The Command Post - Global Recon

Special Analysis: STRATCOM's 4-Star Blogger

This note was relayed and posted to Sgt. Stryker’s Daily Briefing, in the wake of Gen. Cartwright’s meeting with his senior Non-Comissioned Officers (NCOs):

“The metric is what the person has to contribute, not the person’s rank, age, or level of experience. If they have the answer, I want the answer. When I post a question on my blog, I expect the person with the answer to post back. I do not expect the person with the answer to run it through you, your OIC, the branch chief, the exec, the Division Chief and then get the garbled answer back before he or she posts it for me. The Napoleonic Code and Netcentric Collaboration cannot exist in the same space and time. It’s YOUR job to make sure I get my answers and then if they get it wrong or they could have got it righter, then you guide them toward a better way… but do not get in their way.”

JAMES E. CARTWRIGHT
General, USMC
Commander, USSTRATCOM

If you have to ask where Gen. Cartwright’s blog is, you don’t have access. Now, what’s the larger significance, and will this really work?

Read the Rest….

Nineteen Years Ago Today - Where Were You?

On January 28, 1986, the 25th Space Shuttle mission (STS-51L) ended in tragedy 73 seconds after launch; the Challenger Orbiter was destroyed and its seven-member crew killed.

Transcript of Radio Transmission

The following is a transcript of the radio transmission of the last minutes of the Space Shuttle Challenger as was seen and heard on most of the U.S. television networks and at the NASA launch site.

Controller: Engines at 65 percent, three engines uh running normally, three good fuel cells, three good IDUs.
(Pause in radio transmission)
Controller: Velocity 22 hundred and 57 feet per second. Altitude 4.3 nautical miles down range distance 3 nautical miles.
(Pause in radio transmission)
Controller: Engines throttling up, three engines down 104 percent.
(Pause in radio transmission)
Mission Control: Challenger go with throttle up.
(Pause in radio transmission)
Challenger Pilot: Roger, going with throttle up.
(Pause in radio transmission)
** Space Shuttle Challenger Explodes **
Controller: 1 minute 15 seconds velocity 29 hundred feet per second, altitude 9 nautical miles, Down range distance 7 nautical miles.
(Pause in radio transmission)
Controller: Flight controllers here looking very carefully at the situation, obviously a major malfunction.
(Pause in radio transmission)
Controller: We have no downlink.
(Pause in radio transmission)
Controller: We have a report from the Flight Dynamics Officer that the vehicle has exploded the Flight Director confirms that, we are looking at uh checking with the recovery forces to see what can be done at this point.
(Pause in radio transmission)
Controller: Contingency procedures are in effect.
(Pause in radio transmission)
Controller: We will report uh more as we have information available. Again to repeat uh we have a report uh relayed through the Flight Dynamics Officer that the vehicle has exploded we are now looking at the all of the contingency operations and awaiting word from the any recovery forces in the down range field.
(end transmission)

President Ronald Reagan (audio here):

Ladies and Gentlemen, I’d planned to speak to you tonight to report on the state of the Union, but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans. Today is a day for mourning and remembering. Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss.

Nineteen years ago, almost to the day, we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident on the ground. But we’ve never lost an astronaut in flight; we’ve never had a tragedy like this. And perhaps we’ve forgotten the courage it took for the crew of the shuttle. But they, the Challenger Seven, were aware of the dangers, overcame them and did their jobs brilliantly. We mourn seven heroes: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe. We mourn their loss as a nation together.

[To] the families of the seven: we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy. But we feel the loss, and we’re thinking about you so very much. Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special spirit that says, “Give me a challenge, and I’ll meet it with joy.” They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They wished to serve, and they did. They served all of us. We’ve grown used to wonders in this century. It’s hard to dazzle us. But for 25 years the United States space program has been doing just that. We’ve grown used to the idea of space, and perhaps we forget that we’ve only just begun. We’re still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers.

And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle’s takeoff. I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It’s all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It’s all part of taking a chance and expanding man’s horizons. The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we’ll continue to follow them.

I’ve always had great faith in and respect for our space program, and what happened today does nothing to diminish it. We don’t hide our space program. We don’t keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That’s the way freedom is, and we wouldn’t change it for a minute. We’ll continue our quest in space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space. Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue. I want to add that I wish I could talk to every man and woman who works for NASA or who worked on this mission and tell them: ““Your dedication and professionalism have moved an impressed us for decades. And we know of your anguish. We share it. “

There’s a coincidence today. On this day 390 years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and an historian later said, ““He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it.” Well today we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake’s, complete.

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God.”

Thank you.

Challenger’s commander was Francis R. Scobee. The mission pilot was Michael J. Smith. Mission specialists were Judith A. Resnik, Ellison S. Onizuka and Ronald E. McNair. The mission also carried two payload specialists, Gregory B. Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe, who was the first teacher in space.

——-

January 28, 1986: I was at home on a cold, snowy day in New York, playing a baseball simulation game on my C64. My mother was watching CNN. When I heard her gasp, I looked up at the tv. I stared, transfixed, for what may have been hours at the unfolding news. It’s one of those moments you never forget - it stands still in my mind and I could tell you every detail of those few moments of realization, right down to what color socks I was wearing. It was a “where were you” moment.

Where were you?

Update by Alan: In reading the rememberances, I’m drawn to what I still think is the best piece Bill Whittle has written: Courage.

Spacecraft Lands On Saturn Moon

The European Space Agency’s Huygens Probe, part of the Cassini-Huygens mission, landed on Titan at 7:45 ET this morning. Titan, one of Saturn’s 33 known moons, is bigger than the Mercury and Pluto, and is one of the few moons in our solar system with its own atmosphere.

CNN reports that scientists from the European Space Agency are elated:

“We have a signal. We know that Huygens is alive meaning the dream is alive,” said Jean-Jacques Dordain director general for ESA which designed Huygens. “This is already an engineering success and we will see, later this afternoon, if this is a scientific success.”

A European Space Agency press release states that the signal “indicates that the back cover of Huygens must have been ejected, the main parachute must have been deployed and that the probe has begun to transmit, in other words, the probe is alive. This, however, still does not mean that any data have been acquired, nor that they have been received by Cassini.”

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a $3.3-billion joint effort between NASA, the European Space Agency and Italy’s space program to study the Saturn system. The Cassini orbiter was built and managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The Huygens probe was built by the European Space Agency. The Italian Space agency provided Cassini’s high-gain communication antenna.

From California Yankee.

Friday the 13th

Cross-Posted from AEBrain, the Blog.

Friday the 13th of April 2029 has a 1 in 62.5 chance of being a Bad Day if you’re in the wrong spot.

According to the latest data from NASA, an asteroid named 2004 MN4 has been detected and tracked with that chance of hitting the Earth on that date.

If it happens, the impact would be the equivalent of an explosion of about 2,200 Megatonnes of TNT.

This is the first time that any asteroid has been detected with a Torino Scale Threat Rating of greater than 1. Until the latest measurements earlier today, the rating was 2. It’s now 4.

Here’s the definition of what Torino 4 means :

A close encounter, with 1% or greater chance of a collision capable of causing regional devastation.

Note: this is not a “Dinosaur Killer”, and anyone on a different continent from the impact will likely only be aware of it from news broadcasts, spacetacular sunsets, and a few slightly colder than normal seasons - much the same as if a number of major volcanos let rip simultaneously.

On the other hand, anyone within a hundred miles of the impact would likely have a tough time. The crater will be nearly 4 miles across. Anyone within 50 miles will get 200 mph winds, a bombardment of rocks ranging from golfball size to football size, and the equivalent effects of a magnitude 6.8 earthquake. (Data from the Impact Effects Calculator, with parameters of Velocity 12.59 km/sec, 0.44 km diameter size, Dense Rock, 45 degree impact angle).

Note also : As we get more observations about this asteroid over the coming years, the chances will go up and down. It could easily drop to near-zero as we get more data. At the moment, it’s still only 1 chance in 62.5, about the same as rolling 17 or 18 using 3D6, or rolling a “natural” 7 or 11 three times in a row at craps. The situation bears watching, but that’s all.

Merry Christmas.

Space Station Crew Told To Ration Food

Reuters reports that the International Space Station (ISS) crew has been told to ration food:

Russian cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov and American Leroy Chiao have been asked to cut out calories equal to three cans of Coke from their daily diet — around 10 percent of their daily allowance and an amount that would be little noticed, NASA said.

Supplies have been tight at the ISS since Columbia was destroyed during re-entry in February 2003.

The crew has enough food to maintain a balanced diet for approximately another month. A Russian Progress supply ship carrying food and other supplies is scheduled to be launched on December 24 and reach the space station two days later.

If they do not receive fresh supplies, the astronauts would have to evacuate the station and return to earth.

From California Yankee.