Midnight on the Causeway

Couple minutes after midnight. Clear sky of stars above, three-quarter moon just over the horizon, launch tower lights dancing across the river.

I’m the lone person on the causeway, standing on the narrow stretch of rock and road crossing the Banana River between the Kennedy Space Center and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It’s really just me here. Not another soul in sight. Not even headlights. White folding chairs are lined up in neat little rows in the grass and tents have been erected over empty tables awaiting crowds who will amass here in two days to view a display of fire and thunder and grandeur.

The Falcon 9 rocket, awaiting its maiden voyage and white like an alabaster statue, stares me down from afar.
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What the future holds

We have a budget proposal from the President that expands ISS utilization, invests in building a commercial LEO services-based launch capability, promotes a push to do R&D on exploration-enabling technologies, and, yes, cancels the Constellation program.

We have a Congress that, amongst the members who seem to care, largely doesn’t like this proposal, but is split amongst the various local concerns about what the best response to the budget is.  I have to admit that I share Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s sense of irony at a Democratic White House arguing for increased privatization against Congressional Republicans advocating the continuation of a monolithic government program.

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Launch Water Day 2

Quick Recap of Launch Water Day 2:

Innovator Stephen Kennedy Smith: Verticrop. “Large-Scale Vertical Hydroponic Ag System”

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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.

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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:
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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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nasa.gov/open

As @bethbeck mentioned yesterday in her post “Ideas on How to Open NASA?  Spill!” –
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