Moon landing

The U.S. ice president has instructed NASA to place astronauts on the lunar surface by 2024, four years earlier than originally planned. 

NASA administrator Bridenstine says that the timeline, though challenging, is do-able. And they have a plan.

Construction will begin in 2022 on "Lunar Orbital Platform - Gateway," a space station which will stay in orbit around the moon. Lunar landers will launch from this platform. 

Apollo 11 sent three astronauts to the moon on the Saturn 5 rocket in July of 1969, fifty years ago this coming summer. 



from "Can NASA Really Put Astronauts on the Moon in 2024?"

Fracking 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Since the shale revolution about ten years ago, empowered by hydraulic fracturing  (fracking), Pennsylvania's output of natural gas has soared to 32 times what it was before and 20% of all U.S. gas.

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Benefits abound. With a tremendous local supply of this low cost energy source, Pennsylvanians are using less coal and more gas. That accounts for lower power sector CO2 emissions. Pipelines are being built to ship the gas to other states. 

And there's more. Nationally, the U.S. now produces more energy than it consumes whereas we used to be dependent on imports from both friendly and unfriendly countries. Innovation has led the way.

"Better technology and techniques [i.e. innovation] conjure the deep magic of any successful modern economy."

Fracking 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

So fracking is what made the "shale revolution" possible. Gas and oil existed all right, in shale rock beneath the ground under Pennsylvania and Texas and other places. 

But old-school fracking (invented in the 1940's) was inadequate to get it out--until innovative mining engineers came up with new methods to solve the problems. It's hard to believe this really works - but it does work:

"[P]roducers can now drill a vertical hole two miles deep (way below the potable water table), make a 90-degree turn, and proceed to drill out from there another two miles horizontally, all while geosteering the drill bit to ensure it keeps turning in a tight band of no more than a couple feet thick. Oilmen say it’s like throwing a fastball two miles away and hitting a target the size of a refrigerator."

"Chalk it up to oil industry tenacity, a wildcatter spirit of trying new technologies on multimillion-dollar wells, and a willingness to risk huge sums of money . ."

(cont'd tomorrow)

Fracking 1

The state of Pennsylvania has cut its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the power sector over the last few years by 30%. The big reduction was not achieved by eliminating cars or turning down thermostats. Rather, natural gas increasingly replaced coal as a source of energy.

Pennsylvania always had natural gas and petroleum resources, but much of it was trapped in tight formations of shale - difficult to extract . . until engineers in Texas designed new methods to extract it.

The game changer began a new wave of innovation:

"In 2008, Texas oilman George Mitchell’s firm was acquired by Devon Energy, and that landmark deal married Mitchell’s pioneering fracking ingenuity with Devon’s larger size, capital, and aces in technology. Devon figured out how to drill horizontally in shale formations and then fracture them, cracking open fissures in the tight shale rock so that gas could flow. A few years later that technology was applied to oil formations as well, and the production surge was on."

(cont'd tomorrow)

Good work

My husband and I are organizing a social (many call it a "pot blessing" rather than a "pot luck") for a team we lead at our church. As a tool for getting to know each other better, he is going to ask them one of his favorite questions: "What do very few people know about you?"

Everyone you know, everyone I know, has talent in something. It may be publicly known or it may not, but I know it's in there. It's probably a joy to that individual and a blessing to other people. 

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You have talent.  Hopefully you will develop it, watch it bloom, delight to see how it blesses your family and associates. It will take work, but it will be satisfying.

"God invites us to use our talents toward productive ends that will bring us satisfaction and joy, delight our Master, and benefit those around us."

Downfall 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Nicolas Maduro has presided over Venezuela's collapsing society (see label Venezuela) since the death of Hugo Chavez in 2013. You've seen the protests, the immense lines of people hoping to buy food. Two million have fled the country.

Cuba's government wants to prop up the rule of Maduro according to this report in the NYT. Before the last election - commonly known to have been rigged - Cuba sent thousands of doctors. Not to help the people, but to help Maduro win:

"Cuban doctors said they were ordered to go door-to-door in impoverished neighborhoods, offering medicine and warning residents that they would be cut off from medical services if they did not vote for Mr. Maduro or his candidates."

Instructions were given to the doctors on how to manipulate patients to vote for Maduro. Foreign medical workers were given counterfeit ID cards so they could vote for Maduro. Treatment was forbidden to opposition supporters. Oxygen was withheld from heart patients.

“These are the kinds of things you should never do in your life,” said one doctor.

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from NYT "It Is Unspeakable,": How Maduro Used Cuban Doctors to Coerce Venezuela Voters"

Downfall

Quick, what country has the world's biggest supply of proven oil reserves? Saudi Arabia? America? Russia? No. As you may remember from previous posts, it's Venezuela.

But Venezuela's daily production is far from big. Compare to the American state of Texas: Venezuela was producing much more than Texas til ~2013. Then Texas production soared and Venezuela's eventually tumbled.

image: carpe diem

In 1998, Venezuela's daily oil production was at the highest level in this chart's time frame. Then socialist Hugo Chavez took office as president in 1999, and by 2004 he had fired 19,0000 striking employees of the state-owned oil company, a severe blow to productivity. He replaced them with people more loyal to his government.

The government had invited companies like Chevron, BP, ExxonMobil, and others to help develop Venezuela's state-owned oil business. Those companies invested billions of dollars into technology, equipment and infrastructure - then Chavez changed the deal to get more profit, and some left the country.

So that's a short version of the downfall of Venezuela's economy. They lost expertise (the firing of the 19,000) and then lost investment (as well as expertise) in the oil companies who pulled out.

from "Charting the Decline of Venezuela's Oil Industry"

(cont'd tomorrow)

Spatial

People's brains are often oriented toward either language or math ability. But there's a different sort of intelligence that might be overlooked in school. It's the talent for thinking and visualizing in terms of physical shape, size, direction, location of objects.

It's called "spatial reasoning." Maybe if schools offered more spatial training, more people with this sort of intelligence could be channeled into occupations where they can excel. That's satisfaction for the individual, and we as a society need their talent.

Northwestern University is testing a modified Mine Craft video game for this.

Model Y 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Model Y is an SUV built on the same platform as the Model 3, having a longer range (300 miles) and 66 cubic feet of cabin space. 

Above all, Elon Musk emphasizes that their top priority is safety. "Like every Tesla, Model Y is designed to be the safest vehicle in its class. The low center of gravity, rigid body structure and large crumple zones provide unparalleled protection."

"All new Tesla cars come standard with emergency braking, collision warning, blind-spot monitoring and more. Model Y will have Full Self-Driving capability, enabling automatic driving on city streets and highways pending regulatory approval, as well as the ability to come find you anywhere in a parking lot."

Musk thinks this model will be their most popular eventually. Since SUVs make up 49% of  U.S. auto sales, it's an important new market niche for Tesla.

Kelley Blue Book's publisher says Model Y is their biggest opportunity yet. That's because (as another analyst says) “The Model Y is the first Tesla that really feels like something from a mainstream car brand: a vehicle designed to make a company money, not make a statement.”

Model Y 1

Last Friday, Elon Musk revealed Tesla's brand new car: the Model Y. 

He starts with a review of their progress since making the very first car, a roadster, in February of 2008. The sec0nd car took three months to complete. But by 2018, Tesla had made  550,000 cars.

That last year was "intense," "really hard," aging him "five years in just one."


Now that the company is making solar panels, energy storage batteries, and electric cars, he says we have a  fully sustainable future, one that you can feel optimistic about: "I think it really matters," There's now a global network of 12,000 superchargers in 36 countries.

Elon says it's extremely rewarding to see the rest of the car industry going electric, and they've open sourced all their patents - made them freely available.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Reckless Love

Michael W. Smith has been singing a long time. He made his debut in 1983, has sold 15 million albums, sang at the funerals of Billy Graham and G.H.W. Bush. A passionate Christian, he wants to do the right thing, to follow God's lead in what he gives his life to.

"I could wear myself out standing up for a million different things and die on the vine. I can’t do it all.

"At the end of the day, you pray: God, what is it You want me to stand up for? What are the few things? You’ve given me favor and this platform. What do I speak up for? What do I write about?

"I try my best to hear what he’s saying. Then I go down that road and pray I am doing the right thing. And, if not, I pray he will wake me up and steer me in another direction."

Civility

A black man made a friend out of a Ku Klux Klan man. It happened naturally, because this man deliberately took the time to talk to him and listen to him.

"We spend too much time talking about each other, at each other, past each other - and not enough time talking with each other."

Inspiring.

Crew Dragon 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

"American astronauts haven't launched to orbit aboard a homegrown spacecraft since July 2011, when the space shuttle Atlantis lifted off on the final mission of the shuttle program."

But if everything goes all right, we  will have astronauts in space again this summer. Next July is the SpaceX target for a "crewed demonstration flight to the ISS (Demon-2)". On March 1 the selected astronauts answered questions for journalists on the video below.

Two of them have shuttle flight experience. They say the shuttle's controls had two thousand switches while Dragon has just thirty buttons and a touch screen. Another says they tend to get nervous not before a flight, but afterward. Two of them are married to astronauts.

Boeing, in addition to SpaceX, partners with NASA to develop a crewed space craft called Starliner. They have not yet announced a date for first test flight.

Crew Dragon 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Crew Dragon is much more complex than the space capsule (Cargo Dragon or Dragon-1) that shuttled cargo up to the International Space Station. NASA has worked with SpaceX to design it to maximize the safety systems for human travelers.

In this news conference Elon Musk describes himself as emotionally exhausted, but reports that Crew Dragon (Dragon-2) operated nominally in its first test flight - that is, just as it was supposed to. 

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NASA Administrator Bridenstine says that a new era of LEO (low earth orbit) will see many providers competing on cost and innovation, bringing about increased access to space. He says that the president has given him the task of getting us back to the moon with a sustainable presence there, eventually with launch capability to Mars.

(cont'd tomorrow, the astronauts)

Crew Dragon 1

SpaceX has been been flying cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA since 2012, using its space vehicle Cargo Dragon.

SpaceX has also designed a vehicle for transport of human crew, called Crew Dragon. It just completed its first test flight (Demo-1).

Crew Dragon seats seven and has four windows. It will launch on a Falcon 9 rocket and, on return to earth, will splash down and be retrieved in the ocean, to be used again for a total of ten times.

Crew Dragon 

(cont'd tomorrow)

Mercy Ships 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Mercy Ships is the non-profit that Scott Harrison joined when he determined to leave his corrupt life as a NYC club promoter, and it changed him. He became passionate about serving other people and God, and started charity:water.

Doctors on the ship specialize in large facial tumors, cleft lip or palate, and eye surgeries. In this video, you'll see Scott Harrison telling a tumor victim to come to the ship for help.


In this video you saw Dr Gary Parker say that a "benign and easily treatable" 6-pound facial tumor would have killed "Harris" within two months by slow suffocation.

Dr. Gary served for a couple of months with Mercy Ships to try it out - over 30 years ago. He's still there, says he hopes to keep doing this for the rest of his life.

Mercy Ships 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

These stories are taken from the Mercy Ships website, where you can see more stories and pictures of patients.

When the ship "Mercy Africa" comes in to an African port, people are waiting. Many have made a tremendous effort to come, because it's often their only chance for a cure. Patients are chosen for a procedure if the doctors believe it can help.

This is Edith. She was twelve when she had this surgery, wholly successful. Her mother Valerie also had successful surgery to remove an 8-lb. tumor on her face.

Baby Elizabeth was born with a cleft palate. Because she had trouble nursing, she was close to starvation. A routine surgery changed the child's life (below).

(cont'd tomorrow)

Mercy Ships 1

"We follow the 2,000-year-old model of Jesus to provide hope and healing to the forgotten poor." That's how Mercy Ships (a non-governmental organization or NGO) describes their mission on the front page of their website.

Founder Don Stephens dreamed of a hospital ship that could come anywhere that a government invited them. After years of preparation, raising funds, recruiting staff, Mercy got started in 1978, and has so far done over 80,000 surgeries.

"Actions speak loudest on a Mercy Ship. A respect for others—wherever they are, whatever their culture—is a guiding tenet of every port visit, during screening day and throughout each individual’s stay onboard." (p. 96)

After working among the Muslim people of Gambia for several months, they received a letter from the Gambian president:

"We cannot thank you enough,” he wrote.“Not only have you treated my people and taken care of them, but you have also taught them valuable lessons, the most important being love and respect.” (p. 111)

(cont'd tomorrow - the stories)

Empower 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Godolfredo learned that God gave him his abilities and talents to use for the improvement of the lives of others, and for his own blessing. He was empowered to come up with creative ideas. 

"[He] realized he could be the solution to many of the problems in his community. These included the environmental strain they had been under as well as the constant challenge of poverty. He learned that his work as a farmer was extremely valuable- he could be a caretaker of creation."

He rejected the "futility myth," bravely tried new things, and worked to improve his community.

"Plant With Purpose helps farmers like Godolfredo discover their purpose and their role to play in God’s plan to redeem all creation."

In Godolfredo's own words, "People say that the poor are condemned to be poor, and that’s not the case.”

Empower 1

“People say that the poor are condemned to be poor . . " That's what Godolfo of Oaxaca, Mexico, heard. 

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He had a choice. He could have resigned himself to poverty, to keep believing that the poor are condemned to stay poor. That's the "futility myth" from last week's post - resistance (against poverty) is futile.

But he heard a different message from "Plant with Purpose." They shared an empowering message with him and his neighbors. He started employing his abilities for his own and his community's common good.

"One of the biggest things that determines what we can accomplish is the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. A big part of Plant With Purpose’s program is to replace false narratives that our participants have come to believe with the reality of how God sees them."

(cont'd tomorrow, a changed life)

Robots & jobs

About 200+ years ago, the Industrial Revolution changed almost everything in the world of work and jobs. But humanity adjusted to the changes, and we're better off.

The revolution we're in now - unnamed as yet but the one where artificial intelligence changes almost everything - will also require that we adjust. And we will.