Google is a Mapping Company

Google is a mapping company. For years I've used Google Earth in lieu of a physical globe in my world geography courses. If you have not experienced Google Earth download and install Google Earth (GE) after reading my post. Don't download and install now because once you realize the shear genius of GE I will have lost your attention.

GE is a wonderful teaching tool for children 7 and older. GE is easy to use and is loaded with simple features, like a measuring tool and bookmarks, which can help parents teach basic geography to kids. GE is linked to Wikipedia; thousands of sites are referenced via Wikipedia. YouTube places are also linked indicating where people have posted videos of some event occuring at the location. Be advised: some videos are not educational and only informative in the sense of illustrating Darwinian processes at work among people. But, some videos are nice and informative. GE contains a wealth of links to outside sources such as the World Wildlife Foundation, National Geographic, and the United States Geological Survey.

Grabbing screenshots from Google Earth is a cinch and embedding JPEGS from Google Earth can improve posters and presentations. Using a keyboard or a mouse, 3D terrain can be simulated providing a sense of scale and landscape relief. I recommend visiting the Karakoram Mtns in northern Pakistan, my favorite mountain range. The world's highest highway is found here.

GE also has a flight simulator embedded within. Using simple controls and basic physics, a user can pilot around any place in the world.

Now, Google recently revealed plans to map in 3D a number of cities using aerial photography. Nothing especially new about such efforts. Most large cities engage in aerial mapping missions every few years. As cities grow aerial photography helps city planners identify buildings, land use, help them plan for utility growth, estimate population density, estimate potential stormwater drainage issues, and in public safety efforts - all sorts of pursuits. Most states will fly aerial photography mapping missions every 5 to 10 years to help monitor landscape change. The federal government acting through the Department of Agriculture collects aerial photography across states dominated by agriculture. The USDA uses aerial photography information to assess crop type, acreage, productivity, and keeping farmers honest with regards to subsidies and set aside programs.

Kentucky has plans for collecting not only aerial photography statewide but also LiDAR statewide. LiDAR is an acronym for "Light Detection and Ranging." Essentially, a plane equipped with a laser shoots the ground a million zillion times and the laser reflected back to the plane is sensed, allowing distance to be calculated. The result after post-processing are highly detailed terrain maps or maps of city structures, or landforms. The amount of data points is immense; LiDAR collected for a small watershed in Arkansas was in excess of 300GB.

Right now, Google Earth users can fly around the world with some interesting terrain but the cities are mostly flat unless someone has used SketchUp to add 3D buildings. Examine Washington, D.C. for a good example of 3D urban builds.

With Google's new efforts to collect aerial photography of major cities people from around the world will be able to go on virtual field trips, or plan real trips. I'm sure Google will expand their Google Earth API to include such data for wild and crazy new apps.

Check out earth.google.com

PAX

James Webb Space Telescope Must Live!

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be the replacement for the Hubble Space Telescope. The JWST will be the coolest space telescope ever. Obviously, since it will represent the new and improved space telescope. The JWST will be larger, orbit further than HST, and have better optics and cameras. No telling what cool stuff JWST will be able to send us.

If it gets finished, that is. Republicans, and a few Democrats, want to kill funding the JWST. I hate stuff like this. For a number of reasons.

Chief among the reasons is the complaints people have about Science and Technology and our country's investment in Science and Technology. "Too expensive!" "Why do we need a Space Program!" "Why is NASA always over-budget?"

This is simply ignorance speaking. We've lost more money, literally lost billions of dollars in Iraq. I'm not talking the cost of the war.  I mean they drove a pallet of American bills off a C-130 transport plane and lost like $6 billion dollars. No one knows where it went. 

The Hubble Space Telescope was originally budgeted at about $3-1/2 billion dollars. 10 years after its due date, and at a cost of $11 billion dollars, the HST finally made it to orbit. And, the HST produced the coolest images ever seen by Humankind. (GeekDad.com)

Same thing happened with the Space Shuttle. Took a long time to get space-borne, and over-budget. But why?

Many moons ago, I had the opportunity to listen to a lecture presented by a NASA scientist, an engineer, really. I wish I could remember his name. I can't, but that should not diminish the message. He related many facets of the budgeting of space-related projects which I found amazing.

The Space Shuttle program, for example, was decades in the making. Engineers must plan nearly every detail in advance. Many, many details, for essentially two reasons. First, so that a budget can be constructed for Congress to approve. The second reason dovetails with the first reason, the budget is based on a baseline foundation of technology. Each Space Shuttle contains numerous computers. These computers do not represent the pinnacle of human achievement. At the time of this lecture, the Space Shuttles were operating using the equivalent of 486-based computers. You could buy Pentium IIIs, Pentium IVs, and Xeon processor computers at Walmart that were more powerful.

I was stunned. Why could they not use current technology? Because NASA needed to use tried and true technology. They needed chips that had been tested, and evaluated against numerous conditions that are not found in your home. Many other systems are also predicated upon tried-and-tested technology. Therefore, a baseline level of technology is established. So, technology from 3, 4, or 5 years ago may, in fact, be used in current space and weapons systems simply because scientists and engineers are very familiar with the properties of that technology, and the materials comprising that technology.

For programs that persist over time, like the Space Shuttle, like the Hubble, and like the JWST, and like any military weapons program, developers are obligated to establish a baseline technology. When contracts are written, they are further limited by rules that do not allow them to account for changes in the market costs for necessary materials. Developers cannot say, "We need to budget an extra 25% for costs over the next 10 years for this program." As I understand government accounting and financial rules, this is against the law. Or, at least against protocol.

Government contractors, and government agencies themselves, like NASA, chronically find themselves over-budget because they are simply not allowed to budget for the true cost of a program.

Even when bridges or roads are constructed cost overruns are incurred. The price of cement goes up due to increased demand in China. The price of road fabrics go up due to the increase in demand of oil globally. Therefore, as the price of the materials that go into the making of the road go up, the price of the road goes past its budget.

Same with nearly any government program that means building something. Doesn't matter if that something is an F-22, a Space Shuttle, or a space telescope. Budgeting for the cost of materials 5-10 years away is nearly impossible. Yet, the military and NASA are frequently asked to make such calculations, as if they can see the future.

The other complaint that is often voiced also hints at ignorance. "Privatize NASA. Sell it make them turn a profit!"

If a profit could be made from doing this, someone would have done it already. Also, we cannot have just anyone putting stuff in orbit around earth. The skies above us are littered with enough space junk already. These efforts generally do not make money. They are always operated at a loss. The European Space Agency, the Indian Space Agency, the Chinese Space Agency, and the Russian Space Agency are all government-run programs. These programs are expensive to operate, maintain, and simply do operate under normal supply-and-demand economics. 

Companies like GeoEye can turn a profit, but even that is extremely hard. GeoEye sells numerous products that people want, that government want. GeoEye collects images of the earth that people know how to use, can put immediately to use. 

Few people are talented enough or educated enough to put Hubble imagery to use. Yes, the pictures are pretty. If you ask someone what they are looking at, though, would they really be able to explain the nature of the object? Maybe, if they were cool enough of a person to have a Hubble image, they could possibly tell you about the image.

One of the benefits of a government is public and private partnerships that increase the knowledge of human society. Our GPS constellation of satellites is a good example. The United States has collectively worked with other countries to create the International Space Station. Other countries, however, will continue to develop a Space Program policy. Actually, the Chinese are pushing well into this, with plans to put people back on the Moon.

Many Americans need to wake up and smell the Shuttle exhaust. Technology, innovation, entrepreneurialism, dreams, ambitions, and the constant pushing of the envelop is what makes this country unique, not sitting back and waiting for people to do things for us, or without us.

Technorati Tags: Technology,NASA,Hubble,James Webb Space Telescope,budget,science

Movie Review: Noise

ThinkFilm production has a new Tim Robbins movie available for rental, "Noise."

Car alarms are annoying. Just one car alarm going off is enough to send many people into a state of incoherent babbling. Imagine multiple cars or trucks going off simulatenously or consecutively. Madness, shear madness, could result. And this is what sends David (Tim Robbins) over the edge. The movie is somewhat autobiographical in nature, according to the NYT article. David, seeing the lack of respect in the world around him, feeling assaulted by urban noise, takes matters into his own hands, becoming a crusader for silence, the Rectifier.

While not a movie with "geographic" themes self-evident, one scene stands out to me. David is being followed around by a part-time writer, who was an earlier victim of one of David's anti-noise tirade. David had thrown a rock the the storefront of her father's furniture store because the burgler alarm going off at 3am. He has moved into an apartment as his wife has become intolerant of his anti-noise campaign methods. As David and this reporter talk about David and his alter-ego, the Rectifier, David is seen stabbing the wall with a pushpin.

I liked the scene (the rest of the movie was so-so) as the casual observer may not recognize that David is pushing a pin into an aerial photograph of New York City. He was using aerial photography to map his exploits! In fact, it wasn't just one aerial photograph. Stuck to the wall above a worktable was a partial flightline of aerial photography for New York City, with several colored pushpins jabbed into various locations across the city.

I thought that was kind of cool.