NASA

In the beginning, it was all so simple. Rub two sticks together, get a fire. Stick a pipe in the ground, get some oil. Trade a cow, get a llama. Simple systems require only straightforward applications of engineering, with little need to examine precisely how individual components might interact. But as our global production system has evolved, so too has the level of complexity amongst the various components. Our society, based on ever-advancing technology of all kinds, has become a seething morass of indecipherable interactions between mind, body, finance, and resources.

What was once a world of isolated simple systems is now what we (so creatively) call a complex system. Complex systems don’t have straightforward relations between cause and effect (input and output) because there are such high numbers of interactions within the system. As such, complex systems fail in complex ways.

We were hit by a very strong hail storm at Kennedy Space Center last night, delivering the largest hail I've ever seen (roughly ping-pong ball size). After the storm cleared, we heard word over the net that there was 'extensive' damage to the shuttle's External Tank, and when we saw the video on the monitors we knew there was very little chance we would be flying that way. So, we will likely be rolling back to the Vehicle Assembly Building and either repairing the tank or (more likely) swapping tanks. Our group will probably be offloading our propellants and securing over the next couple days to prepare for roll-back, but I'll try to put a substantive post in tomorrow.

You can see an example of the size of the hail in this picture. This isn't my car, but I had similar damage to mine. Hopefully the dents will pop out.

(FYI: The storm stayed well clear of our house, so fortunately there was no garden damage.)

This week I'm planting the bounty of seeds I ordered from Seed Savers, which is taking a bit of time. The Square-Foot Gardening method works great, but it requires a little extra effort for brand-new garden beds. I'm working from a rough sketch that lays out my companion planting strategy and I'm discovering that I can squeeze in quite a bit more plants than I had estimated -- which is a very good thing! I hope to have everything in by the end of this week, which could be tough since I only have about an hour of daylight by the time I get home from work...

We're also in our busiest time at work getting ready to load our propellants onto Atlantis for the launch on March 15. So, posting will likely be a little light over the next few days, but I promise gold once I get settled again :)

Discovery is ready to take off Thursday night, and my activity here on the blog should pick back up again once it's launched. If you have a chance to see the launch in person, take advantage of it. Night launches are rare and spectacular, and there aren't many shuttle missions left!

Comments:
1 Comment -Show Original Post

jeff said...

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

10:30 AM