Return to the Moon

Above: Artwork showing a Lunar Lander approaching the Moon.

NASA has put out a promotional video which shows off their plans for a return to the moon:

Read more…

Wally Schirra: A NASA Original

There’s a fantastic photo essay on the life of astronaut Wally Schirra at nasa.gov:

Wally Schirra: 1923-2007

Shown on top is a very posed photo of Schirra from his early Mercury days, but I love the contrast of that photograph with the one below it which is of him in action on the ninth day of the Apollo 7 mission in 1968.

It makes me sad to look at these photos because they’re about as old as I am, and when they were taken the United States dared to invest in a real space program. As a child growing up in the shadow of that era (watching shows like Star Trek and Space:1999) I just assumed that we’d continue the effort, but alas during the 70s was the when things started to wind down. In the next few years we may return to the moon, but the ships that took us there in the 60s are now rusty artifacts sitting in museums.

As an adult I’ve come to realize that it’s too late for me to be an astronaut and that I’m too poor to be a space tourist, but damn it I’d like to see the next generation going up there to walk around places like Mars. I’d trade every great sci fi film from the last twenty five years if that could become reality. I also think that as the Apollo program was the silver lining to the strife of the 60s that an agressive space program might set our eyes upon the stars instead of war down here on Earth.

It’s a depressing day in America when three out of ten Republican candidates running for the office of President of the United States don’t believe in evolution. That’s not the kind of attitude that launched the Kitty Hawk or allowed a man to walk on the moon. It’s shocking for me to think that Dwight D. Eisenhower of Abilene, Kansas started NASA and now Kansas Senator Brownback is ready to join the flat earth club.

Yes a program like NASA costs a little bit of money (less that 1% of our Federal budget) but a lack of imagination and innovation with cost us much more. And by the way NASA is proof that a big government program can achieve results if you want it to.

Is Mars Ice Ice Baby?

Seen above: Illustration showing the Phoenix Mars Mission (click on the image to see it at full size – trust me it’s worth it).

This interesting but over looked BBC News story reports that there may be quite a bit more ice on Mars than we thought:

‘Up to half’ of Mars may have ice

“Scientists in the US say that initial data from a new way of scanning Mars has shown up to half of the Red Planet’s surface may contain ice. The new method of scanning for water offers vastly more accurate readings than before, they say. The data could prove vital for the Phoenix Mars Mission which launches this August and which will put a lander on the surface to dig for ice. The new data shows wide variation as to how deep below the surface ice exists.”

…I say that it’s high time we stop sending probes to Mars and send a bunch of people to polk around the red planet once and for all! I tired of only seeing manned space exploration in history books and science fiction tv shows…

A View of Earth from Saturn

The above shot shows Earth as seen from Saturn (click on the image to see it larger):

A View of Earth from Saturn

“This beautiful image of Saturn and its rings looks more like an artist’s creation than a real image, but in fact, the image is a composite (layered image) made from 165 images taken by the wide-angle camera on the Cassini spacecraft over nearly three hours on September 15, 2006.

On this day, Saturn interceded between the Sun and Cassini, shielding Cassini from the Sun’s glare. As the spacecraft lingered in Saturn’s shadow, it viewed the planet’s rings as never before, revealing previously unknown faint rings and even glimpsing its home world. Seen from more than a billion kilometers (almost a billion miles) away, through the ice and dust particles of Saturn’s rings, Earth appears as a tiny, bright dot to the left and slightly behind Saturn.”

Hawking Gets A Taste Of Zero G

Professor Stephen Hawking looks pretty darn happy in that photo. It must be a nice reward to experience a taste of outer space after thinking about it for so many years (something I think every fanboy can empathize with).

To see more photos go to:

gozerog.com

Astronomers Find Earth-like Planet

You know I’m half starting to think that while we may never meet alien lifeforms in my lifetime, that there may still be a shot at finding out where a few of them are hanging out:

New ‘super-Earth’ found in space

“Astronomers have found the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date, a world which could have water running on its surface. The planet orbits the faint star Gliese 581, which is 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra.

They say the benign temperatures on the planet mean any water there could exist in liquid form, and this raises the chances it could also harbour life. “We have estimated that the mean temperature of this ‘super-Earth’ lies between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius, and water would thus be liquid,” explained Stephane Udry of the Geneva Observatory, lead author of the scientific paper reporting the result.”

…by the way the potential planet is only 20 light years away, so start designing your warp drives now!

Deflector Shields Becoming Real

In Star Trek they’re always using deflector shields to protect themselves from hostile Klingon fire, but it seems that scientists may start to add deflector shields to protect astronauts from dangerous radiation in outer space:

‘Deflector’ shields could protect future astronauts

“Magnetic “deflector shields” could one day guard astronauts against dangerous space radiation, if experiments now underway pay off. Exposure to energetic charged particles could put astronauts on lengthy missions at increased risk of cancer and even cognitive problems (see Future mars astronauts have radiation on their minds). The particles come from the solar wind and also from supernovae and still-unidentified sources outside the solar system.

The Earth’s magnetic field protects spacecraft in low-Earth orbits, such as the space shuttle and International Space Station, from such particles. But astronauts journeying to Mars or living on the Moon would benefit from no such protection. Now, US and European plans for long-term missions to the Moon and Mars have sparked renewed interest in the problem of radiation shielding.

One group at the University of Washington in Seattle, US, has just completed a round of experiments investigating one possible approach, using a bubble of charged particles, or plasma, as a deflector shield. Now, a second team has begun deflector shield experiments of their own. The team, led by Ruth Bamford of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK, hopes to eventually fly a test satellite surrounded by a cloud of plasma in space.”

Water Found on an Alien Planet

This is an amazing find:

First sign of water found on an alien world

“Water has been detected in the atmosphere of an alien world for the first time, a new analysis of Hubble Space Telescope data suggests. Water was widely believed to exist on the planet, but previous observations with other telescopes had failed to find it.

The planet, called HD 209458b, is about 70% as massive as Jupiter and is scorched by the heat of its parent star, which it orbits 9 times as close as Mercury does to the Sun.

Because it is one of a small number of extrasolar planets observed to pass directly in front of and behind their parent stars as seen from Earth, astronomers have been able to glean a lot of information – such as its size and mass – about the distant world.”

The Chinese Moon Rover

As a NASA fanboy I’m very envious watching China put so much energy into their space program. Maybe they’re playing catchup with us and the Russians, but it’s refreshing to see someone who’s serious about funding space explortion:

Engineers unveil China moon rover

“Chinese scientists have shown off a prototype Moon rover that could lead to the country’s first unmanned mission to the lunar surface in 2012. The 1.5m (5ft) high, 200kg (440lbs) rover should transmit video in real time, dig into and analyse soil, and produce 3D images of the lunar surface. Engineers have unveiled a prototype at the Shanghai institute where work on the six-wheeled vehicle is underway.

Rival rovers are being developed at institutes in Beijing and elsewhere. It is not clear when the successful candidate will be selected. Engineers at the Shanghai Aerospace System Engineering Institute have created a specialised laboratory that mimics the lunar surface for their rover.”

Behind the Scenes: The Space Shuttle

The above shots are from an amazing photo essay that shows all of the step-by=step pre-flight work that goes into getting the space shuttle setup for blast off. Shown above is the engines being attached and the shuttle being lifted into place to attach it to the external tank.

Found via Dvorak.org.

HighTech Tissue Dispenser

Poor Mospeng-kun! In anime films robots get to blow up things and explore outer space, but Mospeng-kun is stuck handing out tissues:

Mospeng-kun is designed by InterRobot Inc., a robot development and rental company based in western Japan.

Scientists Learn to Remove Memory

This story reminds a great deal of one of my favorite anime shows “The Big O” which features an entire city that has lost it memories. Well it seems that the ability to remove memories might become reality, scientists working on a treatment for Post-traumatic stress disorder have succeeded in erasing a single memory from a lab rat. Selective amnesia drug U0126 has been shown to remove fear from lab rats who were shocked while listening to two different musical pieces. While this treatment may not work in humans it does open up an avenue of research:

Wipe out a single memory

“The brain secures memories by transferring them from short-term to long-term storage, through a process called reconsolidation. It has been shown before that this process can be interrupted with drugs. But Joseph LeDoux of the Center for Neural Science at New York University and his colleagues wanted to know how specific this interference was: could the transfer of one specific memory be meddled with without affecting others? “Our concern was: would you do something really massive to their memory network?” says LeDoux.

To find out, they trained rats to fear two different musical tones, by playing them at the same time as giving the rats an electric shock. Then, they gave half the rats a drug known to cause limited amnesia (U0126, which is not approved for use in people), and reminded all the animals, half of which were still under the influence of the drug, of one of their fearful memories by replaying just one of the tones.

When they tested the rats with both tones a day later, untreated animals were still fearful of both sounds, as if they expected a shock. But those treated with the drug were no longer afraid of the tone they had been reminded of under treatment. The process of re-arousing the rats’ memory of being shocked with the one tone while they were drugged had wiped out that memory completely, while leaving their memory of the second tone intact.”

Chinese Moonlanding by 2022

Maybe the United States should do a joint mission so we can all get back to the moon sooner? It’s sad for me to think how old I’ll be until I see another person walking on the moon:

China designer: Moonshot possible in 15 years

“China’s leading space vehicle expert predicts the nation will be able to send astronauts to the moon within 15 years, state media reported on Tuesday.

Huang Chunping, chief vehicle designer of the country’s manned spaceflight program, said that goal was dependent on Beijing providing adequate funding and on holding successful project launches ahead of a moon launch, according to the Xinhua news agency.

“The goal to land an astronaut on the moon can surely be achieved in 15 years,” Huang said while attending the annual full session of the country’s top political advisory body.”

Were the Dinosaurs this Cheap too?

It looks like spending a billion dollars is too much to spend to look for killer asteroids that might wipe out life as we know it:

NASA Can’t Pay for Killer Asteroid Hunt

“The cost to find at least 90 percent of the 20,000 potentially hazardous asteroids and comets by 2020 would be about $1 billion, according to a report NASA will release later this week. The report was previewed Monday at a Planetary Defense Conference in Washington.

Congress in 2005 asked NASA to come up with a plan to track most killer asteroids and propose how to deflect the potentially catastrophic ones. “We know what to do, we just don’t have the money,” said Simon “Pete” Worden, director of NASA’s Ames Research Center.

These are asteroids that are bigger than 460 feet in diameter – slightly smaller than the Superdome in New Orleans. They are a threat even if they don’t hit Earth because if they explode while close enough – an event caused by heating in both the rock and the atmosphere – the devastation from the shockwaves is still immense. The explosion alone could have with the power of 100 million tons of dynamite, enough to devastate an entire state, such as Maryland, they said.

The agency is already tracking bigger objects, at least 3,300 feet in diameter, that could wipe out most life on Earth, much like what is theorized to have happened to dinosaurs 65 million years ago. But even that search, which has spotted 769 asteroids and comets – none of which is on course to hit Earth – is behind schedule. It’s supposed to be complete by the end of next year.”

Spacecraft Snaps Saturn

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is now within range of Saturn, and the results are some amazing upclose photos of the ringed giant. To see the latest shots go here:

Cassini-Huggens: Mission to Saturn and Titan

Mars on a Cloudy Day

As the European space probe Rosetta completes it’s final orbital maneuvers, it has taken some amazing photographs of Mars, showing all sorts of amazing detail like Martian clouds and weather patterns. Shown above is an image image which was acquired on February 24th from a distance of about 240 000 km from the surface of Mars.

You can find more images here:
Beautiful new images from Rosetta’s approach to Mars

The Shortchanged Space Station

In the below article John Glenn gripes about the International Space Station being overlooked. I agree with him, but I think it’s part of a larger issue, which is that NASA on the whole has been shortchanged these last few years. It’s unfair to cut the budget for the program but then keep adding goals like going to Mars. From where I’m sitting both the space station and the Mars project are being shortchanged. You can’t do big government projects like NASA on the cheap, unless you don’t mind the bad press from dead astronauts:

Glenn: Space station getting shortchanged

“The country is not getting its money’s worth out of the international space station, John Glenn said Tuesday, the 45th anniversary of the day he became the first American to orbit the Earth.

Diverting money from the orbiting research outpost to President Bush’s goal of sending astronauts back to the moon and eventually on to Mars is preventing some scientific experiments on the space station, Glenn told an audience of about 300 high school students and space enthusiasts at the COSI Columbus science center.

“To not utilize that station the way I think it ought to be utilized is just wrong,” said Glenn, 85, also a former U.S. senator. He said he supports the president’s moon and Mars goals but not at the expense of the space station, which is only two-thirds complete. NASA and its international partners, including Canada, Japan and Russia, hope to finish the space station in 2010, but no decision has been made to extend its operation past 2016.

Glenn, a Democrat who represented Ohio from 1975 to 1999, said the station shouldn’t be abandoned, especially after costing taxpayers billions of dollars. “We will not even begin to realize its potential,” he said.”

Bionic Eyes Becoming Real

To oldtime fanboys who grew up with the “Six Million Dollar Man” and “Star Trek: The Next Generation” the concept of bionic eyes will seem old school, but in a nice twist-of-technology it looks like the concept is starting to become quite real according to this BBC news article:

Trials for ‘bionic’ eye implants

“A bionic eye implant that could help restore the sight of millions of blind people could be available to patients within two years. US researchers have been given the go-ahead to implant the prototype device in 50 to 75 patients. The Argus II system uses a spectacle-mounted camera to feed visual information to electrodes in the eye. Patients who tested less-advanced versions of the retinal implant were able to see light, shapes and movement.”

This research for this was presented at the AAAS Conference by Mark Humayun who is affiliated with the National Design Center for Biomimetic Nanoconductors. According to thier website they are doing some interesting work:

“The premise of the artificial retina project is to take images from a glass-worn camera and convert it into patterns of electrical stimulations that would excite the remaining retinal neurons and when transmitted to the brain via the optic nerve result in restoring useful visual cues. In so doing, the artificial retina would by pass the loss of the photoreceptor function. The critical questions in the development of the artificial retina lie in how best to electrically and mechanically interface the implanted electronics with the remaining retinal neurons (e.g., retinal ganglion cells).”

Blogger Blast Off

Dr. Charles Simonyi (the guy who invented Microsoft Word) is not only heading off into space, but is blogging the whole experience to share with us. He’s set to launch on April 7th, and his site is worth checking out:

charlesinspace.com

…man when I was a kid I always heard that you needed “the right stuff” to become an astronaut, little did I know that the right stuff was having a spare $25 million in your bank account.

Found via futurismic.com.

Martian Moon Mission

This is an amazing article on a planned mission to Phobos (for the year 2016):

Martian moon ‘could be key test’

“Mars’ moon Phobos could be the target for a technology trial that would seek to return rock samples to Earth. A UK team is developing a concept mission that aims to land a spacecraft on the potato-shaped object and grab material off its surface.

These small rock fragments would then be despatched to Earth in a capsule. “It is being seen as a technological demonstrator for an eventual Mars sample return,” said Dr Andrew Ball from the Open University. Those aspects of the mission that worked well could be incorporated into a full-scale assault on the Red Planet.”

…and interesting fact I read in the article is that Phobos will one day (well millions of years from now) crash into Mars or be torn into little bits.

Astronauts are People Too

I’ve been watching the current media circus with dread these last few days, and the 24 hour cable news cycle has a nasty way of chewing up people and spitting them out. And any topic connected with crime also has a vengeful kangaroo court feeling to it, which is why my heart goes out to Lisa Nowak and her family.

The fact is that there are very few who get to have the title of “astronaut” in any given genertion, only a very small group of people get to go through this high pressure process. In fact in terms of statistics your chances are much better of being a rock star or becoming a Senator than getting to fly into outer space for a living. So while Lisa is being mocked in the media, I’d like to ask everyone to remember that she is a real person, and to give her the benefit of the doubt before passing judgement:

Did huge career pressures aid astronaut’s undoing?

“US astronaut Lisa Nowak’s fall from grace – she is accused of trying to kidnap and kill a woman she considered a rival for the affections of a fellow astronaut – has raised a plethora of unanswered questions from a shocked public. Chief among them: how someone who passed the stringent psychological screening required to become an astronaut could have snapped like this.

But scientists aren’t nearly as shocked as the general public. “It doesn’t surprise me that this might happen occasionally,” says psychiatrist Nick Kanas of the University of California in San Francisco, US, who studies astronaut behaviour on long-term space flights. NASA takes medical histories to screen for psychiatric problems that tend to run in families, such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. But no battery of tests will reveal how well astronauts will cope with the ups and downs of daily life.

“Astronauts are very capable people, among the stars of our society. But they have changes in their lives, have issues with their spouses and kids just like you and I might,” Kanas says. “They might be superhuman in their jobs, but not in terms of relationships and their potential for emotional problems”.”

The Hidden Oceans of Mars?

Mars once had enough water for a global ocean several hundred metres deep, here’s an interesting on article on where the water might have gone:

Hints of huge water reservoirs on Mars

“Mars is losing little water to space, according to new research, so much of its ancient abundance may still be hidden beneath the surface. Dried up riverbeds and other evidence imply that Mars once had enough water to fill a global ocean more than 600 metres deep, together with a thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide that kept the planet warm enough for the water to be liquid. But the planet is now very dry and has a thin atmosphere.

Either some other process removed the water and CO2 or they are still present and hidden somewhere on Mars, probably underground, Barabash says. “We are talking about huge amounts of water,” he told New Scientist. “To store it somewhere requires a really big, huge reservoir.”

Barabash is not sure what form this reservoir – or reservoirs – would take, but he points to findings from NASA’s now lost Mars Global Surveyor. This data provided evidence that water had gushed down slopes on Mars in recent years, possibly originating from beneath the surface.”

Exploding Robots Hunt Killer Asteroids

This is a great idea, but it would be even cooler to have a backup fleet of atomic armed robots that could finish off trouble-making asteroids:

Exploding robots may scout hazardous asteroids

“A fleet of exploding probes could prepare the way for warding off hazardous asteroids. Several of the small spherical robots would land on a single asteroid, some exploding while others listen for vibrations that could reveal the object’s inner structure.

NASA has a list of more than 800 asteroids considered to be potentially hazardous because their orbits carry them close to Earth’s. If one of them is found to be on a collision course, knowing its physical properties will be crucial in devising a mission to divert it.”

The Aliens Need More Time…

An old argument against aliens is that if the galaxy is filled with advanced civilizations they would have already found us. This theiry was first put out by Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi, and is known as Fermi’s paradox. Well now it looks like someone may have an answer to Fermi’s paradox:

Aliens need a lot more time to find us

“Rasmus Bjork of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark, has calculated that eight probes – travelling at a tenth of the speed of light and each capable of launching up to eight sub-probes – would take about 100,000 years to explore a region of space containing 40,000 stars. When Bjork scaled up the search to include 260,000 such systems in our galaxy’s habitable zone, the probes took almost 10 billion years – three-quarters the age of the universe – to explore just 0.4 per cent of the stars.

So, Bjork’s answer to the Fermi paradox: aliens haven’t contacted us because they haven’t had the time to find us yet. He adds that the search could be optimised by visiting only those stars that harbour habitable planets, which could be identified by planet-finding missions such as NASA’s Terrestrial Planet Finder. Bjork is also “cautiously optimistic” about listening out for aliens with radio telescopes.”