Ripple effects
Jan. 28th, 2004 09:23 amAppear as White House decisions percolate downwards into field agencies... in this case, the redirection of NASA away from LEO to an eventual return to the Moon and thence to Mars. In one of my Mars drilling projects (the one with field tests in Spain) we were partnered with people at Johnson Space Center in Houston... they, and people at an oil equipment company (Baker-Hughes) were going to develop a large Mars-analog drill for testing in 2005 in Spain. But the JSC folks were in the exploration division... who are reorganizing after the announcement two weeks ago.
(Background: for most of the past decade, lunar and Mars exploration efforts had to be hidden in other budgets, or carefully rationalized in terms of benefits to the space station or Shuttle programs. Now the "Mars Underground" is coming out of the closet and will probably become the new JSC establishment)
The folks working on our drill are being reassigned... so JSC is punting on their drill. We have to find a new Mars-analog drill, in mid-project. The leading candidate is from another one of my projects (the Honeybee drill from DAME). But there's another possibility... I'm in a telecon currently, and we will meet again this afternoon to try to reach a decision. If the MARTE project goes with Honeybee, it strengthens my automation project (same people, same drill, economies of scale and I control the drill). Plus I don't mind business travel to NYC (smile). If otherwise, then we are back at the status quo (different projects, different drills) but CS controls her own drill hardware.
All are just trivially-minor ripples from the White House announcement...
In addition, this week has been interesting having![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
geekchick be quasi-local... I don't quite know how to do local relationships, I'm used to LDRs. How often to call? How much time to try to spend? It varies by relationship, of course, but also having her be nearby is different. With seemingly more access, I have to resist the urge to drive down to San Jose daily... or call four times a day, now that we're in the same time zone. Just like I call patgreene several times daily... A lot of this is just pent-up LDR catchup (hm... condimentary...) on my part, and would undoubtedly stabilize at some reasonable value over a longer time.
(Background: for most of the past decade, lunar and Mars exploration efforts had to be hidden in other budgets, or carefully rationalized in terms of benefits to the space station or Shuttle programs. Now the "Mars Underground" is coming out of the closet and will probably become the new JSC establishment)
The folks working on our drill are being reassigned... so JSC is punting on their drill. We have to find a new Mars-analog drill, in mid-project. The leading candidate is from another one of my projects (the Honeybee drill from DAME). But there's another possibility... I'm in a telecon currently, and we will meet again this afternoon to try to reach a decision. If the MARTE project goes with Honeybee, it strengthens my automation project (same people, same drill, economies of scale and I control the drill). Plus I don't mind business travel to NYC (smile). If otherwise, then we are back at the status quo (different projects, different drills) but CS controls her own drill hardware.
All are just trivially-minor ripples from the White House announcement...
In addition, this week has been interesting having
geekchick be quasi-local... I don't quite know how to do local relationships, I'm used to LDRs. How often to call? How much time to try to spend? It varies by relationship, of course, but also having her be nearby is different. With seemingly more access, I have to resist the urge to drive down to San Jose daily... or call four times a day, now that we're in the same time zone. Just like I call patgreene several times daily... A lot of this is just pent-up LDR catchup (hm... condimentary...) on my part, and would undoubtedly stabilize at some reasonable value over a longer time.
