to start using what we find out there, rather than just using what we can haul up from Earth.
Why don't I favor going straight to Mars? To get to Mars with anything approaching present day technology requires very long travel times. When things go wrong (and they will go wrong) it's a long way to go for help.
In the early years of the settlement of the Americas by Europeans, quite a bit went wrong. Whole colonies were wiped out. It took a long time to get to the point where we are today. And that effort was made in a physical environment not fundamentally different from the environment the Europeans left behind.
Space is very different from Earth. Mars is very different from Earth. I want our mistakes to be made in ways that will allow us to recover from them and learn from them much more quickly. That means returning to the Moon -- and staying.
There's another value to this work. The public can get excited about research. But they are more likely to support work that holds out the possibility of real material benefit to them.
If 400-500 years ago Europeans had only sent explorers to the western hemisphere, do you think support would have continued for very long? Exploration is only one valuable human endeavor. There are many more things that humans do that have equal or greater value.
Support space research -- but don't stop there. Support space exploitation as well. You'll wind up with far more research than we can currently support.
I will, perhaps foolishly, jump in with two real book recommendations.
The shorter of the two is Stanley Coren's "Sleep Thieves." It goes quite heavily into the various consequences of sleep deprivation. It's quite scary.
The longer of the two -- and probably more informative on the biology of sleep -- is William Dement's "The Promise of Sleep." Dement is viewed by many as the leading sleep researcher in the United States.
It will take you much longer to read this books than take the linked for test, but you'll be much better informed. You might even be able to marshall substantial arguments against a PHB's death march.
Both books also have tests to take to find out how sleep deprived you are. There are also recommendations for treating this condition.
Both are available from your favorite book seller.
I'm on record for saying that working 100, 80, even 60 hours per week regularly is dysfunctional and counterproductive. There are other management fads that are likewise dysfunctional and counterproductive.
To what extent is outsourcing being driven by staff resistance to management demands? What kinds of demands are being resisted?
This question can be put to both the pro and anti sides.
I got into running into 1974 for health reasons. I was 28 and wanted to lose a few pounds around my middle.
It worked like a charm. In less than two years I went from a very flabby 155 to a very trim 139. I later on went up into the 140s. Yes, my build is very thin. Most men should not try to get down to my weight unless they're much shorter than I (still about 5'10").
You don't need to be a marathoner to get real benefits from running. In fact some people claim that running a marathon can actually be bad for your health. I finished the DC area Marine Corps Marathon in 1996 -- and wound up sick in bed with the flu a little over a week later. But running 36 miles/week (6 days of running 6 miles a day) can be very good for you.
I will give some suggestions:
You may not like running after giving it a try. It may also be bad for your joints. If this happens, quit running -- but try something else. I might have to quit running when I'm 85 -- but I'll still be able to swim.
When I started running all those portable techie toys weren't available. How did I cope with the boredom? Well, to be honest about, sexual fantasies really helped. Just thinking about the woman I was dating at the time certainly helped pass the time. Other kinds of thinking also help pass the time.
You might try joining a running club. Some of them are pretty good. They help provide friends with the same interest -- and companionship for long runs.
Today I look forward to my daily run/swim.
This looks very interesting. He's the head of a real company that's still fairly small. Small companies, being much less bureaucratic, are friendlier environments for creative work and pioneering investigations.
Olsen looks like a remarkably intelligent man with a good background in the kinds of science he will be exploring up on ISS. He's also led the development of products that the real world wants and needs.
The space business needs more Olsens. Today there are entirely too many bureaucrats with no vision and no ability to connect with the larger world.
The real point of the Bush policy changes is to promote reform at NASA. Terminate the shuttle program -- and redirect resources to achieving lower costs to orbit. Terminate ISS -- it's not turning out to be a real benefit for science or much of anything else.
I can easily support a manned mission to Mars. But it must be part of a space effort that is more broad based than the current work is. To achieve that, we're going to have change the way we do things. The spectacular project that sometimes succeeds, sometimes doesn't, offers little hope for this style of action.
NASA's predecessor, NACA, helped make revolutionary progress in aeronautics by sticking to technology development and working with nascent aeronautical companies to develop real airplanes that could be used for a wide range of activities by a wide range of organizations. We need the same kind of work from NASA.
This is very true.
Within the U.S. one sees work frequently organized along lines of authoritarian hierarchies. You can see this in academia, in government and major corporations. There seems to be a trend to doing more things this way in the U.S.
This type of organization also seems more likely to result in problems in the U.S. Good people are more likely to leave a work place where they're expected to obey PHBs. Problems can be surpressed in such environments.
Whether this will continue well into the future is open to debate -- the very presence of more individualistic people in the U.S. could act to change this trend. It has in the past.
Do check out the Columbia Accident Investigation Board report at http://www.caib.us/. Or, after February 1st, go to the main NASA site and look for the links to the CAIB report.
Management and political leadership did kill.
I'm not quick to blame the victim in this case.
My mother is 88 years old. You would not believe some of the scams that target the elderly. The ones I've seen are, surprisingly enough, quite legal. For example, selling reports on lotteries you may have won or soliciting for charities that keep practically all the money for themselves.
Some of the elderly do have difficulty distinguishing between reality and fantasy. Most do not. For those who do it's partly it's because of problems that happen to people who grow quite old -- and sometimes it's due to having grown up and aged in an era in which normal people were not targeted by frauds.
If the man in this story was, say 43 or 53, I'd be much harsher. But, by 73, he could be suffering from some problems that limit his ability to understand reality.
What should be done? Damned if I know for sure. But I think younger relatives should keep a close eye on their elders. That way you can limit the damage done to Mom or Granddad by this kind of scum.
The widely believed truth happens to be true.
For instance, the Wright brothers' flight was not the first heavier than air craft to fly. That record belongs to a small experimental glider near the beginning of the 19th -- not 20th -- century. The first manned heavier than air vehicle? What today we would call a hang glider was flown in 1870.
The Wright brothers' claim to fame is as the first repeatable, controlled, powered heavier than air flight. All that is important. Earlier efforts contributed to their accomplishment, but were essentially only experiments in learning the basics of flying.
The Wright brothers also eventually publicized their work. Pearse seems, according to the reports, a bit of an eccentric who didn't call much attention to his work. That's important too. A discovery you don't tell the world about is only half done. Others must know about your work and be able to replicate it.
We now know that Viking journeys to North America preceded Columbus' voyage by some centuries. But, again, they didn't follow up their voyages or make them known to the world at large. We also suspect some fishermen made it to North America years before Columbus. But, again, they didn't tell the world.
Repeatability and disclosure are vitally important parts of discovery. One wonders what poeple 5000 years from now will say about our time. They might remember the Chinese (or New Zealanders perhaps) as the real fathers of space travel -- and make a brief footnote for the academics about a certain event in 1969.