Does the President Believe His Own Rhetoric?

By | |
Comments Off on Does the President Believe His Own Rhetoric?

On Memorial Day, we expect the President and other politicians to commemorate those who gave their lives, and in doing so to recognize the military for its role in defending our freedoms. President Obama did not disappoint: he carried out the kind of Presidential ceremonies we expect. I was surprised, however, at what he said during one address.

For someone who has asserted (and ostensibly believes in) the power of words, and who comes across as believing that his words and the force of his personality will carry the day against intractable adversaries, one line I heard seemed careless. He referred to those who choose military service as “the best of America.” As much as that might appeal to my vanity, I had to wonder whether he really believes what he said. Did he think about the fact that he was excluding millions of people from “the best of America” by focusing on military service? Did he think about the fact that he was excluding himself? Or were they just words to him, rhetorical tools to soothe and placate families who lost loved ones in war — including at least one war he believes should not have been fought?

Excuse me, my cynicism is showing.

I haven’t gone back to the ceremonial rhetoric of previous administrations to see what kinds of platitudes they might have used, and whether those could be taken as more ironic than authentic. (I’m unlikely to do so, but if anyone else wants to I’ll be happy to read their analysis.)

How much do words matter, and how much stock does the President really put in his rhetoric? I don’t know. My central concern is this: if the President says things he may or may not mean, is it any wonder that the North Koreans and Iranians are ignoring him?

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

A Few More Queries, And With Them, Rejection

By | |
Comments Off on A Few More Queries, And With Them, Rejection

I forgot to post this yesterday, but the fourth week of the agent hunt consisted of sending out several more queries and receiving one very nice rejection. Here’s the tally of the really important statistics:

  • 34 queries submitted
  • 9 rejections

And so it goes.

On the advice of a couple people in the business — whose names I will not use, but whose identities might be guessed by people familiar with my experience in the very small SF&F world — I also submitted a partial (3 chapters and synopsis) to one of the major SF publishers. We’ll see if anything comes of that.

Hopefully someone out there will be interested in publishing a near-future science fiction story about colonizing the moon — the risks people will take, the hardships they’ll endure, and the sacrifices they’ll make to achieve a difficult goal. Here’s hoping!

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

In Recent News: Operationally Responsive Space

By | |
Comments Off on In Recent News: Operationally Responsive Space

I was surprised to see two news items about ORS this week: the ORS demonstrator TacSat-3 launched Tuesday on a Minotaur rocket, and then ORS-1 — which would be the first operational spacecraft, and an infrared imager, no less — showed up as the third-highest item on the Air Force’s unfunded priorities list.

I posted blurbs about both items in a dedicated thread in the “Space Tactics, Techniques, & Procedures” section of the Space Warfare Forum. I’d love to be convinced that my original misgivings about ORS — which I developed while still in the service, based on the briefings and articles I saw — have been overcome.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

This Day in Space History: Apollo-X Launch

By | |
Comments Off on This Day in Space History: Apollo-X Launch

Forty years ago today — May 18, 1969 — astronauts Thomas P. Stafford, John W. Young, Jr., and Eugene A. Cernan lifted off on the Apollo 10 mission. Their Saturn V launch vehicle (number SA-505) launched at 12:49 a.m. EDT from the Kennedy Space Center, on “the mission before THE mission.”

(Apollo-X launch. Click to enlarge.)

Travelling in Command Module “Charlie Brown” and Lunar Module “Snoopy,” the astronauts tested all aspects of the lunar mission except the actual lunar landing, and accomplished several “firsts” including:

  • First transmitted color photographs of the full Earth from a crew in space
  • First demonstration rendezvous in lunar orbit
  • First burning of LM descent stage engine in lunar landing configuration
  • First LM steerable antenna at lunar distances
  • First LM within 15,240 meters [8 nautical miles] of the lunar surface
  • First crew-assisted navigational, visual, and photographic evaluations of the moon
  • First and only Apollo launch from Launch Complex 39B



(Views of Earth from Apollo-X. Click to enlarge.)

___

Images from the Johnson Space Center Digital Image Collection.



Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

First Geosynchronous Weather Satellite

By | |
Comments Off on First Geosynchronous Weather Satellite

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.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Lack of Security at the Department of Homeland Security

By | | ,
4 Comments

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.

___
*According to this report.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

All Quiet on the Agent Front

By | |
Comments Off on All Quiet on the Agent Front

The third week of the agent hunt has come and gone, with no breakthroughs. Here’s the tally:

  • 26 queries submitted
  • 8 “thanks, but this isn’t right for us” rejections … some of them quite nice
  • 3 “interesting, tell us more” responses (no change)
  • 2 manuscripts submitted (no change)
  • 1 “partial” submitted — 50 pages & synopsis (no change)

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!

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Bouncing Signals Off the Moon, a Half Century Ago

By | |
Comments Off on Bouncing Signals Off the Moon, a Half Century Ago

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.)

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

A Lifting Body and a 'Misty' Launch

By | |
Comments Off on A Lifting Body and a 'Misty' Launch

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.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Shhh, be vewwy quiet … I'm agent hunting

By | |
Comments Off on Shhh, be vewwy quiet … I'm agent hunting

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:

  • 20 queries submitted
  • 4 “thanks, but this isn’t right for us” rejections
  • 3 “interesting, tell us more” responses
  • 2 manuscripts submitted
  • 1 “partial” submitted — 50 pages & synopsis

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! 😉

___
Image by Gaetan Lee, from Flickr, under Creative Commons license.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather