Instinct to Explore -- Chapter 1

This is the first entry in a planned series of entries relating some of my experiences with Space Transport Corporation, a company that I cofounded with a fellow engineer, Phil Storm, from Aerojet. We founded the company in 2002 with our sights set on the X Prize.

The text should stand alone, but pictures are included at the end.

-------

Human beings have thrived on this planet because of an insatiable curiosity – an endless drive to learn and explore. This trait has led to a remarkable knowledge of and ability to manipulate our environment – perhaps to our own detriment if we are not careful! Exploration of the various corners of earth’s land took humanity a long time. We finished it off just in the last century by standing atop the highest mountains and planting flags on the north and south poles.

Since Orville and Wilbur Wright’s famous 1903 flight at Kitty Hawk [1], we have mastered air flight. This mastery was given a big boost with the legendary solo crossing of the Atlantic by Charles Lindbergh [2]. Any kid who has read and failed to be inspired by Lindbergh’s book The Spirit of Saint Louis should receive medical evaluation. This crossing won him the $25,000 Orteig Prize – a hefty sum in 1927. The prize had been on the table since 1919. Aviation was in its infancy and realistic competition did not begin until 1924. Aviation saw rapid advance in the 1920s and 1930s and played a crucial role in World War II. Commercial airline service began in the 1950s and is now commonplace – about a billion people fly each year.

Next came the challenge of exploring outer space. Robert Goddard was the preeminent pioneer of rocketry [3]. The idea that space could be explored was generally considered ludicrous. In 1920 The New York Times wrote an editorial related to Goddard’s early work and stated that Goddard, because of his confidence that rocket propulsion would work outside of our atmosphere, "seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools." Incidentally, the now famous Lindbergh was intrigued by Goddard’s work and in 1929 became a friend and supporter. Financing was tough to find after the stock market crash of 1929. It was Lindbergh who greased the skids for the Guggenheim family to fund Goddard’s research ($100,000 over 4 years). It turns out that Goddard was right, Newton’s laws do hold true in outer space; we saw Sputnik orbit in 1957 and Apollo 11 put us on the moon in 1969. Unlike the aviation experience, space travel has not become commonplace. In fact, we have not returned to the moon since the last Apollo mission in 1972. NASA has sent probes to the outskirts of the solar system, put rovers on and satellites around Mars, and played a key role in developing satellite networks in orbit. The ISS has been interesting although the overall profitability (i.e. the value of the knowledge gained vs. the cost) is questionable. But why haven’t we cultivated a large human (or robotic) presence beyond earth orbit? Because there has been no clear commercial incentive.

To mention a few of the benefits we enjoy because of our spacefaring capability, we have satellite TV, worldwide cell phone service, and GPS technology which is crucial to our commercial aviation network and to our militaries, and space observation capability that lets us feel the pulse of our planet’s ecosystem. The commercial spacecraft that launch the satellites required for these technologies are effective and cheap enough to represent only a small part of the total expense of the satellite services. However, as Einstein showed, all things are relative, and something may be cheap relative to worldwide satellite TV, but not relative to other transportation costs like air travel. It costs $10,000 per pound to put something in orbit.

Space exploitation is an appropriate and eventually imperative goal for humanity. If we are to continue our intellectual growth we need to explore and understand the broader cosmos, beginning with the solar system. Clearly, significant population increases must take place off of this planet. Furthermore, if we want to survive an asteroid impact we must have one or both of significant capability to deflect the asteroid, or a second independent population center (on Mars for example). In the *very* long run, we should think about bailing out of the solar system when the sun goes red giant.

A space tourism industry would generate the research and development money needed to build a robust and economical space transportation system. Only then can we tap into the tremendous potential benefits to be found beyond earth orbit. In the early days of aviation, barnstormers did performances and took people for joy rides. A similar spacestorming effort may jumpstart the stalled space age. Perhaps after spacestorming financially vitalizes space development, we can make serious progress in developing space. Exactly what kind of early development will be most useful to humanity is unclear, but to name a few possible pursuits, moon mining might be profitable (see e.g. the book Moonrush), space solar power might be feasible, and asteroids might yield valuable resources.

The X Prize was created in 1996 as a modern parallel to the Orteig Prize won by Lindbergh. The goal: launch a person to space twice in a two week period using a reusable vehicle developed with private funds. The prize: $10 million. The X Prize cofounder Peter Diamandis dreamed of being an astronaut. He recognized that the odds of realizing this dream were low and the X Prize idea was born. The prize received a multi-million dollar donation by the Ansari family and became the Ansari X Prize in 2004. Using the Ansari money, the “Ansari X Prize” was insured through Jan. 1, 2005 for the full $10M with a “hole-in-one” insurance policy.

In 2004, the company that I cofounded in 2002, Space Transport Corporation (STC), began testing the 12” diameter solid rocket motors that would power our Rubicon suborbital spacecraft, our entry in the X Prize. The renowned aerospace engineer, Burt Rutan, designed the Voyager airplane that completed a record-setting round-the-world flight in 1986. He and his company, Scaled Composites, began a quest for the X Prize in 1997 and eventually received near $30 million dollars from Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen. By 2004, they were the clear leader in the X Prize competition. In June 2004, they conducted the first private human spaceflight.

STC’s headquarters was in Forks, Washington, a quaint little town of 2,500 people on the far west end of the Olympic Peninsula. The two-man STC had been warmly welcomed in to set up operations in Forks back in 2003. The Forks City Hall officials were excited to have their own little rocket company. The populace affectionately called us the “rocket dudes.” The Peninsula Daily News (PDN) latched onto us as an interesting story early on. In May 2003, the PDN’s Jeff Chew wrote:

“Near massive stacks of fresh-dried lumber at the Portac mill, two young men quietly labor to reshape what they see as an aerospace industry stuck in neutral.”

After a rollercoaster of rocket development, in August, 2004, we were out of time and basically out of money. We had not completed our engine test program, but the Rubicon was ready in a rough form for a low-altitude test launch. Why not go for it? Among our large group of local supporters and enthusiasts, we found someone with a plot of land sitting atop a bluff above the Pacific Ocean. The Rubicon was to achieve supersonic speed and an altitude of 20,000 feet whereupon the vehicle would deploy a parachute and descend for splashdown and boat recovery.

On August 8, 2004 from the launch site atop a coastal cliff near Queets, Washington, the blue sky stretched endlessly over the calm Pacific Ocean. The Rubicon sat waiting in its launch rail, aimed out over the ocean. One passenger was on board: a mannequin that we’d prepared with a flight helmet and a jumpsuit. She would later become known as Stevie Austin after Steve Austin, the star of the 1974 film The Six Million Dollar Man. Down on the beach, about 2500 feet from the launch site in both directions, crowds of reporters and spectators jockeyed for prime position to view the launch. I would find out later that some of them were uncomfortably close. Fox News was there along with representatives from the Seattle PI, the Seattle Times, the Peninsula Daily News, and three Seattle TV news networks.

I was two miles offshore waiting on a crab boat that we’d chartered to perform the recovery operation. The five hour cruise up with the captain and his first mate was a pleasant break from the frantic launch preparations back on shore. We talked about the challenges of the crab fishing industry and I told them some rocket stories. It gave me some time to contemplate the situation. We’d had some success with smaller rockets using four-inch diameter solid rocket motors. This would be the first launch of our large X Prize space vehicle which used 12-inch diameter motors. We’d had two failures and one success with the 12-inchers. We felt that we understood the failures, but the raw facts were not encouraging. Failure would not mean the end of STC, but it would vaporize our chances to win the X Prize. Success would mean a glimmer of hope that we could win, especially if Scaled Composites encountered difficulty and the prize had to be extended into 2005 or 2006.

The last hour spent waiting for launch with spotty contact with the ground team via VHF marine radio seemed like a day. I could see the 25-foot-high Rubicon clearly with binoculars and I watched and waited. When the moment finally came, it was a disappointing fireworks display. One of the two motors ruptured moments after launch and burned out violently at the launch site. The second motor somersaulted out of control to an altitude of over 2000 feet. I couldn’t see the passenger capsule from my vantage point, but would later learn of Stevie Austin’s fate. She’d been heaved to near 1500 feet and had plummeted without parachute to a 200 mph splashdown about 50 feet from shore. This splashdown demolished her ship and separated her mannequin head from her Styrofoam bead-filled jumpsuit body. The beads floated to shore along with her head. One of our main supporters, Marty Dillon, made a deadpan statement to the media: “the occupant has been decapitated.”

The media had a heyday with this event. ABC Nightline did a 10 minute segment on us. The world saw the challenge that we faced and many wanted to help us meet the challenge. Why should Scaled Composites, the billionaire-backed project that had spent $20 million or more to win a $10 million prize be the only game in town?! The launch had been a nominal failure, but you can’t succeed if you don’t try, and we were certainly doing that! This event took a lot of wind from our sails and, though we pressed on, we were unable to solidify STC’s business foundation, and we had to close our doors in early 2005. “Rocket science” isn’t synonymous with “extremely difficult” for nothing!

The experience leading up to and following the Rubicon launch is a tale worth remembering. I’m going to try to write down the most interesting and dramatic aspects of the project in a series of “chapters” (blog entries?). Maybe I’ll eventually compile these into a single cohesive document that can be produced for the public, but at least I’ll have the record for myself, my family and my friends. We lived an adventure seldom seen outside of Hollywood (something like October Sky). We developed incredible personal relationships, lived in an amazing place, and learned what makes rocket science so tough.

References:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lindbergh
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Goddard_(scientist)

Eric Meier
Copyright 2008

The Wright brothers lift off in 1903:

Charles Lindbergh with his Spirit of Saint Louis airplane in 1927:

Robert Goddard with a test rocket in 1926:


Phil Storm and Eric Meier before a 12-inch solid rocket motor test in 2003:
[A friend of ours once compared the picture below to the picture of Goddard with his rocket test stand :)]

The Rubicon prior to launch in August 2004:

(image credit Jim Anderson)

The Rubicon blowing apart:

(image credit Jim Anderson)

Serene in snow

Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20081219LakeSereneWPete#

Skied to Lake Serene yesterday with my buddy Pete who is visiting. (He's from Princeton where he's doing plasma physics grad school after graduating from the A&A Dept a few years back. Here in Seattle, he's doing some research with our plasma physics group.) It was an excellent ass kicking trip. We took a fork to see Bridal Veil falls first. It wasn't cold enough for perfect ice climbing conditions, but some guys were up there giving it a whirl.




After that, we got going up to Lake Serene. The two miles from the fork to Lake Serene was killer. Very steep. Deep snow. Pete had snowshoes and wore out his quads plowing up through the deep snow. I had trouble on the very steep parts and had to get off my skis a few times.

We arrived at the Lake around 2 pm. The view at the top was quite possibly worth the effort. In the pic below, the lake is to the left of me and I'm pointing up at Mt. Index (out of pic).


As we started down there was a great photo op and I handed my camera to Pete for a pic. He promptly tipped over backwards. He took this photo from his prone position.


Temps hovered around 20 deg. Peak altitude was 2500 ft -- I really enjoyed the thick air relative to some of my other exploits this year. My new "alpine touring" (AT) skis were champs. (AT skis are like telemark skis with optional heel lockdown for downhill mode.) This was my first trip on them. Going downhill, I didn't use the heel locking feature because the ability to climb here and there was required. I kept skins on most of the time. New boots have nice stiff feel that allows great control when going downhill. With my old setup I would've fallen over backwards and wiped out with much higher frequency.

Great way to earn supper.

CO River waters

My buddy Sarp (Cihan's twin bro) wrote as a comment on a photo from their recent GC trip,

"In every western state, 80% of the water goes to agriculture and ranching. In no state, even California, do those activities generate 5% of the state economy. Agriculture and ranching in California in 2005 generated a gross of about $21 billion. The gross domestic product of the state the same year was $1.55 trillion. 80% of the water goes to produce 1.3% of the fifth-largest economy in the world. It doesn't make sense."

I replied as follows:
the government has put a price on the waters of the CO. and it's cheap.

so the message to people is: "play golf, water your lawn, etc... we got plenty of water. Sure, give away water to grow alfalfa in the frakkin desert so we can eat lots of beef cows." (i believe water for irrigation is the lion's share of water wasted in the intermountain west.)

if we want water in the CO river, we need to price water appropriately.

i recommend reading
http://www.newwest.net/main/article/western_water_a_legend_of_overallocation/

quote:
"In every western state, 80% of the water goes to agriculture and ranching. In no state, even California, do those activities generate 5% of the state economy. Agriculture and ranching in California in 2005 generated a gross of about $21 billion. The gross domestic product of the state the same year was $1.55 trillion. 80% of the water goes to produce 1.3% of the fifth-largest economy in the world. It doesn't make sense."

Also, i think the USA figures "hell, if we don't use it, it'll just go down to Mexico and that'd be a waste." So we burn it however we can. Maybe we should consider letting some of the CO River water flow to Mexico. We could call it foreign aid.

Nature, 1970: don't worry about co2

I’ve been doing some library research recently and saw issues of Nature dating back before 1900. I grabbed a random issue from ~1970 and browsed thru it. Found an article saying we shouldn’t worry about co2. Don’t worry, nuke power will be coming on strong by 2000. We’ll only have an 18% rise in co2 (rise to date has been ~15%, so they were on with this figure). Hell, we think the ocean will soak up all the co2 pretty quick anyway, but if it becomes a problem, we’ll just cut down on the fossil fuels. Cake. Wait.. reality check.. this ain’t so easy! Hard to figure how to slow down fossil fuel intake, either in booming nations like china and india or in addicted nations like US.

Mt. Hood extravaganza

In short, nobody got hurt, but we had a little navigation problem (or was it a decision-making problem) that turned a 2-day / 1 night semi-technical trip into a 2 night / 3 day technical expedition with significant rock/ice fall hazard.

All pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20081115Hood

On the day before the trip, I called the ranger station to check road conditions for the North Face route we’d been planning. Turns out road and trail were shut down due to fire. Did rapid replanning to do Sandy Glacier route instead. No problemo. Route heads up from Timberline Lodge to Illumination Saddle. Then down below Yocum Ridge and up the Sandy. Heads up left side of Sandy headwall, up the "obvious line of ascent" to Cathedral Ridge. Then to summit. Then down the usual Pearly Gates route.

Departed Timberline Lodge and departed by noon on Friday.

Fairly smooth sailing up to the Saddle, then down onto the Reid Glacier where we set up camp at dark. Departed at 2:30 AM and headed down beneath Yocum. Battled to stay high and had some tricky scrambling on total garbage rock with undesirable exposure. In retrospect should’ve sacrificed altitude and gone down to stable rock and easy walking. Headed up Sandy Glacier and reached headwall before 9 AM.

At this point, we saw an obvious line of ascent up a couloir. It looked pretty tough at the bottom, but nothing steeper than 55 degrees. The snow/ice was solid. A gps check suggested that the couloir wasn’t the route I’d entered in the gps. However, we convinced ourselves that it must be the route. I didn’t have the guidebook description with me. Only had a summitpost writeup which said “take obvious line of ascent.” So up we went. It was a 2 hr commitment to ascend the part that we could see. As we continued past the 2 hr point, continuing on 50+ degree ice, we kept assuming that things would open up onto a snowfield. I didn’t do a thorough gps + map check until 4 hrs up. Then I realized that we were in a bad spot.

Ascending Meier Couloir:

In retrospect, we should’ve known that the route was much more technical than the Sandy Glacier route descriptions we’d read. It takes time to really sit down and puzzle out exactly where you are on the map. Plus, the Nat. Geographic Oregon TOPO maps are not particularly crisp and were of limited help when navigating up the headwall where +/- 100 m is crucial. But spending the time to carefully study the map would’ve been worthwhile at the 2 hr point, not to mention prior to beginning the ascent of “Meier Couloir”. In retrospect, we found that the notoriously difficult Yocum Ridge route coincides largely with Meier Couloir.

At the 2 hr point, our hopes of summiting were shot if the route didn’t go through. That’s probably why I was reluctant to look carefully at the navigation. Because of the technically difficulty of the route (very difficult downclimb) and the poor conditions (falling ice) that we would later encounter, that was a bad decision. By 6 hrs, we’d made it to a safe bivy on the only flat spot on Yocum Ridge. I peered over the south side of Yocum and could see an escape route. At the time, I wasn’t aware that the escape route I saw was the standard “escape route” for Yocum Ridge climbers. It was too late to descend that night. It was almost 4 pm and sunset was at 4:30. Damn it was nice to see that little V-shaped snow drift. We carved a spot for our tent and settled in.

The next morn, we made the descent down to the Reid. We essentially used leader/belayer technique to downclimb without leaving pro behind. We left at 8 AM when light was good (could’ve left at 6:30). By 10 AM, things were getting warm. We didn’t get down to safety until 1 PM. Dangerous ice and rock fall had threatened us on the way down. From the Reid to Illum Saddle isn’t too bad. We simulclimbed the upper portion of this climb with sparse protection and reached the saddle at 2 pm.

Illum. Rock and Saddle:

Neither the Reid nor the Sandy had particularly difficult crevasse crossings.

After reaching Illum saddle, it was a cakewalk back down to the car. We made it there by 4 pm.

Here's a map of the route:

Food:

For this trip, I packed nothing but powerbars and clif bars. Ate ~18 bars (4000 calories). Had 1.5 liters of white gas stove fuel with my whisperlite stove. Was sufficient to support us even with the additional time en route. Lost stove skirt at top of Sandy (blew/rolled down the hill).

Clothes:

We both enjoyed our puffy jackets. I used a pair of bib pants this time. Quite nice. Tore some holes in my puffy jacket but patched them upon return.

Lessons:

- When possible, get GPS with high-res integrated topo map

- Check map/gps at least every hr if at all uncertain on steep terrain.

- Make the decision to retreat without undue hesitation.

- Nat Geo TOPO maps are not quite as good as topozone maps online. Would be nice to have paper topo maps but Hood maps aren’t available at Seattle REI.

- Carefully prepare gear before climbing. Need to have pickets set up for easy access with slings prepared and ready for action.

- Always use leash with ice axes. I dropped an expensive ax down the hill.

fusion as replacement for fossil fuels?

My grandfather (aka Uncle Bill) asked me if fusion power could replace fossil fuels. Here's my response....

Unk Bill,

You asked me if fusion can replace fossil fuel in our energy economy in the relatively near term (30 years). Below I’ll describe two candidate fusion machines. The first is a tokamak. It is unlikely to solve the problem because it’s too expensive. The other is the compact torus (CT). It is unlikely to solve the problem because a technological breakthrough is required. However, anything is possible, especially if enough research money is devoted to the challenge.

Tokamaks have received the vast majority of research effort in the past 50 years. With the tokamak, we have achieved “breakeven”, which that the ratio of fusion power out to electrical power in is one. For a commercial powerplant, this ratio should be about 10. If things go as planned, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) will achieve this desired factor of 10. However, tokamaks are incredibly complex and expensive engineering marvels. Superconducting magnets are required to produce the strong magnetic fields in tokamaks. Perhaps in 30-50 years, tokamaks can be made commercially competitive with coal plants, but not in the near term.

A sudden breakthrough in an innovative device called a compact torus (CT) is a long-shot possibility. The CT is similar to the tokamak, but is generally smaller and doesn’t require the superconducting magnets. One of the keys to the CT is that it allows the magnetic fields to relax naturally instead of using the high magnetic fields of a tokamak to force the plasma to behave. Consider bridge building: if an engineer wasn’t very crafty, he/she might just make the bridge deck very thick. However, a crafty engineer would use cables to suspend the bridge, thereby greatly reducing the cost of the bridge. The CT is the crafty engineer’s approach. CT development is far behind the tokamak in funding levels and in technological development. However, a breakthrough might yield a useful fusion powerplant in the next 20 years.

Now… if fusion can’t solve the problem alone, can it help somehow? Nuclear fission technology works, but has a radioactive waste problem. Nuclear fusion can help solve that problem. Fission produces radioactive isotopes. By bombarding the radioactive isotopes with neutrons, they can be transmuted into radioactively stabilized. Fusion produces lots of neutrons even if it doesn’t produce energy. With fission-fusion hybrid technology, we can employ those neutrons to deal with radioactive waste.

Many people don’t realize how much progress has been made in fusion! We routinely control plasmas and make fusion energy. Hydrogen (which can be obtained by splitting water) is the fuel for fusion. This is a technology that humanity will surely benefit from in the long run if not the short run.

Hope this sheds some light on the issue!

Eric

P.S. I’ve only talked here about magnetic confinement fusion which uses electromagnetic fields to trap plasma (hot charged particles). Another approach is to use lasers to compress a chunk of fuel. This idea also has some merit, but I think magnetic confinement is preferable, so I ignore laser compression here.

Blanca Lake

Ci, Orli, Brianne and I, along with Bri's two golden retrievers, Winston and Simon, braved a snowy, slippery, treacherous (well it wasn't that bad) trail to Blanca Lake. Probably 2500 ft elevation total. We took our time and it was a 5 hr round trip. This hike is in a newly annointed wilderness area called Wild Sky Wilderness.

[Wikipedia: The Wild Sky Wilderness is significant because it is the first new federally-designated wilderness in Washington since 1984. Also, unlike many other wilderness areas in the Cascades, Wild Sky protects significant amounts of high biological productivity low-elevation forest.]

There were some big trees up there.


We came across a guy with a chainsaw who'd been doing some serious work clearing the trail of LARGE trees which had fallen across the trail. He recruited Ci and I to help him roll some big chunks of log off of the trail. He was a volunteer from Seattle. Burly dude. He gave us his # so we could let him know how many more big logs there are up the trail. Ci kept careful count.

The dogs had a ball.



The lake was a beautiful emerald green. Wikipedia says: Glacial lakes can be green as a result of pulverized minerals (rock flour) that support a large population of algae. I didn't know (or, more likely, had forgotten) that algae is responsible for the color.


For all pics, see http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20081025BlancaLake#.

On the drive back we stopped for pastries at the Sultan Bakery. That place is legendary. Then , back in Seattle, we stopped for burgers. Judging by how my stomach felt this morning, the guacomole bacon burger was a little much.

Ci did his Bryan Adams impression for us (which damaged his vocal cords years ago because of the gravelly voice required -- this was interesting to Orli and Brianna because they are in speech and hearing science). We started singing lots of songs. Dirty Dancing also came up. So many good songs on that soundtrack :) [I've had the time of my life (and i owe it all to you), she's like the wind, hungry eyes, etc.]

Good trip!

ice climbing training

Last Saturday, I went on an ice climbing training run with the UW climbers. We went to the Coleman glacier on Mt Baker. The day was sunny and clear. We were mostly in the shade and near freezing, so the ice was good. Learned a thing or two about ice climbing technique. We didn't focus too much on placement technique -- one really must use individual judgment for this (in addition to reading about it).

A couple of pictures:

The group at the base of the Coleman below Baker.


The whole scene. The big ice blocks we climbed on are called seracs.


Jon leading 40 feet of vertical ice (photo credit Chirs Moorehead).

Religulous

I thought Maher's new movie, Religulous, was entertaining, reasonably well done, and spoke some truths that we all need to hear again and again until a few things change.

He gets booted off of the Mormon temple grounds, and out of the Vatican. Some truckers, who he is engaging in conversation in their "trucker chapel", almost whip his skinny ass. He meets Jesus on many occasions. Hilariously, he often expresses astonishment with "Jesus Christ!", and often does so when talking to these impersonators of Jesus Christ.

His overarching message is that religion is detrimental to society. Religulous really doesn't make the case for such a sweeping statement. However, I think it makes a good case that Islam and Christianity must reform themselves to prevent "all hell" from breaking loose in the next 100 years.

I read some online reviews, many of which are scathing, accusing Maher of treating his interviewees unfairly. Yeah, I agree. But the world isn't fair and fairy tales may be laughed at sometimes when they are profered as gospel truth. And they may be criticized for encouraging an intellectual vacuum in which "leaders" are free to rape and pillage in the name of some deity/deities.

fall near Mount Maude

Went to Mt Maude in the Glacier Peak Wilderness and soaked up the fall colors and the beautiful views from the 9050' summit. This was a return trip to the area -- I was here also in 2001 with my dad and brother. Fabulous trip packed into a very heavy day and a half of hiking. Eina inspired the trip to see the larch trees and Ci protected us with his Ka-Bar.

See pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20081013MaudeWithCiAndEina

Arrived at the TH at about 7 pm Saturday eve. (Eina had to work 'till 3 pm, so decided to start late.) Had no trouble finding the way up the spur trail leading to Maude / Ice Lakes. Could've hiked another 0.5 miles (to about 6k ft vs. the 5.3k ft where we camped) and found a better campsite. But ours was fine. Got down near 20 deg F. None of us were too cold. Didn't bring tent to save weight.

Left heavy stuff at camp and headed up the trail at about 10 am. Saw several hikers on the way up. Hit pass at about 1 pm. Made summit of Maude just before 3 pm. Down to Ice Lake at 4:00 pm. Back up at pass at 5 pm. Spectacular scenery. Wonderful company. Great exercise. No significant physical discomfort for anyone, but Ci and Eina had sopping wet (and cold) feet after ascending Maude. My REI goretex boots seemed to do better (because of sno-seal? or just because newer and goretex?) and I was hardly wet. Great trip.

outrageous CEO compensation

I just googled "ceo pay explanation" and found that there are two arguments:

1) ceos and managers are greedy and are able to float their own boats
2) ceos have "general skills" that are useful to a wide variety of companies (e.g. Mullally at Boeing and now at Ford), and these general skills are hard to come by and must be purchased.

It seems typical to me that contentious issues usually have two sides, neither of which is right. Like radical environmentalists vs. those who "been on this land a hunderd years" and "know best".

It's obvious that ceos are greedy. Everybody is greedy (as mentioned in the googled articles). That doesn't explain the rise in their pay. They've always been greedy. However, there has been a consensus in the "managerial class" that you gotta pay big bucks to get talent. This has been the reality. It's maybe similar to the big bucks people felt they had to pay for tech stocks in the late 90's. I think it's a cultural bubble that will burst without any of us getting too excited. I can hear it bursting right now. There's no free lunch, except for executives in this boom whose lunch was paid for by taxpayers/shareholders/joe blows who are are starting to feel much stingier.

truth stalking -- Russian racehorses and speed vs. mpg

Have done a little truth stalking today on two subjects:

- What does it mean to have to piss like a Russian racehorse?
- And what are some experimental numbers on mpg vs. vehicle speed?

I has having chai tea with a friend this morning, and she bought me a grande. I knew it'd be way too much tea, but figured it couldn't hurt. We talked for an hour or so then I rode my bike home. Would've stopped in the bathroom but it was occupied. Eyeballs were floating upon arrival home. I thought to myself -- I have to piss like a Russian racehorse! But what does that even mean!? I found an interesting tidbit:

Apparently (and I don't have any solid info on this but it makes a good story and might be true [doubtful .. see comments below .. but maybe Russians were especially agressive in their methods somehow?]), in Russian horse racing, they used to tie off the (male) horses' penises. This way, they had to pee really bad once they started racing. Not very nice, and surprising to me that it was even effective. But that's where the saying comes from! You can go farther and say "like a Russian racehorse in winter." I guess in cold winter air, mammals generally offload water to contract blood vessels and avoid heat loss.

Now on to mpg. Found an interesting website. They show what one my dad told me long ago, that slower is better for mpg. For a typical car, it is empirically found that you get better gas mileage at 35 mph or even slower. See this chart from the website. I only looked briefly into this and this website isn't the word of god but it seems pretty good...

Stay tuned for more truthiness next time.

1% of people to space

I was out at my weekly Thursday lunch with my buddy Bob Lilly. He's a rocket enthusiast who has a lot of industry experience in semi-conductor manufacturing and in commercial airplane stuff (Boeing). We were talking about rocket stuff -- in particular, our department was trying to get a graduate level rocket class "off the ground".

Aside:
[ The dream is that students would have a chance to design, build, and fly a rocket and get all that good experience that comes with putting together such a complex system. Sadly, the project is perhaps too unwieldy for our department to tackle. A graduate student wouldn't be able to do any nitty gritty research. At STC, Phil and I had to put all our effort to the bare bones requirements to get a rocket off the ground and didn't really have time to hash out some of the interesting and crucial details. Which grad students in Aero/Astro would be doing the grunt work -- machining, purchasing, licensing, etc.? The thing to do in an aerospace department is probably to focus on one part of a rocket -- the propulsion, for instance. Or maybe the navigation system. Maybe year after year, different parts could be tackled. ]

Anyway, a friend of mine from international student night at the College Inn (where I have gotten my pool playing fix since being in Seattle) joined the discussion at some point. Bob told the guy I competed for the X Prize and a discussion of the future of space travel ensued. I suggested that it was within the realm of possibility that at some point in the future, 1% of earthlings might make it to space once during their lives. The guy, June, a Mathematician, said he was certain it was impossible. He said he was sure the earth would be destroyed by the resource extraction required for that much space travel.

He has clearly not read enough sci-fi :). 10 billion x 1% = 100 million people. Assuming 100 year lifetimes, that'd be about a million people per year going to space. True, if we had to launch 100,000 space shuttles a year, that'd be tough on the planet. However, what June had trouble imagining was what space travel might be like in 1000 years. One certainly can't be sure what things will be like, but this guy's imagination was like an steel trap. Space elevators might work. High speed orbital planes might conceivably work (burning atmospheric oxygen + some carried fuel in some enviro friendly way??).

The interesting thing about June's viewpoint is that he simplifies things to the following picture: planes, trains and autos have been damned tough on our environment. It's relatively easy to travel by those modes. It's much harder to travel to space. Thus, the burden on the environment must be proportionately larger than the burden due to planes/trains/autos. Anyway, I don't think the burden required to take 1% of people to space once in their lives is more than we can reasonably ask of the planet.

Ravel, Mozart, Beethoven

Went with Eina to the a performance at Benaroya Hall. Violin sonatas (i.e. music involving a violinist and a pianist) by four artists were played. The players were pretty hot shot guys. The violinst's mother was scheduled to play piano, but she couldn't make it. Some other high powered pianist replaced her. They started out with Beethoven. Eina wasn't too thrilled with the Beethoven. It really is quite boring when compared with the stuff played next by Ravel (you might've heard his song Bolero .. ). Ravel was much more raucous vs. what was almost predictable from Beethoven. I like Beethoven's full symphony work better than this violin sonata I think (though I'm far from being a Beethoven expert -- Momma tried to teach me piano and I enjoyed learning a tiny bit).

The Mozart was good. I like how he often threw in some minor tones in what is otherwise a flittering melody. I think this is characteristic of Mozart.

Eina and I stayed after the hall cleared out. It was fun to sing out some notes in the hall. What amazing acoustics. Evidently they didn't use any amplification of the sound from the piano and violin.

Mailbox Peak

Did a pretty nice hike last weekend up to Mailbox Peak. It is a nearby dayhike, and a Seattle classic I'd been told. 4000 vertical feet reaching a 4800 foot summit. Probably about 6 miles roundtrip. Steep! The day was beautiful. Below is a shot of Eina checking her mail at the top. :) Rainier in background. View of Baker and Glacier Peak up north were excellent.

There was lots of junk in the mailbox like a little squeezy dinosaur whose tongue would stick out like a gecko when you squoze it. Pretty decent blackberries left up in this area. Below is a shot from the top looking down at Seattle. This spot is just a 45 min drive up I-90 toward Snoqualmie Pass from Seattle. Tess and Tim, Little Si is the high point that shows up in the right side of this photo. We did it with Laura and Ryan when they were out here for April and Julian's wedding. They will recall my belting out Big John on the way up for the whole world to hear.

hiking the San Juans

5 dy 40 mi trip frm elk prk to needleton with Eina. Summited two 14000 ft pks (Windom and Sunlight) using CO 14ers as a guide. Guide was not particularly accurate and made Sunlight extra challenging.

See pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20080910SanJuans

Rode on durango silverton railroad. Was gorgeous ride and was historically interesting.

My parents rode this train back in '75. They spoke highly of the area and inspired me to visit. On their train trip, a tourist got angry with the ticket salesman for being out of tickets. The tourist got out of hand and threatened the salesman. My dad had to take the dude out and so they got free tickets. Well ok he just got the salesman's back and the guy backed down. But it must've been pretty cool anyway.

Reached Elk Park, our starting point at 12:00.

Mileage summary:

7 mi first dy. 13 2nd dy. 13 3rd dy. 2 14ers 4th dy. 7 mi last dy.

None of our camps were over 11,200 feet. Wouldn’t dare camp higher. Headaches at night when camp too high unless well acclimatized.

Huge granite boulders in the middle of the valley made the glacial action obvious.

Raspberries galore near first camp were awesome. First camp was at 10.6k ft. Easy day 1 – only 4 hrs hiking and about 7 miles.

Day 2 was tougher. Saw a coal seam on the way up. Beautiful Columbines in the shade at the base of cliffs. Incredible rugged mountains all around. Old miner’s cabin in high basin just below Continental Divide, and deep horizontal mineshaft nearby. A jeep trail travels right along the Divide at some 12,500 feet up.

Did easy easy x cntry route to Hunchback Pass .. No trail b/c too tough for horses. Swamp gentians beautiful + many other flowers and crystalline rocks.

Weather was beautiful after the first day when rain threatened. Slept out of tent after 1st nite. Eina slept in. Stars beau all nites. Jupe brite. Moon waxing so began to dim stars later days of trip.

On day 3, we went down the Vallacito valley to Johnson Creek. Many trout under the Vallecito bridge where the trail to Johnson headed up to the West. Deep and slow there.

Saw some impressive old timers. One dude was about 75. Dark dark tan. Big worker’s hands. Wore tennis shoes. Walked right thru rivers. As we approached Columbine Pass, scenery was the usual – awesome. Saw mines galore up there. Found a wheel from an old mining car at Columbine Lake.

Saw several big groups near Columbine Pass. Big groups --> no elk or moose. Hardly any sign of big game. Plenty of deer. And the non-native mountain goats.

I just read up on the goats on this blog --

http://colorado-lifestyle.blogspot.com/2008/06/mountain-goats.html

Evidently, the Colorado Division of Wildlife declared them “native” so that the big game hunters would have a more authentic experience. Bizarre. Anyway, they are native to the Rockies. Just not farther south than Wyoming. She also writes,

“Sighting a Mountain Goat in Colorado is a blessed event. There are two prominent herds, one on Mt. Evans and another in the Chicago Basin.”

We happened to camp in Chicago Basin our 3rd and 4th nights! And the goats tromped right through our campsite. Little guy included! Video below.

Great food the whole trip. Eina is a gourmet cook. Lentil soup. Crn chowder. Quinoa (pron: kinwa). Etc.

4th day, 1st went up Windom and Sunlight Peaks Windom near 14,100. Sunlight 14,050. Approach was easy to 13k ft. The pretty Twin Lakes sit at 12.5k. The class 2+ route up Windom seemed more like Class 3+ to me. Headed down the NW slope (class 3). The route up Sunlight shown in Colorodo 14ers book photo disagreed w route on the topo in the book!! Went with text description. Sunlight’s S slope (class 4) route was not bad. Class 4 move at top was exposed to 20 ft fall. Eina stood on tiny summit for cameras (3 guys near summit) :) I hung on for dear life.

The descent down the west ridge was tough class 4. Managed to route find well w some deliberation.

Last day was a pleasant 7 miles.

Talked to some interesting brit "coach" fans. Met a guy from York, England who invited me to come by his (evidently pretty nice) place in York anytime. Guy’s career was as a negotiator with Marathon Oil. Interesting.

Had a good dinner at a Nepali restaurant. Eina spoke some Nepali w the servers who were thrilled. Had butter tea (probly not yak butter :) ) for the first time. Quite a thing, butter tea.

Stargazing -- Jupiter, M11 (Wild Duck Cluster), etc.

My 10" dobsonian reflector is really easy to take out onto the grass in front of my house. Did so this eve. Light pollution in Seattle is pretty bad, but you can still see some interesting things. Would've driven to a dark spot but moon was due to rise at 10 pm.

Jupiter is always amazing. Have looked at it several times in last month. Can see 4 satellites. Can easily see bands with my scope through either 32 mm lens (40x mag.) or 12.5 mm lens (100x mag.). Saw red spot on one occasion. Noted rapid movement (moved visibly over 1.5 hrs). Looked up Jupe's rotation period -- 9 hrs vs. Earth's 24 hrs!

Was going to look at M81 and M82. Looked hard at star charts and thru binocs. Had it nailed. Then clouds covered them. But now I know that part of the sky (NE of big dipper bowl) pretty well.

Scanned sky near jupe and saw nice blob. Looked up in star charts and saw that it is M11. Put scope on it. Nice view. Lots of stars in this "Wild Duck" cluster. Got to know Aquila constellation in which Altair shines brightest.

Moved to Ring Nebula in Lyra near Vega (Altair, Vega and Deneb form the summer triangle). Can make out ring with 100x mag. No doubt would be better in dark conditions.

Looked at Andromeda over by Cassiopeia. Maybe on a really dark night it'd be more exciting through this 10" scope. On a dark night with long film/digital exposure that you can really see Andromeda in detail, so here's a picture:

Image credit: Jason Ware, http://www.galaxyphoto.com/

Also looked at nebulas 884/869, and 654/653 which are near Cassiopeia. Seems easy to play with this dobsonian mounted scope as compared to typical tripod.

Constitutional authority for developing technology / health care / soc. security

[This post is a continuation of an email conversation between my dad Steve and friend Jason .. comments encouraged.]

Interesting discussion :) Long-winded. I'll contribute some more steam before we switch to nuclear.

Jason, your idea about the limitations of the constitution is quite interesting, particularly with regard to energy legislation. A quick read of the constitution reveals that there is no constitutional mandate for our government to develop/maintain/expand our transportation system except perhaps "To establish ... post Roads" -- Art. I, Sect 8. Yet the DoT is a pretty well-funded department. Likewise, the DoE gets a fair chunk of change. Why? It's a good question. Maybe private industry could handle it. Maybe not. For instance, could private industry have collaborated to put together our interstate freeway system? I seriously doubt it. Private industry did the work, but the government orchestrated it, and used taxpayer money to pay for it. Likewise, solving our energy problems will likely require government orchestration. We'll probably need some pretty nifty power and energy transmission infrastructure including conduits for electricity and for "portable power" for autos (e.g. hydrogen).

Sometimes nations/civilizations/organisms can get an upper hand by having big common projects. Think militaries. Think ocean exploration in the 14/15/16th centuries. Think space program (but don't think so hard that your start to wonder what the hell it's done for us so far... mostly i jest .. if you've considered it much, you recognize several crucial benefits that space has brought us). I think state-sponsored technology development is appropriate. How one would write a constitutional amendment to properly sanction it is another question!

In the opening passage of Common Sense, Paine says that government is a "necessary evil", negatively constraining society's vices. Meanwhile, society itself provides the positive influence, "uniting our affections". What you are suggesting (and I expanded on above) is that gov't should be in the business of "positive influence". We also obviously need to worry about gov't properly constraining society's vices. This is where we clearly need corruption control.

Medical care and social security (which is in desperate need of being renamed "managed savings" or being re-directed to being a safety net program) are in the same boat as energy technology when it comes down to it I guess.

On the sub-crime crisis: 1) if the gov't is going to bail out these lenders, they should regulate. 2) gov't shouldn't bail out the lenders. I think I'm with you Jason, voting for #2.

Who is this physicist who told you about the nuclear fuel problem? He/she is right that we have a problem if we don't effectively use fuel. As I recall, if we used all of the available energy in uranium ore, we'd have plenty of power for centuries even if energy consumption were to go up 10x. Using all available energy would involve something quite different than what the French do which is a joke compared to what i'll call true nuke fuel squeezing. French squeeze less than 5% of available energy in fuel. Standard US nukes get only 1%. You can squeeze out nearly 100% of energy with breeder reactor. Breeders are expensive because it's expensive to make them safe. Proliferation is another concern and is a concern for any squeezing operation. But you can squeeze in a safer way using fusion as a source of neutrons (there are other possible sources too) to maintain a sub-critical reaction that uses "fast" neutrons to squeeze energy out. Look for fission-fusion hybrids hitting news in next 5-10 yrs. (physics sidenote: when you don't moderate/slow neutrons [as we do in our current "slow" neutron reactors], the characteristic time of a critical system is very very fast, making it tough [expensive, uncertain] to design a control system with an appropriately small response time).

Oh -- Nanosolar -- i hope it works! But I question their ability to get materials cheap enough to power the globe.. maybe they can tho? I really have no facts on this matter.

Dragontail Peak

Did a trip to Enchantments Lake area with Eina, Paolo, Cihan and Tammy. Camped near Leavenworth on Saturday night. Left Stuart Lake TH at 7 AM. From Aasgard Pass, Eina and I summited Dragontail Peak. The rest (lacking ice axes which were requried for the steep snowfield) enjoyed the Enchantments Basin. Another highlight was swimming in Colchuck Lake. Ci and I thought we were pretty tough but Eina destroyed our egos by outswimming us in the 55 degree waters. I decided that she is part polar bear after she swam around for a couple of minutes after I hustled my skinny ass out of the water.

Some good photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20080810dragontail

The rugged "dragontail" ridge was awesome:


This area is one of the most popular in the Cascades. The mostly cloudy weather stymied WA meteorologists once again (they predicted all sun). But at least it didn't rain more than a drop or two. Only saw two groups of people above 7,500 ft.

Camped illegally Saturday night because campgrounds were full. Road had been damaged and cut off 3 of the 6 campgrounds in the area. Campgrounds were perhaps filled with rock climbers who flock to this area. The parking lot treated us well though except for the disastrous loss of Cihan's prized 2nd sandwich. He was thunderstruck in the morning when the sandwich was missing. He was sure he had it in his pack. He threatened all of us with his K A Bar (Marine) knife if we didn't fess up to stealing his sandwich. We have concluded that either an intruding man or beast must have snagged it.

Hike was a good challenge. It was Tammy's first tough hike and she handled it admirably! We made the pass in about 5 hrs, where we saw a mountain goat which Eina tried to tame:


The climb from the pass (7800') to Dragontail (8800') took Eina and I just over an hour. We made it back to the TH (~3400') after 12 hrs total. 5400 vertical ft .. not bad!

After refueling at the self-proclaimed "number one" diner in Cle Elum at about 9 pm, we drove home. I drove Ci crazy with some country music to keep myself awake. He didn't even enjoy "She's no Lady", so I skipped "Bubba Shot the Jukebox".

SpaceX's 3rd rocket recently wiped out.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/science/space/03launchweb.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=spacex&st=cse&oref=slogin

See SpaceX website for posts about what happened (stage separation failed), and what they're doing from here (carrying on with plenty of money). Also info about vehicle is availabe on the site.
www.spacex.com

They are 0 for 3 now. Unfortunately, this rocket was carrying some expensive satellites (previous losses were just dummy payloads unless I'm mistaken). This news makes me feel better about my own rocketry endeavor which had a pretty low batting average. Elon Musk (SpaceX founder) has a helluva lot better funding than we did -- he is the founder of Paypal which was purchased by Ebay for a healthy chunk of change -- and I suspect that they will be able to push on and succeed in the long run. However, maybe they should chalk up a success before loading expensive DoD and NASA satellites onboard.

Why is SpaceX having so much trouble? Well, getting to space is tough and there are about a million gotchas. The experts who designed the Apollo-era vehicles knew lots of those issues, but are mostly unavailable for engineering staff work. Elon's hired good people (well everyone but me), but my impression is that they're pretty young.

Stage separation was a doozie for my company(Space Transport Corp.)'s rockets too. As the rocket travels at supersonic speeds though 100+ mph wind shear, this puts lots of strain on the joints between stages (like most launchers the SpaceX vehicle has two stages). Then these parts might be unhappy about doing their job. Elon's been trying to keep things very light to maximize the allowable payload mass. If the rocket works, this might maximize profits. But maybe the lightweight stage connection was a little too light? On the other hand, it could've been something totally different like a software or electrical problem. Elon usually posts more info about failures on the SpaceX website, so perhaps he'll post some details about what happened here.

Was quality control bad? Probably not. They probably had it built just as planned. It's hard to plan properly when the only way to *really* test the thing is by flying. We humans learn best by trial and error. These are expensive tests though, so hopefully they haven't bitten off more than they can chew. I think they'll be ok though.

Other private space companies that are coming along to rattle the establishment (read: Boeing/Lockheed-Martin) cage:

www.blueorigin.com
(funded by amazon.com's Jeff Bezos)

www.virgingalactic.com
(funded by Virgin's Richard Branson .. following up with Burt Rutan on work [i.e. winning the X-Prize] funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen)

astro party

Had a good time star gazing on Saturday night. I was impressed with the performance of my 10" scope. We bbq'ed at my place and watched Djokovic take out Nadal prior to heading up. Seemed likely to be clear so we headed up to Rattlesnake Lake. Ci, Monica and I drove up and met my roomies and some other friends up there. It was clear .. in a few spots .. for a little while. We got a nice view of the apparent double star in the handle of the dipper -- Mizar and Alcor -- and could clearly see the true binary system of which Mizar is part.


We got a quick look at M13, a globular cluster in Hercules.


By 11:30, cloud cover was quite thorough. So we hung out (Ci stayed warm by huddling like a homeless person in the telescope box) and hoped for clear skies for a while and chewed the fat. For instance, we talked about Starbucks, Shultz, and the Sonics. Kind of an interesting situation... We packed up at 1 am and headed down. Bhuvana called and reported that the skies cleared as they approached Seattle. So Ci, Monica and I stopped short of Seattle and did a bit more viewing. The highlight of that leg of the stargazing was Jupiter.

The image above is plagiarized from the internet. Though our viewing was not as spectacular as shown above, we could see the planet in breathtaking detail. Four of its moons were clearly visible.

We also viewed Andromeda which looked like a fuzzball. I think if it is extremely good viewing, one could make out the shape of the galaxy. Couldn't see the N. America Nebula at all (I assume was too light).

I tried to find M81 and M82 which are in Ursa Major. Couldn't get there. Need better star maps.

Sahale ... well, close anyway.

My friends Cihan, Hannah and I made a run at Sahale Peak in the North Cascades on Saturday. Ci and I had to attend a "no pants" party on Friday night, so we didn't hit the road from Seattle to to the N. Cascades until 9 AM. I checked the forecast in the morning and saw that weather was expected to go to pot on Saturday night and Sunday. So, instead of our initial plan of climbing Sahale on Sunday, we switched to a Saturday afternoon climb.

For pics from the hike, see http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20080726NorthCascades.

Chose to do Boston Basin route. This route involves 5000 vertical feet, all in 10 mile round trip. Seemed like a good stiff day hike. Requires glacier travel gear and some easy rock climbing at the top. This stuff is "easy" but nerve-wracking nevertheless, and is time-intensive as compared to simple stair-stepping.

We hit the trailhead at 1 and were hiking by 2 pm. I expected that an 8 hour round trip would be best case scenario, so we brought headlights. If we were running slow, I would just request that Hannah haul Ci and I up the hill with our gear.

Started on non-existent "road" toward the seemingly non-existent "diamond mine" which were marked on the map. Trail was narrow and rough, practically requiring a machete, but was easy to follow. 'Twas hot as we got started. Passed big group of campers. Made good time through pretty cascades terrain. Reached Boston Basin in about 2 hrs. Could see Sahale looming above in its jagged splendor. Enjoyed a hoary marmot sighting. Ci and Hannah were new to glacier travel, but handled the terrain like mountain goats (well, Ci hit the deck a few times). Crevasses were present but not particularly threatening. Wound between them without much apparent risk toward the upper tongue of the Quien Sabe ("who knows?" in Spanish) which reaches up toward Sahale. We were on track for a concerningly-late 7 pm summit. Fortunately, we were saved by the clouds which gave us a good excuse to chicken out. A cloud deck formed around 5 pm and descended to about 7000 ft by 6 pm. At 6 pm at 8200 ft, we turned around. I figured we'd get down by dark. Turns out I was right for once. On the way down, we saw and explored a mine (50-foot deep horizontal shaft -- maybe just a test hole?), and saw a couple more marmots. Enjoyed glissading down the snowfields, skiing on our boots. Everybody held up pretty well considering the difficulty of the trek. A few blisters.

The next day, we took it pretty easy and just toured the N. Cascades Nat. Park a little bit. Amazingly, it's a free park which is good for grad students (and recent ex-students like Hannah). Some pretty falls just off the road. Ci couldn't stop saying "this is amazing" the whole drive. The reservoirs (Ross Lake, Diablo Lake) are quite pretty for reservoirs. Pretty blue water. We did a little 4 mile round-trip hike to Blue Lake on the east side of the park (it was raining on the west side of the park). Blue Lake is quite scenic and is nestled below the Winters Spires which are spectacularly sheer -- must be wonderful rock-climbs up there.