And You Thought Hubble Was Impressive...

Over the years, we have seen some amazing, incredible, astounding, superlative-laden images coming from our valuable space friend, the Hubble Telescope. Hubble's had a few struggles, and has needed the occasional repair job, but it's also shown us things in space that have made us "ooh" and "aah" with childlike delight. One of the last missions of the soon-to-be-retired space shuttle will be to go out and give Hubble another much-needed tune-up. Thank you NASA, and keep the pictures coming. NASA, however, isn't resting on Hubble's laurels, and has bigger and better things in mind. The James Webb Space Telescope will someday be sending us pretty pictures from farther out in space than Hubble can peer, because NASA has figured out how to send up a mirror in folding segments, segments that will unfold once they get to their new home and outshine Hubble in the process. This, however, is just the beginning.

NASA has some even bigger plans, due to the development of a new rocket, the Ares V, which will be able to take payloads of 284,000 pounds off this pretty blue ball we call home. With the Ares V, NASA could send mirrors (the main part that makes all that telescoping possible) of over 8 meters into space--no folding required. The mere mention of 8-meter-mirrors may not convey much information to us non-scientist types, but all those jaw-dropping pictures from Hubble come courtesy of a mirror that's only 2.4 meters wide. According to NASA, we're looking at the possibility of telescopes with three times the resolution of Hubble, and the ability to see things that are eleven times fainter than what Hubble can detect right now, because the mirror's surface area will be eleven times greater. I'm not sure how that works mathematically, or scientifically, or any other kind of "ically," but since that won't stop me from enjoying the pictures and the knowledge we gain from the new super space-viewing toy, I'm prepared to forgo any concern I might have at being so dependant upon Smart People for all the really cool space stuff, and simply to be grateful that Smart People exist.

Follow the link to the NASA article to read all about their plans. If you want to expand your brain a bit, click on this "Lagrange point" link for an explanation of 18th-century mathematician Josef Lagrange's discovery of "parking" spots in space, spots where the pull of the Sun and the pull of the Earth conspire together to keep satellites firmly in place. NASA intends to use these spots to the fullest, and fill up the parking lot with various and sundry telescopes, all searching the heavens for new and vital spacey information, and more jaw-dropping pictures. The information is cool and all, and I'm glad that the Smart People have ways to collect and use it, but if you ask me, the best part is the pictures.

Hey, I Was Right!!

It's not often that I feel the need to quote myself, but I predicted something scientific and space-related that might actually turn out to be true, and now I have to revel in my brief moment of rightness. Back in July of 2006, I read a report from NASA that the Cassini spacecraft had found evidence for lakes of liquid methane on Titan, one of Saturn's moons. I took a mental leap--not a huge one for the real sciency types, but a respectable leap for me:

Scientists will continue to observe the areas, looking for evidence like changes in size, or surface roughness stirred by winds, to indicate whether they've guessed correctly. If they're right, Titan is "the only body in the solar system besides Earth known to possess lakes." Not exactly the place you'd want to go for a summer vacation. One usually heads to a lake for fresh air and exercise, but Titan's not really a fresh air environment, is it? All that methane and ethane might make it a little hard to head out for a hike, or row a canoe, wouldn't you say? What a shame; it would be such an adventure to head to a lakeside cabin off-world. Oh well, there's got to be a bright side, right? Hmmm, liquid methane...liquid methane...sounds like a possible built-in fuel depot to me. That's it!! Titan can be the gas station on the way to some other cool vacation spot that we'll discover any day now. It's not quite as fun as finding Shangri-La on some other planet, but it will have to do.

My big prediction, somewhat flippantly expressed, was that someday Titan's lakes could fuel our journeys to other exciting destinations. Guess what? NASA thinks I'm right!! Well, okay, NASA doesn't know anything about me and my little bloggy predictions, but I can at least say that NASA agrees with me. NASA is testing a methane rocket engine, hoping to take advantage of the abundance of methane just waiting to be harvested from our neighboring planets. Patrick Barry, writing at NASA's Science website, says that methane engines "could eventually be key to deep space exploration."

Some of the advantages to the methane engine include the fact that liquid methane can be stored at a higher temperature than liquid hydrogen (the current fuel of choice for the soon-to-be-retired space shuttle.) This would mean less insulation, and thus less weight to haul off of planet Earth. Liquid methane, according to Barry, is also denser than liquid hydrogen, which would make the fuel tanks smaller, lighter and, ultimately, cheaper. Barry quotes project manager Terri Tramel of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center as adding safety to the list of methane's perks:

Methane also gets high marks for human safety. While some rocket fuels are potentially toxic, "methane is what we call a green propellant," Tramel says. "You don't have to put on a HAZMAT suit to handle it like fuels used on many space vehicles."

Here's the gravy, though, as far as the NASA-proving-me-right part of this little self-congratulatory post goes. In our solar system, methane is basically ubiquitous, so rockets wouldn't have to carry fuel for the whole journey along with them. They could pick some up along the way:

But the key attraction for methane is that it exists or can be made on many worlds that NASA might want to visit someday, including Mars.

Although Mars is not rich in methane, methane can be manufactured there via the Sabatier process: Mix some carbon dioxide (CO2) with hydrogen (H), then heat the mixture to produce CH4 and H20--methane and water. The Martian atmosphere is an abundant source of carbon dioxide, and the relatively small amount of hydrogen required for the process may be brought along from Earth or gathered in situ from Martian ice.

Traveling further out in the solar system, methane becomes even easier to come by. On Saturn's moon Titan, it is literally raining liquid methane. Titan is dotted with lakes and rivers of methane and other hydrocarbons that could one day serve as fuel depots. Imagine, a methane-powered rocket could allow a robotic probe to land on the surface of Titan, gather geological samples, refill its tanks, and blast off to return those samples to Earth. Such a sample-return mission from the outer solar system has never been attempted.

The atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune all contain methane, and Pluto has frozen methane ice on its surface. New kinds of missions to these worlds may become possible with methane rockets.

So, Titan may well turn out to be an interplanetary gas station, as well as a geological destination-of-interest in its own right. Speaking of destinations-of-interest, head over to the NASA article if you want to watch the video of the new rocket in action in the Mojave desert. It's way cool, and downright pretty, with this really impressive blue flame. They're still working on the project, with tweaks to be done before a methane-fueled rocket can blast off the launchpad, heading for fabulous holiday destinations like the Lakes of Titan, but the pretty blue test was a promising start.

The best part of all this scientific and spacey advancement, from my perspective? I got to be right! (Hey, cut me some slack. It doesn't happen that often.)

More Odds And Ends On A Sunny Day

It's a fine sunny day in Meowville, so it's out to the back yard to dig a trench and put up gutters. I sincerely hope so, anyway. It would be really wonderful if we could get both those things done in the short time allotted before the rain kicks back in--supposedly tomorrow. So, since I'm playing gopher again today, I'll just toss a few quick links your way to keep you entertained and address a few of life's more nagging questions. Such as:

Do dogs know they are dogs, and that you're not? New Scientist has the scoop.

What happens to food and medicine exposed to six-plus months of space travel? NASA's investigating as we prep to head for Mars.

What's happening on the ground in Iraq? Michael Yon is there, and as usual, is reporting what he sees. No sugar coating, no axe to grind.

Do geometric patterns occur in nature outside of snowflakes? They do on Saturn. There's a weather hexagon on Saturn's north pole. New Scientist has a link to a video.

That should keep you busy for awhile. I am now thoroughly caffeinated and ready to go wield my trusty shovel. As I dig, I must keep reminding myself, "People pay money for this kind of workout. This is good for me. It could be worse. It could be raining." Hopefully this will keep my attitude in check as I comply with the City of Portland's drainage codes. I'll try to spare you the anti-City rant today. It really could be worse. It really could be raining.

The Sun In Action

It's turning into Space Day at the Meow. You gotta go watch the video NASA has posted of the eruption of a giant solar flare. When I say giant, I mean giant. According to Dr. Tony Phillips, a production editor for NASA's Science website, this particular flare that Japan's Hinode spacecraft captured on video is almost as big as Earth! Dr. Phillips has some interesting things to say about what Hinode is teaching scientists about the Sun, and why it's important. Have a look. It's good learning. Besides that, the video is just plain cool.

Having A Look At Io And Pluto

I know I've written about some serious Earth-based stuff lately, and it might be a bit jarring to jump back out into space, but this is just so cool and interesting. I had to let you see it too. Dr. Tony Phillips, has the latest from NASA's ventures in space exploration, complete with pictures. For those of you who don't know, NASA has a spacecraft headed out to Pluto. The craft is named New Horizons, and it's carrying an eight-inch telescope called LORRI, short for Long Range Reconnaissance Imager. They're looking to snap some high resolution pics of the recently-demoted dwarf planet and its moons, sometime around 2015. To get her there on schedule, NASA decided that New Horizons needed a speed boost on the way out to the fringes of our solar system, so they swung her by Jupiter, to slingshot around the giant planet and pick up 9,000 mph of extra giddy-up. This will cut five years off the trip--well worth the detour, wouldn't you say?

Now, since New Horizons was doing a flyby of the big guy anyway, of course NASA seized the opportunity to take a few photos of Jupiter and the multiple moons hanging out in the vicinity. In fact, LORRI didn't waste any time, snapping a whole gallery of images of Io, Europa, Callisto and Ganymede. They're all interesting in their own ways, but it's Io that captured the attention of NASA's old hands. LORRI caught Io's Tvashtar volcano in fine form; the erupting plume image is the best "longtime Jupiter experts -- have ever seen." No kidding--the plume rises 180 miles above the surface of the moon! (I almost said "into the air," but that doesn't quite work on Io, now does it?) If you follow the link to the article, the photo is there for your viewing pleasure, along with a link to other pics that LORRI shot in the neighborhood.

One of the rather amazing things about this eruption on Io is what the photo shows happens when the plume gets that high in that environment. Dr. Phillips quotes Andy Cheng, a scientist from Johns Hopkins' Applied Physics Lab:

"The patchy and filamentous structure seen in the Tvashtar plume suggests to me that condensation from gas to solid particulates is occurring," he says. In other words, the gas could be crystallizing in the cold space above Io to form a kind of sulfurous snow.

Volcanoes spewing snow? It is an alien world.

Alien, indeed. In case I haven't mentioned it before (of course I have)--I want to go there!! Things are happening out there, and I'm missing them--or, at least I would be, if it weren't for New Horizons. Fortunately, LORRI was there at the right place at the right time; although, the chances were pretty good that LORRI would catch something interesting no matter when she showed up. Apparently, this kind of action isn't rare on this particular Jupitorial satellite. Io, is a rather volcanically active little guy. According to Dr. Phillips:

Gravitational forces exerted on Io by Jupiter and the other large moons raise tidal bulges in Io's solid crust 30 meters high. This flexing action, like the flexing of a paperclip, makes Io's interior molten hot and, as a result, the moon has hundreds of active volcanoes.

There's a nifty little animated graphic with Dr. Phillips' article which demonstrates all that tidal bulging. It looks a lot like a tennis ball flexing, when a video camera catches it in slow motion after it's been hit with a good strong forehand.

As New Horizons heads out to the farther reaches of our little corner of the galaxy, there are ever more discoveries to be made. Pluto awaits, and NASA plans to closely examine our little dwarf friend, and his immediate family:

"Future LORRI images of Pluto and Charon will have even more detail and higher resolution, because New Horizons will bring us at least a thousand times closer than we came to Io," notes Cheng. Of course, no one has any idea what LORRI will see, because Pluto has never been visited by a space probe. "That's why we're going."

One more interesting thing about Pluto and Charon: Wikipedia says that Pluto may get reclassified again, and Charon may come in for a bigger piece of the spotlight:

Pluto and its largest satellite, Charon, could be considered a binary system because they are closer in size than any of the other known celestial pair combinations in the solar system, and because the barycenter of their orbits does not lie within either body. However, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has yet to formalize a definition for binary dwarf planets, so Charon is currently regarded as a moon of Pluto.

It might be hard for Pluto to face yet another change in status, but then again, maybe not. Pluto and Charon are close, you know, and Pluto may be happy to see his buddy get a little more attention. Besides, being a binary system would make Pluto kind of unique, in our neck of the woods anyway, and it might compensate for getting kicked out of the big boys' club. I'm not saying that Pluto has an ego. He may be perfectly humble, but if I was recently told I couldn't hang with the cool kids anymore, it would probably make me feel better if someone made a fuss over me for awhile, especially if I got to start a new club with my best friend.

How To Protect Yourself From Cosmic Rays If You Ever Happen To Make It Into Space

This one is fun. Remember back in September when the poor commander got lost on Mars and couldn't understand Base's instructions? No? Okay, go here first and refresh your memory. I'll wait... Finished? Then we're ready to move on. Since you've now done your homework, you know that the reason the Mars mission was in jeopardy was that the crew's brains were being scrambled by radiation. Radiation is a big problem that scientists are going to have to figure out before humans start heading out past the protection of the Earth's magnetic field, beyond the orbit where the International Space Station flies above the Earth in relative safety. The Moon and Mars, as we all know, are on the short list for mission possibilities, and spending such long periods of time in space could do more than scramble a few brain cells; if current theories are correct, astronauts could be risking premature aging by heading out into the cosmic ray zone. (That last link leads to an interesting article about space radiation, telomeres, Einstein and pills to repair DNA damage--I followed a link from there to one about what the heck telomeres are, and how they affect aging, with possible implications for human life extension. Pretty interesting if you want to follow some rabbit trails.)

All of that aside, however, what I really want to tell you about is the idea some scientists have for blocking all that radiation, so that no astronautical DNA is damaged in the first place. Patrick L. Barry wrote an article for NASA about how they are looking to make space ships out of a revolutionary new material--you're not going to guess this one in a million years. (Well, okay, I wouldn't have guessed it in a million years.) The material? Plastic. Polyethylene, to be precise. This is what they use to make the plastic trash bags of which we all have an abundance under our kitchen sink.

Most household trash bags are made of a polymer called polyethylene. Variants of that molecule turn out to be excellent at shielding the most dangerous forms of space radiation. Scientists have long known this. The trouble has been trying to build a spaceship out of the flimsy stuff.

But now NASA scientists have invented a groundbreaking, polyethylene-based material called RXF1 that's even stronger and lighter than aluminum. "This new material is a first in the sense that it combines superior structural properties with superior shielding properties," says Nasser Barghouty, Project Scientist for NASA's Space Radiation Shielding Project at the Marshall Space Flight Center.

To Mars in a plastic spaceship? As daft as it may sound, it could be the safest way to go.

According to Barry, one of plastic's big selling points is that when radiation smashes into it, it doesn't produce nearly as much "secondary radiation" as materials like aluminum or lead. That secondary radiation can be just as much of a problem for astronauts as the cosmic rays themselves:

The advantage of plastic-like materials is that they produce far less "secondary radiation" than heavier materials like aluminum or lead. Secondary radiation comes from the shielding material itself. When particles of space radiation smash into atoms within the shield, they trigger tiny nuclear reactions. Those reactions produce a shower of nuclear byproducts -- neutrons and other particles -- that enter the spacecraft. It's a bit like trying to protect yourself from a flying bowling ball by erecting a wall of pins. You avoid the ball but get pelted by pins. "Secondaries" can be worse for astronauts' health than the original space radiation!

Barry says the lighter elements of hydrogen and carbon, the building blocks for those plastic bags, won't completely stop the space radiation, but can fragment that radiation so that it is much less harmful. He uses the example of a chain link fence blocking a snowball. Some snow still gets through, but it doesn't hurt as much. This author has a knack for making scientific-speak understandable, doesn't he? I'll let him tell you more:

Despite their shielding power, ordinary trash bags obviously won't do for building a spaceship. So Barghouty and his colleagues have been trying to beef-up polyethylene for aerospace work.

That's how Shielding Project researcher Raj Kaul, working together with Barghouty, came to invent RXF1. RXF1 is remarkably strong and light: it has 3 times the tensile strength of aluminum, yet is 2.6 times lighter -- impressive even by aerospace standards.

"Since it is a ballistic shield, it also deflects micrometeorites," says Kaul, who had previously worked with similar materials in developing helicopter armor. "Since it's a fabric, it can be draped around molds and shaped into specific spacecraft components." And because it's derived from polyethylene, it's an excellent radiation shield as well.

They're working on ways to address some of the drawbacks that come with polyethylene--like the irritating tendency it has to burn and melt and whatnot. Now, this article is over a year old, and my search on the NASA site didn't lead me to any more updated information, so I can't tell you right now how this research is progressing. Back in August of 2005, no one was sure yet whether plastic really could serve as a shield to make space travel safer, but "hypothetically" polyethylene might be "not just for trash bags anymore."

It's so interesting how many useful discoveries for right here on Earth come out of space research. Man may never fly to the Moon in a plastic rocket. We may never see plastic habitats on Mars, but--and this is important--we can be pretty sure that our garbage will never get cancer from radiation!! That's an encouraging breakthrough, right? Even more valuable, now that we've all read the reports from NASA and know how useful plastic bags can be, we can make the important fashion decision about whether we want to wear plastic bags over our clothes when we go outside, to protect ourselves from cosmic rays. Hey, come on, it's not such a bad idea. If enough of us do it, it could even become trendy. Maybe if we get some Hollywood type to do it first we can all pretend it's actually cool. Then we would just look like lemmings, and not freaks. Hmmm. Let me think about this. Somebody sci fi maybe, but with crossover appeal.... I've got it! Will Smith!! Men In Black, I Robot, Independence Day... yeah, he'd do nicely. Somebody out there want to volunteer to suggest it to him?

Note: Yes, I know I'm being goofy today. I can't seem to help myself. I start out with a perfectly reasonable piece about the science of using plastic as a radiation shield and end up looking to make Will Smith the poster boy for the tinfoil hat brigade (plastic bag, tinfoil hat--same difference.) I'll try to control myself now, but I make no promises. I have a very good excuse. The day started out with snow, and that always gets me a little giddy. Wait a minute... Snow comes from the sky. Cosmic rays come from the sky, too. Maybe I'm so goofy because the cosmic rays are making it past the Earth's magnetic field and sneaking down into my neighborhood disguised as snow!!! This could be a real problem. I better go put on some plastic bags just in case.

The X Prize

NASA didn't hand out any of the $2 million it was offering for winners in the Wirefly X Prize Cup over the weekend in New Mexico, but that didn't stop a lot of contestants and spectators from enjoying the games. The games are designed to motivate innovation in the private sector for space-related engineering, and are doing a bang-up job if the competition that just transpired is any indication. Yes, bang-up is a deliberate word choice. Some of the challengers soared, and some crashed and burned, but it's clear from what the teams accomplished that the prizes are meeting their aim of sparking advances in privately developed space-tech. No one managed to fully meet the engineering challenges, in any of the three categories, but according to Megan Miller, writing for Popsci.com, the games didn't lack promising moments. The Lunar Lander and Space Elevator competitions proved dramatic at times, and one elevator team came within two seconds of nabbing the $150,000 prize. Miller says that it's looking good for next year:

On the bright side, the weekend’s competitions proved that advances in aerospace engineering are bringing us closer and closer to the lunar-lander and space-elevator goals. A clear winner is expected to emerge in each category next year, and the prize money that went unclaimed this weekend will be added to the pot. That none of the teams came out victorious is a testament to how difficult to achieve these engineering feats really are. It is rocket science, after all.

It's pretty cool that this year's unclaimed prize money goes into next year's pot. That ought to add a little incentive for all the teams that didn't make the grade this year to keep trying. Not that they aren't already motivated, but sweetening the pot can't hurt.

Dr. Bradley Edwards, a space elevator expert, who I've linked to before (here's a must-read for elevator enthusiasts), says that things are coming along nicely, and the science and engineering are progressing apace, with the incentive NASA's prize offers to innovate spurring some of those advances. Edwards writes at spaceelevator.com that last weekend's event was evidence of that progress:

The challenges and events are doing what they were intended – pushing the engineering and available materials for the space elevator needs. The challenges have not achieved their goals yet, however, if this event is any indication during the next three to five years I have little doubt these events will produce a very high caliber climber and extreme strength materials.

Sounds to me like they're reaching new heights (sorry, I know that pun was too obvious), and this competition is one to watch in the future. I think it would have been a total kick to be there for the whole weekend, what with lunar landers flying overhead (yes, one of them did fly; it just crashed on the second attempt), robots climbing fifty meter ribbons, self-powered (solar, microwave, you name it), and the tether competition that you can read about in Dr. Edwards' post. Just the chance to talk to some of the engineers and ask them questions would have been a hoot, as Edwards says that crowds of children did throughout the games. I'm not a kid, but that doesn't mean I don't have questions. I have lots of questions. Most of them probably aren't up to the technical standards of the average ten-year-old, but why should I be penalized just because I was raised on Star Trek, and not the new Battlestar Galactica? Middle aged people need answers too!! Maybe it's worth a trip down to New Mexico next year to join in the fun.

Hat tip: Futurismic--for the spaceelevator.com link.

Mission To Mars

"Say again, Base Command? I don't understand. What do you want me to do? What am I looking for? Mars is too big. I can't find base-camp. Oh, we should never have come." The commander panicked as he realised he was lost, and he couldn't understand Base's instructions. It had only been a half an hour since he had taken off in search of the caves, and he had headed his rover in a straight path toward the designated coordinates, but something was wrong. He should have reached the caves by now. He should have seen the double peak just to the right of Sydney crater, which marked the opening to the series of caverns that Earth Command had sent him to explore, and now, when he knew he should be right on target, he was completely turned around. He couldn't even trace back along the route he had followed to relocate camp.

How could he have gotten so disoriented? He had only been driving for half an hour. Or was it half an hour? He looked intently at his watch and tried to remember exactly what the time had been when he left the confines of the Mars Base habitat. Memory failed him, despite the intense pressure he put on himself to think. Think. Why was that getting so much harder lately? Every day further into space had been more of a struggle on the long journey from Earth. He couldn't think clearly. Base-camp wasn't any help; none of them were doing any better than he was. Why was he feeling such anxiety? Why couldn't he remember even what time he had set out? Why hadn't he seen the landmarks he knew were right there? Somewhere.

The poor commander was really only a few hundred meters from his desired destination, but couldn't figure out where he was, or remember how to get home. Why? Radiation. Radiation can potentially cause problems with memory, spacial learning, and stress, according to an article by David Shiga, at New Scientist Space. Radiation. Space is full of it. We have a built-in defense from radiation here on Earth. A haven from the bombardment from space, our atmosphere protects us from much of its harmful effects. Even orbiting astronauts, tucked away up in the International Space Station, or jaunting about in a shuttle, or rocket, are kept safe from the dangers of most of the stray energy particles from space by the extended shielding of the Earth's magnetic field. What happens. though, if we leave the protection of our big blue marble?

NASA is looking to find out. According to Shiga, "...NASA recently awarded funding for 12 projects that will investigate how long-term radiation exposure in interplanetary space could potentially cause health problems in astronauts." Some of these projects are serving up some interesting results. One study, by Bernard Rabin of the University of Maryland in Baltimore, involves studying irradiated rats:

Rats whose brains have been exposed to heavy particle radiation perform more poorly in navigating mazes and have a harder time learning to press a button to get a food pellet. They also are more easily distracted and experience more anxiety in stressful situations.

One of the more intriguing findings in this study is that rats given strawberry and blueberry extracts before receiving the radiation were less likely to have their mental function impaired. The speculation in Shiga's article is that the anti-oxidants in the berries are the protectant factor:

This could be because the extracts contain antioxidants. Researchers still do not know exactly how heavy particle radiation creates cognitive problems, but it is known to create highly reactive oxygen-containing molecules in the body.

So-called reactive oxygen species are suspected as a contributor to the ageing process. As it turns out, the problems the rats encounter from radiation exposure are very similar to those that ageing rats experience, Rabin says.

Maybe if they just feed astronauts on an anti-oxidant rich diet, they won't suffer any ill effects from space radiation, and they won't get any older. Heck of a deal. (Unless that not getting any older involves not getting any older, if you know what I mean, or is that too obscure?) Anyway, the point of the NASA funding for these types of projects is partly to find out just how much radiation is tolerable, so they can design spaceships and missions which will keep the radiation exposure within acceptable limits. I'm sure they have other studies going on to determine exactly how to do that, what materials to use, what time parameters to establish, what Lunar and Martian materials may be adapted to astronaut use, as well as a whole host of studies designed just to help them think up more questions and possible scenarios, that will need further studies to come up with the answers.

While they are doing all this, I hope they stay away from sources of radiation themselves. We've seen what can happen to people who aren't properly shielded. If it weren't for the help of a friendly alien who happened to be passing by, our commander might still be wandering around Mars. Fortunately, the alien, from the lovely planet Gardenium, found him and led him back to base-camp. The other-worldly savior also brought them a token of good will--an eighteen month supply of strawberries and blueberries. Wasn't that a nice thing to do?

Crashing Into The Future

Welcome to the Moon. We hope your stay here is a pleasant one. Allow us to point out a few items of visual interest upon Lunar approach, for your touristing enjoyment. As we enter orbit, and then gradually slow to landing velocity so that we don't cut short your vacation by crashing into the Lunar surface, you may notice a few craters. Okay, you may notice a lot of craters. The reason being that lots of things that have come to land on the Moon have not slowed down upon approach, but have blasted their way into the surface of the Moon, leaving a permanent reminder of their brief but brilliant moment in Lunar history.

Imaginary tour over, back to reality. I saw a video a while back of some piece of flotsam striking the Moon with a rather satisfactory explosion. It was pretty, for a fraction of a second. Lots of comets and asteroids and such, wandering through space, have had an explosive and lasting impact on the Lunar surface. Did you know, however, that some of the things that have crashed into the Moon over the last few decades have been man made--and sent to collide there on purpose? According to NASA, dozens of spaceships have been intentionally crash-landed on the Moon:

NASA's first kamikazes were the Rangers, built and launched in the early 1960s. Five times, these car-sized spaceships plunged into the Moon, cameras clicking all the way down. They captured the first detailed images of lunar craters, then rocks and soil, then oblivion. Data beamed back to Earth about the Moon's surface were crucial to the success of later Apollo missions.

Even after NASA mastered soft landings, however, the crashing continued. In the late 1960s and early 70s, mission controllers routinely guided massive Saturn rocket boosters into the Moon to make the ground shake for Apollo seismometers. Crashing was much easier than orbiting, they discovered. The Moon's uneven gravity field tugs on satellites in strange ways, and without frequent course corrections, orbiters tend to veer into the ground. Thus the Moon became a convenient graveyard for old spaceships: All five of NASA's Lunar Orbiters (1966-1972), four Soviet Luna probes (1959-1965), two Apollo sub-satellites (1970-1971), Japan's Hiten spacecraft (1993) and NASA's Lunar Prospector (1999) ended up in craters of their own making.

This crashing thing has proven very useful, both as a way to ditch old spaceships and as a way to conduct experiments. So with such a time honored method of testing hypotheses at their disposal, the "crash it and see what happens" method, what's next? What do scientists want to try now? There are future trips to the Moon in the works; 2018 looms, when NASA wants to send humans back for another up close and personal look at the ball of green cheese that hangs in the night sky. So naturally, in the meantime, they're planning more of that always enjoyable pass-time, "Crashing for Fun and Profit", this time for the sake of important survival-in-space research. What they want to find out is whether there is water hiding in some of the frozen recesses in "the Moon's permanently-shadowed craters."

Water is pretty crucial to future success in establishing a permanent outpost anywhere in space, the Moon included:

The experiment couldn't be more important. NASA is returning to the Moon, and when explorers get there, they'll need water. Water can be split into hydrogen for rocket fuel and oxygen for breathing. It can be mixed with moondust to make concrete, a building material. Water makes an excellent radiation shield, and when you get thirsty you can drink it. One option is to ship water directly from Earth, but that's expensive. A better idea would be to mine water directly from the lunar soil.

The question is--is there water available to be mined? That's what they're hoping to find out with a project called LCROSS, Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite, scheduled for late 2008. The plan is to take two spacecraft and crash them into the Moon one after the other. The first ship will create an explosion and an accompanying debris cloud, the second will fly through the cloud, testing it for signs of water before it in turn meets its demise--all the while sending data back to Earth. They're even hoping that the debris plume from the double impact will be large enough to see from Earth, allowing observation to continue even after the second ship has fulfilled, and thus ended, its mission.

The task now is to try and pinpoint the best spot to crash and gather the resultant information. Scientists are debating the best possibilities: craters, canyons, lava tubes. They hope to find water deposited long ago by comets, and left frozen on the Moon. Since I'm not a proponent of the old Earth theory, I'm less sanguine about the concept that water will have been left by wandering water-bearers from long ago, but who knows what God has put there for us, knowing we would one day try venturing to the stars? However it got there, if it's there at all, it would be good if we can find it. After all, who wants to pack in water if they can find it locally? Camping 101. Camping on the Moon is going to have enough challenges; a local water source would be awfully helpful. I hope this crash test is a smashing success.

Lake Titan

I'm still not getting much of a chance to blog right now. My husband is taking the week off from his day job so that we can work on getting things put to rights in the construction zone that is our back yard. We didn't get to insulate or Sheetrock the garage/shop yet, because the inspector didn't show up till yesterday, but we've been making progress all the same. We put a retaining wall in all the way to the back of the shop over the weekend, got it back-filled and the path that runs along it constructed yesterday, and are starting the wallboard inside this morning. We, of course, chose a heat wave to push into full manual labor mode, making the whole process a lot stickier, but progress is progress, and we're grateful to be moving ahead. We're especially glad my Darling's back is holding up after his recent infirmity. So far, so good.

I'm not getting much reading in, but I did get a fun little alert from NASA this morning. "The Cassini spacecraft, using its radar system, has discovered very strong evidence for hydrocarbon lakes on Titan [Titan being one of Saturn's moons]. Dark patches, which resemble terrestrial lakes, seem to be sprinkled all over the high latitudes surrounding Titan's north pole. " They're still guessing what these lakes are made of, probably liquid methane or ethane, and they're still not sure that the dark patches are actually liquid lakes, but the evidence is pointing in that direction.

Scientists will continue to observe the areas, looking for evidence like changes in size, or surface roughness stirred by winds, to indicate whether they've guessed correctly. If they're right, Titan is "the only body in the solar system besides Earth known to possess lakes." Not exactly the place you'd want to go for a summer vacation. One usually heads to a lake for fresh air and exercise, but Titan's not really a fresh air environment, is it? All that methane and ethane might make it a little hard to head out for a hike, or row a canoe, wouldn't you say? What a shame; it would be such an adventure to head to a lakeside cabin off-world. Oh well, there's got to be a bright side, right? Hmmm, liquid methane...liquid methane...sounds like a possible built-in fuel depot to me. That's it!! Titan can be the gas station on the way to some other cool vacation spot that we'll discover any day now. It's not quite as fun as finding Shangri-La on some other planet, but it will have to do.