Why I Am Feeling Smug Beyond All Reason

NASA astronaut Colonel Mike Fincke, with whom I had a memorable conversation back in 2008, has invited me to witness his next shuttle launch, STS-134.

Space Fab

So here's the plan. NASA sends an "electron beam freeform fabrication" unit up onto the Space Station. Then, when the aging station needs a part, the fab just . . . prints it.
While the EBF3 equipment tested on the ground is fairly large and heavy, a smaller version was created and successfully test flown on a NASA jet that is used to provide researchers with brief periods of weightlessness. The next step is to fly a demonstration of the hardware on the International Space Station, Taminger said.

Future lunar base crews could use EBF3 to manufacture spare parts as needed, rather than rely on a supply of parts launched from Earth. Astronauts might be able to mine feed stock from the lunar soil, or even recycle used landing craft stages by melting them.

But the immediate and greatest potential for the process is in the aviation industry where major structural segments of an airliner, or casings for a jet engine, could be manufactured for about $1,000 per pound less than conventional means, Taminger said.

Environmental savings also are made possible by deploying EBF3, she added.

I need one of these to build me a new house.

Seriously, can you imagine what it would do to the housing market if all you needed to build a house was a set of plans, a 3-D printer, and a stock of raw material?

Sadness in Space

A gallery in the New Scientist of unsuccessful or canceled NASA programs.

A continuing refrain:

With work progressing and the factory mostly completed, Congress refused further funding due to spiralling costs and a slipping schedule.

Philosophers Needed: Apply NASA

. . . He was an engineer who until recently had been a NASA heat-shield specialist. A baffling wave of layoffs had begun, and his job was eliminated. It was so bad he was lucky to have gotten this stand-up Spielmeister gig on a tour bus. Neil Armstrong and his two crew mates, Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins, were still on their triumphal world tour ... while back home, NASA’s irreplaceable team of highly motivated space scientists — irreplaceable! — there were no others! ...anywhere! ... You couldn’t just run an ad saying, “Help Wanted: Experienced heat-shield expert” ... the irreplaceable team was breaking up, scattering in nobody knows how many hopeless directions.

How could such a thing happen? In hindsight, the answer is obvious. NASA had neglected to recruit a corps of philosophers.

Tom Wolfe's eulogy for the manned space program.

I Talk to the Spaceman

So here I am (top) earlier today, as I prepare to talk to Colonel Mike Fincke (below), who happens at this moment to be the commander of the International Space Station.

Can I just say that this has been the highlight of a really great couple of weeks?

It turns out that Colonel Fincke is a big fan of my writing, and it so happens he's reading Implied Spaces right now. He happened to mention his choice of reading matter to someone at NASA, and as a result they contacted me and set up a teleconference, courtesy of a great many people at New Mexico Tech.

The teleconference was supposed to be a private conversation between Col. Fincke and myself, so there was no advanced publicity, and no recordings were made (except by eavesdroppers in other countries, maybe). When the chat started, everyone was shooed out of the room so that I could have some privacy.

We talked about my books. (I think I already mentioned that he likes them.) We talked about the fact that due to his training schedule, he's spend a third of his life in Russia since 2002. We talked about space tourism--- he'd shared a few days of his mission with Richard Garriott. I mentioned that, since he's an MIT graduate, I was surprised he wasn't talking to Joe Haldeman.

Every so often, he'd turn a cartwheel. I assume this wasn't out of exuberance--- although he's a pretty exuberant guy--- but a result of some gesture or shift of position that spun him around.

At one point, when I mentioned that I envied him his view, he offered to pick up his computer and move it to the window so that I could get a picture. Houston vetoed this, however, as the space station had just been maneuvering and the windows were supposed to be closed for a time.

We compared notes about the fact that we both chose our career at a very early age. I decided I wanted to be a writer before I could actually read or write: I'd dictate stories to my parents, who would write them down for me. Mike saw men walk on the moon when he was very young--- he would have been five at the time of the last Apollo mission--- and decided at that point that he was going to be an astronaut.

I mentioned that we were both being paid for jobs we'd do for free.

The conversation lasted only twenty-five minutes or so before we lost telemetry.

Thanks to Kelly Curtis and the other folks at NASA for setting this up, and to Rob Hepler and the staff at NMT Distance Education.

I hope Mike Fincke keeps turning those cartwheels.