Rain(man), Rain(man), Go Away

April 2, 2022| cometary| 0 Comment | 7:58 am

Categories:

Blog

This isn’t so much a blog post as a paper. There are footnotes and citations. Bear with me.

Have you had this experience? Someone in a group discussion notes that April is Autism Awareness Month. Then someone else says, “Oh, remember Rain Man? I watched it again recently! Isn’t that a great movie?” And then everyone has a lovely chat about movies. Unfortunately, this kind of response is what gamers call an Epic Fail. Let’s walk into April with some better awareness.[1]

So, what is autism? What isn’t it?

Photo Credit: Nina from Australia, Rain, Rain, Go Away (CC BY 2.0) via Wikimedia Commons

What it is

Autism is a set of neurological characteristics found in as many as 1 in 50 people [2,3] that can lead to difficulties with social interactions, repetitive behaviors, or intense engagement in special interests. Not necessarily all these things. (So, you know 100 people? Well, you likely know a couple of autistic people.)

Nobody knows what “causes” [4] autism, although probably there are combinations of genes that are more likely to yield autistic characteristics. (It may run in families, like other polygenic characteristics, such as height.) Autism presents on a spectrum, so its current designation is Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)…though many autistic people will counter, “there’s nothing disordered about me!”

What it isn’t

Autism has absolutely nothing to do with vaccines—that absurd idea was generated by publication of fraudulent research, a real-world hoax that has harmed untold numbers of people [5,6,7]

Autism is not Rain Man. Dustin Hoffman did his best, and the film made a positive difference at the time, but that was over thirty years ago. The movie is now woefully out of date, and most autistic people find it discomfiting, stereotyping autism, families of autistics, and the way the world perceives them.

Autism is not sociopathy/psychopathy/other-mispercepathy. The number of mysteries or thrillers or police procedurals in which the murderer/terrorist/stalker is a shifty-eyed, unempathetic, twitchy weirdo whose speech patterns and movements and sometimes specific labelling code them as “autistic” make my hair curl. No, the autistic people of the world are not spying on you, plotting the perfect murder, or designing weapons of terror. Instead, as a class, they are the kindest people you know.

Autism is not the strange child. The vast majority of autistics are adults. Autism doesn’t go away when you grow up. Why don’t you notice? Those whose difficulties with the world are great still live in relative isolation. As for the rest, they’re “masking.” This isn’t a lighthearted improv exercise. It is a progressive modification of behavior—often unconscious, in ways learned over many years—to appear more like you, because they’re pretty sure you won’t accept them otherwise. (So, maybe this should be Autism Acceptance Month.)

Masking isn’t perfect; you probably think of your autistic friends as ‘the little-bit odd one’ or the ‘cute, quirky one.’ You may not see them around as much as your other friends—because keeping up masking is hard work. The older an autistic person is, the better they can be at masking—but then, it’s harder for them to change that. Also, be aware that if you realize a friend is autistic, it doesn’t help to tell them to stop masking. It’s a difficult process, and they’ll let you know when they’re ready.

Photo Credit: Dietmar Rabbich (CC BY 4.0) via Wikimedia Commons

Unfortunately, old movies like Rain Man leave the impression that all autistic people are weird geniuses, can’t take care of themselves, and suffer extreme difficulties with life. Yes, some are in that boat (and a rare few are even geniuses). It’s important to be sure everyone’s properly supported in life—can we simply agree to support autistic people with needs just as we support neurotypical (NT) people with serious life issues?

A few thoughts to keep in mind, no matter what type of neurons you’re thinking with:

Autistic people are, as a group, extremely honest. This presents complications—because most autistic people don’t react in conversation in quite the exact way that neurotypicals expect. For instance, if someone doesn’t look you in the eye all the time—a favorite behavior of NT’s—they’re perceived as “dishonest”. That’s unfortunate…which is why ambitious autistic adults work hard to make eye contact, even though it may be enormously stressful to do so.

Autistic people are empathetic—and have all the same emotions you do. They may express their emotions a little differently, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have the exact same feelings you experience. Your autistic friends may even be more likely to notice how you’re feeling and to empathize with you, because they are observing you and working to figure you out, all the time. So they’re not just in possession of that deep, humanizing characteristic, they’re actively working at it, every day.

This doesn’t mean that autistic people are all perfect, wonderful, nice, diligent, hardworking, or what-have-you and are somehow better than neurotypical people. Everyone has shortcomings—and autistics don’t need to become the next perfectionist minority. It’s just that the stereotypes (weird, twitchy, untrustworthy) are contradictory.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably part of the reading/writing community. Here’s another thought for you.

Well. Ummmm. YOU might be autistic. Nobody wants to think of themselves as “different,” but writers—whether they’ve gone the publishing route or not—draw heavily from a well of “difference.” Lots of us grew up feeling like we were “on the fringe” or “the odd one out.” We dive deep into the special interests that drive our work. We can go on and on and on about a character or a situation or a plot point—whether in a story we wrote or in one of our favorites. Heck, some of us can sit down and hammer out 50,000, 100,000, a million words. That’s hardly what nonwriters would call “typical.”

If you’ve secretly, quietly wondered if there’s something you don’t know about yourself that maybe you should, here is one easily-accessible book to read: Cynthia Kim’s Nerdy, Shy, and Socially Inappropriate is a clever, affecting story of one woman’s journey of self-discovery. Some terminology it uses, unfortunately, became outdated the year after publication, with the elimination (for very good reasons) of the problematic term Asperger’s [8,9], but the self-realization content still holds up.

A cautionary note: take with gigantic doses of salt anything coming from the group Autism Speaks. They will be rather shouty during April and their old puzzle-piece logo will be cropping up all over, but this group is widely derided by autistic people as not speaking for them and, worse, actively spreading misperceptions about autism [10] and promoting [11] the application of abusive ‘therapy’ [12]. Many autistic people therefore consider Autism Speaks to be a hate group [13], but even without that label, their role in the politics of disability is subject to serious question [14].

Ready to raise awareness a little (or a lot) more?

Below are a couple of helpful, easy-to-access resources. You can find deeper reading by continuing to the Notes and Citations section.

Ask Autistic Adults is my current favorite website for quickly-accessed on-point information on what grown-up autistic people feel you should know: labels, appropriate language, effective support, fake/abusive “therapies,” and more.

The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism is a web-based organization that provides a broad array of resources and connections to useful information for autistic people and their allies.

To catch up on the current zeitgeist in the autistic community, try the hashtag #actuallyautistic. To some extent, outsiders have tried to co-opt it, but the hashtag has withstood that pretty well so far.

Now, have a very happy Autism Awareness Month, everybody!

Below the blue umbrella: Notes and Citations

A bright blue umbrella floats upside-down

Photo Credit: Tom Mrazek, An Umbrella In the Dark, (CC BY 2.0) via Wikimedia Commons

Yes, lots of notes and cites. Because a blog post needs to be brief, but the topic is complex!

No one person speaks for all people in any marginalized group. I make no claims that my perspective, or those of the autistic individuals I’ve cited here, is more worthy than that of any other member of the broadly-defined autism community. This essay cannot be perfect, but I will update it as necessary, and I welcome honest, fact-based critique.
“U.S. Autism Rates Up 10 Percent in New CDC Report” Bloomberg School of Health. Johns Hopkins. 26 March 2020. (Accessed 29 March 2022) https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2020/us-autism-rates-up-10-percent-in-new-cdc-report#:~:text=Researchers%20at%20the%20Johns%20Hopkins,2016%20(or%201.85%20percent).
“Rising rates” of autism do not reflect changes in the incidence of autism; rather, reports like the Johns Hopkins article reflect how wider application of diagnosis reveals that more people are autistic than was thought previously. This article in particular highlights a progression over time, as researchers began attending to this data and improving their diagnostic techniques. I linked to this article because it is quite readable and provides links to the academic papers and data, for those who are interested. The choice of a headline in a public-facing news presentation can be misleading—remember to read more than headlines.
Autistic people, by and large, dislike using “cause” to describe the mechanisms underlying autism. It makes it sound like a disease, something you can “cure,” and that detracts from attending to what can truly help autistic people thrive in a largely non-autistic society, understanding what “therapies” are harmful bunk, and listening to what autistics think. However, it’s the term that’s easiest for a casual reader follow in the context of a (supposedly) brief article like this one. As a reminder, this is a note to a sentence stating clearly that the mechanics are still unknown.
“Wakefield’s article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent” British Medical Journal (BMJ). 6 January 2011. BMJ 2011;342:c7452. https://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452
Wakefield’s horrific piece of hoaxery was published in the Lancet in January of 1998, and its awful effects have flowed into every corner of our medical landscape—even influencing vaccine resistance during the current pandemic. By the time the journal retracted the piece, the damage was done and the evil thought-virus of ‘vaccines are scary’ had spread too far to eradicate it.
Eggerston, Laura. “Lancet retracts 12-year-old article linking autism to MMR vaccines” Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ). 9 March 2010. Accessed via National Institutes of Health, 29 March 2022. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831678/
Hans Asperger, the man after whom the so-called “high-functioning” side of the autism spectrum was (temporarily) named, is now known to have been a eugenicist, Nazi-assisting child-hurter, and all-around guy-you-wouldn’t-invite-round-to-dinner. The article below [9] is an accessible read and includes references.
Juntti, Melaina. “It’s Time to Stop Calling Autism ‘Asperger’s’” Fatherly. 9 December 2021. https://www.fatherly.com/health-science/aspergers-vs-autism-and-hans-asperger/
Lutterman, Sara. “The biggest autism advocacy group is still failing too many autistic people” Washington Post. 14 February 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/14/biggest-autism-advocacy-group-is-still-failing-too-many-autistic-people/
I’m not going to glorify this page with a detailed citation. This cite is here to prove that the organization supports this kind of treatment. https://www.autismspeaks.org/applied-behavior-analysis/
Ira. “Why ABA Therapy Is Harmful to Autistic People” Autistic Science Person. Accessed 29 March 2022. https://autisticscienceperson.com/why-aba-therapy-is-harmful-to-autistic-people/
Sequenzia, Amy. “Is Autism Speaks a Hate Group?” Autistic Women and Nonbinary Network. 19 August 2014. https://awnnetwork.org/is-autism-speaks-a-hate-group/
Ne’eman, Ari. “Autism and the Disability Community: The Politics of Neurodiversity, Causation, and Cure” 1 February 2017 (Initially presented at Emory University in 2013). Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN). Accessed 29 March 2022. https://autisticadvocacy.org/2017/02/autism-and-the-disability-community-the-politics-of-neurodiversity-causation-and-cure/

My Instagram AdventureMy Instagram Adventure

I mentioned in my previous post that I’ve started a little Instagram project that allows me to play with my old books. This post essentially is an introduction to the content I’m putting into the Instagram series. Technically, these are supposed to help with promotion of my own book, but if I’m to work on a new platform several times a week, there has to be something in it for me–and renewing old acquaintances is as good a motivation as any.

Since this is my first try at an Instagram project, naturally, I’ve let myself start on a softer topic: ponies! yay, ponies! Below are my first two posts in that series:

Joanna’s Special Pony, by Hilda Boden, 1964 paperback edition

A friend put up a challenge on FB for us to tell about the first book we read on our own. I was stuck; I couldn’t remember. My mother used to say I learned to read “too early”, so that memory is, I suppose, lost to the fuzziness of preschool memory neurons. But . . . I do vividly recall the first book I bought by myself, for myself, and read until it was so ragged with overreading. It was about this girl, Joanna, who was just awesome–she could tame a wild horse, she could take care of herself on a deserted island, she could stand up to bad guys. I wanted to BE that girl so very much–so much so that when I had to choose a saint’s name for my Catholic confirmation (and, yes, we did that at age 10 in those ancient times), I insisted on Joanna. My mother was dismayed–she had already picked out a name I was supposed to use–Ann. It wasn’t too far off, though, so maybe Mom just had slightly-off foresight.

Anyhow, while trying to explain the book to my friends, I found a copy for sale on ABE Books UK. It was the exact paperback edition I’d owned back then–so . . . now it’s mine. Again. Joanna’s Special Pony is a classic “pony book”, with clever, courageous young teens up against adult malfeasance and bonded together by their love of horses and nature in general. The characters are distinct, not cookie-cutter–even the villains of the piece have second thoughts about what they’re up to. (Spoiler alert . . . When they connive to strand our heroine, one packs her a nice big picnic and the other insists she bring along a warm coat.) It’s set in Scotland, too, which for me is a nice bonus. (There are these little asides about “the English” that still ring true.)

I wish my mom had saved my pony books–but, then, they’re still out there to find. You can explore this wonderful “lost” genre at https://janebadgerbooks.co.uk/ or snag the Kindle edition of Jane Badger’s comprehensive book on the topic, Heroines on Horseback at https://www.amazon.com/Heroines-Horseback-Pony-Childrens-Literature-ebook/dp/B07S2ZSKNN/.

#formativebooks #whatimreading #mybookshelf #ponybooks #outofprintbooks #ilovebooks

Joanna Rides the Hills, by Hilda Boden, first edition, 1960

Once I found my first favorite book, it dawned on me there could be more out there. For one, my favorite book had a sequel . . . I actually found Book 2 while searching for Book 1. In the sequel, Joanna and her friends grow closer and become better friends. And they do a bunch of riding around on ponies.

It’s difficult to explain why finding the sequel to a kids’ book that I liked when I was 8, 9, and 10 got me so excited. Back when I was collecting pony books (in between the boarding-school books, the mystery books, and the cowboy books–no, cowboy books are not the same as pony books), I never managed to get my hands on the continuation of my absolute favorite book, to spend just a few more hours with the girl who was my childhood idol. Someday, I was sure, I’d find and rescue a wild pony and it would be my best friend and we would have people friends too, and we’d ride the wild hills all the time. Or at least until time for supper.

According to Jane Badger Books (The Source for all things pony-book, e.g., https://janebadgerbooks.co.uk/product/joanna-rides-the-hills/), this particular book is actually kind of rare. Some crazy has a “new” copy up on Amazon for nearly $1,000. Yeah, right, it’s “new”. I hesitated only long enough to be sure my copy of Joanna’s Special Pony was paid for on ABE Books UK, before clicking back to the Other Bookseller for a properly-priced, accurately described copy of sequel. Other Bookseller actually happened to be on this side of the pond, so I received the two books in reverse order–but both of them in time for my birthday! So, Quarantine Birthday came with lovely memories of wishing so very hard for my very own pony, while looking out the back door at . . . our family’s current pony-pet, Echo, as he whinnied for an extra round of supper.

Though I’ll try to keep the blog and the Instagram distinct, please don’t imagine it’s only pony books. The theme is “formative books,” which offers a broad landscape to roam. I’ve just done a post on a recent fantasy landmark work by Leslie Ann Moore, Griffin’s Daughter, which does have horses in it, but they are by no means the focus of the story. And I’m currently re-reading Leonard Wibberly’s The Road From Toomi, which, though two characters do make a long trek on horseback, primarily offers insights on racism and colonialism that survive the over fifty years since its publication. The next one on my list, Missing Man, by Katherine MacLean, has no horses whatsoever, so the streak will break there.

Lessons of a BayCon Gofer: Jill of All TradesLessons of a BayCon Gofer: Jill of All Trades

In 2014, BayCon had its traditional four days to work with, and Friday was an ease-into-the event day. This was a great time to turn up at the Gofer Hole and ask if they needed help. “Yes!” being the inevitable answer. Warning: if you try this, there ARE forms! If you are a kid, there are parental signatures required. So I signed away liability for the horrific injuries and possible death that might occur as a result of my participation in the duties of a fetch-and-carry helper in a nice hotel constructed to meet modern building codes. More likely: infection by a zombie virus, but ha on them, they didn’t mention zombie viruses in the release form.

The reward for filling out forms: my first badge ribbon of the Con. Yes, this means I am Gofer #18. Shades of Caddy Shack.

Meet Gofer #18

So what does a Gofer do? Take a deep breath, plunge in. Oh, it is soooooo difficult.

Job #1: Go to the Big Ballroom, to help set up for some event tonight. No idea what the event is. The person who called for help? He’s not there. No one knows what he wanted done. But the guy hanging lights at the Art Show needs an assistant.

Job #2: Help hang lights at the Art Show. Now, actually hanging the lights is a Skilled Job, not a Gofer job. My job is to hand cable ties to the exhausted electrical tech, whose ladder-climbs for the weekend have already gone into the triple digits. And to help spot weak links in the chain of power-strips and extension cords feeding electrons to the downlamps positioned to light the display boards for the art. Artists are already checking in, placing their work, jockeying for prime display spots in the venue. Still, we proceed up and down rows with a stepladder and a bundle of cable ties.

Job #3: The original person who wanted help is back. He needs a banner snapped onto a big framework thingy. It’s a multi-gofer job that takes some cooperation, especially amusing as none of us assisting with this thing have any idea what it’s for. My engineering brain helps with figuring out the layout itself, and we get the fabric stretched out nicely, but my partner gets to actually do most of the actual attachment, since there is a power element to the task.

Job #4: Hang around in the Gofer Hole, being On Call. Seriously, being available counts as working. Yes, indeed, this is even better than counting billable hours in my consulting practice. Dang, if only I could bill clients for time I’m home & my phone and email connections are working. There are snacks here—bagels, mmmm. And electrical outlets, so I can plug in my netbook & work on a Messy Monday project.

Job #5: Schlep groceries for a party. Some longtime VIP staffers are having a private party. Their goodies for the party are stowed in the Gofer Hole. We On-Call Gofers have the hugely easy job of carrying the goodies a hundred feet down the hall. [Hint: helping with a party does entitle one to partake of the party. Generally speaking. I did not take part, having a prior engagement with a soda machine.]

Job #6: Load sodas into the Charity Soda Machine. This is a magical device in the Games Room that converts geeks’ need for carbonated sugar- or aspartame-water into monies for this year’s charity fundraising. I was briefly concerned that I would run into difficulties with my limited weight-lifting capabilities. But the job soon devolves into a three-stage process free of excessive lifting:

Stage A: Wander about looking for the Keeper of the Soda-Machine Keys.

Stage B: Wait for the Individual Authorized to Use the Humungous Hand Truck

Stage C: Leave when Keeper of the Machine appears and disavows any need for help

Job #7: Build a LARP set. Someone has created a live-action role-playing version of a card-based game called “Kill Dr. Lucky”. This is a game I have never heard of, but someone has gone to great lengths to build an accurate, room-sized playing field that live humans can walk about on as if they are playing pieces in the game. Our mission: assist this charismatic lunatic by moving chairs out of the way, laying out the sheets his friend has carefully marked out with lines and labels, getting each in proper orientation to the other and smoothing out the boundaries with tape. By the time we are done, I’m determined to show up and try out this LARPing thing.

And by this time, I’ve put in totally enough time as a Gofer for one day, while the activities I’m least interested in on the program are conveniently over.

My Very Own Ray Gun

I have time to dash up to the DIY room before dinnertime and make myself a cool ray gun by artistically decorating a plastic gun with gold and silver and red and purple and green Sharpies. It is my favorite toy already. So shiny.

And I wouldn’t want anyone to think one has to devote the entire day just Gofering about. I did skip an hour of possible On-Call credit for a panel on the relative merits of James Bond and Doctor Who. And regretted it. There is no contest. Doctor Who is way, way cooler than James Bond, but the panel was mostly a bunch of guys keen on car chases in movies.

Finally, yes, I did get to play Kill Dr. Lucky. It was super fun, and while I cannot claim to be the One Who Did the Deed, the evil Dr. L was indeed assassinated. Here is our team’s creative enactment of the impending demise of the successful assassin.

Let’s Get Doctor Lucky’s Killer

Gofer Lesson of the Day: Sign up early & there will be lots of easy jobs to do while the con is barely getting started. There’s never a dull moment, or if there is, you can get credit for working by napping while On Call. And don’t leave home without a suitable weapon.

Have Ray Gun, Will LARP

At Ames: “The Big White Dome”

This is my second “NASA Social”, part of a new(ish) PR program at NASA which is (successfully, I should add), linking the venerable government institution with this modern social-media-dominated universe. At Ames Research Center, which just celebrated its 75^th birthday, I even qualify as “younger generation.” That alone is worth the price of admission. Last time, I stayed in the Facebook & Twitter world; this time I worked on my photos & videos for the blog. While I may not tweet as rapidly as those youngsters sporting Google Glass, I hope I’m bringing a relatively-informed viewpoint to the show along with my fangirl attude.

Yeah, I know. I have my own engineering Ph.D., but I’m still a fangirl when it comes to space stuff, science stuff, and robot stuff. And the best place to find all that stuff is still NASA.

OK, so, I’m expecting this one to be relatively dull, as the thrilling event of the day is The State of NASA (insert non-martial fanfare here) address being livestreamed from Kennedy on the big screen at the Ames Exploration Center. The last-minute info email the Ames team sent out last night hints at more than that: a “preview” of the ATV-5 re-entry, a “tour” of the Roverscape (a dirt lot with rocks in it), and (oh, joy) all about the new budget proposal.

Waiting for the livestream from Kennedy Center to get under way, it becomes clear we’re really just watching NASA TV, only without access to the DirecTV remote. There’s a very brief, flashy video of inspiring fun NASA images: think ooh! ahh! all accompanied by the voice of the lovely Peter Cullen (aka Optimus Prime). But then NASA TV switches to their familiar old-style rolling globe image with a static “coming next” title. No sound, just a slide. Not something that would get a channel-skipper to pause and watch. A teasing view of the crowd jostling for seating and the Director finding his spot in front of Orion would be more engaging. Maybe they could bring in an intern from a college media studies program to keep viewer interest up when there’s a little delay in an event startup.

Meanwhile, here’s a party game: What did you recognize in that rapid-fire video with Optimus Prime narrating? Here’s my list:

Orion completes first EDL (Courtesy of NASA)

Orion bobbing in the sea

Curiosity exploring Mars

Entry!Descent!Landing!

Scott Kelly with SPHERES on the ISS (Courtesy of NASA)

Astronaut Scott Kelly elated for a yearlong mission

ISS’rs playing with SPHERES and R2 the Robonaut

SpaceX and Saturday’s Launch of SMAP

The View from Ames

Well, you can watch the State O’ NASA message yourself on YouTube, to get the full effect. It’s only a half-hour, plus that four-minute preview video featuring brief glimpses of the work NASA is doing, with Real Scientists and Engineers. And robots. And Astronauts. Run it in the background while you’re updating your Facebook. Make the kids watch the preview, maybe inspire them to consider training to work at NASA someday.

What you get here is a few my own off-the-cuff reactions and observations.

No surprise, The Journey To Mars is still a core theme. If you’re down on manned spaceflight, one thing I’m noticing is that there is a heck of a lot of science being packed into these projects. It’s almost as if the popularity of the notion of sending human beings to Mars is being leveraged to get more actual discovery accomplished. Hmmmm. As always, at least since Apollo ended, NASA’s a shoestring operation, and it’s rather astonishing just how many things are going on under that big umbrella.

If you haven’t been paying attention, you might not know that our current NASA Fearless Leader is a former astronaut, Charles Bolden. He flew on four Shuttle missions between 1986 and 1994, so he was part of NASA for Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, and Clinton. Ten years after Bolden had left the astronaut business to go back to his first career (the U.S. Marine Corps), G.(noH.)W. Bush got so inspired by the success of the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers that he decided NASA’s new mission should be to get people back to the moon and on to Mars. And just five years after that, Obama put Bolden in charge of that mission, as well as the rest of the tasks NASA manages with a budget equal to about 3% the size of the defense budget.

The fun part of the State of NASA speech was not the words, because they were pretty much what you’d expect: upbeat, replete with “Reach for New Heights” inspirational affirmations. The fun part was the setting: they talked the engineers who’d been happily disassembling the Orion capsule to put it back together, and Bolden gave his talk in front of the blackened shell of the successful first trial of NASA’s new system designed to carry humans into space…even to Mars. To add flavor to the show, the organizers commandeered a space large enough for not one but three future human vehicles. There was a SpaceX Dragon C2+ capsule

Dragon Hangs Out

—said to be the actual capsule used for the first successful ISS resupply mission flown by SpaceX—and, for fair balance, a Boeing CST-100 capsule

CST-100 Shows Off Innovative Structure

showing off its innovative weld-free design structure.

Oh, and there were lots more people at Kennedy than we had at Ames. But at Ames, front-row seats were very accessible and anyone wanting to spread out over several seats was just fine.

Just as I notice a poster peering out from the edge of the Orion capsule, with logos and addresses for all NASA’s social-media connections, the feed goes down. The smartphones rotate 90 degrees and are all searching for the livestream. OK, it’s not just Ames, it’s NASA TV. But, really. Hire that intern, guys.

Well, it’s up again within a few minutes, though the audio is sketchy for a bit. What do interns get paid? Like, minimum wage, right?

So here are the highlights picked up in between tweets:

The Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) gets first mention in the context of pathway to Mars—though we still haven’t decided if the plan is to capture a whole small asteroid or to extract a chunk from a larger asteroid.
A glimpse of the budget comes next…there’s a bump-up of $500 million for fiscal 2016, though who knows what Congress will do with the budget request. Keep in mind that NASA’s proposed $18.5 billion is about 3% of the proposed defense budget and about 0.04% of the overall budget. How NASA can do this much with peanuts is amazing. Oh, wait. Suddenly I understand the peanuts ritual at JPL launch & landing events.
There’s a return to the Mars topic with shout-outs to all our Mars explorer robots, including a total brag on the U.S. having the first and (so far) only Mars landers. (OK, yes, we still love our friends at ESA, who landed on a comet.)
Then we get a reminder of the brilliant science from our telescope projects
Hubble Reveals the Butterfly Nebula (Courtesy of NASA)

from Hubble (which Bolden helped launch) to Kepler to James Webb. Even Chandra, which does superb work in the X-Ray spectrum, gets a mention this time. And the Solar Dynamics Observatory scores a slot in the closing segment.

Chandra X-Rays the Universe (Courtesy of NASA)
The Shuttle program is over, but it still makes it into the talk. Keep in mind Bolden is a shuttle veteran but also remember that, like his boss, he’s the first African-American to hold his job. Bolden flags the Shuttle program as the one that brought diversity to NASA, since it finally opened up space to women, minorities, and others who previously “wouldn’t have a chance to fly”. That is the thing he tells us to view as the crucial long-term legacy of the shuttle program. (Side note: Bolden’s Deputy Administrator for 2009-2013 was the first woman to hold that position, Lori Garver.)

There’s a reminder that the money spent on space is money spent in the U.S., from small business to large ones, from textile mills to welding shops. And the cash gets shared out, with 37 states having a stake in the commercial crew mission.
Education gets a nod, though to be honest I’m a little disappointed that what gets the splash are the student science program at ISS and the flight of a student project on the Orion test flight. Those big projects still tend to end up at private and/or privileged schools, since it takes resources to play. I might have gone for a specific shout-out to one of the schools for which participation was a big leap, like Oakland’s Urban Promise Academy. Still, if there’s a kid doing a science report who hasn’t logged into a NASA website, then that kid doesn’t have internet access.
All right, then we get a round of teasers on upcoming technological developments: “green” (less-polluting) propellants, advanced autonomous robotics, high-power solar electric propulsion, aviation advancements.
NASA’s moving forward in its ongoing role in earth and climate science. We’ve got that successful launch of the SMAP climate science satellite (http://smap.jpl.nasa.gov/), just a week ago, which has both direct practical applications for agriculture. And the Airborne Snow Observatory has already produced data to help with the drought in the West, especially California, where snowpack is key to water supplies.
True to the core message, the closing draws focus back to Mars, promising a geophysics mission with the InSight lander scheduled to launch in March of next year. And a taste of special features planned for the Mars 2020 successor to Curiosity, including a way to shoot a sample back home to Earth.

The Core Message

One last item in the dark hall of the Exploration Center: we get to watch a video from the re-entry of ESA’s ATV-1. Kinda cool, but old-school, dating back to 2008. But this is just a teaser, for the upcoming re-entry of ATV-5. Here we’re working at the opposite end of the scale from Orion and Dragon, where the concern is careful braking and heat-shield materials and safe landings. These re-entries are in the realm of Design for Demise, in which hardware at the end of its life is sent down to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. It’s not as simple as it might seem, when your goal is to NOT have bits of debris landing on the surface. I snipped together my video of their video to make a one-minute infomercial for ATV-5. Well, one does what one can:

There are two instrument packages onboard ready to monitor descent. ESA’s contribution is a video camera (wow!) while NASA’s package records acoustic data, temperatures, deceleration info and more. Both will “phone in” their results using the Iridium satellite network. Yep, ESA and NASA will be totally outclassing everyone else’s phone video uploads that day. (ESA’s page is complete with a countdown clock. The twitter tag will be #bigdive.)

Next up: At the Roverscape