Voyager 1: Outward Bound

(From NASA/JPL-Caltech, used w/o permission.)
"This artist's concept shows NASA's Voyager spacecraft against a field of stars in the darkness of space. The two Voyager spacecraft are traveling farther and farther away from Earth, on a journey to interstellar space...."

Voyager 1 is outside the heliopause, outward bound. The robot spacecraft is still about one seventh as far from Earth's star as Sedna will be about 11,400 years from now. That'll be the year 13476, give or take: by which time humanity may have long since caught up with the Voyager probes, and that's almost another topic.

About 40,000 years from now, Voyager 1 will be 1.6 light years from AC +79 3888, and a tad farther from Sol, Earth's star. Gliese 445 is a shorter name for AC +79 3888, and whatever name you prefer: it'll be about 3.45 light-years from Sol when Voyager 1 goes past. You'll still need a telescope to see it, if you're on Earth at the time: which is unlikely, come to think of it.

The Lemming didn't find any planets listed for Gliese 445, but scientists are still sorting through data: and nowhere near finished with collecting more about Earth's neighbors. They'll probably be adding new planets to their catalogs for years. Decades. Centuries. Millennia. Longer.

Anyway, right now here are some pretty good places to check out if you're looking for nearby planets:

• The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia
  The exoplanet TEAM
• NASA Exoplanet Archive
  CalTech
• SIMBAD Astronomical Database
  Strasbourg University

"Nearby" on a cosmic scale, of course.

Here's what Gliese 445 looks like, as seen through a telescope on Earth. That colored ring isn't part of the star: someone drew it on the photo so you'd know which dot is yet another name for AC +79 3888. Actually, it's an abbreviation of Gliese, and the Lemming's mind is wandering.


(From Caltech/Palomar Observatory, via NASA, used w/o permission.)
"At the center of this image is the star AC +79 3888, also known as Gliese 445, located 17.6 light-years from Earth. NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, which is on a trajectory out of our solar system, is headed toward an encounter with AC +79 3888. In about 40,000 years, Voyager 1 will be closer to this star than our own sun.

"The image was taken by the Oschin Schmidt Telescope near San Diego, Calif., on April 22, 1998. This telescope is operated by the California Institute of Technology and Palomar Observatory."

It occurs to the Lemming that Voyager 1 may not make it to its flyby of Gliese 445. 40,000 years is a long time, humans are already working on a prototype warp drive, and that robot spaceship would make a dandy exhibit for some museum.

More:

• "Voyager: The Interstellar Mission"
  JPL/NASA
• "Gliese 445"
  Wikipedia
• "Heading toward Gliese 445"
  NASA Mission Pages, Voyager (September 12, 2013)
• "NASA Voyager Statement about Competing Models to Explain Recent Spacecraft Data"
  NASA Mission Pages, Voyager (August 15, 2013)
• "Voyager Solar System 'exit' debated"
  Jonathan Amos, BBC News (March 20, 2013)

Slightly-related posts:

• Peering into vastness
  • "Nearby Worlds, and a Cosmic Horizon"
    A Catholic Citizen in America (January 3, 2014)
    Particularly
    • Plato, Aristotle, and Getting a Grip
    • Across the Horizon, Toward Infinity
  • "Gliese 677C, Revisted: Three Super-Earths in the Habitable Zone"
    (June 28, 2013)
  • "DNA, Voyager 1, Habitable Worlds, and the Universe"
    A Catholic Citizen in America (March 22, 2013)
    Particularly
    • "We've Never Been There Before...."
  • "GJ 667Cc: Heavier than Earth, Maybe About as Warm"
    (February 6, 2012)
  • "Two Decades Later: Voyager 1 Flyby of Triton, August 21, 1989"
    (August 21, 2009)
• Getting there
  • "Warp Drive: Silly as Thinking People can Fly"
    (May 17, 2013)
  • "Warp Drive: Imagined and Real (Maybe, Eventually)"
    A Catholic Citizen in America (May 24, 2013)
  • "Quantum Entanglement and a Babbling Lemming"
    (May 3, 2013)
  • "Another Step Closer to a Practical Warp Drive: Maybe"
    (November 30, 2012)
    Particularly
    • Travel to the Stars
    • Weird Physics, Warp Drive, News, and NASA
  • "Antimatter Rocket Motor: Physics, Straightforward; Engineering, Not So Much"
    (October 26, 2012)

"Young" Martian Mudstone: Only 80,000,000 Years Old

"Erosion by Scarp Retreat in Gale Crater "
(December 9, 2013)


(From NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS, used w/o permission.)

"This mosaic of images from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a series of sedimentary deposits in the Glenelg area of Gale Crater, from a perspective in Yellowknife Bay looking toward west-northwest.

"Curiosity's science team has estimated that the 'Cumberland' rock that the rover drilled for a sample of the Sheepbed mudstone deposit (at lower left in this scene) has been exposed at the surface for only about 80 million years. The estimate is based on amounts of certain gases that accumulate in a rock when it is close enough to the surface to be bombarded by cosmic rays. An explanation for that unexpectedly young exposure age comes from improved understanding of how the layers are eroding to expose underlying layers. The explanation proposes that the mudstone is being exposed by abrasion by windblown sand, indicated by arrows. The role for wind is strongly suggested by the undercutting of the Sheepbed layer below the Gillespie Lake sandstone...."

Calling something that's about 80,000,000 years old "young" may seem odd. Compared to the 4,500,000,000 or so times that Earth went around our sun since the Solar system's inner planets settled down, though: it's very new indeed.

Quite a bit happened since the Sheepbed mudstone started soaking up cosmic rays. Something reset Earth's ecosystem, giving furry little critters a chance to assert themselves; and now Earth is either in the warm cycle of an ice age, or at the end of one.

Either way, the Lemming thinks the next 80,000,000 years should be interesting too..

Related posts:

• "Martian Supervolcanoes"
  (October 4, 2013)
• "Martian Hood Ornament? Water Faucet? Or Something Entirely Different?"
  (February 15, 2013)
• "Gale Crater, Mars: Like a Hawaiian Beach; Only Drier, Colder, - - -"
  (November 2, 2012)
• "Postcards From Mars"
  (August 31, 2012)
• "Curiosity: Landing Video; and Settling In"
  (August 24, 2012)

Postcards From Mars

"...This image is a portion of a larger image taken by Curiosity's 100-millimeter Mast Camera on Aug. 23, 2012. See PIA16104. Scientists enhanced the color in one version to show the Martian scene under the lighting conditions we have on Earth, which helps in analyzing the terrain...."

Next, a closer look at the center of that photo.

"...For scale, an annotated version of the figure highlights a dark rock that is approximately the same size as Curiosity. The pointy mound in the center of the image, looming above the rover-sized rock, is about 1,000 feet (300 meters) across and 300 feet (100 meters) high."

Mount Sharp: Oddly-Tilted Layers

Scientists figured the terrain in Gale Crater would be interesting. They probably didn't expect anything quite this odd, though:


(from NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS, used w/o permission)
"This image taken by the Mast Camera (MastCam) on NASA's Curiosity rover highlights the interesting geology of Mount Sharp, a mountain inside Gale Crater, where the rover landed.... "
What's intriguing about this photo are the strata - more-or-less horizontal layers on the face of Mount Sharp. What's unusual about this set of layers is that the upper ones are tilted quite a bit more than the ones underneath. the dividing line between those two zones runs roughly across the middle of the photo.

Strata being at different angles isn't at all unusual here on Earth - it has to do with plate tectonics, according to a fellow in a NASA news conference. But around here, it's normal for the upper set of layers to be much more horizontal than the lower ones: the opposite of what's happened on Mars.

Voicemail From Mars

"First Recorded Voice from Mars"
Mission News, NASA (August 27, 2012)

"The following statement by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden was returned to Earth via the Mars Curiosity rover.

"Hello. This is Charlie Bolden, NASA Administrator, speaking to you via the broadcast capabilities of the Curiosity Rover, which is now on the surface of Mars.

"Since the beginning of time, humankind’s curiosity has led us to constantly seek new life…new possibilities just beyond the horizon. I want to congratulate the men and women of our NASA family as well as our commercial and government partners around the world, for taking us a step beyond to Mars...."



We've had the technology for sound transmissions from Mars for more than a decade. Still, Administrator Bloden's speech was a 'first.'

As of today, you can still see this video in "Interplanetary Voicemail," on NASA's website. In case NASA reorganizes their site before you see this post, here's a low-resolution version:


NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
California Institute of Technology (August 27, 2012)
video, 1:33 (file size: about 10.8 MB)

The server for the low-res. version is nowhere near as fast as NASA's, so the file may take quite a few minutes to load.

Sounds of Mars - Maybe Next Time

The Mars planning FAQ page says that Curiosity doesn't carry a microphone, so we won't be hearing 'live from Mars' broadcasts. This time.

A late-20th-century Mars expedition carried a microphone. Signals from Mars Polar Lander ended on December 3, 1999, on its way down to the Martian surface:

• Mars Polar Lander
  NASA
  • "What Sounds Will the Mars Microphone Record?"

Related posts:

• "Curiosity: Landing Video; and Settling In"
  (August 24, 2012)
• "A Tale of Two Mars Probes"
  (November 28, 2011)
• "Mars Rover Spirit: Not Bad for a Limited-Warranty Robot"
  (May 26, 2011)
• "Viking Life Experiments: Another Look at Organic Stuff on Mars"
  (January 6, 2011)
• "New Look at the Lost Ocean of Barsoom"
  (June 15, 2010)

NASA: Good News, Bad News, and a Stolen Laptop

"NASA to Beef Up Cybersecurity After Laptop Computer Theft"
Clara Moskowitz, SPACE.com (March 8, 2012)

"NASA is taking steps to prevent another security lapse like the one that caused unencrypted space station codes to leak when a NASA laptop computer was stolen, the space agency's chief Charles Bolden told Congress Wednesday (March 7).

"The stolen NASA laptop was among 48 mobile devices taken from the space agency between April 2009 and April 2011, the agency's Inspector General office announced on Feb. 29. The laptop contained command and control codes for the International Space Station (ISS).

" 'I can take action there and I intend to do so,' Bolden told the U.S. Senate's Commerce, Science and Transportation committee Wednesday (March 7). 'I can make it a policy or reemphasize the policy that when critical information is put on a laptop, it's encrypted.'..."

The good news is that folks on the ISS weren't in danger as a result of the laptop - and its data - getting stolen.

The not-so-good news is that NASA, and just about everybody else, is still getting used to the Information Age - and learning what is a good idea, and what isn't.

Encrypting data on gadgets that are easy to steal sounds like a really good idea.

It's not just NASA - SEGA, Sony, credit card companies, and a whole lot more outfits have been climbing a learning curve over the last few years.

Slightly-related posts:

• "Hackers Hooked: Some of Them, Anyway"
  (March 9, 2012)
• "Oops: pcAnywhere, Symantec's 2006 Norton Antivirus Hacked"
  (January 26, 2012)
• "Move Over, Sony: Sega Joins 'We Were Hacked' Club"
  (June 19, 2011)
• "3,300,000 People's Student Loan Data Stolen: That's a Lot of Zeroes"
  (March 27, 2010)
• "Flight 188, Distracted Pilots, and Dangerously Impractical Software?"
  (November 27, 2009)

A Tale of Two Mars Probes

"Next Stop Mars! Huge NASA Rover Launches Toward Red Planet"
Mike Wall, Space.com (November 26, 2011 )

"NASA has launched its next Mars rover, kicking off a long-awaited mission to investigate whether the Red Planet could ever have hosted microbial life.

"The car-size Curiosity rover blasted off atop its Atlas 5 rocket today (Nov. 26) at 10:02 a.m. EST (1502 GMT), streaking into a cloudy sky above Cape Canaveral Air Force Station here. The huge robot's next stop is Mars, though the 354-million-mile (570-million-kilometer) journey will take 8 1/2 months...."

"...NASA began planning Curiosity's mission — which is officially known as the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) — back in 2003. The rover was originally scheduled to blast off in 2009, but it wasn't ready in time.

"Launch windows for Mars-bound spacecraft are based on favorable alignments between Earth and the Red Planet, and they open up just once every two years. So the MSL team had to wait until 2011...."

One thing about the Curiosity Mars rover: The thing is big. Curiosity's heat shield is bigger than the ones used on Apollo missions. (June 20, 2009)

A tip of the Lemming's hat to Space.com for a pretty good, mercifully brief, explanation of launch windows. Orbital mechanics, and performance limits of today's spaceships, explain why Russia's Phobos/Fobos-Grunt mission had a launch date so close to Curiosity's.

Phobos/Fobos-Grunt: a Little Good News

"Russia 'makes first contact' with stranded Mars probe"
AFP (November 24, 2011)

"Russia on Thursday announced its scientists had for the first time made contact with its stranded Mars probe Phobos-Grunt, a day after the European Space Agency said it had received a signal.

" 'A signal from the probe has been received and some telemetry data. At the moment our specialists are working on this information,' the Interfax news agency quoted Russian space agency spokesman Alexei Kuznetsov as saying.

"Interfax said the signal was received at a Russian station at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Thursday afternoon.

"The European Space Agency said its ground station in Perth, Australia made contact with the probe at 2025 GMT on Tuesday, the first sign of life from Phobos-Grunt since it got stuck in Earth orbit after launch on November 9.

"Russian officials had cautioned earlier this week that the chances were very small of saving the mission, which would require reprogramming the probe to send it off on its trajectory to Mars before the window for its journey closes...."

That's better news than what the Lemming had been fearing, about Fobos-Grunt. It still looks like Russia's current Mars probe doesn't have all that much of a chance at getting to its destination. Which is definitely not good news for folks in the Russian space program.

Elsewhere, the Lemming ran into news about a Yankee imperialist warmonger plot to foil the noble Russian endeavor. At least, that's what some folks believe.

Here's a rather calm news item about that flashback from the Cold War:

Not Exactly Nostalgia

"­Did US 'climate weapon' knock-out Russian probe?"
RT (November 24, 2011)

"Russian space experts are struggling to decode fresh telemetry signals received from the stricken Phobos-Grunt probe. Meanwhile, rumors are circulating that America's ionosphere research site in Alaska caused the spacecraft's failure. ..."

"...Meanwhile, a retired Russian general believes that the glitch which prevented Phobos-Grunt from carrying out its space mission was caused by American radar sites in Alaska.

"General-Lieutenant Nikolay Rodionov, who used to command the country's ballistic missile early warning system, told Interfax that 'the powerful electromagnetic radiation of those sites may have affected the control system of the interplanetary probe.'

"The general was apparently referring to the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) site located in Gakona, Alaska. The facility's stated purpose is the study of the ionosphere and its use for communication. But several popular conspiracy theories say it is developing a superweapon with potential to cause natural disasters on a global scale, including earthquakes, climate change and reversal of the magnetic poles...."

The Lemming remembers the 'good old days:' when folks upset by Yankee imperialists, commie plots, and conspiracies to fluoridate water, were a staple in the news. In some circles, that sort of thing never seems to get old - and that's another topic.

Seriously? Let's Look at Getting to Mars

Bottom line, one Mars probe seems to be off to a pretty good start. Another: not so much. The Lemming would like to see both get to Mars - particularly since Fobos-Grunt might have sent back a soil sample.

Well, maybe two years from now - - -

Related posts:

• "Phobos/Fobos-Grunt: Good News, Bad News, and Really Bad News"
  (November 14, 2011)
• "Mars Rover Spirit: Not Bad for a Limited-Warranty Robot"
  (May 26, 2011)
• "Viking Life Experiments: Another Look at Organic Stuff on Mars"
  (January 6, 2011)
• "Water on Mars: The Lost Ocean of Barsoom?"
  (November 23, 2009)
• "Curiosity Heat Shield: NASA's Biggest to Date"
  (June 20, 2009)

---

Other posts, about

• "Mars, Mostly"

McDonnell Douglas Delta Clipper: First Single-Stage-to-Orbit Freighter - Almost

"Delta Clipper Experimental Advanced (DCXA)"

jaglavaksoldier, YouTube (December 14, 2008)
video, 2:26

You won't find the McDonnell Douglas Delta Clipper in reports about freight runs to the International Space Station, or anywhere else.

That's because, in 1996, a test vehicle had a bad landing. Sure, there had been many successful flights: but, well, for some reason the McDonnal Douglas Delta Clipper wasn't wanted any more.

The Lemming suspects that the much cooler-looking X-33 Venturestar with its XRS-2200 Linear Aerospike engine, was - well, cooler. Someday, all the effort poured into that cutting-edge, revolutionary, futuristic technology may pay off.

Sure, the X-33 didn't fly, the Delta Clipper had a pretty good flight record when it was scrapped, and some folks just want to get into orbit - whether or not the spaceship looks cool. But, well, there may have been good reason for trying to develop a brand-new propulsion system and working out how to make a practical, fully-reusable, freight carrier to ferry supplies to and from orbit.

Maybe Blue Origin's New Shepard program will get the job done:


(from Blue Origin, used w/o permission)
The Goddard, Blue Origin's first development vehicle in their New Shepard program.

That photo is from 2006 - and stressed how much Blue Origin wanted to hire folks.

"Blue Origin's New Shepard Launch (wideangle)"

astromatt9, YouTube (January 3, 2007)
video, 0:49

Like McDonnell Douglas' Delta Clipper, Blue Origin's Goddard flies. Not all that far, but it does fly - and lands. It looks sort of like a wide-body version of the Delta Clipper: no great surprise, since both vehicles are designed to fly to and from orbit the same way.

Then there's the SpaceX Dragon.

"Dragon Overview"
SpaceX

"Dragon is a free-flying, reusable spacecraft being developed by SpaceX under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. Initiated internally by SpaceX in 2005, the Dragon spacecraft is made up of a pressurized capsule and unpressurized trunk used for Earth to LEO transport of pressurized cargo, unpressurized cargo, and/or crew members.

"The Dragon spacecraft is comprised of 3 main elements: the Nosecone, which protects the vessel and the docking adaptor during ascent; the Spacecraft, which houses the crew and/or pressurized cargo as well as the service section containing avionics, the RCS system, parachutes, and other support infrastructure; and the Trunk, which provides for the stowage of unpressurized cargo and will support Dragon’s solar arrays and thermal radiators.

"In December 2008, NASA announced the selection of SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft to resupply the International Space Station (ISS) when the Space Shuttle retires. The $1.6 billion contract represents a minimum of 12 flights, with an option to order additional missions for a cumulative total contract value of up to $3.1 billion...."

SpaceX's Dragon is a step in the right direction: a (semi-) reusable vehicle for ferrying cargo and passengers to and from the ISS. Like the old Apollo, Soyuz, and other non-Shuttle vehicles, the Dragon is designed to sit on top of a stack of one-use fuel tanks and rocket motors.

It's a design that works, has been in use for decades, and doesn't require new technology. That's the good news. The bad news is that it still involves throwing away some fairly expensive hardware after each flight. Sort of like an airline that had re-used the fuselage of its airliners, but had to install new wings and engines after each landing.

In the short run, since NASA decided that the Delta Clipper wasn't cool, or whatever the reason was, Dragon and vehicles like it will keep the ISS supplied.

Eventually, though: Blue Origin, or someone else, will almost certainly work the bugs out of vehicles that fly back, land - and can fly again.

Related posts:

• "Space Shuttle: Three Decades of Flights; and looking from Silbervogel to the Stars"
  (July 13, 2011)
• "SpaceX's Dragon: Getting Closer to Commercial Service"
  (December 8, 2010)
• "Major Leagues, Minor Leagues, and the Hanseatic League"
  (April 29, 2011)
• "International Space Station: Not Many Amenities, But What a View!"
  (January 26, 2011)
• "Blue Origin: Another Company Building Spaceships"
  (February 27, 2010)

More:

• "Humanity in Space: The Next Few Decades"

Here Comes Another Martian Conspiracy Theory

Move over, face on Mars, there's a new conspiracy theory coming - maybe.

"Armchair Astronomer Finds 'Evidence' of Life on Mars"
FoxNews.com (June 6, 2011)



"NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab is investigating a California armchair astronomer's claim that a white, fuzzy image on the red planet's surface might be evidence of life.

"David Martines' YouTube video is heading for viral status after he uploaded a flyby of Google Earth's Mars explorer zooming in on a white, cylindrical object.

"The object, according to Martines, is 'about 700 feet long and 150 feet wide.' He's calling it 'Bio Station Alpha, because I'm just assuming that something lives in it or has lived in it.'

"His video was uploaded May 28, and has already been watched nearly 750,000 times.

"A spokesman for NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab told FoxNews.com it was investigating the wild claims, speculating that 'Bio Station Alpha' would most likely be determined to be a glitch in the digital imaging or an unusual feature on the surface of the planet -- and not a Martian base....

"...But who's responsible? Martines says it's unlikely to be NASA.

" 'I don't know if they could pull off such a project without all the people seeing all the material going up there,' he said. 'I sort of doubt NASA has anything to do with this. I don't know if NASA even knows about this.'

"Google's imagery comes from many different locations, a company spokeswoman said, and glitches and errors can be introduced in many ways...."

The FoxNews.com article mentions the old "face on Mars" thing - which can be taken as proof they FoxNews.com is part of the conspiracy. The Lemming doesn't think there's a conspiracy to be part of - so the Lemming's in on it, too: using the same (logic? reasoning?).

NASA and the Amateur Astronomers

NASA is taking a look at the 'bio station' claim - which the Lemming thinks makes good sense. If the fuzzy white streak isn't an image processing glitch, something isn't the same color as the surrounding terrain.

The area that's getting attention is near one of the Martian poles - where carbon dioxide is part of the polar ice cap. The odds are pretty good that if there really is a feature on Mars where that image shows a streak, it's probably at least partly dry ice. In the Lemming's opinion.

Whatever that whitish mark is, the Lemming doesn't think it's something artificial on Mars. At least, that's among the much-less-likely explanations, in the Lemming's opinion.

This wouldn't be the first time folks were convinced they saw engineering projects on the red planet. By the way, one of the more likely explanations for the enduring canals of Mars is that they're the result of intelligent life - on our end of the telescope. (March 14, 2009)

The Lemming isn't cautious about assuming that the mark on Mars isn't artificial because an "armchair astronomer" noticed it. Amateur astronomers are just as serious as their paid counterparts - the difference is that they observe even when they're not getting grant money. That's a little unfair - but the Lemming thinks "armchair astronomer" may not be the best choice of words. The skyandtelescope.com magazine is a pretty good place to start looking at what astronomers, amateur and otherwise, are doing.

NASA has taken note of what amateurs noticed in the wealth of data sent back by probes before: like the Martian cave discovered by a seventh grade class. (June 22, 2010)

Space Aliens On Mars? That'd be Great, But - - -

The Lemming would love for "Bio Station Alpha" to really be something built by space aliens - or Martians. It's supposed to be at 71 49'19.73"N 29 33'06.53"W on Mars, by the way.

Assuming that it's space alien technology requires quite a few assumptions - including that there are space aliens to put it there. Other explanations require not quite so many assumptions, so the Lemming's not expecting this to be a "First Encounters" situation.

If the Lemming were writing a story, that bright streak wouldn't be any of the possibilities that Mr. Martines mentioned:

"...'It could be a powerstation or it could be a biological containment or it could be a glorified garage -- hope it's not a weapon.'

" 'Whoever put it up there had a purpose I'm sure. I couldn't imagine what the purpose was. I couldn't imagine why anybody would want to live on Mars.'..."

An (extremely unlikely) explanation is that it's a spaceship. One whose pilot almost managed to land safely on Mars. Recently. Within the last year or so. It was a hard landing, which explains why the fuselage is bent and even broken in a few places. Since there don't seem to be signs of activity around it, there probably weren't survivors. Although that short feature coming out from the fuselage, on the viewer's right, about a quarter of the way from the lower end, might be a deployed exit chute.

Does the Lemming think this is possible? Yes, barely.

Does the Lemming think it's likely that there's a crashed spaceship on Mars, that it's not one of ours, and that the pilot might have gotten a distress call out before going down? In the Lemming's considered opinion, that's a great deal less likely than the Lemming winning the lottery.

Still, it could make a dandy story.

Somewhat-related posts:

• "Beware Warmonger Imperialist Space Aliens!?"
  (January 11, 2011)
• "Gliese 581g, Alien Angst, and the Lemming"
  (October 4, 2010)
• "Nuclear Weapons, Space Aliens, Conspiracy Theories, and Getting a Grip"
  (September 24, 2010)
• " 'All We Want is Peace and Quiet' - Another Look at the Mind of the Alien"
  Drifting at the Edge of Time and Space (December 9, 2009)
• "DNA - A Universal Pattern? Could Be"
  (April 8, 2009)

---

Other posts, about

• "Mars, Mostly"

Related posts, at

• "A Serious Search for Other Worlds, Life, and - Maybe - Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence"

Mars Rover Spirit: Not Bad for a Limited-Warranty Robot

"NASA Gives Up On Stuck Mars Rover Spirit"
Natalie Wolchover, Space.com (May 24, 2011)

"When there's no answer, again and again, at some point you have to stop calling. NASA announced Tuesday (May 24) that it will cease its daily attempts to contact Spirit, a robotic rover on Mars that went incommunicado last year.

" 'Planned communications will be done on May 25 but there may be some passive communication attempts after that,' NASA spokesperson Veronica MacGregor told SPACE.com today.

"Project manager John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory told reporters today that the last commands will be sent up Wednesday, and orbiting spacecraft will listen for a return signal through the end of May. Spirit's electronics have likely become permanently damaged by Mars' harsh winter, however, and chances of a last-minute response are slim.

"The decision to let the Mars rover Spirit rest in peace marks the official end of its successful six-year mission.

"The rover far surpassed the space agency's expectations by functioning more than 20 times longer than predicted - its mission was planned to last three months - and driving 4.8 miles across the Martian surface, 10 times longer than planned...."

NASA gives a sort of overview of the twin Mars rovers' mission in its "Spirit and Opportunity" page. You'll find more links at the Mars Exploration Rover Mission home page.

Spirit mostly studied rocks and soil, winding up in the Columbia Hills of Mars: where rocks may have been affected by briny water.

Water on Mars is a sort of good news/bad news proposition.

The good news is that where there's water there might be life: which would be a major find. Even if Mars never supported life, water resources there mean one less thing to carry along if/when humanity decides to visit the planet.

The bad news is that water, when it freezes, can break things. Like pipes: or solar panels on the Phoenix lander. ("Phoenix Mars Lander Is Silent, New Image Shows Damage," Phoenix Mars Mission, Lunar and Planetary Science Laboratory/NASA (May 25, 2010))

Ending on an 'up' note, the Phoenix lander kept going longer than planned - and scientists are still going over data it sent back.

Related posts:

• "Viking Life Experiments: Another Look at Organic Stuff on Mars"
  (January 6, 2011)
• "Another Martian Cave: Discovered by Seventh Graders"
  (June 22, 2010)
• "Mars Rover to Mars: a Video"
  (November 28, 2009)
• "Mars Robot Spirit Rebooted Itself - Twice"
  (April 15, 2009)
• "Phoenix Mars Lander: the Video"
  (June 16, 2008)

---

Other posts, about

• "Mars, Mostly"

More:

• "Mars Exploration"
  NASA

Sailing the Seas of Titan, and Super Bowl Couch Potatoes

"NASA Selects Investigations For Future Key Planetary Mission"
NASA press release (May 5, 2011)

"NASA has selected three science investigations from which it will pick one potential 2016 mission to look at Mars' interior for the first time; study an extraterrestrial sea on one of Saturn's moons; or study in unprecedented detail the surface of a comet's nucleus.

"Each investigation team will receive $3 million to conduct its mission's concept phase or preliminary design studies and analyses. After another detailed review in 2012 of the concept studies, NASA will select one to continue development efforts leading up to launch. The selected mission will be cost-capped at $425 million, not including launch vehicle funding.

"NASA's Discovery Program requested proposals for spaceflight investigations in June 2010. A panel of NASA and other scientists and engineers reviewed 28 submissions. The selected investigations could reveal much about the formation of our solar system and its dynamic processes. Three technology developments for possible future planetary missions also were selected.

" 'NASA continues to do extraordinary science that is re-writing textbooks,' said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. 'Missions like these hold great promise to vastly increase our knowledge, extend our reach into the solar system and inspire future generations of explorers.'

"The planetary missions selected to pursue preliminary design studies are:...

"...-- Titan Mare Explorer (TiME) would provide the first direct exploration of an ocean environment beyond Earth by landing in, and floating on, a large methane-ethane sea on Saturn's moon Titan. Ellen Stofan of Proxemy Research Inc. in Gaithersburg, Md., is principal investigator. Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., would manage the project...."

The idea of sailing the seas of Titan, vicariously, grabs the Lemming's imagination. As a change of pace, though, the Lemming will opine about dollars and sense, instead of dreams and science.

"$425 million" for part of the Discovery program is a whole lot of money: compared to the Lemming's annual household expenses.

A "million" is 1,000,000 of something. (Princeton's WordNet) So "$425 million" is $425,000,000. That's still a lot of money.

For the Lemming. Probably for you, too.

But the United States federal government has quite a bit of money to spend: as the Lemming was reminded last April 15.

Last year, the feds spent about 3,720.7 billion dollars. (source: 467 - Federal Budget--Receipts and Outlays, Federal Gov't Finances & Employment: Federal Budget--Receipts, Outlays, and Debt, "The 2011 Statistical Abstract," U.S. Census Bureau)

Since the United States federal government is likely to use the American English dialect, "billion" most likely means 1,000,000,000. (Princeton's WordNet) So in 2010, the federal government spent around $3,720,700,000,000. That's quite a lot of money, too. Comparing the two numbers:

$425,000,000 - NASA's Discovery program, as discussed in that press release.

$3,720,700,000,000 - what the federal government spent in 2010, roughly.

The Lemming is no rocket scientist, but it looks like the Discovery program would cost (425/3720700) of the 2010 federal budget, which is a pretty small number. The Discovery program, that is. Something in the neighborhood of 0.0001, or 1/100 of one percent, if the Lemming did the math right.

Still, not spending money on the Discovery program would help cut the federal budget down to something rational. Just like scooping a bucket of water out of the Titanic would have helped. Bad example, maybe, and the Lemming is not going to get sidetracked.

On the other hand, NASA's Discovery program would be spending more than twice what was put into Super Bowl advertising in 2010: about $205,200,000. (source: Kantar Media)

It's not an either-or situation, not even close, but the Lemming thinks it's interesting to consider which is more important: learning more about one corner of the universe, or seeing two year's worth of nifty Super Bowl ads?

And make no mistake: some very serious talent goes into making those television commercials.

The Lemming thinks that even if NASA folds entirely, it's only a matter of time before somebody finds a profit motive for going to Titan. $425,000,000 isn't 'petty cash,' but it's not all that big a percentage of a large company's budget, either.

And that is yet another topic.

Related posts:

• "Weather on Titan: New Season, New Knowledge"
  (March 20, 2011)
• " 'Arsenic and Old Lakes' - What a Catchy Title!"
  (January 26, 2011)
• "Arsenic and Old Science: NASA and Extraterrestrial Life"
  (December 2, 2010)
• "Ah, to be On Titan in the Spring"
  (September 25, 2010)
• "Life on Titan! Or, Not"
  (June 7, 2010)

More:

• Discovery Program
  Home page, NASA
• Science News - NASA Science

Two Days Until Last Endeavour Shuttle Launch

"NASA Clears Space Shuttle Endeavour for One Last Launch"
Clara Moskowitz, Space.com (April 27, 2011)

"The space shuttle Endeavour is officially 'go' to launch on its 25th and last spaceflight this Friday (April 29), with NASA expecting record crowds and visit from President Barack Obama to watch the spectacle.

"NASA mission managers cleared Endeavour for launch this morning after meeting to review any concerns...."

As the Lemming's opined before, this isn't so much an end - as a beginning. The Space Shuttle fleet has done a good job of helping get the International Space Station built, and demonstrating that (fairly) regular ferry service to low Earth orbit is possible.

The Lemming will probably indulge in a little nostalgia this Friday. But that's about what's been done. There are more than a half-dozen spaceports in this country, many more around the world today. With folks like Richard Branson developing ways to make use of rapidly-developing technologies, the Lemming thinks that 'the sky's the limit' - - - and that the sky's gotten a whole lot farther away.

Related posts:

• "Space Shuttle Discovery: 27 Years, Last Flight Done"
  (March 9, 2011)
• "Four Ships Docked at the ISS"
  (February 28, 2011)
• "Space Shuttle Infographic: From Steering Thrusters to Rudder/Speed Brake"
  (January 31, 2011)
• "Last Flights of the First Space Freighters, New Construction at Spaceports"
  (September 23, 2010)
• "Space Shuttle Atlantis Launch: Aerial Snapshot"
  (June 26, 2010)

More:

• "Endeavour"
  NASA Orbiter Fleet, NASA
• "Endeavour Tribute"
  NASA
  Printable image:
  • Full Size (3,000px × 2,400px)
  • 1600 x 1200
  • 1024 x 768›800 x 600

Space Junk, Lasers, and Diplomacy

"Earth-based Lasers Could Zap Space Junk Clear From Satellites"
Charles Q. Choi, Space.com (March 17, 2011)

"Lasers on the ground could be used to nudge debris in orbit, which could help move dangerous space junk away from satellites and spacecraft, scientists working with NASA suggest.

"Space debris might not sound like much of a threat until one realizes that in low-Earth orbit, 'these objects are typically going at about 7.5 kilometers per second, or almost 17,000 miles per hour,' said physicist James Mason, a NASA contract scientist at the Universities Space Research Association. 'To put this in perspective, a 1-ounce piece of debris traveling at this velocity has about the same kinetic energy as a 2-ton car traveling at 60 miles per hour.'

"The problem that debris poses gets worse when collisions spawn even more debris, eventually cluttering space with high-speed shrapnel, a scenario nicknamed 'Kessler syndrome' after NASA scientist Donald Kessler, who predicted it in 1978.

" 'The February 2009 collision between an active Iridium sat-phone satellite and a defunct Russian Cosmos weather satellite was the first example of an active satellite being catastrophically destroyed in an accidental collision,' Mason said. 'Collisions like this were predicted by Kessler in 1978, and he predicted that if the number of debris in certain orbits got high enough then there would be a cascading series of collisions that might eventually render whole orbits unusable.'..."

Information Age services like GPS, television, telecommunications, and weather forecasting depend at least partly on satellites orbiting Earth. The growing collection of junk in orbit is a very practical concern. In the Lemming's opinion, of course.

Using lasers to vaporize bits of space junk, producing thrust/recoil that would nudge them toward Earth - where they'd burn out like meteors - is one way of disposing of the debris. Another would be to rendezvous with each individual piece and do about the same thing. Since there are "Hundreds of thousands of pieces of space junk," (Space.com (December 23, 2011)) it'd probably be cheaper and quicker to use lasers.

The good news is that we've got technology that could - with a bit of development and testing - start nudging orbiting debris out of the sky.

The bad news is that the technology would be seen as a weapon by some folks. And that opens at least one can of legal and diplomatic worms.

Somewhat-related posts:

• "Last Flights of the First Space Freighters, New Construction at Spaceports"
  (September 23, 2010)
• "European Space Agency Inheriting Huge Satellite, and Trouble to Match"
  (July 27, 2010)
• "Space Tourism and Virgin Galactic: Another Step"
  (July 17, 2010)
• "Bigelow Aerospace: Space to Rent or Lease, in Orbit"
  (January 20, 2010)
• "Over Four Dozen Space Agencies (and Growing?)"
  (February 28, 2010)

More:

• "Humanity in Space: The Next Few Decades"

ISS Storage Room, a Video, and Hair

"Space Station Gets a Zero Gravity Storage Room"
Denise Chow, Space.com (March 1, 2011 )

"The astronaut crew of space shuttle Discovery made a special delivery at the International Space Station today (March 1) by installing a new, and much-needed, extra storage room on the orbiting lab.

"The astronauts used a robotic arm to attach the zero gravity closet, called the Permanent Multipurpose Module, to the bottom of the space station on an Earth-facing port of NASA's Unity node. The module's installation also marked another historic moment for the mission – it is the last NASA room to be attached to the multinational laboratory.

"The module was successfully attached to the station at 10:05 a.m. EST (1505 GMT).

" 'Leonardo is looking very happy to be in his or her new home,' station astronaut Cady Coleman said...."

"...The Leonardo module was one of three cargo-carrying Multipurpose Logistics Modules built for NASA by the Italian Space Agency. It's about the size of a small bus and weighs about 28,353 pounds (12,860 kilograms) when loaded with cargo.

"Leonardo was delivered to NASA in 1998 and made its first spaceflight in 2001. This mission is its eighth and last trip to space. [Infographic: A New Closet for the Space Station]

"By coincidence, flight controllers here at the station's Mission Control here at NASA's Johnson Space Center radioed the crew with a timely announcement: The space outpost was flying over Turin, Italy as the Italian-built module was bolted into place...."

The psychological and cultural implications of that phrase, "Leonardo is looking very happy to be in his or her new home," deserve a little attention. There's anthropomorphism: assigning human traits to something that's not human. Then there's the careful "his or her" phrase: the Lemming remembers when folks in America had to start being crazy-careful about personal pronouns. Looks like we're still in that sociopolitical bog.

On the other hand, this video shows how much things have changed since the '50s. Which the Lemming doesn't miss, by the way. On the other hand, homo sapiens sapiens hasn't changed all that much in the last 50 years. Or 500, or 5,000 for that matter. Which is another topic.

One of the Lemming's daughters, seeing the video, remarked on the futility of all that money spent on hair conditioners: when someone's hair gets world-class body just by living on the ISS. Which is yet another topic.

The PMM - the Lemming thinks "closet" is a pretty good term, too - is another example of the modular design. It's a smart approach, in the Lemming's opinion, since a 'modular' ISS could be used as soon as a habitat, power source, and docking points were in place. Or is it in orbit?

Which brings up the matter of how new things like the ISS, Web, and iPod are named - which is yet again another topic.


Source SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration

Related posts:

• "Four Ships Docked at the ISS"
  (February 28, 2011)
• "International Space Station: Not Many Amenities, But What a View!"
  (January 26, 2011)
• "Looking Down on the Auroras"
  (June 21, 2010)
• "Postcards From the Frontier"
  (April 3, 2010)
• "ISS Space Station Walkthrough, Looking Ahead"
  (October 28, 2009)

Related NASA video:

• "Waking up, working, and going to sleep in Zero G"
  NASAtelevision, YouTube (January 18, 2011)
  video, 17:10
  • Expedition 26 NASA Flight Engineer Cady Coleman discusses what daily life is like aboard an orbiting space laboratory on CBS' news program "The Talk" on January 18, 2011.

More:

• "Humanity in Space: The Next Few Decades"

Space Shuttle Discovery, Names, James Cook, and a Little History

"How Did the Space Shuttle Discovery Get Its Name?"
Denise Chow, Space.com (February 21, 2011)

"Twenty-six years after its maiden flight, NASA's space shuttle Discovery towers majestically over the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center here, just days away from embarking on its final spaceflight to the International Space Station.

"Discovery, the oldest of NASA's space shuttles still in operation, is scheduled to launch Feb. 24 to deliver a new storage room, humanoid robot helper and critical supplies to the space station. The orbiter has made more spaceflights than any other in the agency's fleet, and over the course of its illustrious history, its name has become synonymous with the spirit of exploration and human spaceflight.

"So, where did the shuttle's designation come from?

"Discovery was partly named after one of two vessels used by British explorer James Cook during his voyages in the South Pacific in the 1770s. One of these journeys eventually led Cook to discover the Hawaiian Islands. Cook also navigated Discovery to explore the coasts of southern Alaska and northwestern Canada...."

Today's Discovery will carry a medallion from Britain's Royal Society: one struck in honor of Captain Cook. At least, that's the plan.

The Lemming is fascinated by language, names, and how they relate to the human experience: so this account of how ships used by James Cook and Henry Hudson are commemorated by a surface-to-orbit freighter is quite interesting.

To the Lemming. Your experience may vary.

As for Captain James Cook and his expedition: His ships made it back; he didn't. Resolution and Discovery left port in 1776, returning in 1780. Hawaiians killed him in 1779, during a disagreement. My guess is that it had to do with Cook's returning to repair a broken mast, after a breakdown in communications. Cook's decision to grab a Hawaiian in retaliation for the capture of a ship's boat probably didn't help. His hostage was a Hawaiian leader.

Look at it this way: say space aliens snatched the American president. The Secret Service would not take kindly to that. Which is about as close to hand-wringing as the apathetic Lemming will get today.

Which is another topic. Topics.

Somewhat-related posts:

• "Last Discovery Launch Scheduled - Again"
  (January 29, 2011)
• "Last Flights of the First Space Freighters, New Construction at Spaceports"
  (September 23, 2010)
• "Space Shuttle Atlantis Launch: Aerial Snapshot"
  (June 26, 2010)
• "Last Space Shuttle Atlantis Launch: More of a Beginning, Than an End"
  (May 14, 2010)
• Humanity in Space:
  • "The Next Few Decades"
  • "The Next Few Centuries"

Tempel 1 / Stardust-NExT Flyby: How2 Watch Online

"5 Valentine's Day Facts About NASA's Comet Tempel 1 Flyby"
Space.com (February 14, 2011)

"NASA's Stardust spacecraft will zip close by the comet Tempel 1 tonight (Feb. 14) in a cosmic Valentine's Day rendezvous to take a new look at the icy wanderer.

"The cosmic flyby will mark the second comet visited by the Stardust spacecraft – as part of its extended Stardust-NExT mission – as well as the second time an unmanned probe from Earth has approached Tempel 1.

"In 2005, NASA's Deep Impact mission visited comet Tempel 1 and intentionally crashed a probe into the comet to determine its composition. Researchers hope tonight's Stardust flyby will give scientists a fresh look at the damage inflicted by the Deep Impact crash...."

The rest of the article is a sort of Valentines-Day-themed list of interesting facts about the Tempel 1 mission.

How to Watch the Tempel 1 Flyby Online

"Want to Watch NASA's Comet Tempel 1 Flyby? Here's How"
Space.com (February 14, 2011)

"NASA's Stardust spacecraft may be 209 million miles from Earth when it snuggles up to comet Tempel 1 tonight (Feb. 14), but that doesn't mean the rest of us will have to miss out. NASA is giving the public several ways to see the comet flyby online.

"First, a bit of cosmic scheduling info: The Stardust spacecraft will fly by comet Tempel 1 tonight at 11:37 p.m. EST (8:37 p.m. PST, 0437 Feb. 15 GMT). That's the time of closest approach, though cameras on Stardust have already been able to spot comet Tempel 1. The flyby is part of NASA's Stardust-NExT flight, which extended the Stardust probe's original mission after it visited the comet Wild 2 in 2004.

"How to watch Stardust-NExT's comet rendezvous:

"NASA will broadcast the flyby live on NASA TV starting at 11:30 p.m. EST. If you don't get NASA TV on your televisions at home, you can watch the webcast here: here: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv...."

Hey! What are you still doing, reading this post? If you're interested in the Tempel 1 / Stardust-NExT flyby - follow that link.

Or, if the flyby's already happened by the time you read this, you can try these:

• "Stardust-Next & Comet Tempel 1"
  NASA
• "The Two Faces of Tempel 1"
  NASA (February 9, 2011)

Antimatter Streaming Out of Thunderstorms

"Antimatter caught streaming from thunderstorms on Earth"
Jason Palmer, Science and technology, BBC News, Seattle (January 11, 2011)

"A space telescope has accidentally spotted thunderstorms on Earth producing beams of antimatter.

"Such storms have long been known to give rise to fleeting sparks of light called terrestrial gamma-ray flashes.

"But results from the Fermi telescope show they also give out streams of electrons and their antimatter counterparts, positrons.

"The surprise result was presented by researchers at the American Astronomical Society meeting in the US.

"It deepens a mystery about terrestrial gamma-ray flashes, or TGFs - sparks of light that are estimated to occur 500 times a day in thunderstorms on Earth. They are a complex interplay of light and matter whose origin is poorly understood.

"Thunderstorms are known to create tremendously high electric fields - evidenced by lightning strikes...."

The BBC article does a pretty good job of discussing the news from NASA.

However, the Lemming thinks NASA did a better job:

"NASA's Fermi Catches Thunderstorms Hurling Antimatter into Space"
Fermi Gamma-Ray Telescope, NASA (January 10, 2011)

Includes 2:47 video, with narration.

"Scientists using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have detected beams of antimatter produced above thunderstorms on Earth, a phenomenon never seen before.

"Scientists think the antimatter particles were formed in a terrestrial gamma-ray flash (TGF), a brief burst produced inside thunderstorms and shown to be associated with lightning. It is estimated that about 500 TGFs occur daily worldwide, but most go undetected.

" 'These signals are the first direct evidence that thunderstorms make antimatter particle beams,' said Michael Briggs, a member of Fermi's Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) team at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). He presented the findings Monday, during a news briefing at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle...."


(from Goddard Space Flight, NASA, used w/o permission)
This is a frame from a NASA video which describes the process by which the Fermi observatory detected terrestrial gamma ray flashes. The caption reads:

"NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has detected beams of antimatter launched by thunderstorms. Acting like enormous particle accelerators, the storms can emit gamma-ray flashes, called TGFs, and high-energy electrons and positrons. Scientists now think that most TGFs produce particle beams and antimatter. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center"

The BBC article includes a frame from the NASA video: not this image, but part of an animation illustrating how electrons produce light over thunderstorms.

NASA's narration (echoed in the captions) explains how Fermi detected the gamma rays.

Another excerpt from the NASA article:

"...The spacecraft was located immediately above a thunderstorm for most of the observed TGFs, but in four cases, storms were far from Fermi. In addition, lightning-generated radio signals detected by a global monitoring network indicated the only lightning at the time was hundreds or more miles away. During one TGF, which occurred on Dec. 14, 2009, Fermi was located over Egypt. But the active storm was in Zambia, some 2,800 miles to the south. The distant storm was below Fermi's horizon, so any gamma rays it produced could not have been detected.

" 'Even though Fermi couldn't see the storm, the spacecraft nevertheless was magnetically connected to it,' said Joseph Dwyer at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Fla. 'The TGF produced high-speed electrons and positrons, which then rode up Earth's magnetic field to strike the spacecraft.'

"The beam continued past Fermi, reached a location, known as a mirror point, where its motion was reversed, and then hit the spacecraft a second time just 23 milliseconds later. Each time, positrons in the beam collided with electrons in the spacecraft. The particles annihilated each other, emitting gamma rays detected by Fermi's GBM...."

The NASA/Fermi article contains two other videos, plus illustrations.

The Fermi findings are the latest in serious study of the high-energy physics of thunderstorms: and quite interesting, if you're interested in that sort of thing. Which the Lemming is.

The Lemming also notes that scientists had a sort of 'shazam!' moment a few decades back, when video cameras picked up "sprites." Those bursts of light had been observed - and occasionally reported - by 'credulous' folks like soldiers and pilots for many years. And dismissed as hallucinations.

When video footage started showing up, researchers had, in the Lemming's view, a choice. They could say that the video cameras were hallucinating, too. Or they could acknowledge that there was a body of phenomena that they hadn't noticed before.

On the whole, the Lemming thinks the decision to acknowledge the existence of sprites was prudent. And, now that it's okay to study them: quite rewarding.

It's anyone's guess, in the Lemming's opinion, whether the movie industry will try to make a disaster flick out of this week's news: sort of like the 2012 silliness. (November 16, 2009)

Related posts:

• "Gamma Rays from Lightning: By Jove!"
  (November 2, 2009)
• "Thunderstorm Sprites' Light Source Sought"
  (February 20, 2009)

Interstellar Travel: Another Look

"Tau Zero Takes Aim at Interstellar Propulsion"
Paul Gilster, Space News, Discovery News (January 10, 2011)

"Guest contributor Paul Gilster is a founding member of the Tau Zero Foundation, a non-profit group of scientists dedicated to the incremental advancement of interstellar spaceflight. Project Icarus, one of the Foundation's key initiatives, has reached a major milestone and Paul shares this exciting project with Discovery News. Paul also maintains Centauri Dreams, the news forum of the Tau Zero Foundation.

"Marc Millis steeples his fingers, leaning back in his chair to ponder a question from one of the practitioner scientists of the Tau Zero Foundation.

"He's in Austin, Texas, for a session devoted to roughing-out ideas and organization plans for the young organization with an ambitious goal: Build a practical groundwork for interstellar flight within sound, peer-reviewed physics; establish the basics that will one day lead -- whether in decades or centuries -- to technologies that can take us to the stars.

"The blackboard is littered with his organizational chart, arrows connecting boxes, people attached to study groups. Solar sails, fusion, ion drives -- they're all up for discussion...."

The article focuses, rather tightly, on Project Icarus, one of the older efforts to design a practical interstellar probe. And no, Project Icarus isn't run by crackpots.

What's exciting about Project Icarus and similar endeavors is that, unlike Alcubierre's warp drive, they focus on propulsion technologies which are either available now, in development, or which might become practical in my childrens' lifetimes.

The Lemming's guess is that exploration of space around other stars will follow the same pattern that we see in exploration of the Solar system: astronomical observations; followed up by robot spaceships; with the rare-to-occasional expedition carrying people.

But that's just a guess.

A huge issue with travel between stars is that they're so far apart: around four or five light years, on average, in our neighborhood. Between the limited amount of energy we can use today, travel to the nearest star might, optimistically, take centuries. (NASA (July 1, 1995))

Then, as propulsion systems get more advanced, we run into another barrier: literally. The space between stars is almost a perfect vacuum. Almost, but not quite. There's an average of one hydrogen atom in every cubic centimeter. (Gene Smith, Center for Astrophysics & Space Sciences, UC San Diego)

Something traveling fast enough to get to, say, Alpha Centauri, less than five light years away, in 40 years would have to be going at around an eighth the speed of light. At those speeds, the object would be running into those atoms - very fast. At those speeds, the electrons, neutrons, and protons of the the hydrogen nuclei would act like cosmic rays, when they hit the leading edge of that speedy object.

Which isn't to say that interstellar travel that doesn't take centuries is impossible. Just that it's something we don't have the technology for.

Today.

Technology to send people into orbit wasn't around when Robert Goddard startled his neighbors in Massachusetts: and that's another topic.

Related posts:

• "Interstellar Space Probe: Thirty Years Later"
  (May 9, 2010)
• "Warp Speed Kills? Let's Say It's an Engineering Challenge"
  (March 11, 2010)
• "Interstellar Travel: Difficult, yes; Impossible; No - NASA"
  (April 30, 2008)
• "Warp Drive Might Not Be Stable: Physicists Take Another look at Alcubierre's Work"
  (June 12, 2009)
• "Why 'It Can't Be Done' is a Dangerous Statement"
  (January 24, 2008)

---

More:

• "How to Build an Antimatter Rocket for Interstellar Missions" (pdf)
  Systems Level Considerations in Designing Advanced Propulsion Technology Vehicles
  Robert H. Frisbee, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, via NASA (July 2003)
• "Humanity in Space: The Next Few Centuries"

More, at other websites:

• "Emerging Possibilities for Space Propulsion Breakthroughs"
  NASA (July 1, 1995)
• "Breakthrough Propulsion Physics" NASA - including
  • Quantum Vacuum Energy
  • Transient Inertia
  • Lifters, Biefeld-Brown, Asymmetrical Capacitors, etc.
  • Space Drives(Step 1: defining the problem)
  • Faster Than Light (general relativity approach)
• "Early Days of Rocket and Aeronautics"
  Marshall Space Flight Center - including
  • Timeline of Rocket History)
  • Notes on Robert Goddard)
  • MSFC Goddard Rocket Replica Project)
  • Notes on Hermann Oberth)
  • Photograph of Hermann Oberth)
  • Notes on the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics)
  • Photograph of NACA Pilot)

Viking Life Experiments: Another Look at Organic Stuff on Mars

"Life's Building Blocks May Have Been Found on Mars, Research Finds"
Mike Wall, Space.com (January 6, 2011)

"NASA's Viking landers may have detected the ingredients for life on Mars after all, according to a new study.

"Back in the 1970s, the two Viking probes scooped up and heated Martian dirt, then looked for organic molecules — the carbon-based building blocks of life as we know it - in the samples. The landers found little, aside from two strange chlorine compounds that researchers at the time attributed to contamination from cleaning fluids.

"But the new study suggests that the soil did indeed contain organics, which can have biological or nonbiological origins. They were just destroyed before Viking could detect them.

" 'This result is saying that there are organic molecules on Mars,' study co-author Chris McKay, of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., told SPACE.com. 'It doesn't say anything about life now, or life in the past. But it does open up the possibility of searching for organic molecules produced by life, and that's very exciting.'..."

The article explains that the new analysis started when folks looked at what the Phoenix Mars lander found: perchlorate, a chemical that contains chlorine. If perchlorate and the Viking life experiment's machinery got together, organic compounds in the Martian soil could have been destroyed, leaving chloromethane and dichloromethane. Which would explain the 'peculiar chemistry' that wasn't at all what researchers expected.

There's the possibility that the 'peculiar chemistry' may have been what was left after Martian microbes got deluged with water: and exploded. Someone came up with an intriguing way that critters not all that unlike Terrestrial microbes could live in a nearly-water-free place like Mars. (March 5, 2009)

The Lemming doesn't think that the 'exploding Martians' idea is very likely: but it's plausible. The researcher who came up with it deserves credit for realizing that Mars isn't Earth. And that critters (if any) living there would be adapted to a thin carbon dioxide atmosphere and almost no water. Not the thick nitrogen-oxygen mix blanketing the comparatively soggy Earth.

Organic compounds aren't life, as the article points out. But they're what life is made of - life-as-we-know-it, anyway. The possibility that Mars has organic stuff on its surface means that the next Mars rover mission should probably have its payload reconsidered. The Lemming thinks it makes sense to test for organic compounds on the planet. Preferably, tests designed with Martian conditions in mind.

Then, if those tests come back positive, more research to find out if the compounds come from critters.

Sooner or later, the Lemming thinks, someone's going to think of putting a microscope on a Mars lander. No matter what 'peculiar chemistry' Martian microbes have, odds are that at least some of them move.

Related posts:

• "Mars isn't Earth, Earth isn't Mars: And Why That Matters"
  (May 12, 2010)
• "Life on Ceres? Could Be"
  (March 5, 2009)
  Particularly
  • Exploding Martians and the Viking Life Experiment

---

Other posts, about

• "Mars, Mostly"

Related posts, at

• "A Serious Search for Other Worlds, Life, and - Maybe - Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence"

NanoSail-D: Maybe It's Working, Maybe Not

"NanoSail-D Mission Status Update for Dec. 10"
NanoSail-D Latest News, NASA (December 10, 2010)

"At this time, it is not clear that NanoSail-D ejected from the Fast, Affordable, Science and Technology Satellite (FASTSAT) as originally stated on Monday, Dec. 6. At the time of ejection, spacecraft telemetry data showed a positive ejection as reflected by confirmation of several of the planned on orbit ejection sequence events. The FASTSAT spacecraft ejection system data was also indicative of an ejection event...."

Just one problem - as of Friday, the FASTSAT folks couldn't get their satellite to confirm that NanoSail-D had deployed. So they're troubleshooting.

The NASA website has a sort of backgrounder page: "A Brief History of Solar Sails." The idea behind today's technology goes back about 400 years, to Johannes Kepler's observation of comet tails:

"...Almost 400 years ago, German astronomer Johannes Kepler observed comet tails being blown by what he thought to be a solar 'breeze.'² This observation inspired him to suggest that 'ships and sails proper for heavenly air should be fashioned' to glide through space...."

He was right - sort of. Force from sunlight is more effective for propulsion. But we didn't know that until 1873, when James Clerk Maxwell did some experimental work with light.

Then it took about a century before we had a chance to put something in orbit, and do actual field tests.

Today, there's a sailing ship headed for Venus.

In principle, we should be able to push a light sail to another star: a possibility the Lemming mentioned in another blog. Something that acts like Star Trek's warp drive? Check out "Humanity in Space: The Next Few Centuries." Remember, though: It took about four centuries to go from Kepler's theorizing to Ikaros and NanoSail-D.

Meanwhile, sailing the Solar system seems a practical approach to exploration. At least for robotic spacecraft.

Related posts:

• "JAXA's Ikaros Sets Sail for Venus"
  (June 19, 2010)
• "Sailing on Sunlight"
  (November 11, 2009)

More:

• "Humanity in Space: The Next Few Decades"

Arsenic and Old Science: NASA and Extraterrestrial Life

The Lemming doesn't know what it is about the science folks at FOXNews and Saturn - but today's article has a name in the byline: also an update on NASA, extraterrestrial life, and looking for a quarter in the yard.

No, really: that last phrase makes sense, in context.

"Are Aliens Among Us? Sort of, NASA Says"
John Brandon, Science, FOXNews, (December 2, 2010)

"Alien life has been among us all along, according to new biological findings announced by NASA Thursday.

"Research conducted by biochemist Dr. Felisa Wolfe-Simon from the U.S. Geological Survey has turned the quest for alien life on its ear, suggesting that phosphorous[!], carbon, and the other fundamental elements found in every living thing on Earth aren't the only signs of life. Wolfe-Simon will explain the findings at a hotly anticipated NASA press conference today at 2 p.m.

"After a two-year study at California's Mono Lake, near Yosemite National Park, Wolfe-Simon found that a bug will grow in the presence of the toxic chemical arsenic when only slight traces of phosphorous are present. It's a radical finding, says molecular biologist Steven Benner, who is part of NASA's 'Team Titan' and an expert on astrobiology -- forcing the space agency to redefine the quest for other life in the universe.

" 'When we're searching for alien life, if it's not a Ferengi from Star Trek, what would it be?' Benner asked FoxNews.com. In his estimation, we've always defined life as something that has the exact same chemistry as a life-form on Earth. The new discovery will likely change that equation, because it means the basic building blocks of DNA are not quite what we thought...."

So far, so good. Biologists are learning quite a bit from studying extremophile - critters that live in places that most other plants, animals, bacteria, fungi - and so on - can't survive in.

There's more to the article, including these quotes:

"...'It's a paradigm shift,' says Dimitar Sasselov, an astrobiologist who leads the Origins of Life Initiative at Harvard University. 'The possibility that Earth-life biochemistry is not universal is a transformational concept. It fills the search [for alien life] with optimism. NASA is moving in a good overall direction. What is needed is to take alternatives for life's chemistry to heart and fund research work better.'

"Arsenic is poisonous to nearly all forms of life on earth. Even small amounts of the poison become embedded in living tissue, causing liver failure and ultimately death -- in nearly everything BUT these bacteria...."

Nit-Picking by the Lemming

Good grief. This article was presumably done by a 'science' reporter. Well, he was probably educated in America.

It's Phosphorus, not "Phosphorous"

"Phosphorous," that multivalent nonmetallic element of the nitrogen family, spelled "phosphorus"

Arsenic, Phosphorus, Livers, and Life

Arsenic is bad for us because we've got livers - and arsenic is not good for the liver. Or the rest of us. It's chemically similar to phosphorus - and I'll get back to that. Plants don't have livers - and arsenic isn't particularly good for them, either. Again, it's a chemical thing. (National Institutes of Health)

Like just about everything else (November 22, 2010), there's a little bit of arsenic in all of us - it doesn't start being a problem until there's too much. One of the reasons arsenic in plants is studied is because the stuff was used to kill boll weevils. (Dartmouth Toxic Metals Research Program) And the Lemming is getting off-topic.

Looking for a Quarter in the Yard

The Lemming said that looking for a quarter made sense, in context. Here's the context:

"...science fiction author Robert Sawyer told FoxNews.com, there could be even more profound implications. We have always looked for alien life that matches our biology, but now we have found a different life-form that uses arsenic in its basic DNA structure, he said.

"Sawyer explained that NASA science probes have always looked in the most likely places we thought life could exist -- on Mars or Europa, a moon of Jupiter. There is an old joke, he says, about how someone lost a quarter in their garage, then looks out in the yard for it. A neighbor asks why they are looking there instead of in the garage; the light is better, he answers.

" 'We tend to use the tools we know and the places we know to look for alien life,' Sawyer said, explaining that humans want to find a walking, crawling alien and not one that just has different DNA...."
(FOXNews, emphasis mine)

What is it about Saturn?

The Lemming doesn't know what it is about the folks doing science news at FOXNews and Saturn.

Here's a somewhat non sequitur reference to Saturn:

"...Benner, said the arsenic-loving organism at Mono Lake grew without high levels of the nutrient phosphate (although some phosphates were still present). Just as important, it could change how we look for alien life on other planets, especially on Saturn and the moons of Jupiter...."

NASA's feature - I'll get to that in just a bit - doesn't mention Saturn. The gas giant isn't - outside of some fairly imaginative science fiction - near the top of the list for places we're looking for life.

Titan orbits Saturn - and that's another topic. (December 1, 2010)

NASA, Arsenic, and the Search for Life

"NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical"
NASA (December 2, 2010)

"NASA-funded astrobiology research has changed the fundamental knowledge about what comprises all known life on Earth.

"Researchers conducting tests in the harsh environment of Mono Lake in California have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in its cell components.

" 'The definition of life has just expanded,' said Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency's Headquarters in Washington. 'As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it.'

"This finding of an alternative biochemistry makeup will alter biology textbooks and expand the scope of the search for life beyond Earth. The research is published in this week's edition of Science Express.

"Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur are the six basic building blocks of all known forms of life on Earth. Phosphorus is part of the chemical backbone of DNA and RNA, the structures that carry genetic instructions for life, and is considered an essential element for all living cells.

"Phosphorus is a central component of the energy-carrying molecule in all cells (adenosine triphosphate) and also the phospholipids that form all cell membranes. Arsenic, which is chemically similar to phosphorus, is poisonous for most life on Earth. Arsenic disrupts metabolic pathways because chemically it behaves similarly to phosphate.

" 'We know that some microbes can breathe arsenic, but what we've found is a microbe doing something new -- building parts of itself out of arsenic,' said Felisa Wolfe-Simon, a NASA Astrobiology Research Fellow in residence at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., and the research team's lead scientist. 'If something here on Earth can do something so unexpected, what else can life do that we haven't seen yet?'

"The newly discovered microbe, strain GFAJ-1, is a member of a common group of bacteria, the Gammaproteobacteria. In the laboratory, the researchers successfully grew microbes from the lake on a diet that was very lean on phosphorus, but included generous helpings of arsenic. When researchers removed the phosphorus and replaced it with arsenic the microbes continued to grow. Subsequent analyses indicated that the arsenic was being used to produce the building blocks of new GFAJ-1 cells.

"The key issue the researchers investigated was when the microbe was grown on arsenic did the arsenic actually became incorporated into the organisms' vital biochemical machinery, such as DNA, proteins and the cell membranes. A variety of sophisticated laboratory techniques was used to determine where the arsenic was incorporated...."

Now that's interesting. Also spelled correctly, and without any irrelevant mentions of Saturn. Or Ypsilanti.

Related posts:

• "NASA, Extraterrestrial Life: and Titan is a Moon of Saturn, not Mars"
  (December 1, 2010)
• "Viking Life Experiments, Revisited"
  (September 14, 2010)
• "Organic Compounds in Murchison Meteor: Lots of Them"
  (February 16, 2010)
• "DNA - A Universal Pattern? Could Be"
  (April 8, 2009)
• "Life on Ceres? Could Be"
  (March 5, 2009)
  Particularly
  • Exploding Martians and the Viking Life Experiment

More related posts, at

• "A Serious Search for Other Worlds, Life, and - Maybe - Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence"

---

The title of this post? "Arsenic and Old Science..."? Arsenic and Old Lace is a 1944 Cary Grant comedy. That has nothing to do with extraterrestrial life. Or Saturn.