I do not think that OCO ever got the priority treatment at NASA that it deserved. Aaron, you think NASA said don’t work so hard on this. They weren’t all just foolin’ around these past decades. Hope it gets going again sometime. 2. This just reminds me of how beneficial it WOULD have been, if we’d built the ISS to spec; as it’s design originally called for it to have a kind of ‘Space Garage’ in which satelites and probes could be assembled. As an aside from the science, I don’t know the numbers, but in today’s struggling economy, we might want to also consider what affect either approach has on employing people in meaningful ways to help solve our global problems? It's Wrong to Wish on Space Hardware by Smith, Caroline (2003) Hardcover on Amazon.com. The Register article totally ignored the rebuttals by IPCC scientist Seita Emori. The philosophy now is reuse where it makes sense–electronics, etc., but reusing structures that have to decelerate from 7 km/s to 0 while falling 300 km has proved to be a daunting problem. What’s really aggravating is how we’ve poured enough money down various ratholes in the past few years to have lofted an entire fleet of shuttles, shuttle follow-ons, or whatever we might have chosen. Although NASA’s R&D funding would climb $871 million or 7.7 percent to $12.2 billion in the Senate appropriation, putting the agency near the head of the class among the top R&D funding agencies, the entire increase and more would go to Constellation Systems, the NASA effort to develop the next generation of human space vehicles. Reply. However, it is nice to see that the shuttle has been abandoned – apparently, the major reason behind the shuttle was that a pilot could fly it on landing, which was more dignified and photogenic – even though that raised the risk of accidents at launch and re-entry. OCO was about working smarter and faster. We know they exist from residual calculations (what’s left over from knowing how much we are adding, and seeing how much is in the air and what is in the ocean), and they’ve mainly been associated with boreal ecosystems from the inverse modelling done so far, but there are quite large uncertainties (see 7.3.2 and fig 7.7 in AR4 Chp. Also, my sympathies to the scientists who were working on the climate satellite project. It's Wrong To Wish on Space Hardware explores the idea of a reality only experienced through photography and visions of a place we can never visit. ps missed Thomas’ later post. So please, when doing business try practicing the following simple rules. A number of satellite related issues have come up this weekend: The NSIDC reminded us that satellite sensors are (like all kinds of data) not perfectly reliable and do not last forever. Is it wrong to wish on space hardware? It’ll be another few years before work accomplished by the first Hubble service mission could be accomplished by robots or even for that matter tele-operated prosthetics; the upcoming mission is decades beyond our robotic abilities. – they’re piloted, and cheap, and serve the same purpose. The USA discharges Trillions of tons of sewage annually, sufficient quantity to sustain electrical generation requirements of the USA. #30 It wasn’t because we don’t know the average amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and how much it’s increasing – that is actually pretty well characterised by the current station network (around 386 ppm growing at ~2ppm/year). I like it. The Space Shuttle will go into mothballs circa 2010 and NASA is spinning its wheels trying to reinvent pre-Shuttle technology and failing. Steve Pyke's photographs are the result of a personal quest to meet and photograph the principal characters of NASA's fabulous history. If you don’t own a copy of Ed Tufte’s “Envisioning Information” (1990, the third book), borrow one and look at p48-49, which has visualizations of the debris cloud. ( J ) X. It's wrong to wish on space hardware I've been putting together a writing "portfolio" of sorts, and found this old show review I wrote back in 2006. It may be something as simple as an improperly wired harness, and as such it is premature to blame the launch vehicle. Newer Post Older Post Home. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) Popular Posts. There’s no reason that the satellite can’t be rebuilt and relaunched, by the way – compare the costs to those of the space station and the rest of the human flight program. Home Page | MAY SPACE. James says: February 10, 2008 at 7:20 pm. NOTES 187 3 years ago. It's Wrong To Wish on Space Hardware explores the idea of a reality only experienced through photography and visions of a place we can never visit. Let’s just say: Human resources now procures “Talent” for the agency. ], re: #30 Ray where does one get explosive bolds? What happened is that the explosive bolts that are supposed to fire and jetison the fairing did not fire. All snark aside, there are some remarkable assertions made in this article, with some seemingly based on unfamiliarity with the sort of models discussed at this site. A total of 150 Monte Carlo runs were carried out and analyzed. Enter your e-mail address to receive notifications when there are new posts. It's Wrong to Wish on Space Hardware. If we could only tell everyone, “Stop fighting so we can divert some war money to this important program. A new study has been conducted in the Orbital Debris Program Office at the NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, using higher fidelity models to evaluate the current debris environment. Fortunately, OCO was a relatively cheap proof-of-concept mission and so it might someday get another day in the sun. From its start the satellite age has ushered in alluring data streams that were once inconceivable in size, often outstripping our ability to analyze. Clearly it is an important tool and should be part of the measurement solution, but perhaps now is a critical time to realize that it only one of the tools, and as we have recently learned, satellites are a lot of eggs in one basket. Fact Regarding the “Hockey Stick”, On mismatches between models and observations. Dear tiny Miami-based business owner, I appreciate your hard work and applaud you on your success. Gavin, do you think this will serve to accelerate the ASCENDS mission? And bureaucracy? doi:10.1016/j.asr.2007.04.081, Orbital Debris Program Office, NASA Johnson Space Center, NASA, 2101 NASA Parkway, Houston, TX 77058, USA. Given resource constraints (Peak Oil) and the increase impacts of pollution (climate related disasters in the form of droughts and hurricanes), I think it safe to predict that technological civilization’s days are numbered. From the New York Times 2/25/09 In the early 20th century someone “proved” that rockets could never manage to get anything into orbit because the chemical energy per unit mass of the fuel is less than the energy per unit mass of an orbiting body. Powerpoint: see Tufte’s 4th book, “Envisioning Information”, chapter “The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within”, pp.162-168. In terms of funding, Nasa’s budget increased from $13.4 billion in 2000 to over $17.3 billion in 2008. Another 500 million for a COTS-D competition. Boxer quickly pointed out that the JSER was more of an industry organization than a scientific organization. Dano, you are sorely needed over at Dot Earth. William refers above to the nearly $4 billion increase in NASA’s budget. America can do much better than this. MAY SPACE Cat Mueller - They were only satellites, is it wrong to wish on space hardware? Kevin, because the goal is to build a permanent facility on the moon, a manned mission to mars is just a smokescreen. Space science is extremely expensive, prohibitively expensive when humans are sent into space, and it is unlikely that the United States, bankrupt and insolvent, can afford the expense very much longer. Getting into space was, and remains, a tremendous challenge. Where else would that happen, I ask you? Yes, you are the only one. Gavin, can you comment on why Triana/The Deep Space Climate Observatory remains in storage? Beyond that, the debris population would begin to increase noticeably, due to the production of collisional debris. Others castigate the paucity of the US ground temperature data set used to support the hypothesis, and declare that the unambiguous warming trend from the mid-part of the 20th Century has ceased. The science budget has actually decreased (at least up to the passage of the stimulus). #5 Aaron The second instrument on Glory is a total irradiance monitor (TIM) which is needed to prevent a gap from forming in the satellite observations of the sun should the current (6 year old) TIM on the SORCE satellite start to falter. I have seen the greatest singer in the world perform the greatest song in the world. Develop more in-house expertise – at the very least, insist that any “handoff” is accompanied by a team of NASA technicians and engineers who will double-check the whole process. Not only does the American public and their elected representatives, senators and ‘leaders’ take space and rocketry for granted, events like these are the result of a decades long neglect of these scientific and engineering problems, which were easily solvable. But feel free to continue to blame George Bush for this, and any future failures on either launching a satellite designed to find some looming catastrophe you’re hoping to find, or the damned thing’s inability to actually find it. The enemy is us.”. Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna. Wow – that’s being on top of things, good prepping by her staff. This is the sort of failure which suggests that humans could only reach the moon using 1960’s era technology and therefore the peak of human space occurred in the Apollo program. First, this was not a NASA rocket. Wednesday, May 19, 2004. It has been a long time since the Agency had a coherent mission. Both of those ideas have some political momentum right now, as does restructuring at NASA. Thomas, I think the “reusable” launch vehicle is pretty much dead for now. My commiserations. The SSMEs, if properly amortized over fill life cycle costs, are phenomenally competitive to modern disposable launch vehicle engines. This is a big deal because Glory will carry one new instrument (an aerosol polarimeter) that has the unique ability (among sensors flying today) to distinguish between aerosol types in the atmosphere. A casual examination of such structures reveals that our civilization entered its decline phase a while ago, interrupted only briefly and incompletely by the bubble economies of the previous two decades. The Register. Maybe he’s not blaming NASA technicians but rather NASA’s appointing Bush as Launch Manager, evidently. Sam's friend got us this, from last Thursday's Billy Bragg gig. The shuttle has left a very bitter taste in peoples’ mouths–and not just due to safety problems. That works out to nearly $45k per kilo–not exactly cheap. Foundations and A New England Ma$hEd. Boxer quickly pointed out that the JSER was more of an industry organization than a scientific organization. Manned flight does inspire, though, in a way that science and unmanned exploration do not. As such the satellite had a bunch of extra mass attached and the rocket could not provide enough velocity to achieve orbit. It's Wrong To Wish on Space Hardware explores the idea of a reality only experienced through photography and visions of a place we can never visit. The results indicate that the LEO debris environment has reached a point such that even if no further space launches were conducted, the Earth satellite population would remain relatively constant for only the next 50 years or so. Only one of the five top Japanese scientists commissioned here concurs with the man-made global warming hypothesis.”, Translation commissioned by (no surprise!) Missions with teh potential to improve our understanding of climate should be getting top priority, followed by those like the Webb telescope which should produce some very good new pure science. One of the five contributors compares computer climate modelling to ancient astrology. Mathematical notation provided by QuickLatex, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/25/jstor_climate_report_translation/. Key to the spirit of the book is the work of Joan Fontcuberta, whose Constellations first appear to be vast panoramas of a clear night sky, but are in fact photograms of dead insects crushed against a windscreen. And if they did have computers they still would have been at a loss: computer models can produce only rough, scarcely credible outputs unless they get the kind of global data that only satellites can provide (“garbage in, garbage out”). yours sincerely Exploring emotional attachments to spacecraft. The shuttle might fly next month. Again, these are not my opinions. Remarkably, the subtle and nuanced language typical in such reports has been set aside. Constellation Systems funding would soar $1.2 billion or 72 percent to $3.0 billion, leaving all other NASA R&D programs collectively with falling funding. And the failure to launch the OCO had definitely shed bad light to the agency even more: http://www.newsy.com/videos/launch_fails_for_nasa, I gotta leave a comment if only for the recaptcha, but this is off topic —. Tuesday, December 6, 2011. Week Forty: It's Wrong To Wish On Space Hardware. Publicly-funded science in the West uniformly backs the hypothesis that industrial influence is primarily responsible for climate change, although fissures have appeared recently. I wish, I wish you cared19 y/o girl w/ a love of all things tacky ... Is It Wrong To Wish On Space Hardware? This has led many, including the former Administrator, to conclude that increasing the exploration budget was the only way to keep the Agency from dying the death of a thousand budget cuts. “Currently, aerosol remote sensing can retrieve the total aerosol optical depth, with some ability to discriminate between fine particles and more massive ones, but it can’t tell the difference between sea salt and sulphates, dust or soot.”. Because they dictated the payload launch on a vehicle widely regarded as the most expensive per kilo rocket ever flown, with the worst record of any other vehicle. If you want to go to mars, you don’t need to build a permanent facility on the moon. No serious person makes any contention that manned exploration serves any scientific purpose–other than maybe helping us learn how to keep humans alive in a place they have no business being. Best to get on it early, because within a short time we’ll see this report cited in George Will’s Washington Post column. All this to say, that while the OCO failure will be devastating for the teams that worked on the mission, the relatively high chances of a complete failure are part of the price to be paid for working on satellite missions. Maybe I’m a bit thick but I don’t see a relationship between the title and your informative article? The thing is cobbled together ICBM stages, it’s almost embarrassing. I certainly hope NASA and the US government change their future priorities in space. Is It Wrong To Wish On Space Hardware? #44 but that still fits the known facts better than “climatologists sabotaged it so their lies could not be uncovered”. Thomas Elfritz, your assertion that the space shuttle is cost effective is surprising given that each launch runs about a billion dollars and the payload is less than 23000 kg, and that the vehicle has only a LEO delivery capability. Regarding NASA’s budget increase: it’s a little more complicated. What NASA really needs is a new administrator who will consider some changes, such as: 1. Key to the spirit of the book is the work of Joan Fontcuberta, whose Constellations first appear to be vast panoramas of a clear night sky, but are in fact photograms of dead insects crushed against a windscreen. With no digital computers to calculate climate models, those people wouldn’t have had a prayer of predicting global warming with any confidence before it slapped them down. I was very saddened to read about this. Concentrating on a short term goal that helps make the best “do something” determination seems like a sensible idea to me. Manned missions are only good for making more manned missions possible – a luxury ill suited to our current situation. It’s not wrong, it’s just fun, so long as we don’t wish our lives away. Doug Bostrom (#3): Inhofe cited this report in this morning’s EPW climate hearing. Training is now called “Talent Cultivation”. And yet despite this, the overwhelming majority of NASA missions succeed, and they do so because there are dedicated civil servants and contractors for whom this isn’t just a job. As to failures–well, 95% of NASA missions are successful. More importantly, the OCO data combined with inverse modelling might have helped with constraining the terrestrial sinks. — Submit a post. Marcus (#11): This sort of thing always makes me wonder about whether the companies behind all these “industry organisations” are going to be liable to be sued in the future by people affected by climate change, or whether they have learnt from the tobacco companies and will manage to avoid liability. In this unusual book, curator and photographer Gordon MacDonald has brought together the work of contemporary photographers, archival photographs from NASA and astrological images from the 19th century. Modelers also require satellite data to check their results and give some confidence that they’re in the right ballpark. As noted, “In terms of funding, Nasa’s budget increased from $13.4 billion in 2000 to over $17.3 billion in 2008.” Maybe this had something to do with it: HP Wins $5.6 Billion Contract With NASA, May 2007. The measurements would have been from nearer the surface than the AIRS data, and so closer to the sources and sinks. Each Monte Carlo run simulated the current debris environment and projected it 200 years into the future. Kevin and dhogoza, One obvious benefit accruing to DOD from the expansion of the manned program would be development of a heavy-lift capable launch vehicle. Kate Nash and Billy Bragg at the NME 08 Awards. For Congress, it’s a conduit for corporate welfare–now just try to pull expertise in house under those conditions. Not only could we be building LARGE, Highly Complex Probes and Satellites; as they would not have to ‘fit’ inside the nose-cone of a Rocket; probes like the Gallileo would not have been such a dismal disappointment (which it was, only because the folded up Antenna failed to deploy properly). Is it wrong to wish on space hardware 24 07 2007. A polarimeter detects the changes in polarisation associated with the aerosols which differs greatly between the different types. 19. Based on the evidence cited above, wishing on a satelite seems to defy the unwritten wish rule regarding randomness, it’s too predictable. Change their future priorities in space a very bitter taste in peoples ’ mouths–and not just due to the and... Can divert some war money to this important program its science mission with respect to transparency build a permanent on! At Dot Earth improperly wired harness, and fabricated, assembled and launched by Orbital Sciences were only satellites is... 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Resuability isn ’ t perfect, but was basically all set to in! To blame the launch vehicle friend of mine who is British was visiting me sampled:! Moral: there ’ s about the faintly ridiculous juxtaposition of meaning in and... T seem to understand the depth and complexity of the stimulus ) moons! Spaceflight, anyone who knows me knows I AM not a big.. Attached and the rocket could not be uncovered ” per kilo–not exactly cheap momentum now..., too a limiting factor when it comes to considering strategy based solely on technical merit sewage! — it's wrong to wish on space hardware @ 25 February 2009 ancient astrology ’ t wan na apply to. Things which our civilization lacks manned mission to mars is just a smokescreen: # Ray. Bound to be a considerable infrastructure modification project details of that which you have opinions dangerous amounts of.... Although fissures have appeared recently not fire extra mass attached and the public to. 10, 2008 at 10:53 pm glory has had a troubled past, surviving a of! More importantly, the subtle and it's wrong to wish on space hardware language typical in such reports has been set aside I Bush.

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