Nowak 1; NASA 0

A Florida judge Friday handed a legal victory to a former astronaut [Lisa Nowak] accused of assaulting a romantic rival [Colleen Shipman], ruling evidence found in her car and statements she made to police after her arrest were inadmissible at trial. ...no written consent was obtained to search her car.
...
On the audiotape of the interview [and Miranda rights], there was no audible response from Nowak on whether she understood that her statements could be used against her in court, and when she was asked whether anyone had threatened or promised her anything to get her to talk to police, [Judge] Lubet wrote. "Thus, there is nothing in either the audio recording or the transcript of the interview that demonstrates that defendant understood these two rights and waived them."
...
she was "subjected to a barrage of questions" beginning in the predawn hours and was questioned for six hours without being given the opportunity to sleep or make a phone call. "Defendant had not slept during the preceding 24 hours," the judge said.
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Nowak's attorneys in August filed a notice of intent to rely on an insanity defense, saying in court documents her diagnoses include a litany of more than a dozen psychiatric disorders.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/11/02/nowak.ruling/index.html

As Foxtrot puts it, "And she made it into the astronaut corps how?"

Astro News Time

Astronomy article on the frontpage of CNN? Check!
Multiple astronomy articles on the frontpage of CNN? Check!
It must be that AAS Meeting time of the year. Check!

Interesting that they're both Geoff Marcy, poster child for exoplanets. I wonder if there isn't anyone else there or something - the Summer meetings are usually less well-populated than the Winter meetings. Interesting that Marcy's in the middle of an observing run during the conference, a coincidence made possible by the meeting being in Hawaii this year. And my stupid school gives me $300 a year for professional development funds. *grumble*

Oh foo, next year's meetings are in boring places, so even if I get that NASA grant (yeah, it's still pending *grumble*) it won't be that exciting. Too bad, 2009's are both in California.

"The Mercury 13" Receive Honorary Doctorates

The Mercury 13 were a group of women during the Mercury space program era. These women had many hours of commercial and non-combatant flight, successfully passed all the physical tests of endurance and strength (in fact, more women passed than men), successfully passed all the hurdles their employers attempted to place before them, and a number even passed psychological, and better than the men on average. None of them ever made it into space, despite arguing in front of Congress that they should be allowed to go to space (with even John Glenn arguing against them). (Ackmann and Sherr wrote a good book about them if you want to learn more.)

And now all 13 were awarded honorary doctorates from U Wisconsin, Oshkosh. And more here.

Hawking survives Vomit Comet

That is such a relief. He did 8 of the free-fall parabolas, grinning the whole time. His motivation? Not just release from his everyday hum-drum life of a preeminent mathematician / theoretical physicist at Cambridge University, probably not even release from his wheelchair and MS, but to "encourage public interest in space". Life on Earth he says, is at risk from global warming and other threats, and "the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space."

War on Scientists?

33 or more are dead in a massacure in an Engineering building at Virginia Tech. The dead included 3 Engineering professors, and two language instructors. And this afternoon another gunman killed a hostage and himself - this time in the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX.

To heck with it being a war on celebrities and arguing for and against gun control, I want to know why all these people cracking up are picking scientists?! Maybe the IDers are behind it all, it's a right-wing conspiracy!

I do hope everyone realizes I'm making light of serious situations to try and defuse them and don't really believe half of what I said above...

A first for women!

The first US astronaut to be fired is a woman. [CNN, NY Times/AP, NY Times/Reuters]

A search of the NASA webpage on "lisa nowak" does not yet reflect this. It really is historic, not only is this the first time a woman has done such-and-such, but a woman was the first to do it at all. I think I'm going to cry.

Whose job is it to find killer asteriods?

Congress says it's NASA's; NASA replies not on this budget! I think they're going about it wrong. NASA's job is the exploration of space - specifically, going to objects. NASA employs far more engineers than astronomers. It's the job of astronomers to look at objects, and that is all that's required to find asteroids. True, NASA runs the space observatories, but that's only because they've gotta get up there somehow. Once they're up there, the majority of the time on them is thrown open to anyone who applies for the time - generally astronomers, not engineers.

I think the best bet would be for Congress to establish another National Observatory, let's call it the National Asteroid Observatory (NAO), along the lines of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO, runs Arecibo and the VLA, among others) or the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO, runs most of the telescopes on Kitt Peak, among others). Or, since those are based upon wavelength regimes and we wish to base upon the target instead, a more similar model might be the National Solar Observatory (NSO, Kitt Peak and Sac Peak primarily). All of these are under the National Science Foundation (NSF, currently has a telescope doohickey linked on their frontpage, whose sound effects fascinate Gabe). The new organization would also cooperate with NASA to get any actual deflection missions done, but *detection* is a research thing, not an engineering thing.

And the bonus value-added feature of having a new group independant of NASA? NASA wouldn't be able to fuxx0r it up.

NASA's shrinks

Did I call this one, or what?

Now, the Lisa Nowak affair has prompted NASA to announce it will conduct a review of its psychological testing procedures for astronauts.

The review might begin by dusting off a 1998 report. Facing the prospect of lengthy missions to the international space station and beyond, NASA commissioned the study to look at how to enhance compatibility among astronaut crews. One recommendation called on NASA management to "develop and implement a psychological evaluation process as an integral part of an astronaut's annual physical examination."

"That was one of the major recommendations made," Dr. Patricia Santy, a Michigan psychiatrist and former NASA flight surgeon on the Challenger mission, told TIME. "NASA was not interested and felt that the general flight surgeon would be able to identify problems on the annual physical exam." (Time.com)

update

One of my students told me they read that NASA doesn't have official policies regarding affairs among crew members. BUT, NASA has agreed they need to take a look at their psych screening proceedures.

Oh yeah, and the student suggested we call Nowak an "astronut." I've since seen the term used a few others places. Amusing.

Soap Opera Science

Any little bit of credibility that NASA had leftover after the investigation into the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster revealed the same institution-wide hush-hush over flaws that doomed the Space Shuttle Challenger has now been thoroughly smashed by the astronaut love triangle that made international headlines when it turned murderous.

As I mentioned elsewhere, there's a *REASON* NASA does psychological screening of all potential astronauts. I really hope someone gets sacked for screwing this up so royally. I'm also starting to think that NASA should be entirely torn apart and rebuilt. This is a shame, because the process will likely also end up trashing a large number of other important projects, some cooperative.