Space probes fly in tandem to search for lunar water - New Scientist

A delicate joint manoeuvre between US and Indian space probes orbiting the moon could turn up evidence for valuable lunar water.

Some scientists suspect water ice – which would be a precious resource for future explorers – may be trapped in permanently shadowed craters at the moon's poles.

Water ice can be distinguished from other materials by the way its radar echoes vary according to the position of the listener. In 1994, the US Clementine spacecraft bounced radar signals off the moon and found hints of the water-ice signature.

It's clear that robotic explorers enable us to do a lot more useful science much more cheaply than human explorers. It's a shame that these robotic explorers are on a mission supporting manned return to moon. What a waste.

Disintegration due to knowledge failure can be instructive to others

  1. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Discussion continuing but I've had enough tweeting for now. 37 minutes ago from dabr    
  2. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Good question: "If this HAD had a happy ending, then what would the turning point have looked like?" 38 minutes ago from dabr    
  3. Tim-new_normal timbull Common solution to KM? Organisation wide drinks! #kmlf 39 minutes ago from UberTwitter    
  4. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Company also had failures in other divisions too. 41 minutes ago from dabr    
  5. Tim-new_normal timbull Learning about modes of KM - simple, well definef Vs complex, differentiated processes #kmlf 42 minutes ago from UberTwitter    
  6. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Company probably underquoted for project 2. On assumption that we know how to build ships. (Ignoring complexity of new products.) 43 minutes ago from dabr    
  7. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf So easy to lack visibility of embedded knoweldge. "Isn't it obvious." "Not if you haven't designed it." about 1 hour ago from web    
  8. Elwoodtwitter_normal kdelarue #kmlf A classic case where we need to know the difference between a Simple org and a Complex org. Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  9. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Failing to understand and manage people and knowledge and culture led to destruction of organisational value. about 1 hour ago from web    
  10. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Arthur talking about experience of having USERS do integration testing. Key point of knowledge transfer. about 1 hour ago from web    
  11. Pic2_normal helmitch #kmlf let the people who are going to use the system, test the system about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  12. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf At least three $100K plus consultancies did not help. about 1 hour ago from web    
  13. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Saw cost of everything but didn’t value personal knowledge. about 1 hour ago from web    
  14. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Engineers understand tangible technology well – will buy it even if they don’t buy skills needed to use it. about 1 hour ago from web    
  15. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Failure to see people and culture as important. about 1 hour ago from web    
  16. Pic2_normal helmitch #kmlf "it's *absolutely critical* to document your failures" about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  17. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Absolutely critical to document failures. Only way knowledge is going to grow. Know what not to do, even if you don’t know what TO do. about 1 hour ago from web    
  18. Elwoodtwitter_normal kdelarue (Ah, Twitter seems to be back again...) #kmlf about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  19. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Autopoietic organisation cannot survice without generating and using knowledge. about 1 hour ago from web    
  20. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf “..happy to give us a year’s salary to get us off their books. Nett result was to get rid of so much useful knowledge.” about 1 hour ago from web    
  21. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Swipe cards to get between project 1 and project 2. “for insurance reasons (save a few bucks)” about 1 hour ago from web    
  22. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf “.. we were told that there was no way managers would release staff for a couple of hours to listen to other staff tell war stories” about 1 hour ago from web    
  23. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Knowledge workers conditioned to "nose in furrow" mentality. Mgs selected new people rather than reuse knowledgeable staff. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  24. Pic2_normal helmitch #kmlf management never talked to the people who made the stuff...yet mgt was making the decisions about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  25. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Decision makers did not talk to knowledeable people. Were not encouraged to. Too much command and control. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  26. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Over-centralisation of decision making lead to decisions without understanding of implications (except financial). about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  27. Elwoodtwitter_normal kdelarue #kmlf The "nose in furrow" mentality of serial production does not work in a novel environment - no-one can see problems when they emerge. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  28. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Proj 2 decided to try to do it with simpler cheaper systems (than the methods they knew to work). about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  29. Pic2_normal helmitch #kmlf 'socialisation was seen as time wasting' - a toxic environment, not conducive to K sharing about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  30. Tim-new_normal timbull #kmlf Summary of Bills presentation - KM is organisational - slash middle mgmt or drive process TOO much, you destroy KM about 1 hour ago from UberTwitter    
  31. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf People with knowledge were very happy to share knowledge but they were not asked and the structure meant they wld not volunteer. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  32. Elwoodtwitter_normal kdelarue #kmlf Tacit networks will emerge if given time & not stifled. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  33. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Project 2 not started with right concepts. 5 months into 3 yr project they were already stuffed. (eg config management) about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  34. Elwoodtwitter_normal kdelarue #kmlf New project was very disparate - *no* serial production possible. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  35. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Major unpaid overtime, major morale issues, significant turnover. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  36. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf ... or met over lunch, after work, etc. Some people still tried to help others but no one was looking for major issues. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  37. Pic2_normal helmitch #kmlf sounds like micro management and focus on the 'beans' and heavy compliance killed the flow of K about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  38. Elwoodtwitter_normal kdelarue #kmlf Management brought in to manage "serial production" are not skilled to start up new projects. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  39. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf People started to need cost codes and signed approvals to talk to each other for half an hour. So people stopped talking. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  40. Tim-new_normal timbull #kmlf Strict time costing to the half hour, try 6 minute intervals. I dream of half hour! about 1 hour ago from UberTwitter    
  41. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Owners appointed exec-GM a "close-out" specialist to manage squeeze of last $$ out of serial production project. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  42. Pic2_normal helmitch #kmlf feral KM - no formal systems. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  43. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf 'Feral" = no formal systems whatsoever. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  44. Pic2_normal helmitch #kmlf 'feral knowledge management'...not a great thing to do! about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  45. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Documentation management was a MAJOR issue. Sorted out and worked OK. Via 'feral knowledge management' without exec knowledge. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  46. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Mostly managed by sub-contracts. Org had responsibilyt to deliver all IP, including for sub-contracted components. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  47. Elwoodtwitter_normal kdelarue #kmlf Money spent on a portal, but money for modules needed to make it work not spent, & *no* money or time spent training people to use it. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  48. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Project 1. A lot of problems were encountered but were solved with good relationships and communication. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  49. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Autopoesis - self organising, self creating system. Despite barriers. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  50. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Owners and management had no concept of people issues. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  51. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Project 1 not impacted by management. People left to do what they needed to do. Management were focused on acquisition. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  52. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Not (as externally reported) due to the in-fighting between two family owner groups. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  53. Crop_normal awmitchell #kmlf Absentee owners. Sacking for failures. High management turnover. No change based on feedback. about 1 hour ago from dabr    
  54. imgimgimgimg

Those plucky little rovers...

Media_httpwwwnewscientistcomdataimagesnscmsdn17673dn176731300jpg_rxjcllucaaghcyh

Spirit has been stuck in a sandpit for nearly four months. Since late June, engineers have been trying to determine the best moves to extricate it by driving a test rover around a sandbox at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California.

Those little rovers have done incredibly well. One of NASA's success stories. Unlike all this manned space flight stuff.

Our theories may be wrong?!? That IS Good News.

Media_httpwwwnewscientistcomdataimagesnscmsmg20327220300mg203272203001300jpg_hadqhvjihblngcb

Fantastic item from http://www.newscientist.com/this evening. Mystery of the missing mini-galaxies explores an issue with the number of mini-galaxies orbiting our Milky Way galaxy.

As far as we can tell, barely 25 straggly satellites loiter forlornly around the outskirts of the Milky Way. “We see only about 1 per cent of the predicted number of satellite galaxies,” says Pavel Kroupa of the University of Bonn in Germany. “It is the cleanest case in which we can see there is something badly wrong with our standard picture of the origin of galaxies.”

And another issue had been reported earlier where

… most of those galaxies orbit the Milky Way in an unexpected manner and that, taken together, their results are at odds with mainstream cosmology. There is “only one way” to explain the results, says Kroupa: “Gravity has to be stronger than predicted by Newton.”

This latest data is a problem for ‘cold dark matter’ theories which predicted many times more satellite galaxies than have been found. The data supports modified gravity theories.

It’s great for science when evidence mounts that current established theories, such as Newtonian Gravity, need modification. Science is a process that re-works theories to fit all available data. Evidence from nature is the only supreme truth. No theory about how things work is ever accepted as 100% certain and it’s good to be sceptical of current theories no matter how well they may fit available data. When science runs into an uncomfortable truth, it is scientific theories that bend. Science does not bend the evidence to fit the orthodoxy.

Readers may care to consider for themselves how this process differs from theological practice.

GLOBE-Net - The business of the environment online, Canada

The latest Electric Power Monthly Report released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows net U.S. electrical generation from renewable sources (biomass, geothermal, solar, hydro, and wind) reached an all-time high in May of 2009, comprising 13% of the total electrical generation for the month.

I must say, I'm surprised that it is this high. More info in the link.