US Traded Supercollider for Space Station

September 11, 2008

There’s a sad irony to this week’s startup of the world’s largest atom-smasher in Switzerland, the Large Hadron Collider, located outside of Geneva. After 15 years and about $9 billion, the first beams of protons were sent whirling around the tracks on Wednesday. Scientists expect to unravel the strange behavior of high-energy particles and learn about how the universe was created.

Between the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy, the U.S. chipped in $531 million for construction costs, about 25 percent of what was spent to build an even large superconducting supercollider in Texas. The project was abandoned in 1993 after space program advocates lobbied furiously for funding for the International Space Station.

Well, the space station won and physicists looked across the ocean for support for the collider. And now that the $100 billion station is nearing completion, it’s looking like the U.S. may abandon that too.

Apparently, our government “leaders” were busy looking at trees instead of the forest when it came to station transport services. Plans to develop our own little ships the crews could use to fly home in if the shuttle wasn’t there were dropped. Then the Columbia accident put a retirement date on the space shuttles, leaving one option: hiring Russian space taxis. Now that has become a foreign policy quagmire with no solution in sight.

It’s looking like we’ll just hand over the keys to the station -- not that the Russians need our keys since they have their own door -- and add the tab to Uncle Sam’s overextended credit line. I’m sure when those paradigm-shifting discoveries come rolling off the collider and streaming down from the space laboratory, the U.S. will warrant a footnote in the history books under the heading: could’ve, would’ve, should’ve.

Carnival of Space - Universe from A to Z

September 04, 2008

Welcome to Carnival of Space No. 69, the Universe from to A-Z. Seatbelts on? Visors down? 3-2-1 blastoff. Have fun!

A is for Aliens and their apparent British invasion,

B is for Breakdown of political persuasion.

C is for Commercial, the new way to space,

D is for Dark Matter, an admittedly acquired taste.

E is for Energy that comes from deep within,

F is for Federation, an alliance of future space kin.

G is for Green, which apparently does exist in space,

H is for History and how to preserve the human race.

I is for Inspirational space art,

J is for Jupiter, where astronomers often start.

K is for Knowledge and some tips to find your way,

L is for Library, which can save a teacher's day.

M is for Mother Star, a collection of solar views,

N is for Next-Generation, a telescope NASA has yet to choose.

O is for Observe and some suggestions to blow your mind,

P is for Party, of the star-watching kind.

Q is for Quantum, though I didn't find anyone writing on this,

R is for Rocky Worlds, as in Earth and her three sis.

S is for Star Trek, and the space show in Las Vegas,

T is for Travels, the Mars probes latest.

U is for Unspotted, which describes our sun in August,

V is for Volcanoes and what that means for Mars rust.

W is for Watch as Cygnus flies above,

X is for eXpedition, a Lewis and Clark tale you'll love.

Y is for Youngsters, their space toys all a'clutter,

and Z is for Zettaflops, carbontubes and exotica I can only mutter.

Happy travels, my friends.

(Did I miss anyone? Please leave comment below. Thanks!)

The President of Free Space, Part 1

August 29, 2008

I’m not a gambling lady, but if I had to pick right now, I’d say the Democrats just lost the election. Now, don’t get me wrong -- I’m a registered Democrat, which I’m assuming is OK for you to know even though (especially?) because I’m a reporter and have had it drilled into my head by the hard-core teachers at the Medill School of Journalism (a sort of Hogwarts for reporters-in-training) who implored their protégés to live an objective, detached life, particularly in the political arena, for professional integrity.

Thirty years have passed since I set foot in the door and I’ve decided it’s OK to shed the cloak for a higher calling. I’ll tell you straight up what happened: While my son plowed through Tess of the d’Urbervilles for his high school IB English Class, I entered the world of Ayn Rand with my first reading of Atlas Shrugged.

If you haven’t read the book, it’s not going to help you much to read the Cliffs Notes , or Wiki report. Like sex, or watching rockets launch , you just have to experience it. I’d be happy to give you a book report on it another time, but suffice it to say it’s a POWERFUL portrayal of what happens when rationality and scientific processes break down.

Now back to the story of the day -- John McCain’s selection of 44-year-old Sarah Palin of Alaska to be his running mate.

First off, if the Republicans want to absolutely STOMP the Democrats, they would cancel the upcoming convention in Minnesota, or at least scale it way back and donate the money to any one of a billion worthwhile causes. That will show they have a heart, which is mostly what folks hold against the party. The Democrats, on the other hand, have always won my vote, though the candidates sometimes seem to lack a brain, because they positively ooze with compassion, empathy and those highly valued Judeo-Christian attributes of caring for those who can’t care for themselves. Besides, what’s the convention going to accomplish that hasn’t already happened?

Rational thought, the foundation of science, the reason why there are rovers scratching the sand on Mars today, has been largely absent from the American political scene, and perhaps the American way of life for a long time now. Institutions created to solve specific problems, became incarnated (think FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society) and never went away. That’s what NASA is fighting now. Its leaders know the agency needs to dematerialize, shed its expensive and deadly shuttle program, and return to its core roots of space exploration. (You can read here what administrator Michael Griffin and others have to say on this subject.) Will they be successful? Who knows.

McCain’s selection of Palin brought the Republicans to the Democrats’ dinner table. She diversifies the ticket; she’s easy on the eye; she’s even a former reporter. What’s not to like? The only team that would have been more attractive would have been if Barack Obama had picked her.

So now that the beauty and ethnic portions of the presidential contest are over, let’s move on to a discussion of substance: Free Space will explore in the coming two months the single issue of space exploration as a window into how the candidates view the world. It's not about what they say or what they promise, but about their processes (or lack thereof) and whether they are rational, i.e. scientific, or based on emotions.

You could take any topic -- education, business, foreign policy -- and do the same, but I happen to know a lot about space and I happen to believe it’s cool and important. Plus, for you (us) nationalists, it's just about the only major enterprise where America still reigns supreme.

We talk a lot about freedom in this country, criticize its absence abroad, but do we really practice it? As a Democrat who has taken a sharp turn to the right, I’m often as confused as anyone about the road ahead. We often cannot pick our path, but we can choose our travel partners. I pick my old J-school buddies, Morality and Integrity, and invite you to journey with us on a scientific quest to illuminate the meaning of free space. I'd prefer to not do this in a vacuum (pardon the pun) so please use your hands or whatever tools you use to communicate these days, and be generous with feedback.

No Rest for the Myth-Makers

August 28, 2008

This is probably a bad thing for a Discovery Channel columnist to admit but I don’t watch TV much. I was curious, however, to see how the guys on Mythbusters were going to tackle a rather irritating contention that the United States never landed on the moon.

Parts of the show are pretty goofy, but I enjoyed watching a chop-chop version of the scientific process in action. I hope I’m not ruining the ending for anyone who missed it last night and wants to catch a re-run, but Mythbusters says the only hoax going on is the one put forth by people who say the moon landings are a hoax.

Unfortunately, this probably won’t make a whit of difference to anyone who doesn’t ascribe to rationality and logic -- the foundations of science, even science-lite like Mythbusters -- and it’s concerning that these attributes have waned faster than the bull market.

Leaving aside the really big issues like creationism/intelligent design vs. evolution (Hey, Mythbusters: will you take THAT on??), let’s ponder for a moment the renewed call to keep the space shuttles flying so we don’t have to depend on those pesky Georgia-stomping Ruskies for rides to the space station.

Although it’s nice to see presidential candidates caring enough about space exploration to squeeze it into their busy days, the latest volley by John McCain seems a bit like a soft-boiled egg.

His call to President Bush to suspend plans to retire the shuttle (at least until after the election, says my sardonic side) because we just don’t know if we can trust our Russian partners pretty much misses the fact that we’re already beyond wedded. We’ve merged. Whether Russia flies our astronauts or not really doesn’t matter since that house in space can’t be divided.

For example, we can go on flying the shuttle to the station until the next accident, but it won’t change the fact that the spaceships standing by to transport crewmembers home in case of an emergency are Russian-made, Russian-operated, Russian-owned. The United States made the decision years ago to leave lifeboats to the Russians.

The new ships being developed to replace the shuttle CAN be used as lifeboats too, though the primary design driver is to get them to the moon.

These decisions were not made lightly. They stemmed from the highly acclaimed work of the board that investigated the 2003 Columbia disaster, which went above and beyond the call of duty by not only proving the equipment breakdowns that triggered the accident and the blind spots in managers’ mindsets that nurtured false assumptions, but also recommendations on what to do next. Topping the list? Retire or recertify the shuttle. The board determined NASA had been flying the ships without keeping up on how real-world conditions, as opposed to engineering models and simulations, were affecting them.

Like most of us individually, NASA learned the hard way. Being of sound mind and limited budget (recertification was estimated to be about as expensive as creating new ships), NASA pushed for the shuttles retirement so it could use the funds for a new endeavor.

Rational, logical --- and, unfortunately, becoming passé.

(Photos: NASA)

Do rocket scientists make good physics teachers?

August 26, 2008

It’s not that I lack compassion, but I’m going azew (yes, my son had to read Tess of the d’Urbervilles for a summer English assignment and we both learned this word) hearing about the poor space shuttle workers who will soon be out of work.

Please no hate mail, but really folks, you’ve had these steady, well-paying jobs, with good insurance, benefits and vacations, government holidays and perks like government hotel rates since Ronald Reagan was president and maybe even Jimmy Carter, and now that they’re going away, you’re freaking and looking for more help from Uncle Sam?

Well, I’ve got a job for you: Go teach physics class at the local high school. You see, aforementioned son is in this rigorous academic program at a stand-out high school on Florida’s Space Coast and there’s no physics teacher. I called yesterday (gulp … yes son, I still do check up on ya) to see where things stood and found out that a teacher had been hired, but she can't start until the district finds a replacement to work at the school she’s leaving. From what I’ve read about the dearth of science teachers in Florida, that could be a dicey proposition.

My son really needs a physics teacher because he’s taking psychology too and he’s starting to wonder if life can be extended by replacing body parts with machined goods; if scientists can locate the soul in the human body; if it would be a limitation if said research is done only on cadavers; and if time is real or a construct of our perspective. More specifically, he wants to know what you’d see if you could travel back 13.7 billion years before the Big Bang.

I tell him about string theory because it’s 12:30 a.m. and somehow I think that might be a comfort to him, that randomness popping in and out like fairy godmothers and he begins to calm down and finally falls asleep wondering if he might meet another version of himself someday.

Perhaps I watched too much “Bewitched” and “I Dream of Jeannie” when I was growing up, but I believe we have the power to create our own solutions. NASA wore this cloak of invincibility throughout my childhood years. I know it wants to don that garb again. So here’s a suggestion: Let’s not label the upcoming layoffs as a brain drain for NASA: Think of it more as a resource for the nation.

Metaphysically Speaking

June 24, 2008

I’d like to know about dark matter as much as anyone. And it sure would be swell if the United States made good on its word to fly the particle detector known as the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, or AMS, to the International Space Station, especially after it got 16 countries to foot most of the $1.5 billion construction bill.

With great fanfare -- press conferences with the Nobel Prize winner behind the project, etc. -- NASA flew a prototype on the shuttle 10 years ago. The agency agreed to send another AMS to the space station in 2002 or 2003 for a three-year study. Then came the Columbia accident, the decision to retire the shuttles and ultimately a cancellation of AMS’ ride to orbit.

Except that Samuel Ting, the Nobel-holding lead scientist for AMS, wouldn’t take no for an answer. He lobbied Congress. He got his international partners involved. He literally turned it into a federal case. And now, Ting's relentlessness may be about to pay off.

Last week, the House passed a NASA funding bill adding one more flight of the shuttle to deliver AMS to the space station. This week, it's the Senate's turn. On Monday, NASA chief Michael Griffin told a Senate oversight committee it’d run a few hundred million dollars for the extra flight, with one huge caveat: That figure presumes there is no extension of any shuttle equipment contracts. Griffin wouldn’t come straight out and say it, but what he means is that if the AMS flight is added on, there won’t be a shuttle available to mount a rescue mission. Since Columbia, NASA routinely adds the contingency mission to every flight.

That’s not to say that a crew tapped to deliver AMS to the station would be abandoned should the shuttle be too damaged to return to Earth. They could all use the station as a temporary shelter until folks figured out how to get enough Soyuz capsules to the outpost to fly them all back home. Or something along those lines. (At this part of the hearing it was NASA space operations chief Bill Gerstenmaier’s turn at obtuse.)

Griffin came back after the morning proceedings ended to clarify that maintaining the shuttle contracts past their cut-off dates would be prohibitively expensive -- something on the order of $3 billion to $4 billion, which “we don’t need to do to fly the final flight.”

No, all NASA needs to do is tell it straight: If AMS is the last flight, it’ll go without the safety net provided to all previous missions since Columbia. After listening to all the circumfusion, I think I have a clearer picture of dark matter, metaphysically speaking.

Phoenix, Descending

May 26, 2008

Phoenix's arrival at Mars did not go unnoticed... this image of its parachute descent toward the northern arctic region was captured by a sister spacecraft, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Welcome to Mars

A view from Phoenix

Good night, Mars

May 25, 2008

This time of year, the sun never sets on the northern polar region of Mars. But it does here, so I'll leave you with this. (Can't wait for the color views!)

Meanwhile, Back on Earth

Was just about to post these when the Phoenix pcts started coming in ... so back on Earth, here's what the mood was like in the control room when folks learned the spacecraft had landed: