Needed: An Isaac Asimov "Mnemonic Service"

I've just finished up my first full day at the 2009 Canadian Science Policy Conference and couldn't help but notice the large number of leading experts on Canadian science, policy and innovation in attendance.

These include Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology, John Milloy, the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities and Minister of Research and Innovation, Preston Manning (these days with the Manning Centre for Building Democracy) plus the presidents of the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Ontario Centres of Excellence and about 220 other scientists, engineers, policymakers, industrial R&D managers and others with an interest in the intersection of policy, science and technology.

I'm told that at least two people from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA)  were there as well and it's important for them to attend science policy conferences like this because of the CSA mandate as listed on their website which is:

To promote the peaceful use and development of space, to advance the knowledge of space through science and to ensure that space science and technology provide social and economic benefits for Canadians.

But I couldn't help but notice the overall lack of aerospace, new-space and "just plain space" focused people at the conference (with the exception of the two CSA people, Rachel Woen Tjoen from Bombardier and Kevin Shortt, President of the Canadian Space Society out of a total of 300 attendees).

This seems odd given the recent speech by Claude Lajeunesse, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada (AIAC) at the 2009 AIAC Annual General Meeting on October 14th, where he stated:

A recent AeroStrategy study commissioned by AIAC and Industry Canada on the impact of Globalization on Canada reveals that today, Canada is absent from the top 10 countries in the world for investment in Aerospace R&D, manufacturing and MRO.  Canada has not sufficiently taken advantage of the ‘investment boom’ of the past 20 years.

The full text of the speech is posted on the AIAC website here but it seems that anyone with this sort of concern would reasonably want to meet with Canadian scientists and politicians to discuss these trends and go over options on how to reverse them.

Perhaps Mr. Lajeunesse just didn't know about the event this week or perhaps he was tired and shagged out after the AIAC AGM last week. Maybe he'll attend next year.

Perhaps the real problem is that that organizations tend to focus on conversations within specific narrow specialties ("scientists" or "engineers" or "space agency representatives" or "aerospace business people") but the problems cross disciplines and require multidisciplinary solutions with awareness of issues and debates in multiple contexts using terms of reference from seemingly incompatible disciplines which may not normally socialize, compare notes or even understand each other.

We might need a "mnemonic service."

What's that you might ask? Here's an example, from "Sucker Bait", a 1954 novel by Isaac Asimov:

"Mnemonic Service," said Sheffield, patiently. "Emm-enneee- emm-oh-enn-eye-see Service. You don't pronounce the first emm. It's from a Greek word meaning memory."

The captain's eyes narrowed. "He remembers things?"

"Correct, captain. Look, in a way this is my fault. I should have briefed you on this. I would have, too, if the boy hadn't gotten so sick right after the take-off. It drove most other matters out of my mind. Besides, it didn't occur to me that he might be interested in the workings of the ship itself. Space knows why not. He should be interested in everything."

"He should, eh?" The captain looked at the timepiece on the wall. "Brief me now, eh? But no fancy words. Not many of any other kind, either. Time limited."

"It won't take long, I assure you. Now you're a space-going man, captain. How many inhabited worlds would you say there were in the Confederation?"

"Eighty thousand," said the captain, promptly.

"Eighty-three thousand two hundred," said Sheffield. "What do you suppose it takes to run a political organization that size?"

Again the captain did not hesitate. "Computers," he said.

"All right. There's Earth, where half the population works for the government and does nothing but compute and there are computing subcenters on every other world. And even so data gets lost. Every world knows something no other world knows-almost every man. Look at our little group. Vernadsky doesn't know any biology and I don't know enough chemistry to stay alive. There's not one of us can pilot the simplest spacecruiser, except for Fawkes. So we work together, each one supplying the knowledge the others lack.

"Only there's a catch. Not one of us knows exactly which of our own data is meaningful to the other under a given set of circumstances. We can't sit and spout everything we know. So we guess, and sometimes we don't guess right. Two facts, A and B, can go together beautifully sometimes. So Person A, who knows Fact A, says to Person B, who knows Fact B, 'Why didn't you tell me this ten years ago?' and Person B answers, 'I didn't think it was important,' or 'I thought everyone knew that.'"

The captain said, "That's what computers are for."

Sheffield said, "Computers are limited, captain. They have to be asked questions. What's more the questions have to be the kind that can be put into a limited number of symbols. What's more computers are very literal minded. They answer exactly what you ask and not what you have in mind. Sometimes it never occurs to anyone to ask just the right question or feed the computer just the right symbols, and when that happens the computer doesn't volunteer information.

"What we need . . . what all mankind needs . . . is a computer that is nonmechanical; a computer with imagination. There's one like that, captain." The psychologist tapped his temple. "In everyone, captain."

"Maybe," grunted the captain, "but I'll stick to the usual, eh? Kind you punch a button."

"Are you sure? Machines don't have hunches. Did you ever have a hunch?"

"Is this on the point?" The captain looked at the timepiece again.

Sheffield said, "Somewhere inside the human brain is a record of every datum that has impinged upon it. Very little of it is consciously remembered, but all of it is there, and a small association can bring an individual datum back without a person's knowing where it comes from. So you get a 'hunch' or a 'feeling.' Some people are better at it than others. And some can be trained. Some are almost perfect, like Mark Annuncio and a hundred like him. Some day, I hope, there'll be a billion like him, and we'll really have a Mnemonic Service.

"All their lives," Sheffield went on, "they do nothing but read, look, and listen. And train to do that better and more efficiently. It doesn't matter what data they collect. It doesn't have to have obvious sense or obvious significance. It doesn't matter if any man in the Service wants to spend a week going over the records of the space-polo teams of the Canopus Sector for the last century. Any datum may be useful some day. That's the fundamental axiom.

"Every once in a while, one of the Service may correlate across a gap no machine could possibly manage. The machine would fail because no one machine is likely to possess those two pieces of thoroughly unconnected information; or else, if the machine does have it, no man would be insane enough to ask the right question. One good correlation out of the Service can pay for all the money appropriated for it in ten years or more."

Maybe a good place to start would be to begin attending each others parties, seminars and conferences.

Naive Profs Offer Hack Writers Science Tutoring

When focused on their core competency of providing background on higher education in Canada, the website "University Affairs" is always a useful read but their recent announcement of the opening of the Science Media Centre of Canada (SMCC) under the headline "Canada's science media centre opens doors" should hold particular interest to companies and organizations dependent on a highly educated and intelligent workforce.

The article states that the media centre "will help journalists better cover science and researchers better understand reporters' motivations" and this is all well and good.

But I'm just not sure if it's possible to accomplish what Suzanne Corbeil, vice-president, external relations and communications, with the Canada Foundation for Innovation and chair of the SMCC's steering committee seems to have defined as her personal primary goal. “That goal is accurate and rational coverage of science issues in the Canadian mass media” she is quoted in the article as saying.

Now don't  get me  wrong. I like the idea of accurate and rational science coverage. It's the mention of "mass media" that confuses me.

After all, mass media is dying. Those who aren't aware of this haven't noticed the financial troubles at CanWest Global Communications, or researched how little subscriptions to McLeans Magazine cost these days (at least according to this post on the Canadian Magazine Blog), or read the article "2020 Vision: What's next for News," or seen the documentary "Stop the Presses: The American Newspaper in Peril" or even noticed that there are more than three television stations on the air (several of whom seem to be fighting to redistribute advertising and cable fee revenue perhaps in order to postpone further bankruptcies).

It's quite possible that any formal Canadian "mass media" will slide slowly down the slippery slope towards extinction over the next twenty years so the MSCC might want to spend less time focusing on declining areas and more time in areas of the media that are either stable or growing.

There are obvious identifiable areas of media growth where liaisons like SMCC can perform useful services, especially the multiple areas in independent online and new media (where this blog is a useful example) or with specialty magazines which, unlike traditional mass media, are presently undergoing strong and long term growth.



Unfortunately, the listing of MSCC contributors on their website under the our members tab doesn't list any large media partners except for the Toronto Star, a daily newspaper which certainly can't be considered in any way shape or form as anything other than an old style mass media publication. Of course, the Discovery Channel (which is more of a television specialty channel) and O'Brian Publishing (the publisher of Canadian Technology and Business Magazine) are also included in the list and perhaps over time they will bring a measure of realism to the MSCC agenda.

But until then, while some other SMCC goals may indeed be laudable (such as suggestions of "mostly virtual and completely bilingual centre(s) that will help reporters find experts and get briefings on topical concerns") they may already be happening and SMCC seems to be coming quite late to the party.

Here's an example from a recent panel discussion on new media at the American Association Advancement of Science Science Policy Forum.


Here's the second portion of the presentation:


I'd suggest that the MSCC needs more (and more knowledgable) media partners before it can begin to perform a useful role. I wish the organization luck, (I'll even link to it) but I think it's got a long way to go before it even understands the media landscape, much less is able to influence it.

Technology and space focused businesses make the same same mistakes and we'll get to that in a future post.

Oh Du Lieber Augustine!

Leiber Augistin

According to legend (and this entry in Wikipedia), Lieber Augustin, referred to in the song "Oh du lieber Augustin" lived in Vienna during the Plague period of 1678-1679.

One evening, Lieber hoisted a few too many glasses of wine and decided to nap off his hangover in a pit next to the bodies of plague victims. Next morning he awoke (much to the shock of those who witnessed the event and assumed him dead) so the rumor spread that wine acted as a cure for the plague. 

How does this relate to the present day Norm Augustine, and his current position as chairman of the Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans Committee? That's easy. Liber, was given a second chance at life and Norm Augustine has been given a second chance to chair an advisory committee on the future of the US space program.

It's interesting to see how the first Augustine report (written in 1990 and available online here) compares with the current report released earlier today. According to the article "NASA needs Direction? Call Norm Augustine!" from the Daily Planet website:

The 1990 panel worried about a “lack of a national consensus as to what should be the goals of the civil space program.” Still true.

They said “NASA is currently over committed in terms of program obligations relative to resources available.” It still is.

The 1990 report (also) lamented management inefficiencies at the space agency, a graying workforce, and the tendency “for projects to grow in scope, complexity, and cost.” Check, check, and check.

Of course the first Augustin ended up scaring people and driving them to drink (but only as an antidote to the plague, of course).

Only time will tell what the current Augustine ends up doing.

Ignoring Innovation While Waiting for Augustine

Michael Swartwout, an Assistant Professor of Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering at Parks College, St. Louis University has written a fascinating article on "The promise of innovation from university space systems: are we meeting it" for the October 12th issue of online publication, The Space Review.

In the article, he states unequivocally that:

The first university-class spacecraft was launched in 1981; satellite number 119 was launched in September 2009. At present, an average of 12 university-class spacecraft are launched each year.

Just off the top of my head, those numbers seem to be more than the CSA (or even maybe NASA) has launched lately and the genesis of these prolific little spacecraft are traced back to one specific location:

Faculty and students in the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Surrey developed the first two university-class spacecraft: UoSAT 1 (1981) and UoSAT 2 (1984). After those successes, they spun off a new company, Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL).

This new firm almost immediately became among the very first and most successful of a number of small satellite companies. After a long and varied independent history portions of the firm were sold to SpaceX in January 2005 and then a controlling interest was brought by EADS Astrium in April 2008. The company still functions today as a subsidiary of EADS Astrium and has recently opened a US office.

Swartwout believes that this specific small satellite company is a case study for future space focused ventures and even makes some observations on where the next breakout organizations will come from:

...we now speak of the “Surrey Model”, whereby a university (a) develops an in-house spacecraft capability, (b) advances to more-capable missions, and (c) spins off the program into a profit-making entity. This approach has been adopted by several other programs, including: the University of Toronto Space Flight Laboratory, the Satellite Technology Research Center in Korea, the Technical University of Berlin, and the King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia. All are actively building highly capable space systems for national governments, and several have international customers.

The next Surrey Satellite might not even be a satellite company but could perhaps be involved in a number of other space focused areas. It might even be developing engines or components required for manned space flight

Essentially, space advocates have a variety of options available for moving forward in space exploration and don't need to wait by the side of the road for next weeks expected formal release of the Augustine Commissions full report on NASA human space flight (or for its hoped for Obama administration follow-on offering lots of money to maintain the existing NASA infrastructure and jobs).

It's good that we're not sitting by the side of the road under a tree waiting for someone else to solve our problems.

Just ask these people if you don't believe me.

Science Policies, Space Summits and Great Gossip

It's the fall conference season, that traditional period from late September until late November when we attend conferences, reacquaint ourselves with colleagues, compare notes and stay up late telling terrible stories about mutual acquaintances who are probably really nice people except for one spectacular slip-up during a previous conference.

So with that in mind here are two quick promo's for conferences I'll be attending and reporting on over the next little while.

The Canadian Science Policy Conference is this October 28th to 30th in Toronto and focused on attracting academics and others with "an interest in the intersection of policy with science and technology." Speakers include Minister of State for Science and Technology Gary Goodyear, Minister for Training John Molloy and conservative populist Preston Manning.

This conference  is specifically targeted at "scientists, engineers, policymakers, industrial R&D managers, association officials, government grant recipients, students, science diplomats, government affairs specialists, public affairs officers, science writers, and others with an interest in the intersection of policy with science and technology" according to their website.

The second conference I'll be attending is organized by the Canadian Space Society, which has just released the speaker schedule for the 2009 Canadian Space Summit at the Royal Military College in Kingston Ontario on November 20th - 22nd.

The Space Summit is expecting to attract a roster of professionals, academics, government officials and enthusiasts interested in this year's theme of "Multi-Use Missions: Opportunities for Collaboration on Space Technologies."

But since I'm chairing the commercial track, you should also know that I'm especially looking for Canadian based aerospace and new-space focused firms interested in business opportunities related to the commercialization of basic science.

If you're attending either of these events, feel free to let me know and we can meet up for coffee and juicy stories.

I'm quite interested in stories from businesses (or even from CSA employees) involved with commercialization and technology transfer through the Canadian Space Agency, especially if you've had exposure to any of the items listed in this document on innovative technical opportunities.

Beating Rocket Shaped Swords into Plowshares

Waterloo, Ontario based Project Plowshares and Superior, Colorado based Secure World Foundation have just released their 2009 Space Security Report on behalf of the Space Security Index.

Partners in the study include the Institute of Air and Space Law at McGill University and the Simons Centre for Disarmament and Non‐Proliferation Research at the University of British Columbia. As well, the project is supported by the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, the Ploughshares Fund and the Erin J.C Arsenault Trust Fund at McGill University.

The report is a useful resource focused on listing the players, their activities and the existing rules governing those activities in near Earth orbit and beyond.

For example, on page 83 the report provides this assessment of the commercial space sector:

The commercial space sector has experienced dramatic growth over the past decade, largely related to rapidly increasing revenues associated with satellite services. These services are provided by companies that own and operate satellites, as well as the ground support centers that control them.

The second largest contribution to the growth of the commercial space sector has been made by satellite and ground equipment manufacturing. This includes both direct contractors that design and build large systems and vehicles, smaller subcontractors responsible for system components, and software providers.

In the early 2000s, overcapacity in the launch market and a reduction in commercial demand combined to depress the cost of commercial space launches. More recently, an energized satellite communication market and launch industry consolidation have resulted in stabilization and an increase in launch pricing.

A healthy space industry can lead to decreasing costs for space access and use, and increase the accessibility of space technology. Of the 49 states that have accessed space to date (see Civil Space Trend 3.1), almost all have been assisted in some way by the commercial space industry.

The full document is available for download at no charge on the Space Security Website in the publications section for those who'd like to take a closer look.

"Kodak" Moment for the Nobel Committee.

Although not officially listed as a formal spin-off of the space industry (having been invented in 1969 at Bell Laboratories and therefore more properly considered as a telecom based spin-off) the invention of the charged coupling device (or CCD) has revolutionized the field of astronomy and space imaging.

Yesterday, Canadian-born Willard S. Boyle and Amercan George E. Smith, were honored by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences by being presented with the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics for their invention.


Charles K. Kao also shared the prize for his work in fiber optic light transmission.

The usefulness of CCD's is all about the ability to couple them with sensors (such as photoelectric devices) to produce a charge that can be read electronically, then converted into an image or some other data format and transmitted over a distance (say from a satellite in orbit back to the Earth).

Such devices are found on almost every current scientific or military space vehicle including the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope. They're considered to be quite an improvement over previous methods of collecting, transmitting and retrieving satellite data such as the low resolution television cameras used in the Ranger program or the techniques used by the Corona series of US military reconnaissance satellites (which required the physical retrieval of small re-entry capsules containing exposed but undeveloped film).

No doubt, the CCD also contributed to the recent decision by multinational Eastman Kodak to no longer manufacture kodachrome film since digital camera's also use CCD's for imaging and have essentially taken over what was once a film based industry.

ITAR, Dual Use and Export Restrictions

The recent announcement that US President Barack Obama has directed his economic and national security advisers to launch a broad-based inter-agency review of U.S. export controls governing military and dual-use technology transfers (according to the article "White House Announced Export Control Review" from the Space News website) cannot help but remind us that no discussion of Canadian space policy is complete without referencing the various US export control regulations and their effects.

Examples of these regulations include the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and the recent International Emergency Economic Powers Enhancement Act.

As a reminder of why the the Obama administration feels the need to perform a review, we might want to take a look at recent promotional documents like "Coping With The New Export Control Paradigm" published by large American law firm Foley and Lardner LLP (which likely wrote the document to highlight it's expertise in this area). High points include the following statements:

Export compliance for technology requires a different mindset, with the focus as much on the process of creation and the use of the product as the good itself. For example, where software is at issue, the focus is not the physical medium but rather such issues as the method of export (which could be over the internet and thus not involve any good in traditional form) and the potential uses of the software (which might be incorporated into a controlled product by the purchaser). 

Technology also brings into play nontraditional means of export. Such issues as whether there is a “deemed export” (i.e., communication of controlled information to a non-U.S. national, whether by oral discussion, visual inspection, or otherwise), export by access to a company’s information systems, issues relating to the employment of non-U.S. nationals, or even whether the mere exposure of a foreigner to a “data-rich environment” is a violation are all amplified where highly technological goods and services are at issue.

These issues all relate to the potential "dual" or second use of any item as a weapon. Since almost anything can be used as a weapon (even a pen, which was traditionally considered to be mightier than the sword) the US perceives it reasonable to implement and maintain these sorts of sweeping regulations governing possibilities and potentialities.

Of course, many Canadian companies are therefore having difficulties selling into the lucrative US aerospace and defense market but these restrictions also limit trade in the other direction. For example, the article "Allies Rebel Against U.S. Military Trade Restrictions" states unequivocally that:

EADS and other European companies have been working to develop military components that are not subject to a U.S. sales veto. For example, EADS Space Transportation Division boasts it is developing a satellite motor that will be “completely ITAR-free and therefore not subject to U.S. export license restrictions, allowing competitive access to worldwide customers.”

EADS is following in the footsteps of France’s Alcatel Space, which has made it company policy since 2002 to build ITAR-free communications satellites to avoid U.S. control over sales. Last April, Alcatel launched its first ITAR-free satellite on a Chinese rocket.

Morotta, a British maker of spacecraft propulsion and propellant management equipment, advertises that its products “are European and hold ITAR-free status.” And when Surrey Satellite Technology, another British firm, touts the “features” of its satellite propulsion systems, “completely ITAR- free” is at the top of the list.

This is bad news for the U.S. satellite industry, according to a paper published by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. U.S. companies, which must adhere to ITAR restrictions, are at a growing disadvantage as the inventory of ITAR-free components expands.

No one in Canada is so far suggesting that perhaps we should be doing the same but lets hope the Obama requested review at least begins to start putting the US house in order.

This Blog Now Fortified with an Extra Column and New Sources of Funding

As part of the first major update to the Commercial Space blog, you'll notice a couple of changes to the layout including the addition of an extra column on the right side to help organize some of the recently added links and blog feeds.

I'm hoping regular readers will also notice a couple of new links to Canadian specific sources of funding for technology focused start-ups and established firms looking to grow.

Some of these new links include:

• The Canadian Association of Business Incubators (CABI), dedicated to creating employment and economic activity through the development of enterprises supported by the business incubation industry
• The Canadian Venture Capital Association website and their blog "Capital Rants" focused on "the good, the bad and the ugly of venture capital in Canada."
• The "MaRS Blog on Canadian Innovation" focused on something called "Convergence Innovation" and activities occurring at the MaRS Development District.
• The National Angel Capital Organization, an umbrella organization of various Canadian based angel investment groups.
• The Secure World Foundation blog. Although not the typical source of funding, the Secure World Foundation maintains financial relationships with a number of space focused media outlets and publishes various documents relating to space situational awareness, traffic management, orbital debris, Earth observation, international law and the avoidance of a space arms race. Secure World Foundation Technical Advisor Brian Wheeden will be session chair for near Earth orbit at the upcoming 2009 Canadian Space Summit.

Scientists looking to commercialize space focused scientific activities and entrepreneurs looking to build a business are well advised to acquaint themselves with these organizations.

Cosmonauts, Street Performers and the Kwartzlab Society

As shown in the video below, Canadian billionaire and Cirque du Soleil entrepreneur Guy Laliberté, retired US Army Colonel Jeffrey Williams and Russian Army Colonel Maxim Surayev blasted off today from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Russia Today's Gayane Chichakyan was right there, perhaps even a little too close to the action that looks to be only a few dozen meters behind as she provides launch coverage and background material while being blown about by the blast of the Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft's engines.

Back in the early 1980's, Laliberté was just an enterprising street performer in Quebec, hanging with other street performers in much the same way as he is now hanging with cosmonauts and astronauts.

But how does any of the above relate to the Kwartzlab Society you may ask? In fact, does anyone even know what the Kwartzlab Society is?

For those who don't, this Kitchener, Ontario based organization is defined on the about page of their website as focused around something called a "hackerspace," which is a:

physical location where like-minded people get together in a cooperative environment to pool their knowledge, experience, and physical resources with a goal to bringing into reality the projects about which they’ve been dreaming.

The sky is the limit, almost literally: projects range from building hardware to building art, from restoring antique equipment to putting electronic blinking eyes in a crocheted doll.

According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, the Cirque du Soleil was formed in Quebec in the early 1980's by a group of enterprising street performers:

At that time, the province of Québec did not have a circus tradition, so this group of stilt-walkers, jugglers, fire-eaters and buskers banded together to create a performance platform for themselves. They called themselves "Club des Talons Hauts" or "High-Heels Club," since most of them were stilt-walkers.

The group organized a festival "Fête Foraine de Baie St-Paul" (The Baie Saint-Paul Fair), in which the street performers could exchange ideas and techniques and this led to the birth of Cirque du Soleil.

So in the 1980's a group of performers banded together to exchange ideas and techniques and this led to the creation of the Cirque du Soleil and in 2009, another group banded together to pool their knowledge and expertise in much the same way.

I'm not sure yet what the Kwartzlab Society wants to create or build or accomplish over the next few years but at least one of their members has been active in the Canadian Space Commerce Association (CSCA) and worked with the DaVinci Project when it competed for the Ansari X-Prize several years back.

Perhaps in twenty or so years, members of the Kwartzlab Society, using the same techniques as led to the Cirque du Soleil and Guy Laliberté's current adventure will themselves get to hobnob with astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station (or whatever ends up replacing it).

As for Laliberté, the Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft is scheduled to dock at the International Space Station on Oct. 2, where Laliberté, Surayev and Williams will join Canadian astronaut Bob Thirsk and five others.

The Montreal Gazette has indicated that the "CBC Might Air Show From Space" when Laliberté hosts his unprecedented program from the International Space Station, titled "Moving Stars and Earth for Water" on October 9th. The production is part of his plan to raise awareness of water-related issues and is organized through the ONE DROP Foundation.

Let's hope CBC ends up running the program. 

Canadian billionaire and circus entrepreneur Guy Laliberte has blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome with the 21st mission to the International Space Station.
RT's Gayane Chichakyan was there for the lift-off.

Category:  News & Politics

Tags: 

Space  Baikonur  blast off  cosmodrome  Kazakhstan  stars  ISS  launch  Soyuz  rocket  Cirque du Soleil  Guy Laliberte  Canada  Russia  US  United States  countdown  mission  atronaut  cosmonaut  space tourist  TMA-16  Космос  Союз  МКС  миссия  запуск  Ги Лалиберте  Максим Сураев 

The Difference Between Butter Knives and Bayonets

Adam Côté, an MA candidate at the Norman Patterson School of International Affairs at Carelton University believes that comprehensive legal structures governing space based activities are vital in order to provide the appropriate framework to undertake space based scientific, engineering, business and technical projects in much the same way as the works of Hugo Grotius, Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili laid the foundations for modern international law and contributed to the growth of trans-national trade, exploration and discovery beginning in the 17th century.
And the key to any international treaty or legal structure, according to Côté, is a credible verification regime.

He will be speaking at the upcoming Canadian Space Summit, being held on November 20-22, 2009 in Kingston, Ontario as part of the law and policy track, which is focused on space traffic management, potential legal regimes for space debris removal, international space surveillance/situational awareness and space arms control.

According to Côté, verification is the process of gathering and analyzing information to assess compliance or non-compliance with an international agreement through the development of defined criteria to distinguish between harmful, space based devices and benign satellites.

Simply put, we should be able to tell the difference between a "butter knife" and a "bayonet," the latter of which generally doesn't work well when spreading marmalade.

"The design of a space system, which is constrained by the initial launch and by the space environment, is generally closely related to its function which can be extrapolated from form, location and observed activities," states Côté. "Plus, the development of verification mechanisms based on observational evidence is something that has been done many times previously as part of a international treaties on trade practices, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles.”

So what's the real difference between a space based butter knife and a space based bayonet?

Côté won't tell me that over the phone. He says I need to go to the 2009 Canadian Space Summit and attend his presentation in order to find out.

For more information on the 2009 Canadian Space Summit, please contact the Canadian Space Society.

Science "Blinded" by Social Media

Thomas Dolby, one of the more famous one hit wonders of the 80's but also a working artist today (having begun performing again in 2006 after a long hiatus) is best remembered for the quirky, playful synth-pop song "She Blinded me with Science."

 
Thomas Dolby-She Blinded Me With Science

Of course, these days social media is blinding, confusing, modifying and changing science all out of recognition, at least according to Hornby Island resident Fraser Cain and the rest of his team at Universe Today, a popular internet site dedicated to news about astronomy and space exploration. The site receives over 600,000 page views a month, and the newsletter edition goes out to 26,000 subscribers every weekday.

Along with Dr. Pamela L. Gay, he hosts the Astronomy Cast podcast and recently had some interesting things to say about the advent of social media and how it affects the scientific process.

For example, according to Cain and Gay:

Astronomy is one of the scientific fields that have been completely shaken up by new media. The internet has enabled communication by researchers in a dramatic new way creating new collaborations, removing obstacles and drawing in an army of enthusiastic volunteers to help with the research.

Changes include:

• The advent of portable text based content that can be read by small devices or cell phones anywhere in the world. This essentially means that there is no more need for traditional library or even formal internet access since the data is now posted online and available anywhere cell phones function.
  
• A more open research environment using blogs to provide ongoing research updates, compare notes and provide context for scientific collaborations. This new environment is building an openness among scientists who may always have hungered for the opportunity to discuss problems, compare solutions, build community and provide insight into the "life of a scientist," but were never able to do so until now.
• The creation of entire "virtual worlds" through social media constructs like Second Life, which has pretty much replaced the construction of physical buildings for the traditional planetarium experience of astronomy for a generation of students.
  

Essentially, where before solitary scientists would toil for years in private before eventually publishing a paper in a prestigious journal and then wait patiently for feedback and "peer review," science today is now done "out loud" and peer review is done in real time without the "middle man" to screw things up.

According to Cain and Gay, there is nothing scarier for a scientist than to talk to a "network or a mainstream journalist" because "they get it wrong a lot."

The podcast (episode 148 in the long running series titled "Astronomy and the New Media") is available here, for those who'd like to learn more.

Space Scientists and Contractors Thumbing Rocket Rides

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA), the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), various contractors and suppliers (including Bristol/ Magellan, Burley Scientific, EMS, Magnametrics, MDA, Novatel and Routes AstroEngineering), multiple universities ( including the University of Calgary’s Institute for Space Research, the University of Alberta, the University of Athabasca, the University of New Brunswick, the University of Saskatchewan the University of Western Ontario and York University) plus even the Japanese Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) and the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) are each waiting patiently for someone to provide extra, free space aboard an appropriately pointed rocket in order to launch their “CASade, Smallsat and IOnospheric Polar Explorer" (CASSIOPE) satellite.

This program is “vital to the future of the Canadian space program” according to the CASSIOPE website so it’s a shame that the project team is having such a difficult time finding a launcher.

Now it’s not as if Canada doesn’t have any rockets it can use. It might just be that no one recognizes them for the assets they are as evidenced by this recent article where a NASA launched Black Brant XII suborbital sounding rocket built by Bristol Aerospace in Winnipeg, Manitoba was mistaken for a UFO.



Geoffrey V. Hughes has even written a book about a previous attempt to upgrade the suborbital Black Brant series of rockets to orbital capability under the title "The Orbital Express Project of Bristol Aerospace and MicroSat Launch Systems Inc." According to the book, this previous effort died because of a simple lack of funding and political infighting among the main participants. There were no large technical hurdles to overcome.

Perhaps, if Canadians don't want to generate their own orbital launch capability, they could try hitching a ride with Telesat. This former Bell Canada Enterprises subsidiary (now privately held and with most shares owned by either the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board or Loral Space and Communications Inc.) celebrated the launch of its Nimiq 5 television satellite from Kazakhstan on September 17th.

Telesat now operates twelve satellites in total which is quite a few more than is currently administered by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

For those of us who don't wish to buy Canadian (hitchhikers generally don't like to buy anything), here's the Wikipedia list of orbital launch systems.

New Canadian Space Stories Now Available!

Congratulations to SpaceRef.ca on the launch of their new and updated website at www.spaceref.ca.

A quick search shows a variety of original Canadian space focused articles from Elizabeth Howell (who’s written for the Globe and Mail, Air and Space/ Smithsonian, the Space Review and the Ottawa Business Journal), SpaceRef.ca Chief Architect Marc Boucher, Editor Keith Cowing and others.

I’ve even posted an article on the site titled “This Week in Space for Canada" for anyone who’d like to take a look.

Also of note are the articles listing Canadian Space Agency (CSA) postings for requests for proposals (RFP's) on the federal governments MERX website, which is a listing of Canadian public tenders, private tenders, U.S. tenders and private-sector construction news presently available through the Canadian government and it's respective agencies.

There is a burning need for the various, disparate Canadian space focused communities and advocates to tell their stories and build public awareness, create connections, grow community and publicize opportunities in the Canadian space sector.

I congratulate SpaceRef.ca for the steps they’ve taken to begin this process.

Americans Engaged in Spirited Strategic Space Debate

New media stalwart "The Huffington Post," listed as the "Top Blog for Authority" by Technorati has joined the debate on the future of NASA with a series of articles focused on "Launching Commercial Space Flight" by X-Prize Foundation founder and newspace icon Peter Diamandis, which is a follow-on to previous articles by planetary science writer Jeff Goldstein on "Weighing in on the Blue-Ribbon Panel Exploring NASA's Strategic Options For Human Space Flight" and Seth Borenstein who believes that "Obama's space panel says moon return is a no go."

These article join other recent articles on the future of NASA published online by Discover Magazine ("The Future of NASA"), The Orlando Sentinel ("Future of NASA's manned space program comes before Congress") and quite a few others as they attempt to interpret the Augustine Committee Preliminary report.

For those interested doing the appropriate due diligence, the Augustine document is located here in PDF format.

Given that the Canadian Space Agency President Steve MacLean and NASA Administrator Charles Bolden Jr. have just signed an agreement on "Civil Space Cooperation" it might be worthwhile for Canadian's to do some research and get a sense of who we've decided to continue to cooperate with.

Ten years from now, we may have more money and greater options than they have.

Focused Today on the Boring Business of Making a Living

With all the interesting space focused stories coming out of NASA, the CSA and the private sector over the last little while (including the recent release of the Augustine Committee Summary Report with it's description of the US human spaceflight program as being on "an unsustainable trajectory," the Wednesday announcement of a signed agreement between NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and CSA President Steve Maclean providing for a framework for cooperative civil space activities which formalizes the exiting "ad-hoc" mechanisms between the organizations and Guy Laliberte's upcoming trip to the International Space Station) its useful to sit back and note that most of the people who are engaged in space focused activities are doing it, at least in part, to make a living.



This includes the Augustine Committee, the NASA administrator, the CSA president and most of the other people commented upon or noted in this blog. Of course these people probably like their jobs and perhaps perceive of their positions as being somewhat of a higher calling than most of the rest of the potential jobs available but they certainly still need to put food on the table and keep a roof over their head.

With that in mind, here are a couple of recent reports illustrating the success that Canadian space focused firms have been having lately as they struggle to be fiscally responsible and provide a sustainable return on investment for their stakeholders:

• Canadian space subsystem manufacturer COM DEV just announced "Q3 Revenue Soars 19% to 61.5M. Profits up almost 1M" according to this Canadian Press article dated September 3rd.
• The space systems subsidiary of McDonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) has had a run of good luck over the last 18 months since the Canadian government torpedoed a planned sale to Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK). Successes include recently announced contracts with Boeing to refurbish communications systems on the ISS, the Canadian government to design the successors to the Radarsat-2, and with  EADS Astrium for the Alphasat I-XL mission. According to this article in Satellite PR News, MDA has nearly doubled it's earnings over last years figures.
  
• Canadian satellite provider Telesat "reports $187 million profit in second quarter" according to an article published in Network World Industry Watch. This contrasts well when compared with last years $822 million loss during the same period.
  

These revenue increases seem to be a general trend across the industry and perhaps bode well for those of us who are merely looking to make a decent living, much like most of the people profiled in this blog.

Guy Laliberté, New Media and the 119th Carnival of Space 

The 119th Carnival of Space has just been posted on the Planetary Society website and it's interesting to note that their choice for the top space focused story this week is an article from the MS-NBC Cosmic Log on Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté and his plans to host a global extravaganza starring Al Gore, U2, Dr. David Suzuki, Peter Gabriel, space station astronauts Frank De Winne and Julie Payette plus Laliberte's own Cirque du Soleil performers along with quite a few others from the International Space Station on October 9th. 



The article has even been picked up by the regular media including this article in the Montreal Gazette which states:

Adding a wondrous twist to the halting issues of climate change and water conservation, Guy Laliberté will host an unprecedented live show from Earth’s orbit on Oct. 9.

The Cirque du Soleil founder and former fire breather announced yesterday the 120-minute live show will involve shows broadcast from 14 cities, starting in Montreal, and he’ll conduct it all from the International Space Station.

The show will promote the ONEDROP Foundation,  which is using this "poetic social mission in space" as described on their website, to raise awareness of the need for accessible water supplies to fight poverty and disease. It will reportedly be carried live on the Internet through the onedrop.org website and in partnership with AOL.com.

It's interesting to note that most of  the links provided to reference this story (with the exception of the links to the Montreal Gazette and perhaps the MS-NBC Log sites) come from internet based new media sites. It's essentially a platitude to even mention this but these new media sites are the future of news no matter what large media owners such as Rupert Murdoch might think.

It's also interesting to note that Mr. Laliberté (no matter what else he may be) is turning into a newspace entrepreneur without peer as he builds profitable, far reaching and useful connections between his day job at the Cirque du Soleil and the various businesses and national organizations involved in government and civilian space access, the political and social activists concerned over climate change, access to fresh water, the commercialization of the worlds water supplies and even simple recording artists looking to sell a few extra records.

It's a far better performance than expected in June when his trip was first announced and I suggested "Let's Not Embrace our First Canadian Fire Breathing Space Tourist Too Tightly." 

At this point, it's a performance worthy of Delos D. Harriman, the Robert Heinlein character in the novel "The Man Who Sold the Moon" and I look forward to seeing the big show on October 9th and learning more about future business opportunities that may follow from this adventure.

The Plan to Move Power Plants into Orbit

Space Canada, in cooperation with the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) has just announced the final speaker line up for their 2009 Symposium on Solar Powered Satellites being held next week at the Ontario Science Centre.



The symposium, hosted by Bob Macdonald (the national science correspondent for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and host of CBC Radio One’s “Quirks and Quarks”) is expected to attract an international assortment of academics, economists, global warming pundits and space focused legal experts along with representatives from provincial, federal and international government and non-government organizations plus dedicated space activists and quite a few others.

Speakers include Dan Fortin (the CEO of IBM Canada), Marc Garneau (MP for Westmount-Ville-Marie), Dr. Robert Zee (Manager of the UTIAS Space Flight Laboratory), John Mankins (former NASA and CalTech Jet Propulsion Laboratory policy guru) and others.

So what will they be talking about, you may ask?

They'll be talking about space based solar power (SBSP) which, according to Wikipedia is "a system for the collection of solar power in space, for use on Earth. SBSP differs from the usual method of solar power collection in that the solar panels used to collect the energy would reside on a satellite in orbit, often referred to as a solar power satellite (SPS), rather than on Earth's surface."

Here's a video from futurist David Houle attempting to provide some context for the overall thrust of the space power advocates in Canada, the US and elsewhere.



Here's a higher level discussion on space solar power provided by the European Space Agency (ESA).



The idea does have quite a few international backers at this point and yesterday, Bloomberg even ran this news report announcing that Mitshubishi Electric Corp. and IHI Corp. will be joining a $21 Billion Japanese initiative to develop the technology needed to build a space solar power satellite. The effort is being coordinated through the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

I am personally a little cautious about the financial, the engineering and the political difficulties surrounding an effort of this nature. I remember how even Werner Von Braun was wrong once in awhile, especially when he advocated the immediate creation of large expensive space infrastructures to do things that could best be done in a smaller scale way.

But I would also like to see what the organizers, attendees and participants at the symposium have to say when it's concludes.

They may perhaps know things that I don't.

The 118th Carnival of Space

Blog carnivals are composed of communities of like minded bloggers who contribute their best posts to topic specific community listings, or "carnivals" which are then organized and distributed to other bloggers to provide context and some idea of the top stories of the blogosphere at any given moment.

It's sort of like the internets replacement for the traditional newspaper front page.

One of the best and longest running is the Carnival of Space, organized weekly by Fraser Cain, the publisher of Universe Today. It's focused specifically on space and astronomy and this weeks Carnival of Space (number 118 of the series) is being hosted on the Cumbrian Sky blog.

Check it out. Once in awhile, you might even find some stuff originating from here and re-posted on the Carnival.

NASA as the Next General Motors and What That Means for Canada

British born Canadian journalist Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, defines tipping points as "the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable."

That's where we are today with space exploration, research and the development of commercial space activities. We're at their tipping point.

As an example, here are a couple of indications that NASA no longer has the right stuff and has instead become a lot like bankrupt automobile manufacturer General Motors.

• The Augustine Panel re-examining NASA's human spaceflight plans "has concluded that the agency's current Constellation Program to return astronauts to the moon by 2020 will not fit into the current presidential budget" according to this August 12th article in the Orlando Sentinel.
• In the same issue of the Sentinel, Associated Press Science writer Seth Borenstein writes that "NASA also lacks the money to keep track of asteroids" and references this recent report by the National Academy of Sciences.
• Arguments for providing NASA with new funds to maintain existing commitments also tend to focus on maintaining existing jobs. For example, here's a recent report from the Aerospace Career Development Counsel titled "Federal Space Policy Agenda" which focuses on Brevard County, Florida where NASA and NASA subcontractors are major employers according to this article in Florida Today. Unfortunately, with the space shuttle set for retirement in 2010 and the International Space Station nearing both completion and retirement (mostly because of a lack of funding), it seems a little unclear how anyone could reasonably expect to maintain existing jobs tied to projects that are winding down without serious restructuring and retraining (which also requires appropriate and ongoing funding).

• And finally, any effort to maintain existing NASA jobs ignores the fact that the workforce is aging so quickly that NASA has recently taken action to "rebalance" the age ratio by adapting a policy "that 50% of all new civil servant hires will be fresh-out (of university)" according to the article "Rebalancing NASA's Workforce" on the Open NASA website. NASA workforce demographics are discussed in more detail in the article "Shaping the NASA Workforce for 2020" on the same site but it seems unlikely the "fresh-out" hires will be able to perform the same role as their experienced, but soon to be retired mentors (although NASA could pay the new hires a lower wage).
  

So we're got an organization teetering on insolvency, with no money for new products and with an aging workforce. This could certainly describe both General Motors in 2007 and NASA today.

Of course, we all know what happened to General Motors.

But even if what happened to General Motors does not or cannot happen in the same way at NASA (if only because it's not a private corporation), the knowledge of the challenges facing the agency and the looming possibility of a similar type of catastrophe cannot help but hinder efforts to cooperate with the agency.

This is especially true at the Canadian Space Agency with its traditional close relationship (as outlined in NASA Tests Neptec Vision System on STS-128" from SpaceRef.ca)?

At the very least, it suggests yet another good reason why there will be no formal updated Canadian space policy document from CSA President Steve Maclean anytime soon. He knows the way the wind is blowing and is likely looking for a sense of what US space focused activities will move forward before deciding if Canada can continue along for the ride.

I bet he's also planning on maintaining the outsourcing of Canadian launches to non-US suppliers (a continuation of a pattern discussed in my June 19th post on "A Listing of Canadian Satellite Launches") plus planning for greater cooperation with other space organizations such as the ESA, the Russian Federal Space Agency and various private organizations presently developing launch capabilities. It's likely he's also expanding existing partnerships with these organizations in other areas as well.

So what else is on the other side of this tipping point?

Perhaps it's a movement towards smaller, more focused and less expensive missions using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies wrapped around aggressive, early prototyping and multiple testing opportunities to create ongoing, incremental improvements similar to those described by Grant Bonin (an employee at the UTIAS Space Flight Laboratory) in his article "Microspace and Human Spaceflight."

The article describes methodologies advocated by many others, including Dr. John McGowan who describes it on a recent episode of The Space Show a simple, old fashioned trial and error testing.

This is essentially what the Wright brothers did in order to build up to their first, historic controlled flight in 1903 and it's interesting to contrast it with the methodologies of their competitors, especially Samuel Langley who was funded by the US government.

What will happen to NASA?

That's easy to predict. NASA employees and their subcontractors will either develop new skills, associations and capabilities to survive or the organization will become irrelevant and either slowly die or be changed into something else useful but in a different (perhaps less inspiring) way.

As far back as the 1980's, the Toronto based SCTV comedy group was offering suggestions as to how existing NASA skills could be adapted for new activities as shown in the video below.



Let's hope they're wrong.

By the way, I'm still officially on vacation. I'll be back in September.