Dinner at CSUEB

(once again for context you may need to read the previous two days first. monday, then tues.)

So, I headed up to CSUEB (Formally CSUH) yesterday to take part in the annual President’s Circle. Norma Rees (CSUEB President) throws open her home once a year and lets in people who gave a certain amount of money (Never mind how much that is.) to campus come drink wine and eat crab bruchetta’s.

She has a modest Morrison style track home up in the Hayward hills overlooking Castro Valley and a semi wooded canyon. In the distance you can see downtown Oakland, San Francisco and a good part of the Bay. It was 80ish in temperature, the sun was moving close to the coastal hills, and I was still thoroughly worked up from my conference call with Miss Missouri Compromise and her crowd. I needed a drink.

Crab bruchettas, shrimp cakes, giant garlic mushrooms Norma had on the menu. Red wine she did not. When I asked if there was any I was informed by a very polite and quite good looking young woman (note I now think of like 24 as young) that they only had white. “It was the carpet.”

I looked down. Yep, red would stain it. So would white. Most of you know my opinions on white wine, and it’s backed up by the basement collection. The only white gets left by visitors. But I was done arguing for the day, and I had been told not forty minutes before I should be more open minded. I said, “Filler up.” Probably in a more academically inclined sentence, but it escapes me now. I positioned myself by the kitchen so as to intercept the good looking waitress for snackie-poos and be able to travel about two feet for more wine. If I was going to be open minded, I really wanted to be opened.

I was soon joined by a gentleman who introduced himself as someone that sponsors scholarships for a couple students each year. He asked me where I lived. I told him Berkeley, Elmwood Park area. Turns out he used to live here. He then started asking all sorts of questions about my house, what I was doing etc. I told him the whole restoration story, and that the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA – they actually go by that name) had nominated me for an award this year. (More on that tomorrow.) He said, that sometimes Berkeley give you a tax break if you win. I took a real liking to the guy! Anyway, I only mention this whole conversation because, I go to the award ceremony tomorrow night, and given that this a Berkeley award, I’m sure there is going to be a silly story associated with it. Stay tuned, or browse my web page as the case may be in a few days.

Anyway, the scholarship giving guy and I talked for a few glasses of wine. Then we went out on the deck and talked to student scholars for a few more glasses. About six glasses of wine, six discussions of what someone’s major was and some cool eats later, it was announced the guest speaker was going to start. We went in. --Me drinking the last of my wine to protect the carpet.

Now for some years at this event I have been asking if they could get someone from the College of Art and Letter’s to talk. I give my money to the Departments of English and Speech Communication. At these president’s events we always get these scientists who talk about global warming or a cure for psoriasis. Not that I don’t think science is important. I studied it. I make my money from it. But I also studied English and Speech. So I’m an articulate and well written scientist. I want representation.

Well, turns out, they brought in the resident poet for the talk. She went to Iowa. –They all do. The professors of poetry writing I mean. Professor, what’s her name, started in about the greatness of poetry in something or other. I was a bit tipsy so I didn’t really follow. I started thinking about how she wasn’t making sense, and her logic didn’t flow. But she’s a poet, who went to Iowa, they go there to do hang with other non-linear thinking types. From the corn fields they dribble out the pain of their lesbianism or dead love or something. It flows in manner Spock wouldn’t get. Then I thought, “Cool a poet. Someone I can finally talk to at this.” Oh wait, she has an MFA from Iowa. She’s published. (Well so am I, but not like her. Not Iowa published.) I can’t talk to her. I’m not worthy. I’m only a rocket scientist who goofs around with poetry. I’ve only been published three times. I’m drunk. I’ll make about as much sense as she does right now, if I try and talk poetry. How do I get around this?

“So, since feeling is first:” she quoted Cummings. I woke up from drunken tirade. Cummings? My favorite poet! I can talk Cummings. Oh wait, she’s a professor, no I can’t. She’ll kick my ass. Then she started talking about these poetry readings that the department of English sponsors. They only cost $250 to put on. The dean of the School of Arts Letters etc. gives her the cash from the friends of campus fund. She wished she could do more. “Hey that’s me”, I thought, “I could talk to her about more readings.” She wouldn’t get too intellectual about poetry with the guy that sponsor’s her poetry readings. So, she finished her speech and ended up standing next to me, while Norma thanked the poet and talked about us. (The donors.) I leaned over to the poet. “We need to talk” I said, not really sure why, other than I was drunk and I was a rocket scientist over exposed to non-linear thinking that day.

I then realized I actually had to have a reason, other than just saying. “Hi, I give money for a poetry, English and what not.” As my mind had been opened by the wine, it wandered into the hills a bit. The sun was setting orange on hillside. I started thinking about the conference call on how to blow up rockets quicker. I wondered what the root cause of my frustration was. Then, I hit upon it. Working with Miss Missouri Compromise was a bit like being in the writer’s workshop. I was the only scientist and mathematician in a tribe of preachers. I got A’s in writer’s workshop. My stories were easy to follow. They flowed. Everyone else seemed to be discovering their savior. It was all about their feelings. Cause, ”Since Feeling is First, who pays attention to the syntax of things” Cummings said. That was the problem with the NARS. They were depending on their feelings. They felt with a little faith, the rockets would stop blowing up. I felt it was a matter of science and order. They seemed to think it was a random act of …..Well, not them that’s for sure. They were managers with business degrees or something. All they needed to solve the problem was a slogan and proper motivation. But in that moment as the sun lit the hills like the flames of a night launch ascending and not blowing up from Vandenberg, I hatched a plan. Long term, not short term, I couldn’t do much about the current NARS in my life. But if I could distract even one or two NARS from an attempted life of science, I could save future generations of rocket scientists.

The poet was looking at me. “Hey,” I said. “I’d like to sponsor quarterly readings at the University. Maybe even establish financial help for people who want to study writing at CSUEB.”

She looked at me with surprise. “Wow, how generous.”

I smiled back. “Consider it an investment in the future.”

The Redstone Missourri Compromise

Before you read this entry, you may want to read yesterday’s for context.

I’d like to say I had a great day at work today. I’d like to say no rocket intestine splattered the launch pad. Astronaut’s were spared disintegration. Project money didn’t dance about and transfigure from black to red. You know, like it never does in government programs. (What am I saying, is that possible?) I’d like to say I didn’t want to strap a certain Texan, a couple red stone throwing Missourians, and a few Upper-Middle managers in the Redstone organization to their rocket’s fuselage as it morphed into a roman candle.

Actually, I can say that.

We took a day off from ignition tests today to brainstorm, why the Redstones keep blowing up. I have my own theory, revolving around how we shouldn’t even be doing this project at all. But, as I told you yesterday, I lost that discussion 18 months back.

So, we looked over a document one of the “idea people” who came up with this spent cigarette butt of a program had sent for consideration. Her little flakes of tobacco ash suggestions stated: “The basic problem with launch testing was that we (the California testers and launchers) were being a bit too thorough and conservative.” Rather than test all systems we should consider a series of alternatives and compromises they had thought up in Missouri. . She ranked them in order of her preference. Most of her alternatives as I stated yesterday were some form of stop trying to get one rocket to light up and do them all. Never mind they all blow up. That probably won’t happen in flight. We had a conference call to look at her alternatives.

But before I discuss the conference call, I should give you some more background on the MOLP Redstone project. Basic physics mostly. The Redstone rocket achieves 78,000 lbs or thrust at full throttle. That means, it can lift and object weighing 78,000 lbs and accelerate it. Given enough time and fuel, it can lift a 78,000 lb object a long way. Like 20,000 miles into orbit. I won’t bore you will orbital mechanics math. But those little space station chunks my groups been sending up from coastal California weigh around 230,000 lbs. –And they keep getting heavier. No single Redstone is going to lift them. Eighteen months ago when I was given this assignment, I pointed that out. My upper middles response: “Oh, stop bragging about your volumes and make it work. You’re a pretty out of the box thinker, if anyone can make it work your team can.”

Well, we did some analysis (3rd grade math) and came up with the idea of linking about six Redstones together at once. It was as ugly as a cross between an alligator and an armadillo but in theory it could work. I got an e-mail back the next day from Texas, “Glad to see you are supporting us. Lightspeed to Mars.”

Problem was the Redstones needed a new guidance system that could control six rockets at once. I suggested we use a system we’d been using out here for our big volumes. It got the following comment from Texas. “We’ve never seen anything like that in the Redstone states. You Berkeley scientists are kind of weird.” But in reality, my whole presentation of the alternative of how Redstones could be adapted for use in the California was summed up by this answer from one of Missourians: “We’ve never tried to lift a volume like this. Maybe you should think smaller. We do.”

We’ve had a lot of just non-reality based conversations whose content gets reinvented in meeting notes since. I’ve stopped the Upper-middles and the politicians several times, and asked them if they really are committed to this project. I mean we went from an early $1 million cost estimate to $1 Billion, and the Reddy’s are still not moving anything. I mean, if this was my money, I wouldn’t be doing it. Plus if these Reddy’s fail to deliver the thrust we need, go off course, or just blow up a payload or eulogize a few astronauts, who is going to be held accountable? Not the people from the Redstone states. They blame everything on California.

So with those thoughts in mind, I had to consider the following a bunch of alternatives to my apparently faulty launch preparation plan. To their credit I will give the Reddy’s one concession. I do accept that I have to eventually fire up the engines on all six of these Redstones they welded together all at once. That is the final flight configuration. When I launch a payload, that’s what I have to do. That is the end goal. However, right now I’m just trying to get one Redstone to work. –And we know how well that’s going. So we had a conference call today that went something like this:



Me: “I looked at all your alternatives, about running multiple tests at one time. They seem to miss the point that we haven’t been able to get a single rocket to ignite and not blow up on the launch pad.”

Miss Missouri Compromise: “Right, that’s why we think you should fire off a configuration of all six rockets at once. Skip all those fuel pressure checks and stuff too. They slow things down.”

Me: “Okay, I can see some merit to that approach after we get the engines to ignite and not blow the vehicle up. Stopping the explosions, that probably needs to be MOLP’s focus right now. The Missouri team should figure out how do deliver vehicles to us without catastrophic defects.”

Miss Missouri Compromise: “Well, we don’t see it that way. We are way behind schedule. Mostly because of your excessive testing procedures.. Cleaning up vehicles with incomplete positive results is your area of responsibility. We agreed you’d be further in the launch test than this at this point. Furthermore we don’t have resources to figure out where pre-flight aberrations may occur. You need to run more tests and report the results back to us.”

Me: "Exactly how do I do that when, your missles keep blowing up? It takes me three to four days to clean up the launch pad each time."

Miss Missouri Compromise: "Well, that problem will sort itself out in time, we want a plan for after the missles stop blowing up."

Me: "I'll consider a plan for speeding up testing when your rockets stop blowing up!"

Miss Missouri Compromise: "Stan, we don't hear you using committment language. I think you need to be more out of the box in your thinking."

I could continue this, but it came down to me yelling in the phone about basic math and logical thinking. It’s the first time I’ve lost my cool at work in fifteen years.

Fortunately, I had an excuse to leave early. The university I graduated from was holding the annual President’s Circle dinner that night. Thirty minutes after the call I was up in the hills over looking the bay getting smashed on wine, rather than smashing heads of anyone that looked like they were from a Redstone state.

That dinner was kind of weird too. But I’ll talk about that tomorrow.

The little Rocket that Can’t.

Its Monday night: 11:45 PM. Just got home from work. It’s going to be a weird week. I’m sure a lot of you have noticed I haven’t written much lately. I’ve been exhausted. Work went crazy back in Feb. Specifics: well, Eh…. you know the middle-middle manager position I hold doesn’t make much sense to outsiders. But I can tell you, lately, I feel a bit like the launch director at NASA. In general, I work on the mission to put a people on Mars. Some guy from Texas thought that one up few years back. Called it “Lightspeed.” Thought it would catch the attention of public. Said we needed a goal to strive for. My real job: assemble the rocket, attach the payload, final test it, and roll it out onto the launch pad, and say “10, 9 8 ….”

Being a former rocket scientist type, I can tell you it never works that way. Back in the late 80’s were trying to prep a vehicle for launch. After we got everything out on the launch pad we noticed a hydrazine leak on one of the fuel lines. (BTW hydrazine is highly corrosive, toxic and explosive. You really want to avoid putting it on your cereal in the morning.) We goofed around for a week, emptying tanks and refitting fuel lines. Each time we did, a new leak sprung somewhere and ate holes in more fuel lines. We were going nuts working lots of overtime. Then someone did a little out of the box thinking and got a can of Bondo out of his car trunk, mixed it, spread it all over the fuel line couplings, pressure tested it, and “Houston, we have achieved seal.”.

Work’s been a lot like that lately. My group has been trying to prep a rocket for launch. Course, it’s not the rocket of our choice. Back about 18 months ago, we were supporting an ongoing series of missions and noticed the thrust nozzles on the rockets had some small problems. They were wasting fuel getting payloads into orbit. They’re good rockets, --Just a little fuel inefficient. We made a proposal to pull the thrust nozzles off, do a little machining and put them back on. We’d have to do this for all the nozzles we had in inventory, so it would take about 10,000 hours, or $600,000. It was a straight forward proposal. The fuel efficiency would pay for the machining in about two missions.

The proposal turned out turned out to be my big mistake. Once I wrote down hard numbers, they could be scrutinized. That’s when the upper-middles and politicians from Texas got to thinking. Somewhere years ago, someone, a NARS (Not a Rocket Scientist) had written a paper on how we were using too many different rocket types at NASA. This was a waste of money and rocket scientist time. The paper said, the NARS had looked at all the rocket types that had ever been in our inventory, and the old Redstone from the Mercury Program was the best in class, it was low cost, and could complete any basic mission. We should go back to using it exclusively. Total cost to retrofit all the old Redstones as general launch vehicle for NASA: 16,000 hours or just under $1,000,000. The Texan’s loved it. Never mind the paper was written by a marketing person from the manufacture of the old Redstone. Never mind the fact the Redstone had never lifted anything heavier than a single astronaut in motorcycle side-car sized capsule. Never mind that I was launching parts of the Space Station the size of mansion into orbit. –And most of all, never mind the fact the Redstone was really old technology and had of proclivity for blowing up on the launch pad, seven times out of ten. The politicians and the upper middles of NASA wanted me to move to using the Redstone for my missions.


I had one of those “use hippo’s as your draft animal in a chariot race” conversations with my boss, the Upper Middle manager. (See Monday, January 24, 2005, the hippopotami review) I explained that I thought this was a bad idea. Retrofitting a Redstone to handle the space station component launches, here in California seemed, like it might be more complicated than the paper presented. I pointed to the last white paper project he had stuck my team on, putting rockets in sling shots to save fuel had finally worked but we’d wasted millions of dollars and killed a lot of astronauts. He just looked at me with one of those glassy-eyed Upper Middle looks, the kind they have when they already made up their mind. “Now, Stan, you know this isn’t as complicated as the Sling Shot Project.”

I looked back with one of those stern furrowed eyebrow looks I give him, when he’s more worried about where he’s going to lunch next than how many people might get killed or hurt by a Texas politician’s project. “And you know the person that wrote this paper, and the people that just made this decision are a bunch of NARS.”

"Hey, he said, giving me one of those managerial I use to be a beautiful frat boy, you were a geek in high school smiles. "Give the project a good name too like, 'MARS Optional Lift Project' '' He seemed quite proud of thinking that one up on his own.

Well, I have a mortgage to pay. So, I had to do the MOLP project. Oh yeah, and I still had to support the ongoing missions with the current rockets. Because of that, I was given the budget for the 10,000 hour nozzle project which has long since been done and paid for itself. (Every Texas politician and Upper-Middle manager knows the best way to save money is to spend twice as much.)

But that’s why I’m writing this. The MOLP project is not doing so well. We are working a lot of overtime. Redstones are supposed to be the single rocket used for launches starting in August. We’ve been trying just to do engine ignition testing on the refurbished Redstones since February. The manufacture has made a hundred and fifty changes to the Redstone, and delivered 88 different versions of the retrofitted rocket. They all have blown up on the launch pad. The manufacture calls this “final readiness testing.” Each time after the rocket disembowels itself all over the landscape, I send my workers out to look at the pieces and figure out what went wrong this time. We send e-mails to the manufacture, pointing out that they’re have not insulated their wires, and this is causing electrical arcs. We noted that the hydrazine is leaking from fuel lines they haven’t sealed. We point out, that a lot of times when they do seal leaks, they seem to create others. Sometimes they forget to tighten down the bolts holding the thruster nozzles on. But most of all I point out, that all these explosions are causing me to do way too much support work on the clean up. I have to hire bull dozer crews and fireman that weren’t in my original budget projections. –And while I can clean the launch pad up in a few days now, and put up the latest version of rocket out there for test, we are no closer to safely igniting the engines than we were in February. We are getting way behind schedule and can’t probably recover. When we send these messages we get very strange answers back like: “That will never happen in flight.”
“You need to think out of the box.”
“We specialize in designing rocket concepts not launching or flying them.”
“We’ll have a new version of the Redstone to you in a day or so. Try that one.”
“We’re fine down here in Texas, how you all doin?”

Today, the manufacture sent me a list of brainstorming ideas on how I can get the rockets to blow up quicker. They figure the problem with the schedule is my inability to ignite the engines, blow up rockets, and clean up the mess quick enough. One of their ideas suggested I not limit myself to testing one rocket at a time, I should try and ignite the engines on thirteen rockets all at once. That way if they all blow up, at least we’d probably have a good sample of all the problems that were unlikely to occur on real flight.

I have sent them a response on the logistics and costs of running thirteen simultaneous explosions at once. I even pointed out the concurrent explosions might mask the problems from one rocket to another as they obliterate each other. We are having a meeting on this subject tomorrow.

yoda

I went to see Star Wars III, actually VI, today. Took a long lunch and combined it with my staff meeting, skipped another meeting, and bingo, I got see Yoda Jedi Master kick Imperial ass. It only took 27 years from when I saw Luke use the Force. But I'm patient.

Best scene in the movie (based on a survey taken at my local punk bar Thursday night) : Yoda walking into the Emperor's chamber. He waves his hands and two Imperial guards drop into uncounciousness. Yoda crosses his arms and says, "So, you are the dark lord." (I'm here to kick your ass.) Well, he didn't say that, but you knew he was going too.

It kind of reminded me of my favorite writing professor in college, NVM Gonzales. He was the Phillipine National Poet. He passed away a few years back, but not in my mind. Anyway, he would sit in class on Friday's and all of us students would come to the master. He'd cross his arms and say in broken English. "So, stories to tell, you think you have?"

He then reduced us to rubble.

But learned, I have, from old master Gonzales. Course, from reading this blog you don't get to see much of that. But I use his teachings to play tricks on the weak of mind.