President George W. Bush vetoed a bill to fund education, health care and job training, while signing a $459 billion bill to increase the Pentagon's non-war funding. He said he didn’t want wasteful spending.
The US debt is now at $9.1 trillion. It will likely reach $10 trillion soon – that’s a 1 with 13 zeroes. Interest on debt has to be paid. The numbers are interesting: In 2006 debt interest was $406 billion on a $2.6 trillion budget. In other words, the US government spends 16% of its entire budget on interest. Let’s put that number in perspective: while the US is spending $406 billion a year on interest, it spends $15 billion on NASA, $56 billion for the Department of Transportation, and $61 billion on education.
You’ve probably heard about the apocryphal Chief Marketing Officer who said that her company wastes 50% of their advertising money, she just doesn’t know which 50%.
There is no question about wasteful spending by the US government. The question is, which of that spending is wasteful? Do I hear any votes for the $406 billion in interest?
Showing posts with label NASA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NASA. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Shuttle teacher aloft
McCall Idaho educator Barbara Morgan finally made it into space 22 years after being the backup to Christa McAuliffe. She’ll spend up to two weeks making repairs to the Space Station on the 119th Space Shuttle flight and the 20th flight for the Endeavour.
The numbers behind a shuttle launch are astounding.
It takes nearly 17,000 people to make the shuttle fly. And when it does it takes just eight and half minutes to reach its orbital speed of 17,300 miles per hour, despite weighing four and a half million pounds at takeoff. And when it lands, it weighs less than 230,000 lbs.
We all know about the danger of falling debris during the first few minutes of flight. But before the launch engineers found another danger and designed a sound suppression system – or SPS – that dumps 300,000 gallons of water on the launcher platform and solid rocket boosters to keep acoustical energy from damaging the shuttle wings and control surfaces. That’s quite a pre-flight bath!
On this flight Barbara Morgan is taking 10 million basil seeds to distribute to students and educators.
And you can be sure that after her trip, when she finally returns to teaching, Barbara Morgan’s students will never go wanting – or hungry – at story time.
The numbers behind a shuttle launch are astounding.
It takes nearly 17,000 people to make the shuttle fly. And when it does it takes just eight and half minutes to reach its orbital speed of 17,300 miles per hour, despite weighing four and a half million pounds at takeoff. And when it lands, it weighs less than 230,000 lbs.
We all know about the danger of falling debris during the first few minutes of flight. But before the launch engineers found another danger and designed a sound suppression system – or SPS – that dumps 300,000 gallons of water on the launcher platform and solid rocket boosters to keep acoustical energy from damaging the shuttle wings and control surfaces. That’s quite a pre-flight bath!
On this flight Barbara Morgan is taking 10 million basil seeds to distribute to students and educators.
And you can be sure that after her trip, when she finally returns to teaching, Barbara Morgan’s students will never go wanting – or hungry – at story time.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
The probabilities of shuttle launches
Running the numbers, NASA cleared the Shuttle Atlantis for launch tomorrow, subject to weather and unexpected delays of course. But the same facts told different ways tell different stories. For example, forecasters predict favorable weather with 70% probability, as there is a 30% chance of thunderstorms. These two pieces of information fit together well but paint very different pictures in one’s mind. Seventy percent favorable weather? A sunny day with some puffy clouds. Thirty percent thunderstorms? Quick, get indoors to avoid getting hit by lightning or hail!
Twenty-one years ago, on January 28, 1986, the Shuttle Challenger exploded just seventy-three seconds after takeoff, killing the entire crew. Subsequent analysis showed that when making their launch decision, Morton Thiokol and NASA engineers looked at the right numbers but came up with the wrong story. The engineers correctly chose to analyze a scatter diagram of O-ring failure frequencies by temperature. But their analysis was flawed: They performed a regression test on the data and found no statistical basis for unacceptable O-ring failure rates at 29 degrees Fahrenheit, the expected O-ring temperature at launch. If they instead had looked at the Bayesian probability of O-ring failure below 59 degrees, they would have realized there had been a 100% O-ring failure rate in past flights and thus would have decided not to launch.
Math is more than just the numbers. And a shuttle launch is more than just another flight. A lot is riding on it. I just hope that NASA has both its numbers and its stories right tomorrow.
Twenty-one years ago, on January 28, 1986, the Shuttle Challenger exploded just seventy-three seconds after takeoff, killing the entire crew. Subsequent analysis showed that when making their launch decision, Morton Thiokol and NASA engineers looked at the right numbers but came up with the wrong story. The engineers correctly chose to analyze a scatter diagram of O-ring failure frequencies by temperature. But their analysis was flawed: They performed a regression test on the data and found no statistical basis for unacceptable O-ring failure rates at 29 degrees Fahrenheit, the expected O-ring temperature at launch. If they instead had looked at the Bayesian probability of O-ring failure below 59 degrees, they would have realized there had been a 100% O-ring failure rate in past flights and thus would have decided not to launch.
Math is more than just the numbers. And a shuttle launch is more than just another flight. A lot is riding on it. I just hope that NASA has both its numbers and its stories right tomorrow.
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