Advanced Baseline Imager & sounder instruments
ITT Space Systems Division
Rochester, NY
585-269-5600
http://www.ssd.itt.com

Imager and sounder instruments
designed and built by ITT Space
Systems Division were launched last
June aboard the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Geostationary Operational Environ -
mental Satellite-O (GOES-O). These
core instruments provide crucial data to
the National Weather Service for severe
weather forecasting. Images from the
weather satellite instruments are used
for tracking and forecasting hurricanes
and other severe weather.

Environmental Tectonics Corporations The NASTAR(R) Center Commences Space Training for Prospective Scientist-Astronauts

"The Suborbital Scientist-Astronaut Training Course has been developed by The NASTAR Center and is organized by Dr. Alan Stern and Dr. Dan Durda of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). This partnership provides an opportunity for the scientific community to become educated about the potential to perform low-cost, repeatable, hands-on projects and experiments in space in the near future. Dr. Alan Stern said: We are very much looking forward to the NASTAR course next week [Tuesday/Wednesday, 12-13 Jan], which will be our first dedicated spaceflight familiarization activity. Were already preparing research experiments for suborbital spaceflight and look forward to soon seeing these experiments scheduled for flight."

Keith's note: Miles O'Brien and I will be covering this training session on Tues and Weds at NASTAR. We hope to bring you live streaming video of suborbital scientists as they ride inside the centrifuge and engage in other training activities. In addition, we'll be twittering and blogging - as will the course participants. Information on training coverage will be posted on NASA Watch and also at OnOrbit.com/suborbital

- NASA Solicitation: Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research Program - CRuSR - Request for Information, earlier post
- List of Speakers Announced for the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference, earlier post
- NASTAR Suborbital Scientist Training Program Student Patch Contest, earlier post

So if there is one thing I have learned it is that the future doesn’t just come. It has to be built, dream by dream, gadget by gadget, conversation by conversation.

I got over the disappointment of 2000, the 2000 I had been waiting for since I was about 8. No flying cars, no exclusively silver wardrobes, no weekend trips to space. But what I took away was a resolve to get everyone excited not just about The Future but about being part of the group of people who are building the future. That is who we are. Never forget that. We are the music makers and the dreamers of dreams. We are the architects of a future for our species that inspires us. We build because we can, because it is our favorite game. It is not a better game than the players of the sports games, or the money game or even the video game. It is merely the one that we find the most fun. (So let’s play!)

So it seems the way to win is not only to build the most outrageous, the most exciting, the most impactful, the most inspiring future, but also to make sure that we are having fun doing it. After all that is why we picked this game- it was more fun for us than race car driving, or organic farming, or brain surgery. So the next time you are discouraged by bureaucracy, or frustrated by people who ‘don’t get it’, or at your wits end with your own seeming lack of progress. Remember, we picked this because it was fun and let the challenges and the struggles and the set backs be part of the game, just like you would in Super Mario Brothers, or Zelda, or Guitar Hero. After all if you just went back a level and got the magic sword, you probably could beat the dragon this time…and that would be fun wouldn’t it?

So this 1st week of the new shiny year, think of your life as a video game that you just took out of the package. Play it with vigor, play it with valor and with creativity, but most importantly make sure you are having fun.

"Gordo is still in ICU at UCLA Medical Center from the massive (right sided) stroke he suffered last week, and probably will be for another two weeks or so; then hopefully he will have the ventilator removed and move to a regular room. He is responding on demand (i.e. if they ask him to hold up a certain number of fingers he can ... he's also giving a lot of 'thumbs up'), however he cannot speak yet due to the ventilator. He was in very good health before the stroke, so hopefully this will help him recover fully. She said it's just really too early to predict the outcome.

Marie hardly leaves his bedside and sounded very strong, but of course is worried as we all are. Many of you have asked what you can do - she said Gordo likes receiving cards and emails (he can't receive packages in ICU, but will be able to once they move him). You may send cards to their house (44046 28th Street West Lancaster, CA 93536-6026), she goes home every 3 days or so to check the mail. You may also email his son Andy at Andrewfullerton - at - sbcglobal.com which he will receive at the hospital. Marie asked that you copy her at mgfullerton - at - verizon.net , as she reads these to him. - Linn LeBlanc, Executive Director, Astronaut Scholarship Foundation"

Keith's note: At a time when substantial job cuts loom for the Florida economy due to Shuttle retirement, and Recovery Act money is flowing steadily elsewhere in the U.S., one would think that NASA would be looking at ways to offset some of the post- Shuttle economic impact. Guess again.

In July 2008, scientists at the University of Central Florida proposed the $50 million "Global-Scale Observations of the Limb and Disk" (GOLD) mission to NASA's Explorer program. After NASA and scientific community peer review this experiment was selected for Phase A development and funding as a mission of opportunity under its Explorer science space program.

Despite getting excellent ratings, and a recommendation by its own Explorer review panel to proceed, NASA Science Mission Dorectorate AA Ed Weiler decided not to select the mission for full development due lack of funds. Once again, it would seem that SMD's inability to cover cost overruns on large projects such as the Mars Science Laboratory continues to have a negative ripple effect on new science missions. Oh yes, there is another large MSL overrun that will be announced soon.

Rep. Susan Kosmas (R-FL) has taken this mission's plight under her wing and has been working hard to get some face time with NASA on this topic. Alas, the office of Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) has not done anything of consequence to probe this matter further. This inaction on Nelson's part is rather odd given his rhetoric on other issues facing Florida's workforce.

Air Force Gen. Lew Allen Jr., 84; headed NSA, NASA lab, Washington Post

"Retired Gen. Lew Allen Jr., a nuclear physicist who led the National Security Agency and served as the senior uniformed officer in the Air Force before heading NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the 1980s, died Jan. 4 at home in Potomac Falls of complications from rheumatoid arthritis. He was 84."

Moon Rock Gains Traveling Companion for Historic Return to Space

"Collected from the Sea of Tranquility on the lunar surface, the moon rock and its Mt. Everest companion will be displayed inside the station's Tranquility module, which the STS-130 crew will deliver to the station. During the presentation, Parazynski will share the story of his journey to the top of the world and what inspired him to carry along the lunar sample, followed by an audience question and answer session. The event is scheduled from 11 a.m. to noon CST in the Blast Off Theater in the Mission Status Center at Space Center Houston. NASA Television will air a recording of the event at 3:30 p.m.

Updates, photos and videos during the presentation will be posted on NASA's Johnson Space Center Twitter feed and can be followed using the hashtag #moon_everest. From 12:30 to 1 p.m., Parazynski will answer questions live via Twitter. To follow Johnson on Twitter, visit: http://www.twitter.com/NASA_Johnson"

You can read up on Scott's climb at onorbit.com/everest

Playing With Moon Rocks and Duct Tape at the Dinner Table

"You see, as a precaution of sorts, I had the Nugget [our code name for the Moon rock] blessed in a Buddhist Temple in Pengboche on the trek in to Base Camp. Climbers have all manner of things (including themselves) blessed all the time. But this was special. And how people (westerners and Sherpas) reacted to these little pieces of the Moon really caught Scott and I by surprise. But that's another story I'll have to write about soon."

Preview: Confessions of a Moon Rock Courier

"I facilitated telephone conversations with astronauts aboard the International Space Station and communicated via satellite with the real world on a daily basis. I lived amidst a place with powerful historic resonances. And I encountered a people - Sherpas - with an other-worldly and serene approach to life, teaching one of them to look up at the night sky to track satellites while I watched others treat the moon rock I carried as a sacred object."

Washington, DC’s recently released open government directive has a lot of us in the open government community stoked about the mandate we are finally being given, collectively and formally, to make government more transparent and accessible.

The three tenets of participation, transparency, and collaboration are particularly relevant because, while they are couched in specific deliverables around the /open requirement for all agencies (that is, each agency must create /open); if you look closely, they are focused on process– as much as, if not more than, on outcome. This reflects the fact that open government is not somewhere we arrive or something we check off on a task list, but it’s about how we go about the business of governing ourselves.

When I saw we, I don’t mean “we” the people who work for government– I mean all of us. “We” as a residents of the United States, and citizens of the world. For me, open government encourages us to think of the government not an entity separate from the “us” or the “we.” If you work for the government, that doesn’t mean you are not also a recipient of its services, its policies, or its limitations.

That’s why the most exciting aspect of the the Directive was actually not the recognition and codification of those three tenets, since many of us were already operating with those in mind. It was the 4th and final step, to “Create an Enabling Policy Framework for Open Government.”

That section of the Directive recognizes that, “Emerging technologies open new forms of communication between a government and the people,” and that, “It is important that policies evolve to realize the potential of technology for open government.”

When I first started working at Ames, we had several meetings discussing how to create an environment where new ideas are valued and encouraged. We identified, with center leadership, that the current culture is often a “Culture of No”. The safe answer, the one least likely to get you in trouble, is to say “No”. Saying yes is associated with more work, and with risk. Since the Culture of No exists all the way up the management chain, that work burden and risk are personal ones, ones that involve putting yourself on the line. It’s clear why people are dis-inclined to do so.

When we first tried to create blogs on government websites, people said “No” because there was no clear policy about public comments. What if a derogatory public comment was interpreted as a statement of the US government? “No” to blogs.

When we tried to put open source code on public repositories, people said “No” because it opened up the government to liability if others misused that code. Instead, employees were going home and building collaborations, and even posting code, in their personal time, to avoid this bureaucracy. That’s another dis-incentive, because you have to be willing to take some of the policies into your own hands.

We decided to propagate at new saying: “Culture of Yes”. We wanted to cultivate an environment where people’s answer to new or crazy ideas was “Yes,” or maybe even “Yes, but…”. But not “No” or “No, and…”. One where you are actually rewarded for those ideas, and where it is, eventually, procedurally more expensive to say “No.”

The Open Government Directive explicitly outlines that within 120 days, existing policies will be reviewed with an eye to, “identify[ing] impediments to open government and to the use of new technologies.” As the people “on the ground,” how do you think openNASA members and our open center initiatives could support agency leadership in identifying these policy obstacles?

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

This is what the NASA web portal for the International Space Station currently looks like.  Go take a look.  Check out the various links.  Think about the layout, the presentation, the quality of the information, et cetera.  Then, come back to this post.

Did you take some time for a really good look?

Okay, good.

I’d like to pick your brain now.  First, please tell me a little bit about who you are and why you would be interested in the ISS web portal.  Then, get into the nuts and bolts.  Tell me what you liked about the site.  Tell me what you didn’t like.  Tell me both how the layout works and how it doesn’t.  What is the site missing that it should have?  How could it be laid out to make navigation easier and more intuitive?

In other words, what would “your” ISS web portal look like?

I’m listening… and so will the team working on the redesign.

Keith's 5 Jan Update: According to non-NASA sources there will be some sort of announcement by the President tomorrow regarding education. It is expected that the "Summer of Innovation", among a number of other education-oriented projects, will be announced as part of this event.

Once again, this project offers NASA an opportunity to reach a much broader audience than would normally be the case - with the full support of the White House. It would seem that this White House sees that there is more to NASA's value than just launching rockets.

Keith's 30 Dec note: President Obama will soon unveil a large, interesting educational event targeted for the summer of 2010. Titled "Summer of Innovation" this project is aimed at reaching 1 million students and working to raise their STEM skills through a variety of activities. The lead person at NASA on this effort is White House Fellow Nicole Campbell.

The cost of this project is still uncertain - numbers as high as $200 million were discussed internally at one point. Much of the work would apparently be channeled through/paid for by Americorps. The latest version of this project would entail NASA taking much of the lead along with the Department of Education. Each NASA center would be asked to dedicate one person to this activity. The most recent version of the plan would limit this activity to only 5 states. As to how the 5 states will be selected - that remains uncertain.

These uncertainties aside, it will be interesting to see how prominence for NASA in such a high visibilty event will affect the public's preception of NASA's value to the public. One would hope and expect that it would be overwhelmingly positive. Stay tuned.

Remarks for AIAA/WIA Luncheon with NASA Administrator Bolden December 9, 2009

"NASA is fortunate to have an outstanding White House Fellow assigned to our agency this year, Ms. Nicole Campbell. Nicole is spearheading some new exciting endeavors designed to enhance our current education outreach activities and focus our resources in order to get the maximum benefit for each dollar we spend. One such program is what we are calling the "Summer of Innovation." We are still in the planning stages so I won't go into a lot of detail here today, but you will be hearing more about this toward the end of the year."

2009 Highlights: NASA Finds Water on Moon, Launches Planet Search, NASA ARC

"New initiatives in 2010 will set the stage for a robust year in education and outreach. "Educate to Innovate," a federal challenge to improve education and NASA's Summer of Innovation aspire to reach one million students through enrichment programs to keep kids on track and inspire our next generation of explorers."

Keith's 30 Dec note: NASA ARC suddenly deleted this portion of their previously-issued press release after this link's appeared on NASA Watch. "Transparency"? "Openness"?

Keith's note: According to Dryden Management Meeting Minutes (DM3) David McBride has been named permanent Center Director of Dryden.  He was the Deputy Director and has been acting Center Director since Kevin Petersen's retirement last April.

Kepler Space Telescope Discovers Five Exoplanets

"NASA's Kepler space telescope, designed to find Earth-size planets in the habitable zone of sun-like stars, has discovered its first five new exoplanets, or planets beyond our solar system.
Kepler's high sensitivity to both small and large planets enabled the discovery of the exoplanets, named Kepler 4b, 5b, 6b, 7b and 8b. The discoveries were announced Monday, Jan. 4, by members of the Kepler science team during a news briefing at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington."

Initial (long) list of Kepler publications below:

• Not So Black? The Statistics of Albedo and Energy Recirculation on Hot Exoplanets, astro-ph
• Asteroseismic Investigation of Known Planet Hosts in the Kepler Field, astro-ph
• Kepler Asteroseismology Program: Introduction and First Results, astro-ph
• Kepler-7b: A Transiting Planet with Unusually Low Density, astro-ph
• Instrument Performance in Kepler's First Months, astro-ph
• Solar-like oscillations in low-luminosity red giants: first results from Kepler, astro-ph
• Initial Characteristics of Kepler Long Cadence Data For Detecting Transiting Planets, astro-ph
• Overview of the Kepler Science Processing Pipeline, astro-ph
• Kepler Mission Design, Realized Photometric Performance, and Early Science, astro-ph
• Preliminary Astrometric Results from Kepler, astro-ph
• The Kepler Pixel Response Function, astro-ph
• A Transiting Hot Jupiter Orbiting a Metal-Rich Star, astro-ph
• Selection, Prioritization, and Characteristics of Kepler Target Stars, astro-ph
• Imaging Young Planets From Ground and Space, astro-ph
• The Kepler Follow-up Observation Program, astro-ph
• Discovery of a red giant with solar-like oscillations in an eclipsing binary system from Kepler space-based photometry, astro-ph
• The Discovery of Ellipsoidal Variations in the Kepler Light Curve of HAT-P-7, astro-ph
• Photometric Variability in Kepler Target Stars: The Sun Among Stars -- A First Look, astro-ph
• Discovery and Rossiter-McLaughlin Effect of Exoplanet Kepler-8b, astro-ph
• First Kepler results on RR Lyrae stars, astro-ph
• Kepler Science Operations, astro-ph
• Near-infrared integral-field spectra of the planet/brown dwarf companion AB Pic b, astro-ph
• Tight constraints on the existence of additional planets around HD 189733, astro-ph
• The asteroseismic potential of Kepler: first results for solar-type stars, astro-ph
• Automated classification of variable stars in the asteroseismology program of the Kepler space mission, astro-ph

Astronaut John Grunsfeld Appointed Space Telescope Science Institute Deputy Director, NASA

"Dr. John M. Grunsfeld has been appointed Deputy Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md., effective January 4, 2010. He succeeds Dr. Michael Hauser, who stepped down in October. STScI is the science operations center for NASA's orbiting Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope planned to be launched in 2014."

Keith's note: I am deliberately posting this press release - in advance of the embargo claimed by STScI - given that NASA HQ PAO has repeatedly told me - officially - that official agency policy is that no news releases regarding NASA research or news are ever to be issued under media embargo. Moreover, two NASA civil servant PAO officers are listed on this release, John Grunsfeld is a NASA employee, and STScI is wholly funded by NASA.

If NASA PAO is going to claim that a policy regarding embargoes exists, then it needs to enforce that policy. Otherwise their "policy" is hollow and pointless - and also not in the best interest of the taxpayers who pay for this research in the first place. Oh, by the way, I already have several press releases regarding wholly NASA-funded research that are under embargo - in direct contravention to stated agency policy. Again, where is the "transparency"? Where is the "openness"?

As for John's selection itself? Superlative - amazingly so.

Reader note: Click on this NASA web site and download the 2010 ISS Calendar. Notice something odd about the dates? Did January 1, 2010 start on a Wednesday? Does February have 30 days? Does March have 31 days? Does April have 31 days? And December 1, 2010 is New Years Day. That's as far as I went. Doesn't anyone check these things before putting them on their web site? WOW! Must be the same group that mixed up miles and kilometers.

Keith's note: I looked a bit further. This calendar shows 24 January as the date that Apollo 8 circled the Moon (it was launched on 21 January - the date that this calendar claims that the Winter Solstice begins), that Challenger was lost on 28 December, that Columbia was lost on 1 November, that Sputnik 1 was launched on 4 March, that Yuri Gagarin's flight was on 12 September, and that Spring begins on 20 October 2010...

In fairness, the website does say "(Note: In order to print the document correctly, please select the two-sided print option in your printer dialog box)" - but there is nothing on the calendar file itself that says that. Indeed, the reader who alerted me to this said "I discovered the error when I went to put the dates of my vacation on it and they didn't match up with my airline reservation dates. I got nervous and checked another calendar and discovered the mistake. That's when I discovered some of the more obvious errors.". Anyone going directly to this link (that happens a lot, you know) will not know this. Moreover, not everyone has a printer that (easily) prints in two sided mode. Indeed when I went to print it, my computer automatically scaled it to fit on an 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper - with the pages paired incorrectly - that is because of the way it was formatted (by NASA) as a PDF file.

New Year's Eve in Space, Slate

"Last week a Russian spacecraft ferried three astronauts to the International Space Station to join the two who had been manning it since October. The crew took Christmas Day off to share meals together. What about celebrating New Year's--how do you pick the right moment when you're hurtling through time zones at 17,500 miles per hour?"

Keith's note: I will be seeing Scott Parazynski and Miles O'Brien in Houston next week. On 6 Jan at NASA JSC Scott will formally return the Moon rock I carried to Nepal (and Scott carried to the summit of Mt. Everest) and present a piece of Everest summit to the crew of STS-130. Miles will be the emcee. The STS-130 crew will carry both rocks into orbit and will permanently install them in the new node "Tranquility" that they will attach to the space station. By coincidence, the Moon rock we had in Nepal was collected in the Sea of Tranquility during the Apollo 11 mission.

Preview: Confessions of a Moon Rock Courier

"I facilitated telephone conversations with astronauts aboard the International Space Station and communicated via satellite with the real world on a daily basis. I lived amidst a place with powerful historic resonances. And I encountered a people - Sherpas - with an other-worldly and serene approach to life, teaching one of them to look up at the night sky to track satellites while I watched others treat the moon rock I carried as a sacred object."

Playing With Moon Rocks and Duct Tape at the Dinner Table

"You see, as a precaution of sorts, I had the Nugget [our code name for the Moon rock] blessed in a Buddhist Temple in Pengboche on the trek in to Base Camp. Climbers have all manner of things (including themselves) blessed all the time. But this was special. And how people (westerners and Sherpas) reacted to these little pieces of the Moon really caught Scott and I by surprise. But that's another story I'll have to write about soon."

List of Speakers Announced for the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in February, Commercial Spaceflight Federation

"Astronauts, researchers, educators, senior government officials including the director of NASA's Ames Research Center, Dr. Pete Worden, and the head of the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation, Dr. George Nield, and representatives from commercial space companies and the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, will be among the speakers at the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference on February 18-20, 2010."

CU Students to Build Tiny Spacecraft to Observe 'Space Weather' Environment

"The University of Colorado at Boulder has been awarded $840,000 from the National Science Foundation for students to build a tiny spacecraft to observe energetic particles in space that should give scientists a better understanding of solar flares and their interaction with Earth's atmosphere. Known as the Colorado Student Space Weather Experiment, or CSSWE, the instruments package is expected to weigh less than 5 pounds."

Space head: Russia may send spacecraft to asteroid

"Without mentioning NASA findings, Perminov said that he heard from a scientist that Apophis is getting closer and may hit the planet. "I don't remember exactly, but it seems to me it could hit the Earth by 2032," Perminov said."

99942 Apophis, Wikipedia

"On Friday, April 13, 2029, Apophis will pass Earth within the orbits of geosynchronous communication satellites. It will return for another close Earth approach in 2036."

NASA Refines Asteroid Apophis' Path Toward Earth

"Updated computational techniques and newly available data indicate the probability of an Earth encounter on April 13, 2036, for Apophis has dropped from one-in-45,000 to about four-in-a million."

Keith's note: I certainly hope that Perminov gets some slightly better data before his people start to plan mission trajectories - a good place to start is to get the right year.

Keith's note: President Obama will soon unveil a large, interesting educational event targeted for the summer of 2010. Titled "Summer of Innovation" this project is aimed at reaching 1 million students and working to raise their STEM skills through a variety of activities. The lead person at NASA on this effort is White House Fellow Nicole Campbell.

The cost of this project is still uncertain - numbers as high as $200 million were discussed internally at one point. Much of the work would apparently be channeled through/paid for by Americorps. The latest version of this project would entail NASA taking much of the lead along with the Department of Education. Each NASA center would be asked to dedicate one person to this activity. The most recent version of the plan would limit this activity to only 5 states. As to how the 5 states will be selected - that remains uncertain.

These uncertainties aside, it will be interesting to see how prominence for NASA in such a high visibilty event will affect the public's preception of NASA's value to the public. One would hope and expect that it would be overwhelmingly positive. Stay tuned.

2009 Highlights: NASA Finds Water on Moon, Launches Planet Search, NASA ARC

"New initiatives in 2010 will set the stage for a robust year in education and outreach. "Educate to Innovate," a federal challenge to improve education and NASA's Summer of Innovation aspire to reach one million students through enrichment programs to keep kids on track and inspire our next generation of explorers."