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Tillyer’s News From the High Frontier
May 2013
-Buzz Aldrin believes in our ability to get to Mars and his recent book Mission to Mars is full of the proof and ideas on what we need to be accomplishing. Aldrin focuses on methodology that uses a S.T.E.M. (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) focus on education, the growth of commercial space industries—including space tourism and even orbital defense. Buzz doesn’t just believe- he has a plan and it requires some long term thinking. Each step drives our exploration forward and it’s easy to incorporate current projects in the works like the asteroid capture recently discussed by NASA. It could be that one of the things we as country need to move in a direction that could accomplish a manned mission to Mars is a strong voice and perhaps that is Buzz Aldrin.
-If you can’t go to Mars, your name and maybe even your poetry can. In a project similar to that of Curiosity, the latest Mars expedition called Maven (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) will carry a DVD on its surface bearing the names of everyone who wants to join the expedition as well as three haiku. So if you visit the Maven mission site before July 1st you too can go along for the ride, as it were. But to really make a splash you’ll need to come up with a truly memorable haiku because not every goes to the red planet. Now, aside from the name recognition aspect, MAVEN will be doing important work as the first satellite specifically sent to learn more about Mars’ atmosphere. MAVEN will launch atop an Atlas rocket on November 18th to begin its journey.
-Mars doesn’t have the corner on rovers. Grover the rover is exploring a little closer to home—Greenland. At six foot tall and 800 pounds it’s also a bit more of a presence than its other NASA siblings. Grover is looking at the ice to determine the rate at which the glacial ice is receding. Complete with solar panels and ground penetrating radar Grover is designed to operate independently for longer periods of extended research. The study started on May 3rd and will continue into the beginning of June.
Tillyer’s News From the High Frontier
April 2013
Can you catch an asteroid with 100 million dollars? It might take NASA awhile, but they are keen to try and it sounds as though the money may be on the way. Funding is being requested to search for a seven meter diameter asteroid as a potential target to be captured and brought into orbit around the moon for astronauts to study. The entire plan from the identification—to begin next year– to the capture and transfer to occur in 2019– to the visitation by astronauts in 2021– is obviously a long term project. However, up until now it was more of a blue sky idea. The concept is to use an unmanned probe to capture the asteroid and bring it back. So why choose a seven meter one? Well, just to play things on the safe side, anything seven meters or smaller should burn up in the atmosphere should things not go as planned. Now the whole project is ambitious but there are three very good reasons to go to work on it. One, the astronauts in the last phase will be using the completed Orion capsule to rendezvous with the asteroid. This will serve as a training for longer jaunts like trips to Mars. Secondly, this is the first step in learning how to manipulate asteroids and could prove to be valuable in case of a near earth object heading for us needs to be convinced to go somewhere else. This is the first baby step in learning how to deal with a potential impact event. Some have noted that it is very interesting that the timeline on this project advanced after the recent Russian meteor that injured over 1000 people. Finally, with the news of independent companies looking to mine asteroids for profit, here is NASA taking a step in the same direction so that they are not left behind.
Tillyer’s News From the High Frontier
March 2013
After a rather momentous discovery, Curiosity could be due for a nap. The big news is the nature of the soil that was analyzed by the rover’s sensors. Unlike areas visited by Opportunity and Spirit, which do show evidence of ancient water, Curiosity’s current location is sedimentary in nature but indicates by chemical analyses that it was freshwater that was involved in the formation process. Spirit and Opportunity’s sites indicate intermittent moisture that was very salty and very acidic in nature. From the drilled sample, scientists also found evidence of oxygen, carbon and sulfur all of which in combination with freshwater are beneficial to life. This means that there is a good chance that there were environments that were hospitable to life in ancient times on Mars. Curiosity is still searching for the conclusive proof of life however it may have a break ahead of it for several reasons. Recently the onboard computers began to give controllers some concerns, to the point that they switched the primary control of the rover to the back up “B” computer. Suffering from some memory issues the rover then had to contend with a solar eruption that was headed towards Mars which concerned the controllers who out the rover on hold. Then there was another issue on March 16th that put the rover into safe mode when the discovery was made that a file set aside for deletion was found to be attached to one that was currently in use by the rover. Scientists continue to work with the B computer and are planning to use the A as a backup. The real problem is something simpler and it’s all about where Mars and the Earth are in relation to the sun. For most of April, we will be directly opposite Mars with the Sun between us. Given the concerns about the nature of Curiosity’s memory and programming, scientists do not want to take the chance that solar radiation might corrupt one of commands sent to the rover. So curiosity gets to take the month off and the scientists who’ve finally gotten to a truly interesting spot on Mars can only hope and wonder about what might be the next big discovery.
Tillyer’s News From the High Frontier
January 2013
-You’ve been planning the vacation for, well let’s be honest in this case- years, what do you do if the doctor says you can’t handle where you want to go? The problem is if you want to go into space, most doctors may not be qualified to make that decisions. What could be the problem? Well if you want insurance, suddenly it’s a whole different ball game. Given that your ticket was five figures or more, with a waiting list of potentially years, space tourism isn’t quite like anything else. Marlene Grenon was the lead author on a new paper about health concerns for space tourists. She makes a number of good points, one of which is the fact that no one wants to limit the passengers to only the perfect specimens since that might kill a nascent industry. Should there be standards and what kind? Right now the typical astronaut is by rule in the best health possible. Which means we have plenty of information on how people in great health react to space travel. But what about the rest of us? There are a number of potential health issues like radiation, bone weakness, eyeball stress, arterial hardening and even kidney stones. So right now, if you show up and need to be certified for space flight, what will happen is the health guidelines for Virgin Galactic or your company of choice will be used. That means that a private company is making the guidelines currently. Sooner or later there will be government regulation in place.
-BIG does not even begin to cover what astronomers have now discovered. The LQG or Large Quasar Group is 4 billion light years across at the widest point. This concentration of galaxies has 73 active galactic nuclei and breaks some of the beliefs that scientists have about the nature of the universe. The common theory, the cosmological principle, states that the universe has a certain homogenous nature, in fact nothing larger than 1.2 billion light years should occur. Astronomers believe that there are other instances and that these may change our view of not only the structure of the universe but how it came to be.
-We’ve gotten used to taking advantage of Google and MapQuest’s satellite maps but what if you could see things in almost real time down to a resolution of 1 meter. Our eye in the sky has been there for quite some time but it’s taken a start up company called Urthecast to get cameras on the International Space Station to stream what they observe. The stream will be free and Urthecast will also have a service where they will email you when your home is visible so that you can spell out crazy messages to be seen from above.
Tillyer’s News From the High Frontier
November 2012
Print Your Own Cubesat—Sadly any more the road to space exploration is paved in money. So to get farther, you have to find ways to be cheaper and using a 3D printer to create Cubesats is a definite step in the right direction. At less than 4 inches on a side and holding only a few sensors, Cubesats are designed for brief use followed by a fiery death. With a price tag of $10k, they are considered a reasonable alternative. At the University of Bologna, Jacopo Piattoni is working with a team to not only make the price tag lower but also increase the customization of the Cubesats. The beauty of this is that once you have a working model, you simply use it as a template and continue to crank out more. Unless something changes, Piattoni’s first launch window is on a Russian rocket in 2014.
Are You One of the 80,000 Going to Mars? Space X founder Elon Musk has big plans for the Red Planet and it sounds like he will need colonists. Musk’s workhorse in the endeavor is a reusable rocket and Space X has already begun to work on their Falcon 9 with consideration towards this project. When asked if he was considering reusing the rockets to cycle back and forth in trips, Musk replied that the fuel costs would be prohibitive. But it makes sense that the reusable rockets could help Martian colonists gain access to materials on Deimos and Phobos as well as nearby asteroids. The whole big project has a 36 billion dollar price tag and Musk figured that joining the expedition would cost each colonist around $500k.
Are We Looking For the Right Thing When We Search For ET? Part of the search for life in the universe comes from the thought, if they were looking for us what evidence would they see from so far away? The answer is not necessarily the melting polar ice caps but rather what’s causing the phenomenon. Chlorofluorocarbons were used for most aerosol products, until their side effect of ozone destructions was revealed. Being rather egocentric, we’ve always looked at the thinning of the ozone layer from the what will happen to us aspect; however, this change also allows more radiation that we generate out. So advanced civilization’s radiation might be more easily detectable on worlds whose atmospheres contain CFCs. Since the CFCs do not occur naturally, someone must have made them.
Tillyer’s News From the High Frontier
October 2012
-NASA is taking the long view with the third generation Hubble telescope, currently nicknamed ATLAST(Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope). ATLAST was started before the James Webb was even launched and is hoped to have a 16m aperture compared to the Webb’s of 12m giving it an angular resolution of five or more times better than Webb and a resolution 2,000 times greater than Hubble. ATLAST’s primary design is to not only discover exoplanets but directly observe their surfaces. The effective range will be about 200 light years. ATLAST is scheduled to be launched between 2025 and 2035 and placed in a closer orbit than Webb allowing for easier Maintenance giving it a potential lifetime of 20 years.
-You too can help discover exoplanets through the Planet Hunters Program which makes data from the Kepler telescope available to amateur astronomers. By looking for decreases in output from various stars in the provided data of over 100,000 suns could net you a discovery like that of Kian Jek and Robert Gagliano who are credited with discovering a gas giant in a unique system of 4 stars. This quaternary consists of two pairs of binaries, a blue star with a red star and yellow star similar to our sun and another smaller red star. Other Planet Hunters have made similar discoveries but this system is unique.
-Water on the moon could have an unusual source—the solar wind. Ongoing analysis of the moon samples has found proof that charged particles from the solar wind bind with oxygen to form hydroxyl minerals which can bind water. How much water is there? Scientists estimate that 3 metric tons could be extracted from a volume the size of a football field using a depth of nine feet. Previously, it was assumed that all of the water on the moon was due to cometary impacts. This new information indicates there maybe more water in unexpected places in our solar System like the asteroids and even Mar’s moon Deimos.
Tillyer’s News From the High Frontier
September 2012
Mars is full of surprises and Curiosity isn’t the only one finding them. Opportunity has found a field of spheres. Martian Blueberries have been known since 2004. The round iron objects are believed to be the deposits from mineral rich water. Opportunity has seen many of the Blueberries in its journey, but this new discovery is of interest for two reasons. One, the quantity of the spheres exceeds any previous amounts. Two, the composition of these spheres is not primarily iron. Opportunity continues to open our eyes to new things.
You could be at the helm of a large telescope—through your ipad. The free app will allow users access to telescopes in the Slooh Space Camera collaboration to snap photos of the sky. Slooh has the advantage of using multiple scopes in a variety of locations to get around weather and time zone issues. The MYSky app will get images from two primary locations in Chile and the Canary Islands and has associations with other observatories in New Mexico, Arizona and Japan. Images will cost $.99 and Slooh hopes to have them available in about 20 minutes. Slooh will launch the app in November with hopes of having an Android and Iphone version in 2013.
Get involved with mapping Vesta. Another way that you can be part of the exploration of the wider universe, is by looking over some of the real estate in our own backyard, like the photographs of Vesta taken on the recent Dawn mission. Asteroid Mappers is a program run by NASA that allows interested civilians the opportunity to review new and unreleased photographs of Vesta to help speed up the mapping of the asteroid’s craters and surface features. Dawn is if currently on the second half of its journey as begins a two and half year journey to the largest asteroid Ceres.
Apparently Enceladus has been watering Saturn for some time now. We’ve known about the geysers on Saturn’s moon as well as the subsurface water, but recent pictures from the Cassini probe’s flyby provide vivid pictorial proof of the event. The image, which is composited from several fragment, shows the spray of water escaping the surface of the moon. Astronomers estimate that such eruptions can be up to 500 pounds of water per second. The water eventually finds its way to Saturn. Astronomers also believe that this water has helped to build the E-ring which is primarily ice.TILLYER'S NEWS OF THE HIGH FRONTIER
Just because you could, should
you, try to hack into Curiosity? Despite all of the hoopla over a safe landing Curiosity hasn’t done much—mostly
because it was waiting for an upgrade, which consisted of a firmware update to its VxWorks programming to improve its autonomy,
instrument analysis and navigation on the ground. But why do such a long distance
update? Well before reaching Mars the operating system was designed to fly the
rover to Mars. Now that its there, Curiosity no longer needs a guidance system
designed for space. So NASA scientists are reprogramming it for a new use. The problem here is that VxWorks is software that is in use in a number of things
including aircraft, DROBO storage devices and even Spirit and Opportunity and it’s not kept from the general public. So what’s to stop someone from sending Curiosity a less than helpful update? Well you’d need access to something equal to the Deep Space Network of radio
telescopes as well as the frequency NASA uses and the encoding. So this is big
scale, think other governments or a high scale terrorist. One a different angle,
NASA has lost 48 mobile devices and computers with potential access codes over the last 2 years. In this case the hacker would actually go after NASA and use their communication array to contact Curiosity. In March NASA was the victim of numerous attacks, thirteen of which gave Chinese hacker
access to the internal network and in one case access to employee logins. So
the possibility remains and we can only hope that Curiosity’s mission continues despite these potential threats.
TILLYER'S NEWS OF THE HIGH FRONTIER
-Absence is actually a presence – scientists have recently discovered dark galaxies. Now don't confuse these with dark matter, these are galaxies without active stars and therefore do not
emit light. What astronomers have found are galaxies at the earliest point in
their lives. But it takes a little something extraordinary, like a quasar to
shed light on something billions of light years away. The ultraviolet light emitted
by a near quasar caused gas in the dark galaxies to fluoresce. These protogalaxies
were predicted by theory but not observed until now. The Very Large Telescope
in Chile was recently used to take an eight-hour exposure, which showed the proof astronomers were seeking. Since the plate showed at least a dozen dark galaxies at a distance of eleven billion light-years, the
scientists can now essentially look back in time at the formation of these conglomerations of gas
that will one day ignite stars and develop into something similar to our own Milky Way.
-In a similar vein astronomers
are also looking at Ghost Galaxies. These are tiny galaxies, often only 2000
light years across(in comparison the Milky Way is over 100k light years in diameter).
These collections of stars have signaled a unique event that occurred about 1 billion years after the birth of the
universe known as the Reionization. The proof this event is the fact that in
all of the studied galaxies stellar birth came to an abrupt halt. In the Reionization,
the initial stars sent off radiation, which ionized the hydrogen in the surrounding space.
It is believed that the ultraviolet radiation that followed put a halt to the stellar birth in these smaller galaxies
by stripping away the necessary hydrogen. Larger galaxies due to their bulk shielded
their hydrogen and were able to continue to grow. Researchers also believe that
the Ghost Galaxies may answer the question concerning the lack of satellite galaxies surrounding the Milky Way. Instead of bright globular clusters, we may instead have difficult to locate Ghost Galaxy satellites with
few stars to distinguish them from the backdrop of the universe.
-Poor Pluto may only be a minor
planet, but that doesn't seem to stop it from gaining moons as the Hubble Telescope discovered a fifth satellite recently. Pluto is an unusual place. Besides its
eccentric orbit, its moon Charon is so large in comparison to Pluto that some astronomers wanted to call it a double planetary
system- way back before the demotion of course. Also orbiting Pluto are Nix and
Hydra as well as P4 discovered in 2011. P5 is believed to be 6-16 kilometers
in diameter and orbits in the same plane as the rest of the moons. Adding information
about the local neighborhood of Pluto will be helpful to avoid accidents when the New Horizons probe arrives in the area in
2015.
-Meteorologists may have found the sound of no hands clapping unraveling the stories about noises heard during northern lights. Initially, scientists believed that the effects that produce the illumination were simply to high in the atmosphere to be heard by those on the ground. Meteorologists found that the clapping sounds occur at 230 above the ground. While they are not loud and often muffled by background sound, the sounds were recorded by Finnish scientists in an area with high aurora incidence. The charged particles from the sun interacting with the molecules of the atmosphere channeled via the earth's magnetic field to the poles create the auroras.
TILLYER'S NEWS OF THE HIGH FRONTIER
-June 13th marked
the beginning of NASA's search for black holes utilizing the NuStar – Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array. NuStar's launch is interesting in that it was carried up to 39k feet by a Stargazer aircraft and then the
Pegasus rocket that is its second launch vehicle will be deployed to lift the payload into its final orbit. Once the orbit is stabilized, the solar panels will deploy and within a week a 33-foot boom will extend
to complete the setup. What makes NuStar different than previous x-ray telescopes
is the ability to actually focus the device. Astronomers can use the NuStar to
search for black holes, which emit on all portions of the electromagnetic spectrum unlike other typical phenomenon that tend
to the visible, IR and UV wavelengths which our current instruments, like the Hubble are more suited to view. The telescope is expected to be ready for use with in a month.
-Our search for extraterrestrial
planets keeps changing the way that we view the universe. The team working with
Kepler on its primary mission of planet finding is beginning to change their minds about the nature of the universe and the
likelihood of planetary formation. Studying stars with planets they have noticed
that there is a trend that high concentrations of metals present in the primary relates to the positive probability of the
formation of gas giants. However, there is no such correlation to the formation
of rocky worlds. So therefore rocky smaller planets are more likely to form around
typical stars. Also the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has recently
discovered that they elements necessary to form rocky worlds came into existence very quickly after the big bang. This means that the building blocks are more readily available than we previously thought. Since they have also been around longer than we expected that also means that rocky planets have been forming
earlier than we expected. On the whole, all of this information means that there
could easily be many more earthlike planets in the universe than we ever imagined.
Tillyer’s News From The High Frontier
May 2012
-Much like an animal stretching awake from long hibernation the steadfast explorer
Opportunity once again prepares to continue its adventure on the Red Planet. Now
the rover hasn’t been idle in the past five months but rather stationary. With
the limited amount of sunlight available for its solar array, the rover was moved to a suitable
spot and parked until the weather is more favorable for exploration. Operators
were able to move Opportunity down from its resting place on a rocky outcrop and will start it on its way north to investigate
deposits of dust and bedrock. The more intriguing areas to the south, where evidence
of water has been observed will become available as the spring progresses and the sunlight grows stronger. Opportunity’s twin, Spirit became trapped in a sand pit in 2010 and communication
was lost with the rover. Opportunity, however continues to surprise and explore
since its 2004 arrival on Mars. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47363692/ns/technology_and_science-space
- With as many as 100,000 times the number of stars in the Milky Way, Rogue planets are the new vogue in theoretical
astronomy. These free floating remainders of the formation of the galaxy could
also have some interesting implications in the distribution of life in the universe.
Last month WTS ran an article about the possibility of the life on Earth being scattered through near space due to
meteor impacts knocking life bearing rocks out of orbit and into space. Astronomers
are now positing something similar considering rogue planets as potential carriers of life forms as they careen about the
cosmos. If the elements of life are present in a solar system, then a passing
rogue could perhaps carry these seeds along on its journey seeding other systems and regions of space. In another consideration these dark cold worlds could also be potential hazards to interstellar navigation.
http://www.universetoday.com/94656/rogue-planets-can-find-homes-around-other-stars/
-Would you pay $10 now for the potential of a trip into space in the future? “I Dream of Space” is selling their posters for ten
bucks including the chance of winning a ride. The company has 25,000 posters
to sell which will give it the necessary funding for a 200k ride on SpaceShip3
by Virgin Galactic or a 95k seat on the XCOR by Aerospace Lynx. Reuben Metcalfe
who is part of the company which started their venture in 2011 says that the lift companies in question are looking for 20k
before they will consider booking a flight even though commercial spaceflight still is likely to be several years away. Metcalfe’s aim is to sell the rest of the posters by the end of the year and
perhaps begin the process anew. He cautions that entrants must understand the
time frame involved.
Tillyer’s News From the High Frontier
April 2012
-We could have a lot in common with life that we find in our solar system or even on other far away worlds due to the event that spelled then end for the dinosaurs. The Chicxulub incident which occurred 65 million years ago had enough force that material from our world was projected out into space and may have taken with it some of the seeds of life. There has long been conjecture that life here may have started due to seeding from comets with key elements. It may actually be the reverse is the case. If we discover life in the oceans of Europa and Enceladus, we may be more familiar with it than we imagine. Consider a cometary impact from Earth and 65 million years worth of time to cook up something new, life on these worlds could be something amazing. The study which considered the result of the spread of material from the earth, also took things farther. It is possible that 1000 rocks may have reached the nearest known earthlike planet at Gliese 581. These meteroids still had 64 million years to create life, that while it might live under an alien sun still has a common ancestry with earth. Of course the odds that any kind of life could survive the trip through space to these other worlds are slim, but so were the odds that life could develop on a world such as ours. Here’s another fine reason for us to explore what is beyond our world, because it could be more familiar than we thought.
Tillyer’s News From The High Frontier
March 2012
Gravity, what is it good for? Well, we’re discovering that we need it more than we thought we did when spending time in space. The human body is used to a particular amount of downward force and when we change that by spending time at the International Space Station or in environments with less than ordinary amounts of g force certain things like loss of bone density, our inner ear and more can be affected. Recent work shows that men and women who have spent more than 100 days in space show other alarming changes. MRIs of astronauts show a potential for flattening of the rear of the eyeball, bulging of the optic nerve, and increased pressure from the cerebral spinal fluid around the nerve. Some of these symptoms are similar to intercranial hypertension. Other recent experiments with fruit flies show that certain genes may have trouble being expressed in weightless conditions. So not only are there the potential of physical disorders caused by weightlessness but also issues that may cause problems with procreation in these environments. If we are looking at extended stays on the lunar surface or eventual colonization of asteroids we need to find ways around these issues.
To the Moon! Or so the Russians are saying. Roscosmos or the Russian Federal Space Agency has announced a rather ambitious series of goals starting with a manned expedition to the moon. With a similar thought process to the US, Roscosmos also is planning to develop a lifter named the Angara replacing the Soyuz and Proton rockets. In another parallel, plans are made to create a new six man craft. Other goals include unmanned probes to Jupiter, Mars and Venus. With Russia the sole venue of transport to the International Space Station, one has to take these plans seriously. We may have won the cold war, but will we really win the space race?
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