IPNSIG and Blog updates

The past few weeks since my previous post have been very busy with no much time left to write, but great progress in several fronts.

You will notice that this post and further post are now on a dedicated website for Interplanetary Networking (IPN,) so I can separate personal posts from those related to IPN, Delay and Disruption Tolerant Networking technologies and Space Communications in general. This will be the last article posted on both Blogs.

First the Good News, the InterPlanetary Networking Special Interest Group or IPNSIG has received its classification as a tax-exempt, non-profit charitable organization from the US Internal Revenue Services. This is an important milestone since it helps to complete the transition of our group to an independent Chapter of the Internet Society.

Great things to come in the near future about this.

On March 22nd, our group participated in the IETF 113 Conference (Internet Engineering Task Force) at the Delay Tolerant Networking Working Group (DTN-WG,) Vint Cerf was in attendance and provided an update on the State of the Art of DTN and IPNSIG.

Click on the image to watch a video of the session. Vint's presentation is the first one.

IETF 113 DTN-WG Session

Also on April 1st we had another meeting of our IPNSIG Projects Working Group, were Vint was also in attendance, as well as group members from Europe, North and South America.

While today is a modest and small group we keep making progress and adding new members on the team. We keep very focused on developing tools and best practices to keep testing DTN and Bundle Protocols, figure how to scale to a large network and explore what type of applications will serve as a demonstration of these technologies with primary focus on interplanetary communications that will drive on the long term the development and implementation of a Solar System Internet.

On the personal front I continue to work in my low cost prototype lab for testing and education using off the shelf hardware and the NASA JPL Open Source implementation of DTN and Bundle Protocol called ION (Interplanetary Overlay Network.)

Right now the network has about 15 nodes running on various SBCs, VMs and dedicated servers, plus 10 nodes using ESP32 based SBCs for sensor data collection, telemetry, etc.

While the hardware has been stable, some particular nodes changed with the addition of more displays, like the one serving as Mission Control Functions emulation.

Soon I will start putting together a draft for a PCB layout for various of the nodes which will permit the lab to scale more with increased reliability.

Four of the nodes on my internal network are now in a full mesh configuration with external nodes part of the IPNSIG Test Network. For now testing with regular Bundle Protocol Pings or bping, but soon we will start testing other tools like Asynchronous Message Service, file transfers using CFDP (CCSDS File Delivery Protocol,) etc.

That's all for now, if you are interested to join our efforts feel free to contact me, also feel free to join the Facebook InterPlanetary Networking Group.

Cheers
Jorge

DTN-IPN New Node - Moon Rover

I was looking at my inventory of development boards and found that I had an extra Raspberry Pi 3B with the camera module. The camera is one of the early versions featuring the OV5647 image sensor.

I thought "I can use this setup to create another DTN node for the Lab prototype, what about a Moon Rover ?"

At first, I was thinking just to keep it in its original plastic case but then I realized that we have a bunch of Legos that our kids are not using anymore, so how about putting something together that looks like a lunar vehicle and can fit the Raspberry Pi, the camera and why not some lights and a battery.

I always had fun building stuff with Legos, I remember when I was a toddler in Argentina my Grandma use to take often to the “Rasti Club,” Rasti was another brand of building blocks available in Argentina at the time. I spent hours and hours building all sorts of gizmos.

Obviously, this model is just something I put together with what I had at hand, nothing that looks like a real rover or some of the Lunar vehicles under development like the JAXA/Toyota “Lunar Cruiser” for the Artemis mission.

Picture Courtesy of JAXA

I was thinking about using one of the Lego design tools, but that was an overkill for this project. This could be a good idea for putting a contest or challenge together for students to design a Lego Lunar Rover that can accommodate the Raspberry and the camera. 

A Raspberry Pi Zero W 2 would also work and will take less space, but they are currently in short supply.

Let’s get started, with the parts I was able to “recycle” I started building sort of the chassis for the rover, taking in account of the size of the Raspberry Pi and enough height to fit the camera.

I 3D printed a pair of blocks with the NASA worm logo, the model file for it is available here.

I had to figure how to wire the Neopixels for which I used two channels on the Raspberry Pi, one on GPIO10, and the other one on GPIO21. Since I didn’t want to overload the onboard 3.3V power supply on the Raspberry Pi, I added an LDO regulator (Microchip TC1262) to get the 3.3V for the Neopixels directly from the 5V power supply.
I used wirewrap wire, and two small pieces of prototype pcb.

Quick test to confirm everything was working and putting the Raspberry Pi in place, connecting the camera flat cable and closing up.

Here is how the complete model looks from the left side

Right side look

Front with the camera module visible behind a transparent Lego block

And the top, with a last-minute addition, a volt meter to measure input/battery voltage.

Connecting via VNC. Only thing that I was required to do to make it work was to enable the Camera interface with raspi-config, after that took the very first picture using raspistill.

My plan is to write a script using Pyion to wait for a command to start taking pictures, store them in some spool directory and then wait for another command to start transferring them to a DTN relay with final destination, one of the nodes that have a TFT LCD display to show the images captured by the rover. All transfers using NASA’s JPL ION implementation of Bundle Protocols.

And of course, there is a video with a walk through and the blinking lights 😊

Once again if you are interested to learn more about this project, DTN and InterPlanetary Networking you can join the Facebook Group I created, and you can also join IPNSIG (ISOC InterPlanetary Networking Interest Group.)

 

Cheers
Jorge

DTN-IPN R&D Lab Prototype Update

Happy New Year!!

Since my previous article on December 2021, I made some changes to the original design of the IPN-DTN Lab prototype that continues to be very much a work in progress project.

From the previous version I added two more nodes running on a Raspberry Pi Zero W 2, I expect in the future to add more as they become available, they are currently in short supply and are hard to procure.

There is a Raspberry Pi 3B+ with the sense hat also running Raspi OS and ION 4.1.1 that I use for testing code. And another two Raspberry Pi 3B+ running a complete different implementation of DTN called IBR-DTN from a University in Germany (more about it soon.)

I rearranged the nodes on the breadboards, and now the one implementing some of the functions of a Mission Control Center (MCC) has more displays, taking advantage of an eight channel I2C switch from Texas Instruments, the TCA9548A. With this switch it is possible to drive the seven 128x32 OLED displays that are associated with this node using a single I2C channel.

Also, on the MCC node I have now a 2” 320x240 IPS TFT LCD display, it uses the ST7789 TFT driver that can display full 18-bit color. The display module is connected to the SPI interface on the Raspberry Pi.

There is a new node implemented with a Raspberry Pi Zero W 2, I named it NASA-JPL, this node features also a 1.14” 240x135 TFT Color LCD mounted in portrait mode using the SPI interface of the Raspberry Pi.

The idea is that at some moment those displays will show images transferred over DTN using Bundle Protocol, like pictures taking by a rover on the surface of the Moon  (future node to be added using a Raspberry Pi with a camera), transmitted to a local relay node and from it through the Space Network to a ground station, and then through the Ground Network to a screen on JPL and/or MCC, all using Bundle Protocol.

On the previous version I was using independent power supplies for the Raspberry Pis, wiring was getting ugly and complicated. I replaced them all by single 5.1V 15A power supply, I had to put together some sort of power distribution adapter going to each of the breadboards where the Raspberry Pi are mounted.

If you have a good eye you will notice some LDO Voltage Regulators to step down from the 5V power supply to 3.3V required by some parts, particularly displays.

While on some nodes I can use the 3.3V generated by the Raspberry Pi Zero W2s, with the alphanumeric LED displays and too many OLED I was drawing too much power, then now some nodes have their own 3.3V LDO regulator.

I keep “the lab” running 24/7 monitoring power and some key signals, so far it has been reliable after I fixed the power distribution issues.

I took a Hack RF SDR I had in a box to check on the transmission signal levels of the LoRa modules, they are as expected centered on 915MHz, while they are low power modules, the signal can reach a hundred feet or more with a data rate of about 500bps, almost three times faster than Voyager 1, well the thing is 23+ Billion Kilometers away 😀😀😀.

On the software side I have a lot of work to do. Now I have all nodes running the same version of Raspi OS, they all have Circuit Python installed, NASA JPL ION 4.1.1 and all have Pyion 4.1 which is a Python programming interface for ION, so putting together a message to be sent over the DTN is simple as

import pyion 

proxy = pyion.get_bp_proxy(1)
proxy.bp_attach()

with proxy.bp_open('ipn:82.1') as eid:
    eid.bp_send('ipn:82.1', b'hello')

There is obviously and updated “Blinking Lights” video showing all the nodes running and some of the VNC screens from nodes, showing for example real time data from a GPS module, the message exchanges via LoRa, etc.

I started documenting the project, here is a diagram showing the current network topology configuration, this diagram does not represent the DTN communications topology.

I’m also drafting a paper and an introductory presentation about space communications evolution and DTN-IPN.

Now that I have a stable hardware and basic software platform running, I will be working in the actual DTN topology. This is very much a learning process for me as well, so I will be using a very interesting tool developed by the MITRE Corporation for an ION training course from NASA JPL.

I’m pretty sure that very soon I will be able to share some updates of what is happening at the InterPlanetary Networking Special Interest Group (IPNSIG), meanwhile if you want to learn more and join the conversation I have created a Facebook Group you can join.

Until the next inter planetary trip …

Cheers
Jorge

Building NASA's JPL ION on a Raspberry Pi

In my previous article you learned about the DTN-IPN R&D Lab project I’m working on, here I will start sharing how to build yourself a DTN node running NASA’s JPL Interplanetary Overlay Network (ION) protocol stack on a Raspberry Pi.

What do you need

• A Raspberry Pi single board computer, I’d recommend at least a version 3B or better 3B+, if you have a Raspberry Pi 4 it will also work. On my prototype lab project, I have several ION DTN nodes running on the new Raspberry Pi Zero W2 which is about five times faster than the Zero W. I did build ION on a Zero W and it worked just slower.
  
  
• A microSD card of at least 16GB and decent speed with the Raspi OS image. I did use one of the latest stable versions for this project, the 2021-05-07-raspios-buster-armhf.img, no need for the full version since it will take more space on the SD card.
  You can download this version from the link above and prepare the micro SD card using Win32 Disk Imager on a Windows machine.
  
  
• Obviously for the initial setup you will need a keyboard and a monitor, and a mouse if you will keep working directly on the Raspberry Pi. I normally after the initial setup and with a network connection I access it remotely via VNC or SSH, not necessarily but I usually change the default username “pi”.

Here are the steps to obtain and build the ION version 4.1.1 code on your Raspberry Pi:

1- After you have your board up and running make sure that you do to have the latest packages installed in your system
    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get upgrade

2- It will be most probably already installed but just in case also do
    sudo apt-get install build-essential

3- And automake to build the scripts to compile the source code
    sudo apt-get install automake

4- Obtain the ION 4.1.1 source code tar ball from SOURCEFORGE
We will do this with wget on the Raspberry Pi

5 - Extract the ION source code distribution from the tar file.
You will notice that now you have a new directory named ion-open-source-4.1.1, change to that directory and run the configure script with./configure

This will check all the dependencies and configure the files to build the ION software, you may see some warnings but the script should end without errors.

 

6- You are now ready to build the code with make

You will see the compilation process step by step going through each directory of the ION source code, be patient, the Raspberry Pi can do the job, but it will take several minutes to complete the building process, it really depends on the speed of your Raspberry Pi and the micro SD card, but even with the slower Raspberry Zero W the code builds without problems.

 
7- After everything is built you should see a screen like this one, now you are ready to install the software, but pay attention for this step you must use sudo make install to perform the installation as the user root

8- You will see some warnings but don’t worry about them

Given that the ION software uses dynamic libraries we must perform one more step as root to run the ldconfig tool to create the necessary links and update the cache of shared libraries.

Now we are ready to run ION 4.1.1 on the Raspberry Pi, but first we need to create the configuration/startup file.

The ION implementation is modular, there are several processes that must be started but the configuration can reside in a single file.

Since for now we have a single DTN node, the first test will be a loopback test sending data bundles to the same node.

Let’s create a directory named dtn and edit a file named localhost.rc, we will use 170 as our node ID.

For the LTP (Licklider Transport Protocol) section instead of an IP address we will use for now localhost

For the Bundle Protocol we will declare LTP as the transport protocol, and define the input and output ducts (more about this soon.)

Your localhost.rc should look like this:

    ## begin ionadmin

    1 170 ''
    s
    # Contact plan definitions
    a contact +1 +86400 170 170 100000
    a range +1 +86400 170 170 1

    m production 1000000
    m consumption 1000000
    ## end ionadmin

    ## begin ltpadmin
    1 32
    a span 170 32 32 1400 10000 1 'udplso localhost:1113' 300
    s 'udplsi localhost:1113'

    ## end ltpadmin

    ## begin bpadmin
    1
    a scheme ipn 'ipnfw' 'ipnadminep'
    a endpoint ipn:170.0 q
    a endpoint ipn:170.1 q
    a endpoint ipn:170.2 q

    a protocol ltp 1400 100
    a induct ltp 170 ltpcli
    a outduct ltp 170 ltpclo
    s
    ## end bpadmin

    ## begin ipnadmin
    a plan 170 ltp/170
    ## end ipnadmin

    ## begin ionsecadmin
    1
    ## end ionsecadmin

In a future article I will go more into detail about the options for this file, meanwhile you can look at some additional documentation from Dr. Lara Suzuki.

Now it is time to start the protocol stack with ionstart. It will create a log file named by default ion.log in the directory from where we launch ionstart. Since I want to see the log in action, I will create an empty ion.log file and run tail -f ion.log, and in another terminal window launch ION using ionstart with the -I option to include to config/startup file.

Here you can see both terminals side by side

Like for the Internet Protocol (IP) we have a similar tool to ping, for Bundle Protocol (BP) it is called bping 😊

When using bping we need to follow the naming scheme for DTN, telling the originating and destination nodes and endpoints, which is something like scheme:nodeID.endpoint. I will use my node ID in both cases ipn:170.1, the -v option to make it verbose and -c 5 to send just five bpings, here you go

Yeah you just did your first test running the ION DTN Bundle Protocol stack !!

There are some tools that can help check the status of your DTN stack like ss to see the  active sockets, and ipcs for information on IPC (Inter Process Communication) facilities like  the mutex semaphores created by the Bundle Protocol stack.

You are one step closer to be able to communicate with space objects and other ION nodes.

Like ionstart, there is a ionstop command to stop the ION protocol stack and kill all the associated processes.

In a coming article I will show how to create a Virtual Machine running Ubuntu Linux and build ION on it, then we will have two nodes to start exchanging messages using the Bundle Protocol.

Until then here is some reading material from Scott Burleigh the main author of the ION implementation of the DTN Bundle Protocol.

At the IPNSIG (InterPlanetary Networking Special Interest Group) soon to be Internet’sSociety Interplanetary Chapter, there are plans to have a test network where everybody will be able to participate and help testing DTN at a larger scale.

If you have questions please feel free to leave your comments below. As always, constructive feedback is welcomed.

Stay tuned for future updates, and if you are interested to exchange ideas and learn more you are welcome join the Inter Planetary Facebook Group and join IPNSG !!

Happy Networking and Happy New Year !!

Cheers
Jorge

DTN-IPN R&D Lab Prototype Intro

Image Courtesy of NASA

Since my early days tinkering with electronics, I always believed that one of the best ways of learning is by doing, getting your hands busy. My Mom (RIP) probably didn’t appreciate me taking appliances apart but over my long career in electronics, computer science and networking, I learned a lot by doing, and of course, reading any related materials, and during the past few years taking online classes.

I’m a byproduct of the Apollo era, I grew up fascinated with the space program, and my eyes were glued to our black and white TV when in 1969 Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon. Yes, I dreamed about becoming an astronaut someday, but more than that, it cemented my inspiration to have a career in technology.

But this article is not about me, you can find more about me here.

Being a Pioneer Member of Internet Society (ISOC,) and my interest in learning more about space communications, during 2021 I joined ISOC’s Inter Planetary Networking Special Interest Group (IPNSIG.) 

After some exchanges with Vint Cerf, watching his TEDx presentation from 10 years ago about his vision and work on an Interplanetary Internet, participating in several remote conferences and webinars, reading a lot about it, and researching the evolution of new technologies for Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN – RFC4838) and Bundle Protocols (RFC5050,) it got me thinking:

“What can I do to learn more and share what I learn about these new evolving technologies?” … 

I came up with:

“How about a low cost platform where we can tinker, experiment and do some development about objects communicating using DTN?” … 

One interesting fact about DTN is that it not only provides a way for networking in space, there are other applications that can take advantage of it, like IoT, battlefield communications, and many other scenarios where communications could be disrupted or delayed for various reasons .

While this is something that have been on the works for some time, it is still nascent technology, with lots of space for learning and experimenting, huge commercial and STEM educational opportunities, etc. NASA is already using it on an experimental basis for its Interplanetary Overlay Network (ION.)

Based on my previous experience developing embedded systems with microcontrollers and single board computers (SBC,) and inspired by NASA’s Artemis Mission to get back to the Moon, I started putting together what I call the IPN DTN Lab Protoype.

IPN DTN R&D Lab Prototype

The IPN DTN Lab is a collection of various SBCs (Raspberry Pi Zero W2) and ESP32-S2 Dev Kits, combined with different type of displays, a couple low power LoRa transceivers, a simple GPS receiver, etc. The idea is that the platform can be used also to learn how to interface different type of devices to each of the boards, and how to use DTN and Bundle protocols to exchange data between them.

This is very much work in progress, I just finished to put together the first complete version of the hardware with some basic code running on each of the boards, which for now are all communicating via WiFi with TCP/IP, few of them include a LoRa transceiver module for low rate and long range wireless communication.

As said before, the design is inspired on the Artemis Mission, then there are three sections, one includes various nodes representing different facilities on Earth, such as NASA’s Mission Control Center (MCC,) NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN,) NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite network (TDRS,) etc. Also, ESA’s European Space Operations Center (ESOC,) and SpaceX CORE (Crew Operations and Resource Engineering.)

IPN DTN Lab - Earth Section

The second section represents various object that will be in Moon’s Orbit, like NASA’s multi-purpose orbital outpost Gateway, ESA’s I-Hab expansion module for Gateway, NASA’s Orion Capsule, etc.

IPN DTN Lab - Moon Orbit Section

And the third section represents various objects that will be in the Moon’s surface, such as NASA’s Lunar Ground Station (LGS,) SpaceX’s Starship Moon Lander, and JAXA’s pressurized Lunar rover being developed with Toyota aka Cruiser.

IPN DTN Lab - Moon Surface Section

All the nodes feature a small 128x32 pixels OLED display, some of them include also a pair of four-digit alphanumeric LED display, and at least one RGB LED (NeoPixel.) On this version, five of the nodes are implemented with Raspberry Pi Zero W2 boards, three of them include a low power LoRa transceiver for long distance wireless communications. One of the Raspberry Pi Zero W2 boards is interfaced with a small GPS receiver module with the option for an external antenna for better reception.

The role of each node can be changed just by software. For example, this is one of the Raspberry Pi’s getting GPS data from another node via the network.

IPN DTN Lab - MCC node screen capture

The design is completely scalable, and more nodes can be added to expand the network.

As said before this is very much work in progress. Being now the hardware development phase stable, I will be focusing on the software, bringing up the Bundle Protocols for communication, some demonstrations and documentation. 

When people ask when it will be all ready, I always use the classic response from Elon’s Musk … “Two Weeks” 😊

I’m in the process of putting together several presentations and classes, a summary paper, various videos, etc.

Meanwhile, here is a short video showing the blinking lights.

I will be providing more details, and regular reports how the project progresses in future posts, stay tuned.

If you are interested to learn more about this, feel free to contact me, if you have ideas or constructive feedback feel free to leave a comment.

If you are interested in providing funding for projects like this, definitely contact me !!

Signing off for now from planet Earth

Cheers

Jorge

Sad news from Argentina today. A friend of mine just gave me the news that Dr. Dante Caputo passed away last night. I had the honor and privilege to work with him while I was a Technical Consultant with United Nations and he was the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Argentina. Also had a great time and many anecdotes from 1988 when I was assigned to be his technical support while he was President of the 43rd UN General Assembly in NYC.

I remember going very early in the morning to his apartment on 1st Street, he always had coffee ready and while he was shaving and fixing his characteristic mustache I was getting his computer and other gadgets ready for the day. Then we rode the limo together to the UN building entering on the underground parking where I stepped out of the limo and he continued to the street level entrance in the front of the building.

He loved and was a big supporter of technology and modernization for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. One time when Dr. Ricardo Alfonsín then President of Argentina had to put together his speech for the UN General Assembly, we were in Buenos Aires trying to send him a draft of the speech via a very bad and low speed telephone modem connection, but on the NYC side they had another challenge, there was no telephone jack in the Presidential Suite of the Waldorf Astoria and Dante was trying to hack something to be able to connect the Compaq portable computer to the phone line, so many miles away we had one of the assistants to the President calling the front desk of the Waldorf Astoria asking to deliver a set of screwdrivers to the Presidential Suite, Dante was already under the table taking apart the phone line !! LOL.
After many tries we were able to transfer the full document over the modem connection, Dante insisted it had to be that way.

In Buenos Aires, many times he had his security detail pick me up to go to his home right next to the Presidential Residence in Olivos to help him with the latest electronic gadgets acquired during his international trips or fix something on his daughter's computer.

He was one of the key actors to promote and support the development of Internet in Argentina.

An outstanding Diplomat, wonderful and caring Boss, and a funny and warm human being. While with the pass of time we became distant I'm really saddened by his departure.

Dear Dante it was a pleasure and an honor to work with you. My most sincere condolences to his family and friends.

RIP Dr. Dante Caputo 6/19/2018 😥

My Top 5 Themes and Strengths

Cleaning and organizing old files in my desktop found this. Several years ago I went through one of those personality and strength finder tests, among the reports their provide there is one that shows my five most dominant themes or talents.

At that time I didn't look at it in detail. I have to admit the report it is pretty accurate and I don't mind to share if you like to get to know me better.



The report says ...

Many years of research conducted by The Gallup Organization suggest that the most effective people are those who understand their strengths and behaviors. These people are best able to develop strategies to meet and exceed the demands of their daily lives, their careers, and their families.

A review of the knowledge and skills you have acquired can provide a basic sense of your abilities, but an awareness and understanding of your natural talents will provide true insight into the core reasons behind your consistent successes.

Your Signature Themes report presents your five most dominant themes of talent, in the rank order revealed by your responses to StrengthsFinder. Of the 34 themes measured, these are your "top five."

Your Signature Themes are very important in maximizing the talents that lead to your successes. By focusing on your Signature Themes, separately and in combination, you can identify your talents, build them into strengths, and enjoy personal and career success through consistent, near-perfect performance.

Learner

You love to learn. The subject matter that interests you most will be determined by your other themes and experiences, but whatever the subject, you will always be drawn to the process of learning. The process, more than the content or the result, is specially exciting for you. You are energized by the steady and deliberate journey from ignorance to competence. The thrill of the first few facts, the early efforts to recite or practice what you have learned, the growing confidence of a skill mastered—this is the process that entices you. Your excitement leads you to engage in adult learning experiences—yoga or piano lessons or graduate classes. It enables you to thrive in dynamic work environments where you are asked to take on short project assignments and are expected to learn a lot about the new subject matter in a short period of time and then move on to the next one. This Learner theme does not necessarily mean that you seek to become the subject matter expert, or that you are striving for the respect that accompanies a professional or academic credential. The outcome of the learning is less significant than the “getting there.”

Developer

You see the potential in others. Very often, in fact, potential is all you see. In your view no individual is fully formed. On the contrary, each individual is a work in progress, alive with possibilities. And you are drawn toward people for this very reason. When you interact with others, your goal is to help them experience success. You look for ways to challenge them. You devise interesting experiences that can stretch them and help them grow. And all the while you are on the lookout for the signs of growth—a new behavior learned or modified, a slight improvement in a skill, a glimpse of excellence or of “flow” where previously there were only halting steps. For you these small increments—invisible to some—are clear signs of potential being realized. These signs of growth in others are your fuel. They bring you strength and satisfaction. Over time many will seek you out for help and encouragement because on some level they know that your helpfulness is both genuine and fulfilling to you.

Relator

Relator describes your attitude toward your relationships. In simple terms, the Relator theme pulls you toward people you already know. You do not necessarily shy away from meeting new people—in fact, you may have other themes that cause you to enjoy the thrill of turning strangers into friends—but you do derive a great deal of pleasure and strength from being around your close friends. You are comfortable with intimacy. Once the initial connection has been made, you deliberately encourage a deepening of the relationship. You want to understand their feelings, their goals, their fears, and their dreams; and you want them to understand yours. You know that this kind of closeness implies a certain amount of risk—you might be taken advantage of—but you are willing to accept that risk. For you a relationship has value only if it is genuine. And the only way to know that is to entrust yourself to the other person. The more you share with each other, the more you risk together. The more you risk together, the more each of you proves your caring is genuine. These are your steps toward real friendship, and you take them willingly.

Harmony

You look for areas of agreement. In your view there is little to be gained from conflict and friction, so you seek to hold them to a minimum. When you know that the people around you hold differing views, you try to find the common ground. You try to steer them away from confrontation and toward harmony. In fact, harmony is one of your guiding values. You can’t quite believe how much time is wasted by people trying to impose their views on others. Wouldn’t we all be more productive if we kept our opinions in check and instead looked for consensus and support? You believe we would, and you live by that belief. When others are sounding off about their goals, their claims, and their fervently held opinions, you hold your peace. When others strike out in a direction, you will willingly, in the service of harmony, modify your own objectives to merge with theirs (as long as their basic values do not clash with yours). When others start to argue about their pet theory or concept, you steer clear of the debate, preferring to talk about practical, down-to-earth matters on which you can all agree. In your view we are all in the same boat, and we need this boat to get where we are going. It is a good boat. There is no need to rock it just to show that you can.

Belief

If you possess a strong Belief theme, you have certain core values that are enduring. These values vary from one person to another, but ordinarily your Belief theme causes you to be family-oriented, altruistic, even spiritual, and to value responsibility and high ethics—both in yourself and others. These core values affect your behavior in many ways. They give your life meaning and satisfaction; in your view, success is more than money and prestige. They provide you with direction, guiding you through the temptations and distractions of life toward a consistent set of priorities. This consistency is the foundation for all your relationships. Your friends call you dependable. “I know where you stand,” they say. Your Belief makes you easy to trust. It also demands that you find work that meshes with your values. Your work must be meaningful; it must matter to you. And guided by your Belief theme it will matter only if it gives you a chance to live out your values.

Copyright © 2008, Gallup, Inc.

Cheers
Jorge