Kick Asteroids

It’s not Friday but stuff comes up.

It’s been interesting reading all the Buzz about President Obama’s new plans for NASA. They cover a wide range of… well, lets call them ideas.

First I need to throw in a few facts:

Obama was born in Hawaii, not the moon. This is not an attempt to hide his birth records.

Obama didn’t cancel the Space Shuttle, GW Bush did that.

The Shuttle didn’t have a replacement vehicle ready when GW Bush announced its retirement because Bill Clinton cut the funding for research into a replacement vehicle.

Obama actually increased NASA’s budget to the point where they can get useful work done. He didn’t “gut” NASA as some republicans say.

In order to keep the Shuttle flying it would need a major upgrade, taking it out of service for at least a year.

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NASA has always had one huge problem, it’s a government agency that is directed by the President. So it has to work on an 8-year time frame. Unfortunately science doesn’t like short timeframes.

An other problem it has is its funding is dictated by congress. Which means, technical decisions are often overturned by idiots.

The Constellation program to replace the Shuttle was given some severe handicaps. It had to be built using parts from the Space Shuttle, this was not a technical decision but a political decision geared to keep the same people who work on the Space Shuttle working on Constellation.

A lot of the early costs of Constellation were due to the fact they were trying to use the existing hardware in ways that it was never designed for. A lot of the original budget went to trying to get the Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME) to work as a second stage when they were designed to fired up on the ground. Finally they went with the RS-68 engines which were built using the research that went into SSME, but were designed to be simpler and could be used as a second stage.

Although it seemed to make sense to build the Ares rockets using existing parts, most of those parts were designed in the 70s with a single purpose in mind.

By canceling the Constellation program and starting fresh NASA can build a heavy lift rocket that uses parts designed later that are more versatile. Like the RS-83 which was designed to replace the SSME but had its funding canceled when the decision to keep the Shuttle flying long after its intended lifespan was made.

So Obama’s decision will probably push the future of US manned space exploration back a few years but his successor in 2016 will have a lot more tools at their disposal.

Increasing the funding to COTS (commercial orbital transport services) will boost the private sector space exploration and should have private companies have at least one rocket that can lift the Orion capsule to orbit (if the Dragon Capsule doesn’t work). Whereas the Ares I probably wouldn’t be ready by that time.

The development of newer rocket engines will make it possible to design a heavy lift launcher with a much lower cost per pound and reliability.

So the next president will have a space program based on hardware developed in the 21st century as opposed to hardware developed in the 60s and 70s.

As far as Obama’s stated goals, they don’t really matter. Without an absolutely huge amount of funding like the amount used on the war on drugs, or the war on terrorism NASA wouldn’t be able to have a manned space program during his presidency. So instead of stating a goal for his replacement to cancel (like most presidents) he decided to leave the goal for next president and give them the tools to get it done.

I would personally like everything to be done, now. But as it’s unlikely the war on drugs or the war on terrorism will be canceled tomorrow this approach will leave NASA and manned space flight stronger in the next administration. So if the next President decides to go to the moon, or an asteroid, or even Mars by 2024. NASA will have the tools to make that happen.

Just like how if Eisenhower hadn’t formed NASA and done a great job in combining all of America’s many different rocket programs, Kennedy wouldn’t have been able to set the goal of sending a man to the Moon in a decade; The next president will have several rocket options available all based on 21st century technology.

Writing Wednesday: It is the worst of Times, It is the Best of Times

Ever since my book, “Invasive Thoughts” was accepted by PublishAmerica I’ve tried to give myself a crash course in book promotion. I thought it was more important to learn this going through PublishAmerica than with other publishers as PublishAmerica states that they DO NOT do more than the most minimum promotion.

After reading what other authors have to say on book promotion I found that yes going through PublishAmerica does leave you behind the curve, but not much. A big Publisher will give a first time author a $2,000 advance and spend another $2,000 in promotion themselves. So I am $4,000 in promotion behind the big guys.

That’s not much considering it’s mostly the author getting the word out themselves and the free promotions do more than the stuff you pay for. So I researched free promotions and what authors had to say about them.

Book Signings, Some authors think they are great, some find them a waste of time.

Radio Interviews, Some authors think they are great, some think they actually hurt.

Giving your writing away free, Some authors feel the exposure is worth it, Some feel they are giving away their valuable writing.

One thing all authors agree on is the individual book needs its own website as well as the author’s site. So now I have another site “Invasive Thoughts” where I will talk only about my book. So far I’ve got information about the book, Some of the Easter Eggs I put in the book and Questions and Answers to what interviewers ask. I’ll hopefully expand on all of those.

As far as book signings that is an area where a bigger publisher would be an advantage as I’ve read a lot of times the bookstore “forgets” to order your book and you need to have a few copies on hand.

I’m trying to line up some Radio Interviews but haven’t gotten any responses yet.

Finally, giving away my writing, I earn between $0.05 and $20 for my writing right now so I’m happy to give it away. I’m looking around for sites that want it.

The great and horrible thing I have found about book promotion is that the publishing industry is in complete chaos and nobody knows what works right now. So I have as much chance of hitting the winning formula as anyone else.

So right now is the greatest time to have a new book out and the worst time to have a new book out.

Darrell B Nelson
Author of “Invasive Thoughts”

Temper Tantrum Tuesday: The Terminator Movies

Looking at the Terminator movies and all the contradictions in them, I have found a simple explanation for all of them. Identity Theft.

Jose Barrera was the original savior of mankind and John Connor was a putz.

Terminator 1: The machines are no match for Jose’s forces

In the first movie Reese told Sarah Connor that humanity had the machines on the run and sending the Terminator back in time to kill her was the machines final “Hail Mary Pass”. If they didn’t kill her then the machines would be doomed and humanity would win.

He traveled back in time to save her with only her name and an old photograph, taken by a Mexican boy, to guide him. That Mexican boy was Jose Barrera.

In the future, Jose had grown up met with all the humans who could launch a resistance to the machines and overthrew them. He had an old Polaroid of some chick named Sarah Connor that had stopped by his Uncle’s gas station one day. During his adolescent days he used to use it for fantasy material.

Letting Skynet know of his true identity would endanger everyone in the resistance so he took her last name and added “John” to it. Thus the identity of John Connor was born.

As Jose broke down Skynet they used the last of their resources to send the T-800 back in time to kill Sarah Connor. Jose thought, “Check and Mate.” Unfortunately, he had an assistant that was too impatient and he only kept him around for laughs. The assistant’s name was Kyle Reese.

Reese followed the T-800 back in time determined to stop him, as Jose hadn’t filled him in on the game plan.

Reese did stop the T-800, fathered the real John Connor who didn’t exist before, and convinced Sarah Connor that her son would grow up to be the savior of humanity. This changed the timeline.

John Connor was born and Sarah Connor spent the his early years training him to be “a great military leader.” Unfortunately, he was still a putz. He did manage to lead a band of rebels, but he led them badly. This wasted the resources that Jose had used in the original timeline, so the victory over the machines was delayed long enough for the machines to develop the T-1000.

Terminator 2: John Connor betrays Jose

Jose still managed to defeat Skynet despite the fact that John Connor was using up his resources with bad strategies. Jose realizes that victory would have happened much sooner if John Connor wasn’t around. So he reprograms a T-1000 to take care of this torn in his side.

The added benefit of this plan was if the T-1000 could destroy the parts from the T-800 that were left behind the original invention of Skynet would be placed back on track saving humanity a decade of warfare.

John Connor didn’t like that idea and as Jose was on the verge of defeating the machines he sent a T-850 back in time to save his younger self, not only to save his life but to make him the top dog in the future without the machines.

His plan works and 10-year-old John Connor stops spending all his time at Orgies in Mike Kripke’s basement and devotes his life to stopping the machines.

Terminator 3: The rise of John Connor

Because of the events in the previous movies, John Connor becomes able to be a powerful military leader, but still a putz. Under his leadership victory is delayed and the machines are able to create the TX. They even have the spare resources to make it growl when faced with momentary set-backs.

After easily killing John Connor in battle, the machines know this putz wasn’t the brains behind the operation to overthrow them; but Jose is too crafty to let them know his true position in the resistance so they send the TX back in time to kill all the people who partook in the Orgies in Mike Kripke’s basement, except for Mike Kripke oddly enough.

The TX shoots Jose Barrera times and severely wounds him, but doesn’t kill him. He goes to the hospital in a sheltered part of LA and survives the nuclear holocaust but the radiation cripples him, leaving him only able to play a minor role in the resistance.

Katherine Brewster, a survivor of the initial nuclear holocaust, had tried to hook up with Jose but was unsuccessful so settled for John Connor. Her hopes of marriage to her boyfriend Scott were sidetracked by the nuclear war. She realizes her only hope to be first lady of the new world order lays in having John Connor be the leader of humanity, even if it prolongs humanities struggle, so she sends the T-880 back in time to secure her position as leader.

This leads to the all out war in Terminator 4 wiping out most of humanity, instead of the stealth warfare in the original timeline that had humanity suffer for a decade or so.

So the Terminator movies do make sense, but only if John Connor’s is a complete smuck and Katherine Brewster is willing to sacrifice most of humanity, billions of lives, in order to be queen of the remaining survivors.

Darrell B. Nelson