Thirty-five years ago today — May 17, 1974 — a Delta rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral carrying SMS-1, the Synchronous Meteorological Satellite-1. It was a weather satellite prototype, the first in geosynchronous orbit.
Thought you ought to know.
If you want to know more, here’s the NASA catalog description of SMS-1, and here’s a page about the history of satellite meteorology.
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So the Secretary of Homeland Security announced that DHS would remove the “right-wing extremist” report from their web site.* The horse-and-barn-door metaphor seems appropriate, because it’s a meaningless gesture: the report’s been cached and will continue to be available on other sites (for example, the Anti-Secrecy Society … a.k.a. the Federation of American Scientists).
The real question is, why was it on-line in the first place?
I have a copy of the report, which I downloaded almost a month ago; I don’t remember whether I got if off the DHS site, but I don’t think so. Notwithstanding the other controversy surrounding its contents I was more disturbed by the fact that several of the paragraphs are not marked FOUO, but instead are marked LES. Most people can recognize FOUO as “For Official Use Only,” but LES may not be as familiar. LES means “Law Enforcement Sensitive.”
How sensitive? The paragraph in the report that describes the LES marking says,
This product contains Law Enforcement Sensitive (LES) information. No portion of the LES information should be released to the media, the general public, or over non-secure Internet servers. Release of this information could adversely affect or jeopardize investigative activities.
Let’s see that again: “No portion of the LES information should be released to the media, the general public, or over non-secure Internet servers.”
I got the report over non-secure Internet servers. Who put it there? A reprimand would seem to be in order.
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*According to this report.
by The third week of the agent hunt has come and gone, with no breakthroughs. Here’s the tally:
In other news … well, there isn’t any other news. I’ve still got a long list of potential agents to investigate (to see if they’re looking for new clients, if they represent science fiction, etc.), with a few at the top for whom I hope to prepare queries this weekend.
And so it goes!
by Today in space history — 50 years ago, in fact — an intercontinental radio transmission was made using the moon as a relay station. The signal went from Jodrell Bank, England to the Air Force Cambridge Research Center in Bedford, MA.
(Click to enlarge.)
It was a neat idea, and perfectly reasonable in the age before long-lived, reliable communications satellites had been built. This book chapter details the Jodrell Bank work, and this page discusses an earlier U.S. Navy program to use the moon as a communications relay.
(Image from Flickr, by longhorndave, Creative Commons licensed.)
by Two space history anniversaries today:
Forty years ago today — May 9, 1969 — John A. Manke flew the HL-10 lifting body in its first supersonic flight at the Dryden Flight Research Facility at Edwards Air Force Base.
(HL-10 on the Edwards AFB lakebed, with B-52 flyover. NASA photo ECN-2203. Click to enlarge.)
And fifteen years ago — May 9, 1994 — a Scout rocket launched from Vandenberg AFB carrying the second Miniature Sensor Technology Integration spacecraft: MSTI-2, pronounced “Misty-two.” I was stationed at Vandy at the time, though I confess I don’t remember that particular launch.
by My hunt for a literary agent to represent WALKING ON THE SEA OF CLOUDS — and such other work as I hope to produce in the next ever-how-many years — continues. Slowly. I do have a day job, after all. And a night job.
So, after two weeks pursuing elusive agents, tracking them by their Internet presences and deciphering the glyphs they’ve carved in electronic “guidelines,” I’ve racked up the following record:
If you want to play “hunt the agent” with me, see if you can spot one of the wild agents who might be interested in a near-future, realistic science fiction novel about survival and sacrifice in the early days of a lunar colony. If you see some, don’t scare them away! Try to chase them in my direction. And let me know, so I can get the right query ready! 😉
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Image by Gaetan Lee, from Flickr, under Creative Commons license.
by Yesterday I verified that my first book, Quality Education, has been “archived” by Google. Its entry is at this Google Book Search page.
(Click to enlarge book cover image.)
Today was the original deadline for deciding whether to “opt out” of the Google Books class-action settlement; thankfully, that’s been extended. The rights to the book reverted back to me after Quality Press let it go out of print, so they’re mine to protect if I want.
A few years ago, McGraw-Hill expressed an interest in printing the book again, but that didn’t work out; I had also considered doing a “print on demand” version, but obviously never did; and at one time I had planned to update the text in a new edition, but I don’t foresee that happening any time soon. My quandary now is whether to take any action with regard to the settlement or just to make the book available myself through a Creative Commons license.
So, should I upload it on my own web site for anyone to access and use?
by Twenty years ago today — May 4, 1989 — the Space Shuttle Atlantis launched from Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-30. Astronauts David M. Walker, Ronald J. Grabe, Norman E. Thagard, Mary L. Cleave, and Mark C. Lee deployed the Magellan spacecraft on its voyage to map the planet Venus.
(STS-30 mission patch. Click to enlarge.)
The Magellan mission used synthetic aperture radar to map 98% of the planet’s surface before contact with the spacecraft was lost in October 1994. More information about the mission is available on this NASA page.
by Fifty years ago today — May 1, 1959 — The “Beltsville Center” was renamed the Goddard Space Flight Center in honor of the first person to launch a liquid-propellant rocket, Dr. Robert Goddard.
Thirty years ago today marked the first time the Space Shuttle pathfinder configuration — using the Shuttle Enterprise — was assembled in the Vehicle Assembly Building and transported to Launch Complex 39A.
(Shuttle Enterprise at the Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air & Space Museum. Click to enlarge.)
(Image from Wikipedia by Ad Meskens, licensed under Creative Commons.)
Finally, after the first week here’s the tally on my hunt for a literary agent:
No expressions of interest or offers of representation yet. I’m still researching other agents to query. Wish me luck!
by So, one of the VC-25 Presidential airlift aircraft (it’s not “Air Force One” unless the President is on board) flew over Manhattan the other day, with F-16 chase planes carrying combat photographers to update photos of the aircraft with the Statue of Liberty in the background. The mission was conceived and authorized by the White House Military Office, according to reports; at least, the WHMO director has done the right thing and taken responsibility for it.
For reasons unknown to me, the mission was not announced ahead of time; however, I can guess one reason had to do with security. If announced ahead of time, crackpots (or worse than crackpots) could have stationed themselves with weapons to damage or destroy the aircraft — it would be an enticing target for anyone wanting to demonstrate their contempt for the United States.*
With hindsight, many people have said that, had they known about the planned flight, they would have predicted the reactions of people working around Ground Zero — but some of that is undoubtedly political grandstanding. I don’t think they would have predicted it. Many of these same people believe the Terror War is only an overseas contingency, and not a fundamental campaign for the safety and security of free people in the face of bellicose extremists. Why, then, would they have predicted panic among civilians if we are only engaged in overseas contingency operations? The reactions of New Yorkers show that the contingency is not just overseas — at least not in the minds of ordinary citizens.
But along with this hindsight, we also hear expressions of outrage, not just over the training mission that had cameras on it but the cost of the training mission. Ridiculous.
Many of the people complaining about the cost, and trying to label it an extravagance in an age that demands austerity, would — until January 20th of this year — have cheered any flight by that glorious symbol with “United States of America” emblazoned on its side. Their complaint is not that the VC-25 costs a lot to operate, but because this President’s VC-25 costs a lot to operate. Ladies and gentlemen, the cost has not changed with the new administration. It is what it is.
And here’s the kicker: that training flight was going to be flown somewhere. Flight crews have to maintain proficiency, new crewmembers have to be trained, and even these special aircraft must be put through their paces. I used to see the VC-25 flying into and out of Andrews Air Force Base from time to time, and I bet few of those times were actual AF-1 missions. If the photo mission had been flown over the open ocean, or over the great plains, or even high over Manhattan, you wouldn’t even have known about it — nor would you have cared, about the mission or the cost.
So now it’s much ado about not much: time for accusations and posturing and apologies, and possibly even for resignations. And that’s a shame, because we have many more serious things to think about and work on.
Please, save your outrage for something that really matters.
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*It may have been possible to balance OPSEC — operational security — with public awareness by announcing the flight just an hour or so ahead. We’ll never know.
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