Ten Years!

Ten years ago, the rover Opportunity landed on the surface of Mars. It was expected to last at least 90 Martian days. At this point, it's lasted about forty times that long, and looks to be good for still more.



In the ten years Opportunity has been on station, we've gathered an immense amount of data, and made several amazing discoveries. Some of them have been confirmations of things long suspected, others took us by surprise. Ten years ago, it was still an open question whether or not water had ever flowed on Mars; now, it's proven fact. Ten years ago, it was highly speculative to say that Mars ever had the necessary conditions for life. Now, while it's not proven for sure yet, the facts are lining up in favor. Between them, Opportunity, Spirit, and Curiosity have been chipping away at the unknowns, revealing a world more complex that we'd imagined, with a richer past than we'd suspected.

In other recent news, we turn our eyes outward to the Asteroid Belt. European scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered something surprising about the dwarf planet Ceres. It seems that it periodically ejects plumes of water. While we'd suspected that Ceres was at least partially made of ice, this provides confirmation. Fortunately for us, the Dawn spacecraft is already on its way, having left Vesta a while back.

You know, this makes me feel sorry for poor New Horizons.

When New Horizons launched, it was a mission to fly by the farthest known planet, Pluto. While enroute, Pluto was demoted from planet to dwarf planet. Which was still OK, since New Horizons would still be the first mission to a dwarf planet, right? Um, no. Turns out that while New Horizons will fly by Pluto in July of 2015, Dawn will reach Ceres in January.

Some people just can't buy a break.

Anyway, it's wonderful to know that we can still build things that last. Voyager, launched way back in 1977, still checks in regularly with Earth. Opportunity still soldiers on after ten years driving around in the Martian dust. And just next year, we'll get our first close-up views of not one, but two dwarf planets.

These are great days, ladies and gentlemen. And we've barely begun.

Fourteen for '14

Once again, we've broken the shrink-wrap on a brand-new calendar. We've seen off a grizzled old Father Time to a well-earned retirement, and welcomed in a smiling Baby New Year -- who, clearly, had no clue what he's in for. But he'll learn soon enough. Probably by, say, noon two days ago. And with that, we'll dive right into fourteen not-so-random thoughts for the New Year.

One: Holy God, Mr. Kim's a bad-un. We knew he was crazy. What we didn't necessarily know until now is that the guy has one hell of a mean streak. We probably should have gotten a clue last year when he had someone executed by mortar -- yes, machine-gunning wasn't enough, they used artillery -- for failing to observe a decent period of mourning for his late father. Then, he had a former girlfriend executed. And late last year, we found out that he had his uncle executed as well, for an alleged putsch-in-progress. Well, now details have leaked about the method. Kim Jong-Un had him thrown in a cage with 120 starving hounds. Along with five of his top aides. It's ... less than encouraging, knowing that someone with these kinds of anger issues even has a nuclear button to push. It's a little more reassuring to know that he's still got a ways to go before they can air-mail a batch of instant sunrise to anyone outside of North Korea.

Two: Nut-cases like Li'l Kim are why theater missile defense is still a damn good idea.

Three: I'm provisionally going to call Number Four from last year proven. The key wording here is, "for a sufficiently generous definition of Earth-like." The closest thing to an Earth-like planet found so far, GJ 1214b, is a lava planet with an atmosphere containing zinc sulfide, postassium chloride ... and water. Still, the fact that we can actually sense its atmospheric composition from 33 light years away -- thirty-three light years! -- is phenomenal. Stupefying, even. On the plus side, Kepler-62e and -62f are about the right size, and about the right distance from their star ... but they're about 1,200 light years away, so it'll be a while before we have enough data to be sure. Again, wording is important: by the terms I laid out last year, that's close enough.

Four: Now, to raise the stakes: We'll find a true Earth-twin, and soon. Right size, right place in its solar system, right atmospheric composition, and yes, oceans of liquid water. Our instruments get better every year. I don't seriously expect it to happen this year ... but I didn't expect Number Four from last year to be proven out so soon, either.

Five: Research at the University of Twente has revealed a new way to wind superconducting cables that will vastly extend their productive life within a fusion reactor. You can read the whole paper here. Solid information about other ongoing projects is still kind of hard to come by. Since the Polywell project is run by the Navy, and the Navy is playing its cards close to the vest, we won't know more until they decide to exercise a contract option to continue the research. Still, it's worth keeping an eye on. Fusion's been a tough nut to crack. But if we can figure it out, our energy problems are just about over.

Six: One researcher, Joe Eck, has produced a superconductor that keeps its superconducting properties up to a temperature of 38C, or about 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Soon, they'll be pushing Tc up to values that will be useful for long-distance high-voltage power lines. Provided, that is, that the material is amenable to use in that capacity. The obvious advantages of superconducting power lines will lead someone to take up that challenge. As I've written before, we lose about two-thirds of the power we generate between the power plant and the end user. Meaning that, if we had superconducting power lines, at a stroke we'd triple the amount of deliverable electrical power. When I first started writing about this, it was a highly speculative prospect. Now, it's just a matter of time.

Seven: The three items above, together, lead me to the conclusion that while concern about our power future is still warranted, panic isn't. Relax, guys. We've got this.

Eight: VSS Enterprise, the successor to SpaceShip One that Burt Rutan is building for Richard Branson, made two powered flights last year, both going supersonic. On the second test flight in September, they tested the "feathering" that they will use for deceleration and descent from flights above 100km altitude. About 370 people have put a deposit down on their ticket, and 80,000 more are on the waiting list. No, I'm not one of them -- the quarter-million-dollar ticket price is too rich for my blood. Besides, the price is bound to come down sooner or later. The reason I'm writing all this is simple: after a few test flights to expand the flight envelope, I expect them to go for broke this year, all the way up to the Big Black. A steady stream of paying customers will follow, and the REAL Space Age will be well underway.

Nine: Meanwhile, Elon Musk looks on and says, "Suborbital? That's cute." DragonRider has passed its initial design reviews with NASA. SpaceX has announced a target price of $140 million, or $20 million per seat if all seven seats are used. So far, SpaceX hasn't announced any space tourist initiatives yet. Their primary customer for DragonRider is NASA, aiming to muscle Soyuz out of the crew rotation business. But the implication is obvious. If Branson proves that a market's there, someone will put two and two together, and pick up a phone to give Mr. Musk a call. It's only a matter of time, now.

Ten: The first astronaut of NASA's Group 20, Michael Hopkins, is aboard the International Space Station, and will be until March 2014. I find it remarkable that it only took two years after completion of training for the first member of Group 20 to get a flight. Then again, it has been four years since selection... Amazingly enough, there was a selection for Group 21, and it completely escaped my notice. The eight astronaut candidates selected in June will join the 47 astronauts currently on the active list. It looks like they're on a four-year rotation now, so we should look for Group 22 to be chosen in June 2017.

Eleven: Total radio silence so far on Johan Bruyneel's arbitration hearing, in the wake of last year's Armstrong scandal. Although, really, it's not fair to call it the Armstrong scandal, since Lance wasn't doing anything anyone else wasn't already doing. He rubbed a lot of people the wrong way by (a) turning all the dials up to 11, and (b) being a total jerk-ass about it. Everybody and his dog was cheating during those years. Mind you, he richly deserved to lose those titles, and no one else really deserved to pick them up. Still, once the decision is released, I expect the other shoe to drop. We know who, what, when, where, and why; we do not know how. How was he able to avoid the testing protocols so long and so well? And how far did the corruption go? We'll probably learn more in the year to come.

Twelve: It'll be interesting to see how well Lolo Jones does in bobsled. Bobsled and luge are my two favorite winter sports. But as you might have noticed, I have a thing for speed, and these are just about the two fastest muscle-powered sports there are.

Thirteen: Another season, another 8-8 finish for the Cowboys. I can haz new GM? Yeah, like Jerry's gonna fire himself. Maybe next year ... but probably not.

Fourteen: But wait! The primaries are coming up for the 2014 Texas Gubernatorial election! So far, the only entrants I've heard of are Wendy Davis on the Democratic side, and Greg Abbott for the Republicans. Presumably, there's going to be some competition, but my gut feeling right now is that it'll be Abbot vs. Davis in November. I'll dig into more detail on that in coming weeks, but this could be a fun one. Also -- looks like Governor Perry's ginning up for another run at the Republican nomination in 2016. No, don't laugh. His performance last time was an aberration. If he manages to show up properly prepped and briefed, he could spring an unpleasant surprise on his competitors.

And that's it for now. Happy New Year, all! And thanks for reading.

Merry Christmas!

WE THREE CLODS (to the tune of "We Three Kings")

We three clods from Omaha are
Spending Christmas Eve in a car
Driving, drinking, glasses clinking --
Who needs a lousy bar?

Oh, oh ...
Drink to Charlie, drink to Paul
Drink to friends we can't recall
Swerving, speeding,
Signs unheeding --
Drink to anything at all.

We three clods are feeling no pain
Drunk as skunks with booze on the brain
Senses losing, 'till we're cruising
Into a wrong-way lane.

Oh, oh ...
Drink to Melvin, drink to Fred
Drink to those two trucks ahead
Headlights flashing
Screeching, crashing --
Drink 'till they pronounce us dead.

(This public service announcement originally brought to you by Mad Magazine, issue unknown. Don't drink and drive. It generally doesn't end well.)

Merry Christmas!

Sesquicentennial, Part XXXIV: The Door

--FIRST -PREV NEXT-

"The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on." -- General Ulysses S. Grant

It's very odd that Grant does not mention anything here about supply. From his actions, and from his memoirs, it's clear that supplies were always paramount in his thinking. He might not have read Wellington's memoirs himself, but clearly he was of the same school: if he had food and ammunition, he had soldiers; and if he had soldiers he could beat the enemy.

Which brings us back to Chattanooga, and the Union army trapped therein by a surrounding force of Confederates under Braxton Bragg. The encircled Union commander, General Thomas, didn't have enough supplies to last indefinitely. What he did have was assurance that Grant was on the way. For the moment, that was enough. Thomas and his army would hold out until relief arrived.

Grant's first order of business was to open what he called a "Cracker Line", to get some supplies in to Chattanooga. He began these operations in late October. Bragg had no idea what Grant was up to, but he did notice a Union force under Hooker crossing the river at Bridgeport, and ordered Longstreet to shore up his flank. But no flanking attack was called for. Instead, a Union force was floated unnoticed past Lookout Mountain -- spectacularly failing to live up to its name in this case -- to seize Brown's Ferry, from which Grant could resupply Thomas with ease.

This presented Bragg with a bit of a problem. Sure, he was still surrounding Chattanooga, in theory. In practice, the siege was already broken, and the strategic position had changed radically. Looking over all his options, the only one that didn't entail either humiliating retreat or suicidal attack was a movement around Grant's left flank. The problem with that option, though, was a Union corps under General Burnside at Knoxville. But as he was drawing up plans to attack Burnside, decisions from Richmond forced him to change his plans. Longstreet was being sent back to Virginia. It was decided that he'd attack Burnside along the way.

In the meantime, Grant wasn't idle. It wasn't his style to sit around and let the opposing commander come to him. His plan was the same as it always had been. The first two parts, finding them and getting there, had already been done. All that was left was striking them hard. His fresh troops, under Hooker and Sherman, would hit the Rebels from their left and right, respectively, while Thomas' men would come out of their defensive works at Chattanooga and hit the center.

Lookout Mountain again failed to live up to its billing. It's actually a fairly lousy defensive position. It's easily flanked, and if the attacker has decent artillery, they can make life miserable for the defenders. Once the Union got around the base of the mountain, the Confederate position was no longer tenable, and they were forced to withdraw.

This left Bragg with the bulk of his forces arrayed on Missionary Ridge, south of Chattanooga. Ordinarily, this would still be a fairly good defensive position. You'd think it would be a replay of Gettysburg, with the Confederates holding the high ground ... except for one key difference. Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg was shaped like a fish-hook, giving the defender a concave front with interior lines of communication. Missionary Ridge is line-straight. If anyone manages to turn the flank, the position folds up like a cheap suit.

That's more or less what happens.

Hooker was already halfway there, having run the Confederates off of Lookout Mountain. Once he got guns set up on the slopes, his gunners had a clean line of fire onto the Confederate left flank. In the meantime, Thomas was attacking from the front, and Sherman from the right.

Grant didn't actually expect the frontal assault to actually work. His orders were for them to advance only as far as the rifle pits. But a funny thing happened...

One of Thomas' brigade commanders, Philip Sheridan, raised a flask in a toast to the Confederates on Missionary Ridge. "Here's at you," he toasted. More or less at that point, a Confederate shell landed nearby, splattering him with dirt. "That was ungenerous," he said. "I'll have your guns for that!"

His soldiers took that as their cue to attack, with their goal being the Confederate guns at the top of the ridge, not the rifle pits at the base. When General Thomas saw this happening, he ordered a general attack, so that they wouldn't go unsupported.

It had no business working. It shouldn't have worked. Sheridan should have died right there, or been wounded, like every brigade commander at Pickett's Charge. Of course, that third day, everyone on the top of that ridge was expecting a charge. Here, on this day, just about no one was expecting them to come up the hill.

With both flanks threatened, and the center giving way, Bragg had no choice but to withdraw.

This was just about the last major action, east or west, for 1863. The respective armies began to go into winter quarters shortly thereafter. But with Chattanooga lost, and a strong Union force in possession, the door to the Deep South had been kicked off its hinges.

Video Del Fuego, Part LXIV

I'm a technology professional, so I really should never be surprised about how far technology has advanced. Really, I shouldn't. But every once in a while, I compare what we have now against what we thought was possible when I was young, and even though that's been less than thirty years ...

Case in point. The first computer I owned had 512K of RAM. Now, you can buy over 4,000 times the memory in a blister pack at the Target checkout line. And the first digital camera I ever saw was a huge, clunky, fragile thing. Now ... GoPro makes an amazingly small, amazingly rugged camera that not only can go anywhere, it has.

It's been on land:

Sea:

Air:

And space.

It's hard for me to say which one's more thrilling: the backflip over a canyon on a bike, recording whale songs, jumping off a cliff in a flying squirrel suit, or stepping into the void 128,000 feet above New Mexico.

I don't have the skill to do any of these. But, thanks to modern technology, I can see what it looks like to have done it.

Big Data For Fun And Profit

I have seen the future, and it's pretty weird.

Several entities out there have set about ... well, just sitting and listening. And collating what they hear, trying to find patterns. Some we know about, others we don't. Whether we like it or not, the era of Big Data is upon us. No one, least of all those who are trying to tap into it, know exactly what that means yet.

What can you discover, if you have a big enough data set? What kinds of answers can you tease out of it?

That's part of the philosophy behind Wolfram Alpha, which I've written about before. Alpha is kind of like Google, but more focused. Let's say you wanted to know how many people lived on Earth in 1863. You can search Google for resources that will tell you about historical planetary population. Or you can go to Alpha, type "world population in 1863", and it'll straight up tell you that in 1863, the world's population was 1.26 billion people. If you're curious, you can revise your query to "India population 2013", and you're treated to the notion that the equivalent of the entire human race circa 1863 lives in today's India. I'm ... not entirely sure what to make of that. But it's definitely food for thought.

The point is, between them Google and Wolfram have harnessed an immense amount of publicly-available data, made it massively interconnected, and set it loose on the public at large. On the whole, this is a good thing. Back when I was in school, one of the first things they taught us was how to use the library's card catalog. You could find a lot of stuff in that card catalog. Well, nowadays, just about everyone carries a card catalog that indexes almost the entirety of human knowledge in their pocket. And with just a little more effort, they can unleash an agent who will go search that catalog, giving them just the information they're looking for. You can search for any kind of data: population, financial, historical, whatever.

And then, there's Akinator.

Akinator's conceit is that a genie is playing guessing games with you: you think of a character, and Akinator will ask questions until he guesses who you're thinking about. I suspect -- but I don't know for sure, since they're not really telling -- that it's an enormous database, one that grows and learns from each of its defeats. It's Big Data applied to amusement, as opposed to research. Yes, you can stump Akinator, but you really have to work at it. At least it's honest. Well-known characters and historical personages, he'll guess in fairly short order; more obscure references may take time to narrow down. Within another year, if they're still running by then, it may be nigh-impossible to put one over on the old boy.

Finally, you have the prediction markets, which are another expression of Big Data ... sort of. By allowing people to collaborate anonymously, they allow a real-time expression of the Wisdom of Crowds principle. This is an invaluable resource for ... well, just about all of us. In 2008 and 2012, no one who was regularly reading Intrade was surprised by the election outcome. Which is unfortunate, because government busybodies shut Intrade down earlier this year. Maybe they'll be back. I sure hope so. In the meantime, there are other prediction markets out there. I'm going to be giving the Iowa Electronic Markets a workout in next year's Congressional races, and I'll let you know how it turns out.

Lastly ... what must it be like, to grow up in this world? Our kids have never really known a world where everything wasn't indexed. I've touched on this topic before, and don't really have anything new to add. Whether we want to or not, whether we like it or not, we are now raising the first generation of cyborgs. They do not understand what it's like to be involuntarily lost. They do not understand what we mean by "privacy." And they do not understand what it's like not to have information at their fingertips. And increasingly, it's going to be their world.

And we're going to have to adapt to living in it.

But you know what? We will. That's what we do. We shape our tools, then our tools shape us, in an endless recursion. The future always looks weird to those who first see it.

But, eventually, we all get used to it.

Sesquicentennial, Part XXXIII: The Cause

--FIRST -PREV NEXT-

There's a scene from Band of Brothers that I'm fond of. Maybe I shouldn't be. But I enjoy a good rant, and here, he rips off a good one. David Webster is a private with the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment. He's well-educated, a Harvard man, and is able to find the exact words to give life to his frustrations.



Of course, shortly thereafter, they'd find out why they were there. Oh, not the reason why they'd set out. But they would discover to their horror why this war, and their sacrifice, was absolutely necessary. Once they'd discovered the camps, exactly no one ever asked that question ever again.

In late 1863, the Union was facing a similar quandary. Many people were beginning to ask if the restoration of the Union was worth the horrifying cost in blood and treasure that the task was demanding, with no clear end in sight. It was with this question as a backdrop that a new soldiers' cemetery was to be dedicated, at Gettysburg.

The Battle of Gettysburg, fought that summer, was the bloodiest battle yet fought in the Western Hemisphere. Indeed, a century and a half later, it remains so. Some of the soldiers, when identified, were sent home to be buried. Many couldn't. A section of the battlefield was set aside, then, as their final resting place, and in November a dedication ceremony was to be held.

It was a grand affair, with bands, choirs, and an oration by one of the most celebrated speakers of the day, Edward Everett. Everett's speech was a real stem-winder, lasting about two hours. The man delivered it from memory, which I find astounding. Men were made of sterner stuff in those days, speakers and audiences alike. This was to be the focal point, the main event, of the day. After Everett wound down, President Lincoln was to make a short speech billed as "Dedicatory Remarks". No one quite expected what was about to happen.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Edward Everett himself said afterwards, "I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes." Others weren't nearly as kind. The Chicago Times, a paper with a heavily Democratic editorial board, wrote, "The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat and dishwatery utterances of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States." But love it or loathe it, Lincoln got one thing wrong. The world would long remember what was said here. Because while between them Vicksburg and Gettysburg would prove to be military turning points in the war, this speech would prove to be a political turning point. Lincoln was beginning to reframe the conflict.

His opening phrase, describing America as a nation "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal," is a "take that" aimed directly at the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis. Davis, and his Vice-President, Alexander Stephens, characterized their nation as a union between States, and that only. The people have no business in the business of their nation, except second-hand, as citizens of their State. Also, "all men are created equal," a phrase drawn directly from the Declaration of Independence, stands in direct counterpoint to an address by Alexander Stephens, where he said, "Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man, that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition."

Here, he makes the distinction plain, without coming right out and saying it: this war must become a war for freedom. It must become the Final Solution to the Slavery Question. Too much has been paid, too many have been lost, for this war to merely be about recovering territory. It must become bigger than that, it must become better than that. The sentiment caught, and spread like wildfire.



What had been a war to restore the Union was becoming a crusade for human liberty. In some people's eyes it had always been such, for others, they'd be slow in coming around. But come around they would.

They'd paid too much and bled too deeply for it to be anything else.

And Then There Was One

The second American to orbit the Earth, Scott Carpenter, died yesterday of complications from a recent stroke. And so it becomes that the oldest Mercury astronaut, John Glenn, is the last one left.

Scott Carpenter took what we might call an unusual road to his 1959 appointment. While he was a graduate of the Navy's Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, he came to it as a pilot of P2V patrol planes, not of high-performance jet fighters. But a test pilot is a test pilot, someone figured, and he was in extraordinarily good physical condition.

It's tempting to say that his unusual path played into the difficulties experienced during the Aurora 7 mission, specifically the late retrofire and the resulting 250-mile overshoot of the landing zone, but that's probably unfair to Carpenter. Scratch "probably", I think it is unfair. Granted, the same kinds of control system problems happened on Gordon Cooper's flight, if not in a more severe form, and Cooper landed closer to the primary recovery ship than anyone else did. But, Carpenter's flight plan was jam-packed with experiments and tests, which may well have distracted his attention from other matters. If you look, you will no doubt notice that the last two missions had a vastly reduced experiment load, possibly for this very reason.

Nevertheless, Chris Kraft reportedly said that Carpenter would never fly for him again. And, he never did. Kraft's opinion might have had something to do with it, but a medically-grounding injury suffered in a 1963 motorcycle accident probably had a lot to do with it as well. Surgeries in 1964 and 1967 were unsuccessful, leading to Carpenter's resignation from NASA in 1967.

Not that he was done with exploration. Carpenter participated in several of the Navy's underwater research programs, spending 28 days underwater on SEALAB II, and serving as a director for SEALAB III.

Fair winds and following seas, Commander Carpenter.

Sesquicentennial, Part XXXII: Chickamauga

--FIRST -PREV NEXT-

"Of a truth, the gods do not give the same man everything: you know how to gain a victory, Hannibal, but you do not know how to make use of it." -- Maharbal

In fairness to most commanders in the first two years of active fighting in the Civil War, the levels of casualties were so far above what any of them had come to expect that no one knew how to handle them. No one knew how to tell an army that had just suffered over ten thousand casualties to follow up a hard-fought victory with a vigorous pursuit. So it was that even though the Confederacy reeled from the one-two punch of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, so also the Federal army reeled from the effort expended. So, the following months were spent on a go-slow basis, while the victors consolidated, and decided what to do next. In the East, the answer was, "not much". There would be a few inconclusive skirmishes, but no major movements for the remainder of the year. The East was so quiet, in fact, that President Davis was able to detach some forces from the Army of Northern Virginia under General Longstreet to go help out with the deteriorating situation in the West.

In the West, Grant was looking for a doorway into the heart of the Confederacy. Part One of the Anaconda Plan was complete: the Confederacy was cut in two and utterly isolated. Next ... well, the original plan was to sit tight and let them starve. That didn't sit right with Grant. What he really wanted was to put an army on the South's doorstep. Chattanooga seemed a likely place to do just that.

He sent General Rosecrans out to do the deed. To his credit, Rosecrans didn't try to charge right up the middle. He began shelling the city on August 21st, but that was mostly to keep the Confederate commander, General Bragg, from realizing what he was really up to: putting a large number of Federal troops across the river, off to the southwest. By the time Bragg caught wise, he was already well and truly screwed. To his credit, Bragg decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and abandoned the city. Thus ended the Second Battle of Chattanooga. There were casualties, although no one's entirely sure how many. Probably not a whole lot, on either side.

Rosecrans decided that he might as well strike while the iron was hot. He was probably never going to get as good a chance to pursue and destroy Bragg's army as he had right at this moment, having just recently run his army out of Chattanooga.

It was more or less at this point that Bragg's reinforcements showed up.

This presented Bragg, and the Confederacy, with what was (for them) a very unusual situation: they had a numerical advantage over a Federal army. I'm not sure it had ever happened before, or would ever happen since. One of the implications of the Tale of the Tape was always that the Union had men and to spare, while the Confederacy would always have manpower problems. But here, thanks to President Davis' temporary detachment of Longstreet, Bragg had the upper hand, if only temporarily. He had a narrow window of opportunity within which to exploit that advantage.

At Chickamauga, he'd have his chance.

Rosecrans had come south out of Chattanooga, across the Tennessee River, looking for Bragg's army. Skirmishers met on September 18th, and the main forces clashed on the 19th. The details of the first day's fighting aren't especially important. It's the same story that's become so dreadfully familiar: the first force on the field stakes out a defensive position, the second attempts to overcome it, and fails with appalling casualties. We've seen it so many times before that it scarcely merits mention. No, the interesting things happened on the second day.

Because on the second day, the Union blundered.

The dispositions of the Union's right flank were mishandled, leaving several gaps in the lines. Longstreet was in command of the Confederate left, immediately opposite, and remembering Gettysburg, asked himself, "Now where have I seen this before?" Remembering Dan Sickles and the goat-rope all in and around the Devil's Den, Longstreet may well have said to himself, "Oh no, you don't. Not again. Not this time." Here, the ground wasn't playing tricks on his lines of sight. Here, he could see plainly was was before him. Here, he'd make those damn Yankees pay.

The Union right flank folded up like a cheap suit. Rosecrans himself folded up with it, utterly demoralized. That might have been the beginning of a disastrous rout, except for the fact that the Union right was able to redeploy and reform so as to form a new right flank. General George Thomas was able to take command of what was left of the Army of the Cumberland, organize a defense, and hold his position until nightfall, when he was able to withdraw and rejoin the retreating troops. This skillful rear-guard action earned Thomas the name, "Rock of Chickamauga." With Rosecrans so totally demoralized, and discredited, Thomas would now assume command of the Army of the Cumberland.

Now, Bragg had a choice. The choice was, pursue Rosecrans and try to beat him back to Chattanooga, or reorganize his army. He chose the latter. Some have vilified him for that. I'm beginning to wonder if that's fair. Bragg would have had some pretty serious problems trying to pursue Rosecrans. For one, he charged into the battle so fast that his troops left their supply wagons behind. For another, Rosecrans had retreated across the Tennessee River, which was now an obstacle for Bragg, and Bragg had no pontoon bridges. Or boats, for that matter; Rosecrans' men took them all. All that was left for Bragg to do was to lay siege to Chattanooga. He did still enjoy a numerical advantage, after all.

It wouldn't last:

Gen. Thomas -- 
Hold Chattanooga at all hazards. I will be there as soon as possible.
                                                                           -- Gen. Grant

This telegram was all Thomas needed to see. Grant was coming. With him, enough and more than enough manpower to break Bragg's siege. He'd hang on until Judgment Day, or until he starved, whichever came first ... although he expected Grant to arrive well before either of those happened.

Grant would not disappoint.

Video Del Fuego, Part LXIII

Welcome to today's "Swords into Plowshares" installment of this feature, where we look at a few cases of former weapons given new leases on life.

It's fairly obvious, if you think about it. When you've written the requirements for a long-range artillery missile, you've also written most of the requirements for a satellite launch vehicle. That sort of works both ways, which is why everyone gets antsy when North Korea tries to enter the satellite launching arena, because exactly no one believes that Kim Jong-Un is trying to muscle in on Arianespace's market share. But while the list of would-be satellite launchers that have become successful weapons is somewhere between short and empty, the list of weapons that have gone on to a second life as satellite launchers is very long.

For the United States, it's a list that begins with our very first military missiles.

First, the Atlas. You may remember that a version of Atlas was used during the orbital phase of Project Mercury. What you may not have heard is that old, decommissioned Atlas-F ICBMs were refurbished by the Air Force, and used to launch spy satellites during the '60s, '70s, and beyond. The last of the "stage-and-a-half" Atlas rockets flew in 2004.

The next ICBM the U.S. deployed, the Titan, was also recycled for launch duty. Again, it played a role in the American manned space program as the launch vehicle for Project Gemini. And like Atlas, once the missiles were decommissioned in the '80s, they found new life as workhorses in the Air Force satellite program. One such missile sent the Clementine space probe on its way to the Moon in 1994, another was used to launch the NOAA-M weather satellite in 2002.

The next ICBM to be deployed, the Minuteman, hasn't been taken out of service yet. Its alleged replacement, the Peacekeeper, has been withdrawn. Depending on who you talk to, the Peacekeeper was taken out of service because of cuts mandated by treaty, or because the Air Force wasn't happy with its range. Maybe a little of both? Either way, its engines became available for Orbital Sciences Corporation to fool around with. Some Peacekeeper first stages were used in their Taurus launcher. But then, they got the idea to just use the whole darn thing, which was the beginning of the Minotaur. Last week, a Minotaur was used to send the LADEE probe on its way to the Moon.

Solid rockets don't waste a whole lot of time getting off the ground, do they?

Of all the missiles I just mentioned, only the Minotaur is still in service. Sort of. There's still an Atlas flying, the Atlas V, but it only shares a name with its progenitor. The American-built airframe uses a Russian-built RD-180 engine in its first stage.

The world is a weird place. If you were to ask an average American circa 1812 who our nation's strongest ally would be two hundred years hence, he'll pick anyone but the British, and he'd be wrong. And if you were to ask a Convair engineer in 1963 whose engines his Atlas rocket would be using in fifty years, he'd pick anyone but the Russians, and he'd also be wrong.

It's an interesting exercise in humility: just imagine what we're going to be wrong about, in fifty years' time?