Space Access 2008 Propellant Depot Panel

I'll update this after work with some commentary (and sometime in the next week or two, I'll see if I can upload a video of the session as well). But for now here are the four presentations that were given.

I started out with an introduction to the concept of propellant depots, a short discussion on some of the general technical and business challenges, and then an introduction to the panelists.

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Rand Simberg (of Transterrestrial Musings and also of Wyoming Space and Information Systems) gave a presentation talking about some more of the business and policy issues related to propellant depots.

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Dallas Bienhoff of Boeing discussed the work he's done over the past several years on propellant depots, and he also discussed in more concrete terms some of the advantages (both to ESAS and to commercial operators) of propellant depots.

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The final presentation was given by Frank Zegler, of ULA. He talked about their thoughts on propellant depots, and some related work they've been doing (and will be doing in the near future. Frank had some cool eyecandy for some of the hardware they've been building and testing lately for the new Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage that ULA is working on.

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Off to Space Access

We're heading out tomorrow morning at 6:00 for Space Access. I'll see if I can talk Henry V. into letting us videotape the propellant depot panel. If so, I'll see if I can put it up here. If not, I'll at least get copies of everyone's presentation to put up on the blog.

Anyhow, hope to see many of you there!

California Homeschooling Troubles

I got an email a few days ago from one of my friends up in Santa Clara, Henry Cate (the guy who started the Carnival of Space). Not being actively involved in homeschooling yet, I apparently missed what happened recently, but the jist of it from what Henry was telling me is that the California Court of Appeals recently ruled that in order to legally homeschool your kids, you need teaching credentials.

Now, I can't vouch for the story, but if it's true, it's rather disturbing news. I find it annoying that the state feels that it has the right to tell a parent that he isn't legally allowed to teach his own kid. Henry has some info about a resolution that California residents can support to overturn this ruling.

The Thanklessness of Being Right

I know I'm late to the game, but there's been a lot of navel gazing of the past week about what people wrote back on the eve of the Iraq War, and typically "what they got wrong." Because, quite frankly, a lot of the blogosphere, and the media elites were painfully wrong about a lot of things back then. The sad thing is that many of them (including many of my good friends) continue to try and grasp at straws and bend facts to try and prove that they were right after all.

I enjoyed reading the Reason magazine's editorial board's thoughts on the matter (with many of them being able to honestly talk about "what they got right"). I'll admit that I was pretty shocked to find out how many of my favorite writers/editors from there are probably younger than me. What finally convinced me that it was worth spilling some electrons on the topic though, was Jim Henley's masterful piece on the topic.

It's sad to see that for some reason those of us who were right all along are the ones still marginalized and ignored while those whose records are unsullied by ever getting a thing right about Iraq are the "serious foreign policy experts." It's all for the better though--the praises of the world and the honors of men were never really worth very much anyway.

As an aside, Jim's piece in particular made me go dredge up (using the Way Back Machine) some of my protoblogging on the topic back at the time:

Why I'm an Anti-Interventionist
A Quick Thought on Iraq, WMDs, and Deterrence
A Different Kind of 4th of July

I have to admit that my writing at the time wasn't really that great. I overused new sarcastic phrases (like "splendid little war"), I've never been particularly convincing, and my anger and frustration were a little more visible than I would've preferred. But at least I did what little I could at the time to stand up and be counted.

I know that a lot of the good and loyal readers of this blog will disagree with me vehemently on this topic, but I'm still glad I took this stance when I did. I just wish that being right didn't mean that so many good an innocent people have been and will be unnecessarily hurt.

Propellant Depot Panel Questions

I'd like to solicit questions regarding the technical or business aspects of orbital propellant depots for the panel I'll be chairing this coming Friday. I've got a great lineup of panelists (Rand Simberg of TransTerrestrial Musings, Dallas Bienhoff of Boeing, and Frank Zegler of ULA), so if you have any good questions about propellant depots, just post a comment here, and I'll try and pick the best two or three to start off the Q&A part of the panel discussion.

A weird, weird day

by guest blogger Ken

Not trying to monopolize Jon's blog or anything, but I'm sitting here staring at my ISU diploma, hand-signed by possibly the single most important name to date in the space field, a science fiction writer nonpareil, a scientist, and a visionary. Arthur C. Clarke has taken the next step in the circle of life, and the world is a poorer place for it.

Dr. Clarke first became personal for me back at the Space Generation Forum at UNISPACE III in 1999. when he gave a personalized video address to the SGF. During his brief talk (pdf)he mentioned something along the lines of the energy requirement to get a person into orbit really wasn't that bad, it's just that the means we've invented so far to impart the energy aren't terribly good, because they require that it be done quickly via a rocket, which has all kinds of design issues. What if you traded intensity for time? What if you used an elevator instead?

I wasn't terribly familiar with the idea of a space elevator at that point, but during my ISU studies I found a French-language copy of "The Fountains of Paradise" and read it far more quickly than I expected. This was also about the time that the idea of carbon nanotubes as a 4th form of carbon started circulating more widely. Suddenly the idea seemed much less sci-fi.

I also read K.S. Robinson's Mars trilogy, and watching the mental image of the broken line of the Mars elevator wrapping itself around the planet was most unsettling. Later, the idea of using the Moon as a 'practice run' for an Earth elevator ( a Lunevator, perhaps?) made the rounds, and I became even more intrigued as it would be a great way of proving out most every concept needed for a Terrevator. Still, the disturbing question lingers in my mind of what happens with the counterbalance on the Earth side of EML1 if the line should break?

That's for folks far more edumacated than me to figure out, but I do consider the space elevator to be the permanent solution to space access, just as I consider Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP) to be one of the permanent solutions to energy access.

Which brings us to the latest issue of adAstra, the magazine of the National Space Society, with a cover story on SBSP. Stories is more accurate, as the feature covers 20 pages with graphics. Good graphics too, highlighting how the process would work and what it might look like. My ex NSS-NT chapter president Bill Ledbetter (one of the key behind-the-scenes guys at the 2007 ISDC) has an interview with Dr. Peter Glaser, one of the key figures in SBSP history. Background on the NSSO report last year is provided, and Al Globus touches on how the Moon can help, including the notion that launching the entire infrastructure from Earth would put an unknown strain on the ecosphere, which has had to endure only sporadic and widely-spaced launches so far.

Lots of other good articles as well, like a 50 year timeline of space, and the graphics have been stepped up a notch. I even like the advertising, like the ad for the 2008 Regolith Excavation Challenge. There's a great review of "The Lunar Exploration Scrapbook", and an article on the guy behind NSS's Online Library. Since the 2008 ISDC is coming up in May, there're a couple of ads for that. I personally think last year's ads were a bit more informative, though not quite as pretty, but I'm clearly biased towards all things relating to the one I helped put together. ;-) [including contacting the publishers last year and getting them to exhibit their Launch Magazine at the ISDC]

Overall, I'm quite impressed, and as I would say over at the Lunar Library, this one's definitely a Full Moon.

I also reflected a bit today on yesterday's post, and the dire economic forecast. I was right when I said that the market needs to reprice properly, and was a bit surprised when I read the A section of today's WSJ. It also spooked the crap out of me, and I won't say more as I value my job, but I honestly had no idea.

Seeing a couple of emergency vehicles pulling up at the Countrywide building down the road late in the afternoon just put a surrealistic edge on things.

I do want to note that most of the effects of what I described involve the folks that have been playing around with the funny money, not John and Jane Doe on Main Street. For them, life will mostly go on pretty much as it always has. Businesses will close, and new ones will open up. Medical emergencies will continue to chew up past savings and future earnings. The credit card (or I guess for most folks these days, payday loan) companies will continue to abuse you. All of the regular dynamics of a vigorous and free market.

The problem is that when someone gives you a bit of capital and you lever it up enormously, and then that someone comes in to ask for their money back, you then have to unwind 30 or so associated transactions to get the free and clear title back on the cash that's being given back. Because of the clearing periods written into the contracts it has to be done quickly, and when you're getting lots of redemptions the velocity just accelerates, creating disjunctions in the market that introduce even more price misinformation because rumours start flying and people stop making fully-informed decisions. This is why the government is working so hard to keep liquidity in the market, to ease the friction, but the problem is that there is already way too much liquidity from 15 years of pumping M3 money supply into the markets (thanks a lot, Greenspan. not). We've been lucky in that most of it has been parked overseas to date.

The main solution that I see is that the private equity and hedge funds need to disgorge all of the capital they sucked out of the economy. When someone's getting a billion dollar paycheck because they managed to lever up a bunch of companies with $400Mn loans on $150Mn of assets and then booked their 'capital gains' up front (and only paid 15% tax on) so they could live a priveleged life, then I really don't feel a whole lot of empathy for them. That capital needs to be in the companies, consarn it, not their pockets.

Which brings to mind one of the things that has been bugging me. For the record I am an atheist, but I recognize and respect the fact that our nation is largely populated by believers in Allah/G-d/God. Given that fact, and the moral code underlying these beliefs, I have to wonder about the amoral ethics that seem to be driving much of modern American business practices. It's almost as if people check their values at the office door, perhaps out of fear for their job. I mean seriously, is it Christian to give a 70 year old woman a 30-year refi mortgage with monthly payments greater than their Social Security checks? What kind of creature does that? Most people will not consider me to have any moral authority or foundation for righteous indignation by virtue of my atheism, which I really don't care about, but I don't think one needs to be a Christian to ask WTF? Y is this going on?

As I said, a weird, weird day.

Public Space Utilities

by guest blogger Ken

Jon's warned me previously about my really long rambling posts (because he wants shorter, more frequent posts), so I'll try to keep this one relatively brief, and focused on the topic of public utilities.

I'll admit that I do read a bit of science fiction, and more than just Moon stories. Recently I stumbled across an odd little number called "For Texas and Zed" about a big but metal poor planet way out in the outer fringes of the Milky Way galaxy. It's known for the best meat in the Empire, which subsists mostly on food substitutes. The book tries to convey the independent, hard as flint frontier ethos that has defined both the real Texas and the imaginary one in the book. One of the principal characters, trying to convey the planet Texas view of government was that most folks thought it should defend the planet and build public utilities.

Public utilities. The things that are of value to the entire population irrespective of their station in life. Water for sanitation, electricity for comforts, road and other ways for travel. The things that are so important to the commonweal and well-being of a nation that it makes sense for the citizens to fund them collectively. Done right, some of these things can be done privately. French corporations have gotten pretty good at running municipal water plants. A lot of our roadways are maintained under contract. Electricity...well, let's just say that when the entire foundation of your prosperity is built on the delivery of energy, do you want to put that in the hands of speculators, or should that be the kind of thing that generates a steady 6% rate of return on Century Bonds?

For the record, as a libertarian, I wish that electricity delivery could be trusted to the markets. However, there is imperfect information because of regulations and laws influenced by monied interests and passed by sold-out legislators, which taints the accuracy of the information in the market. I was in California interning at Boeing during the Enron-induced black-outs back in 2001. They were actually considering making us come in at 05:30 in the morning so we'd be out by 14:30, which would be about the time the a/c units would be kicking in to keep the buildings bearable. It seemed that more often than not I'd have to re-set my alarm clock when I got home from work.

Utility for everyone. One of the keys to getting people comfortable with government spending the money extracted from our paychecks. So where does space fit in with all of this?

Good question. I think that most people get that satellites provide utility, be it in the form of weather maps or international calls that the alphabet soup of government agencies gets to listen in on because they said so.

Where then lies the utility of our space efforts? The argument can probably be made that the ISS at least has served as a spearhead in efforts to establish a presence in microgravity and a place to conduct research. I'm not going to go into the merits of how clumsily NASA may have implemented that effort, or the differences between an orbital facility designed by a massive team of government workers compared with the marvelous results obtained by a smart entrepreneur sniffing opportunity and his small team of workers (built upon previous work done by NASA and Boeing).

So having a high-tech R&D platform on orbit can be reasonably seen as a public utility that shows our nation's high-tech prowess and hopefully will contribute a few advances that can be turned to the public good.

In this regard Bigelow remains unproven. He has shown that he can provide pressurized space on orbit, and it seems to be lasting for a while. The issue is that most of the research equipment to date has been designed around the shuttle/ISS ISPR standard (Mid-Deck Lockers and Spacelab Drawer Racks). I asked Mr. Bigelow a while back if his facilities would be compatible with that equipment. He indicated that they were looking at it, but nothing was decided.

The opportunity cost is the development of a potentially better standard, which could be pioneered in Mr. Bigelow's facilities. If Mr. Bigelow does adopt what is effectively the NASA standard, then that standard is likely to be carried forward to other orbital facilities, such as at EML-1.

Personally, I think there is an enormous amount of opportunity in the microgravity research & development field, but it's constrained by the unavailability of regular and reliable access to orbit. Until that hurdle is cleared there's not much we're going to be doing anywhere else in space other than continuing to chuck very expensive tools into the void. Once that hurdle is cleared, I do think there will be a greater flow of capital into carving out that particular niche in the economy.

One thing that I do want to sideline on here for a moment is the whole bandying about of what it is that 'businessmen want'. Some people say we need a "Netscape moment", others say we need a guaranteed money maker product. They're all wrong.

What businessmen, real businessmen (not speculators), need is confidence. Every educated investor anticipates a return, but knows that nothing in life is guaranteed ('Past performance is not indicative of future results' is tattooed on my brain). One of the factors in whether one particular investment is made over another is the level of confidence the investor has that money will be made.

This doesn't require a big bang event or product. It requires an ongoing series of successes, or failures that are learned from to find a surer path to success, over time. There are a few things that can help this year:
-someone wins the Lunar Lander Challenge
-Virgin Galactic conducts a drop test or three
-Zero-G buys another plane, or another competitor enters the market
-someone wins the Regolith Excavation Challenge
-more companies and teams show off their hardware at public events

That last is one of the biggies. Regular people need to see this stuff, not just industry insiders. That's why the X-Prize Cup is so great, and why people need to step up and exhibit at public-oriented conferences like ISDC even if their capital budgets are getting to the point where it's a bit of a stretch because, you know, there's actual hardware to build. Still, the American public is really going to be looking for, and desperately needing, things to believe in and be proud of by the end of the year, and the space industry is one that offers hope because we have a competitive advantage

Confidence. Built on small, measured and progressive steps.

They're not too far off the mark over at the Space Cynics. Things are going to get ugly in the economy. The reason Bear Stearns was sold for $2/share instead of going into bankruptcy is because they can't go into bankruptcy because of counterparty exposure in derivatives. In a nutshell, normally when a company goes into bankruptcy the court says "Stop!" to all of the creditors while the court sorts out the mess. Thanks to lobbying and such, most derivatives are exempted from this "Automatic Stay". Thus, while all the creditors of Bear Stearns are standing in line (with any equity holders way out in the boondocks), all of the derivative counterparties would figure out their net exposure to Bear Stearns and start divvying up whatever assets there were. Even secured creditors would have to wait. This is what the government is terrified of since this would be the first test, but it is a creature of Wall Street's making. Bear Stearns and the industry entirely brought this upon themselves. The solution is a market repricing of assets, which hasn't happened yet, and will be at a level that most firms don't want to think about. This gets back to the whole imperfect information thing I was talking about earlier.

Back to space utility, let's look farther out. The business model seems comfortable with disposable satellites. Is there utility in providing crewed access to space assets in cislunar space? In my view that's a strong affirmative. Cleaning out the garbage, fixing XM's satellites for less than the cost of a new one, extending service lives, I can see all kinds of utility in providing human access to space assets.

Where is the utility of the Moon? That's a much harder question. I'm not going to dwell on Helium-3, for all its promise. I consider it a marginal byproduct of other processes, and not a reason to go to the Moon in and of itself. Oxygen is important, but mainly for cislunar operations, especially transport, and people aren't yet sold on the utility of cislunar operations. A collision in GEO with a DISH sat might wake them up, but otherwise an effort will need to be made to convey the idea of having a means to fix our tools in space. The ISS spacewalks are actually helping to lay some groundwork in this regard.

My personal preference for the Moon is as a site for Solar Power Satellite raw materials. I don't think SPSes are a near-term energy delivery solution, but I do think that they are a long-term, if not permanent solution.

Ask around, and I'll think you'll find that a lot of people think that when it's dark at night, the satellite is in the dark as well, running off batteries or whatever. One of the ignorance hurdles that exists for SPS is that people think they're no better than Earth-based installations. They don't get that out at GEO with the axial tilt the SPSes are in sunlight almost all of the time.

Sell people on the idea of space-based Solar power and the Moon becomes a logical and imperative destination. A Cislunar Economy can be of powerful utility to the nation.

Mr. Mealling raises a good point in the comments to my last thread, in that over the longer term a gravity-well-centric focus is not the way to go for a true spacefaring civilization. The asteroids are the wealth in the inner and outer Solar system, and represent the real opportunity for security, commerce, and science.

Still, I don't think we're as confident with regards to asteroids as we are with regards to the Moon. Going back to the Moon and building a cislunar economy will build a huge amount of confidence to take that step, and the first one or several missions probably will be government-run while that's happening.

That being said, one of ideas that needs to be conveyed is that of asteroids as a resource. The public is sensitized to the idea of asteroids as a threat, but not as a utility, though that can be changed. Selling people on that utility goes hand-in-hand with making a business case for cislunar space, where the asteroid's materials will be used, in some cases for value-added products sent back to Earth.

Moving out to Mars, I have to honestly say that most of the economic value-added I see in the early days is going to be cultural/entertainment, the kind of stuff that can be easily digitized and sent back home, but can you colonize Mars on a Hollywood budget? On the materials side I'm having a hard time figuring anything out. Things like deuterium just don't resonate with me because of the huge supply line/time back to cislunar space. And this is why I think Mars never really resonated with me.

So when folks say that 'Mars is the Goal', I can only say that 'Mars is your goal, not mine. My goal is the American economy on the Moon. The only real question is how can we work together towards each of us achieving our goals?' (Goals that are hopefully of utility to Mankind)

Martian Smackdown

by guest blogger Ken

Okay, smackdown is probably a bit melodramatic, but it got your attention. A glass of cold water in the face is probably a closer description, but Griffin certainly put his foot down with the Mars science community.

More on that in a bit. I had to cut my vacation short because I've got some Loan Committee profiles due as a result of my recent reassignment back into airplane finance at the bank (since I'm the one with the experience), but nevertheless did have a valuable experience.

I did manage to get in a good day of EPO work. It's the newest and hippest acronym, standing for Education & Public Outreach. The established institutions are starting to recognize that education involves more than teachers, and there are lots of interests competing for peoples' time, and so an effort to reach out and engage needs to be made.

Dr. Spudis opened with a talk on "What is the Value of Returning to the Moon" (um, I got in a bit late and missed a chunk of it) Like Ms. Gay, I sat in on a mixed workgroup. We had a couple of local teachers and some folks from JSC Astromaterials curation. And me, the banker. One thing is certain, it was not the usual dialogue, but they did get some basic themes/memes I put out there:
-space is a field of endeavor where the U.S. has a competitive advantage.
-What is the opportunity cost of doing this space thing? What is the opportunity cost of not doing this space thing?
-Doing this space thing is one of the reasons the world invests in the U.S., because we manage to do these kinds of crazy things, and everyone else gets to benefit. They don't expect the favorable and shared results of Russia or China that they do of the U.S.

There was a lot of good ideas and opinion generated on the topic of "What do scientists and educators need to share about the Moon and future lunar exploration with their audiences?", and I have a little grist to work over in that regard. Lunch was in the Library of the LPI. They've got a lot of Moon globes, but they don't have one marked up in Chinese.

I did manage to show off a few of my toys. The genuine fake Moon rocks from Jensan Scientific were a big hit. A surprising hit was my 3D topographic gravipotential thingamajig. One of the websites on Lagrange points features a gravipotential map to illustrate the overlapping gravitational spheres of influence of the Earth and Moon. I went to a local hobby supply shop and bought some 8.5x11 black foam craft sheets. I think I needed around 40 or so (with mistakes) to build it up. I started from the center circle and started working outward, one layer per isotropic line (or whatever the correct word is for the lines on a topographic map). My main goof was my assumption that the Earth-Moon system was a dimple in the Sun's gravity well, but someone informed me that the centrifugal force becomes increasingly important the further you get out, so my corners that climbed up should have sloped down.

The main effect is to show the saddle point at L1, and the plateaus at L4 and L5. It's definitely an eye-catching tool.

In the afternoon, Pamela and I were in the same group on New Media audiences. It was clear that the grayhairs weren't real clued in on the kind of stuff that's going on internetwise to spread space messages. While Selenian Boondocks and Out of the Cradle don't get quite the traffic a Universe Today or Astrocast or Transterrestrial Musings gets, there is still a bit of a sense of community. Second Life was touched on (shout out to Robbie and Jessie at CoLab!), and I'm sitting here wondering at the irony of a person sitting at a computer terminal running a SL avatar that visits a SL Lunar Library to read a book. I shudder to think of the copyright issues.

Twitter and RSS feeds and that sort of thing were touched upon. I noted that NASA can't just transfer their old NASA TV tapes to YouTube. They actually need to create new media, that takes advantage of the new way things get organized and distributed on the internet. Putting an RSS Feed button to get any AP newswires is not exactly the best way to approach the topic. Both Pamela and I agreed that the communication is also much more 'personalized' on the internet. That means to me that the PIs need to be unmuzzled and put to blogging intermittently about their projects for everyone in the world to see. (Which does already happen to some extent, but it's not an 'institutionalized' process) It might contain uncomfortable information, but it's not like there exists a world without uncomfortable information, and sunlight is the best disinfectant and it may be that a reader has an idea that they post to the comment section of the blog post that saves the day. That's the power of the free flow of information on a global scale. It's a messy and chaotic process, with much idiocy from idiots involved, but you tap into a huge knowledge base.

Overall I think it was a valuable exercise, not because we solved the problems of the world, but because our different backgrounds make for a richer dialogue. That's how new memes get cultivated. I planted a few memes of my own, but I've also got new ideas from others that are stirring up the soil in my brain.

There was a little bit of networking afterwords and folks got their registrations for the main conference out of the way. I saw Bernard Foing, whom I know from the Space Generation Forum nearly a decade ago in 1999. He told me a bit about the ILEWG conference in Florida this fall in conjunction with LEAG and someone else. I made sure to introduce him to Pamela in the hopes that she might be able to get an AstronomyCast out of it. Talked with Dave Dunlop from the Moon Society for a while. I do need to get my act together and try to see about forming a Moon Society chapter here in Dallas. The sensitivity concern is that it will draw membership away from the NSS of North Texas chapter. I would argue no more so than the local Mars Society, which has actually contributed members to NSS-NT.

I excused myself to go make my traditional run to Half-Price Books over on NASA Road 1. The old location was empty so I had a moment of panic, but then saw that they'd relocated to the refurbished strip mall on the other side of road. I'm glad I did, as I managed to pick up a hardcover copy of NASA SP-4205: "Chariots for Apollo - A History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft" from 1979. I'd been kicking myself after passing up a softcover copy down in Austin, but found this one for the same price (less after coupon), as well as a couple books on the Soviet Space Program that I'll be adding to the Lunar Library.

Back to LPI for the Reception, I ran into Bethany from the 2002 Ames NASA Academy on the shuttle from the parking lot. Ames Astrobiology Academy had come to D.C. as one of its 'field trips' (like we at Goddard went to Langley, Wallops, KSC, JSC, and HQ). I arranged and chaperoned their visit to a Congressional hearing where they actually got to huddle with one of the Reps in the back of the room during the hearing, as well as Administrator O'Keefe afterwards (photo #1 in Meeting with NASA Leaders). My sly political objective was to try to build institutional support within the organization for the NASA Academy program, while giving the Administrator ammunition to use during his Congressional hearings. It's one thing to drone on about the educational programs that NASA has to cultivate a future workforce, it's quite another to have a score of fresh-faced young grad students, some of the brightest minds in our nation, stand up for the Senators, and chat with them after the hearing. It also served to round out the curriculum of the Research Assistants, who were being groomed (and some now serve as) future leaders of NASA, with a taste of the political environment in which NASA operates. It was Win-Win all around. Of course, the one time we let them go into town unchaperoned they ended up hitting the Romanian Ambassador's car and creating some diplomatic drama, as well as missing the internet webcast I had arranged with the ISU SSP, a special seminar on Astrobiology that we got to watch at the Goddard Academy.

I ran into Bob Richards from OpTech and one of the Goooogle Lunar X-Prize teams. He knows me from ISU, of which he was one of the founders, along with Todd Hawley and Peter Diamandis. When Bethany wandered by in the buffet line I made sure to introduce her to Bob, and reminded her that Dr. Soffen had modeled the NASA Academy program on the ISU Summer Session programs (since it pre-dated the Masters program). She of course was thinking about doing an SSP, when they get to another one of the really cool locations. My first introduction to the SSP was when they did a webcast from Thailand (IIRC) to the Space Generation Forum in Vienna in 1999.

Which reminds me. In this whole 'communicating with Gen Y' thing, one thing that everyone seems to be forgetting is that there is an entire generation that's been into this whole thing from the beginning - Gen X. Heck, who do you think was doing the coding? The deer in the headlights looks one can see in the greyhairs whenever the younger folks talk about this stuff is actually a bit scary. I do wonder what percentage of NASA employees are aged 26-44.

One thing I noted during the reception was that there were a lot of younger faces than I usually see at this sort of thing. Including a number of lovely young ladies (of course the ones I really felt drawn to were already taken, which is par for the course). There were a lot of international folks as well, and I was pleased to hear a good bit of French. It was a short night, though, as I had to get back to the hotel to do some work.

Monday morning I stopped by the Publishers Room, where they were exhibiting all of the latest titles on space. There are a few that I really need to pick up for the LL. I then hopped back up to LPI to visit their Library during normal business hours to see what other goodies I might be able to pick up, then over to Space Center Houston to visit their gift shop. I did pick up another copy of "Kids to Space" to give away, and some tchotchkes. Space Center souvenirs, down the road towards IH-45, had a few more goodies, including a print of Michael Whelan's "The Ultimate Sandbox" which they had recently uncovered in their storeroom.

Back at the hotel the afternoon was mostly gone, but I did talk to some more folks I knew. The capstone of the day was of course Mr. Griffin's address to the International Planetary Science community.

It wasn't pretty, and Mr. Griffin would probably be the first to tell you that. Pamela Gay has a pretty good summary of the proceedings in "Michael Griffin Redux", but our perceptions of what went down are a bit different. I recommend reading it before proceeding.

I Am The Invited Commenter

This one was uncomfortable. It's not uncommon for a questioner to preface their question with a brief comment to try to give the respondent a sense of the context in which the question is being asked. Mr. Griffin did not want that context, but she stood her ground and laid it out anyway. This is where he started laying out the idea that Mars science cannot consider itself to be entitled to a stable level of funding year-to-year. He asked the pointed and entirely appropriate question to the effect of what space science programs does the Mars community consider expendable so that they can maintain their currently high level of funding? Many forget that the Mars program found considerable favor in the Goldin years, especially once they adopted the FBC (Faster, Looser, Cheaper) mantra. Publication of "The Case for Mars" in the mid-90s offered a well-spring of (false?) hope for a generation still smarting from Challenger and inheriting a space program from their parents of going around in circles. The impression I get is that they were less sold on the idea of the actual architecture so much as the idea of Mars as the best other place in the Solar system for a long-term human presence, and so for a jaded and cynical generation living in a world of Baby Boomers it offers a slim hope to GTFO.

He kept re-emphasizing that funding for Mars science was returning to its 25 year average, and it's not as if there wasn't funding for Mars missions prior to 1990. I do seem to recall a flagship getting lost out around Mars back around that time (which served as part of the impetus to consider the FBC approach). This will allow NASA to direct funding to the Outer Solar System in accordance with the desires of the National Academies as expressed in the last Decadal Survey. Outer Solar System is getting a much lower grade than Mars, and needs some attention. Mars is not the only object of study in the Solar system. It's not going to zero, but Mars has been hogging the limelight for over a decade and they need to share the stage with someone else. This point was emphasized again towards the end

You are an insect

The Gen Yers are obviously starting to feel their oats, so Bethany got up and asked the question of where these changes to the Mars budgets was going to leave this bright young talent pool of youngsters who have lived and breathed Mars their entire lives?

His response: Don't specialize. Specialization is for insects.

So after telling her she was an insect, he elaborated that she may need to go do something she's not interested in. Here's where I have a fundamental disagreement with Mr. Griffin, but it did help to clarify one of my insights.

Here we have a young leader of her generation. She had the cajones to actually get up and ask a question of the single most important person in civil space. And the single most important person in space told her that everything she was working toward was stupid and misdirected. Great, just freaking great. This young woman obviously needs to be cultivated so that she can continue to grow as a scientist and a professional. Not crushed.

My approach would have been to note that while the scope of work in the Mars field was to be reduced, there are several factors to consider:
1) The top levels of NASA are on the edge of retirement, and have already begun to do so. This means your boss will likely be moved to a different responsibility in the near future where he's needed within the organization. That means someone will have to replace him.
2) Yes, the pool of direct Mars laborers will be reduced overall. What this means is that the organization is going to be looking for the best and brightest to be kept. You therefore need to aggressively position yourself as one of the best and brightest and someone the program can't do without.
3) Specialization is not stupid. However, the modern era forces us to look at skillsets. It helps to have several different skillsets with very sharp tools, not just one skillset with the sharpest tools on the planet. Generalists are important, but generalists need the specialists to be the sort of 'Rain Man' in the room that knows the more about an important topic than anyone else in the room, so that when the question of "What is the capacitance charge of the intervoltage overthruster on the interociter?" it can be answered with the answer, not an "I'll have to get back to you on that one".

The key difference is that I look at talent in the context of cross-training. Staff will be needed for different projects. The composition depends on the special strengths that each participant brings to the team. Oftentimes, it makes sense for the organization to cross-train an employee with a new skillset that complements their existing skillsets and makes them a greater asset to the organization. They may need to go work in a different department for six months or a year, but are better-skilled for it. It's also a way of keeping staff engaged when their particular specialties aren't needed at the moment, but you don't want to turn them loose in the market.

I may be biased in this regard. While I am wholely and completely a generalist, and have an entire workbench of skillsets, I am nevertheless working to become the most knowledgeable person of my generation with regards to the Moon. It's hard to get more specialized than that, but then again I am looking at it from a different perspective. I see opportunity - there aren't a whole lot of Gen Xers out there. Most of the Gen Xers hopped on the Mars bandwagon. Most of the rest don't care about space other than as a deep space fantasy like Star Trek or Star Wars. So there will come a time when the old guard has shuffled off and I will be the go-to Moon guy.

And this leads me to my insight. Mr. Griffin has no passion for his job as Administrator. Jon may have goofed recently in calling Griffin 'President', but Mr. Griffin used the same title on himself Monday night. Not because he may see himself as a contender in the Presidential elections, but rather because he is the 'President' (Mr. Bush) in the role of NASA Administrator. He brings nothing of himself to the position, but rather serves as a conduit for others. In all honesty the political calculus that I read from his talk Monday chilled me. The best example was when he said that it is not the job of NASA to educate people, it is NASA's job to inform them. It is the responsibility of the Department of Education to educate people. NASA is not 'selling' anything, it merely provides facts. This led to the rather uncomfortable question by the EPO person from LPI who asked then what her job was supposed to be if not 'Education' and Public Outreach?

I agree with Mr. Griffin that it is not NASA's job to educate Americans about space. Where I disagree is that NASA can provide an ENORMOUS amount of help in education efforts. Heck yes it's the job of NASA astronauts to go into classrooms and alight stars in childrens' eyes. Heck yes NASA needs to be making posters and lithographs and CD-ROMs and webpages, and it also needs to provide context for those things. Sending a teacher a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter poster is okay, providing local planetarium staff (as an example) with content training and them sending them around to the schools with handout materials is hugely powerful. This is why JPL does the Solar System Ambassador program.

In my view Mr. Griffin is providing no leadership to the organization. I understand the linguistic subtleties of "Administrator", but even an Administrator brings some character to his position, and is given some authority to swing around. The sense that I get from Mike is that his role is really that of a clerk, in the context that he is just processing directives from elsewhere. There is no self-identity in what he does, but rather he is, not just represents, the 'President' (GWB) in his role as NASA Administrator.

To be clear, when he says he is being honest, I believe him that he is telling the truth. I question, though, whether what he tells is the whole truth (and suspect not), and whether that is by virtue of knowing what he may and may not disclose in public, or whether he just doesn't have the whole truth and therefore can't give it.

Overall, I think the impression he tried to convey was that he was trying to be as fair as he could to everyone in a really crappy environment (which I think he is within certain parameters). The Mars folks are not 'entitled' to any particular level of funding, any more than anyone else is entitled to that funding.

One thing that we have in common is that we worked on Mars Sample Return for JPL. Mr. Griffin said his work was 30 years ago. I worked on an MSR RFP for JPL while interning at Boeing HSF&E during my ISU MSS studies. The report is probably on the internet somewhere. My main role was as what we called the "Wall Nazi". We had 100 slides up on the wall. Nothing went up or came off without my say so and I was ruthless in that. I also worked on the Science Architecture with one of the guys from MEPAG (Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group), with frustrating results. A typical session:

"Okay, so I've reviewed the MEPAG objectives and I think I have a pretty good handle on what they're about. What would you consider to be the most important objectives that could be met by a sample return?"
"They're all important objectives"
"Yes, but we can't answer them all with a sample return mission. Which do you think are the obvious candidates for discarding"
"Well, we don't want to discard any of the objectives if they might be met by a sample return"
[Thumps head on desk multiple times]

I was later told (perhaps jokingly) that this was why I was assigned the science architecture, since no one else wanted to deal with the frustration of trying to understand the scientists and get them to make decisions. When JPL got to my slide during the presentation they got that 'WTF is this?' look about them. Not one of my prouder moments, but I do have a blown-up printout of the report cover signed by the team in a poster tube around here somewhere. Even while we were working on the RFP the launch date to consider was slipping to the right.

After Griffin's talk I was feeling chilled, and decided that given my new work responsibilities I should get home and back to work on the bond profiles. Driving north, downtown Houston was framed by the usual spectacular Texas sunset, and once I cleared the storm front the waxing crescent Moon could be glimpsed through the clouds near the top of my driver side window, descending slowly as I worked my way through the miles, till finally it was an enormous deep red cup perched on the horizon as I neared Dallas. In my view, an enormous cup of opportunity, but the deep red reminded me that Mars is still out there.

In the latest Moon Miner's Manifesto, Peter Kokh suggests/strongly urges that the Moon Society help build an economic case for Mars, since the Marsophiles haven't been able to come up with anything substantial and if the Moon can be seen as supporting markets farther out (and not just Mars), then that helps build a stronger case for both. I'll sheepishly admit that I've spent time thinking about Mars, and how it might provide economic opportunity worthy of the 6+ month supply line to Mars. Anything volatile is right out given the dangers from impacts. Cultural artifacts of extinct Martian civilizations would be worth it, but that's a veeery long shot as far as I'm concerned. I doubt there has ever been even the simplest of life on Mars, and the main question that my MSR experience left with me was to wonder to what extent billions and billions of years of dust and grit and aeolian affects would create effects that would mimic those of water. I don't doubt that more than a few comets have been delivered to Mars, but I doubt there's as much easily available water as everyone seems to be hoping.

Okay, this went on a bit longer than I expected. I'll leave with a quote from a rather interesting sci-fi series from 1990 recently issued on DVD. The story is about a number of university age students studying on a spacecraft parked in orbit around Callisto out at Jupiter. There're no aliens, no wormholes, nothing sci-fantasy about it. Everything works by the laws of physics (though I'm not so sure about the shots of the various shuttle dockings). It's from episode 39 of the pretty-good-so-far, if a bit soap opera-y, "Jupiter Moon", where young orphan and computer whiz/hacker Timmy has to be sent back to Mars to treat an immune response issue he seems to have developed. His big sister doesn't particularly like Mars.

"I hate Mars. It's suburban and full of tourists"

Sustainability

A statement in this post by Clark Lindsey (and a further comment by Gary Hudson) on Hobbyspace reminded me why I'm somewhat uncomfortable with the term "sustainability" as it regards space exploration. I think the danger stems from how ambiguous the term can be. When you say "sustainable space development" to someone like Clark, Gary, or myself, it evokes concepts such as enabling a robust commercial spaceflight industry and acting as an anchor tenant for critical space infrastructure. But NASA uses "sustainability" in a completely different light. Under Griffinomics, ESAS is supposedly "sustainable" because Congress is unlikely to cut NASA's manned spaceflight program much compared to what it's getting right now, and therefore even if the architecture they pick is very expensive, it can still be perpetuated indefinitely off of bureaucratic inertia and parochial interests. Inspiring, huh?

A much better metric is the one given in Marburger's speech: namely is our architecture being developed in such a way as to reduce the risk and cost of future operations? In manufacturing, there's a concept called "continual improvement". Basically the idea is that in a healthy system, you should be continually reducing scrap rate, increasing efficiency, decreasing lead time, etc. I think the idea of continual improvement is a good one for space development as well. A healthy and effective national space program would be one that is continually investing a sizable chunk of its public funds into creating or promoting the creation of new technologies, techniques, infrastructures, and markets that make future operations (manned and unmanned) less expensive, lower risk, higher payback etc.

To me the difference between the idea of continual improvement and Griffin's idea of sustainability is the difference between innovation and inertia.

Imigration Problems

This country has immigration problems.

Case in point. A good friend of our family here in town is an immigrant who has been living in the US since around when she was 6 or so (about a dozen years). She's about to graduate from high school, and would like to save up for college. Unfortunately even though she's been applying for a green card for some time now, they still estimated that it might take as much as 5 more years before she gets one. This gal's hard working, intelligent, fluent in English, and her and her sisters made sure they did everything "right" when moving to this country. From talking to her, you couldn't tell she wasn't a US citizen, as this is pretty much where she has lived all her life. But in spite of her wanting to work and contribute to society, get an education, become a citizen, etc. she's stuck in legal limbo. She's not dumb, and she's doing what she can to be productive, and to make her way to college, but it's really frustrating seeing someone like this who would make a good citizen of this country being held back by stupid and incompetent bureaucracies like that.

Just a thought.

Marburger's Speech

There's been a lot of discussion over the past few days about OSTP Director John Marburger's speech at the recent Goddard Memorial Symposium, but there were a couple of good points that I felt deserved repetition, and I also had a few thoughts I would like to add.

One of the memes that John started two years ago is the concept of extending our nation's economic sphere throughout the Solar System. Early on in his speech, referring to the thriving commercial satellite market, John states that "Humanity has succeeded in incorporating Low and Geostationary Earth orbit in its economic sphere." While I think he's basically right, I'd just point out that LEO and GEO are still only on the fringes of our economic sphere. While there are a couple of (very large and profitable) niches that have been exploited in spite of the immature state of existing earth-to-orbit transportation systems, none of these markets really have succeeded in catalyzing further demand for other services in LEO and GEO. While lots of money is being made, and lots of useful services are being provided, we still have a long way to go before I'd really state that LEO and GEO are firmly within mankind's "economic sphere".

The most important idea from this speech is found in the next paragraph:

If we are serious about this, then our objective must be more than a disconnected series of missions, each conducted at huge expense and risk, and none building a lasting infrastructure to reduce the expense and risk of future operations. If we are serious, we will build capability, not just on the ground but in space. And our objective must be to make the use of space for human purposes a routine function.

He amplified this point a few paragraphs later:

Exploration that is not in support of something else strikes me as somehow selfish and unsatisfying, and not consistent with the fact that we are using public funds for this enterprise, no matter how small a fraction of the total budget they may be.

If the architecture of the exploration phase is not crafted with sustainability in mind, we will look back on a century or more of huge expenditures with nothing more to show for them than a litter of ritual monuments scattered across the planets and their moons.

I think that though this may not have been his intention, these quotes highlight most of my current frustration with NASA's current approach to executing the Vision for Space Exploration. Having NASA develop its Constellation architecture means that 20 years from now, it will be just as hard for a commercial entity to get to the moon as it would be if Constellation was cancelled tomorrow. Nothing that is being done "reduces the risk or expense of future operations" or "makes the use of space for human purposes a routine function." I'm glad that at least someone is trying to tie this all back to actual benefit to the nation. I'm also glad that John pointed out that the whole "NASA only spends less than 1% of the federal budget" line does not give NASA carte blanche to spend that money however it darned well pleases. That money is supposed to be spent in a way that furthers the national interest, preferably in a way that makes space more accessible for everyone.

Now, NASA isn't completely neglecting its responsibility to help reduce the risk and expense of future commercial, defense, and NASA operations. They are doing such things as COTS and Centennial Challenges. And people in power seem to be finally wising-up to the idea that COTS is the only real hope for reducing the gap, and the only way to economically services the ISS once the Shuttle is finally retired. But I do think that it's a big negative mark that the vast majority of the money NASA will spend over the next decade on Constellation has nothing to do with making the moon easier for everyone to access in the future.

There's been talk from NASA and some of their less discerning fanboys of a "Lunar COTS". Basically the idea is to waste $100-120B on using Constellation to setup a small ISS on the Moon, and then once its there start paying commercial entities to service said base. This creates an interesting situation. Since NASA won't have done anything for over a decade to help make it easier for commercial entities to actually service the moon, they'll either have to keep sustaining the base themselves while they spend the money to belatedly help develop that commercial capability. Or, if the commercial market has independently created that capability anyhow, that NASA base will likely be only a small niche market in the cislunar space. The smart thing to do would be to start finding ways to develop or promote those commercial capabilities from the start. Things like funding research or sponsoring prizes for fielding the technologies needed for propellant depots. Acting as a customer for commercial services especially on-orbit propellants. Acting as a better customer for commercially attained lunar environmental data. Finding ways to promote translunar tourism and eventually lunar orbital (or Lagrange point) stations. Finding ways consistent with federal laws to act as an anchor tenant, to champion these new technologies, to fund demonstrator missions, and even to put money aside in escrow for being a leading customer for these new capabilities.

For a short duration before Griffin got in as NASA's administrator, NASA was actually acting in a way to more fully fulfill mandate to "promote commercial as well as international participation "to further U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests." Under the guidance of O'keefe and Steidle, NASA setup several billion dollars worth of "Human and Robotic Technologies" research to help develop and field the technologies that would allow it to more effectively achieve its exploration goals. It was set to operate its exploration architecture in a way to leverage to the maximum extent possible existing and future commercial capabilities. To act as though NASA can't do that is to ignore the fact that that was its very plan up until Griffin took the reins.

I guess the question boils down to what Marburger said: do we intend to extend humanity's economic sphere of influence to include the rest of the Solar System?

Commercial Space Netscape Moment?

I know that I've mentioned on several occasions the hope that at sometime in the next few years, we might see some commercial space company have a "Netscape Moment". The idea being that having a major alt.space company succeed in a very public way (such as SpaceX getting their Falcon vehicles flying reliably enough for them to successfully go public) would likely result in a major positive change in the funding environment for other alt.space firms.

However, Tom Olson had a good post over at Space Cynics today bringing up some issues with the "Netscape Moment" analogy. While I still think that having a successful example of an alt.space company making a good return on investment would help a lot, Tom makes some good points about why that analogy may not actually be the best model for alt.space hopes. I would much rather see an alt.space world where the funding is still tight enough that only the good ventures with good technical and business approaches can get much money, than one in which the money flows so freely that a lot of it ends up being blown on fly-by-night businesses that don't really do anything for solving the challenge of cheap, reliable, access to space.

Just a thought.

The Return of Jonny Bloggin (and James Bloggin Too!)

It's been a long while since I've put any family pictures up, and we had lots of good ones over the past several months that I figured I would share.

This first one is James and George (Pierce Nichols' little boy) at a birthday party for Jonny and James last December. Tiff got that big plastic tub, and filled it full of pinto beans for the kids to play with. I'm sure the Banks family is still finding beans hiding in their garage!


Jonny really likes the camera, and every time we try to take a picture of him doing something cute, he tries to get us to give him the camera. He's definitely a technophile.


This is Jonny, demonstrating that his Tool-Fu is strong.


James on the other hand takes after his mom--he's probably going to be a musician.


I've always been impressed though with Tiff's ability to improvise. Here's the "sled" she came up with for the boys so they could play in the snow.


Of course in this picture, with all the layers Tiff put on him, James looks like "Ralphie" from that movie "A Christmas Story".


Here's Jonny and James being GQ.


This was from Sunday. I'm glad Jonny and James get along so well. They're both a bunch of laughy-heads.


Especially James.

Proud to be in Texas

by guest blogger Ken

Today was just another reaffirmation of why I'm happy to live in Texas. We woke to snow on the ground, and by evening I had the top down on the bug on my way to the polling place.

Thanks to Texas' open voting, I don't have to register for any party to vote in the primaries and I get to vote for whichever candidate I feel is best. Since this was the last likely chance to vote for my candidate of choice, Ron Paul (as I'm a Constitutional libertarian), I hustled over to the Republican polling site here in Addison. There was only one young pretty lady there, and not a whole lot of folks to speak of in any event. The entire time I was filling out the rest of the ballot, the poor site warden had to keep repeating to people showing up that the Democrat primary was over at the other Addison fire house. I dropped my ballot in the scanner, and noted that there was just shy of 200 total ballots. Walking out I noticed that most of the young folks who were showing up were quickly leaving to head to the other primary. I decided to cruise over to see what it looked like over there. Dang if there weren't some 200 people just at that particular moment in time, with more obviously on the way. Lots of lovely young ladies as well, and if I were in to deceit and fraud I would just have to show up later to see if I could take advantage of any fervor.

Overall I'm not terribly pleased with the media-vetted candidates, but were I forced to choose from the media-vetted, and Ron Paul hasn't sprung onto the ballot in some other capacity, then I would honestly have to go with Barack Obama. This would be more out of a sense of least-distaste rather than enthusiastic support, as I disagree with most of the Democratic platform in its search for social solutions. As disgusted as I am with the existing power structure, and if the media decides that I have to vote for Clinton or McCain, then I would have to register my contempt and opprobrium by voting for Ralph Nader (or a better 3rd-party candidate, hopefully). I am sick of what the people in charge are doing to my nation, and as far as I'm concerned, Clinton and McCain are flip sides of the same coin, which currency I've found to be valueless. I want a different coin.

In other sad news, I do mourn the passing of Gary Gygax. D&D is what I started out with back in the late 70s, though once I discovered Runequest and Traveller I was all over those instead, usually as gamemaster. D&D was the one that successfully transitioned to PCs, so I've worked my way through most of the dungeons that have come down the pike. 'King of Dragon Pass' was a pretty darn interesting Runequest adaptation, but my real preference has been for the 'Civ'-type games like Alpha Centauri or Outpost or that one with the Antares thingee. I'd often set Outpost for a Moon-type setting to work with, which was much harder than the Mars-type planet. I worked through Moon Tycoon pretty quickly since the economics engine was so easy.

My real wish is for a Lego computer game set on the Moon. Asteroid showers pelt the Lunar surface and the Legonaut has to put the machines back together like in the Lego Star Wars game. Take a Moonbuggy tour through a crater race. Work to build garden and habitat and work and oxygen-extraction modules as pieces become available. Make it where the robots have to mine a certain amount of regolith to make a particular brick. Bury clear bricks as 'water' in the everdark craters at the poles. Build really tall Lunar-gravity towers to collect Solar energy. Use the old Lunar Lander engine to run a sequence where Legonauts pilot Lego spacecraft down to the Lunar base. Don't land too hard, or you'll have to rebuild your ship before you can leave. Have Legonauts that run out of O2 turn to Earth and open their faceplates (fade to black - next try!). Prospect for gold brick meteor fragments to strike it rich. Manufacture basic Solar Power Satellite elements for export. Have bad guys trying to take over through sabotage and thuggery. (they have much better techniques these days, but we probably don't want to expose the kiddos to them just yet)

Build specialized machines that tunnel into the Lunar surface to create underground space and uncover who knows what. Build a mass driver to deliver SPS payloads to EML1 and GEO. Build a Lunar railway to connect with other bases. Build a radio telescope dish on the far side. Lay out a power grid. Then the wire comes in: Flash! Moonbase to provide basic parts of Mars-bound craft! Everyone gets to work making the needed pieces and sending them up to EML1. Finally the big day comes, and the Legonauts at Moonbase watch the Mars bound craft leave across the sky on its adventure farther out in space.

Which is the basis for the next game, though since I don't find Mars as interesting as the Moon so I think the subsequent game should be Mars & Asteroids (which I find almost as interesting as the Moon, and much moreso than Mars). Face it, with the whole bio-freakout thing there's not likely to be much development for a while on Mars other than a small scientific outpost. Now working on carving up an asteroid, or even setting up shop inside one, would be much cooler, especially in a Lego context.

That's the legacy of Gary Gygax. A Gen X banker/spaceketeer who can sit around at his computer thinking up really cool Lego computer role-playing games that would simulate likely things we'll do on the Moon. And millions of other average folk of Gens X & Y, the Slackers and Millenials, weaned on things like Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books ("Moon Quest" out in June!), computer programming, and rich imagination.

P.S. Since my vacation just got approved I get to be down in Houston for the first couple of days of the Lunar & Planetary Science Conference next week. I won't be live-blogging, but I will have an update.