Discovery News: Space Diary

NASA Mars Probe Wins Reprieve

NASA is gambling more money will resolve problems with its next Mars mission and keep it on track for launch next year.

But exactly where the extra cash to keep the Mars Science Laboratory on schedule -- and how much will be needed -- officials with the U.S. space agency would not say.

“If we’re going to launch in 2009 or 2011 additional budget resources are going to be necessary. The sources of that we cannot release until we get approval from the Office of Management and Budget and Congress,” Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA headquarters, said during a conference call with reporters.

Costs for the roving chemistry station, which is designed to assess Mars' suitability for life, already have swelled from $1.6 billion to $1.9 billion. The probe, which is about the size of a SUV, is slated for launch between Sept. 15 and Oct. 15, 2009, when Earth and Mars are favorably aligned. The planets sweep into optimal position every two years.

NASA has been launching probes at every opportunity in an attempt to learn if life ever took hold beyond Earth.

Mars Science Lab is an ambitious follow-on program to the two small rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, currently exploring the equatorial regions of Mars for signs of past water.

“This is a really important scientific mission,” McCuistion said. “This is truly the push into the next decade for the Mars program and for the discovery for the potential for life on other planets.

“I fully believe that Congress will support us as we go forward on this because they recognize the importance of the mission as well,” he added.

In an attempt to make up time lost due to a host of technical challenges, including actuators, materials and parachutes, Mars Science Lab contractors are working multiple shifts to deliver components so that testing can begin in late November or early December.

NASA plans to reassess the mission’s progress in January. If the probe has to miss its 2009 launch date, keeping the contractor and science teams employed for another two years is estimated to cost $300 million.

In addition to seeking additional funding from Congress, NASA will assess other science programs to see if any money can reallocated for Mars Science Lab, said NASA’s lead scientist Ed Weiler.

Help Me, NASA!

I'm sure there will be some (many) folks who will shudder to learn that their tax dollars are being spent on this, but I for one, am all for it. You see, I live with a TEEN-AGER, just one (and I bow to any of you with multiples) and I've come to believe that mine, at least, is the living embodiment of CONFLICT.

It starts in the morning with breakfast (Me: Yes. Kid: No), continues after school through homework (Me: No TV. Kid: "I NEEEEEED the noise" +iPhone+Computer+Music) all the way through bedtime (Me: Goodnight, Did-you-remember-your-retainers? Kid: Deep growling sounds.)

So it was with a bit of glee that I found myself in a discussion about conflict resolution with Dartmouth University's Jay Buckey, a doctor and former space shuttle researcher who flew in 1998. He is working with a team developing psychological self-help programs that NASA is funding for use on the space station.

I hope this is one program that doesn't get stuck in the spin-off process, because I think it has tremendous potential. Buckey kindly guided me through what has become a standard script in my house, I'll title, "Mom, I Really Need The Car."

"The conflict is not about the car," Buckey tells me. "The conflict is about the internal thoughts, the meaning that we put on the action, and then the response. It's helpful to pause for a moment before responding, if you can, and think 'What is the meaning I'm putting on this?'

"The other side is the action. We desire to respond emotionally, but that may not be the best response."

Buckey suggested I asked the demanding tyrant teen-ager before me why he wants the car, even if the question only serves to buy me more time to think.

Apparently, these sorts of techniques are useful for a wide range of situations, including living with a group of people in an enclosed area like the space station.

"A successful long-duration flight is very dependent on the atmosphere between the people," Buckey says. "If it's a group really working well together and enjoying each other's company, it's going to be a great experience."

So, last night I kept my mouth shut while the kid slouched in a bean bag chair doing calculus with TV on; let him take the car so he could get to school early to make up a history test; and felt a glimmer of satisfaction when he decided that yes, he would like breakfast today after all.

Baby steps, my friends.

The President of Free Space, Part 3: Hope or Fear

Silly me. When I embarked on this project to chase down strings of rationality in the race for the U.S. presidency, using the space program as my fishing reel, I made a bad assumption. I thought rationality MATTERED to all people. You know?  Fact-gathering, logical reasoning, analysis, verification … the processes of science? Please stop chuckling. I know I should have known better.

So forget about the LOGICAL thing to do for NASA, let alone the country. I've realized what counts most in our society is a good story. We love drama. If it was our gross domestic product, we'd have so much money Sarah Palin would be writing us checks from the Treasury, just like they do with oil revenue in Alaska.

Now I know that (supposedly) the most important thing in the universe right now is our national financial situation. The question is what we are going to do about it? What will solve it?

I've learned from NASA that there is really only one way to go about solving a problem. It's called the scientific method, but I'm not really sure if it's being taught in school anymore. It's what got this country to the moon FORTY YEARS before our sisters, Japan, India, China (and I'm sorry if I'm forgetting anyone) had a clue how to do it, much less a program. Our only peer was the Soviet Union and we were scared to death they'd get there first. (They shouldn't have worried. Apparently, all they needed to do was wait until we became diverted, and in exchange for losing the moon race we'd build them a castle in the sky; for I'm told that Russia will be left sole occupant of the $100 billion International Space station unless our elected officials take a break from handling the NATIONAL FINANCIAL EMERGENCY and approve an exemption for NASA to buy rides to the station on Russian Soyuz rockets.  Perhaps that's why NASA's very erudite leader, Michael Griffin, used a most unscientific word in his officially acknowledged leaked email alerting the world to our IMPENDING NATIONAL SPACE CRISIS. He termed its handling a "jihad.")

I don't know if the proposed  $700 billion GREAT GOVERNMENT GIVEAWAY of 2008 is the right thing to do or not. I don't know if time is of the essence. I don't even know how you decide that, but I hope and pray that it is made with some degree of rationality. My Libertarian friends are even kind of exited by the stir, hoping it will rouse the good but sleepy citizens of this land we love to stop watching American Idol and reruns of Gilligan's Island (but by all means, please keep tuning in to Discovery Channel).

In a Democracy, APATHY is a cancer.

No offense intended, but we might want to question the sanity and motivations of John McCain and Barack Obama for wanting to take on this mess. (You too, Bob Barr!) There's no question they have balls: We've seen the pictures, watched the grainy films of handsome, young McCain in the POW camp and we can only imagine. And as far as Obama, well would YOU want to be a black man in America, much less one running for PRESIDENT??

Though I personally haven't given up that rationality will prevail when it comes time to vote, I've realized that that's a pretty high standard. As a steppingstone, I've designed a little quiz to help choose the next president, who as the leader of what we like to call The Free World, will be the President of Free Space, with the potential to galvanize what our space policy -- and our country -- will become.  Open or closed? Driven by fear or hope? Logical or emotional? Privately pioneered or not? Breaking ground or following footsteps? Creative or reactive?

Since I realize this cannot be objective (and frankly I find it a little exhausting trying to figure out which administration would be better for the country, the Big Government Republicans or the Big Government Democrats) I'm basing this quiz on things that matter to me. Ready? Here goes:

Who has the better sense of humor?

Who is smarter?

Who is more tolerant of dissenting views?

Who solicits and loves feedback?

Who can better control his behavior?

Got your candidate?  Good. Oh, one last question, if you don't mind. Does this change your vote?

Carnival of Space - Universe from A to Z

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 2: Legacy of George Bush

The inertia that defines the George Bush presidency may be a blessing for the space program. I’m not saying that facetiously. For all I know, Bush’s passivity (some may say willful blindness) may be a skill he
has honed throughout his life, like a parent practicing patience. The Iraq flak at least should have taught him the dangers of going off half-cocked.

I refer to presidential candidate John McCain’s request for Bush to suspend the shutdown of the space shuttle program, pending further study (post election.) McCain is listening to folks who are 1) scared of losing their jobs; and/or 2) outraged that America, the leader of the free world, the king of off-planet pursuits, will soon be in the unseemly position of depending on foreigners for rides to space.

Personally, if McCain is such a maverick and really concerned that riding in Russian spaceships is poor form, especially with Russia thumping its neighbors, I think he should look into using Chinese spaceships to taxi crews to the space station. I’d bet that would get the Russians attention.

The fact is that unless the military has a secret space plane, or someone in the commercial sector lets loose a fly-pod, there will be five or more years when this country will have no means to launch people into orbit. That’s the price we pay for choices already made. It may be of some consolation to know that the people who FLY the shuttle for a living believe it is in the country’s best interests to let it die. It’s become a Terri Schiavo.

Chances are, the Bush space legacy will be a boon for whoever wins the presidency. All Bush has to do is do nothing and the shuttle shutdown will continue undisturbed. If it gets too uncomfortable in the gap -- the years between the shuttle’s retirement in 2010 and the debut of a replacement ship in 2015 or so -- the new prez can honestly claim it’s not his fault, though the last thing we need in this country is another poster child for victim mentality.

Finally, rather than mooning over the past and trying to delay the inevitable, McCain could rally around space workers who have taken the plunge into new careers and explain how their big brains and disciplined behaviors are now helping businesses create new economic engines to drive this country out of recession. It happened once before after the Apollo program. Obama has been making good use of its progeny to wind McCain’s clock. It’s called the digital revolution.

The President of Free Space, Part 1

(George Bush waves good-bye to a television picture of astronauts in orbit after a congratulatory phone call. White House photo by Paul Morse.)

The President of Free Space, Part 1

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.

Do rocket scientists make good physics teachers?

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.

Rocketree

I saw a blurb recently for what must be the ultimate in green living: trees shaped into pretty much whatever floats your boat.

Here’s a bench, newly installed outside a Tel Aviv hospital:

(The side supports are temporary until the trees’ roots set.)

For the home, the company offers fruit baskets, umbrella stands and toilet paper holders. Their scientists even have plans to grow a whole house, though they estimate it'll take about 10 years.

That got me thinking that maybe NASA ought to special order one of these arborsculptures crafted into the shape of a rocket. It’d be fun to see how big it would be in 12 years -- the amount of time the U.S. government needs to get astronauts back on the moon. (The program started four years ago.)

Seems odd, since the first moon landing, which basically started from scratch, took nine years. Now with 50 years of spaceflight under our belts, it’s taking almost twice as long. With progress like that, a rocketree seems an appropriate symbol for 21st-century rocketry.

(Photo, computer image: American Friends of Tel Aviv University.)

Falcon Flubs

Not to sound tarty -- and first to acknowledge Elon Musk for even trying these days, on his own dime, and not asking the government to bail him out if/when times get hard -- but this weekend’s launch of Space
Exploration Technology’s Falcon 1 rocket, which carried a payload for its first paying customers, the U.S. government, didn’t go exactly right for the third flight in a row.

Though Musk once said he might stick by baseballs’ three-strikes-yer-out rule, he’s out in front, as a good leader should, talking up flights four, five, six and beyond. In other words, he will not stop.

“I will never give up and I mean never,” Musk wrote in an email to employees Saturday night.

Earlier in the day, the company fired off a Falcon 1 rocket from the firm’s central Pacific launch site on Omelek Island in the Kwajalein Atoll, located about 2,500 miles southwest of Hawaii.

SpaceX is a privately-owned rocket development and launch services firm founded and funded by Musk, an internet entrepreneur credited as a (the?) key member of the PayPal financial services firm, now owned by eBay.

As Stephen Clark of SpaceFlightNow.com puts it, “Disaster struck about two-and-a-half minutes after a seemingly picture-perfect blastoff at 11:34 p.m. EDT Saturday (0334 GMT Sunday).”

At a press conference later that day, Musk said some problem prevented the first and second stages from separating properly (apparently this is a problem shared by even very experienced space-farers, like the Russian government.)

Writes Clark, “Stage separation was slated to occur two minutes and 39 seconds after liftoff as pyrotechnic bolts fired to sever the physical connections between the stages. The bolts are all redundantly initiated and have never failed aboard other launch vehicles, according to SpaceX.”

Lost in the accident were the U.S. military’s Trailblazer satellite and two small NASA payloads, including an innovative solar sail. The payload also included a cache of cremated remains, including ashes from astronaut Gordon Cooper and Star Trek actor James Doohan, notes Clark.

Live long and prosper, Elon.

Caption: Falcon 1, Take 3. Before shot. Courtesy: SpaceX

Lake, ahoy!

While debate swirls about allocation, taxation and mitigation of Earth’s key energy source -- i.e. oil -- scientists have confirmed the location of a huge, untapped pool of liquid ethane and methane that’s your’s, mine and our’s for the taking.

It’s a bit far though. On a moon of Saturn.

Still, the discovery, announced in this week’s issue of the science research journal Nature, underscores a key reason for undertaking space exploration: so we can learn what’s out there.

What the dazzlingly brilliant and disciplined minds behind the Cassini science mission at Saturn have uncovered is that yes, indeed, Earth is not the only place in the universe that has liquids on its surface. Scientists have long suspected Titan had the goods, but it has taken years of detailed, methodical investigation to deliver the evidence.

Confirmation comes from a team at the University of Arizona charged with operating Cassini’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer, which can ID chemicals by dissecting and analyzing wavelengths of light. VIMS found spectral fingerprints of liquid ethane pooled together in an area roughly 7,800 square miles (20,000 square km), which is just a bit bigger than Lake Ontario. Hence its name: Ontario Lacus.

Explains UA’s Robert Brown, the lead scientist for VIMS: "We know the lake is liquid because it reflects essentially no light at 5-micron wavelengths. It was hard for us to accept the fact that the feature was so black when we first saw it. More than 99.9 percent of the light that reaches the lake never gets out again. For it to be that dark, the surface has to be extremely quiescent, mirror smooth -- no naturally produced solid could be that smooth."

Observations at 2-micron wavelengths apparently clinched the deal, when the signature of ethane appeared at the precise wavelength that ethane absorbs infrared light. Brown says tiny particles of ethane, small as cigarette smoke, are filtering out of the atmosphere and into the lake. Atmosphere ethane is made when ultraviolet light from the sun zaps methane molecules.

There’s more: Titan’s lake apparently is evaporating, as would be expected since its summer-time on Titan’s southern hemisphere, where the lake is located.

"We can see there's a shelf, a beach, that is being exposed as the lake evaporates," Brown said.

The beach is darker than the shoreline, indicating that it is wet with organics or covered with a thin layer of liquid organics. Scientists know what’s not there: water ice, ammonia, ammonia hydrate or carbon dioxide. And it’s cold -- about 290 below zero Fahrenheit. That’s why the hydrocarbons are in a liquid state, not gas.

Personally, but I don’t mind the extra charge to Uncle Sam’s credit card to keep Cassini flying. Takes the edge off all the other mindless stuff.