Part 1 Part 2

A few weeks ago I talked about how the first mission for the space shuttle was going to be the rescuing and refurbishment of Skylab. Between the Olympics and some other issues, it took me a few weeks to get to this.

This is how we built space stations back in my day!

First, a quick overview of Skylab. The idea of a space station had been discussed since the early ‘60’s. It was agreed  that the most economical way of putting up a space station would be to replace an upper segment of a rocket, or actually use an empty segment of a rocket’s upper stage. A follow-on mission would then equip the station with science labs, solar panels, and everything the station would need. Near the end of the Apollo program, NASA found it had several extra Saturn-IBs rockets and retrofitted a Saturn-IV upper stage to serve as the station. This would serve as the foundation of Skylab.

Despite several difficulties which had to be overcome, Skylab was considered a success. All good things must come to an end though, so in 1974 having expended its fuel, the station was put into a “grave-yard” orbit, one which would decay over several years and allow the station to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere.

The hope at the time was that the space shuttle would be ready in time (September 1979) to dock with Skylab, refuel it, and push it into a higher orbit, extending its life. Additional missions would have the shuttle restock the station periodically, and even allow for a crew of 8.  The cost of resupplying the space station? 60 million in 1980’s money. Not too shabby when you consider the ISS has cost roughly 150 billion to date.

Meh, it’s only Australia*

While the station remained in good condition, development of the space shuttle main engines (SSMEs) was taking longer than expected. Sadly the trouble wasn’t an engineering one; requirement changes, lack of funding, and infighting among the contractors delayed the engines production.

In the end, the shuttle would be ready too late to save Skylab, forcing NASA to de-orbit the space station. Skylab refused to go quietly and didn’t completely burn up in the atmosphere. Bits and pieces of the station were strewn across the Australian outback, some even landing on a few Australian’s homes. (The US government was charged $400 for littering. I’m not joking.)

While the Space Shuttle wasn’t able to save Skylab, it was a key instrument in a nearly ever large NASA success for the past 25 years.

Next time we will take a look at some of the major success of the Space Shuttle’s career.

*Craig would like it to be known that he has nothing but fond feelings for Australia, Australians and Kangaroos, and has deep respect for the mighty Wombat.

Read: Part 1 Part 2

This is a post I’ve wanted to write for a few weeks, but I’ve been afraid to. I’ve been afraid that personal emotions would hijack logic, afraid that this wouldn’t be the correct forum, afraid of talking openly about it.

You see, three weeks ago I, along with several hundred other co-workers, was laid-off. My editor and I agreed from the beginning that my employer should remain anonymous, but I will say that it was a major contractor for NASA, working on both the Space Shuttle and Ares programs. With the shuttle program shutting down and the lack of funding for Constellation/Ares, the reasons behind lay-offs are clear. Lay-offs like this are plaguing the industry and will most likely continue due to the recent announcement that the current administration will no longer support funding for the Constellation program.

I ask that your thoughts go out to these people and their families, as they face difficult times ahead of them.

Despite the sad faces I’ve seen, and the angry words angled at the government, I must take an unpopular stand by saying that these lay-offs and the canceling of Constellation could be the greatest thing in 20 years to happen to the American space program.

Nearly every watcher of the aerospace industry saw this day coming since the early 90’s. NASA has aborted every new space vehicle it attempted to build; also NASA and its contractors have lost many good and experienced people to old age, and poor funding. Private launch companies like Boeing and Lockheed are relying on technology from the late 70’s and early 80’s to support what’s left of our space program. Overseas, foreign powers are beginning to develop space programs of their own, fueled by new economic growth, national pride, and a willingness to take risks.

Post-Challenger, this country lost that willingness to take risks. We believe that space travel should not take place if it can not be done safely. This belief manifested itself like a deformed limb, twisting and crippling our once strong hold on space. Like any limb which has grown improperly it must be broken and reset. This is a painful process, one filled with agony and a long period of rehabilitation. However it must be done if the limb is ever to be useful again.

These lay-offs and the cancellation of Constellation are (hopefully) the breaking and resetting of our space industry. It will be difficult as I and my coworkers are finding out, but it must happen for a brighter future. Despite these difficulties, I believe this is a time for hope and optimism.

One only needs to look as far as Space X, Virgin Galactic, Bigelow Aerospace, Blue Planet, and Blue Origin to see that private spaceflight has been a whisper away for nearly a decade. The technology exists, the experience exists, the drive and passion exists, and now hopefully the money will exist too.

Like the airplane at the turn of the century, it wasn’t until the government was ready to give out high-paying contracts to deliver mail that the private industry really took off (no pun intended). While passenger transport was only for the upper class, it spread to nearly all classes in just a few decades. Now it’s the rockets turn to hopefully follow the same path.

With the oppressive overhead of government control moving aside and the promise of lucrative contracts coming, the time is fast approaching for space travel to be open to the private citizen. The industry has the talent, the experience, and now the opportunity. Getting laid-off was hard, and even harder for others I know. But it is a price that must be paid if we want to get our space industry on track, and it’s one I pay gladly.

Last night I told my wife that the Olympics make me proud to be an engineer and that I get all sorts of excited about engineering when I watch the winter games. I’ve had a bit of time to watch the winter Olympics this time around, and I want to give a special shout out to all the REAL heroes of the 2010 Winter Olympics: The Engineers.

Pine in the Alpine?

Downhill skiers will undergo over 3.5G’s of acceleration throughout the turns. Impressive, but what’s amazing is the skies under their feet. Not only must the skies support over 600 lbs of force but must be flexible enough to carve through the turns.

So what are the magic materials that power these next generation super skies? Carbon composite leading edges? Aerogel cores? Nope, amazingly enough the highest performing skies are composed of plain old fiber glass, wood, and some laminated metals. While the construction is anything but simple, spruce, fir and other woods are at the heart of these high performance skies. Gold metal for the Material Engineers!

90 KPH on ¼” of Steel

The unfortunate accident that caused the death of Georgian Olympian Nodar Kumaritashvili’s has put the Luge in the forfront of these Olympics games. At the heart of this event is the sled, which is custom built for each rider. So exacting is the aerodynamic science that teams will often go to high-performance automobile manufacturers like BMW and Porsche to improve and tweak the aerodynamics of the sled. Primarily constructed of steel and fiberglass, the sleds balance flexibility for control and stiffness for strength.

No less high-tech are the helmets, suits, gloves, and boots, each designed to minimize air resistance and optimize body position… All while protecting the rider while they and their sleds are reaching over 90 kilometers per hour!

Another gold goes out to the Aerodynamists

A lot of attention is spent on the athletes, but where would the games be an army of engineers designing skies, sleds, and suits to bring out the best of those athletes? I’m pretty sure I could be an Olympic athlete too… all I need is the right equipment… (insert curling joke here.)

My squad is gone, and I have no back-up. The fate of the world rests on my shoulders and trigger finger. 3 very unfriendly aliens have me pinned down while a 4th is trying to flank me. I only have 3 bullets left… I almost feel bad them.

The situation above is nothing new for me. But what if instead of being on the edge of my seat, thumbs manipulating a small piece of plastic, I was actually taking cover behind my couch, jumping, ducking, and rolling to avoid gunfire?

Microsoft is developing a new system of interaction with its Xbox360 that may allow me to do just that. Codenamed “Project Natal” Microsoft is trying to change the way we all play games, and maybe even the way we live.

The Wii exploded into our lives with a game system that allowed even grandma and grandpa to play games, eschewing cutting edge graphics for motion control. Numbers don’t lie; the Wii has been a juggernaut in terms of sales but the user is still forced to wave a plastic wand around. Project Natal will watch a players actions and interpret those actions into input, no other controller needed. Gamers online are debating right now if this will be the next big thing, or simply a flash in the pan gadget.

But could it be Microsoft just re-invented the mouse and no-one has noticed?

Originally people would program and input commands to computers using large stacks of punch cards. (I would really love to hear from you if you have any experience with this.) After programs were developed to allow the input of commands via keyboards, the use of computers expanded and so did their capabilities. Once a graphical system of navigating and inputting commands (mice and clicks) was created (thank you Xerox!) use of computers expanded even more and again, began to be used for even more tasks.

Granted, other advances in technology allowed for a reduction in size of computers, and lower prices made them affordable enough for personal ownership. However, the fact remains that most people don’t really understand computers. We understand very well what computers and technology can do, we just don’t know how to communicate our wants to it! We can’t just sit down and tell our computer we want to create a blog post and have it start taking dictation for us.

What if when I sat down on the couch the TV recognized someone was there and turned itself on? Better yet, what if the TV recognized me and instead of showing me Grey’s Anatomy, it turned itself to an episode of Chuck instead, allowing me to fast forward through commercials with a wave of my hand? This is the technology Microsoft is developing.

The technology has much broader use than just inside the living room. CAD users could rotate and edit an object with just their bare hands, or check designs for maintenance ergonomics by virtually trying to fit a socket wrench through a crevice.

Essentially any instance where people interface with technology could be drastically altered and improved. Of course a keyboard would still retain its use for large amounts of text input, but could Project Natal put the mouse on the endangered species list?

Uh-oh, looks like those zombies just kidnapped the princess (again). Guess I have work to do…

With the Space Shuttle program coming to an end on September 16, Craig the Rocket Scientist is taking a look back at the program and its roots. If you haven’t yet read it, check out part 1.

In Part 1 I talked a little about the motivation of moving from large, disposable, heavy lift vehicles to smaller, reusable space transport system which would be able to launch every week to facilitate an orbital infrastructure.

It may feel like I’m retreading old ground, but I want to illustrate the point that everyone was interested in space, but there was very little coordination between all interested parties. NASA, the Air Force, and the President, all had very different ideas about what the future of American space flight was going to look like.

• NASA wanted a fleet of small shuttles (a term coined in a “purpose” section of an official invitation for production contract bids in 1970) to efficiently service a large space station, which would serve as a hub for science and exploration.
• The Air Force was looking for something to transport military astronauts into space that would be capable of launching and servicing large military satellites.
• The President wanted options, and wanted something economical.

In 1969 President Nixon formed the Space Task Group, chaired by vice president Spiro T. Agnew. In terms of function this group was very similar to the Augustine Commission, it’s goal was to develop several options for a post-Apollo NASA along with budget requirements for each option. This group returned with the following options:

1. Manned missions to Mars
2. Follow-on lunar missions
3. An orbital infrastructure, including a large space station (12-24 people)

After the President selected the third option as the new direction for American space flight, NASA and the Air Force, cast their lots together, combing some of their ideas and abandoning others.

The Shape of Things to Come

In order to maintain its economical edge, this space transport system would need a large number of launches, meaning it would need to be at least partly reusable. However, what this system would look like was still a bit of mystery. Starting in the mid-60’s NASA had developed a series of trade studies on a possible system and The US Air Force had been working on its own space transport system called the DC-3. (No, not THAT DC-3.) Both systems being developed were two staged, and included an orbiter with fixed wings, allowing it to fly back to a specific landing spot.

Initially, NASA’s concept called for a 2-stage system. The first stage would essentially be a large fuel tank with wings, capable of lifting off vertically and delivering the second stage to a specific altitude after which the second stage would launch itself into space while the first stage was piloted back to earth not far from its launch site.

This set-up presented two problems: NASA didn’t have the budget to develop two separate vehicles, and the system would be too heavy to allow for the large payload that the Air Force required for its satellite launching/servicing missions.

In the end a number of features were cut from the design. First, the manned first stage was dropped and replaced by a disposable fuel tank; this lowered development costs and also increased shuttle payload since it no longer had to carry the bulk of its own fuel. Second, jet engines which would allow the Space Shuttle powered flight upon reentering the atmosphere were scrapped to allow for greater payload. Twin solid rocket motors were chosen for their low cost, high reliability, and partial reusability.

Design changes, budget issues, waffling support, and contractor in-fighting plagued the program all the way up to September 17, 1976 when the Space Shuttle Enterprise rolled out of the hanger for the first time. Originally this prototype / test article was to be named the Constitution but a massive letter campaign from sci-fi fans persuaded NASA to name the Shuttle after the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek. Sadly, the name Millennium Falcon was never considered… Sorry Mr. Solo.

It’s interesting to note just how much history repeats itself when looking at the early days of the shuttle program and the constellation program. Both have had to deal with constant budget issues, design issues, wavering support, and stubborn contractors refusing to play nice. If anything, this should give one some measure of hope for the Ares rocket!

The Space Shuttle rescuing Sky Lab? Yup, it was actually part of the plan. I’ll get into that more, next time in our third section of The History of the Space Shuttle.

What do Macaulay Culkin, Danny Bonaduce, Gary Coleman and the Space Shuttle have in common?

…

Ok, you know what? I can’t do this. I was really trying to give you a snappy opening relating the shuttle to tragic child actors, but I like the shuttle way too much to do that.

With the next Space Shuttle launch coming up next week, I was looking at the launch manifest for the last 5 shuttle missions. It struck me that I’ve lived in a world where the Space Shuttle has always existed. Astronauts were always featured in videos eating food in humorous fashions. There was always another mission.

But not anymore.

September 16, 2010 will mark the final launch of the Space Shuttle and with it, it will bring to close an era of space flight. In respect to this once in a lifetime event I’ll be writing a series of articles dedicated to the most complex, high performance machine ever built. We’ll look at its development and early years, the incredible achievements of the program, as well as the tragedies that have beset the Shuttle. We will examine how the Space Shuttle changed the world. It’s a story of passion and politics. Of science and showmanship and exploration. A story equal parts danger and discovery.

It is a big story to be sure. I’ll do my best to liven up the dry parts, shed light on little known anecdotes, and side-step the controversies. (Just kidding. Controversy is the best part!)

In the Beginning…

It’s hard to talk about the Space Shuttle without first talking about the motivations behind it.

In 1969 NASA was flush with success. They had repeatedly landed humans on the moon and brought them safely home (If you don’t believe this, feel free to go here and discuss it). Serious talk had begun about long term lunar outposts, explorations of Venus and Mars and large space stations. Looking back at these ideas it’s easy to scoff at their seemingly unreachable goals, but at the time NASA had already accomplished the impossible; from where they stood, nothing seemed out of reach.

However, outside of NASA things weren’t quite as rosy. Public interest in the space program had fallen and landing on the moon signaled an end to the space race that had been vital to NASA’s funding. Add to that a government entangled in an expanding conflict in Vietnam and “less expensive” become a politically attractive buzzword.

This change in budget lead to a shift in vehicle design: Large, heavy lift launch vehicles capable of putting people and material into orbit around other heavenly bodies were replaced with smaller vehicles capable of only low earth orbit. The smaller vehicles were cheaper to build and launch and hinged on economies of scale. This system of numerous launches happening every few weeks was focused on building an infrastructure in space.

Gone were to Conestoga wagons that were the massive Saturn V’s, NASA started planning to build a rail road to space.

To be continued…

Part 2

Back in the old days (you know, BEFORE the internet) every village had an idiot, everyone knew who the village idiot was and everyone kept that fact in mind whenever the idiot would speak. Now with the advent of the internet, normal people have to deal with people they’ve never met and we have no way of knowing who is or is not some village’s idiot. To make matters worse, village idiots have been able to congregate online and give each other positive reinforcement, allowing bad ideas to fester for an abnormally long time in the spot light.

I’m aware that there isn’t much I can do about all of it. It’s far too late for me to do anything about products including:  Doggles, Slap Chop, the Sonic Knife, the Potty Patch, the Shamwow, Flowbees, Ginsu Knives and the dreaded Snuggie (Ed note: The Snuggie is nothing but a backwards robe. Blankets aren’t supposed to have sleeves, if they were, they’d be called shirts.) I, however, believe I can do something about one rumored internet product, the underwater space cannon.

Popsci.com states that John Hunter, designer of the QuickLauncher, has “done the math” and is very serious about using a massive cannon, suspended from the surface of the ocean via some sort of monstrous pontoon-like contraption, to launch projectiles into orbit.

Previous work launching projectiles into orbit have used magnets to levitate and accelerate the projectile (similar in many ways to the systems used in modern roller coasters). The QuickLauncher uses the expansion of heated gas to push the projectile out of a barrel. The problem is that the projectile will be moving approximately 7.4 kilometers per second when it reaches the end of the barrel. This means the barrel structure will need to have serious reinforcement to prevent the pressure build up in front of the projectile from blowing the barrel apart.

While we’re on the subject, this structure is going to be sunk about 500 meters underwater. It will have to maintain perfect rigidity (non-straight barrels are kind of bad) while bobbing up and down and having currents push it in different directions at different depths, and deal with different rates of thermal expansion.

Now even if the structure is made rigid enough to overcome all these forces being placed on it, it will need to maintain pointing requirements. Even an error of just 2 degrees could result in a projectile ending up at least 7 kilometers off course! Imagine hitting a target a mile away with a high powered rifle being swung around in the breeze, that will give you an idea of firing the Space Cannon. There’s got to be a better way!

The concept of launching a projectile into orbit isn’t new; NASA has been toying with this idea for over 20 years. But the setup that Mr. Hunter is looking to go forward with is deeply flawed. If you’re interested to see some of the real work being done, check out some of the work NASA has been doing with linear motors in combination with several universities and the Navy!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some shopping to do.

Me:  Some guy named Londo from Centauri Prime wants me to friend him on Facebook.

Wife: Well, do you know him?

Me: Of course not, he’s on a whole different planet… but he seems like a nice guy.

Not a chance right? Facebooking with aliens might seem far fetched, but it may not be as far off as it once seemed. Last week the team running the Kepler Observatory announced the discovery of 5 exoplanets (planets’ orbiting stars other than our own) and 125 other possible planets needing verification. While these 5 planets are nowhere close to being able to support life as we know it, these planets were found in the first 3 weeks of a 3 year mission!

On top of that the newly improved Hubble Observatory has captured images of when the universe was only 600 million years old (in galactic terms that’s barely out of the cradle!)

Suppose half of these “possible” planets, are in fact planets. Then, let’s assume Kepler continues to discover planets at a constant rate for the rest of its mission life (3 years = 156 weeks). This means in the next few years we will have discovered nearly 3,500 planets.

If only 1 out of 1000 planets was like Earth, that means we still would have found 3 or 4 Earth-like planets! It’s hard not to imagine a public out cry for Hubble to turn its powerful sensors to those places and see if there is anything there. It’s highly doubtful that we would see pictures of aliens walk/crawling/flying/swimming around on the surface, but forests? Plantlife? Lakes and rivers? Certainly!

I got in contact with David Koch, the Kepler telescope team leader to ask if this was possible, sadly he said:
“No that is not possible. The stars are much brighter than the planets and the systems are too far away even to spatially resolve.”

Of course this all using today’s technology. The past 20 years has given us huge advancements in digital resolution. It wasn’t long ago that 1 mega pixel was considered to be a top of the line photograph and our monitors were in 600×800 resolution. What kind of capabilities will our orbital observatories have in 5 years?

Often my profession and hardcore nerdiness results in me getting excited over things the mainstream typically skips over, but the ramifications of what these two observatories are doing has huge potential impact on the general public: We may someday soon have the capabilities to view other worlds and the life those world’s sustain.

As constant as the seasons, there are two types of articles that crop up at the end/beginning of the year:

1. Year end reviews
2. New Year’s resolutions

Since I did the first type last week (complete with exoskeletons courtesy of the company that’s going to be creating Terminators in a few years) I thought I would talk about my engineering resolutions:

None

Now this isn’t a cagey attempt at convincing all of you that I’m perfect, (My wife, boss, and professors can tell you I’m not) it’s that I, as an engineer, am totally against what resolutions stand for! Resolutions mean that there has been something that could be improved, or something that needs fixing. We then resolve ourselves (typically on January 1st) to make those things better. This is great for personal goals, like losing weight, or promising to call your parents more often, but it reeks of irresponsibility in the engineering world.

As engineers we pledge ourselves to utilize technology to make the world safer, smarter, more efficient, and in general a better place. Waiting to set goals for improvement is contrary to our function in society. We should be continually improving ourselves, our methods and our products. If I have an engineer tell me that they are making a New Year’s resolution to improve the build quality of a part, my first question is why weren’t you doing that already?

Now I realize that often we engineers don’t get to make every improvement we desire because of cost, development times, or project scope, but we need to always be looking for these avenues for improvement and pursue them as rigorously as we are allowed.

What if we only resolved yearly to make cars safer?

What if we only resolved yearly to make bridges more corrosion resistant?

What if we only resolved yearly to make computers faster?

What if we only resolved yearly to make rockets more efficient?

Are these extreme examples? Yes. But ask yourself what our world would be like if we only set goals for ourselves and challenged ourselves at pre-defined intervals?

Adios 2009, we hardly knew you. It seems like just a year ago we met you full of hope and promise and now you’re getting replaced like last year’s Madden game.

2009 was a pretty big year in terms of new technology and advancements. We’ve seen lots of new green technologies come out, Ares 1-X launched, and NASA has even found water on the moon! Not to mention we now have Windows 7, the Android phone, and twitter on your PS3.

Truly, we live in a time of miracles.

Time magazine put together their list of top new inventions for the year, and by all accounts it’s a pretty good list (seriously it’s a good read) and the rocket scientist in me is proud that the Ares 1-X took top honors. But what about all of you? What are your favorite new technologies of the year? I’ll post a few of my picks for 2009, but I would love to hear from everyone else on this as well.

So without further ado…

Craig’s Favorite Inventions of 2009!

• Cause I’m a rocket man…

What do a crazy British adventurer, a man with mutton chops the size of Florida, and more carbon composites than you can shake a stick at have in common? Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites unveiled their design for Space Ship 2 this month as the first of (hopefully) many space ships for Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.

While it’s still only sub-orbital, and tickets start at a hefty $200,000 a piece, a vacation in space is still a long way off, but hey, private aviation started the same way not to long ago!

• Is this the droid you’re looking for?

Smart phones are quickly becoming ubiquitous. It’s not just enough to make calls on the go and text message till you thumbs fall off, because if your phone can’t surf the web, play games, interpret multi touch gestures, play music and videos, and make phone calls, than you’re simply not cool.

Apple has the corner with its iPhone, and that’s something not likely to change soon, but the new phone, the Droid, is stepping up to the challenge. Whats it’s killer app?

You

The Droid is using a version of open source software so that anyone can easily create applications and modify the phone to their liking, something a tight lipped and tight reined Apple would never dream off.

• I am Iron Man… kinda

HULC

Lockheed Martin introduced their new third generation Human Universal Load Carrier (HULC) this year. Basically HULC is a lower body exoskeleton allowing soldiers to carry hundreds of pounds over any terrain without breaking a sweat.

HAL 5... What are you Doing, Dave?

Tony Stark… Lockheed isn’t the only one working on exoskeletons, Cyberdyne Inc. (yes, that’s really their name, it’s creepy I know) has developed the HAL 5 (seriously? I’m starting to worry a bit here) allowing a person to lift 5 times their body weight.

While they won’t let a person throw cars or fly at supersonic speed, and I’m certain they won’t gain a malevolent sentience and attempt to destroy the earth, I would still love to have one of these babies in my garage.

So these are my top 3, what cool stuff from 2009 is on your list?

Over the years certain, ahem, theories have been put forward concerning the possibility that Santa Claus does not exist, and that it can be proven using physics.  These accusations are baseless and absurd.

As a responsible and prominent engineer I feel it’s my duty to set the record straight. (Plus I really REALLY want a new netbook for Christmas). While I don’t like the idea of disseminating these lies, I still feel like I need to let you know what we’re up against:

“There are approximately 380 Million children celebrating Christmas. This averages to about 1/1000 of second for Santa to visit each home, deliver gifts, eat some cookies, and move on to the next house. Santa would need to travel at 650 miles per second to travel to each home in one night. (Approx 3000 time the speed of sound) The speed he would need to travel combined with the weight of all the toys would result in 17500 Gs and the heating due to air resistance would incinerate the rein deer, Santa and sleigh in less than a single second.”

Personally, I think the fact that Santa has been doing his job for longer than I’ve been alive is evidence enough that these “theories” are incorrect. But let’s get into the physics of it. The underlying problem is that Santa has some many stops to make, right?

Well that’s only a problem if you are using Newtonian based physics. By simply applying quantum mechanics, specifically quantum superposition, Santa is theoretically able to visit every house at the same time!

Why? because quantum superposition supposes that “if the world can be in any configuration, any possible arrangement of particles or fields, and if the world could also be in another configuration, then the world can also be in a state which is a superposition of the two.” Or, since there is an equal chance of Santa being in any one individual house at any individual moment, he can be assumed to be in EVERY individual house at ANY individual moment. (Since everyone is asleep and we don’t see which home he visits, he visits them all, not unlike Schrödinger’s cat). This means he only makes one round trip from the North Pole to your home and back, greatly reducing these “top speed” and “payload” issues.

But, since he still needs to travel across the globe in several
hours there is still an issue of heating from air resistance!

Casual observers may note that it is actually this heating which causes Rudolph’s nose to glow red! This carbon-carbon phenolic nose actually trips the boundary layer and forces a phase change (from gas to plasma) in the atmosphere surrounding the sleigh. This ends up bleeding off the heat, keeping Santa and his precious payload cool. (This not unlike when the Space shuttle re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere)

Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and he is a brilliant engineer and physicist.

And for all you REAL nerds out there:

In nature, prey animals tend to gather in herds to (among other things) provide protection from predators. 15 minutes of watching the Discovery Channel will show you exactly how effective this is. In the end the weak ones are always thinned out.

It may seem cold-hearted, but this is exactly how a recent lay-off went in our office. On the morning of the previously announced lay-off, the engineers huddled together keeping watch for signs of management. When a manager would dart towards us we’d all scatter back to our own cubes; but no safety could be found for the targets, and those fated to be laid-off were picked out from among us one by one.

As engineers, we often borrow some of our best solutions from the natural world. Interestingly enough, the response animals have taken to predators are applicable to avoiding our own pink-slip predators.

Clean me up Scotty!

At every reef around the world you can find “cleaning stations” places where small fish setup shop to feast on algae and parasites plaguing other fish. These cleaning fish enjoy freedom from creatures which would normal consider them prey. They are allowed to swim around freely, sometimes working inside the very mouths designed to rip them to shreds.

Take a cue from these cleaning fish, make yourself irreplaceable to your bosses by attacking the problems that plague them. Understanding the needs and metrics that they are responsible for, and helping fulfill those can keep you off bosses the hit list when the time comes.

A need… for speed.

The cheetah is the world’s fastest land animal, chasing down its prey at 70 mph. How can you avoid a predator like this? Simple: be nearly as fast and much more agile, just like the 50 mph gazelle which can change velocity much faster than the straight-line speeding cheetah.

Like no other field, engineering is constantly on the move. Staying up to date on current technology, techniques, and industry trends equals staying fast and agile. Slowing down and losing touch with what’s going on in the industry and/or failing to adopt or adapt to new technology, is a perfect way to make yourself vulnerable when the lay-offs roll around.

Hide with Pride

Fight or flight isn’t really the only 2 options in the animal kingdom. Sometimes it pays to not be seen at all. Highly evolved camouflage helps countless animals avoid predators by seemingly vanishing into the background.

Staying hidden can be as simple as not sticking out in the office. Don’t get involved in gossiping or rumors, even more importantly stay away from being the topic of office gossip and rumors. Be polite and smile at everyone you come across, but when things get tough, don’t complain, or vent because it can, and often does, get back around to the boss. Keep your head and down, and keep working hard.

Most analysts predict that the economic recovery efforts won’t prove fruitful anytime soon. This means few construction projects, fewer government contracts, less frequent technology refreshes, and the ever looming threat of lay-offs. Huddling yourself in a group of coworkers is human nature, but by being proactive in defense of your job you can stay one step ahead of the office predators.