What are Human Rights? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations in 1948. It lists 30 basic rights. I came across this at www.youthforhumanrights.org, but it is also available at www.un.org. The first human right is: 'Every person is born free and equal in dignity and rights'. Look for the other Human Rights at the Youth for Human Rights International (TM) website. You might be surprised at how well or how poorly Human Rights are known and observed where you live.

"On the day when we can fully trust each other, there will be peace on Earth." L. Ron Hubbard

The Cloudsat radar was successfully tested. It is working perfectly. You might be interested to know a little about the sequence of events when a spacecraft is launched. It will get to the right speed and altitude, and it needs to separate from the launch vehicle. Then there is a transition from battery power to solar power (this had better be successful within a few hours from launch). After that there are a series of manuevers to get the right orbit. In the case of Cloudsat, this will take some time because it is flying in formation with two other satellites. While these manuevers take place, everything on board the spacecraft is tested, and the science instruments are often calibrated to obtain the best possible accuracy. This whole set of activities is the second part of "launch operations", and will usually take 30 to 60 days.

Another friend did poorly in his performance evaluation at work due to inadequate communication skills. There is something called the "Success Through Communication" course. Anyone who wants to have career success would be very wise to do the drills given in this course. I got my first job under difficult circumstances because I had done those drills.

The JPL Open House was spectacular. The weather was great. So were the crowds. There were over 30 booths, each covering some mission, technology, or other item of interest. I did not get in to see the robo-dome. Too many other people in line to get in. That was a demonstration of formation flying of spacecraft, with the end goal of developing extremely accurate formation flying, so that multiple spacecraft can combine to form one instrument, with instrument aperture areas of many miles. If successful, JPL could be able to take good pictures of Earth-sized planets in other solar systems.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is holding its annual open house this Saturday and Sunday, starting at 9 am. If you are in the area, you can get in free. JPL is at 4800 Oak Grove Drive in Pasadena, California (the extreme Northwest corner of Pasadena). You will see displays and representatives from nearly two dozen missions into outer space, plus a number of special technology displays and exotic facilities, such as the Spacecraft Assembly Facility, the JPL 'Robo-Dome', and the Mars Rover test facility. Wear good hiking shoes and comfortable clothes. JPL is big.

Career survival skills are not taught in college, so you need to learn some things on your own. I just got done with annual performance reviews of the people who work for me, and it was an eye openner. One person had produced a work force planning system that is now regarded the best such system in NASA, and it is being applied throughout my laboratory. Over the last year, he sent me exactly one email documenting an accomplishment, and that was on behalf of a friend of his. He never created a single record of his own accomplishments. The lesson here is that you must make your good work well-known. This is honest PR. To do anything less is extremely high risk to your career. I mentioned the Life Orientation Course earlier in this weblog, where each person works out the 21 departments that can organize their life. The employee who had done so much and reported so little is actually trying to make a career on only 5 departments. People with less tallent who operate on 21 departments will pass him by on the road to success.

The Dianetics Anniversary was celebrated last Saturday. Thousands of people were there at Sunset and L. Ron Hubbard Way in Los Angeles. I credit Dianetics with saving my life about fifteen years ago, so I will highly recommend this book to anyone.

A friend just retired from my group at JPL. I constructed a poster of images that celebrate his career, which included the Apollo program, the Saturn program, and about a dozen missions at JPL. I got signatures on the poster from as many of his former colleagues as I could find. We don't have that many people left in the space program that did significant work in the 1960s, when astronauts first went to the moon. But the new generation of aerospace engineers is pretty good, and progress should continue.

A co-worker just completed a divorce. She got into this disaster because she was not familiar enough with Dianetics. There are three kinds of love. One type of love described in Dianetics is 'compulsive love', caused by the reactive mind. This can happen when the reactive mind is in charge and getting you to do things that otherwise make no sense. This 'compulsive love' leads to bad relationships, broken homes, and so forth, all of which have a terrible affect on families and the workplace. It is so unnecessary. Anyone about to commit to a relationship ought to be thoroughly familiar with compulsive love, as described in Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health. If my co-worker had done this, she would have avoided much misery and my job as a manager would be easier.

Here is a great video from the space program. It is a movie that shows the spectacular descent of the European Space Agencie's probe on Saturn’s giant moon Titan. I had several people who worked on the Cassini Program at JPL, which delivered the "Huygens" probe to Titan. Cassini was JPL's largest mission into outer space, and the Huygen's probe was one of the great accomplishments of the European space program.

I gave a performance evaluation this morning to an employee. He has done very good work, but he consistently fails to communicate this when he should. Every professional has to do some career management. The best course for career management that I have seen is the Life Orientation Course, which is provided by the Church of Scientology. In this course, you go over the 21 departments of your career, and work out what you can do in each department. Letting people know how well you are doing is definitely included. This is an advanced course which may be beyond some people, but for very capable individuals, it is a real asset to do this course.