Some summit

I've been watching both NASA and White House press office Web feeds, hoping to get the agenda for the president's April 15 "Space Summit" at Kennedy Space Center. Today, it came across the NASA news feed. You can see it here.

In short, the agenda is this:

Air Force One Scheduled Arrival: 1:30 PM
Air Force One Scheduled Departure: 3:45 PM

So this "summit" will cover two hours and fifteen minutes, during which there will be an opening session (the president will give a speech at the Operations and Checkout Building), breakout sessions, and a closing session. That's not considering the time it will take to drive the 8.5 miles from the landing facility to the O&C building.

I'm not sure how much work can really be accomplished in such a short time, especially since many local players, including the U.S. Representative for the district that includes the space center,* have not been invited.

Maybe the White House has a different definition of "summit" than I do. I would expect a summit to involve all the major players and take long enough to both air concerns and come to consensus on future goals.

I don't suppose it matters what the president's definition is, as long as the event produces some real, achievable spaceflight goals instead of being an expensive photo op.

*Correction: Rep. Suzanne Kosmas did attend, flying in on AF1 with the president. And the conference took place after the president left.

Programming space

This came in too late to make OBJ’s April 9 issue, but the University of Central Florida’s Metropolitan Center for Regional Studies will host The Future: Florida, NASA, and the Space Industry April 16, 8-10 a.m., at the University of Central Florida Executive Development Center in downtown Orlando.

The featured speaker is Pat Duggins, National Public Radio's NASA correspondent. Duggins also wrote Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program. Orlandoans will remember Duggins from his days covering the space program from WMFE. He is now news director for Alabama Public Radio, which covers the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

At the forum, a panel discussion will be moderated by Ray Gilley, president of the Metro Orlando EDC. The following panelists are scheduled to participate: Frank DiBello, president of Space Florida; Florida Sen. Mike Haridopolos; U.S. Rep. Suzanne Kosmas; M.J. Soileau, vice president of UCF’s Office of Research and Commercialization; and Lynda Weatherman, president of SpaceCoast EDC.

I plan to be there. If you wish to attend, admission is free, but reservations are required. Make reservations by phone, (407) 235-3934 or e-mail, metro@mail.ucf.edu.

This event takes place the day after the president’s “summit” at Kennedy Space Center, so it will be interesting to hear the reactions of these leaders to whatever comes out of that meeting.

We got one piece of good news today. Details from NASA's 2011 budget request show allocations of over $1 billion for programs and facility improvements at Kennedy Space Center. You can read more about that here.

This photo, taken at at Kennedy Space Center in January, shows the construction of a new mobile launcher that would be used in the Constellation Program. Photo credit: NASA/Jim Grossman.

They're certifiable

This just in, from the American Patriot Foundation:

"I am today compelled to make the distasteful choice to invite my own court-martial, in pursuit of the truth about the president's eligibility under the constitution to hold office," said active duty Army Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin. The American Patriot Foundation, a nonprofit group, set up a legal defense fund and will provide Lt. Col. Lakin with a defense team.

The foundation says the president's continuing refusal to release his original 1961 birth certificate brought Lt. Col. Lakin to the point where he feels the commander-in-chief's orders are unlawful, and thus must be disobeyed.

If Lt. Col. Lakin wishes to sacrifice his career on the altar of obstinacy, that's his prerogative, but it seems foolish to make such a great sacrifice for such a pointless purpose. I wonder whether this is just another attempt to get the birth certificate matter before a court. Any court.

The "birthers," as those obsessed with the president's origin are pejoratively called by those of us with more important things to worry about, keep trying to file suit over the authenticity of the president's birth record. Their suits keep getting thrown out.

Birthers have made such a nuisance of themselves in Hawaii that legislators there are now considering a bill that would let state recordkeepers classify "vexatious" requests as an "abuse of process" and ignore them. Since Hawaii reportedly gets 10 to 20 birther requests each week, one can hardly blame them.

As this Associated Press article points out, Hawaii's health director and state registrar of vital statistics have verified that the health department has the original birth certificate. The department won't release it to birthers because state law restricts the release of such records.

There are heaps and heaps of evidence that the president was born where Hawaii's state officials say he was, and none that he was born anywhere else. What bothers me most isn't the time wasted on this nonsense. What bothers me most is that a barrel of crackpots are -- without any evidence -- accusing public servants of fraud.

Maybe Hawaii should sue the birthers for slander. That would be a trial worth watching.

Orion's hope

You can imagine my amusement, or bemusement, when the press release came over from Associated General Contractors telling me that the Orlando office of Hensel Phelps Construction Co. won an Aon Build America Award in the "Best Renovation of a Federal & Heavy Project" category for its conversion of a a 40-year old building at Kennedy Space Center into the new assembly facility for the Orion Capsule.

Yeah.

That's the same Orion Capsule that's part of the Constellation Program, which got its funding cut from NASA's 2011 budget.

J. Doug Pruitt, the president of AGC, said, “These are the projects that redefine communities, reinvent neighborhoods and remind us that anything is possible given the right mix of craft, skill and commitment.”

Pruitt said Hensel Phelps's Orion project was completed within 18 months, despite the need to abate more than 320 tons of hazardous materials, respect astronaut "quiet hours," and halt construction during launches.



Kirk Hazen, vice president and Southeast district manager at Hensel Phelps, said the company worked in partnership with Lockheed Martin to deliver the taxpayers "a unique project known as the 'Factory of the Future' that exceeded all safety, quality, budgetary, schedule, and environmental goals.”

Good job, guys. Now, if the taxpayers can bug their senators and representatives to pass the Human Space Flight Capability Assurance & Enhancement Act of 2010 (HR 4804), said taxpayers might actually get their money's worth out of this award-winning "Factory of the Future."

I would be remiss if I didn't point out that you can read about the bill at OBJ. And if you forget which persons in Congress are supposed to be representing you, check here.

Go, Canada!

During the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Olympic Games last night, I was impressed by the amount of time and the degree of prominence given to the First Nations: the indigenous people of Canada. The leaders of the four nations whose territories encompass the Olympic venues were seated with the national and international leaders.

Tribal representatives offered greetings in their native languages, as did the Utes at the Salt Lake Games. But then native people from across Canada performed their traditional dances in traditional attire throughout the parade of nations. I was struck by the similarity between the dances and costumes of the Prairie tribes, as they were called, to those of the Great Plains in the U.S.

But I was most sharply struck by the notion that no games in the U.S. has ever given so much time and prominence to native peoples. For all our similarities, there are great differences between Americans and Canadians, and this is one of them. Here, we frequently forget our native peoples. And when we remember, it often seems an afterthought. ("Hey, since we're in Utah, we should invite the Osmonds. Oh yeah, and maybe the Utes, too.")

But another segment of the show was very -- how shall I put it -- North American. When the tartan-and-leather-clad tap dancers and fiddlers took the stage, in what I can only describe as a Punk Rock Riverdance, it demonstrated the individuality and inventiveness that characterizes both of our pioneer nations. The fiddling and clogging, which the producers encountered on Canada's east coast, is similar to that seen in Appalachia. I'd say it was the same, but I've never seen tattooed Appalachian dancers in black studded leather and chains. (Which isn't to say they don't exist. Only that I've never seen them.)

At the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, a thousand men, all of similar height and build and ethnicity, dressed the same way, doing the same thing, expressed the conformity of the Chinese Communist state. Contrast that with the Canadian people, a variety of colors and sizes and ethnicities, each dressed differently, dancing together but not in unison.

We Americans may admire the Chinese precision and unity, but individuality and innovation -- those are things we can relate to. Our normally unassuming Northern cousins have set themselves the audacious goal to own the podium at their games. I wish them well.

How many times do I have to tell you…

So often, I tell my teenager “we need to leave at X o’clock,” and he’s not ready to leave until X-plus-ten … or plus-15 … or plus-20 …

You would think I’d have learned by now to give him an earlier deadline, like editors sometimes do with recalcitrant freelancers. But no, even after years of arriving late at school, or dentist appointments, or worship, I told him the truth: We need to leave by seven-thirty.

Then I waited with gnashing teeth while he took uncommonly long in the shower, ignored my instruction to wear a sweater and a jacket because it would be cold, and roamed about the house searching for a misplaced wallet.

I looked at my watch. We were told to be at the school at seven-forty-five so he could take the state’s standardized test. It was now seven-forty, and the school is fifteen minutes away. Meanwhile, he looked for a book to read during the bus ride home.

My fury swelled. His insubordination showed disrespect for me and for his own education. I poured out my wrath by punching the wall, scraping the skin off my knuckles.

Once he was in the car, I sped to the school, praying we would be in time. We got to the school office five minutes after eight. Two other homeschoolers waited in the lobby. The secretary reassured me that the testing coordinator had not yet started. Thank you, God. I apologized to my son for losing my temper and wished him well. The coordinator came to admit the homeschoolers into the testing room.

I headed out, still angry. In the car, I prayed aloud, something I don’t often do in solitude. “Jesus Christ Lord God Almighty in Heaven, help me. Why is he so disrespectful? Why does he do the opposite of what I tell him? I give clear instructions, and he doesn’t follow them.”

I imagined God folding his arms and frowning. “Now you know how I feel.”

I would rather punch a wall and hurt myself than hurt my child. In the same way, the Creator poured out his wrath on the Redeemer, shedding his blood rather than ours. And despite our faults, He gives us enough grace that even though we fall short of the goal, we are still admitted into His presence.

Cancel this "special order"

This just in, from one of our faithful correspondents:

I have received an e-mail that looks like it is from Amazon.com but is not. I am sure it is a phishing scam.

The mail is very well done in that it has the Amazon logo and claims to be from "order-update@amazon.com.
It tells you to click on the attached link for an update on your order status.

The tip-off for me was: 1. I have no current order with Amazon, and 2. rather than a hot link to UPS as I would expect from Amazon, the mail had an attachment that was a .zip file with the instruction to open the zip file for order update information.… This one is pretty sneaky in that is does not try to scare you, e.g. "your credit card data is wrong," or sell you something. But I'm positive the zip file would unload some nasty bit of malware that would either steal my data or just trash the hard drive.

Malware, indeed. Akin to the "special delivery" e-mail noted earlier, this type of scam often involves software that logs your keystrokes, giving a hacker access to the things you use your computer for, like shopping and banking, either of which can get the hacker your credit card number. Alternatively, if you are using a Windoze computer, malware can turn your PC into a "zombie," generating even more spam to the unsuspecting masses.

For more information, visit Symantec's Web site.