NASA Glenn Maps Health Benefits from Space

These are benefits that just fell out of the program on the way to space.
What would happen if we focused on benefits from space research?

Source: NASA Glenn Research Center

"Glenn's Web Portal Team recently created a new interactive Web site titled "NASA Anatomy: How Space Technology Improves Human Health." Developed in Flash, this online feature highlights the space program's contributions to medical science. An animation of the human body acts as an interface to view nine short videos that describe how space technology has aided the treatment of various body systems. Topics covered include medical imaging, sorbent dialysis, robotic surgery, vision screening and much more.

NASA Anatomy was published on the agency’s Web portal in the NASA.gov Spinoffs section, as well as NASA Glenn's Web portal multimedia section. It was also included in an agency press release announcing the American Medical Association's endorsement of human spaceflight. The team that created the feature included Kathleen Zona, Jan Wittry and Jennifer Sapienza, Community and Media Relations Office; and Emery Adanich, Erik Mindek, William Fletcher and Gary Nolan, Imaging Technology Center.

To view NASA Anatomy and other interactive features, visit www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/multimedia. "

Benefits to Public New Criteria for ISS

Source: NASA HQ. (Roll over Headline To Go To NASA Procurement)

You may have to fund the work yourself, according to a new NASA ISS Solicitation, but just money won't buy you love at NASA.

NASA requires a benefits to the public as a new criteria, which is very rare in NASA solicitations.

Kudos to NASA for stating this criteria. This is a key requirement. Taxpayers want and should expect direct returns from their funding of the ISS.

Mission to Humanity has been a constant advocate for this approach, and we are very pleased to see it make it into this solicitation.

Hurricane Dean Looks Mean

I have been through hurricanes and many, many side-swipes by storms in 2004 and 2005. Now, in summer, my TV is tuned to the Weather Channel, and my RSS feeds from various trusted weather sources are at my fingertips. Hurricane experts and reporters are like members of the family to us.
We know their on-air tics, smiles and frowns, and how to read their body language with respect to the threat level of a given storm.

There are two storms of concern in formation now. One is close to Texas in the Gulf.
There is another one, Dean, with strong formation characteristics that to me looks very, very serious. Weather Underground's/Wunderground blogger, Dr. Jeff Masters, offers an assessment today: Dean will roll into the Cuba/Jamaica as a Category 3 or 4. (See below).

If so, it is entirely likely to be a severe menace to one or more of these islands. Usually there is a cool-down when it hits the mountains of Cuba, but that does not mean Dean can not grow again in to a monster storm as it follows the projected track into the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. That would be very bad news.
So would an unexpected shift onto a northerly track up to Florida.
A one-two punch on the Gulf states from both storms is another possibility that has weather watchers and residents sitting up and taking note. Or should.
We have our tenants in Florida preparing and planning with us, as we brace ourselves. The hurricane season is definitely here. Please err on the side of caution, everyone in a strike zone.

Hopefully, local government up and down the area are ramping up preparations for various scenarios. One could also hope that the Federal government is in the same mode. It concerns me that Congress is on official recess, and the President is on vacation. Washington weather is murder right now, and I believe a rested policy maker is a better policy maker. It is not like they go home and sleep for a month. They work hard for most of their vacation. Some of their staff get more of a much needed break.

Electeds can monitor matters from their home offices, but still, if past is precedent, with a possible Cat 3 or 4 on the way to a nearby region, it is a concern that official Washington happens to be out of town.
I choose to believe that that they have learned from Katrina, are being briefed daily, are watchful, and are directing government to prepare for action.


" Intensity Forecast
With low shear and warm water ahead of it, Dean's intensification over the next few days will only be limited by the dry air to the north. I expect that this dry air will impede Dean enough so that the storm passes through the Lesser Antilles as a Category 1 hurricane. After that, the environment moistens, shear stays low, and the heat content of the ocean greatly increases. The 06Z run of new HWRF model is again very aggressive intensifying Dean after it crosses into the Caribbean, bringing the storm to 928 mb (Category 4) on Monday morning near Jamaica. The GFDL model is not nearly as aggressive, putting Dean at 964 mb (Category 2) Monday morning. I can't see any reason why Dean wouldn't become a Category 3 or 4 hurricane by the time it reaches the Cuba/Jamaica region, unless it passes very close to the mountainous island of Hispaniola." (Bold-Editor)

Sietzen Says Public Prefers Space Benefits

NASA Cool Suit Can Aid Firefighters.



Source: www.thespacereview.com

Frank Sietzen is the author of the upcoming The Fireman and the Astronaut: Life Stories of Space Technology in Everyday Use to be published by Apogee Books in 2008.

Frank's space benefits thoughts, below.

Mission to Humanity.com applauds Sietzen's views on space benefits, below. I believe that NASA and civil space is poised for sea change towards an intensive rediscovery of the power of benefits from space. The sooner, the better, for the sake of the NASA budget, the American economy and the world. What could be more rational with respect to space policy at this time in history?

"Then there is the issue of what value does the public—and by osmosis the president—place upon space activities. I have spent much of the past year completing a book that profiles some of the products, services, and technologies derived from space exploration (no, they do not include Velcro or Tang). I have been astonished by the variety of such products, and how little the public knows of their space technology origins. In an earlier age, these were collectively called spinoffs, and often derided by space enthusiasts as rationales for conducting space flight. However, they are enormously popular with the average American. Recently, NASA conducted a series of focus groups to gauge the basis for public interest in their activities. That research found that messages that focus on a specific plan for the future of space exploration is more popular than any one specific mission or destination in space. Furthermore, the groups told NASA that when the benefits of space are fully explained to them, 94 percent of the public believes NASA’s work is extremely or somewhat relevant to their lives—up from 53 percent when space benefits are not explained (see “NASA’s new outreach plan”, The Space Review, July 2, 2007). And while half of the public (in February 2007) had heard about astronaut scandals, only eight percent knew about the details of going back to the Moon or journeying onward to Mars."

Political Progressives and Space

Progressives are on the ascendancy in American politics.

In the last century, Robert F. Kennedy was on the path of formulating a modern, progressive world view before his murder, which cut short a likely capture of the White House.
His brother John launched the entire US space program, creating a peaceful response and technology race, in reply to the Cold War.

Hillary Clinton now openly defines herself as a progressive, and by any standard, Obama, Edwards and other Democratic Presidential aspirants are progressive.

However, not since the Apollo era, have the progressive grassroots been heard consistently in space matters.
In the late 60's war, civil rights and the environment eclipsed the interest in Apollo.
Space folk may recoil at this, but a big part of the problem is spacers have never really reached across the divide to engage progressives in space policy issues.
Rather policy brokers have tried to navigate around and negate their concerns. This will not work now.
Progressives of all stripes equate to millions of passionate voters, and a large subset of activists, who will insist on being heard and now possess Web 2.0 technology to make sure that happens.

Living in both worlds, I know that the concerns and culture of the space community and of the progressive community are very different. Yet, I have seen that they both share a common disposition towards positive change and social ideals.

In a pretty rare convergence of the two arenas, Alternet just published an essay of interest.

"Why Progressives Should Care About Human Destiny in Space"

By Tad Daley, AlterNet. Posted August 11, 2007.

Mission To Humanity offered the following reply.

"As a progressive and a space professional, I am committed to space solutions of benefit to humanity. In other words, we probably agree that the greatest challenge facing the planet is global warming. The second greatest challenge, as Gore indicates, is garnering the will to do something about it. Space assets are on the critical path of both monitoring and mitigating global warming. I am also a two-time hurricane survivor of 2004-2005 and so I have field experience in how this is so. Info from QUICKSCAT. NOAA, NASA and space assets helped us to determine, during Katrina and Wilma in Fort Lauderdale, whether to hunker down or evacuate. These are life or death decisions. During the hurricanes, in the dark, info streams from these assets, and the weather community, streamed in on our tiny battery TV helped us understand when the strong bands were coming in, so that we could brace ourselves, and also when we could breathe during the strange becalmed moments that are part of these monster storms. Looking forward, we are already in a space economy, so notions of going to and from space, as a novelty or luxury have been surpassed. A question for progressives is how to enter the dialog and policy process, to argue for, say, energy from space from sats around the earth. NASA is looking into this now, but in order for it to become a priority, progressive voices and alliances need to input in to the space policy debates."


-End-

The Daily Green Digests Earth Science Issues at NASA

What Green voters think, and tell their Congress folk during the August recess, is going to matter to NASA and New Space over the long haul. The injection of new views from more constituents with clout is not going away, thanks to Web 2.0, global warming, New Space, and the success of Spirit and Opportunity, which brought a new generation into the space loop.

The Daily Green and Editor Dan Shapley (click headline for full story), makes as savvy an analysis of the status of Earth Sciences at NASA as any veteran space hand could.

No, The Daily Green is not fooled by the mainstream media splash headlines about NASA.

Shapley, who runs a green consumer information web site, thinks "malfunction, misdirection and muffling" are the real issues in Gov space.

How many green consumers are there now? Mission To Humanity is not sure, but we are willing to guess a few billion more world-wide, now that global warming is a fact. They will be looking to NASA and the space community to help save the planet, because, despite everything, they still want to believe in the power of rocket scientists to alter the course of human affairs. And Hollywood tells them this story, as well, over and over at the cineplex.

Dan Shapley's take:

1. Malfunction
   The nation’s earth-observing satellites, which are critical to an increasingly important array of environmental initiatives, are in “crisis.” That’s the assessment of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Within five years, we could lose 40% of the sensors aboard these satellites, according to National Research Council. We’re talking hurricane research, climate studies. You know, the future of the planet stuff.
2. Misdirection
   While President Bush is pushing for goals like a new moon landing and mission to Mars, NASA quietly last year erased part of its mission: “To understand and protect our home planet.” Consistent with that view, its earth science budget was slashed by almost one third.
3. Muffling
   It’s a wonder that any quality earth science research has been done, given those conditions. But it has. Director of the Goddard Institute For Space Studies, James Hansen has emerged as a rockstar in the environmental community for speaking clearly and authoritatively about global warming. Despite the best efforts of his handlers. Lately, Hansen has been among those pointing out that many of the dire warnings outlined in the latest United Nations report on climate change are proving a tad conservative. In other words, the world is moving faster than thought toward a frightening future.

Space Ones need their daily greens, too, and to ignore the views of this huge voting block is to court irrelevance, or outright opposition, during Appropriations season.

Eventually, even the states with NASA centers, long the caretakers of the NASA budget in Congress, will begin listening to large voting blocks of green constituents. This happened a long time ago in Europe and can happen here, now.

What happens then could be very different than the space budget state of affairs now. Both the White House and the Congress, this season, have been quite generous to crewed exploration accounts for many decades, and still thrifty with the rest of the science portfolio, including earth and other sciences.

Do you want to go outside and explore? Then pay attention to the greens on your plate.

House Funds NASA, Mollohan Knocks WH, Legacy, Gap

House Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations Subcommittee
Chairman Alan Mollohan's (D-WV) opening remarks on H.R. 3093, below.

" In NASA, the bill provides $17.6 billion, an increase of $313
million above the President's request. This funding restores the
cuts made by the administration in science and aeronautics and the
education portfolios, and provides the funding in a new account
structure to improve transparency and understandability of NASA's
submissions.

"We have tried in a small way to give NASA the increases that it
needs where the President has been negligent. The President's budget
request made an ambitious proposal in the Vision for Space
Exploration for the United States to return to the moon and to
eventually go to Mars; however, by all accounts, he did not fund his
vision adequately. The most recent telling evidence of this
shortfall is the fact that the President's proposal assumes the
inability of the United States to access space for a gap of four
years between when the space station retires and when the CEV
launches on its first official flight, the crew exploration vehicle.
This leaves the United States with no guaranteed source of
transportation during that gap to the space station.

"I want to make clear to Members that the gap has nothing to do with
the continuing resolution of last year [see
http://www.aip.org/fyi/2007/024.html]. Full ownership of this gap
resides with the President. His unfunded mandate of the vision, as
well as the fact that NASA had to pay for return to flight after the
Columbia accident out of its own hide, has resulted in NASA being
forced to rob Peter, science and aeronautics, to pay for Paul,
shuttle, space station and exploration. In the end there is not
enough for either Peter or Paul.

"The President has to acknowledge his inadequate budget request in
this area. We invite him to reinvigorate and legitimize the Vision
for Space Exploration by asking for necessary funds for returning to
the moon and for going to Mars eventually and for other key NASA
missions through a budget amendment or through an adequate fiscal
year 2009 request. Otherwise, limited U.S. access to space and
stagnation of key NASA programs will be, in this area, the
President's legacy, the President's legacy in space."