Freethought Ranch

The Mars Ingenuity Helicopter: An Aerial Assault on the Integrity of Science and the Mission Peer Review Process

2021-04-13T12:52:00.007-06:00

The public and most of the Mars scientific community is absolutely giddy over the ingenuity helicopter that hitched a ride under the belly of the Mars Perseverance Rover. It’s cool. I get it. You know what else it is? It’s an affront to the established peer review process upon which successful missions are built. The NASA public relations machine has done an almost flawless job of distracting the public and the scientific community from the egregious violation of the rigorous peer review process that determines what flies into space. Look! A mechanical flying Martian squirrel! I’m not impressed. I’m disgusted.

The Ingenuity helicopter did an end-run around the brutal proposal process that determined what was ultimately manifested on the Mars rover. That process began with the solicitation of scientific investigations and accompanying instrumentation that could achieve one or more science objectives of the mission. The teams who responded to that solicitation put in a massive amount of work, often with great personal sacrifice, and their institutions committed substantial resources and funds to support those proposal efforts. The proposals underwent a thorough and intense scientific and technical review process. Most of those proposals were ultimately rejected by NASA, because they were some combination of too costly, too risky, too difficult to accommodate, or were not deemed as the best instrument to achieve one more of the predetermined science objectives. Win or lose, the community respects and understands that the review process is necessary to preserve the integrity of the scientific process. It’s not a perfect process, but it’s the best we have and, generally speaking, it works. In the small pile of proposals that survived the review gauntlet, a Mars helicopter was nowhere to be found. Either it wasn’t proposed, or the peer review process rejected it.

Yet, here we are. The entire rover mission, comprising hundreds of scientists and engineers, is being held hostage by an illegitimate public relations stunt. After almost 60 Martian days on the surface, the rover and its team has been prevented from doing their intended work: Seeking, analyzing, and caching soil samples that should eventually be returned to Earth. The opportunity cost is staggering and growing. Further, the opportunity cost goes beyond time and money. The helicopter consumed resources and accommodation volume that could have been used by other worthy science investigations, some of which, undoubtedly, were far less costly, less risky and less difficult to accommodate. That science will never happen. Apparently, NASA’s claim of limited funds, risk aversion, and accommodation challenges were not truthful. (The reader may substitute the more appropriate synonym of “not truthful”).

Whether the helicopter has science, engineering, or public relations value is irrelevant. Let’s set aside that it’s difficult to conceive of a more hostile environment than Mars for a rotorcraft. Its tenuous and extremely turbulent atmosphere is a flight operations nightmare. Let’s set aside that many of the difficulties of successful flight were left as an exercise to be solved later. Let’s set aside that the helicopter may be able to carry out some amount of beneficial reconnaissance. Let’s set aside the arguments of how the technology might feed forward to future exploration. This is not a question of science or benefit. The time for those questions was during the proposal evaluation process, and that time passed long ago. What this is about is whether we want to strive for the best in space exploration or whether we want extrajudicial back room deals to determine what we send into space. It’s about the integrity of the scientific method and the peer review process. There is no middle ground here. To the public: You’re being duped by carnival barkers. To my colleagues: Are you cheering, condemning, or remaining silent?

The comments expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.

COVID-19 September 17, 2020

2020-09-17T16:29:00.002-06:00

It's been almost two weeks since I last posted. The Labor Day holiday is primarily responsible for the silence. First, the numbers coming in were rather skewed. It was clear that testing, labs, and reporting were also respecting the holiday. Second, I wanted to wait a week so that the holiday was in the rear view mirror and it became possible to better compare week over week numbers.

Daily cases did indeed drop most of last week and have since recovered this week. Not only have they recovered, but they are starting to rise above the numbers from two weeks ago. I suspect that new cases are going to at least level off in the next week, and I would not be surprised if they start to rise again. People are getting weary of quarantine. Cell phone tracking indicates that people are going out and interacting more and more. Couple that to the holiday and the return to school and the ingredients are in place for another rise. The death rate is also starting to tick up again and is now on par with the numbers prior to the holiday. It would not be surprising to see that trend also continue.

Next week will be key to seeing how holiday interactions and the return to school are impacting the numbers. I'm not optimistic.

COVID-19 September 04, 2020

2020-09-04T08:58:00.002-06:00

It's been about a week since I last posted. In that period, the number of daily new cases has nearly leveled off at about 40,000 per day. It would be interesting to see how much of that is due to the return to school. There have certainly been a large number of reports of outbreaks at schools and universities. It's curious, though, that some of these don't seem to be reflected in the individual state numbers. For example, over a thousand students were supposedly diagnosed at the University of Alabama within the last couple of weeks. But there is no significant change in that state's trends over the last several weeks. In fact, Alabama posted a paltry 86 on September 2, which is the lowest since March 31. Something is amiss.

The death rate continues downward, but the rate of decrease is slowing. We are now down to about 850 deaths per day. I expect the deaths to level off in the next week or so given the leveling of new cases.

COVID-19 August 26, 2020

2020-08-26T08:12:00.001-06:00

We are now solidly past the peak of the second wave based on death rate, which has now been slowly decreasing (7-day average). New cases have also been on the decline. And now we wait to see if wave #3 emerges as students head back to school.

I read yesterday that hospitals will, once again, be sending their data directly to the CDC instead of HHS. At this point I'm not sure it matters any more. The data collection and distribution is so completely screwed up that it may not be possible to conduct meaningful analysis in real time. It's going to take researchers months or years to dig through the records we do have and sort it all out. I continue to get my data directly from the states, but just to illustrate how crazy those data are, I refer you to my state of Colorado. On August 21, Colorado dumped 3,959 new cases into the database in one day. Clearly, that's a backlog from many, many days (or weeks) prior. What am I supposed to do with that? Colorado is not unique.

I'll be back again in a week or so, or sooner if something changes. Stay safe out there!

COVID-19 August 17, 2020

2020-08-17T14:30:00.001-06:00

I'm struggling to get daily or near-daily reports out due to other obligations (a.k.a. my day job!). Also, considering that there are generally no big changes from day-to-day, and that individual daily numbers shouldn't really be examined I'm going to post less frequently.

As of today, cases and deaths have leveled off. The daily death data still looks rather odd to me. That doesn't mean it isn't real, but it's odd. All through July the death rate was increasing. Then, at the end of July there was a small bump downward. Following that the death rate has been near constant. Why would the upward trend just terminate with a drop and then go constant? Remember that this coincided with the hurricane in Florida and up the East Coast as well as the system changeover in Texas.

COVID-19 August 13, 2020

2020-08-13T08:43:00.004-06:00

Rather than posting a rather long narrative, I'm going to drop this article about testing and reporting issues in various states: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/12/accuracy-of-us-coronavirus-data-thrown-into-question-as-decline-in-testing-skews-drop-in-new-cases.html

Things are a real mess. Actually, things are FUBAR. While everyone is/was worried about the federal government fudging numbers after bypassing the CDC, the real story, I think, is at the state level. The daily case numbers and total cases are becoming increasingly meaningless with time. The death rate is still more robust, but that's a relative assessment. How many different ways and our local, state and federal governments fail us?

COVID-19 August 11, 2020

2020-08-12T08:33:00.006-06:00

Wave number two is leveling off. Sort of. New daily cases have been dropping since about July 19. Within the last week that trend has stopped and we've reached a plateau. We'll have to wait and see if that's a temporary pause, whether we'll continue down, or whether we'll start on a wild ride up again. Interestingly, California came in with big numbers yesterday: 12,500. That's the highest number since July 22. It's just one day, so it may not mean anything. It's something to watch, however. I'll also be watching what happens as kids return to school.

The death rate dropped last week around the time the hurricane threatened Florida and when Texas switched to a new reporting system. You can see the drop in numbers around day 212. After that it plateaued. This is an odd behavior, but it could be related to Texas and Florida numbers catching up. We will have to see if this is a temporary pause or whether we're about to go up or continue down. I expect deaths to mirror the new cases with a lag of about three weeks. To see deaths plateau around the same time as the new cases, with effectively no lag, is odd.

COVID-19 August 07, 2020

2020-08-07T08:31:00.000-06:00

It looks like the death rate has peaked, but there's a caveat. The peak coincided with the data anomaly that was likely caused by hurricane in Florida and the reporting system upgrade in Texas. To my eye, there has yet to be compensation for the data that went missing earlier this week. You can see the effect in the daily new cases (on the linear scale). There's a big dip noticeable just a few days ago, but there has not been a reciprocal rebound. There's a similar signal in the daily death rate, and it has caused a downward offset in the 7-day average. New cases peaked around July 19, so the timing of the peak in deaths is a bit early based on prior lags of about 3 weeks.

Reporting issues aside, it does appear that when masks and social distancing programs are in place it can have a noticeable impact. And the opposite is true. When all caution is thrown to the wind the numbers can explode. It's going to get interesting as schools open across the country with varying amounts of precautions in place. We are suddenly going to have a large segment of the population mixing it up (for those places where school is physically going back into session) like we've never had before. Other countries have run this experiment to varying degrees with not-so-good results.

COVID-19 August 05, 2020

2020-08-05T12:24:00.004-06:00

Several followers provided additional info related to the numbers from yesterday. I extend my gratitude to everyone that chimed in. First, the Florida numbers are likely explained by the suspension of activities due to the hurricane. That's so obvious an explanation I can't believe it didn't occur to me. And, apparently Texas was in the middle of upgrading their reporting system, so that explains their missing numbers. Presumably, we will see things return to normal by the end of the week, and we'll see if the cases and deaths that weren't reported start to show up.

There has been a pretty good rebound in the number of cases and deaths. This is partly due to the usual upward bounce in the weekly oscillation, but it may also be a result of Texas and Florida adding in previously unreported numbers from the last day or two. The anomalous numbers have caused a decrease in the death rate.

It is interesting to note that the hurricane and system upgrade issues were revealed in the data even though I didn't know the source of the anomalies at the time. This supports my earlier proposition that if there is any funny business with accounting it will likely show up in the statistics.

COVID-19 August 04, 2020

2020-08-04T11:05:00.002-06:00

Apologies again for my inability to post daily. I do have a day job. This is all mostly morbid and self-preserving curiosity, but I don't get paid for it.

Back when the Feds ordered a change in data reporting I noted that the data itself would likely show if there was any funny business. Well, I'm not saying there's funny business, but things don't look quite right. It could be real. It could be data problems not related to the CDC circumvention, or it could be monkeying around. I can't tell, and either can you. At least not yet. I'm loathe to initiate or validate conspiracies, but I think some skepticism is warranted.

New cases reported over the last two days were down. This is consistent with the general downward trend that's been established for well over a week, and it's also consistent with the weekly oscillation, which is usually near the bottom on Sunday and Monday. What's shocking is just how down it is. It's a very large drop that appears to my eye to be out of family with pretty much all the data since this mess began. Yesterday's total came in at 41,963. The day before it was 53,561. It's been a month since numbers have been that low, and the drop from the max is far faster than anything we've seen.

Digging into the numbers and individual states a bit more, I went straight to Florida, Texas, and California since these "big three" have been driving the numbers of late. Texas is on the decrease, but the numbers don't appear to be too out of place compared to the previous week. For example, last week they bottomed out with 5,810 and 4,267 compared to this week's 6,226 and 5,303. Both this week and last week are down compared to the prior weeks, but this week doesn't stand out as being anomalous compared to last week. The same goes for California. It's down, but not in any obviously odd way compared to the prior week.

And then there's Florida. Yesterday's number came in at 4,752. I've cautioned before about looking at individual daily numbers by themselves. That missive still holds. But, let's compare that number in the context of the prior number from a week ago: 8,892. It's down by almost a factor of two compared to last week. In fact, Florida hasn't reported a number this low since June 23.

If I then move to some of the other smaller population states, I start to see at least some things that jump out at me. Tennessee is somehow down by something over 50% in a week. Arizona, down by something like 50%. Missouri, down by 40-50% depending on how you do the accounting. And so on, in several other states. It just looks odd. Could be real. Or not. I think we need to wait and see how things continue to trend and then wait for an explanation from those that do this sort of thing for a living.

Deaths have shown a similar, large drop over the last couple days. It's a bit unexpected, but compared the amplitude of prior oscillations it's large but not necessarily unrealistic. It has caused the 7-day average to drop noticeably over the last two days. Death numbers are harder to fudge than infections, but it's not impossible. All it takes is a reclassification of a COVID death to be something else. The dead are almost always counted, but not necessarily properly binned.

What's driving the drop in deaths? To start with Texas failed to report at the end of the day on August 2. From a statistical standpoint, that shows up as a zero. I might have expected yesterday's number to come in higher to account for that non-report, but it didn't. Where did those deaths go? Will they show up in the next few days? That's a lot of dead people gone missing. If I were to add back in a couple hundred deaths to Texas, things start to look more consistent with the prior trends. The numbers for Florida are down for the last two days (as expected due to the oscillation) and are comparable to where they were a week ago. Same with California. So, this could all be a statistical aberration. But, at some point, we should be asking to where the Texas dead disappeared.

COVID-19 August 02, 2020

2020-08-02T12:23:00.003-06:00

It's been a busy week. Apologies for the spotty posts. Here are the data based on yesterday's numbers. New infections are continuing to slowly drop, but remember we are still nearly double where we were when wave #2 began. Deaths continue to increase.

COVID-19 July 31, 2020

2020-07-31T11:41:00.000-06:00

No time for commentary today, but here are the pretty pictures.

COVID-19 July 30, 2020

2020-07-30T08:40:00.000-06:00

The number of new cases has now clearly started to trend downward. That's driven largely by the data coming from Florida, California, and Texas which were responsible for the bulk of the second wave. However, there are still many states that are going up, up, up. These smaller states are getting washed out.

Deaths continue to increase. If there's any good news, it is that in two weeks or so we might expect those numbers to level off and then start to decrease since there is (or should be) a direct link between cases and deaths.

COVID-19 July 28, 2020

2020-07-28T08:49:00.003-06:00

I wasn't able to post yesterday, so this entry covers two days. Nothing much has changed. The number of new cases each day remains flat and deaths are increasing.

I've had a number of questions about the time of the flattening curve vis-a-vis the change in national policy with the CDC. I see no evidence that there is anything funny going on and it appears to be coincidence. That doesn't mean numbers aren't being fudged in some way by the feds. It just means there's no obvious evidence.

I obtain my numbers from an aggregation of data reported by the state health departments and not from the federal government, at least not directly from the feds. I don't actually know the exact path that the data takes in getting to each of the state health departments. My suspicion is that in most cases individual hospitals and testing centers report either to their county or directly to the state. Then, counties report to the state. It could be that hospitals and counties report to the federal government and then the feds distribute that data back to the states. That would a rather convoluted path, but since we're talking about the government anything is possible even though it's unlikely. When I randomly dig into the state health department web sites, it looks to me like they are getting their data from the bottoms up and not from the top down.

While conspiracy theories about federal interference are bantered about I think it is more important to recognize that it is far more likely that numbers are being cooked at the state level. There have been credible reports of issues in Florida, for example, and these date back for months. Still, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I do my best to avoid conspiratorial thinking in favor of the more usual culprits: stupidity and incompetence. In other words, Hanlon's Razor. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

When I first started tracking numbers I reviewed a good number of data sources. That includes Johns Hopkins, Worldometer, and other popular places people seem to go for data. I've posted on this previously and discussed why I went with the source I did. I intentionally avoided the federal government as a source of data, because it was clear from the outset that they were not up to the job because of failed leadership that begins at the very top.

I do believe the number of daily infections has leveled off on average. I don't know that it will stay that way. The current numbers are dominated by just a few states with large populations. Other, less populous states are still rising (e.g., my state of Colorado), but it takes a whole lot of those to overcome the inertia of the big states. On the local and state level there are a lot of places in a whole lot of trouble regardless of what the national averages may say. See Simpson's Paradox, which I've also previously discussed.

COVID-19 July 26, 2020

2020-07-26T12:35:00.002-06:00

A short post today because it's the weekend and I've got work, yard work, and BASEBALL to watch. There's nothing really new anyway. New infection rates continue to hold steady. Deaths continue to increase. Your state may vary.

COVID-19 July 25, 2020 : COLORADO SPECIAL

2020-07-25T11:29:00.001-06:00

It's been a while since I did a "Colorado Special". I figured this might be a good time, especially since decisions need to be made about sending kids back to school.

The 7-day average daily infection rate is higher than ever in Colorado, and the trend indicates a continued increase. Some caution needs to be exercised with this statement. First, testing is much higher now that it was early on. All other things being equal, the number of identified infections should go up even if the actual infection rate were the same. At the same time, Colorado started reporting only confirmed cases (i.e., positive tests) rather than confirmed plus presumptive on April 25. This is why there is a big discontinuity in the daily infection data at that date. See the big downward drop? I've circled it in red. Even so, it didn't take more than a couple of weeks for new infections to go above and beyond the numbers prior to the change. I'll also add that I personally know some people in the state that have been waiting for almost three weeks to get test results. Many that were infected weeks ago won't show up in the stats until the tests come back.

Around May 5th, the daily infections began to drop fairly steadily. We were in the height of the lock-down and it worked. Then, around June 14 the numbers began to climb. This coincides, roughly, with the loosening of restrictions. Shocking, I know. It's almost as if...as if science works. Who knew? Colorado numbers are going up even though the 7-day average for the country has stabilized in the last week. Be careful with averages. Even in Colorado, the trends in counties and cities can be extremely different.

I'll make this point explicit: Cases are increasing even though we haven't yet sent thousands and thousands of students and staff back into enclosed buildings for 7 hours per day. You do the math. If anyone is wondering, I'm keeping my high-schooler at home; he will be attending via an on-line school option. I'm lucky that my school has provided this option. We do have the option to send the kids back to school on a hybrid system that includes both in-class (50% of the time) and on-line (50% of the time) instruction. I'm fortunate that I'm in a position to do the on-line option. Not everyone can. Some will be forced to send their kids into the grand petri dish experiment because they have to work or for other reasons. Who will be held responsible if this all goes horribly wrong?

The 7-day average death rate bottomed out around July 4. It was darn near zero. Since that time, the death rates have been climbing. This is expected given the increase in infections and the lag between an infection and death. As cases increase and hospitals begin to get filled again, deaths should also increase. If there's any good news it's that medical professionals have learned a lot about how to best treat the infections with the tools at hand. No doubt that many who would have died in March and April will survive because of improved treatment options.

COVID-19 July 25, 2020

2020-07-25T11:03:00.001-06:00

Infection rates continue to hold steady at about 65,000 per day. I've added a "zoom" plot that shows the infection data since about June 9. This makes it easier to see the most recent data and trends. It's clear by eyeball that things are more or less steady.

Deaths, on the other hand, continue to rise. Not much more to say about that.

COVID-19 July 24, 2020

2020-07-24T10:26:00.000-06:00

Despite the news headlines, the national 7-day average infection rate has slowed and nearly leveled off. That's an average across the country. That doesn't mean there aren't states where cases are continuing to grow rapidly. There are! But, on average things have stabilized. It also doesn't mean it will stay this way. I doubt it will. I suspect the new and upcoming states will start to take over and we will see the curve tick up again.

The death rates are continuing to grow, as expected. It is interesting to compare the current growth rate of deaths to that of the initial growth back in March. It's quite clear that the deaths are growing more slowly now. Why? There are lots of possibilities. Better treatments? Certainly. Different demographics of the afflicted? Seems likely. Mutation or dominance of a less aggressive virus? No strong evidence for this, but still possible. Change in how deaths are counted or attributed to COVID-19? To some degree, but it probably isn't a huge factor. Other possibilities? Almost certainly.

COVID-19 July 23, 2020

2020-07-23T07:22:00.004-06:00

The 7-day average of new infections is still holding relatively steady. Yesterday it crept up a bit, but it was also down a bit two days prior. Deaths, on the other hand, continue upward. There is some indication that the growth in death rates is starting to accelerate. For example, the 7-day death rate last week was increasing at less than 2% per day while it is now over 4%. Whether this is the start of exponential growth remains to be seen.

COVID-19 July 22, 2020

2020-07-22T08:36:00.000-06:00

The number of new infections, on average, continued to hold steady yesterday. Will this hold? The maximum numbers for the week should start to roll in over the next few days. If those numbers stay at or below the values from the week before then the current plateau becomes increasingly statistically significant. For now, the total number of new infections has leveled off at about 65,000 per day.

It is also important to remember that the national, average numbers are just that. Early on (March and April) the numbers were dominated by the New York metro area. Now the numbers are dominated by California, Florida, and Texas. The fact that the national average has leveled off, at least temporarily, doesn't mean that things aren't going quickly up or down at the state or local level. Some states with smaller populations can get lost in the mix. As an example, Louisiana and Arizona have per capita infection numbers that are larger than California, Florida, and Texas. Arizona seems to have leveled off in terms of new infections, but Louisiana has not. Kansas--a low population state--still has growing infections.

The average death rate is continuing its upward trend. It is still more linear than exponential. When the first wave hit the peak in deaths occurred about three weeks after the peak in infections. If that behavior holds, we still have at least two weeks of increasing deaths until peak. But, past performance is no guarantee of future success.

COVID-19 July 21, 2020

2020-07-21T08:51:00.002-06:00

The 7-day average of new infections has made a move downward. This is the first time since June 6 that rates have decreased. For this reason, I have removed the best fit exponential curve. If this holds, the curve has once again flattened, but this time we've plateaued at over 65,000 cases/day. We were at about 20,000/day in early June and had a peak of about 31,000 back in early April. Two steps forward, ten steps back. Thank you covidiots!

Deaths are continuing to climb. This should continue for at least another week or three due to the lag between infections and death.

COVID-19 July 20, 2020

2020-07-20T08:33:00.004-06:00

As I reported yesterday, the exponential rate for new cases was decreasing. That trend continues with the latest data coming in with a doubling rate now just under 20 days. Cases are still going up and deaths are still going up. The only silver lining is that things are climbing a little more slowly than they could. More and more state governors are backtracking, which should help going forward. Did they learn their lesson? Probably not. Once (or if) numbers drop back down, you can't just re-open without additional well coordinated measures. Duh.

COVID-19 July 19, 2020

2020-07-19T11:56:00.000-06:00

The rate of exponential growth of new daily infections is slowing. It is still exponential, but the rate of exponential growth has been getting smaller based on the 7-day average. There is no guarantee that this will continue, but that's the trend for now. The doubling rate for new infections is 19.4 days. If things stay as they are (they aren't, things are slowing), that would mean that we would have over 130,000 new cases each day in about 19 days from now.

Deaths continue to increase, on average, but I'm not seeing an exponential growth. That's good and hopefully that will hold. However, with the still exponentially growing number of cases it seems likely that the death rate will start to pick up.

COVID-19 July 18, 2020

2020-07-18T11:24:00.000-06:00

I ran out of steam yesterday and didn't post the daily update. You didn't miss much. Here are the numbers as of yesterday. Still going up, but note the 7-day average has fallen slightly below the best fit exponential curve of the daily rate of infections. This is a good thing and may be an indication that the curve is starting to flatten just a bit. Perhaps the resurgence of mask wearing and re-tightening of some restrictions is starting to show? More needs to be done.

COVID-19 July 16, 2020

2020-07-16T12:07:00.002-06:00

Rather than posting commentary today I'm going to leave this link to an Atlantic article. It's a bit long, but it comports with most everything I've written since day one.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/07/second-coronavirus-death-surge/614122/