Wiki Design: from Toasters to Spaceships

Participatory Exploration. Frednet. Lunar Boom Town. Open Luna.

These all deal with the concept that we are trying to take the brainpower of the interested public and use it to solve the technical, political, and business problems that confront our efforts to expand into space. I conceived of a tool that can facilitate this.

Look at Wikipedia. According to last year's annual report (check it out in your spare time, Nick,) there were "approximately 100,000 active editors (defined as users who made more than 5 changes in the last month)." 100,000! That's a huge number of people!

With the 11 million articles on Wikipedia, you can be sure that many of these editors are fueled to participate in a wide range of articles by the synergistic combination of articles that they can work on. In other words, editing in Wikipedia gets "sticky" (Check the definitions at the bottom)

So here is the point. Crowd Sourcing is good. Better Crowd Sourcing is better. Better Crowd Sourcing can be had by implementing a dedicated web based methodical structure that fosters and requires attention to the essential questions of systems design.

So I am hatching this idea for something that could be a Wikimedia project, specifically for designing things. It would work a bit like this:

You come to the wiki design sight and tell it that you want to start a new design. It asks you some basic questions like what your primary objective of need is, what kind of system it is (Vehicle, building, processing machine, etc.), Does it require data processing, etc.

The site shepherds your thoughts into a rudimentary top level systems architecture framework by asking you questions like: what does it do? And how might it do that?

It gives you some templates for functional and physical breakdowns, templates with high level headings for a system specification document, and you, the user get as detailed or a vague as you want at this point.

So then your site is live and anyone can come in and populate the content, like with Wikipedia, but unlike Wikipedia, some powerful organizing tools and templates are integrated with the content.

Some of the possible features:

• Integrated 3D modeling web app that helps with part numbers and hierarchy of parts
• Expired patent and journal search that lets you link relevant patents to functions or subfunctions
• Discussion and voting tied to specific elements of the system definition.
  
• Commenting on parts of the system definition (Saying things like: "This design is horrible. If it were 3 inches long it would have way more strength and only add a small amount of length")
  
• Chat with other members of the project
  
• robust and targeted permissions to set "baseline" requirements, functions, components, interfaces, etc
• Automated quality check that alert users to possible functional overlaps, shortfalls, etc.
  
• Autocheck to make sure that users don't give functions titles that are nouns or verbs as titles to items.
• Freedom of Information Act Request facilitation.
  
• Reuse of components, functions, etc from other projects. (Got an idea for something with wheels? Pick from a myriad of projects in which the wheel was defined already!)
  

The idea is that most people don't know beans about systems engineering, requirements, or interfaces. Design by committee, forum posting, voting, or by blind feel with no knowledge or application of systems engineering is not an effective method of harnessing the domain knowledge that many people do have.

So who is with me? Let's storm the Wikimedia foundation and get them to put this thing online so that we can go about the business of designing space vehicles in style!

A Penny for Your Thoughts, Really, Just a Penny

So I am mentoring this team of interns who are at Boeing for the summer. Their task is to come up with some sweet ideas and see who has the best one.

Straightforward, right?

Well, the space business has had a way of attracting dreamers for over 50 years, and dreamers have a way of coming up with ideas, and so in 2009 it is a little hard to come up with an idea that hasn't already been thought of.

Ask yourself: What was wrong with all the space ideas that people have thought of up until now? Weren't they any good? Why don't we just go work on those, rather than keep coming up with ideas that we think we are the first ones to have thought of (Until we do a little bit of research and find out that it was someone's thesis in 1974.)

So when I asked the interns to start thinking of ideas, I told them that what they really needed to do was think of an idea that would work. An idea that Mother Boeing could plunk down some cash and go do on a reasonable time frame. That's where the real genius could come in on their part.

Hint: The way to go up and down is a gumdrop shaped capsule on top of a rocket with some rubber stuff on the bottom to take the heat when it reenters.

Once upon a time, there was a guy who thought about sending humans to Mars for the first time. I don't know what his name is. I bet that no one does. It's a thought that many people will inevitably have when they look at the sky with a knowledge that there is a place out there called Mars. Was the person who thought of it first a genius? or was he just paying attention.

So the real value doesn't come in until the idea is thunk, in a do-able way, and then it is done. That's where the lasting value is.

You want to send humans to Mars? To the stars? You can't think them there! Get a degree or job in the space business and make it happen! lobby congress, throw down some cash for stock in an aerospace company and vote for board members who will do the best.

Ladies and gentlemen, people tried to fly for a really long time. Da Vinci had the helicopter and hang glider pretty much nailed down a long time ago. A lot of people failed to implement in the interim. We are languishing in the awkward phase of our technology where we have all these great ideas for expanding permanently beyond low earth orbit but we haven't put it all together just right yet.

I suppose that the purpose of this post is to get people thinking differently about how and what it will take to get humans out doing more of the things in space that we all want humans to do (colonize, mine, explore, learn, etc). What is going to help us cross the threshold is thinking of the standard ideas in new ways. It's like you have to know the rules to break them, right? Well, the rules are the ideas that come to our heads naturally when we look up at the stars and imagine how we go there. The ways to break the rules are thinking about politics, human nature, economics, business, and how the laws of these areas can be bent, avoided, or harnessed to enable progress.

Be the change you want to see in the world. The best way to predict the future is to create it.

So for the interns that I am working with, you are coming from a fresh place, hopefully. Take what new things you bring to the table and think of something different, or think of the same thing in a different way. You are approaching the same brick wall that countless brilliant people before you have hit their heads against. Wilbur and Orville weren't necessarily much smarter than Da Vinci, they just thought about things in a different way and pulled together a few technologies that Da Vinci didn't have to succeed in implementing the standard dream of so many who wanted to fly.

Constant of Change

So I'm going to try something new.

I just finished reading Project Orion, by George Dyson, and it has me feeling all political-e. If you havent seen it, I recommend the TED talk by George Dyson to get you started

Project Orion was an amazing and controversial plan to propel spaceships by nuclear bombs. I know, I know, you are thinking of a bunch of ways that that wouldn't work. Well, you are wrong. It would work, and it was studied to death by a bunch of people a whole lot smarter than you and I for a decade in the 50s and 60s and the conclusion is that yep, it would work. And it wouldn't be that expensive.

Because of politics, the effort was killed. That kind of makes sense too, right? Image the political ramifications of blasting spaceships around with nuclear bombs.

Anyway, I felt all sad but motivated when I was done to change the world in a positive way my making the political climate more conducive to space exploration. I'll spare you the details of my whole thought process, but the end result is the following:

I'm going to try to integrate my life, ambitions, and ideas into a more holistic effort. For those of you who don't know me, which is pretty much everyone reading this blog, I like thinking up move script ideas, and although you might doubt it, I actually think that I have some talent with it.

Did you know that Elon Musk produced a movie?

Arther C Clark, after thinking up geosynchronous orbits and some cool GPS applications in the 40s and 50s, made stories and movies

So there go two heroes of mine who have been great visionaries in multiple areas dealing with the advancement of spaceflight in our culture. If they can use their passions to bring compelling stories to the public, why shouldn't I? I think I'll write some scripts over the next few decades for some cool movies that convey compelling messaged wrapped up in a universe where America and Humans are explorers in space.

Business: So I got this minor in Management from BYU. Call me overconfident, but I think that I have a good head for business and fantasize, like a lot of you, about running some company some day that builds spaceships. We will see where my contacts and duties at Boeing take me over time. Way down the road, maybe I can do like Franklin Chang-Diaz and start a cool company based off of an idea, or maybe I can make like Brewster Shaw and run the space exploration division of a huge aerospace firm. Or Maybe I can make like Robert Curbeam and manage a division of a space contractor company.

Space: I'm going to lay it on the line. I'm an astronaut wanna-be. I just finished a Masters Certificate in Space Systems Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology, and I'm enrolled in an online masters Degree from University of Southern California in Astronautical Engineering. I'm planning on doing another Masters degree or PhD in Planetary Science from either UCLA or Caltech in January 2011 in Los Angeles, and after that I'm coming home to Houston to sink my freshly sharpened teeth into whatever manned spaceflight programs are happening here. Maybe I'll top off my educational pursuits with a degree in space architecture from University of Houston or an Texas MBA at Houston.

Sometime in there, I'm going to start applying for the astronaut program.

Up till then, I need to run in the mornings, do marathons and triathlons, get scuba certified, probably fix up a Volkswagen minibus, and other things that amazing astronauts seem to always be doing.

My daughter Lucy is 2, and my son is 7 months. I am going to spend tons of time with them and have more kids with my awesome wife.

Church, God, and spirituality is a big part of my life and it is going take up a lot of my time.

And I'm going to start double posting at opennasa.com and mamieandjohn.com
I can have my cake and eat it to, when it comes to which blog should I put my post at. Not all of my posts, of course, but why should I limit myself?

So the point of all this is just to say that I'm going to try and use www.actionforspace.com as a place to integrate a lot of the digital fragments of my life journey. Maybe just living my life passionately and openly can motivate people to be more proactive and positive about the space exploration. Look for sidebars and links to change to be a little more personal.

Just Before Sleep Inspration

So I'm laying in bed about to fall asleep, when this bizarre thought pops into me head: Scanning passes at low resolution and high sensitivity for space remote sensing or ground based observatories should provide necessary data to generate high resolution imagery.

Yeah, I know. Who thinks up these things right before they fall asleep. Let me share the details with you all. Because I'm sure that's why you come to OpenNASA.com anyway...

Ponder on this image of MOLA instrument altitude profiles of MARS as you read.



Overlay linear paths of intensity that criss cross the target. Match up the "altitudes" of the topographic profiles of flux intensity. To make an analogy, If you were fixed at a certain spot above the ground and you scanned many straight lines across the ground, you should be able to dump all those altitude profiles into a computer which can match up altitudes of the different lines to reconstruct the 3d topography. So If there is a non-uniform peak that you cross with 50 lines at different angles, as long as you have some cross cutting lines that can tie everything together, you should be able to reconstruct the peak by giving all of the lines a common point in two dimensions (the peak) and use the cross cutting line(s) to determine the only possible set of altitude profile orientations (through the peak) that would not violate the altitudes in the cross cutting line.

After you determine that this principal works, you realize that you don't have to have all the lines going through the same point, but any number of straight lines that criss cross each other will contain the data necessary to reconstruct the topography at an average resolution as fine as the average distance between the lines in the region of interest.

The number of cross cutting lines you need before you can determine the orientation of lines and points of intersections of the lines is finite.

So, If you have a very high sensitivity instrument with high signal to noise, you should be able to sweep it across a bright celestial target and combine the sweeps, just like you do with the laser passes on the peak, to generate the high angular resolution image.

Bottom line: Itty bitty telescope scanning bright celestial object yields nice picture.

OpenNASA As My Sounding Board

I join other contributing authors at OpenNASA to put my opinions online about our space agency and national space exploration program. There I find a community of people with actions and words to improve our nation's space agency. I post there things that are off-agenda for actionforspace.com yet near and dear to my heart about the whys, hows, and whats of NASA.

Join me in the dialog at OpenNASA.com to bolster ourselves and the online space community in a safe and supportive online envirnoment.

I continue to issue calls to action at www.actionforspace.com, and continue to look for other authors to post here when opportunities for activism strike. However, when I feel like waxing philosophical, find me at OpenNASA.

CNN Dumps Science Coverage, O'Brien

CNN is firing Miles O'Brien, along with the rest of the producers for their Science and Environment stories. Miles has been an award winning champion of Space in many formats, doing much to promote awareness of current events in Space.

CNN is doing this because you, the scientifically oriented person who is reading this very post right now, have not made your impact and readership known to them.

When the cost/profits analysis came in, they figured that you weren't worth Miles' salary. Correct them by sending them your feedback.

Tell them what a mistake it is to fire Miles and the other staff.

Taking a step back, think of the bigger reason that they have canned Miles. There are less people like you around, period. Engineering enrollment in universities are down, public interest in Space and Technology wanes, and government funding of the sciences is flat or dwindling, overall. We can help there too. If you have a technical job, tell your friends, family, and neighbors about why you love what you do and why it is important. If you don't have a technical job, get one (I'm only half-serious,) or take an opportunity to share your feelings with them.

America is run by the people. Media companies are run by the advertisements. Show the media that you want Science and Space coverage, so that their been counters put the beans back in Miles' paycheck.

The SEDS Organization is stretching it's democratic wings and having an election as well! Read their post detailing the positions of leadership open, what it takes to get involved, and what their organization is all about.

From Wikipedia:

Students for the Exploration and Development of Space was founded in 1980 at MIT, Princeton University, and Yale University, and consists of an international group of high school, undergraduate, and graduate students from a diverse range of educational backgrounds who are working to promote space. SEDS is a chapter-based organization with chapters in Canada, India, Israel, Mexico, Nepal, Nigeria, Philippines, Spain, United Kingdom, and United States. The permanent National Headquarters for SEDS-USA resides at MIT. Each chapter is fairly independent and coordinates activities and projects in its own area.

Sound like something that you are interested? Get involved!

Barack Pleadges 2 Billion for NASA

The Washington Post reports that Barack Obama has pledged serious cash to support NASA in closing the gap.

In a recent visit in Florida, Barack stated:

"As president, I'll make our space program a priority again by devoting the attention and resources needed to not only inspire the world with feats of exploration but also improve life here on Earth," Obama said."

This is in contradiction to earlier statements that he made on his website about delaying the constellation plan 5 years. The edited document is this one. The final section, regarding funding of his education initiative, conspicuously omits verbiage regarding NASA, whereas before it did.

My Conversation with Pete Olson

Pete Olson came down our street a few minutes ago. He is canvasing to get elected in Nick Lampson's district. I took the opportunity to stand out in the sun with him and talk about space in the Congress.

I told him how important the space program is to me, and how the Congress and the President really set the pace for the America's space program.

He agreed, and said that it was the president mostly who set the pace. He said that McCain want looking to promising on space, but that he looked better than Obama. I told him that I felt that space was primarily important for the inspirational value that it provides to Americans, and that's why I had chosen to work in the space industry myself. I told him that if we put a man on Mars and he didn't do any science there, it would still be worth it.

He shared some experiences with me about what set him on his path to become a Navy aviator, and that it was in part to open up the opportunity to be an astronaut. I'm not sure if he shares this with to many potential constituents.

I asked him that in the case that he was elected, he should promote and fund space exploration initiatives that would promote inspiration for Americans, and not just science.

As we were parting, he asked me if I thought that we could or should keep the shuttle flying past 2010. I was glad that he asked, and thought that he really wanted to know what I thought. I told him that I didn't think that it was a good idea and that I thought it was more important to move the CEV closer than to push the shuttle out. I shared with him an experience I'm having on the Space Station program where we are having to buy more parts than we originally intended and we are having to pay through the nose to get the contractor spun up again to build these parts.

I said that just like Cortez burned his ships when he landed in America, we should burn our ships that would keep us in LEO so that we could reach for the Moon and Mars.

He said that with enough funding the shuttle could be kept going, and I shared my dissatisfaction with the level of funding the George Bush has asked Congress to give to NASA. Bush's funding is less that what he laid out for NASA when he pitched the VSE to the nation.

My personal exposure to Pete Olson was positive, although brief.

Now that Congressional campaign season is up, take this opportunity to find out who is running in your area and talk to them about how and why you think that they should fund space. Talk to them while they are in a listening mode and trying to get your vote.

Post 2015 Russian ISS Modules

Rob Coppinger, at the Flight Global blog, raises our attention to significant words from the head of the Russian space agency:

Chief Anatoly Perminov stated when at a heads of agency meeting on July 17 that "if a decision is made to continue working with the station after 2015 then the Russian segment will be completed with further modules - energy modules, research modules etc."

Currently the station is slated to finish its lifespan in 2015. Just as the shuttle contracts are terminally closing down now, the station contracts are structured with contractors to end in 2015.

Do you think the station should be preserved beyond 2015? Or do you think it should be canned to free up funding for the Moon and Mars program. Comment here and to your elected officials.

Your legislators probably don't even know that the Station is scheduled to be decomissioned.

To Predict The Future

I often reflect on the oft quoted and powerful saying that:

"the best way to predict the future is to create it."

This means that one can declare a future and through determination it is possible for them to create that future.

John F Kennedy predicted the future. Bill Gates predicted the future. Neither of their futures was created single-handedly by either of them, but they they rallied others around them in order to realize their dreams. They shared their passion with others, and made it their passion as well.

Millions of us predict the future each day, in our own lives and at work. Often the futures that we predict and create are less grand than that of Kennedy and Gates, but we create our futures nevertheless.

With this in mind, I predict the future for www.actionforspace.com:

This site will become a major clearinghouse of action items for the online space supporter. It will provide current events in space policy, as well as encouragement and resources for online space supporters to take concrete action that encourages more public, corporate, and governmental support and funding for spaceflight in America.

Actionforspace.com will be written by a team of 10 independent authors who regularly update the content so that the online space supporter can be alerted to current congressional votes, outreach opportunities, elections, and other events relevant to the future of space exploration. Among the 10 will be someone in touch with the space community at the following locations:

Houston-John Benac
Florida-Tim Bailey
Huntsville
Southern California
New Mexico
Bay Area
Washington, DC
Colorado

We proved to ourselves, the media, and the politicians with the Politico debates that when oriented and mandated, the online space community has muscle and drive. Actionforspace.com will set the beat for flexing that muscle with regularity and cohesion.

Will you be one of the 10 authors? Let me know. Otherwise, I'll find you. In the mean time. I'll be posting again at least every two weeks. We are like embers in a fire. bring us together and we grow hotter and brighter. Draw us apart and we can die out.

House Members Urge House Leaders to Grant $2B to NASA

NASAWatch reports that a few dozen house members have sent a letter to the house leadership requesting 2 Billion additional funding for NASA to offset costs associated with bringing the Orion online, cleaning up after Katrina, and bringing the shuttle back to flight after the loss of Columbia. Read the text of the legislation and hit up these leaders with your agreement of the letter.

From the letter:

"Making much-needed investments in space and aeronautics research and development will also have a long-term and beneficial economic impact, contributing new jobs, industrial development and stimulus to struggling communities."

The letter was sent to the following leaders:

Nancy Pelosi (California)
Steny Hoyer (Maryland)
David Obey (Wisconsin)
John Boehner (Ohio)
Roy Blunt (Missouri)
Jerry Lewis (California)

SEDS Job/Internship Opportunity

A friend of mine, Jim Volp, made me aware of the following opportunities for the most die hard space activists out there. Read his note:

Original text is btw online at:
http://www.space-careers.com/jobsearch/view_4160.html


----------------
Summary:

The organization Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) is seeking interns to work on a variety of interesting topics. You will be based close to Madrid, Spain. If you are interested to help out from your home via the Internet, that is possible and appreciated too! Contact: jim.volp@seds.org.

---------------
Job Description
---------------
Concepts such as commercial space liners, space hotels, space launch systems and lunar missions were thought to be empty promises....

But now in the post-X PRIZE world we are looking at:
- The first commercial space liner starting service in 2010
- The first successful test of commercial space hotel modules
- A space vehicle developed in a fraction of time or cost as before
- And more than 6 teams competing to land a private rover on the Moon.

We truly live in the interesting times of space exploration! And this is why SEDS and it's members are full of energy!

SEDS wants to interconnect students, all over the globe, in order to share and advocate their passion for space.

SEDS is looking for a small number of motivated people that want to work on the challenge to expand the existing network of SEDS chapters and move towards an active global student network as with the collective volunteer time of a (large) group of students global problems/projects can be worked on.

During the internship you will be working on a variety of disciplines: research, strategic business/organization development, marketing & PR.

Apart from the SEDS development work you have the choice to work on / support:
- International Astronautical Federation's Administrative Committee on Workforce Development / Young Professionals Programme
- IAF Administrative Committee on Space and Society
- World Space Week Educational Relations
- Space in Africa
- Space Generation Advisory Council in support of the United Nations Programme on Space Applications



International Astronautical Federation's Administrative Committee on Workforce Development / Young Professionals Program
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The committee's mandate is well described at: http://www.iafastro.org/index.php?id=842


IAF Administrative Committee on Space and Society
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The committee has as aim to increase the visibility and direct benefit of space activities to society as a whole, through the active involvement of the IAF member societies and increase the visibility and number of IAF member societies through its involvement in our activities. Specific emphasis should be placed on those parts of society and the world where space and its benefits are less well-known.



World Space Week Global Education Program
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"To celebrate each year at the international level the contributions of space science and technology to the betterment of the human condition" -- as declared by the United Nations General Assembly

The aim is to establish contact with more schools throughout the world each year and motivate them to celebrate space during World Space Week.


Africa and Space
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Information about space activities in Africa is hard to find. The aim is to create a useful and comprehensive overview.


Space Generation Advisory Council in support of the United Nations Program on Space Applications
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
SGAC and SEDS are closely related organisations so the work to develop SEDS is also of relevance to SGAC. SGAC has observer status to the UN Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.


----------
Conditions
----------
Salary: The internship is not paid for. Accommodation is provided.
Deadline: Continuous opportunity, so no deadline
Duration: Flexible, minimal 1 month


The successful candidate shall
- be between 18 and 35 years old;
- possess good communications skills in English;
- have awsome understanding of (volunteer) organizations;
- have no VISA issues to enter Spain;


Other skills desirable
1. Ability to work under your own initiative
2. Interest in marketing & PR, networking
3. Working as part of an international team

If you are interested, you should send a brief email stating your interest and include a CV or other proof of skills.


-------------------------
Basic Information on SEDS
-------------------------
SEDS is an independent, student-based organization which promotes the exploration and development of space. SEDS pursues this mission by educating people about the benefits of space, by supporting a network of interested students, by providing an opportunity for members to develop their leadership skills, and inspiring people through our involvement in space-related projects. SEDS believes in a space-faring civilization and that focusing the enthusiasm of young people is the key to our future in space.


Links

http://www.seds.org
http://www.iafastro.org/index.php?id=842
http://www.iafastro.org/index.php?id=617
http://www.worldspaceweek.org/education.html
http://www.spacegeneration.org

Feeney's Florida House Seat Contest

Space Politics updates us on the race for Florida's 24^th District seat in the house of Representatives. Up for bat is Democrat Suzanne Kosmas and Republican incumbent Tom Feeney.

Democrats point to Feeney's links to corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

"Feeney was among seven people who joined Abramoff on the $160,000 junket. Feeney reimbursed the government $5,643 for the trip, but the Justice Department last year asked Feeney for more information on his travel. Feeney calls the trip an embarrassing mistake." writes Brendan Farrington of the Associated Press.

Kosmas, a realtor, does not mention her stances on the issues at her website, and is notably silent about space exploration, notwithstanding an image of the shuttle at the main page.

Tom Feeney, on the other hand, states "My top priorities are to promote America's Vision for Space Exploration and to sustain the vitality of all NASA centers including the Kennedy Space Center." He visits China for the Global Space Development Summit this month.

CNN Headlines Candidates Weak Space Stance

CNN headlines the story: "Raw Politics: Candidates and the space race" about how Obama, Clinton, and McCain all have a soft stance on manned exploration. Tom Foreman, the writer for the story, emphasizes China's growing space prowess and writes "if space does not become a higher priority, the Chinese program will be on par with America's by the end of the next president's second term. Then, it will be a real race to Mars even if we want to join in."

Its good to see the issue getting some attention in the election, even if it isn't from the candidates. NASAWatch links to a video on the story.

Could CNN be trying to put it on the agenda after neglecting it in a series of debates earlier?

Tell the candidates about the story. Tell them it makes them look bad. Invite them to differentiate themselves.