Apparently a summary of this new approach to disempowering terrorists would help:
> Most technical people have a gut feel for what we call "Buy-In" > It is how we get in action on projects and keep in action. > Terrorists recruiting is an extreme form of buy-in
> A practical knowledge based procedure for buy-in was developed in the 1990's > Almost nobody knows it exists > Having any practical procedure is good for about 5% improvement in productivity > Knowing how a process works leads to knowing how to stop it
> Recent breakthroughs in the science of the human brain improve our understanding of buy-in > The Eureka effect is one good example > The Mirror Neurons are a second.
> Our new understanding of the buy-in process suggests a powerful way to disempower terrorists.
Unfortunately a scientific discussion only rates a 1 on SlashDot's relevance score, while cynical drivel rates a 5.
It is sad that human rights are being eroded before new scientific discoveries are being applied to the problem of terrorists. New discoveries on how the human brain works can be directly applied to disempowering terrorists. We could start this process right now.
The new science approach is aided, not harmed, by open discussion yet no one is talking. The press is largely incompetent on technical maters and is only looking for the next sound bite. The authorities are taking their direction for action from the press and public opinion polls.
Keeping the Hubble repair mission alive so many months past it original launch date has had another unfortunate side effect. The cost of the marching army for Hubble is killing off many smaller projects.
NASA's new Full Cost Accounting has the laudable goal of making it possible for NASA to account accurately for the cost of its missions, but it also means that when things go wrong, some program has to pay. Keeping a large program alive, kills many small ones.
I think the problem in a lack of sophistication in NASA's risk management process. Breaking the bank over one problem, like loss of foam on the tank, does not assure overall reduced risk. I think the answer lies in the application of Chaos Theory to systems eengineering. I would be happy to discuss this idea if anyone is interested.
Apparently some of you, dear readers, never heard of wet steam.
It is a superior in everyway option to the hydrogen economy.
The only purpose of hydrogen in our new energy infrastructure is as a portable source of energy for transportation. It does not occur naturally in its unoxidized state and can only be made using other energy forms (natural gas, electricity). As a fuel for automobiles it is very poor. To store enough in a portable tank to drive 300 miles the tank must either be pumped up to 2000 psi or dangerous adsorptive chemicals must be used. Either way the chance of an explosion in a wreck is even greater than that for gasoline as shown in a hundred bad movies.
In the wet steam economy, any energy is used to heat up water to a pressure of about 1000 psi and 200 C. This is done at the "gas" station and transferred into an insulated pressure tank in the car. A steam engine then runs by slowing releasing the pressure and allowing the water to flash boil to make steam. The only thing coming out the exhaust pipe is water that is barely warm to the touch.
In an accident, the steam system is designed to vent straight up into the air. This reduces the chances of an explosion and makes the car squat down hard on its tires which improves braking.
Most of the problems with old steam car designs are eliminated by removing the need for the boiler and the condensers. There is still one problem though. Unlike the internal combustion engine, steam engines do not loose power at high speed. In fact they gain power. Even an old Stanly Steamer could keep accelerating on a straight away until the tires disintegrated.
We are only a few months away from Hubbert's Peak when half the conventional oil that the human race will ever pump will be used up. This is a watershed event comparable in scope to the industrial revolution.
The only logical response for technical people is to rebuild the entire world energy infrastructure. From top to bottom and from rich to poor.
Every type of alternative energy is now open for consideration as a piece of this puzzle. Wind to solar, clean coal to nuclear, hydrogen to wet steam, and certainly oil shale and tar sands. As the price of gas goes up, the alternatives will become economically viable in turn.
There is no silver bullet. Oil shale has a strength in its volume. It has weaknesses in greenhouse gas production and environmental contamination. It is however irrelevant that it is neither oil nor shale.
There will be winners. There will be looser. The open question is which are we going to be? It is going to be one whale of a rollercoaster ride. We have now all bought our tickets and we top the first hill this fall. In the words of Wile E. Coyote, "Yhaa whooo whooo whooo."
The best references are: Kenneth Deffeyes, Hubbert's Peak, (Princeton University Press, 2001) Kenneth Deffeyes, Beyond Oil, The View from Hubbert's Peak, (Princeton University Press, 2005)
Technical people do not need to limit themselves to thinking up new whiz-bang gadgets to fight terrorism. In fact, this type of approach only extends the conflict.
All we have to do is look at the way we buy into projects. Look at the way terrorist recruiters use the very same phenomena to get bombers into action. And then apply the latest breakthrough science to break the buy-in process.
I have studied buy-in as a management tool for about a decade. There is a surprising large amount of information available, but you have to search for it. Most technical people simply have a gut feel for buy-in and run with that. An effective procedure to generate buy-in is available and it provides clear incite into how the process works. Once you know how it works; you know how to stop it.
A number of recent breakthroughs in the science of the human brain and in advanced mathematics can be directly applied to the process of buy-in and look very exciting. These involve huge instruments that use incredibly powerful magnetic fields to generate copious amounts of data which is then turned into pretty pictures (fMRI). This approach should prove very attractive to this group.
I have a paper on this concept on the Web (Google "Disempower Terrorist Riley"). I would very much like to correspond with technical people in Great Britain on the application of new science to the problem there. Time is critical, but the complex technical arguments we need to develop are not amenable to discussion by two idiots yelling at each other on cable TV, or even mindless drivel on the Internet.
Clearly complexity theory is another area of new math that is open to powerful application to risk management. All the systems of interest for risk analysis are complex. Major breakdowns show a pattern of change in state for unexpected reasons that are at the core of complexity theory.
When you look at a major break down in hindsight, you invariably can make a long list of small breakdowns and near misses that lead to the catastrophic failure. The system may of running in a safe state for years, and usually remained running in a safe state with numerous small problem areas for some time, then suddenly all hell broke loose as the entire system suddenly changed to an unsafe state.
Complexity theory demonstrates that a system can be in one state for a long time and then suddenly change to another without a major trigger event. Effects in the fifth decimal place, that are too small to measure or model, can build up and trigger a state change. Systems as simple as a double pendulum show this effect.
Perhaps we can develop a figure of merit for impending state change that can be applied to risk management. Even a vague warning that something might change soon would be a great help.
Does anybody have experience with the rigorous application of complexity theory to risk management? The Santa Fe Institute use to do this kind of thing. Are they still around? Has anybody worked with them?
I think the next step is to bring in some mathematics that was not around when the middle-level managers were in school. Math that they do not even know exists.
One absolute mind bender is the No Free Lunch Theorems.
The risk management procedure like most management procedures is intended as a process to provide an advantage over random action. Such advantages have great financial value and so have been studied in detail.
We would all like to live in an universe where progress for human kind is a forgone conclusion. A universe where when we develop a process that provides us with an advantage we get to add it to our foundation of knowledge and build upon it forever.
Unfortunately we do not live in that universe, but we have only known that we do not for about a decade.
The No Free Lunch Theorems (NFLT) demonstrates that the advantage provided by all such processes, when integrated over all time and all space, is exactly equal to zero. If that doesn't change your view of the universe than nothing will.
NFLT does not say that such processes cannot provide an advantage. They clearly do. It just limits the advantage to some region of time and space. It is not enough to show that a proposed process produces an advantage. You must show the limits of the space in which that advantage is provided.
In the risk management case, it looks like a process that worked well in the cost and schedule space was extended to a space governed by a power law in which it simply provides no advantage. It is clearly the responsibility of the people proposing a new process to demonstrate functionality in the new space. I do not think this was done.
Now we must find a variation of the process that works in the new space. This is not a trivial thing to do.
Does anybody on this thread know enough about the NFLT to apply them rigorously to the risk management problem?
Is anybody out there? You never write; you never call.
This situation sets up a very interesting mathematical mystery. The promoters of this risk management process say they have known about the bad math for a long time and it does not make any difference. Besides it is currently in use by the military and many fortunate 500 companies. How can that be?
A quick investigation shows that the system has a larger problem that completely masks any effect of the math error. The system simple does not work well at all. Statistical tests barely show it to have any ethically. The math error is a red herring. The entire system is lame.
The problem seems to be in the basic application of data mining techniques to the process of risk management. The problem can be seen by comparing this procedure with one that has a good track record. We use similar data mining techniques for tracking schedule and cost on major projects. For these functions the process works, but for risk management the effect is small if present at all. What is the difference?
I think the difference is in the type of functions. For cost and schedule people must make very detailed estimated and then revise those estimates every few months. Hundreds of our team members put in many man-days estimating detailed costs and schedules only to see them change and then re estimate them again. This can happen a dozen times before a project is launched. We could do detailed archives of all these estimates, compare them with actual costs at each bench mark in the time line, and build up a detailed and powerful statically picture of our ability to do these estimates. Such a process is so expensive that it is not routinely done, but it could be done. With sufficient work and expense the result could, at least in theory, be statically significant and could be thought of as a piecewise linear function.
What we are doing with this process then is mining the information held in the minds of our workers. Because good data is present, we can data mine it. Data mining is not about generating data from thin air. If there is no good data, then data mining is a colossal waste of time.
Risk on the other hand is about breakdowns. Breakdowns occur by a power rule. Every day there are dozens of little announces, many of them being near misses, that must be addressed by each individual worker. There are so many of them that they are barely noted. Occasionally a mid-side event occurs that requires team work and unexpected expense. These are usually forgotten as soon as they are put behind us. Rarely a major breakdown occurs that puts the entire project at risk. The severity of breakdowns occurs as a power time function.
You could not do a statistical study of the small announces, because nobody pays that much attention to them. They are not recorded. We might be able to study medium sized events, but this is rarely worth the time to study and usually end up only as war stories. We do log the big, rare events, like Challenger, in great detail and at great expense, but they do not occur often enough to establish statically valid trends.
It is therefore very questionable that the minds of our workers contain information about the risks of breakdowns that is strong enough to mine. The ore simply essays out as very low grade. The data mining process that was transferred from the cost and schedule process -- without additional detailed analysis -- fails. The whole procedure goes into a cocked hat.
This opens questions of the relationship between power functions and data mining. Has it been done successfully?
Am I merely entertaining myself with these ramblings? Does anybody, any where in the whole wide world give two figs if risk management works? Does anybody on this thread think this thought exercise is fun? What do you think will happen if I try to sell this line to middle management?
I have been for some years out on the edge of the NASA back to flight process. It has been years since I even played a minor part in a manned spaceflight mission. That being said, I am sorry to report the CAIB response effort at NASA has occurred to me as a powerful stone wall against innovation and meaningful change.
One good example is the BSA contract. This $30m effort was intended to generate cultural change at NASA. It contained bad science. It is simple as that, the science was 40 years out of date. I pointed this out a few weeks after the contract was let (there were no public discussion before the contract was let), but I met with a stone wall of refusal to even discuss the problem. An important book was available on this subject from a major university, so they could not say my point was groundless. It took a year of hard work, but the BSA contract was finally cancelled after a $10m expenditure. No reason was given, but the primary reason was probably simply cost.
Unfortunately a similar problem has again reared its ugly head. The risk management process now used by NASA contains bad mathematics. Specifically, it includes a multiplication of two numbers with large error bars without any consideration of the inflated error bar of the result. The local people responsible for implementing this process do not want to talk about it because I was rude (In private, I said the program was cr...p. In public I said it was rubbish.). I now have to find the intelectural strength to spend another year pounding away at the stone wall. The trick is to make enough noise to be heard over the stone wall, but not so much as to be acturally fired (that is RIFed).
At the very least, NASA processes should not contain bad science or bad mathematics. Wish me luck.
Sadly NASA has become extremely risk adverse. This is understandable after Columbia, but it is unlikely that any exploration mission can be run in such a risk adverse manner. Also being this risk adverse would make sex boring.
I believe that the whole future of NASA turns on the concept of buy-in. Buy-in is the process by which people hear a new idea, accept the idea as their own, envision themselves succeeding with it, get into action, and say in action. Buy-in is the foundation of all project work and is dear to the hearts of all technical people. Modern NASA was founded on President Kennedy's great skill at generating buy-in for the Apollo mission. Recently NASA has been in denial that buy-in even exists and has thereby lost contact with the great buy-in the American people have for space exploration. NASA must find it relevance to the 21st century if it is to survive.
I have studied buy-in as a management tool for about a decade. There is a surprising large amount of information available, but you have to search for it. Most technical people simply have a gut feel for buy-in and run with that. An effective procedure to generate buy-in is available and it provides clear incite into how the process works.
A number of recent breakthroughs in the science of the human brain and in advanced mathematics can be directly applied to the process of buy-in and look very exciting. These involve huge instruments that use incredibly powerful magnetic fields to generate copious amounts of data which is then turned into pretty pictures (fMRI), and should therefore be very attractive to this group.
I worked very hard to apply this research to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) process, but was stone walled. After 9/11 it became very clear that this buy-in information is directly applicable to the problem of disempowering terrorists. I have been working in that direction for the last two years.
I have a paper on this concept on the Web (Google "Disempower Terrorist Riley"). I would very much like to correspond with technical people in Great Britain on the application of new science to the problem there. Time is critical, but the complex technical arguments we need to develop are not amenable to discussion by two idiots yelling at each other on cable TV. Thanks,
I hand-built a comparable solar reflector back in the 1970's. The construction procedure (based on lofting) is now on the Web (Goggle "Solar Forge Woodware"). With Hubbert's Peak just around the corner, it is time to get out all our old alternate energy projects, dust them off, and get them on the Web. The Solar Forge would make a good student project. It can also be used as a power source in developing countries and as a horrendous light bucket in amateur astronomy.
Slashdot Mirror
Apparently a summary of this new approach to disempowering terrorists would help:
> Most technical people have a gut feel for what we call "Buy-In"
> It is how we get in action on projects and keep in action.
> Terrorists recruiting is an extreme form of buy-in
> A practical knowledge based procedure for buy-in was developed in the 1990's
> Almost nobody knows it exists
> Having any practical procedure is good for about 5% improvement in productivity
> Knowing how a process works leads to knowing how to stop it
> Recent breakthroughs in the science of the human brain improve our understanding of buy-in
> The Eureka effect is one good example
> The Mirror Neurons are a second.
> Our new understanding of the buy-in process suggests a powerful way to disempower terrorists.
Unfortunately a scientific discussion only rates a 1 on SlashDot's relevance score, while cynical drivel rates a 5.
It is sad that human rights are being eroded before new scientific discoveries are being applied to the problem of terrorists. New discoveries on how the human brain works can be directly applied to disempowering terrorists. We could start this process right now.
The new science approach is aided, not harmed, by open discussion yet no one is talking. The press is largely incompetent on technical maters and is only looking for the next sound bite. The authorities are taking their direction for action from the press and public opinion polls.
I have a popular science level paper on this approach at: http://www.charm.net/~jriley/book.html#Terror
Keeping the Hubble repair mission alive so many months past it original launch date has had another unfortunate side effect. The cost of the marching army for Hubble is killing off many smaller projects.
NASA's new Full Cost Accounting has the laudable goal of making it possible for NASA to account accurately for the cost of its missions, but it also means that when things go wrong, some program has to pay. Keeping a large program alive, kills many small ones.
I think the problem in a lack of sophistication in NASA's risk management process. Breaking the bank over one problem, like loss of foam on the tank, does not assure overall reduced risk. I think the answer lies in the application of Chaos Theory to systems eengineering. I would be happy to discuss this idea if anyone is interested.
Apparently some of you, dear readers, never heard of wet steam.
It is a superior in everyway option to the hydrogen economy.
The only purpose of hydrogen in our new energy infrastructure is as a portable source of energy for transportation. It does not occur naturally in its unoxidized state and can only be made using other energy forms (natural gas, electricity). As a fuel for automobiles it is very poor. To store enough in a portable tank to drive 300 miles the tank must either be pumped up to 2000 psi or dangerous adsorptive chemicals must be used. Either way the chance of an explosion in a wreck is even greater than that for gasoline as shown in a hundred bad movies.
In the wet steam economy, any energy is used to heat up water to a pressure of about 1000 psi and 200 C. This is done at the "gas" station and transferred into an insulated pressure tank in the car.
A steam engine then runs by slowing releasing the pressure and allowing the water to flash boil to make steam. The only thing coming out the exhaust pipe is water that is barely warm to the touch.
In an accident, the steam system is designed to vent straight up into the air. This reduces the chances of an explosion and makes the car squat down hard on its tires which improves braking.
Most of the problems with old steam car designs are eliminated by removing the need for the boiler and the condensers. There is still one problem though. Unlike the internal combustion engine, steam engines do not loose power at high speed. In fact they gain power. Even an old Stanly Steamer could keep accelerating on a straight away until the tires disintegrated.
Steam is back.
We are only a few months away from Hubbert's Peak when half the conventional oil that the human race will ever pump will be used up. This is a watershed event comparable in scope to the industrial revolution.
The only logical response for technical people is to rebuild the entire world energy infrastructure. From top to bottom and from rich to poor.
Every type of alternative energy is now open for consideration as a piece of this puzzle. Wind to solar, clean coal to nuclear, hydrogen to wet steam, and certainly oil shale and tar sands. As the price of gas goes up, the alternatives will become economically viable in turn.
There is no silver bullet. Oil shale has a strength in its volume. It has weaknesses in greenhouse gas production and environmental contamination. It is however irrelevant that it is neither oil nor shale.
There will be winners. There will be looser. The open question is which are we going to be? It is going to be one whale of a rollercoaster ride. We have now all bought our tickets and we top the first hill this fall. In the words of Wile E. Coyote, "Yhaa whooo whooo whooo."
The best references are:
Kenneth Deffeyes, Hubbert's Peak, (Princeton University Press, 2001)
Kenneth Deffeyes, Beyond Oil, The View from Hubbert's Peak, (Princeton University Press, 2005)
Thanks,
Technical people do not need to limit themselves to thinking up new whiz-bang gadgets to fight terrorism. In fact, this type of approach only extends the conflict.
All we have to do is look at the way we buy into projects. Look at the way terrorist recruiters use the very same phenomena to get bombers into action. And then apply the latest breakthrough science to break the buy-in process.
I have studied buy-in as a management tool for about a decade. There is a surprising large amount of information available, but you have to search for it. Most technical people simply have a gut feel for buy-in and run with that. An effective procedure to generate buy-in is available and it provides clear incite into how the process works. Once you know how it works; you know how to stop it.
A number of recent breakthroughs in the science of the human brain and in advanced mathematics can be directly applied to the process of buy-in and look very exciting. These involve huge instruments that use incredibly powerful magnetic fields to generate copious amounts of data which is then turned into pretty pictures (fMRI). This approach should prove very attractive to this group.
I have a paper on this concept on the Web (Google "Disempower Terrorist Riley"). I would very much like to correspond with technical people in Great Britain on the application of new science to the problem there. Time is critical, but the complex technical arguments we need to develop are not amenable to discussion by two idiots yelling at each other on cable TV, or even mindless drivel on the Internet.
Thanks,
Clearly complexity theory is another area of new math that is open to powerful application to risk management. All the systems of interest for risk analysis are complex. Major breakdowns show a pattern of change in state for unexpected reasons that are at the core of complexity theory.
When you look at a major break down in hindsight, you invariably can make a long list of small breakdowns and near misses that lead to the catastrophic failure. The system may of running in a safe state for years, and usually remained running in a safe state with numerous small problem areas for some time, then suddenly all hell broke loose as the entire system suddenly changed to an unsafe state.
Complexity theory demonstrates that a system can be in one state for a long time and then suddenly change to another without a major trigger event. Effects in the fifth decimal place, that are too small to measure or model, can build up and trigger a state change. Systems as simple as a double pendulum show this effect.
Perhaps we can develop a figure of merit for impending state change that can be applied to risk management. Even a vague warning that something might change soon would be a great help.
Does anybody have experience with the rigorous application of complexity theory to risk management? The Santa Fe Institute use to do this kind of thing. Are they still around? Has anybody worked with them?
I think the next step is to bring in some mathematics that was not around when the middle-level managers were in school. Math that they do not even know exists. One absolute mind bender is the No Free Lunch Theorems. The risk management procedure like most management procedures is intended as a process to provide an advantage over random action. Such advantages have great financial value and so have been studied in detail. We would all like to live in an universe where progress for human kind is a forgone conclusion. A universe where when we develop a process that provides us with an advantage we get to add it to our foundation of knowledge and build upon it forever. Unfortunately we do not live in that universe, but we have only known that we do not for about a decade. The No Free Lunch Theorems (NFLT) demonstrates that the advantage provided by all such processes, when integrated over all time and all space, is exactly equal to zero. If that doesn't change your view of the universe than nothing will. NFLT does not say that such processes cannot provide an advantage. They clearly do. It just limits the advantage to some region of time and space. It is not enough to show that a proposed process produces an advantage. You must show the limits of the space in which that advantage is provided. In the risk management case, it looks like a process that worked well in the cost and schedule space was extended to a space governed by a power law in which it simply provides no advantage. It is clearly the responsibility of the people proposing a new process to demonstrate functionality in the new space. I do not think this was done. Now we must find a variation of the process that works in the new space. This is not a trivial thing to do. Does anybody on this thread know enough about the NFLT to apply them rigorously to the risk management problem? Is anybody out there? You never write; you never call.
This situation sets up a very interesting mathematical mystery. The promoters of this risk management process say they have known about the bad math for a long time and it does not make any difference. Besides it is currently in use by the military and many fortunate 500 companies. How can that be? A quick investigation shows that the system has a larger problem that completely masks any effect of the math error. The system simple does not work well at all. Statistical tests barely show it to have any ethically. The math error is a red herring. The entire system is lame. The problem seems to be in the basic application of data mining techniques to the process of risk management. The problem can be seen by comparing this procedure with one that has a good track record. We use similar data mining techniques for tracking schedule and cost on major projects. For these functions the process works, but for risk management the effect is small if present at all. What is the difference? I think the difference is in the type of functions. For cost and schedule people must make very detailed estimated and then revise those estimates every few months. Hundreds of our team members put in many man-days estimating detailed costs and schedules only to see them change and then re estimate them again. This can happen a dozen times before a project is launched. We could do detailed archives of all these estimates, compare them with actual costs at each bench mark in the time line, and build up a detailed and powerful statically picture of our ability to do these estimates. Such a process is so expensive that it is not routinely done, but it could be done. With sufficient work and expense the result could, at least in theory, be statically significant and could be thought of as a piecewise linear function. What we are doing with this process then is mining the information held in the minds of our workers. Because good data is present, we can data mine it. Data mining is not about generating data from thin air. If there is no good data, then data mining is a colossal waste of time. Risk on the other hand is about breakdowns. Breakdowns occur by a power rule. Every day there are dozens of little announces, many of them being near misses, that must be addressed by each individual worker. There are so many of them that they are barely noted. Occasionally a mid-side event occurs that requires team work and unexpected expense. These are usually forgotten as soon as they are put behind us. Rarely a major breakdown occurs that puts the entire project at risk. The severity of breakdowns occurs as a power time function. You could not do a statistical study of the small announces, because nobody pays that much attention to them. They are not recorded. We might be able to study medium sized events, but this is rarely worth the time to study and usually end up only as war stories. We do log the big, rare events, like Challenger, in great detail and at great expense, but they do not occur often enough to establish statically valid trends. It is therefore very questionable that the minds of our workers contain information about the risks of breakdowns that is strong enough to mine. The ore simply essays out as very low grade. The data mining process that was transferred from the cost and schedule process -- without additional detailed analysis -- fails. The whole procedure goes into a cocked hat. This opens questions of the relationship between power functions and data mining. Has it been done successfully? Am I merely entertaining myself with these ramblings? Does anybody, any where in the whole wide world give two figs if risk management works? Does anybody on this thread think this thought exercise is fun? What do you think will happen if I try to sell this line to middle management?
I have been for some years out on the edge of the NASA back to flight process. It has been years since I even played a minor part in a manned spaceflight mission. That being said, I am sorry to report the CAIB response effort at NASA has occurred to me as a powerful stone wall against innovation and meaningful change.
One good example is the BSA contract. This $30m effort was intended to generate cultural change at NASA. It contained bad science. It is simple as that, the science was 40 years out of date. I pointed this out a few weeks after the contract was let (there were no public discussion before the contract was let), but I met with a stone wall of refusal to even discuss the problem. An important book was available on this subject from a major university, so they could not say my point was groundless. It took a year of hard work, but the BSA contract was finally cancelled after a $10m expenditure. No reason was given, but the primary reason was probably simply cost.
Unfortunately a similar problem has again reared its ugly head. The risk management process now used by NASA contains bad mathematics. Specifically, it includes a multiplication of two numbers with large error bars without any consideration of the inflated error bar of the result. The local people responsible for implementing this process do not want to talk about it because I was rude (In private, I said the program was cr...p. In public I said it was rubbish.). I now have to find the intelectural strength to spend another year pounding away at the stone wall. The trick is to make enough noise to be heard over the stone wall, but not so much as to be acturally fired (that is RIFed).
At the very least, NASA processes should not contain bad science or bad mathematics.
Wish me luck.
Sadly NASA has become extremely risk adverse. This is understandable after Columbia, but it is unlikely that any exploration mission can be run in such a risk adverse manner. Also being this risk adverse would make sex boring. I believe that the whole future of NASA turns on the concept of buy-in. Buy-in is the process by which people hear a new idea, accept the idea as their own, envision themselves succeeding with it, get into action, and say in action. Buy-in is the foundation of all project work and is dear to the hearts of all technical people. Modern NASA was founded on President Kennedy's great skill at generating buy-in for the Apollo mission. Recently NASA has been in denial that buy-in even exists and has thereby lost contact with the great buy-in the American people have for space exploration. NASA must find it relevance to the 21st century if it is to survive. I have studied buy-in as a management tool for about a decade. There is a surprising large amount of information available, but you have to search for it. Most technical people simply have a gut feel for buy-in and run with that. An effective procedure to generate buy-in is available and it provides clear incite into how the process works. A number of recent breakthroughs in the science of the human brain and in advanced mathematics can be directly applied to the process of buy-in and look very exciting. These involve huge instruments that use incredibly powerful magnetic fields to generate copious amounts of data which is then turned into pretty pictures (fMRI), and should therefore be very attractive to this group. I worked very hard to apply this research to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) process, but was stone walled. After 9/11 it became very clear that this buy-in information is directly applicable to the problem of disempowering terrorists. I have been working in that direction for the last two years. I have a paper on this concept on the Web (Google "Disempower Terrorist Riley"). I would very much like to correspond with technical people in Great Britain on the application of new science to the problem there. Time is critical, but the complex technical arguments we need to develop are not amenable to discussion by two idiots yelling at each other on cable TV. Thanks,
I hand-built a comparable solar reflector back in the 1970's. The construction procedure (based on lofting) is now on the Web (Goggle "Solar Forge Woodware"). With Hubbert's Peak just around the corner, it is time to get out all our old alternate energy projects, dust them off, and get them on the Web. The Solar Forge would make a good student project. It can also be used as a power source in developing countries and as a horrendous light bucket in amateur astronomy.