Tag: NASA

Water, Water Everywhere…

“‘The discovery opens a new chapter in our understanding of the moon,’ the space agency said in a written statement.” It’s official: Data from NASA’s LCROSS impact of a few weeks ago confirms the recent findings of Chandraayan-1: It ain’t Hoth or Rura Penthe, but there is a “significant amount” of water on the moon, like, ice-field size.

“The amount of water they found in the plume was a couple of hundred kilograms in total, but that indicates there is a lot more still lying on the surface. They don’t know how much exactly just yet.” (As we found out recently, the same might also hold true of Mars.)

“‘The full understanding of the LCROSS data may take some time. The data is that rich,’ said Colaprete. ‘Along with the water in Cabeus, there are hints of other intriguing substances. The permanently shadowed regions of the moon are truly cold traps, collecting and preserving material over billions of years.‘” I’m very reminded of James Hogan’s Inherit the Stars right now. Also, it’s probably about time to start taking lunar exploration a bit more seriously again, eh?

The World According to Mij.

“‘This film integrates my life’s achievements,’ he told me. ‘It’s the most complicated stuff anyone’s ever done.” Another time, he said, “If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.’” On the eve of Avatar, the New Yorker‘s Dana Goodyear delivers a long and interesting profile of take-no-guff, autocratic auteur James Cameron. (“A small, loyal band of cast and crew works with him repeatedly; they call the dark side of his personality Mij–Jim backward.“)

The whole thing is definitely worth a read, but this caught me eye further down the piece: “‘We should ultimately have colonies on Mars, for purposes of expanding the footprint of the human race,’ Cameron says. He shares with the Mars Society the opinion that NASA — on whose advisory council he sat for three years — has become too risk-averse. ‘We’ve become cowards, basically,’ he says. ‘As a society, we’re just fat and happy and comfortable and we’ve lost the edge.’” Listen to the King of the World — he’s dead on.

The Moon Receding?

“‘If you’re willing to wait until 2028, you’ve got a heavy lift vehicle, but you’ve got nothing to lift,’ she said. ‘You cannot do this program on this budget.‘” President Obama’s Human Space Flight Plans Committee is set to announce that getting back to the moon by 2020 is not feasible given current budgetary constraints, and Mars is definitely out of the question. “The final list of options…will include some variation of a lunar base down the road. But the committee is most animated by what it calls the ‘Deep Space’ option, a strategy that emphasizes getting astronauts far beyond Low Earth Orbit but not necessarily plunking them down on alien worlds.‘” Which basically sounds like unnecessarily strapping astronauts to normally-unmanned fly-by missions — Not sure I see much point in that.

Honestly, this is pathetic. As I said here, it’s time to raise our expectations of what we can achieve in space, and fund manned exploration of the solar system accordingly. Particularly given how much we’re blowing on the Pentagon’s space toys at the moment, we could stand to spend a bit more on one of the most important collective human endeavors still before us.

The “Orphans of Apollo.”

“So why do tech geeks love space? Though they may have the resources — a trip to space will now set you back some $45 million — this can’t be the full answer: You don’t see Donald Trump or P. Diddy signing up for an astro-mission. What makes it worth it for the tech geeks?” The Big Money‘s Julia Ioffe tries to ascertain why dot.com miliionaires pay out the nose for space travel. Uh, because it’s there?

“‘There’s a documentary called Orphans of Apollo that’s stated this well,’ he explained. ‘There’s a generation of us, who are the tech leaders of today, who were universally inspired to go into science and technology because of the NASA Lunar Space Program. And the reason the movie is called Orphans of Apollo is because, in many ways, we feel orphaned by the fact that the space industry has not done a good job of capitalizing on that momentum of what many of us believed were the first steps into space, carrying the mission of human space flight farther and farther into deep space.’“

Ground Control to Major Kong.

“In Huntsville, Ala., there is an unusual grave site where, instead of flowers, people sometimes leave bananas. The gravestone reads: ‘Miss Baker, squirrel monkey, first U.S. animal to fly in space and return alive. May 28, 1959.‘” On the fiftieth anniversary of their history-making flight, NPR remembers NASA’s pioneering space monkeys, Able and Baker. “More than 300 people attended Baker’s funeral service when she died of kidney failure in 1984, Buckbee says. And, he says, often at her grave at the entrance to the rocket center, ‘you’ll see a banana or two laying there.’”

The Other End of the Telescope.


“‘Houston, Hubble has been released,’ Atlantis commander Scott Altman radioed Mission Control. ‘It’s safely back on its journey of exploration as we begin the steps to conclude ours.” The crew of STS-125 re-release the Hubble into high orbit, their epic repair-and-upgrade mission accomplished. “‘We have literally thousands of astronomers out there around the world waiting to use these new capabilities,’ Morse said. ‘And they are chomping at the bit to get their data.‘” Great work, Atlantis.

Update: Spiffy pic above — and many more like it — courtesy of Boston.com‘s The Big Picture and Hal at Blivet.

One Giant Leap for Truthiness?

“‘I certainly hope NASA does the right thing,’ Colbert said in a news release from the space agency. ‘Just kidding, I hope they name it after me.’” The inimitable Stephen Colbert awaits word from NASA today on whether the new ISS wing will be christened after him, or whether (as probably more likely) NASA will tip their hat to the runner-up browncoats and dub the new Node 3 “Serenity.” “Colbert demanded NASA allow ‘democracy in orbit’ on his show two weeks ago. ‘Either name that node after me or I, too, will reject democracy and seize power as space’s evil tyrant overlord.’” Don’t say we weren’t warned.

Update: That’s no moon, that’s a…treadmill. (The “Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill,” to be exact.) As for Node 3, it’s called Tranquility.

Grasp of Thanos.

Speaking of NASA, somebody page Jim Starlin (and file this next to the Great Eye): Another holdover from last week, The agency’s Chandra X-Ray Laboratory captures an eerie and beautiful galactic “hand” reaching across the cosmos. “[T]he display is caused by a young and powerful pulsar, known by the rather prosaic name of PSR B1509-58…The space agency says B1509 — created by a collapsed star — is one of the most powerful electromagnetic generators in the Galaxy. The nebula is formed by a torrent of electrons and ions emitted by the 1,700-year-old phenomenon. The finger-like structures are apparently caused by ‘energizing knots of material in a neighboring gas cloud,’ NASA says.”

Rocket’s Red Glare, Meet Bombs Bursting in Air.

“‘An automated rendezvous does all sorts of things for your missile accuracy and anti-satellite programs,’ said John Sheldon, a visiting professor of advanced air and space studies at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. ‘The manned effort is about prestige, but it’s also a good way of testing technologies that have defense applications.‘” In order to keep pace with the increasingly proficient Chinese space program, President-elect Obama may be considering retying NASA to the Pentagon, “because military rockets may be cheaper and ready sooner than the space agency’s planned launch vehicle, which isn’t slated to fly until 2015…Obama has said the Pentagon’s space program — which spent about $22 billion in fiscal year 2008, almost a third more than NASA’s budget — could be tapped to speed the civilian agency toward its goals as the recession pressures federal spending.”

Hmm. On one hand, I would think making NASA yet another fiefdom of the Pentagon would greatly facilitate its ability to lock down the funding it needs for various exploratory endeavors, recession or no. And if the types of conveyance vehicles NASA needs are basically sitting around gathering dust in some Pentagon-owned warehouse next to the ark of the covenant, well then it only makes sense to combine the two programs. No need to reinvent the, uh, rocket.

On the other hand, putting the brass in charge is probably going to have deleterious effects on the types of projects NASA pursues in the future. And, in a perfect world, there’s something to be said for having a civilian space program completely outside the purview of the military. In fact, now that i think about it, won’t combining the Pentagon and NASA space programs cut back on the types of international cooperation that have guided our efforts in space in recent years? Given the current economic climate, I guess this is the best way for NASA to continue pursuing its goals in the short term. Still, there could well be trouble ahead.