Mars Rover (NASA)

If you’re like me, you’ve been following NASA’s desperate attempt to free Spirit, and the ongoing roving of the rugged little Opportunity. These two rovers, with Captain Jack like habits of not dying, are in part the creation of Steven Squyres. Next week, on Wednesday night, Squyres will be giving a talk here at SIUE. Come give him a listen?

Here are the details:

Steven Squyres
“Roving Mars: Spirit, Opportunity and the Exploration of the Red Planet”
Wednesday, February 17, 7:30 p.m.
Meridian Ballroom, Morris University Center
Sponsored by the Shaw Memorial Fund

Steve Squyres is the man responsible for taking us to the Red Planet and igniting a new firestorm of interest in space exploration. “Spirit and Opportunity” have always been prominent in the life of Squyres, best known as the face and voice of NASA’s spectacular mission to Mars using two high-tech robotic rovers. Spearheading a team of 3,000 and a budget of $800 million, the acclaimed scientist and principal investigator of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program will detail how he turned what seemed like an improbable dream into a reality. With a compelling voice and never before seen photos he will discuss the risks taken, the mistakes made and how the project’s goals were ultimately achieved.

Mars Rover (credit: NASA)

This Week Only: White House Star Party and LCROSS Impact

As a 1 year long event, IYA2009 has worked hard to provide a steady stream of events. That said, some weeks are more interesting than others, and this week is shaping up to be one of those more interesting weeks. On October 7, Mr and Mrs Obama will host a star party at the US White House, and on the night of October 8/morning of October 9, the LCROSS mission will impact the Moon.

White House Star Party
There aren’t a lot of details, but here’s what I know. According to the White House Press Secratary, “the President and First Lady will host an event at the White
House for middle-school students to highlight the President’s commitment to science,
engineering and math education as the foundation of this nation’s global
technological and economic leadership and to express his support for astronomy in
particular – for its capacity to promote a greater awareness of our place in the
universe, expand human knowledge, and inspire the next generation by showing
them the beauty and mysteries of the night sky.” From what I’ve heard, around 200 middle school kids are going to be invited to participate. Helping these kids and the Obama’s celebrate the International Year of Astronomy will be a group of professional and amateur astronomers from all over the United States. According to the event organizer, “more than 20 telescopes [will be] set up on the White House lawn focused on Jupiter, the Moon and select stars; interactive dome presentations, and hands on activities including scale models of the Solar System, impact cratering, and investigating meteorites and Moon rocks.” An opening address and hopefully general coverage will be streamed on whitehouse.gov and on NASA TV.

LCROSS Impact
At about 4:30am Pacific time on October 9 NASA is going to drop an empty rocket segment into the Cabeus A crater near the moon’s south pole. Hot on the heels of this large chunk of metal will be the LCROSS space craft and its cameras. The rocket section should throw a large plume of material into space that LCROSS will fly through and (before itself crashing into the moon) probe for water. The impact is timed to allow it to sorta be dark across most of the US (or at least everyone west of the Mississippi), and most importantly, to allow the telescopes in Hawaii to see all the details about what’s going on. Want to watch it yourself? To see anything interesting, you’ll really need a telescope of some girth – 12″ at a minimum, and really 16″ or larger is probably a better bet. You can find everything you need here. Better yet, check out streamed video live from the Exploratorium.

Three Dreamers

I know a set of men who had a dream. They wanted to see every child in the world have access to a high-quality low-cost telescope. They wanted something that would show the rings of Saturn, survive a tumble down the stairs, and just keep revealing the sky night after night after night. This is a good dream; a dream inspired by the one laptop per child project. It is a dream that could be a reality, but it needs help. These men need you to dream with them and help their dream become a reality.

Moon thru a Galileoscope (by Andreas O. Jaunsen)

The Concept is Born
The Galileoscope project was launched about the time everyone realized the 2009 International Year of Astronomy idea was about to become a UN endorsed reality. Lead by Doug Arion, Rick Fienberg, and Steve Pompea, the Galileoscope telescope team gave themselves a goal of $10 per scope and set out to design. Like the original One Laptop Per Child goal of $100 per computer, they overshot a little bit. In this case, they came in at $20 per scope + shipping (or $15 to donate). Still not bad. See that image to the right? That was taken through a Galileoscope. These are systems with excellent optics.

The Problem
There is only 1 problem with the Galileoscope: No one can get one in a timely fashion unless, well, you go bid on this or this auction. Here’s the reason for the problem: No one ever provided the start up money needed to produce that first batch of Galileoscopes. We are literally collecting money until we have enough to run a batch out of the factories, producing and shipping that batch, and collecting money for the next batch. At a minimum, we just needed one rich soul to come forward with $200k to turn the factories on and start producing scopes while we collected a round of orders. Ideally, we need just $500k to get a stock pile of scopes we can sell with 24-hour shipping, while incoming money goes to the next round of orders. But that large donation never came. That donor, that sponsor, that dreamer never stepped forward. So these men with a dream, they put in their own money to get this started, and they asked the world – Will you buy a scope? We’re sorry, but it could take 6-months to get it. But will you buy a scope please?

Looking in the box

Originally, we’d all imagined millions of orders – both personal purchases and donations for kids everywhere in the world. Just like the original One Laptop Per Child, we have the option to Buy-One-Give-One. These scopes are the price of a double-CD. Why not think they’d sell like the latest top 40 hit? With orders like that, we projected we could turn on more assembly lines, speed up the rate of production, and keep maybe not ahead, but at least keep up. But those millions of orders never came. Everyone it seemed was waiting to see one, touch one, and play with one (or to at least have overnight delivery). But without those millions, that one touchable one never came to the vast majority of people who were thinking “Maybe I’d buy one. I just want to see one first.” They are coming to those who order, one by one a few hundred thousand scattered across the world at a time. They are coming. You may have yours (comment if you do?), and I know mine are coming soon.

A Solution
The one thing this project needs to overcome the delivery problem is funding. Galileoscope itself isn’t a non-profit company (simply because they didn’t spend all the extra money to become a not-for-profit. It costs almost $1000 in fees to set up a not-for-profit for something like Galileoscope!), so they either need help from other organizations or help from someone who doesn’t care about tax deductions. Bottom line – they need finacial help, and while I haven’t found that couple hundred thousand dollar donor, I’m hoping to find maybe a couple thousand dollars of help.

Felicia Day

This is where you, the casts of Battlestar Galactica and Ghost Hunters International, as well as the wonderful Felicia Day and the new non-profit Astrosphere New Media all come into play. At Dragon*Con in Atlanta on Labor Day weekend, I got pictures of a few famous people (and a few cool costumes) with a Galileoscope. When (thanks to the great Phil Plait!) I asked Felicia Day for her photo, she just signed the box. w00t! An idea was born! We’d get signatures and give someone the chance to have the ultimate geek gift of SyFy geekery. Our wonderful volunteer Laura S. took a box, and I took a box, and between us we cornered the cast of Ghost Hunters International and Battlestar Galactica. Two Galileoscopes. Two sets of different signatures. Two possibilities to make scopes for kids a reality.  The proceeds from this scope will buy scopes for needy kids, and with each scope purchased we are a little closer to a production run.

An eBay Auction
Right now on eBay we have (through Astrosphere New Media Association) two charity auctions. All proceeds are tax deductible and Astrosphere will use the proceeds to buy scopes for needy kids. The auctions are open until October 1st around 7am Pacific / 10am Eastern / 3pm London. You now have the chance to have your own scope, your own geek signatures, and to do a good thing all at once.

Now, I know there is the potential for the winning bid to not be divisible evenly by the $15 a scope costs, so I’m going to step forward and say I’ll personally round the bid amount up to buy that last telescope (I’m just a state university professor, so I can’t do anything cool like match the winning bids, but I would if I could, and if you can, would you please?) Right now, the two scopes are at

• 

  Felicia Day + Battlestar Galactica Cast signed Galileoscope

  Scope 1: Signed by Felicia Day, Michael Hogan, Kandyse McClure, Alessandro Juliani, Mary McDonnell, Michael Trucco, Kate Vernon, Luciano Carro, Richard Hatch, and the BSG Science Advisor Kevin Grazier (see picture). Current Bid: $152!

• 

  Ghost Hunters Galileoscope

  Scope 2: Signed by Ghost Hunters International Joe Chin, JC Howell, Dustin Pari, Dave Tango, and 2 more (see picture). Current Bid: $66!

This means if the bidding ended right now there would be 15 scopes for kids who may never have seen the sky with anything other than their eyes. That’s awesome.

But can’t we do better?

Here is my challenge: Fandoms – Ghost Hunter Fans, The Guild / Dr Horrible Fans + Battlestar Galactica Fans – which of you can get the most scopes into the hands of the most kids? Show your fandom colors by bidding high and lending a helping hand.

Please?

We have 9 days left. Spread the word. Spread this post. Help gets scopes for kids. Help a dream.

Kate Vernon (Ellen Tigh) Cool Costumed People Adam Savage and Phil Plait Gil Gerard (Buck Rogers) Galiloscope in Surly Amy's Scientific Jewelry Richard Hatch (The ORIGINAL Apollo) Steam Punk Boba Fett

Remember: The Universe is Yours to Discover.

Jose Antonio Sânchez Reyes | Dreamstime.com

This is a piece on gender inequity and sexual discrimination (not sexual harassment, which is a different and emotionally more devastating thing). I´m writing this at this time not because of any one thing that´s happened, but because of a culmination of things. Sometimes it just seems like a topic is in the air, building momentum, and this topic has finally found a voice in me.

This post had three different triggers. The first was a bad moment I had last semester, when I found out a student in my Physics for Engineers class was making sexually harassing comments on a regular basis. The second trigger came from confronting numbers and statistics on women in physics and astronomy for a pair of talks at Dragon*Con. And the third trigger was this little gem posted by Rebecca Watson on Twitter under the heading “Sexual Assault Prevention Tips (A must-read! Pls RT and save someone from being raped)”

Sexual discrimination, sexual harassment, and rape all share one rather awful thing in common: They occur when one person or group is able to act in a hurtful way to another person or group without anyone stopping what´s going on. This does not have to be men against women: I´ve seen barns filled with middle-aged women swarm on the lone equestrian male, doing everything from landing the friendly slap on the ass, to cat calling him in his riding attire. It also doesn’t have to be purposely hurtful: I´ve watched as male grad students, at the beginning of the semester and before social groups have formed, thoughtlessly walk around asking all the other men if they want to head out [for lunch / to go to the gym /to get a drink] while they left the women behind. Sometimes people in power don´t even realize what´s going on as they do it, the sexual discrimination that happened to women at MIT is an example of this. Over years women weren’t given the same job advantages as men, and it was entirely without thought. When the problem was pointed out, measures were taken to fix the problem. (This study is mentioned in the forthcoming National Academies report, “Gender Differences at Critical Transitions in the Careers of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Faculty.” )

And here is where I´m going to ask all of you to listen to me really closely: Anytime anyone with the power to help is aware of any form of discrimination and they do nothing to fix it, they are just as much to blame as the perpetrators.

Throughout my adult life I have over and over had some well-meaning man watch me get frustrated in some work situation or academic situation, and they´ve said with the intention of comforting me: “It’s not you, he´s an [expletive] to all women.” Okay, nice try. I appreciate the attempt, but – Could you maybe offer a girl a little help?

I want to be clear: If you are in a position of power, and you see a problem, telling the victim they are being victimized is not a solution. Finding a way to stop the perpetrator is the only a solution.

This is not a matter of men against women. This can be in either direction with gender. It can be racial. It can be religious in nature. And in academia it can even take the form of Large Prestigious University Researchers discriminating against small college researchers.

Let me return to those 3 triggers above as talking points.

Trigger 1: Male student making sexually harassing comments I have never been so angry in my life, and as the professor of the class I grabbed my syllabus, found the line that says, “Loud and disruptive students are not welcome. If you disturb your classmates, you will be kicked out!” and made it clear that I would wield that line of my syllabus if even one word of sexually loaded speech was uttered, and that the student – any student with harassing language – would not only be kicked out of my class for the rest of the semester and fail, but I´d report them to the dean of students.  Then I moved back onto discussing physics. The students behaved (all the way through the end of the semester in fact!), but at the end of class a tough as nails, takes no shit from anyone, women came up and commended me for what I had done, but then she said it´s all kind of useless as long as there are professors making sexually explicit jokes in single gender dominated classes. All I could do was say, I´m sorry, I can´t help you, that prof has tenure and I´m just someone living grant to grant. All I can say is you need to report it on your evaluations or go to a chair or dean. Every university has its 1 or more faculty member who say the wrong things, crossing the wrong lines, sometimes just to get a laugh. But as long as that 1 (or more) person exists, the problem exists.

And here, I have to be very careful what I say because I know this is a dangerous post to write. The people I work with now I may have to work with for the rest of my life – academia is a very small culture, and with our very limited resources, emotions run high and grudges are held for decades. But I want to say this nonetheless: We as a field need a better way for addressing these problems so junior faculty like me don’t have to tell students – “I’m sorry, I can’t help you” because I’m too afraid for my own job. I have known about problems at every institution I´ve been at and I haven´t felt comfortable reporting them because I know that if I reported every problem a student reports to me it would put my situation in jeopardy. We need a better way to report problems.

Right now, a student must report the problem to a person in power (all men in my areas of expertise – I don’t count as someone with power. If they report it to me, I can report it to the chair or dean, but then have to produce the student), and if it is another student victimizing them, they may have to confront that student face-to-face in the university judicial system. If it is a faculty member, it is likely half the university will know who reported what very rapidly (never trust an academic with a secret). We’re all told everything is in confidence, but we’ve also all had that one gossipy tenured senior person (often from another department) let us in on the past 10 years of sexual misdeeds. This means the accuser – the victim – will face extensive scrutiny and the potential of becoming the bunt of lunch time laughter (a form of additional harassment) while they wait and hope for the academic judicial system to help them out.

We need a better way to handle problems and keep people safe. I don’t know what the solution is. I wish I did. I just know we need something better.

Trigger 2: The depressing numbers Let´s face it, the situation is bleak. Go read the two reports I summarize here. These numbers tell me one simple thing: A lot of women are leaving science for a lot of undocumented reasons. People only go into things like physics and astronomy for 1 reason: Love. They love the field or they love the challenge. They weren´t seeking fame or fortune. Like the impoverished poet, they self-selected to bleed themselves into their work. Both men and women with into physics/astronomy out of love, but women have preferentially left behind the field or challenge for undocumented reasons. I know I personally left the field once out of frustration, and one element of that frustration was knowing I’d never be part of the old boys club (which I then learned also existed in other fields).

Trigger 3: The one certain way to prevent rape is to get rid of the rapers – The topic of this post isn´t rape, but the idea still applies. In the case of gender discrimination by men on women, I as a woman can do all I want to try and avoid harassment, but at the end of the day, I can be as cautious and uncontroversial as I want (or don’t want), but the choice to be discriminated against based on my gender isn´t a choice I get to make – it is a decision made by others. The only thing that can stop men from harassing women is for men to step forward and say enough is enough. (The same is true if you reverse the genders, or change this to a case of religious, race, or other discrimination.) Always, it must be other members of the group in power who step forward and stand up for the people being victimized. This was true during the civil rights movement, for instance.

And here is the challenge I want to put out there: If you are a man and ever feel the need to pull a woman aside and say “It´s not you, it´s because you´re a woman,” I want you to act on that need, and then I want you to report to the proper authorities what is going on. Be an advocate. Stand up for someone who may not be able to stand up for themselves. You have the power to change things.

And if anyone ever tells you, “It’s not you, they are like that to all [women / minorities / Christians / Jews / gays / etc],” look at that person and tell them, “If I fight this, I could lose my job and be labeled a trouble maker. If you report this, they’ll listen. Will you help? Will you report what you’ve witnessed to the appropriate authorities and prevent this from happening again? Will you help me?”

Be safe. Be good. And if you have power, help someone without it.

Now, I know there are young people who do astronomy. I get lots of email from younger people. I know there are women in astronomy. I get emails from them as well.

What I don’t know is why they aren’t here.

Do you know? Those of you reading from home who love astronomy, why have you chosen not to join an astronomy club? You don’t have to have a telescope. Really. Two eyes, a brain, and a heart are all that are needed to fall in love with the sky.

What do I need to do to get you out of your chair at home and sitting at a professional-amateur astronomy meeting somewhere in the world beside me?

Anyone interested in joining the AAVSO, my personal favorite professional-amateur club (which really is international despite its name), should check out their website. I’d love to see you at their meeting in my hometown of Boston, MA next fall.

The last time I was at LPSC, NASA announced how they had planned and put in place initial funding for every mission outlined in the planetary sciences decadal survey. The NASA representative was met with thunderous applause and bright shiny dreams for the future. We’ll see what today brings.

I have to say this is a different Griffin then I saw in Austin. He started by sincerely expressing his sorrow at the death of Gordan McKay and presented his widow and children a plaque in gratitude for McKay’s work at NASA.

Now, Griffin – acknowledging he is the only thing between us and dinner – is starting with a reference to Kennedy and his vision of going to the Moon. He is pointing out that today’s politicians aren’t known for their stirring oratories, but he is looking for other people to be our inspiration. It is a NASA one, US one, inspiration – In the eyes of the world “first in space means first, period; second in space is second in everything.” He is praising the Lunar and Planetary Institute (the host organization for this meeting) for its work to promote and carry out projects beyond Earth’s orbit.

Looking to the Johnson Space Flight Center, we have a center not named after a great orator, but after a politician who worked hard to pass legislation to move NASA forward. Today, under a new vision, we continue to advance space forward.

Griffin is using a lot of humor to talk about the change in the vision he put through a couple years ago. He is stating that in many ways Gene Roddenberry’s vision for the Enterprise, while containing a split-infinitive, contains an idealized vision. While we may not be the ones to find new civilizations, we may be the ones to build new civilizations on strange new worlds. This is a speech designed to inspire us to – as humans – see ourselves as the ones out exploring surfaces of other worlds. He is drawing on the memories of great moments of the past – Mariner, Pioneer, Voyager – and is looking forward to tomorrow’s successes – MESSENGER, New Horizons – while saying that exploration is our future.

The tone is changing as he explains that he has never seen a mission (context = planetary mission) he doesn’t like. But, with NASA receiving 6/10 of a percent (0.6%) of the federal budget, not every mission is possible. He is quoting Wired, keeping the audience laughing, as he points out that the public thinks NASA gets 26% of the Federal budget, and that one fellow, after hearing the small size of the actual budget, remarked “No wonder NASA hasn’t done anything interesting in a while.”

With limited means, the planetary science budget is getting rearranged to improve our scientific coverage of outer planets – a new mission is being planned to the outer solar system – while de-emphasizing Mars. Small missions to the moon (talked about Sunday) are also being added, and instruments are being build for India’s moon mission. These missions will help pave the way for manned missions. There are also landers planned, total of 7 US NASA missions planned by 2014.

He wants to see the US as a world leader, but he also wants partners. He sees NASA as a world space program, with over half of its programs having international members. He sees the International Space Station as part of this – with ISS allowing us to work on our biomedical understanding of people living in space. He is invoking the name of the Columbia crew as heroes whose dream we continue (I’m not sure I agree with any of this part – You can’t be a leader and have partners who are equals – I want partners who are equals. The Columbia crew did science, they did not go to ISS – I’m not sure how you invoke their name to invoke dreams of ISS).

He is outlining the tests of the new launch vehicles, launching from Kennedy and the New Mexico spaceport. He is challenging us to find uses for these new vehicles, and he is challenging us to find ways for NASA to stay first in space and first in the world.

Comments? I’m fascinated by the difference between Griffin here and Griffin at AAS. Rebecca and I are both sitting here with our mouths open. This guy I could like. Maybe. If only the whole world dominance thing wasn’t so strongly voiced so often.

Below I try to get as close to word for word as I could. Some paraphrasing did occur, but I think I captured the tones and many of the exact phrases.

One European said, “I have a few comments.” Griffin said, “I don’t want comments, I want questions.” She said, “No, No, I’m here to represent Europe and European voices. …” She went on to talk about her project (Mars sample return), and how NASA’s cuts to Mars are effecting Europe – there is a sense that NASA isn’t serious about actually doing the planned international Mars sample return. When NASA makes cuts on collaborations, its hurts everyone. Griffin: “Really – I don’t want comments. I’m the invited speaker. I’m the one invited to talk. Other people can make comments when they are invited to speak. I want questions – But I’ll try and address the question within your comments.” He went on to explain that Mars cannot always have the flagship mission. If we have an international obligation to maintain high levels, we can’t meet our own goals. We will however meet obligations we have – including Mars sample return. So, Griffin says, we are restoring Mars to a historic average and putting much of the money elsewhere. That said, he went on to explain that NASA is dedicated to the agreed upon Mars sample return mission, and he will talk to the ESA version of his position to confirm this and assuage ESA fears.

The next question is about the new badge and security check that is being done on NASA employees at JPL. He is saying this is identical to what civil servants have gone through for decades, and everything has been reviewed by lawyers before being implemented. For now, we’re living with it.

From depressing badges to Google Lunar X-Prize – How will NASA deal with a commercial winner? Will there be commercial contracts? asks someone from the commercial space race (he didn’t say which company). Griffin: Yes. And we’ll use a certain amount of government money to seed it and will hirer folks.

Grad student comment: I work on Mars. Mars is the only program getting an A today from the National Resource Council. Now we’re stripping money from Mars to the outer solar system to support those weaker programs. How can we maintane excellence if we keep moving money from program to program? What do you have to say to young scientists?
Griffin: Don’t specialize. Specializing is for bugs. You’ll have a better career if you can do more things. … Be prepared to have turmoil in your career. … NASA has a bold vision and we need to be able to move money around. Tell me, if we are going to hold Mars funding constant and have a mission to the outer solar system, where should we cut the funding from to have both these missions?
audience mutterings: from manned space (the grad student declined to repeat over the mic what the audience said)
Grad Student: How do we convince the Government to get us money?
Griffin: We’re not allowed to lobby congress
Grad Student: NASA Produces great educational materials
Griffin: Yes we do, but … Let me remind you that NASA is not the department of education. NASA spends $15 million each year on education – that’s enough money for one more discovery mission, and we can’t do that mission because of the education we do. I’m not saying that is money badly spent, but … NASA is the only thing in the domestic discretionary part of the Federal budget that hasn’t received cuts.
Grad Student: I’m not trying to make fun of NASA – I’m trying to say I want to live in a world in 30 years where people are better educated in Science, Math, and Technology
Griffin: That’s not NASA’s job
Grad Student: (pause) Do you have any insights from your work with politicians on how we can get more science education?
Griffin: I don’t generally get any insights from politicians

Smithsonian Center Women: What happens to everyone who in the past 25 years who have dedicated their careers to Mars? What happens to the wealth of data we have?
Griffin: Apply to the money in the R&A budget, and you can get money based on your scientific merit. … (paraphrase totally here) The argument that we have had money and we do have jobs with Mars is not a valid argument for continuing to study Mars. It is time to do new things.
Smithsonian Center Women: So we shouldn’t specialize?
Griffin: No … And the Mars program isn’t being zeroed out. Not even close.

Smithsonian Center Man: If my child came home with an A, a C and a D, my answer would not be to lower the A. I would say get an A in everything! (spontaneous applause from Audience) What do you/congress see as an acceptable grade for NASA?
Griffin: In a world of limited resources, I can’t get an A in everything. … When as a golfer my putting sucks (his word) I don’t spend all my time on the driving range.
Person: What can we do to help your resources?
Griffen: Talk to Congress.

Man from Pratt Whitney Rocket-dyn: When you leave NASA, what do you see as your greatest achievement and greatest disappointment?
Griffin: I can’t grade my own paper. I have a deep ethical aversion to self-assessment
(Pamela’s inner dialogue – Ummmm, self assessment is good)
Griffin: I hired people who knew space. There were no nervous virgins. Everyone knew their way around the space industry. I hired people with domain expertise and that matters. If anyone notices it, that would mean a lot to me. My greatest disappointment is the lack of ability to find a shuttle replacement. I yield to no one on the need to retire the shuttle in 2010. I regret that I haven’t – at a policy level – convinced anyone to buy into a shuttle replacement in the past 3 years.

EPO Mars Coordinator Carla: You put me in a fix. I assure you that we do not have a replacement population for the ladies and gentle me in this room in the next 15 to 20 years. I encourage people to follow these incredible specializations. I like the “No planet left behind”. I don’t see the answer coming from the department of education. What do I do? (she said more much more eloquently.
Griffin: If you aren’t getting what you need of the Department of Education, you need to fix that agency. If I take on the job another agency is chartered for, I’m going to get slapped.
… NASA’s job is to present the mission and vision of today’s space program. Fixing science education in America is not part of NASA’s job. It is not in our charter. Go look at our charter. I feel your pain. I was an adjunct professor for 15 years. I know we are doing a bad job at science education in America, but it is NOT NASA’s job to fix that. We are here to provide content.

Person I missed title of: (massive paraphrase) We’re a small part of the world. Other nations are rising – Europe, China, India – How can we continue to be dominate and be bold?
Griffin: (massive paraphrase) We’re 4% of world’s population, but 25% of world’s budget. Other nations don’t have the space budget we have. Our budget system is so bad as everyone seems to think. NASA’s budget was largest in the year’s pre-Clinton. … We get as much money every 10 or 15 year bin today as we got during Apollo. … (closer to quote again) If we’re getting the same amount of money as before and we’re not happy with what we’re doing as we were before, we need change what we’re doing. We can’t responsibly ask for more money until we know how to use what we have. … We need to be good enough, clever enough, and bold enough at what we do that other people (referring to Europe) to join us as volunteers. We can’t leverage other people’s resources. … We need to be in a position to say, here is what we are absolutely going to do, you tell us what you are going/want to do. … Over 50% of our missions have international collaborators.

JPL Scientist: I think it is a mistake to tell people not to specialize. I think it is better to have the funding to maintain specializations. … This is what happened when Apollo went away. All the lunar specialist went to other fields and that expertise was lost.
Griffin: Apollo’s budget was set to zero. Mars budget was not put to zero. We are not getting rid of that expertise, we are just returning things to lower levels.

Women: Thank you for restoring outer solar system missions and the servicing mission to Hubble. What is being down to increase access to launch vehicles and power systems?
Griffin: Paraphrasing – We’re developing new technologies. As for launch vehicles … government is not very efficient. I’m hoping that the commercial space agencies will drive innovation and lower costs. Government can be efficient under stress (when things get streamlined), but it can’t be successful when trying to meet the needs of everyone in all of government. For instance, the system of procurement is designed to be fair but not to be efficient. … We need to empower a group to efficiently run the space race. I hope that it will be NASA, but it may be the commercial agencies…

Griffin had to go to dinner (and so do I) so the meeting ended.

The GLOBE at Night:  Starting Monday February 25, the GLOBE at Night program is asking everyone in the world (which would include you) to go out, look up, match how many stars they see in Orion with comparison charts available online, and then report their observations through their website.   This data will be used to map the severity of light pollution around the globe.

Lunar and Planetary Society Conferene: Interested in Solar System Science? Are you a Houston are Educator (formal or informal?) March 10-14 the 34th LPSC conference will be taking place in League City, TX (just outside of Houston) and on March 9 they will hold an pre-conference EPO Meeting at the Lunar and Planetary Institute. Rebecca and I will both be going and we will have a very informal get together Tuesday March 11 at 8pm. I am leaning toward the bar at San Lorenzo’s Mexican Cafe on Marina Bay Drive. If anyone has a better idea, please pipe up.

Saturn Night Live: March 15 I’ll be in San Antonio with some friends from BAUT Forum at Scobee Planetarium. Join us to look up and enjoy Saturn, the moon and other bright celestial objects.

2nd International Sidewalk Astronomy Day: April 12 (I’ll remind you ) will be a day of guerrilla astronomy. Do you own a telescope? Well, get it out and set it up in a public place and plan to assault random people with the stars! If I’m not in Europe (and I’ll let you know as soon as I know if I’m going), I’ll be at Annie’s Frozen Custard with local astronomers.

In many schools that day, teachers pulled their children into auditoriums and lined them up in rows before TVs. They were there to be inspired. This crew had a role model for everyone: African-American astronaut and physicist Ronald McNair, female astronaut and engineer Judy Resnik, Japanese-American astronaut and engineer Ellison Onizuka. And for those not wanting a PhD in science, math, engineering or technology, there was the teacher, Christa McAuliffe, showing that space belonged to truly everyone.

On that Big-Haired 1986 day, the Space Shuttle was still shiny and new, and we had dreams of everyone one day being able to fly into space – no training required. We had evidence it could happen; in1985, Senator Jake Garn had flown for no obvious reason (other than he had the ability to pull enough strings), and now a teacher would fly because NASA saw sending teachers to space as a great way to get kids interested in space.

My school wasn’t one of the ones with the students being sold on space. We were out to recess while the teachers gathered in the library watching. I have to admit that a lot of that day is lost to my memory. I have flashes of key moments – standing in the hall watching through the library window, trying to explain what was going on and being wrong; hearing over the intercom from our very young principle an intercom announcement of what had happened while I was in the computer room; speculating in social studies that it was a terrorist bomb somehow; sitting in algebra with Mrs. Leland trying to explain everything to us, talking as much for herself as she was talking for the benefit of us.

Mrs. Leland (or Lealand – I don’t remember), was my math teacher and a pilot and a science lover. And she was a competitor in the contest to fly into space. And she was a friend of Christa McAuliffe (it was a small part of the country, they were friendly people. I doubt there were any two friendly math and science teachers in New England who weren’t friends.) She talked about the need to dream, and going to space being part of a dream. She talked about astronauts knowing the risk they are taking, and her own struggles with balancing her love of her family and her desire to always be there with them against the potential of dieing as an astronaut.

I was in 6th grade. I raced home, asked my mom (who was home and baking), why she didn’t have the TV on, and everything came out of my mouth in a rush. Her first reaction was to tell me to stop lieing. But then I had Tom Brokaw on and the age of 24-hour media coverage was started and I was on the sofa watching, watching, watching.

It wasn’t terrorists. It was the cold that killed the 7 men and women on their way to space. Plastic loses its ability to flex and bend in the cold, and that day in Florida it was just below freezing. Each of the sections of the solid rocket boosters are sealed with plastic O-rings that are designed to prevent exhaust from leaking – combusting – through the seams between the segments. When these seals fail, the gas in the rockets has more then one way to go – It can either go out the bottom of the rocket or out through the faulty seal. These O-rings are in many ways no different then the tape you use on the gas connectors for a gas stove or the plastic rings in faucet handles. On that too cold day, the O-ring had contracted and the gas escaped.

Seventy-three seconds into launch that escaping gas caused catastrophic failure. The solid rocket booster exploded. The shuttle shattered. The crew cabin fell to the sea as seven men and women struggled to use their training to figure out how to survive. An oxygen tank was turned on. We know they lived through the blast. They, like every other astronaut we’ve lost, had the time to realize, OMG, I’m about to die.

But their experience hasn’t deterred people from wanting to become astronauts. Their experience, in front of an entire generation of school children (thirty-somethings out there – where were you when the Challenger exploded?) didn’t cause the children to turn away from space and stop dreaming. NASA had, without meaning to, created a martyr for everyone – in each of those astronauts each of us could, if we wanted to, find someone whose dream we could define in our own new way.

Unfortunately, the tragedy has broken NASA’s dreams of space for everyone. Today we have an astronaut who is a former schoolteacher, but she was fully trained as an astronaut. Today we have another Senator who has flown to space, but I think everyone can agree that John Glenn was an astronaut first, and unlike Garner, was fully trained. No space tourist will fly on a U.S. space shuttle. Period. That is a risky game NASA leaves to the Russians (but didn’t they invent Russian Roulette?)

From January 1986 until September 29, 1988 NASA kept its feet firmly planted on the ground. It was with a cautious 4-day mission with new rules, new cautions, and higher safety standards that they finally returned.

In 1985 NASA launched 9 shuttle missions. In January of 1986, NASA tried to fly two shuttle missions in 2 weeks and would have succeeded had it been warm. Space was easy. Space was fun. It was easier to have 80s hair in zero g. Today, we’re lucky to launch 6 shuttle’s a year, and only five missions are planned for 2008.

Like someone who has had a bad sport’s injury, NASA is now cautious when it puts weight on it injured man-space flight arm. It never knows when the limb might not bear its weight again. Like an aging athlete, it knows that injuries are a little bit easier to get now, and that every time it steps into the field, the probability that something will go wrong goes up.

The Columbia, exploded on February 1, 2003 during re-entry. During launch, it appears, foam had hit the shuttle’s wing, creating a small bit of damage that, like a weakened shoulder waiting to cause a tumbling gymnast to fall horribly off the high bar, weakened the shuttle such that the heat of re-entry would kill the entire crew.

NASA and its space shuttle are old.

The youngest space cowboys of Apollo are still part of NASA. The young grad students of the Sputnik era are today’s NASA primary employees. These folks are no longer thirty-somethings who aren’t particularly afraid of death. These folks are 50 and 60 somethings worried about what the market crash will do to their retirement savings. It is a different place, a different atmosphere, and we live in a different time.

In business, the old guard is regularly replaced by (at some level) the youth and their bright new ideas. IBM was displaced by Microsoft who I suspect will be displaced by Google as the epitome of big, sexy cornerstone technology company (okay, I admit, IBM was never sexy, nor was Bill Gates, but some of his software was). In the US, space is regulated, and until recently their was no way for the next generation of space explorers too tell NASA to move over and make room for the new kid on the block and his shiny new dreams.

But that is changing. While Burt Rutan of SpaceShipOne is way older than my dad, his company and the other commercial space centers on the West Coast are filled with twenty and thirty something dreamers, working on laptops in trailers, trying to re-ignite the space race for everyone. There will be deaths. There will be crashes. But that happens to Boeing’s commercial aircraft too. As we look at plans to potentially launch even wheelchair bound Steven Hawking, the dream of everyone flying is reopening for the children NASA did succeed in inspiring 22 years ago.

Space belongs to no one and to all of us. Space is untamed and wild. It will just as readily inspire as it will kill. And like some many things waiting to be explored, it is a place that needs to given to the youth who have yet to realize that boundaries, danger, and even death are reasons to stop dreaming big dreams.

Move over Sputnik-generation. You’ve given us good role models. Now you need to let the young live their dreams.

Hopefully I won’t be able to say that for too much longer. Several different nations are gearing up to make manned assaults on the surface of the Moon.

Before the people, there is a wave of explorer bots. (The good kind, not the bad spam bots like I regularly war upon.) On September 14, 2007  Japan launched the SELENE mission, which is an imaging mission. On October 24, 2007 the Chinese launched the Chang’e-1 lunar orbiter mission. And in April, India will follow up with its own mission.

The next phase, human landings, may begin in 2012 with a Russian manned mission and a NASA manned mission is planned for no later than 2020.

I have to admit, I’ll believe it when I see it, but…

But it’s a start. I’ve been giving talks on astronomy and the space program since 1988, and since 1988 I’ve been very depressingly standing in front of audiences consistently explaining that, well, NASA no longer has the ability to  put people on the moon.  I’ve explained that we can get men up to about 340 km above the surface of the Earth, but the moon is, well, roughly 360,000 km above the surface of the Earth.

That’s a factor of 1000x farther than we have the technology to get to right now.

Now, every single time I’ve given a talk and made that point someone (usually someone older than my father ) has asked,”How is it that Apollo could get there when I was a kid, but now we can’t there?” The tone of voice has variably implied I’m crazy, that I’m lying, or that I’m just mis-informed. But, well, as crazy it may sound, really, if we wanted go to the moon next year, NASA couldn’t do it.

Here’s how to think about it. I have a degree in astronomy and have taken classes on programming, electronics, and all sorts of other useful stuff.  In theory, I have the skills and intellect necessary to  write a space craft’s graphical user interface (in theory, but right now I could only do it in XView). Given enough time, I’m fairly certain I could do it, but there would be false starts, moments of mental brain freeze, and time spent redoing things that I realize could be done better (and this definitely isn’t something one programmer should try and do on their own!)

NASA has the skills and the ability to build the technology necessary to get someone to the moon, but just as my XView skills could get the job done in an antiquated way, their Apollo experience would get the job done in an antiquated way – and the parts may not even be available! If I were asked to write a useful GUI, I’d need to learn new skills – new languages and libraries – and NASA also will need to develope new technologies that take advantage of today’s processors and controllers. I won’t learn new GUI-writing skills unless someone pays me to do it (I just don’t have the time to learn somethings without financial incentives) and NASA can’t spend time developing manned missions to the Moon unless someone throws money at them. So – in theory I could write a GUI, but I never will – I have classes and podcasts and variable stars to attend to. But NASA… Well…

For about 20 years, I stood before audiences and  explained NASA doesn’t have the money to develop plans to go to the Moon, and no one else has plans to do it either.

But suddenly, NASA has a mandate (although probably not enough money) to get people to the moon by 2020, and other nations are trying to get there too. It has started with the Japanese and Chinese launches.

The race is on. Maybe, before those men my father’s age stop filling my audiences, I’ll be able to give a talk on how humans went to the moon in my lifetime.

Maybe.

2020 is 54 years after the first moon landing. How many lives will never have seen man walk on the moon…

This video is from an interview done in July of 2006 and re-editted yesterday.

July 2006 Interview with E. Dorrit Hoffleit:

• QuickTime Movie (34.0 MB)
• MPEG 4 Movie (50.3 MB)

Download the video (109.8 Mb)

Dr. Ellen Dorrit Hoffleit, was born in Florence, Alabama, on March 12, 1907. She was the youngest of two children born to German immigrants, and her father often struggled to make ends meet for his family. When she was still small, her family moved to New Castle, Pennsylvania, following the opportunity for her father as a bookkeeper for the railroads and for her and her older brother Herbert to attain an education. It was in New Castle that her love of astronomy was born.

In 1920, Dorrit moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts with her mother and brother, when Herbert was admitted to Harvard University. She would follow his lead, and enter Radcliffe College a few years later, receiving a B.A. in mathematics in 1928. She originally planned to teach high school mathematics, but was unable to find work. This was a lucky thing, as it left her available to take a job at Harvard College Observatory as a research assistant. She went on to become the 5th woman to receive a PhD from Radcliffe and was awarded the Carolyn Wilbt Prize for best original dissertation for her work on the spectroscopic determination of absolute magnitudes for southern stars.

Dr. Hoffleit left Harvard College Observatory in 1943, when she joined the war effort at Aberdeen Proving Ground, where she calculated trajectories of missiles. After the war she continued there for 3 additional years, consulted for them until 1961. When she returned to Harvard, she returned home to her research and to new southern hemisphere plates collected in her absence specifically for her project. Unfortunately, after Menzel assumed the HCO directorship in 1954, her research program was cancelled. As a result, in 1956, she moved South to the Yale Astronomy Department, where she still continues to put in hours today.

In 1957, she was appointed director of the Maria Mitchell Observatory on Nantucket Island. During the summer, she was able to live and observe from her island oasis, and in the winter she worked on the Bright Star Catalogue at Yale. She and her Maria Mitchel summer research interns are responsible the discovery of over 1000 variable stars and the publication of over 90 papers.

Dr. Hoffleit’s life time contributions to astronomy span the fields of meteors, spectroscopic classification of stars, variable stars, missile trajectories, astrometry and more. She has over 320 papers listed in the Astrophysics Data System. She has countless honors and awards, including the 1988 Geoge van Beiesboreck Award and the 1993 AAS-Annenberg Price.

Over and over in interviews and books, Dorrit has explained her life’s dedication to astronomy the same way. “Most people work for a living,” she says. :I live in order to work. It is what I love to do.”

You can purchase her autobiography from the AAVSO here