Toast for brekkie

Space/travel

Posted on October 28th, 2008 by george.
Categories: travel, history, space, health, epiphany, mathematics.

Hey kids!  Been a while, eh?  I hope you’ve been enjoying the photos from our trip to Bolivia and Peru; I’ve been using my nightly internet allowance to edit and post those shots.  Lorenia put it best this afternoon when she said, “I consider flickr the same as blogging.  You’re simply leaning on images more than words.”  I hope that explains my absence of late.

Huge changes are afoot.  I get married in a matter of weeks (YAY!); my fitness, diet and sleep goals (yes, I have sleep goals) are getting closer to reality; new opportunities are arising at work; and I just got word that one of the references on my astronaut application has been contacted.  You could say things are going well.

There is so much I’ve wanted to blog about.  I have several ideas every day, and it pains me not to have the time to write about them all at length.  Now that I’m on the Zone diet, I spend a little more time each day planning and preparing meals.  Add work, crossfit, and flickr to that, and I do well to get a movie in here and there.  Right now I have over a hundred blog entries started, just waiting to be fleshed out.  At the very least I know I’ll have plenty to do if I ever lose my job or go to the hospital.

What’s broken my silence tonight, first and foremost, is a little something about NASA I’d like to share with the general public.  As you may be aware, most of the infrastructure at the Kennedy Space Center was put in place in the early sixties.  The VAB has recently been re-clad after a series of hurricanes over the past few years, and many other upgrades are underway in advance of the new vehicle.  One of those projects is the removal of the large blast-shield louvers on the front of the Launch Control Center.

Given the decades that these iconic shields have been in place and the millions of visitors to the Kennedy Space Center every year, there are probably billions of photos of these louvers in existence.  Now, with the fancy new windows going in, they are being dismantled and removed.  Out of curiosity, I called up the project manager today to see if they were being donated to a museum.  He was very excited to tell me about the project, emphasizing the care with which the crane operator removed them and gently placed them on a flatbed truck to be sent to KSC excess.  His mood changed, however, when he recollected that once at the salvage site, the workers stabbed the louvers with a forklift and tossed them into the woods.

My plea to you is this:  if you know anyone who would like to include a large part of U.S. space history in a museum, memorial or large-scale art installation, please contact me, and I’ll get you in touch with the right people.  There are three more firing rooms whose louvers have not yet been removed.  Now is your chance to do something to support the space program.

Ok, next topic!  I was on the crossfit website today looking up WODs when I ran across this little gem of an article.  The TSA is one of my favorite whipping boys, and I consider this piece to be the final word on the futility of their existence.  I hope the next Administration has the good sense to abolish the organization and apply their seven-billion-dollar budget somewhere it might actually do some good.  I mean, seven billion dollars?  Where did that even come from?  That’s more than half NASA’s budget!  Do you realize what we could do with those funds?  At the very least, if you’re worried about terrorists, apply them to intelligence where they might actually do some good.  I’ve always found the hassle of the TSA’s security theater galling.  I’m convinced it’s a) a jobs program and b) a crutch for the airline industry who otherwise wouldn’t make as much money on non-refundable tickets.

I’ll leave you with a few words about an epiphany I had today.  After a near-death crossfit workout at the gym, I walked out into the brisk evening breeze and witnessed the glory of the fading sunset.  The cold blanket of air hovering over the continent had pushed all the clouds out of the Florida sky, so we were gifted with a rare, clear-sky dusk.  I marvelled at the strip of orange resting on the horizon, and how the gradient passed through green before fading into the midnight blue overhead.  Two bright planets pierced the veil of the heavens before the stars spilled out, and in thinking about the tilt of Earth’s axis and its role in the seasons it dawned on me:  someday soon we’ll model all the molecules in the atmosphere, and the secrets of how the giant globs of warm, wet, cold and dry air dance around the globe will be revealed.  With a clarity that only intense exertion can create, I further realized that all of mathematics is but a simplification.  It is true, it is correct, the science that rests upon it can be empirically verified, but it is an approximation.  If our beloved equations fully described reality, we world create worlds when we wrote them down.  Instead, they allow us glimpses into creation; they are useful tools for understanding our place in this universe and how to manipulate this wonderful reality to our ends.

Not bad for a weightlifting session.  Exercise is for nerds.

4 comments.

Happy Birthday!

Posted on October 1st, 2008 by george.
Categories: technology, space, future, life, photography, fun, prayer, serendipity.

First, to my father. Without him, there are countless reasons I wouldn’t be here.

Second, to NASA. It’s incredible to me that they share the same birthday. When I called Dad to wish him well today, he said it was meant to be that he have a son who would one day work for such a storied organization.

So here’s to both of you! We celebrated in fine style this week, with the crew of STS-124 returning to KSC to visit the employees on Monday. I had the distinct privilege of meeting and speaking with Aki Hoshide, Mike Fossum, Ron Garan and Ken Ham. During the question and answer session I asked about their views on the future of space exploration, since Space X successfully launched the Falcon rocket into orbit on their fourth attempt just this Sunday, making it history’s first private orbital spacecraft.

Ron gave a brilliant answer, one which I didn’t forsee and which settles the false dichotomy between public and private space. Many people aren’t aware how much NASA supports private space exploration, even putting their money where their mouth is and seed-funding several startups, not to mention making arrangements for future private-party resupply missions to the International Space Station. Ron said it’s time for NASA to leave LEO (Low Earth Orbit) to the startups, and venture outward into the solar system. The ISS is an incredible outpost, and we should operate it as intended, as an international microgravity science laboratory, but it should be resupplied with cargo and crew by private companies. NASA should throw its weight behind efforts where it has historically excelled, namely exploration. It makes sense to field more robotic missions to planets and NEOs (Near Earth Objects) and to embark on human exploration and settlement of the Moon and Mars. It’s a beautiful symbiosis. Ron emphasized that NASA and other government space programs are the only ones capable of pursuing the goals that are “seventy years out,” meaning the missions for which there is no immediately discernible financial return, but which intangibly benefit us all. LEO is ripe for commercial expansion. But Elon Musk doesn’t have the $40 billion it’s going to take to put a human on Mars.  Yet.

Today, on the golden anniversary of NASA beginning operations, the employees of the Kennedy Space Center celebrated by walking, running and rollerblading 1-mile, 5K and 10K courses on the three-mile-long Shuttle Landing Facility. I take special pride in being the person who started the rollerblading tradition (much to the chagrin of the competitive runners) four years ago. Each year we have a greater number of dorks in helmets out on the slab. It’s fantastic fun. This year marks the first time I’ve been beaten to the finish line!

The highlight for me, though, is after the race. It’s not the free catered food and sports drinks, the camaraderie and the swag, all of which are good. It’s the chance to see what goes on nearly every day at the SLF, up close and personal. Astronaut pilots and commanders are training all the time in the STAs (Shuttle Training Aircraft), modified Gulfstreams with sophisticated flight controls and avionics to make them fall out of the sky just like space shuttles.

Today there were two STAs on the tarmac, and anyone who was brave enough to ask got a guided tour. There’s nothing in the world like sitting in the pilot seat of a split-down-the-middle frankenstein machine, half shuttle, half executive jet, looking through the futuristic transparent HUD (Head Up Display) as the astronauts arrive in their T-38 supersonic jets to train in the very seat in which you sit. We got the royal treatment, too, staying onboard while the engines spooled up and meeting the former astronauts and maintenance officers for the SR-71 and U-2 who teach the younger flyboys and flygirls how to handle the magnificent birds. I learned more in one evening about the STA than I have in all my years as an aerospace engineer. These planes have the longest service history of any Gulfstream (a company also celebrating its 50th) aircraft ever produced.  The engines are different, as are the thrust reversers, the 30-degree-positive flaps, and countless other systems that give these planes their jekyll-and-hyde personality.

As I skated back to the car, the sky turned various brilliant shades of pink and orange as more astronauts arrived in their jets.  I bid the crew farewell and said a silent prayer of thanks for the privilege I enjoy, working every day at the greatest spaceport on Earth, for an organization responsible for some of the crowning achievements of our era and that has contributed so much to humankind.

6 comments.