Filed under: Apollo program, Astronomy, Buzz Aldrin, NASA, Neil Armstrong, Science, Society, Space
Do you recognize these words?
Of course you do. That’s the transmission sent to NASA Mission Control from the Moon on this date in 1969.
I was at a Boy Scout camp outside of St. Louis when it happened. That night, we all sat around a big firepit, and tried to watch a small black and white portable television with bad reception as Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin (Buzz) E. Aldrin, Jr. made the first human steps onto the Lunar surface and spoke these words (links to audio file on Wikipedia):
“That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.”
And the world was changed forever.
So, where were you?
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Arthur C. Clarke, ISS, Jupiter, movies, NASA, Paleo-Future, Science, Science Fiction, Space
I just came across an interesting idea from Michael Benson in the Washington Post last weekend:
Consider the International Space Station, that marvel of incremental engineering. It has close to 15,000 cubic feet of livable space; 10 modules, or living and working areas; a Canadian robot arm that can repair the station from outside; and the capacity to keep five astronauts (including the occasional wealthy rubbernecking space tourist) in good health for long periods. It has gleaming, underused laboratories; its bathroom is fully repaired; and its exercycle is ready for vigorous mandatory workouts.
The only problem with this $156 billion manifestation of human genius — a project as large as a football field that has been called the single most expensive thing ever built — is that it’s still going nowhere at a very high rate of speed. And as a scientific research platform, it still has virtually no purpose and is accomplishing nothing.
* * *
Send the ISS somewhere.
The ISS, you see, is already an interplanetary spacecraft — at least potentially. It’s missing a drive system and a steerage module, but those are technicalities. Although it’s ungainly in appearance, it’s designed to be boosted periodically to a higher altitude by a shuttle, a Russian Soyuz or one of the upcoming new Constellation program Orion spacecraft. It could fairly easily be retrofitted for operations beyond low-Earth orbit. In principle, we could fly it almost anywhere within the inner solar system — to any place where it could still receive enough solar power to keep all its systems running.
Like I said, interesting. But problematic – the ISS wasn’t constructed to provide adequate protection from radiation (the orbit it occupies is within the Earth’s protective magnetosphere), and therefore would need to be retrofitted extensively to protect inhabitants on a long-distance voyage. It would likely also need retrofitting to reinforce the many joints where components have been mounted together, since these were not designed to withstand significant stress from propulsion. I think Mr. Benson may have underestimated these problems and costs.
But it is still an interesting idea. Unfortunately, it’s not original. Well, not exactly. Like so many things related to our early exploration in space, something similar was proposed by Arthur C. Clarke over 25 years ago. Yes, about 15 before construction began on the ISS. It is a plot point in his novel 2010: Odyssey Two (the book differs significantly from the movie 2010, so you may not have come across it). In the book, a Chinese space station under construction in LEO surprisingly reveals itself to be an interplanetary craft, and takes off for Jupiter, getting the jump on both the American and Soviet missions planned to investigate the monolith in orbit there.
Just a little factoid for a Sunday morning.
Jim Downey
Filed under: ISS, NASA, Predictions, Preparedness, Science, Space, Survival, tech
Happily, Shuttle Discovery made it home safe and sound on Saturday, as scheduled, in spite of misgivings I expressed in my last post and in comments. But losing pieces of the shuttle (or any space vehicle) is always a concern, as discussed extensively by James Oberg in this item for MSNBC:
Why NASA watches out for true UFOs
Astronauts don’t keep mum about potentially life-threatening objectsHOUSTON – Friday’s brief orbital anxiety about threats from an unidentified object seen out the window of space shuttle Discovery underscore why NASA has always been interested in what can justifiably be called UFOs.
* * *
The reason is life-and-death. Since Mercury days, NASA engineers have realized that visual sightings of anomalies can sometimes provide clues to the functioning — or malfunctioning — of the spaceships that contain their precious astronauts. White dots outside the window could be spray from a propellant leak, or ice particles, flaking insulation, worked-loose fasteners (as in this latest case) or inadvertently released tools or components.
Whatever the objects might be, they pose a threat of coming back in contact with the spacecraft, potentially causing damage to delicate instruments, thermal tiles, windows or solar cells, or fouling rotating or hinged mechanisms. So Mission Control needs to find out about them right away in order to determine that they are not hazardous.
Oberg knows his shit, so take a few moments and read the whole thing.
As I’ve mentioned previously, we know that space travel is dangerous, and there is very little doubt that we will see more deaths. But there’s no reason not to learn from our mistakes, and to make things safer as we can.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Firefly, Joss Whedon, movies, NASA, Science Fiction, Serenity, Space, tech
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Astronauts on the space shuttle Discovery spotted an unidentified object floating behind the craft as well as a bump on the shuttle rudder on Friday but neither was cause for concern, NASA said.
After carrying out routine testing the day before Discovery is due to land back on Earth on Saturday, “the crew indicated they had seen a 1-1.5-foot (30-45 centimeter) long rectangular object floating away from the shuttle from behind the rear portion of the right wing,” the US space agency said.
“Shortly afterwards, the crew described what they called a ‘bump’ on the left side trailing edge of Discovery’s rudder,” it said in a statement.
NASA experts back on Earth studied images and video of both the object and the bump but concluded that they posed no risk and Discovery was “ship-shape” for Saturday’s landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
I don’t know about you, but offhand I would tend to think that seeing parts of my spaceship floating away unexpectedly would give me more than a little pause, particularly given the history of the Shuttle program.
Hope they get home safely.
Jim Downey
*go to the eighth section.
Most everyone is paying attention to one thing scheduled to fall through the sky today. That’s the Phoenix Mars Lander, and there’s good reason to do so: the lander is designed to come down softly near the north pole, and search the permafrost there for evidence that the planet was capable of supporting microbial life. The problem is that NASA has had a string of failures in achieving such a soft landing on Mars in recent years. From the AP:
The time it takes the Phoenix Mars Lander to streak through the atmosphere and set down on the dusty surface has been dubbed “the seven minutes of terror” for good reason. More than half of the world’s attempts to land on Mars have ended in failures.
“I’m a little nervous on the inside. I’m getting butterflies,” Peter Smith, principal investigator from the University of Arizona, Tucson, said on the eve of the landing. “We bet the whole farm on this safe landing and we can’t do our science without this safe landing.”
And yeah, I’m as interested in this as most people, since I support pretty much any kind of space exploration, whether it is robotic or manned, governmental or private.
But what I’m most interested in today is whether another “fall through the sky” project comes off as scheduled. That project is Le Grand Saut (The Big Leap). From a New York Times story yesterday:
He has spent two decades and nearly $20 million in a quest to fly to the upper reaches of the atmosphere with a helium balloon, just so he can jump back to earth again. Now, Michel Fournier says, he is ready at last.
* * *
He intends to climb into the pressurized gondola of the 650-foot balloon, which resembles a giant jellyfish, and make a two-hour journey to 130,000 feet. At that altitude, almost 25 miles up, Fournier will see both the blackness of space and the curvature of the earth.
Then he plans to step out of the capsule, wearing only a special space suit and a parachute, and plunge in a mere 15 minutes, experiencing weightlessness along the way.
If successful, Fournier will fall longer, farther and faster than anyone in history. Along the way, he can accomplish other firsts, by breaking the sound barrier and records that have stood for nearly 50 years.
The record mentioned there? A jump by Joseph Kittinger from over 102,000 feet that was part of Project Excelsior in 1960. I’ve known about that jump pretty much my entire life, and always thought that it would be a fantastic experience. It was one of the reasons why I decided that for a birthday a decade or so ago I was going to do a tandem jump from a perfectly good airplane from 12,000 feet, which included free-fall for over a mile. I didn’t have the time nor money to take up skydiving as a hobby, but I could do that jump. And it was a phenomenal experience that I have always cherished, adrenaline junkie that I am.
So, Fournier’s project? Yeah, I’d do it. No question. And while I will be keeping my fingers crossed for Phoenix (figuratively speaking – I’m not actually superstitious), my real attention will be on one man doing something completely insane.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Astronomy, Fermi's Paradox, General Musings, Government, ISS, NASA, NYT, Predictions, Preparedness, Press, Science, Science Fiction, SETI, Society, Space, UFO, Uncategorized
Yesterday I wrote a somewhat snarky post at UTI about the Vatican’s Astronomer giving his official blessing (almost literally) to the notion that alien life – even intelligent alien life – probably exists in the universe, and that this was not at odds with Catholic doctrine. A friend this morning sent me a link to this 1996 article in the New York Times:
Does the Bible Allow For Martians?
WOULD the discovery of life on Mars be a blow to the idea of biblical creation? Should the knowledge of alien organisms shatter faith in a God who was supposed to have created heaven and earth and life in a week?
As it turns out, biblical creationists have been touting the existence of aliens for years — and Mars itself has featured prominently in their scenarios.
Ronald Numbers, a professor of the history of science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the author of ”The Creationists,” a history of this movement, was himself raised in a fundamentalist Seventh Day Adventist community where belief in life on Mars was no big deal.
According to the Bible, Mr. Numbers explains, Satan and his cohorts were thrown out of heaven, so the question arises: Where did they go? At his high school in rural Tennessee, Mr. Numbers was taught by his teacher, who was also a Seventh Day Adventist, that they were hurled to Mars. The famous Martian canals were cited as evidence of this habitation.
In turn, that article was mention by another NYT piece yesterday (also sent by my friend) which discussed the Vatican’s stance on alien life. And in it, this is mentioned:
On Monday, Mike Foreman, a mission specialist during the recent Shuttle Endeavor voyage, expressed confidence in the notion, saying “it’s hard to believe that there is not life somewhere else in this great universe.”
Today, TDG also noted that another Endeavor crew member agreed, with this news item:
Astronauts who returned recently from a Space Shuttle mission said on Monday that they expected alien life would be discovered.
“Life like us must exist elsewhere in the universe,” Takao Doi, who had been on a 16-day Endeavour mission to the International Space Station, told reporters in Tokyo.
Mr Doi and his colleagues denied seeing anything that proved the existence of extraterrestrial life forms, but said the scale of the solar system and beyond had impressed upon them the possibility of alien life.
Of course, also in the news just about everywhere is that the British government is in the process of releasing their UFO files, gathered by the Ministry of Defense. As I quoted in my UTI post yesterday:
LONDON – The men were air traffic controllers. Experienced, calm professionals. Nobody was drinking. But they were so worried about losing their jobs that they demanded their names be kept off the official report.
No one, they knew, would believe their claim an unidentified flying object landed at the airport they were overseeing in the east of England, touched down briefly, then took off again at tremendous speed. Yet that’s what they reported happened at 4 p.m. on April 19, 1984.
The incident is one of hundreds of reported sightings contained in more than 1,000 pages of formerly secret UFO documents being released Wednesday by Britain’s National Archives.
And naturally enough, lots of people are just certain that whatever is in those files isn’t the *actual* truth, because you just can’t trust any government with this stuff. As noted (again, via TDG) in this post by UFO investigator Nick Redfern which pre-dated the recent release of documents:
Yes, the Government knows something. It may actually know quite a lot. Perhaps (although I seriously doubt it) it knows everything. But the idea that it (as a unified body) has any interest in telling us the truth, purely because we go knocking on its doors, loftily demanding to be let in on the secret, is self-deluded, ego-driven yearning of a truly sickening “I want to believe” nature.
Call me a cynic, but if the government reveals the truth about UFOs to us, you can guarantee it will be a lie. And it will probably be a lie designed to scare the shit out of us and ensure that we surrender more of our freedoms and rights to old men who wear suits and lack souls. And still the real secret will remain hidden – either in the pages of some hefty classified file or in a cryogenic tank deep below Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Maybe…
OK, I’ve written before about news related to SETI, because it ties in directly with Communion of Dreams. But why mention these reports and comments? Why get into the whole woo-woo land of UFOs?
Well, as I said over a year ago when French government made their UFO files available:
A staple of Science Fiction has always been the question of how humanity will deal with the discovery that we are not the only sentients in the universe. It is, of course, the main theme of Communion as well, and while I am somewhat ambiguous about what exactly is “out there”, I make no bones about the fact that they exist, and have even visited our neighborhood (hence the discovery of the artifact on Titan being central to the book).
Honestly, one of my greatest fears is that before I can get Communion published, we may indeed have such proof, and will get to see just exactly how that plays out in the public sphere. My own private suspicion is that it will not go well.
And I can’t help but wonder what is behind this sudden upsurge in scientists, astronauts, and even religious leaders commenting about how they are sure that there is alien life, possibly even intelligent alien life, “out there.” Sure the UFO community has always been convinced (it sort of goes with the territory), and vocal. But why this interest being expressed from so many other sources? I may have been snarky at UTI, but I do have to wonder whether or not there isn’t some larger agenda being played out here before our eyes. Certainly, were I in a decision-making position in government and we had conclusive and irrefutable proof of extra-terrestrial intelligence, I would advise spending some time ‘preparing’ the public for the release of that information.
Just a thought.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Astronomy, Bad Astronomy, Cassini, Enceladus, Health, NASA, Phil Plait, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Saturn, Science, Science Fiction, Space, Titan
Gah. I am either having a relapse of the very stubborn flu that had me laid low last month, or am fighting some new bug with similar (yet still considerably less severe) symptoms. This is highly annoying.
So, I’m about to go take a nap. But first a couple of quick notes, and then a bit from Phil Plait’s blog about a recent discovery that is very exciting.
Note one: downloads of the .pdf of Communion of Dreams have crossed 8,200 and downloads of the audio version continue to climb as well. That’s exciting.
Note two: heard nothing yet from the agent I mentioned contacting the other day. No surprise – I expect that it will take a month or so to hear from them. But I needed something else to note.
Now, about the news from space . . .
I have written previously about the Cassini probe’s 10 year mission to Saturn, and how there have been a lot of great images and information coming back to scientists about that planet and its moons. Information that helps to confirm what we knew when I was first writing Communion (since most of the action of the book takes place on and around Titan.) But there is news which would potentially require me to revise the novel slightly – not about Titan, but about its sibling Enceladus. You may have heard something about this, but I’ll go to the Bad Astro Boy himself for the news:
Life’s cauldron may be bubbling underneath Enceladus
A few days ago I wrote about how the Cassini Saturn probe dove through water ice plumes erupting from the surface of the icy moon Enceladus. The pictures were incredible, but it may very well be that the other detectors got the big payoff.
They detected organic compounds in the plumes.
Now remember, organic molecules don’t necessarily mean life. What Cassini detected were heavy carbon-based molecules, including many that are the building blocks for making things like amino acids and other compounds necessary for life as we know it.
Edited to add: Carolyn Porco, imaging team leader for Cassini, says:
[…] it is now unambiguous that the jets emerging from the south polar fractures contain organic materials heavier than simple methane — acetylene, hydrogen cyanide, formaldehyde, propane, etc. — making the sub-surface sources of Enceladus’ dramatic geological activity beyond doubt rich in astrobiologically interesting materials.
Whoa. I mean, *whoa* . Seriously. It ain’t life, nor even proof of life – but it is *damned exciting*.
Now, a nap. All this excitement makes me tired.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Apollo program, Bad Astronomy, Buzz Aldrin, Government, ISS, movies, NASA, Phil Plait, Science, Science Fiction, Space, Walter Shirra
I’ve written previously about how the early NASA space program filled my youth and fueled my imagination, and how that enthusiasm persisted through the cynicism of young adulthood and even into the more resigned reality of my middle years. To this day, movies such as The Right Stuff and Apollo 13 trigger an upwelling of that excitement, that pride.
Some of the most iconic images from those movies is the actual launch sequence – the ignition of the rocket engines, of brave astronauts riding fire into space. Well, via Phil Plait, here is a wonderful video of the inside of the flight deck of Shuttle Endeavour during the final countdown and into low orbit of STS-123. As the Bad Astronomer says:
You can see three astronauts in their suits preparing for the mission, and it’s really remarkable how they act. They’re clearly excited, but mostly all business. During the actual launch, they seem to be very nonchalant, simply doing what they need to do; it doesn’t look much different then I must look as I fasten my seatbelt, adjust the rear view mirror and pull out of my driveway in my car.
It’s a really odd juxtaposition! All the usual words we hear when we watch a launch are there, but somehow I expected the astronauts to be more animated, more excited. Instead, they mostly just sit there. They look like they’re taking the bus downtown, not a multi-billion dollar rocket into space!
He’s right – but what a magic bus it is! It isn’t nearly as dramatic as the movies noted above make it look to be – it’s actually more like the sort of casual acceptance of spaceflight found in SF. Because for these people, it is reality.
The video is just under 24 minutes long – and most of the ‘action’ takes place during the first five minutes or so (the three minutes before launch, then the first two minutes of flight). Because of our conditioning by movies and television, you might find yourself getting bored by it all – reality seldom comes with dramatic music. But if you sit back, and try to let it sink in that this is actually happening (well, has actually happened, almost two weeks ago), there is almost a sense of awe that sinks in. At least there is for me.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 