Well... let me be something like the 20th person here to say, "Finally!"

And the third or fourth person here to say, "Wait a second -- that's not Mogollon, that's Home Plate!"

-the other Doug

Well, Bruce, since *no* country on Earth has ever developed a manned and unmanned spaceflight capability and then gave up one of them, we neither one of us have any precedents to draw from.

So, without a specific example from which to draw conclusions, I'm doing a poor imitation of the same -- I'm drawing from the length and breadth of human history.

Look at all of the great empires that have arisen since humans started arranging themselves into tribes. Every *single* time an empire begins to cut back on one area of exploration, it signals the beginning of the end of *all* exploration attempted by that empire. Followed, usually fairly shortly thereafter, by the fall of that empire.

Why does this happen as empires fall? Because only empires at the height of their powers can *afford* exploration, simply for the sake of exploration. It is only after the fall that anyone ever realizes that their empire could have stood a bit longer if they had just understood that the cost of failing to explore is actually higher, in all senses that make a people *great*, than the cost of continuing their explorations.

Obviously, you don't think America is likely to follow the same pattern as every previous empire in the history of mankind. That much is obvious. So, here you can serve yet another glorious purpose -- to prove, once again, that those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it...

-the other Doug

Perhaps the hydrothermal or volcanic vent theories are still in the running for the origin of HP, and they really want to see if the center of the "vent" is any different, mineralogically or structurally, from the edges. That would tend to prove or disprove any vent theory. (In mroe geologic terms, radial observation/sampling of the feature is called for.)

So, see, there are circumstances in which it's not only OK to leave an interesting spot on a feature, it's a good idea to check and see if the data you've already collected is really pointing you in a given direction, or not...

-the other Doug

I'd put it slightly differently:

Scientists say what they want -- as long as it's published. If it's not yet published, they'll threaten you with reprisals if you even ask them what they think.

Engineers say what it possible -- but they often don't care if what is possible is actually do-able within the budget, or if it will actually work in a real-world situation. Or if it will work more than once.

Management says... whatever will make it most likely that, when the excrement hits the air circulation device, no one will be able to point to *them*. And whatever will make it most likely that any failure will result in someone else, and not them, getting fired over it.

-the other Doug

Watch it, Rodolfo -- if you worked for NASA, this U.S. administration would be trying to censor you for mentioning anything about "crazy weather"...

How in the WORLD can anyone take this administration seriously when they think they can play politics with science, if science happens to reveal something that's *inconvenient* for them? Sorry to get a touch political, here -- but this is a case where a group IN POWER is trying to silence science with politics and doublespeak. And it threatens us all.

-the other Doug

And you can add to Truax's comments the comment, made in the mid-90's by one of the main NASA designers of the Shuttle system, that they "got exactly the system (they) wanted." He went on to say that the designers knew exactly how infrequently this Shuttle would be able to fly, and how expensive it would be, and that's exactly the system they wanted. (If someone could recall the designer's name for me, that would be appreciated -- I just don't recall it at the moment.)

I seriously disagree with some of Truax's comments, and I also believe that his comments were designed solely to attack a competing concept -- i.e., he, Truax, was looking at getting a few billion dollars from the government in his *own* pockets, which motivated him to make some unsubstantiable attack statements. Obviously, his attacks didn't work, probably because everyone at the time realized that he had an axe to grind on this particular issue.

However, I take *strong* exception to the statement earlier in the thread that eliminating manned space flight is one of Griffin's goals. I dare anyone to produce a statement by Griffin that supports this. I also put up against it the fact that Griffin put a Shuttle servicing mission of Hubble back on the schedule, even after O'Keefe and his minions had killed it.

Once again, I will say it -- eliminate manned spaceflight from the U.S. budget, and you'll be left with Russia, ESA and JAXA for *all* of your unmanned probes. Congress will *never* see the sense of continuing unmanned exploration unless there is also a manned space presence; they will see bowing out of manned spaceflight as a statement of our intention to abandon space exploration entirely. If you sell the first, the second will follow automatically. So, if you want to see American unmanned spaceflight brought to a complete halt, go ahead and lobby for an end to American manned spaceflight.

Pardon me if I don't join y'all in that.

-the other Doug

Hey, guys, c'mon -- I may have been charitably described as "bright," on occasion, but...!



Actually, the knee is coming along OK. I'm more having to manage the effects of the pain meds, which is a bit of a juggling act. Especially since I go back to work in the morning. But, overall, things are proceeding apace...

-the other Doug

FYI -- the top one was Korolyev's, the bottom one was von Braun's. The real point is that you can't easily tell the difference by looking at them -- the science and engineering was the same, followed the same rules, on both sides of the fence.

-the other Doug

There is also the whole question of performing surgery in a microgravity environment. How difficult would that be? Would microgravity make the clearing of incisions and wounds of blood and tissue significantly harder?

Would we have to develop some kind of centrifuge just to offer a G-field within which to perform sensitive medical/surgical procedures?

Seems to me that this is an area in which we could be using the ISS for really valuable research. Although, using the ISS to develop microgravity surgical techniques would have its own issues to deal with, not the least of which would be the transportation of live animals to ISS to be used as experimental guinea pigs. Live animal research is a touchy subject here in the U.S., performing it on the ISS would just raise the profile of the issue much higher than it is right now.

But, see, this is where I see ISS as a useful platform for certain types of research. It provides a habitable microgravity environment in which we can develop and test procedures that will eventually be needed by interplanetary explorers. Why not start developing that data and those capabilities *now*, and use the ISS for something approaching a useful purpose???

You could also design and test a centrifugal artificial-gravity module within ISS operations, and I don't see anyone even mentioning the concept. Seems to me it would be cheaper and easier to check out how well such things work at the ISS than it would be to just design one and fly it, untested, as part of the first major manned interplanetary expedition.

-the other Doug

Here are two nearly identical images. One of these was used by Sergei Korolyev, the other by Wherner von Braun. Can you tell which is which?





And here's a more interesting question -- how many of us here on UMSF have actually *used* a slide rule in their lives? I know I used a slide rule, even in a completely non-engineering field -- I'd use it to do basic scaling functions when doing layout on newspapers and such.

Since both Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took their own personal slide rules to the Moon, people were obviously using them only 35 or so years ago. So, how many of us have ever used one?

-the other Doug

Aw, c'mon -- don't hijack my thread into a "there's no place for manned spaceflight" argument. I'm trying to keep my blood pressure down, here...



-the other Doug

Might not want to remove a block on, say. .exe files, Doug. Way too much possibility for malicious attachments that way.

In the case of a trusted person sharing a proven-safe application, the poster can always rename the file with a different file extension, and instruct those who download it to change it back to an .exe extension after downloading. It's a simple and effective way of getting the job done without exposing the forum as a whole to any further risk.

-the other Doug

Exactly, Doug! I truly believe that children should be exposed to the widest possible range of spiritual and scientific cosmologies. How else are they to decide for themselves which approach to their lives works best for them?

But the schools are *not* the appropriate place to teach any *single* spiritual or religious belief. That is the function of the church. The church is an advocate -- the schools should not be. Schools should teach facts and best, most-accepted scientific theories, without regard for advocacy of any one given possibility among many viable possibilities.

The important distinction is that religious beliefs are based upon faith, whose primary tenet is that it cannot be proven, it must be taken as truth without proof. That completely removes *any* faith-based cosmology from even the *possibility* of being a scientific theory. As such, they ought *only* be taught by churches, whose job it is to advocate faith-based belief systems.

Schools should be (and, thankfully, still seem to be) barred from teaching faith-based belief systems. That ought to be the bottom line in this debate.

-the other Doug

Thanks, everyone! It's gotten a little rough, now that the anaesthesia has completely worn off... but I'm in better shape than I would have expected.

You know, bringing this back to a space topic in some form or another, this is only the third time in my adult life I've ever been under general anaesthesia. The last time was a bad attack of appendicitis I had four years ago, which brought to mind, at the time, a serious question about long-duration manned flights to places far, far away...

You see, one thing my doctor told me, that I discovered a fair amount of supporting evidence for on the 'net, was that there seems to be a correlation between people who get their tonsils removed as children and those who have to have their appendices removed as adults. See, I was a little surprised that I would have held on to my appendix until age 46, only to get a severe case of appendicitis that would require an emergency appendectomy. When I brought it up with my surgeon in a post-operative checkup, he told me about this correlation -- and, indeed, I had my tonsils and adenoids removed when I was about 8 years old.

And that got me thinking -- on interplanetary manned flights, is there some value in the prophylactic removal of the appendices of all crew who still had theirs? Or would you just suggest this for those who still had their appendices, but not their tonsils?

I know that I was pretty well incapacitated in the wake of that emergency appendectomy, for a good three weeks. and wasn't back to normal for another two or three weeks beyond that. Even if you were able to outfit a complete surgery within, say, a Mars-bound spacecraft (which would be rather tricky in zero-G), you'd have an incapacitated crewperson on your hands for a while -- which could be a serious inconvenience, or even a dagerous situation, depending on the timing of the event.

So -- would it make sense to simply remove everyone's appendix before they take off on a three-year expedition to Mars? Or to an asteroid? Anywhere where you're months away from home at best?

-the other Doug

p.s. -- the appendectomy has a rather funny story to it. They had given me a shot of morphine when they figured out just what I was suffering from, so I was high as a kite, to put it mildly. They had taken a CAT scan of my abdomen to confirm the extent of the appendicitis (quite severe, just on the verge of bursting), and told me literally as I was wheeled out of the CAT scan room the extent of the problem and the urgency of getting me into an operating room as soon as possible. The surgeon then added, "By the way, I have to tell you, you have the largest appendix I have ever seen in my life. Granted, it's distended, but it it still larger than anyone else's I have ever seen."

So, they wheel me into the pre-op staging room (little more than an oversized closet), where my now-ex-wife stood there next to my bed, waiting for them to take me into the OR. In my morphine haze, I told her what the surgeon had told me, and then I added, "You know, I always wanted to have a really huge organ -- I just have to be more specific in what I wish for!" At which point, I heard a loud noise, turned my head, and saw a nurse at the foot of my bed, bent halfway over, laughing hysterically.

What can I say? Once a comedian, always a comedian... -toD

Hey, no problem, Dan! Lessee, what button do I click to attach a pill to my post, here?

Or maybe I should just shove one into the ethernet port... drat, it doesn't fit!



-the other Doug

Reminds me a lot of Callisto, at least at comparable resolution.

-the other Doug

Yep! That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

-the other Doug

Hey, there were times in the past few months when my favorite daydream was getting my hands on a chainsaw, and just lopping my leg off above the knee, it was hurting that badly.

When people would ask me if it really hurt all that bad, I'd tell them to go get me a tire iron, and to stand still for about five seconds, and I could demonstrate quite effectively just how bad it was hurting. Heck, this immediate post-surgical pain is no worse than the pain I've been dealing with, day in and day out, for the past six months or so. (At least, what I can feel of it through the pain meds.)

I'm just tremendously relieved that it should now start hurting LESS each day, until I have my full mobility back. That day is going to be a celebration, let me tell you.

-the other Doug

I think it's probably safest to blame it all on the pain meds...

Actually, I don't feel exceptionally different from how I usually feel. A little lightheaded, but that's it. I *think* I'm still pretty sharp and clear when it comes to understanidng what I'm reading and being able to write in a coherent fashion. But y'all let me know if I start acting even more eccentric than normal...

-the other Doug

I've been doing that for quite a while... though, of course, there are a few posts every day that I certainly don't assent with. But, hey, as my father always used to tell me, it takes all kinds...

-the other Doug

Hi, all... as I may have mentioned earlier, I had a knee surgery scheduled for today. Just a relatively simple arthroscopy to remove and trim back a couple of very badly torn meniscii that were causing a *lot* of pain.

All went well, I'm back home and parked in front of my computer for the next three or four days.

I'm also under the influence of some pretty powerful pain meds -- oxycodone, to be specific -- and while I feel completely rational and all, and while I'm sure my posts will make as much sense as they ever did, I just wanted to give a very brief explanation in advance, just in case...

-the other Doug

I went to see Roving Mars a couple of days ago. Except for the fact that it's way too short, at only 43 minutes, I was highly impressed.

Once again, Steve Squyres comes off as one of the best spokesmen NASA has ever had -- full of energy and enthusiasm for his subject. The visuals -- especially the Don Maas animations-on-steroids they use (with extraordinary new detail and landing animations at the real landing sites) -- are just spectacular. Watching Spirit roll to a stop over the exact ground I became so familiar with from the initial pans, was a truly outstanding experience. And watching Oppy curl into the cup at Eagle Crater was even more satisfying.

However, what really got to me was something out in the lobby.

The Minnesota Space Frontiers Society (if I'm remembering the name of the organization correctly) has built a 1-to-1 scale, full-size model of a MER. It's on display at the Great Clips IMAX Theater at the Minnesota Zoo where Roving Mars is currently playing in my area.

It's a rather rough model -- the wheels are inflatable rubber, the deck panels are plywood and sag, the HGA conduit is PVC piping -- but it's the right size.

I walked up to it and found that, at 6'2", I was looking *directly* into the pancam lenses. They are exactly at my eye level.

I knew this was the case, but this rough model really brought it home to me -- the MERs are looking at the scene from *exactly* the same standpoint as I would if I was standing on the surface of Mars.

That was a real kick.

One last thing -- someone had taken a little stuffed toy and set it on top of the rover deck, tied to the pancam mast. It was a very simple toy -- a short, semi-segmented tube. It was billed as a Martian Microbe! Scaled 1,000,000X the original, as found in the carbonate globules of that Martian meteorite that was all the rage a few years back.

It was a really fun afternoon...

-the other Doug

Aaarrrr, yes! Now, just let me adjust my pirate regalia...

-the other Doug

To give him credit, that's exactly what Griffin tried to do last year. In an appearance before a Congressional committee, he said that he cannot accomplish everything on NASA's plate without significant funding increases.

I'm assuming that the White House changed the message they gave to Griffin, at first telling him that VSE would get the political support to get funded independently of the unmanned side. But the new Bush budget proposal shows that the White House hasn't kept its word -- instead of providing the ramp-up funding levels needed to begin the VSE development, Griffin is now being told to do exactly what he told Congress last year he cannot do: maintain both sides of the house, with the necessarily rising VSE development costs, on a fixed budget.

I would have to think that, if Griffin was telling that to Congress, he was also telling it to the White House. So, all I can say is, it ain't Griffin's fault he had to change his tune.

Let's all hope Congress can bring themselves to give NASA the money it needs to accomplish *everything* it's been tasked to do. In spite of the Administration's inability to try and do so.

-the other Doug

The biggest pitfall for an automated fast-speed (30-kph-plus) lunar rover is... pitfalls.

Even on the flattest lunar terrains, crater saturation means that there are literally thousands of craters of all sizes along any given straight-line path of even a few thousand meters in length. Lidar could "see" upcoming craters, sure -- as long as the near rim isn't higher than the far rim.

Problem is, there are a *lot* of lunar craters of rover-eating size that have uneven rims. They tend to be completely invisible to *any* line-of-sight system until it's too late to brake to avoid driving straight into them.

The LRVs had a maximum level-ground speed of about 15 kph, and the Apollo experience was that this was about the fastest safe speed to travel, to allow for braking or violent steering when such a hidden crater popped up right in your path. The only time the LRV drivers exceeded that speed was going down hills, where the terrain was spread out in front of them and therefore displayed its pitfalls to easy view.

And that was with human drivers, who were able to react with human reflexes. Robots are still incapable of reacting to driving conditions with anything approaching human reflex speeds. I doubt that's going to change any time in the near future.

Miss just *one* blocky-floored 5- to 10-meter crater and sail right over its rim, and you've just wiped out your billion-dollar robotic explorer.

I think robotic lunar explorers are going to be limited to at most a 10-kph pace for a while, yet...

-the other Doug