This is Vince Needham's personal page.
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Flexible Path for NASA

Flexible Path for NASA

Contrary to the gloomy headlines you might have seen, the new NASA budget and program are generally quite good things. The Augustine Commission's "Flexible Path" is being adopted, enhancing commercial spaceflight opportunities and broadening our exploration beyond the Moon. This won't happen overnight, of course, nor will it happen without significant programmatic pain and strife. If we stay the course, though, this is a better way of doing things. Phil Plait, of "Bad Astronomy", explains this well.

Norm Augustine himself says: "While many of us who believe strongly in human spaceflight might have hoped that still further funding would have been possible, this is obviously a demanding period from a budgetary standpoint. Importantly, the President’s proposed program seems to match means to ends, and should therefore be executable."

Cricket Still Jacobs Tubbs

Genealogy

The Needham genealogy was updated on 20 January 2007. There are quite a lot of changes, which are outlined on the introductory page of the site. Besides updating the lineage, there are three new photo galleries and a variety of other added documents.

The Simmons family tree has finally received its long-promised update as of 20 June 2007. The big news here is the discovery that Daniel Boone is my sixth-great-uncle. The Boone line is a well-researched one, so many new families have been added to the database.

I've discovered that I'm an eighth cousin of the new President of the United States, Barack Obama. His mother, from Kansas, was a Dunham and descended of Jonathan Singletary/Dunham (1639-1724). I've also learned of a similar relationships to the Bushes, by way of John Prescott (1604-1681), and to Richard Nixon on both sides of the family through Henry Howland (father of Pilgrim John Howland) and Martha Strode (a grandparent of Daniel Boone). I'll get all the details posted to the family sites soon.

Buzz Aldrin on the Moon

Space Exploration

Every April Kansas State University hosts a Boy Scout merit badge conference, where local experts counsel Scouts concerning a variety of topics. I've counseled the Space Exploration merit badge for several years now. The first half of the class includes a PowerPoint presentation focusing on the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. After that, we go out and launch model rockets (usually into the teeth of a strong Kansas spring breeze!).

Several of my presentations are archived here. The requirements were finally updated last year, but since the Vision for Space Exploration is revolutionizing our approach to space travel, I'll be rather freely interpreting things to stay current.

Other Stuff, Rants & Raves

JRM word cloud The JRM home page's content in January 2010 seen as a "word cloud", generated with Wordle. Click to embiggen.

What I'm Reading

  • Hot, Flat and Crowded, Thomas Friedman, 2008
  • You Only Live Twice, Ian Fleming, 1964

Twitter & Facebook

  • #FiveThirytEight has a thought-provoking analysis of the wonderful #QuestionTime proposal to bring real political debate to Washington.
    Twitter: Sat, 06 Feb 2010 05:30:48 GMT (3 day 18 hr ago)
  • The iPad doesn't even use a standard SIM. Fail. No wonder even Hitler is upset: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQnT0zp8Ya4
    Twitter: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 07:39:34 GMT (12 day 16 hr ago)
  • Over-hyped Apple iPad not new or exciting. Yet another OS variant; poor UI; no standard ports, multitasking, or camera. Overgrown iPhone.
    Twitter: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:10:51 GMT (13 day 0 hr ago)
  • Demand Question Time! Our British cousins have had the MPs grilling the PM forever; let's let Congress and the President share in the fun!
    Facebook: Fri, 05 Feb 2010 23:15:58 CST (4 day 0 hr ago)

Last updated on Monday, 01-Feb-2010