Hello everybody!

	I have been here a little longer than two weeks now, so I
guess it's time for another update.  I apologize for the length of this, 
but there's so much to talk about!
	I had my first real leisure day this weekend.  By liesure I mean
"an activity not related to productive work," not "a relaxing 
activity."  We went whitewater rafting near Uniontown, P.A., which is an 
activity I highly recommend.  It's not for the weak of heart!  We had 
several injuries, but I was lucky enough to get away with only a 
shattered fingernail.  
	Since the last update, we have spoken with many of the "brass
hats" at nasa, including most of the NASA administrator's cabinet.  The
grapevine tells me that they were impressed with the lot of us and have
recommended us highly to the administrator, Dan Goldin, who is either
revered or hated, depending on whom you ask.  I suppose that's so with
any leader, particularly if he/she is making major changes in an
organization, as this one is. As a result, we will get to speak with him
personally in a few weeks.  We had previously planned to speak with him,
but he cancelled; now we have a second chance. 
	An aside for the educationally indeterminate:  many of the really
big people at nasa - the leaders, their staff, and the innovative
scientists - have had careers or college degrees that seemed unrelated to
NASA and space at the time.  So, if you want to do something that you
feel you aren't trained for, it's still possible.
	A revolution is occurring in the space business, and it's due to
the ending of the cold war.  Funding for NASA has been cut to the point
where it cannot continue to be the same kind of organization it used to
be.  It appears that the present NASA administration is doing a pretty
good job of trying to hold things together, but the situation is dire and
programs are dropping like flies.  Ailing programs, however, are almost
minor compared to the big news:  NASA is undergoing major organizational
 and philosophical changes.  The purpose of the space program, which is
defined as "expanding the limits of human knowledge about the universe
for the good of the United states and the world" is being threatened.  I
think that Dan Goldin, the NASA administrator, originally thought he
could beat the agency into shape and continue to go forward without
significantly altering NASA's major activities such as manned space
flight, but I'm not sure that it's working out as planned, despite
massive layoffs (euphemistically called RIFs, for Reduction In Force) and
project cutbacks.  One major problem is the view (of many legislators)
that any money spent has to have direct, immediate, and tangible
benefits, which is difficult to produce from an R&D organization like
NASA.  So, the whole idea that R&D is "worth it" is in doubt, from a
national perspective, which makes funding difficult. 
	As a result of these philosophical and budgetary changes, NASA's 
activities have become much more narrowly focused upon earth science and 
communication technologies, because these have palpable benfits from an 
educational and commercial standpoint.  Planetary, solar, and 
astrophysical pursuits, while still kicking, are becoming extremely 
lean.  
	On a more positive note, NASA has renewed its backing for science
by stating that science is and will be the driving force and purpose
behind the organization, and is still strongly committed to manned space
flight, the space station, and a manned mars expedition, although
enthusiasm for the latter is waning; it's hard to imagine where
the money will come from.  It's estimated to cost 35 billion over a
decade or more; at present, NASA's entire yearly budget is 13 billion. 
However, NASA will not have to pay for it all; it's a truly international
effort, which is a trend in all space activities.  Even the Hubble Space
Telescope is somewhat international - the solar panels and one scientific
package came from the ESA (European Space Agency).  Some of this summer's
NASA academy activities are dedicated to fueling enthusiasm for manned
mars exploration. 

	I have also had the good fortune to speak with a number of
investigators and scientists doing very interesting work, such as Dr.
Maria Zuber, who is the chief Investigator for the Mars Observer's laser
altimeter instrument and the chief geophysicist for the mission.  As a
result of Viking, mars is now the most studied planet in the solar system
besides the earth, but there are some fundamental questions that remain
to be answered by the observer and pathfinder missions (to be launched
next year).  For example, it was thought until recently that the northern
hemisphere of mars was much lower than the southern, making the two
hemispheres geologically distinct. This has important ramifications in
planetary formation theory (I have a textbook from last year that holds
this older point of view, that's how recent this info is).  Careful study
of Viking's data has shown that this is not true; the planet's center of
mass is eccentric and therefore threw off data taken with sensors
designed with the assumption that the center of mass was consistent
throughout the planet.  Any data returned from the mars missions should
be additionally important because studying the martian system, which
apparently is completely geological, can help us understand how the
Earth's possession of a biosphere has effected geological processes.  So,
it may help us to understand Earth's climactic changes etc. in a new
way. 
	Another interesting speaker was Ian Pryke, the Washington
representative of the ESA (European Space Agency).  We spoke with him
within days of the explosion of the ESA's new launch vehicle, the Arianne
five, which carried a payload of scientific spacecraft.  Most of the lost
craft were NASA instruments, with a total value of over half a billion
dollars.  Several of these spacecraft were due to be controlled from the
building I work in, and it was a grim day around here when the failure
happened.  People have been working for years on these projects, and now
they've got nothing to do, and all their hard work was vaporized at high
altitude because of a navigational computer error (computer science
people, I don't know if it was a hardware or software error yet!).
	Perhaps the most enlightening experience I had this week was a
trip to two private space organizations: Orbital Sciences Corp. (OSC) and
Aero Astro (AA).  Both have headquarters in the DC area.  The founder and
CEO of OSC was a former student intern of Dr. Soffen, the director of the
NASA academy - my program. 
	It turns out that private space industry is flourishing; OSC,
which has specialized in launch vehicles, can launch payloads in a
variety of orbits for a cost far less than anything NASA can produce,
although the payloads have to be smaller and less complex.  They were
more than happy to see us, treated us like kings, and invited us all to
work for them.  That was a wee bit exciting, specially when the CEO said
"we'll be hiring in about a year, and we need lots of programmers and
thermal engineers."  I am the only CS major in the group, but just about
everyone else is a good programmer or thermal/mechanical engineer.  OSC
has a really wonderful site with gardens and other nice facilities and
seems like a great place to work.  There are countless financial and
technical details that made that visit interesting, but I'll leave them
out for the sake of brevity.
	The other company that we visited, Aero Astro, seems like utopia! 
The president of the company said that he doesn't think people work well
in groups of more than 15 or 20, so he's got the entire thing split up
into small operations of about that number of people.  The operations are
geographically separated, and he fosters an attitude of independence in
each of them.  Everybody has an office, but there are no doors, and
there's no hierarchical structure.  There's one manager in each regional
office, and that's it.  Anyone can talk to the CEO, and although the
workers are all highly trained people, they get a chance to do all kinds
of jobs - they don't get stuck in a cubicle like they might at a larger
company, where historically, engineers and computer people never see the
final results of their projects.  At AA, The computer people do
electronics, the engineers can talk directly to the computer people,
there's no interoffice mail, no corporate communication structure - you
just walk over and talk to the guy/gal in question.  The elimination of
paperwork and administrative overhead allows this company to build
satellites for unbelievably low rates.  Also, because of the freedom and
lack of a lumbering corporate mechanism, they are able to propose really
unconventional ideas.  For instance, they showed me a 1 kilogram
satellite, which was about the size of a large sandwich.  It has a
propulsion system, camera, transceiver, solar cells etc. and has a very
long lifetime - 2-10 years!  It can be used for communication or remote
sensing, and costs almost nothing compared to traditional craft. 
Astonishing.  The company doesn't believe that people should have to
sacrifice their lives for the corporation - I'm quoting the CEO - and if
someone wants to work for them but lives in florida, where AA has no
office, well, they will work something out.  If you need to come in at a
strange time because you have a family or whatever - no problem.  Race,
age, education, whatever - no problem, just as long as you can produce
results.  This company is overwhelmed with resumes, they told us.  Not a
surprise! 

	I realize that this update is rather long, so I'll save the rest 
for another time.  If there's anything you want to know, ask me and I'll 
do my best to answer.

See ya!