Launch Water Day 2
Quick Recap of Launch Water Day 2:
Innovator Stephen Kennedy Smith: Verticrop. “Large-Scale Vertical Hydroponic Ag System”
LAUNCH Water Day 1 Recap
After working on the LAUNCH:Water concept for the past year, we finally kicked it off yesterday — along with our cool new Nike-designed website.
Open Participation, Not Just Open Information
In response to a thoughtful comment from Tim846 from last time, I’d like to steer the discussion of open technology towards how to create not only transparency but also stimulate participation in open technologies led by an Open NASA.
Before I get into a specific roadmap, a couple prerequisites need to be installed for successful open participation to happen: Read more
Heavenly Answers for Earthly Problems
I’m SO excited to share details about NASA’s newest, coolest, never-been-done-before sustainability initiative, LAUNCH:Water.
Open Technology
Greetings. My name is Stephen Steiner. I am new to Open NASA.
I am interested in what we as a society could create by open sourcing all technologies–not just computer code, but chemistry, materials, energy, automation, and more.
As an experiment in this spirit, my colleague (and artist-by-training) Will Walker and I co-founded Aerogel.org, an open-source resource about aerogels (the “original nanotechnology”). The mission of the project is
Read more
Exploring Strange New Worlds
Just when you thought you were safely nestled in a nice plateau of learning something like this has to come along and bump you off…
Actually it’s more of a welcome interruption, I could tell the engines weren’t running as smoothly as they could be. Lots of power interruptions, wasted cycles, and general confusion. But the brain is good at making anything seem normal after a while, so wasn’t everything just normal?
The Last Night Shuttle Launch
12 hours before Snowmageddon closed all three Washington DC airports, I bought a seat out on the last plane expected to make it out. My mission: a pilgrimage to KSC to view the last scheduled nighttime Shuttle launch.
It was not my first time seeing a launch. I had driven 14 hours straight with a few carloads of friends from JSC back in the 90’s for my first and I am still moved by the jaw dropping, tear bursting impact it had on me. We were around our cars on the causeway in the heat and when the countdown hit zero we saw the flash of light and the shuttle gracefully clear the tower and begin its ascent into the heavens on a plume of smoke and thousands of human’s combined effort. By the time the sound waves blasted past us three seconds later, I was already in tears, leveled by the extraordinary beauty of what we as a species are capable of.
Centers as Settlements
Discussing the new directions contained in the 2011 budget roll-out with employees, Charlie Bolden announced a new Headquarters office called Misson Support, to be lead by Woodrow Whitlow from NASA Glenn Research Center. Mission Support will bring all NASA facilities and their operations under one umbrella, recognizing the important role these groups play in achieving NASA’s mission. This will allow greater insight into operational challenges, and more strategic investments into creating an integrated NASA workforce.
"After the Storm" by Raymond Cassel, 1st place 2009 NSS Art contest
Counterpoints to the FUD
There is a lot of FUD – fear, uncertainty, and doubt – being thrown up in the nascent debate over NASA’s new direction. Some people are saying that commercial providers aren’t ready to be trusted with America’s astronauts and won’t be for some time. Others suggest that it calls for the wholesale commercialization of NASA. Still other sources insinuate that we are facing the elimination of the astronaut corps. From where I sit, none of it is accurate.
NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden has repeatedly reiterated that he believes there will continue to be a role for a professional NASA astronaut corps. Deputy Administrator Lori Garver said at last week’s Commercial Space Transportation Conference that the “wonderful people working Constellation did not fail,” but that they were not given the resources they needed and that it did not make sense to continue developing a system that would not even be ready to arrive at the ISS until after its planned de-orbit. There will still be a need for specially-trained scientists and engineers for on-orbit operations, probably even more so as the number of “spaceflight participants” increases.
Looking forward
I wish more people could be here at the FAA Commercial Space Transportation conference in Crystal City. The commercial space community is so vibrant and eager to step up to the challenges ahead.
DoD is looking to them to help usher in an era of operationally responsive space access.
