Forget Mars, let's explore the Brazil/Peru border

I came across this story and accompanying photos this morning and couldn't help but see a strong resemblance to the photos of the Waodani from the 1950s. Two questions immediately came to mind:

1. I wonder who will be the first to attempt to make contact with this people group?

2. From the experience of Elliot, Saint, et. al., how will the contact attempts be different and what will be the same?


In light of yesterday's post, which do you think will be reached first, a human on Mars or outside contact with at least one of the 100 or so uncontacted tribes in the Brazil/Peru region?

Who needs pets?

When you have a yard full of animals, who needs pets?

Annually, the Robins build nests and lay eggs under the deck. Unfortunately for the family, the first one hatched in the middle of our Memorial Day picnic. And as we went to mow the lawn the other day, my wife discovered a small burrow with four or five newly born rabbits. I've checked on the bunnies every few days. I'm glad I didn't come into the world like a rabbit. Mom is rarely to be found leaving the bunnies huddled together in their common hole covered only with grass clippings for protection.

So why bother with having to clean up after a pet when you can just watch nature run it's course unattended in the backyard?

Is a Manned Mars Mission realistic?

In reading Cranz's Failure Is Not An Option, and I'm currently in Michael Collins' Carrying The Fire, the following appear to have contributed significantly to the ultimate success in putting man on the moon...

1. A popular President in JFK set a specific mandate

2. Though impossible to truly measure, it seems to me that JFK's assassination may have played an even larger role in motivating NASA to make good on the mandate

3. Everyone involved understood and accepted the inherit risks of exploring realms not conducive to human survival

4. Early on there was distinct pressure from the USSR that was also a key motivational force, though by the mid-60's that pressure was fading.

It took those four factors and a large group of brilliant minds to achieve the moon. And even with all of those strong forces aligned, a handful of lives were lost, not to mention the number of close calls and the objective was achieved with just several months to spare. Based on the accounts of Cranz, Lovell and Collins, the journey to Mars is a different ball game.

Since achieving the moon, for the past two decades NASA has struggled at times to get in and out of Earth orbit safely, exposing flaws in their decision-making processes. I was impressed by Cranz's account of the multitude of Go/NoGo decision points during a mission. That was just for a 3-day trip to the moon. I can't imagine number of such decision points for a 9-month trip to Mars. That said, I don't doubt man's ability to find a way, but I don't think the other factors are in place.

One, national leadership is lacking.
Two, as a society, in many ways we're less willing to invest lives for the sake of accomplishing an objective; unless you're an extreme sports athlete. And while I'm sure there are already astronauts lined up to board the first ship to Mars I don't think the public is willing to accept the risks involved.
Three, I'm unaware of any other entity pursuing a similar cause to create any sense of competition.

All of that said, as I watched coverage of the Phoenix mission which landed on Memorial Day, I wondered how long it will be before I'm watching a screen with images of a human taking the first steps on Mars.

Failure Is Not An Option

I picked up Apollo 13, the print version, for probably the fourth or fifth time recently. About a third of the way through the book, I went looking for the accounts of other Apollo team players. I came upon Gene Cranz's book, Failure Is Not An Option. Gene worked in Mission Control during the Gemini and Apollo missions. I enjoyed reading his accounts, especially of Apollo 11 and 13 and all you'll see from the excerpts that caught my attention, his analysis of the current state of the US space program was also noteworthy.

..."Failure is not an option." That was not true in the beginning of the space program. There had been many failures back then-because we hadn't learned enough about the perilous business in which we were engaged.

how long the flight took [from va to fl] on one of those old prop aircraft on any given day depended on the size of the bugs that hit the windshield and slowed it down.

As an American, I hated to see our nation second in anything-and I had no doubt we were second in space.

This [space] was a race we had to win and I wanted to be a part of it.

Mercury [America's first forays into space] worked because of the raw courage of a handful of men like Gordon Cooper, who sat in heavy metal eggcups jammed on the top of rockets, and trusted those of us on the ground. That trust tied the entire team into a common effort.

I had left behind a world where airplanes were flying at roughly five miles a minute. In this new, virtually uncharted world we would be moving at five miles per second. During a mission countdown, or even a flight test, so many things would be happening so fast that you did not have any time for second thoughts or arguments. You wanted the debate behind you. So before the mission, you held meetings to decide what to do if anything went wrong. You wrote down on paper the outcome of these meetings and this became what you needed for a launch, your personal list of Go NoGo's. There was no room in the process for emotion, no space for fear or doubt, no time to stop and think things over. A launch is an existential moment, much like combat. With no time to think about anything, you had to be prepared to respond to any contingency--and those contingencies had to be as fully anticipated as possible before you pushed the button. You also had to be thoroughly knowledgeable about the responsibilities of launch control and range safety. During a launch the only mission alternative to save the capsule was an abort, and we had to pick the points to act before the range safety officer stepped in to blow up the rocket and the capsule after launch if things went to hell.

...Apollo succeeded because at critical moments... the bosses had no hesitation about assigning crucial tasks to one individual, trusting his judgment, and then getting out of his way.

Success belonged to the team; failure was ultimately my responsibility.

When you turned loose the energy of a Saturn rocket, you simply had to have trust in your crew, your team, and in yourself. Through trust you reach a place where you can exploit opportunities, respond to failures, and make every second count."

A clear goal, a powerful mandate, and a unified team allowed the United States to move from a distant second in space into a preeminent position during my tenure at Mission Control

[In assessing the current space efforts]
...we stand with our feet firmly planted on the ground when we could be exploring the universe.

...we no longer try for new and bold space achievements; instead we celebrate the anniversaries of the past.

...President, John F. Kennedy, awakened us to our responsibilities and the opportunities we had to make our nation and our world better. Overnight it seemed we became a nation committed to causes... While we often moved to different cadences, our nation was alive with ideals. We were in motion. Violence was everywhere but so was conviction that we must somehow make this a better world.

We have become a nation of spectators, unwilling to take risks or act on strong beliefs.

Although NASA has an amazing array of technology and the most talented workforce in history, it lacks top-level vision. It began its retreat from the inherent risks of space exploration after the Challenger accident. During the last decade its retreat has turned into a rout.

The United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward... JFK


Tomorrow I'll correlate these thoughts with the dreams of putting a human on Mars.

A Contrast of Psalm 23

Two consecutive days, two separate events, at nearly identical times both evenings, Psalm 23 juxtaposed between them.

Thursday evening. One hundred or more family, relatives and friends gathered in the Auditorium. The atmosphere energetic, with multiple distractions. Some 50-70 children, ages 3-5 searching for those they know in the audience, waving to them exuberantly, singing, wiggling and doing all of the hand motions. Lots of color, each child in a colored t-shirt, bright red, green and purple. The Kindergarten students, reciting from memory, Psalm 23. The culmination of their year of schooling the commencement of their entry into first grade.

Friday evening. One hundred or more family, relatives and friends gathered in the Auditorium. The atmosphere subdued, reminiscent, focused. Largely comprised of adults, all but a handful on the stage. Those in the audience discreetly searching for those they know in the audience; there were many. Muted colors. One of the family reading Psalm 23. The culmination of a life remembered the commencement of her entry into heaven.

Psalm 23, the common thread.

Creative solutions to rising gas prices

5. Hitch a ride on a school district bus route

4. On skateboard, tag from bumper to bumper of the vehicles heading the way you need to go

3. Get an Amish scooter and build up your leg push muscles

2. Take the bus

1. Carpool

Two to three years later, I'm still beating the same drum trying to lobby others to join me in carpooling to work. With about seven of us living within a mile or two of each other, it appears to be a prime opportunity to conserve resources through ride sharing. I did up a quick cost analysis spreadsheet.

At $3.75 per gallon with a vehicle that's averaging 20 miles per gallon, the commute is costing those who live around five miles from the office roughly $2.00 per day round trip. A commute under three miles only costs around $1.01.

		Miles one-way	Cost per Day		Savings/Day	Savings/Month	Savings/Year
Employee 1		5.3	$1.99		$1.04	$20.75	$249.00
Employee 2		5.1	$1.91		$0.96	$19.25	$231.00
Employee 3		4.7	$1.76		$0.81	$16.25	$195.00
Employee 4		2.7	$1.01
One-way		17.8			7.6
Round Trip		35.6			15.2
Miles/Gallon	20			Gallons per trip	$0.76
$/Gallon	3.75			Cost per trip	$2.85
				Cost per Employee	$0.95

Within three miles, the savings trade off doesn't seem substantial enough to warrant carpooling. But for those who commute approximately five miles it seems worthwhile. Through ride sharing the cost per employee would dip to under a dollar per day with about an extra dollar of savings. In a year the savings would accumulate close to $200 in savings.

I know how you feel

My eye glasses prescription is grossly near-sighted. Since Grade 1, without glasses I might as well be blind. I remember trying to watch Star Wars: Return of the Jedi when I had recently broken my glasses. My friend had to read me the subtitles of what Jabba the Hutt was saying because I couldn't read them on the screen.

The same thing happens when I get my haircut. The glasses get in the way of the haircutting, so they're usually laying on shelf nearby. Meanwhile, I can't see a thing. I can't see the expression on people's faces, I can't tell how the haircut is going; I enter this serene lost world until the haircut is over. I sometimes even lose awareness that just because I can't see everyone else, doesn't mean they can't still see me with regular clarity! The best is when the barber asks me to assess my haircut without my glasses on.

A similar occurrence takes place when I need to pick out new frames. I have no perception of how the frames look because I can't see without having the mirror within inches of my face. That view is more conducive to assessing the status of my nose pores than it is in assessing how well a particular frame looks on my face. And in an extreme case of customer-service-neglect, every opthamologist I've ever been to has you try out new frames while your eyes are dilating for the inner-eye inspection. That has to be the worst time to be considering a style change when your vision is already limited!

The last time my prescription changed when I went to pick up the new lenses I immediately knew that something was off. My vision with the glasses was warped and very uncomfortable. I instantly informed the salesperson of the problem to which they replied, "Oh, you just have to adjust to your new prescription." Excuse me, I've been adjusting to new prescriptions since I was in Grade 1, I think I know when there's a problem. They still didn't believe me. Ultimately, I was proved correct. Due to a transcribing error, the axis on the left lens was rotated 90 degrees from what it should have been. I've since switched opthamologists.

The commonality among all of these individuals is they can't fully relate to what I'm experiencing. It's impossible for them to do so. They can empathize based on similar experiences they've been through, but they can't fully appreciate what I'm experiencing. Though I've been taught these principles in the classroom and experienced it firsthand, I sometimes struggle to apply that to the rest of life. I will never fully know exactly how you feel.

How observant are you?

The comments I've received all week have been amusing. They've spanned from those who've immediately observed a difference in my appearance to those who've second guessed themselves as to whether it's been that way for a week or more and they're just now noticing, to the one person who couldn't remember if I had even worn glasses previously.

How observant are you?

Freshly Popped or Pooped

I've become accutely aware of an occupational hazard working in a ministry with a daycare center. The daycare prepares popcorn for the afternoon snack each day, but it's becoming more difficult to distinguish which odor is eminating from freshly popped popcorn and which odor is eminating from a freshly pooped diaper.

Seriously, walk through the hallway some weekday afternoon around 3:30 and tell me you don't have the same problem!

Whether it's popped or pooped, one thing is for sure, it's fresh.

Another reason why churches shouldn't celebrate Mother's Day...

To protect forgetful fathers.

I've shared Mother's Day thoughts previously; here's a new reason. For the father(s) who may have awoken Sunday morning, having inadvertently forgotten the national day, it's not until they get to church that the error of their ways is exposed. And when compared to the curve-wrecker fathers whose mothers/wives are gushing about the pampering they've received, it can turn into an arduous morning.

Speaking of which, how come we accept Christmas shopping for loved ones all the way up until the last minute on December 24, but family members who are out at the last minute on the Saturday night before Mother's Day are looked up with disdain?

For the record, we celebrated Mother's Day with my Mom and Oma on Saturday evening. :)

Cost analysis: a tank of gas or a traffic ticket

I pity those who've been stuck behind me on the roads lately. With gas prices topping $3.50+ per gallon, I've made a conscious effort to see how much gas I can conserve per tank. I've been laying off the accelerator and coasting at every opportunity, sometimes even shifting into neutral to reduce drag. So far it's worked. Last week I increased my gas mileage by over 2 miles per gallon. But this exercise spawned a cost analysis exercise recently.

While traversing Kissel Hill by the Lititz Library every day, I've figured out you can coast well into town if you let the vehicle go. But with a posted 25mph speed limit, letting the car go gets it up to 45mph. That made me question whether the cost of gas has increased to the point that accepting the traffic ticket would be more cost effective then a tank of gas.

Penn State defeats Ohio State enroute to National Championship!

It may not be football, but a win over Ohio State and a National Championship are worth noting, especially since Volleyball doesn't get the national or Pastor's Email Update coverage it deserves.
http://gopsusports.cstv.com/sports/m-volley/recaps/050308aaa.html