The Daily Grand and Sundry

Amber Gell is one of the nation’s leading young rocket scientists(she was nominated for a Stellar Award  as Best Young Mind), and a future astronaut.

She has been featured on two of our blogs:

http://gerrymaxeyworkshop.com/blogging/?p=2018

http://gerrymaxeyworkshop.com/blogging/?p=1495

After three days of DOOMSDAY Blogs, Amber called this Blog to account over its pessimism.

I humbly ask all the Readers I have depressed over the last three days, to check out this video about a group of high school students building a Solar Car from scratch.

http://www.sme.org/cgi-bin/getsmepg.pl?/gmn/smeefvideo/allsystemsgo.htm&&&SME&NONAV& 

“Innovate: All Systems Go” documents the learning experiences of a diverse group of high school students from New Britain High School in New Britain, Connecticut. After rising to the challenges of building their own solar car, the students are invited to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where they meet a team of scientists and engineers for an educational rendezvous some kids only dream about.

Produced by Creative Expansions, Inc., major funding for the production of this video was provided by State Farm, Microsoft Research, and the SME Education Foundation. Additional funding has been provided by Rockwell Automation, NetApp, and Verizon”

To my Hispanic friends still agonizing over bi-lingual education, please pay particular attention to the student engineer JANA. She arrived from Chile not speaking Spanish, six months later she was fluent in English, now she owns the stars.

Thank you Amber for this massive dosage of optimism, the kids are indeed all right.

Now for a personal note to a guy student I know, who is a smart kid in Math but wants to be a Playboy Photographer to meet hot chicks.

This is one of our astronauts in the making, our astronauts are all right.

This Blog is a Believer in the Manned American Space Program,

Dear Obama Supprter;

We  have already destroyed this planet, check out the Brazilian rain forest, or the Gulf of Mexico as oil despoils  it.

Now we must discuss our very survival on this planet, and the key to that  survival is space, specifically Helium-3 on the Moon. We need to go to the Moon and mine Helium-3.

The following is from SPACE.COM

“…Helium 3 as the perfect fuel source: extremely potent, nonpolluting, with virtually no radioactive by-product. Proponents claim its the fuel ofthe 21st century. The trouble is, hardly any of it is found on Earth.But there is plenty of it on the moon.

Society is straining to keep pace with energy demands, expected to increase eightfold by 2050 as the world population swells toward 12 billion. 

 

 With the mining of the Moon’s Helium-3, we can solve this planet’s need for energy, for 12 BILLION PEOPLE. We can do it without radioactivity, and we can do it for a thousand years. We can have energy without destroying the sky, the air, the wind, the earth, the sea and our children.It is there, waiting for us,  on the Moon, all we have to is go take it.We have the guts to do it; we have done it before. We can create  technology to do it, we have created more difficult technology..All that is lacking is  leadership with JFK’s vision.

We  have a President who cannot see the future, nor seize it.

President Obama has cancelled our manned space program; in another day and time, he would have cancelled the steam engine.  

Mr. Supporter, tonight,  look at the moon; it was put there to solve our problems here on earth, let’s go do it.

SIDEBAR

Since we are Americans, we will not only solve our energy problem by mining  Helium-3, we will also figure out how to have SEX IN SPACE.

 

 

 

 

On June 29, 2010, on his cable program COUNTDOWN, Keith Olbermann and Derrick PItts discussed, SEX IN SPACE. I would be remiss if I did not inclde the conversation.

Yesterday, a NASA space shuttle commander revealed that astronauts on his shuttle are prohibited from knocking anti-gravity boots. 
On April 5th, the Space Shuttle Discovery launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.  On board, three women and four men, led by Commander Allen Poindexter.  Their mission is a 13-day tour at the International Space Station.  Yesterday, more than two months after returning safely to Earth, the crew of Discovery was on a media tour in Tokyo when Poindexter was asked a hypothetical question about coitus among the stars. 
According to the “Agence France Press,” Poindexter was quite serious, responding, quote, “we are a group of professionals.  We treat each other with respect.  And we have a great working relationship.  Personal relationships are not an issue.  We don‘t have them and we won‘t.” 
As far as an official policy regarding sex in space, NASA as an organization doesn‘t appear to explicitly prohibit it.  As we stipulated before, at some point reproduction in micro gravity is going to have to happen.  Our future kind of depends on it. 
Luckily, our friends at the History Channel already took the trouble to explore the pitfalls of sex in space and how to work around them.  
VIDEO
UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  One thing everyone does agree upon is that one or more of the mating partners needs to be restrained. 
UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  What you could have is some hand holds and perhaps leg holds, similar—made out of bar kind of material, similar to the hand holds you have to assist you in the bathtub. 
UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Any mechanism that would simulate constraints on motion, that would at all mimic gravity, would probably facilitate mating in space.  It could be Velcro. 
UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  And one of the parties could wrap legs around something and then perhaps foot holds similar to the kind of thing you put your feet in in water skis, to secure the bottom. 
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  For sex in space, I think you might want a seat belt. 
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN:  Well, we should perhaps be talking to Isabella Rossellini for a demonstration, but who gets to follow that?  No, a scientist.  Derrick Pitts, the chief astronomer at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, who is probably regretting that choice right now.  Good evening, Derrick. 
DERRICK PITTS, FRANKLIN INSTITUTE CHIEF ASTRONOMER:  Thank you, Keith. 
I‘ll try to keep a straight face. 
OLBERMANN:  That‘s one of us.  If it‘s going to take several years to get to Mars, are those people just out of luck? 
PITTS:  No, I don‘t think they are because, you know, it‘s such a long trip, this is one of those things that‘s going to have to come out of a relationship of people traveling together.  They are going to have to figure out what to do with their sexual urges, and I‘m betting that something interesting is going to happen on that trip. 
OLBERMANN:  But isn‘t there already a report that supposedly that—it was never really answered whether the couple on the Shuttle, that fell in love in the lead-up period to the launch and got engaged just before they took off, so to speak, that they never really denied that perhaps the marriage began in a physical sense somewhere in sub-orbital space? 
PITTS:  Yes, you‘re right.  They essentially refused to answer that question, saying it was nobody‘s business and we really didn‘t need to get into that, because of their level of professionalism.  I really doubt that anything has happened in any of the American space program missions.  And partly the reason is that, you know, if you‘re an astronaut, you really do not want to jeopardize your future chances for returning to space, so you‘re going to do everything you‘re told, and you‘re not going to do anything that you shouldn‘t be doing. 
OLBERMANN:  Well, but that begs the question, doesn‘t it, that on some of these three-year trips, that you might be instructed to procreate on the way to Mars.  What if you don‘t want to? 
PITTS:  I think they‘ll figure out how to set up the pairings.  I think maybe they‘ll do a little space computer dating system, you know, to figure out who‘s going to be an astronaut and who isn‘t.  It‘s just an extra box you check, Keith, that tells you what happens. 
OLBERMANN:  MatchInSpace.com. 
PITTS:  You got it, there you go. 
OLBERMANN:  We showed a little of the History Channel, which actually did a special about this.  And they had some great ideas for how to get it done.  Is, in fact, the space station big enough where there would be any privacy anywhere? 
PITTS:  The space station is a really good size, and there are plenty of nooks and crannies where people could sort of get themselves away in a corner and have a little fun.  So there‘s plenty of room.  And when you take a look around the various components, you find out that, you know, the Russian areas are a little bit more—have a little bit more privacy in some of their spaces. 
But I think those kinds of spaces and those kinds of opportunities are going to continue to develop and present themselves. 
OLBERMANN:  You just hit the nut of the point here.  Is there a space sex race and did we lose it to the Russians? 
PITTS:  You know, I don‘t think anybody is going to tell us whether that has happened or not.  I think we have to just look at the faces of the cosmonauts and see if they‘re smiling or not.  That might give us some hint as to what happened. 
OLBERMANN:  Whether it‘s a cosmonaut or an astronaut, is there downtime enough to have done this on your own at some point? 
PITTS:  Actually, Keith, that‘s a very good point.  You know, this is such an expensive endeavor that the ground controllers absolutely schedule every last second of time they possibly can to get the most efficiency out of this, out of the work that‘s being done.  And so there really isn‘t very much time.  Although astronauts always do have some personal time and, you know, let‘s—
We should just mention that where there‘s a will, there‘s a way.  If there‘s time, somebody can get to it. 
OLBERMANN:  Derrick Pitts of the Franklin Institute, who‘s our champion tonight for getting through this in one piece, great thanks. 
PITTS:  Thank you, sir. 
…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 By Martha Phifer

When Francesca Martino was in first grade, she picked out a book titled I Want to be an Astronaut at her school’s book fair.

“She read that book until it got dog-eared and raggedy,” said her father, Richard Martino of Largo. Then she misplaced it.

This year while her parents were remodeling their house, her mother, Cecilia, found the book. She wrapped it and gave it to her daughter as a present for her 23rd birthday.

It was a very special gift for Francesca, who was on her way to becoming an astronaut.

Martino died in Orlando on Monday from injuries after her motorcycle collided with a car that drove into her path, Florida Highway Patrol troopers said.

She was 23.

Born in Clearwater, Martino lived as though she could do anything, her father said.

“She had no limits, especially gender limits. Nothing about female versus male stereotypes made a difference to her.”

As a little girl, she took ballet lessons, played soccer, and ran track and field. She later ran on track and field teams in middle school, high school and college.

Always surrounded by academia, Martino would open a calculus book as a young child and try to understand and figure out the math problems on her own.

“We instilled positive thinking and encouraged her to do anything she wanted to do,” Richard Martino said.

In high school, she excelled in mathematics and physics, and did very well on standardized tests. In her junior year, her parents received a letter from the National Security Agency inquiring about Francesca’s interest in taking a series of tests on number theory. After doing well on all the exams, she was flown to Washington, D.C., for an interview with the NSA.

“She wanted to be an astronaut,” Martino said.

In 2004, after graduating from St. Petersburg Catholic High School, Martino enrolled in Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, where she was majoring in aerospace engineering.

She also was studying to earn minors in mathematics, human factors (also known as ergonomics) and psychology.

At the time of her death, she had earned 80 more credits than the requirement for graduation and was an intern at NASA Kennedy Space Center, working with the solid-fuel rocket booster design and engineering department.

Her next mission in life was to make it to Mars.

Described by family as outgoing and full of life and vigor, Martino was a high-energy talker, who gestured with her hands, partly because of her Italian and Mexican heritage, her father said.

“We enjoyed her conversations, which always had a positive spin to them.”

And when it came time to switch from street tires to racing tires on her blue Kawasaki 650 motorcycle, which she raced on an enclosed track, she did it herself. She also changed the oil and brakes on her car.

“She always wanted to do anything,” her father said.

Martino also is survived by a sister, Alejandra Martino of Largo.

Francesca Martino (Courtesy of Martino family / October 23, 2009)

I know this wonderful rocket scientist, Amber Gell, who intends to be the First Lady touching down on Mars. Now she works for NASA.

Last week she sent me an email.

Gerry

Did you hear that they found water on the moon?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3033063/ns/technology_and_science-space

WATER ON THE MOON

There is enough water on the moon to sustain a human colony; now we can move BEYOND.

Unfortunately we are strapped for funds as a society, not quite broke, but walking the line. Can we afford to go to the moon?

“Proponents of human space travel hope this discovery could put pressure on the White House to follow through with the George W. Bush administration’s plans to return to the moon by 2020 and to construct Earth’s first off-world colony there.”

That was big, easy talk for George W., but now we must find the funds, and more importantly, make the decision,  should we go BEYOND?

In the midst of two wars, both we can still lose, in the midst of an ongoing economic maelstorm, in the midst of a divisive healthcare debate, President Obama must make a cultural decision, a societal decision, a spiritual decision, a character decision, should America go BEYOND?

This decision is really a striking crossroads in American cultural history; we have always gone beyond.

We, as a people, as a culture, have a history “of going to see the elephant”, of seeking adventure.  It was who we were, whether we could afford it or not, we went to see the elephant, we went beyond. Til now.

Now the President has to make a choice between two paradigms, two 15th Century paradigms,the Ming Dynasty in China(15th Century version ) or Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal(The Infante Henrique, Duke of Viseu).

The Ming Emperor Yongle commissioned Admiral Zheng He to master the seas. The Admiral’s seven voyages of exploration  reached Africa, Mecca, Sri Lanka, and some say the West Coast of the United States.

The Seven Voyages of Exploration, ”Zheng He’s first voyage consisted of a fleet of around 300 ships, holding almost 28,000 crewmen-then the largest naval expedition in history. “ 

“ They might well have led to a permanent Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean. Yet when the Hung-hsi emperor came to the throne in 1433, he put an end to the official voyages.Senior mandarins were complaining about the expense, “

The great ships of the voyages were burned. China constricted into itself.  And once it constricted, it became constipated.”By the end of the fifteenth century, imperial subjects were forbidden from either building oceangoing ships or leaving the country.”

If President Obama follows the Ming paradigm, this world will become Earth bound; and in the end it will be the death of adventure. No one will ever see an elephant again.

“The discovery comes at a pivotal time for America’s space program. Former President Bush set NASA on an ambitious course to return to the moon by 2020, and then travel on to Mars. But a presidential commission recently found that without a significant increase in its budget, NASA won’t be able to reach either goal..”

As the Mings were being penny wise and pound foolish both in money and spirit, the Portuguese were testing another paradigm, explore, Explore, EXPLORE. For the Portuguese understood it was in the nature of man to go beyond where man has gone before. You can stifle that and save money, but it literally strangles one of the purposes of living-adventure. 

Prince Henry of Portugal funded adventure, allowing his explorers to find a way around Africa to India,to see all kinds of elephants,training men like Magellan to circumnavigate the globe, to keep pushing beyond. 

What is the purpose of our civilization? To develop new Reality Tv shows? Not when we can do more, and there is water out there.

“At the very least, the discovery lends weight to a new view of a friendlier solar system, where water, the lifeblood of biology on Earth, suddenly seems to be everywhere. Last year’s Phoenix mission to Mars’ polar region found ice just beneath the lander’s struts. Ice has been found on Saturn’s moon Titan and it covers Jupiter’s moon Europa.”It is astounding to find water at all latitudes on the moon and in places where the temperature is hotter than boiling water on Earth,” Clark said.”

There is water out there, and we are not going to go drink it?

WATER ON MARS

“Byrne said the large amount of water on Mars, which he said could be double the size of the Greenland ice sheet, indicates the planet had a warmer and more humid climate as recently as 10,000 years ago. That’s relatively recent in geological terms.”

Think about that, 10,000 years ago the Red dusty planet of Mars was wet, and could have supported a civilization. Our recorded civilization begins ten thousand years ago, are we leftover Martians?

There was a British science fiction film, made in 1967, which posits the theory we are Martians,or were influenced by Martians, 10,000 years ago. Now science has caught up with art.  That film was:

“Quatermass and the Pit (1967)

Workers excavating at an underground station in London uncover the skeletal remains of ancient apes with large skulls. Further digging reveals what is at first believed to be an unexploded German bomb from World War II. Missile expert Colonel Breen is brought in to investigate, accompanied by Professor Bernard Quartermass. When the interior of the “missile” is exposed, a dead locust-like creature that resembles the devil is found. It is determined by Quartermass that these “locusts” are evil Martians who altered the brains of our simian ancestors to eventually lay claim to the Earth. When Quartermass’s suspicion that the missile can reactivate the dormant evil in humans is confirmed, all hell breaks loose”

I do not want to be a member of a generation, or a culture which will burn the spaceships, and sit contently in ignorance for 500 years. I don’t want to be a member of a generation which will expend its resources on OCTOMOM, or Reality TV when there are questions to be answered on Mars. And Mars is waiting there for us, with its WATER.

Neanderthal Man were competitors against us, but wound up evolutionary dead ends. If we don’t go to Mars and taste that water, we too will be evolutionary dead ends, just a bunch of Metrosexual Neanderthals.

SIDEBAR

NASA makes Ms. Gell available to high schools through the NASA SPEAKERS BUREAU. 

 Amber Show your Support for the Space Program!
It only takes a minute & lets your Elected Government Officials know that Space Matters! 

GoBoldlyNASA.org

“9 Simple Things Women Want”

That insipid blurb comes from my YAHOO home page. It punched out at me, so I decided to punch back. I know women who live lives  beyond reality TV, Octomom, the Botox arthritics of SEX AND THE CITY . I know women who want the Stars,not the stars in any poetic, figurative sense but the stars themselves.

I know women who want what Ferdinand Magellan, Sir Francis Drake, John Franklin, Charles Lindbergh wanted, to do it. To see what is out there, and then to bring home the dirt from a different world, a different planet, a different solar system and lay it at the feet of all us who like cozy living.

I know AMBER GELL.

This is her BBC bio, “Amber Gell… who is an engineer for space organisation NASA is visiting Cornwall to show local children the benefits of studying hard in school.Amber is currently designing the docking mechanism for the brand new Orion Space Craft which will be the space shuttle of the future, which Amber hopes one day to be an astronaut on.”

Her visit to a school in Cornwall led to this sensation, (as reported by the BBC).  

Intergalactic Callington

School pupils in North Cornwall received a very special visit when they met and received a talk from a NASA Space Engineer. Amber Gell from Houston, Texas. BBC  James Miners blasted off to the Callington Space Centre and asked Amber about her role at NASA.

Pupils from Callington College will have their signatures sent into space on the next NASA shuttle launch in October. They are the only school in the country to have the opportunity. The student signatures destined for space.

“Children studying in school now are the perfect age that they can be the crews that go to the Moon or eventually on to Mars.”

As part of their day hearing lectures from Amber, primary school students from the region took part in a rocket building workshop. The pupils designed and built their own rockets and tested them by using an air pump to fire them across the playground.

Amber finished her trip in Cornwall by officially opening the new Chill centre; she now heads for Glasgow where she will lecture students at the Space Academy in Scotland.”

Amber went to Scotland,

Spaced out pupils reach for the sky

By Leanne Carter, THE NORTHERN SCOT

Yesterday’s visit was particularly important for Ms Gell, who is committed to breaking down perceptions that science careers are still a male dominated domain.

She said: “I really hope that our visit will inspire young girls to consider a career in science. A lot of it depends on the girl, but some think that if they enjoy science and engineering, they can’t go out and enjoy themselves and do other hobbies like dancing. That’s complete hogwash.

“You usually find that girls who want to go into science and pursue it as a career are very determined to succeed and in many cases they end up getting better grades than the boys.

“I think what you do here in Scotland, inviting representatives of NASA to come and talk to students, is amazing. We have nothing like this in the USA – I would have loved it if an astronaut had come to my school.”

Ms Gell is determined to make it through the tough selection process to become one of the US space agency’s astronauts.”

Amber wants to go to Mars, Amber the Amstronaut.

They love Amber in Cornwall and Scotland, in fact all over England. She is also big in France. Young students, especially female  students contact the NASA Speakers Bureau  from all over the United Kingdom and France to ask for Amber The Astronaut to come to their schools inspire them.

So here we have a true American hero, a young, beautiful, brilliant woman willing to risk her life to go where James Kirk and Jean Loup Picard will only follow. She offers inspiration to European students, especially women, and gets adulation in return. The rub is, there is a cardinal lack of interest in science in America’s GEN Y generation.

Requests from female American students are almost nil.

Amber speaks to the issue: “How do we save our space program? I ask that not in the original context which it may be perceived, but rather, how do we inspire a future generation of engineers and scientists?  

How do we get today’s youth to recognize and embrace their potential and assume their roles as the bright minds of the future?

How do we bring back the Creativity, Innovation, Ingenuity, and Motivation & Dedication that our forefathers once embraced?

How do we make it happen?

…and how can we do this before it’s too late?”

President John Kennedy once said,” we’re going to the moon not because it is easy but because it is hard.” 

AMBER  AT ZERO GRAVITY

Three astronauts died trying to get to  the moon; three more could have died.

 

It will cost more to go to Mars, in lives and treasure.

 

There will be death, in cold dark places, without oxygen. In fact, I am a believer that many will die on the way to Mars, and no amount of brilliant science can alter that. Exploration is risky, terminally risky.

 

But we will go, why? Because that is what do as a species. We go see, and if we die, the next person goes a little further, and if they die, the ones after them go further still, until finally after all the deaths, we get there, and bring a piece of it home.  That is the business of our species, EXPLORATION.

 

Everyone who signs up for Mars has a covenant with Danger, maybe even a covenant with Death; but everyone who goes enhances our species.

 

From  George Mallory to Franklin to Magellan, exploration is an honorable covenant.

 

To go to Mars, the species needs, will need young people who see themselves not as a member of a gang, nor a member of a tribe, nor a cast member, nor a member of a race, but sees themselves as a member of the species.

 

Since the dawn of civilization, women have either been oppressed or whined about being oppressed. This mission to MARS and then beyond, is a chance for all young women to stand up and show all the closed minded men who ever lived that they were wrong. That  women can deliver. That they belong on the Long Ships of history, in this case spaceships.

SIDEBAR

George Mallory survived the trenches of World War I, to die climbing  Mount Everest.  ”Mallory, and his colleague Andrew “Sandy” Irvine, disappeared while attempting to be the first to climb the world’s highest mountain in 1924. “Mallory’s frozen and thus preserved body was found by a US-led expedition in May, 1999.

In 1924, before his ascent on Everest, he was asked by a level headed person, “Why climb Everest?”

Mallory had only four words in his answer,

“BECAUSE IT IS THERE.”

Mars is there.

AMBER CAN BE CONTACTED THROUGH THE NASA SPEAKERS BUREAU

Amber at Harris City Academy in London, England. Goodluck to their “NASA Hopefuls” who are competiting for selection to participate in the NASA Trip this Fall, the winners of the academic challenge will get to spend a week at NASA

  

  Amber with the last man to walk on the moon, Apollo 17 astronaut, Dr. Harrison “Jack” Schmitt,  at Space Center Houston.

Amber in Training

Amber getting ready to practice that famous line on a new species, ”I COME IN PEACE.”