A simple illustration of the difference between old media and new media:
The camera on the left was used by C-SPAN to tape (on a separate tape deck and 8″ CRT) the appearance by Ambassador Paul Bremer at the recent Leadership Program of the Rockies annual retreat. In regular definition. For later uploading to the DC headquarters for editing and broadcast.
The camera on the right is a consumer camcorder, which we at People’s Press Collective use to broadcast events like last week’s Congressional District 4 Debate live to the internet. In high definition. And did I mention we do it live?
I’m at Michoud this week on business, and had the opportunity to visit the factory today for the first time in nearly a year.
What a change ten months can make.
While last year, the dome tooling was still mostly in place (a few of the mechanical assembly pedestals had been pulled up), most of the mechanical assembly area and associated material cribs have been cleared out, leaving behind only the more complicated tools used for NC machining of the SRB fittings. Last year, there was still a pair of LOx tanks in post-proof inspection near the end of the production line, and an LH2 tank which had just had its forward dome (the last major segment) welded on. Today, all of the weld tools (domes, barrels, ogives, and major weld) had been mothballed and wrapped up, along with the large milling machines and lathes used to trim the various segments – it was like walking through a winter storage facility filled with shrink-wrapped boats.
What impressed me the most, however, was that for the first time in twelve-plus years, I saw areas of the factory with the lights turned off.
What this suggests is that there isn’t any hardware work going on to extend the Shuttle program beyond the number of tanks currently on-hand or in final assembly. If, as rumored, NASA is directed to extend the Shuttle program, they’d better start soon if they don’t want to end up with the long gap such an extension would be meant to avoid or minimize – due simply to the time lag in tank manufacturing. And if what I was told about spares is true, it may only be possible to manufacture two additional tanks, assuming at that that everything would go perfectly and none of the spare components on order or in house have unrepairable defects or damage. With the one flightworthy tank I’m told will be left over at the end of the Shuttle program, that means an extension of at most three flights before the supply chain would need to be restarted — at considerable expense and delay.
Master Thespian John Morse, Colorado Senate Majority Leader, goes off on a rant over Amazon.com’s small act of defiance against his tax increase and privacy invasion. This is so laughable it has to be seen to be believed/appreciated:
For those who don’t know, the Democrat-controlled Colorado legislature two weeks ago passed what have come to be called the “Dirty Dozen” tax increases – blatantly ignoring the Taxpayer Bill of Rights amendment to the state constitution by raising taxes without a vote of the citizens. Among the items subjected to new or increased taxes, including soda and (some, weirdly-defined) candy, doggie bags, software downloads, and bull semen (!), are all online sales.
In the case of the latter, the tax increase mandated onerous and privacy-invading reporting requirements onto online retailers. Amazon announced early on that they would suspend all affiliate accounts for Colorado residents if the measure passed, and over the weekend made good on that promise, sending cancellation letters to all of its Amazon Affiliates in the state.
In other words, a company had the guts to stand up in a small, symbolic way to the anti-constitutional taxation policy and invasive reporting requirements of the state of Colorado – and Senator Morse won’t stand for it. How dare Amazon not meekly accept the dictates of Senator Morse and his pals in the Colorado legislature? Who does Amazon think it is?
Me? I say “Hooray for Amazon!”
What amuses me is that he is now going to ditch his Kindle, boycott Amazon, and take his custom to more statism-friendly Apple. While I applaud Amazon’s actions, I firmly believe that they will lose far more business from people like me, who will no longer purchase anything online, from any retailer, so long as this taxation and reporting law is in effect. Indeed, even though I am a shareholder and the move would cost the company money, I would have preferred to see Amazon go all the way, and refuse to accept any orders for delivery to or with a billing address in Colorado (or at the very least the addresses of the governor and every legislator who voted for the bill).
What’s not funny about Senator Morse’s dramatic soliloquy, though, is the unquestioned assumptions that lie behind it. The notion that Amazon being a $900 million “corporate customer [sic]” is something shameful, a sin that requires the redistribution of their profits to assuage. Or the assumption that the targets of an objectionable piece of legislation ought to know their place, and accept the imposition humbly without uttering a word of protest. Or the apallingly ignorant assumption that he and his equally-economically-ignorant colleagues can blithely pass tax increases without altering economic behavior in the private sector whatsoever.
What’s even worse is Morse’s astonishing and hypocritical attack on Amazon as being a “bully” and engaging in “egregiousness” and ”tyranny”. Senator John Morse, Democrat of Colorado Springs, may want to look in the mirror – after all, it isn’t Amazon who is pitching an over-the-top emotional fit, it isn’t Amazon who is throwing its weight around to take something it shouldn’t have or forcing people to do business with it, and it isn’t Amazon who is acting in blatant violation of the state constitution and against the loudly expressed wishes of the citizens of Colorado.
ADDED: Senator Morse is getting called out on his BS in the comments at YouTube, and is (not at all surprisingly) responding with snippy and condescending remarks. How dare we proles question him! He’s a senator!
Despite all the hype about it being the Best Movie EverMade! and The Ultimate Entertainment Experience! and whatnot, it looks like Avatar lost the Best Picture Oscar to Hurt Locker, a movie I hadn’t even heard of until about two weeks ago.
It seems our representatives here in Colorado have suddenly noticed that the cancellation of Constellation (and Orion in particular) might mean the loss of jobs in their districts. Which you’d pretty much expect…the only surprise here is that it took them longer to get around to it than it did the delegations from Texas, Florida, Utah, etc. Colorado’s ineffectual Senators, Invisible Mark Udall and “Senator Who?” Michael Bennett, have yet to weigh in, but then it’s a tossup as to whether anyone actually cares what they have to say or even remembers that the state has a pair of Senators in D.C..
Mike Coffman, my Congressman and the one in whose district most of Colorado’s LM facilities happen to be located, paid us a visit yesterday to discuss the efforts to stay the cancellation. He is a signatory to the letter calling for a halt to the cancellation based on language in the FY2010 budget forbidding NASA from cancelling Constellation or initiating new programs – Congressmen from the space states are threatening to use the 1974 Impoundment Control Act to reverse the new policy, at least through the end of the current fiscal year.
The meeting consisted of management giving Rep. Coffman a short briefing on the history of Constellation (and in particular Orion), what it is and is intended to do. Lots of the standard rah-rah stuff: space is cool and cutting-edge, it’s a national security issue (engineering skill and innovation), and has spinoffs to the broader economy (thankfully, Tang and velcro were not mentioned). The usual.
Then the Congressman took questions. Here again, I was a disappointed by my coworkers and their attitude of entitlement when it comes to the program. Most of the questions were about what we might do to help save our jobs by persuading Congressmen to preserve the Constellation program as-is, unchanged. This focus on job security is understandable among people who might in a few months be looking for new employment in a crappy job market, but it seems awfully short-sighted in that it ignores the potential for the new policy (if actually implemented and not just happy-talk from the Obama administration) to create a much bigger industry (and thus more job opportunities) than we currently have in manned space.
There were only a few really novel questions. In one case, some guy asked earnestly whether the violation of the law implicit in the cancellation (see above) meant that Congress could now impeach Obama. Coffman seemed to get a kick out of the absurdity of this question, and kept making joking references to it afterwards (fortunately, no mention was made of the birth certificate – this was eye-roll inducing enough).
My own question focused on the commercial alternatives, and was the ONLY one which seemed to favor them. I pointed out that the new policy provides “subsidies” (bad choice of words, but not entirely inaccurate) to help new companies enter the market for cargo and crew delivery to station, which was a good thing and something exceptionally surprising to see coming from the Obama administration, and then asked whether he and the other Congressmen fighting against the cancellation would consider keeping and supporting this element of the new policy. (Which is a watered-down expression of my views on the matter, but the best I could do extemporaneously and in that specific environment.) In his answer, Rep. Coffman asserted that his first concern was preserving constituent jobs in the district, and that meant keeping Orion and Constellation going — other considerations, like new business possibilities, would have to take a back seat. Which I found disappointing from someone who claims to be a capitalist, but not surprising from someone who is a politician. Implied in his response was the belief that any of the new jobs created by the shift to commercial services would not be in CD-6, or Colorado generally, which is surprising given the new engineering work and increased launches that Tech Center-headquartered ULA would see under the new policy.
The last memorable question was a response to mine. Someone asked, his voice quavering with either nervousness or anger, if the entire policy shouldn’t be thrown out, asserting without making any supporting argument that privatization was wrong, that it was wrong wrong wrong to privatize the space program. Oh, and we shouldn’t privatize the space program…because that would be wrong…somehow. (Never mind that privatization is not even on the table.) I don’t know if his objection was merely an emotional response to the threat to his own job, or whether he was some sort of die-hard statist/Von Braunian who considers space a sphere of activity in which only the government should be permitted to operate. Or possibly both.
Increasing taxes and a hostile attitude towards business from our Democrat overlords would seem to have consequences…
“Film production now is driven by incentives, and right now, Colorado is toward the bottom of that list,” said Kevin Shand, executive director of the Colorado Film Commission, explaining why Colorado lost out on the production.
“It’s the only reason films are coming to Utah,” confirmed Marshall Moore, director of Utah’s film commission.
Along with iconic desert landscapes, Utah offers a menu of tax and rebate incentives for film producers that includes a 20 percent post-production rebate or tax credit and tax rebates and exemptions on everything from film equipment to lodging. That incentive was bumped up from 15 percent last year.
Colorado has some smaller, more complicated, incentives that include up to a 10 percent rebate for out-of- state production companies that spend at least $1 million in Colorado, including at least 75 percent of payroll and 75 percent of nonpayroll expenses.
Looks like Colorado will have to make do with the Mars Science Lab and the Mars Society as its connections to the Red Planet.
As for the MarsBlog quote, it would be more worrisome if everybody in Constellation were in lock-step unanimity the same way that we see with some of the smaller organizational units that are attacking Ares I. I am sure that T.L James is entitled to his opinion, but I would like to know more about his credentials, experience, and specifically where he is coming from with his comments. I am neutral about James, but Rob Coppinger has broached the topic of T. L. James” credibility over at Flightglobal. The name is probably a pseudonym, so it will not be easy to confirm that James is telling the truth. As for his claim of “working on Orion”, we need to know what his specific job role is. Is he a structural engineer, a software guy like Metschan, or does he wash the windows? I’m not too worried about James, in any event.
Funny to discover this after spending nine hours in the office, on my day off, not washing windows.
As I’ve mentioned from time to time, I don’t discuss Orion in any detail because I don’t care to test the limits of what might get me in hot water in regards to insider information, competition sensitivity, and export control concerns. Simple as that.
Set aside the obvious problems with floating bags of hydrogen large enough to lift nearly 400 tons of payload over major cities, and their obvious appeal as terrorist targets, and the fact that obtaining that much hydrogen would not be as green as the creators imagine.
I want to know how they’re packaging this monster.
The windows at the lower apex suggest most if not all of the accommodations are there…which makes sense, since you want the mass on the bottom (think Weebles). But what about the hydrogen cells? Is an octahedron with concave sides really the best way to package large volumes of gas that want to assume a spherical shape? Oh sure, the thing could be fitted with conformal cells, but how structurally efficient would all of this be compared with other, less eye-appealing shapes?
On the other hand, I do like the rendering of tethered airships against the backdrop of Hong Kong – it makes me think of the floating cities from the Ringworld books.
I found this video via NASAWatch just now — apparently it’s been making the rounds but hasn’t reached my work inbox as of yet:
While it was amusing to see one of my friends from New Orleans and what I think was the back of my boss’ head in a couple of the clips, I have to agree with Keith that the video is propaganda. And not merely propaganda aimed at saving Constellation, but saving Ares I in particular – made clear by the emotional manipulation towards the end of the vehicle, where images of children set to funereal music segue into an image of Ares I, equating it with The Space Program and describing it as “America’s Rocket”.
But nearly as apalling in this regard is the map which appears at about 6:25. Notice anything missing from this map purporting to show the players in Constellation? It isn’t ATK, Boeing, or Pratt & Whitney. While Turzillo may have merely scavenged this animation from other public video, the way that it is used here suggests that these contractors, with NASA, are the only ones taking part in Constellation. It is spliced in under the “Who Are You Guys?” segment, after all, the question in-context implying Constellation as a whole – were this video explicitly showcasing Ares I, I’d see no problem with it, but as it very clearly attempts to encapsulate the whole program it comes across as a slap in the face to the rest of us.
About three or so years ago, when Ares I’s many, many problems really started coming to light andthe fixes started to eat away at other areas of the agency’s budget, I cynically speculated that at some point all other money at NASA’s disposal would be used up, and Orion itself would have to be cancelled in order to fund the development of the vehicle meant to launch it. In Gift of the Magi fashion, we might eventually end up with a rocket that worked, but it would come at the cost of sacrificing the purpose for which it was supposedly built.
I may be reading too much into this single video by a Ares I engineer (made on his own time, and not sanctioned by his employer), but I have to wonder if this is what it will come to when the new space policy is taken up by Congress. I’m certainly no less cynical about such things than I was three years ago, so I can readily imagine the absurd prospect of the rest of Constellation getting the axe, while Ares I is saved by grace of its stronger Congressional backing – despite being shorn of its stated reason for being.
Well, you would have thought so from some of the nailbiting hall talk and email at work today concerning the announcement that the Obama administration will push for the cancellation of Constellation, replacing it with initiatives aimed at bringing the nascent commercial spaceflight industry into bloom. The doom and gloom around Orion was in (understandable) contrast to the delight (or simple satisfaction) seen around the space blogosphere.
I think Michael Mealing comes closest to my own attitude towards this development:
President Obama’s new policy for NASA is the most fiscally conservative and downright capitalist policy to come along since the agency was founded.
And yes, it really boggles my mind that that should be the case. Obama? Capitalist? Who’da thunk? As one co-worker quipped today, Obama seems confused: he wants to nationalize a private industry in healthcare, but privatize the national program in manned space. One thing that has really surprised me today is how many of my friends have called or emailed me, expressing shock and disappointment that we are now “abandoning” space – unwittingly accepting the premise that a government program is our only possible means of getting people there. The perception that government is the sole entity capable of conducting manned spaceflight is so ingrained and unquestioned that it doesn’t seem to occur to even those who claim to be capitalists to question it.
But of course, I have to temper my surprise and excitement at this prospect, much as I did regarding the newfound enthusiasm for nuclear power Mr. Obama expressed in his SOTU last week. There’s going to be a lot of haggling to get the Congressional NASA caucus on board with this (although one Senator who could have been expected to be among the biggest roadblocks seems to be climbing on board – however reluctantly). It’s going to take some time, and who knows, just as ESAS made a dog’s breakfast of the VSE, so too could Congressional compromises and NASA resistance turn the promise of this new policy direction into yet another dead end.
