According to Colwell

Alan Stern resigned as NASA’s Associate Administrator of the Science Mission Directorate. In his short tenure as AA Alan had embarked on an ambitious program to overhaul how SMD operates. Speaking from the perspective of a university researcher, his changes to the Research and Analysis programs were a great improvement: faster and better communication between NASA HQ and proposers, longer terms for typical awards coupled with new “on-ramps” for young researchers, new science programs to capitalize on the new exploration initiative, and new programs for small space experiments, such as sounding rocket experiments. Of course, anytime there is something “new” without an increase in the budget means there’s going to be a cut to something “old”. Alan addressed the American Astronomical Society’s Division of Planetary Sciences meeting last October and said that in a zero-sum budget environment, his plan to get new missions and programs started was to hold the line on budget overruns on existing programs. Many high profile missions are running over their budgets. His departure suggests that he may not have had the flexibility he needed to deal with those cost overruns. Hopefully some of the changes he did manage to institute during his short tenure will persist into the new administration.

Florida’s State Board of Education voted (4-3!) this week to include evolution (for the first time!) in the science curriculum of public schools. (Previously the concepts of evolution were taught in Florida, but the curriculum referred only to things such as “change over time”. My own recollecton of Honors Biology in a Florida High School are that our class had a debate on the topic of evolution. I was one of three or four on the side arguing in support of evolution, and the opposing group argued for Biblical creation. I do not recall any instruction on the matter in class at all.) The new standards were apparently headed for defeat until a so-called compromise was reached by inserting the words “the scientific theory of” before the word “evolution”. This concisely illustrates the anti-evolution advocates’ lack of understanding not only of evolution but also of what “scientific theory” means.

Nearly 20% of the delegates at the Democratic National Convention will not be delegates chosen by the democratic process, rather they will be part of the classic Old Boys Network: officials and party power brokers who want to make sure the masses don’t mess things up. It’s the same ancient outdated politics that gave us the electoral college instead of a direct election for president. Now, with a close race in elected delegates between two candidates, it is quite likely that neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama will have enough delegates for the nomination without the so-called “superdelegates”. That means the nominee will not be chosen by people who voted for one candidate or the other, but by nearly 800 party insiders. The DNC should do away with these superdelegates altogether, or they face a repeat of the 1968 debacle that put Richard Nixon in the White House.

I’ve decided to support Barack Obama for President. I am convinced that he has the best chance to restore America’s standing in the world. I also think that he has the best ability to work with members of both parties in congress to help pass some desperately needed legislation at home to undo as much as possible of the damage done in the last 7 years to our constitutional rights, environment, health care, education, and the working class. While the differences between the Democratic candidates are minor in comparison to the gulf that divides them from the Republican candidates, there are significant problems I have with many of the other Democratic candidates. I cannot get over Clinton sponsoring a bill outlawing burning the flag. I also think she is very divisive, and that will hinder her ability to make needed reform. I was also put off by Edwards’ flat-out dismissal of gay marriage, even though I like him overall and he is my second choice after Obama. Richardson was even worse on the subject of homosexuality, claiming it was a choice before making the redundant statement that he is “not a scientist”.

Our new state has confirmed its decision to hold its presidential primary election on January 29, 2008. Aside from the inevitable presidential campaign fatigue that the accelerated primary schedule is forcing on us, the primary problem with this schedule is that it violates the rules of the Democratic National Party and thus appears to prohibit Florida from having any delegates at the national convention next summer. Candidates have promised not to campaign in Florida because of the rules violation (the rule required Florida hold its primary February 5 or later, so for some reason Florida has decided one week was too much). One possible explanation for this ridiculous turn of events is that the Republican-led state legislature forced the early schedule to allow GOP candidates more face-time with Florida voters than the Dems, thus perhaps giving them an edge in the general election. However, the Dems in the state legislature have generally gone along with the plan to schedule the election early. Personally I would rather not have any primaries anywhere before March. I think we’re going to be sick of our next president from overexposure before he or she even takes office.

I saw this several weeks ago, and the details have faded from memory, but as action hero movies go, this one is a good one and seems to be part of a new trend to make our superheroes less super, more vulnerable, and at least a tad more believable. Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is the spy movie counterpart to Batman: haunted by demons of the past, not much of a talker, and unparalleled in hand-to-hand combat. In this third movie installment of the Bourne franchise, both Joan Allen as the good CIA boss and Julia Stiles as the good CIA agent are back, and that’s a welcome change from the habit that many serials get into (such as 007) where each movie requires a new leading lady. Also refreshing, neither Stiles nor Allen plays a leading lady in the Bond sense. I found this movie gripping and entertaining. Director Paul Greengrass makes liberal use of handheld cameras. In fact, Bourne is able to get a steadier look through his ridiculously high-powered spy scope than us poor schmucks get at most of the action in the movie, so much does the frame jerk around. But that’s part of what makes a fairly straightforward action flick more engaging: we are struggling to keep up with the action almost as much, it seems, as Bourne is.

I was astonished to hear some time after I had seen the movie that Bill O’Reilly had labeled this movie unpatriotic, presumably because it mentions that the U.S. Congress is supposed to have oversight of the CIA and there are some corrupt CIA agents. This movie is so far from being anti-American that it gives me a sick feeling to imagine what kind of America O’Reilly dreams of when he says that this is a movie that the “America-haters” will love.

MoveOn.org Political Action:
Petition: Bring Our Troops Home

I go to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena two or three times a year these days, though in the past it has been as often as 6-8 trips per year. JPL runs the Cassini mission to Saturn, and twice a year the Project Science Group (PSG) meeting takes place at JPL. The PSG is the forum for the exchange of information between scientists and engineers and project managers running the mission. Here is where we discuss things such as the shape of the extended mission, the priorities for spacecraft resources, the prioritization of observations, and the resolution of difficult conflicts on how to run the mission. Because Cassini is an international mission, there is a signficant fraction of the PSG membership that are not U.S. citizens. JPL is run by the California Institute of Technology (CalTech), one of the premier universities for science and engineering. This makes it technically a university environment, but it has a special arrangement with NASA that makes it almost like a NASA center. As such, new requirements from the Department of Homeland Security are being imposed on everyone who works at JPL (roughly five thousand employees) as well as contractors and regular visitors (such as myself) who want to keep their badges that allow access to the lab without going through a cumbersome admission procedure and being escorted around the lab by someone who certainly has much better things to do. These security restrictions, among others, are gradually building an iron curtain around American academia and threatening to isolate the U.S. and stifle scientific collaboration across borders.

A group of JPL employees has filed a lawsuit against NASA and CalTech because the new requirements for a badge require employees to forfeit essentially all rights to privacy. Since I’m not a JPL employee I don’t think I have grounds to join the lawsuit. I had been waffling about whether to sign away my rights and get the new badge. I’ve now decided to keep my privacy and add to the ridiculous hassle of handling visitors at JPL in the hope that it will help make the case that it’s a total and ridiculous waste of time to have these badging requirements.

Every April the University of Colorado hosts the Conference on World Affairs, a series of free and open panel discussions with experts from every discipline, from the arts to politics and science. It’s a tremendous experience, and since this is my last April in Colorado for a while I managed to get to three panels this week.

I moderated a panel on Space Trade, Transport, and Tourism with Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart, NASA astrophysicist Barbara Thompson, CEO of LiftPort Group, Michael Laine, and space flight systems engineer Juniper Jairala on the panel. Laine’s company is working on the idea of an elevator to space. While the engineering challenges are formidable, in principle it is a far more economical and efficient means of getting freight out of the Earth’s gravity well than rockets are. The panelists were trading bets on how soon (and if) the middle class will be buying tickets to space. Laine pointed out that transportation economy was largely fueled, at least originally, by freight, and Schweickart said the real space tourist boom will not be with Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShip Two flights to suborbital space for a few minutes, but the next generation of vehicles that will take passengers halfway around the world in an hour or two on a suborbital rocket plane (he’s betting Sir Richard Branson already has that in his business plan). The speed, by the way, is due to the gravity and size of the Earth; the rocket is just there to get you going fast enough so you don’t hit the ground until you’ve gone halfway ’round the planet. It takes 90 minutes to orbit the Earth, so a trip from Colorado to Japan is about 45 minutes of coasting, plus whatever time is needed for takeoff and landing. On the other hand, Schweickart also pointed out that “it is a long, long, long way” from suborbital flight (a la SpaceShip Two) to orbital flight (Space Shuttle) due to the much greater energy needed to get to orbital speed and the technical challenge of losing that energy safely when landing.

Michael Laine was also a panelist on the second panel I attended: “If Colbert Interviews Borat, How Many Personalities are in Your Living Room?”. Mark Levine, Terry McNally, and Nathan Johnson were the other panelists for an entertaining discussion of how reality is distorted not just by satirists such as Colbert and Sascha Baron Cohen, but also by what Levine called the “Fox Propaganda Channel” among others.

The third session I managed to attend was a plenary address by former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Joe Wilson. He joked that that used to be the first line of his obituary; now it is that he is the husband of the only covert CIA agent to be outed by her own government. It was a passionate address to a packed house at Macky Auditorium. He summarized the events leading up to “Plame-gate”. It is fairly sickening. Wilson initially attempted to get “redress for his grievances” as he phrased it (invoking the language of the First Ammendment) through private channels to officials in the U.S. government, including U.S. Senators. His grievance was that the administration used the threat of nuclear weapons in Iraq as a key justification for invading that country when it knew that there was no nuclear weapons capability or program there. Ultimately, failing to get action through direct channels, he published an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times (on Bush’s birthday, as it happens) outlining the facts for the American people. At that point he felt he had done his duty as a citizen. Little did he know what the Bush machine had in store for him and his wife. He attributed their mean and stupid actions to meanness, stupidity, and a failure to understand or appreciate the basic principles of how our government and society are supposed to work.

Dealing a welcome blow to my own cynicism, Florida’s new Republican governor Charlie Crist today succeeded in getting a partial rollback of the restrictions on rights of convicted felons who have served their time in prison. While falling short of what the ACLU had argued for, the move makes it far easier for tens of thousands of ex-cons who have completed their sentences and paid any ordered restitution to rejoin the voting rolls as well as apply for some professional licenses. The latter in particular will remove an obstacle to finding gainful employment after serving time.