Saturday’s tragic crash of Virgin Galactic’s space plan over the Mojave Desert was inevitable. Two highly regarded pilots subjected a new technology to a test that partially failed. I say “partially” because the launch plane lived to see another day, while the space-skimming component didn’t.
As horrific as it must have been to watch the crash, again, I say, all knew it was a definite possibility. Anyone who flirts with the impossible does. Is it wrong to test fate? Certainly not. It’s expected. Demanded, even, if humankind’s going to stretch its limits to infinite levels.
Long before the days of Icarus, the absence of wings from the human anatomy led the drive to create the next best thing. Someone’s always thought up of a way to fly without success, but it wasn’t until November 1783 that two French citizens, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d’Arlandes, took flight in a hot air balloon created in 1782 by Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier. That’s when the earthbound soul could gaze upon the world in an entirely new perspective.
For the next 100+ years, serious study involving the physics of lift and sustained flight occurred. Notably, Sir George Caley’s work led to the first manned, controllable glider capable of sustained flight in 1853. Throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century, important research and experimentation regarding steam-propelled flight occurred. In 1874 Félix du Temple created an aluminum plane with a 13-meter wingspan. After launching from a ramp under steam power, it remained airborne for a short but significant hop, causing it to be the first hop achieved powered by an engine. In 1875 Thomas Moy set into flight an tandem-winged monoplane dubbed “The Aerial Steamer.” Alexander Mozhaiski, a Russian, built a steam-powered monoplane and in 1884, managed to launch it from a ramp and it remained aloft for 98 feet.
Each of these experiments edged pilots closer to their goal of sustained flight with the use of power to achieve it. Here’s where the controversy comes in. Gustave Whitehead fans know for sure it was he who took to the air on August 14, 1901 in Fairfield, Connecticut and stayed there using his Number 21 Monoplane. It was an event reported in the Bridgeport Sunday Herald. In January 1903 he claimed to repeat his feat two more times. Even Jane’s All The World’s Aircraft stated in 2013 Whitehead was first.
On the other hand, the Smithsonian Institution is sticking to its guns saying that the Wright Brothers, using their unstable, nearly unmanageable aircraft, took flight at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina on December 17, 1903. Each brother had his turn, with Orville flying 120 feet in 12 seconds, and Wilbur beating his brother by going 852 feet in 59 seconds.
All these contributions were significant. In ten years’ time, flying machines progressed to such a level they became not instruments of how humans can soar with the birds, but shoot them down like game. World War I pilots became famous and infamous, as their canvas and wood planes were capable of killing not just the enemy, but anyone who was brave enough to fly them.
After the war, flight technology progressed rapidly. Aviators pushed the limits as quickly as the engineers who built the planes they flew. Charles Lindbergh was the first to cross the Atlantic without stopping, and Charles Kingford-Smith was the first to cross the Pacific uninterrupted. In 1924 the first aerial circumnavigation was conducted by the United States Army Air Service using a team of pilots.
Of course we all know what came next. World War II brought on unparalleled use of planes as weapons, with the first jet coming from Germany at the end of the war. That led to a combination of supersonic planes and the development of rocketry. Far more pilots died as a result of war than as a result of experimentation of new technology, but it is although through the applied usage of flight that humans have created new boundaries to serve new purposes.
Planes launched a powerless Enterprise, the first American space shuttle. Eventually, rockets got them into space. The missions also met with tragedy twice. But look what those missions gave us: a new understanding to what is possible, and what might be.
My heart goes out to the families whose members made the ultimate sacrifice for pushing the boundaries. Their contributions are not forgotten. Their deaths are not in vain, but will one day serve as an example of what can be ultimately achieved when one bravely steps out to take the ultimate risk.
For years, there’s been all sorts of conjecture about creating an elevator to space. Why bother with rockets when space comes to you at the press of a button? It’s relatively cheap, efficient and kind of cool. NASA’s been tinkering with this idea for some time now, even offering a competition to intrepid folks willing to come up with a winning design.
In the meantime, a Japanese construction company, Obayashi, plans to have one functioning by 2050. Thanks to the use of carbon nanotechnology, it plans to begin construction somewhere around 2030. Extending 96,000 kilometers in space, it will provide an economical alternative to traditional launch-based technologies (otherwise known as rockets).
Considering what rockets cost to build and launch, it’s expected to be quite a savings in both time and resources. It is expected to transport up to 30 people to a space station and will take seven days to reach it.
From there, getting to the moon with the sky taxi should be a piece of cake. So when you next hear Frank Sinatra croon, “Fly Me to the Moon,” perhaps you’ll know what he was talking about. Who knew that man was such a predictor of the future of space?
Check this out: Boeing, who introduced many of us to the friendly skies, will be giving astronauts a lift in space. Though there are several suppliers of this rising industry, it seems as if Boeing’s got their toes in NASA.
Used to be that naming planets was a fairly simple task. The Ancients looked up towards the skies, observed that a handful of stars travelled across the sky (and, in fact, planet means “wanderer”) and gave them a suitable name that reflected what they saw.
For example, Mars, glowing red in the heavens, was named for the Roman god of war. And it wasn’t just the Romans who considered this planet the embodiment of conflict and challenges, many cultures and their languages also saw fit to give it this distinction. The Greeks called it Ares, Hindus call it Mangela, Hebrews call it Ma’adim, in Sanskrit it is known as Angaraka, and in Babylon one would notice the rising and setting of Nergal.
With the advent of stronger telescopes, more planets within our solar system were discovered, though not bright enough to spot with the unaided eye (mostly – if you know where to look on an incredibly clear night in the middle of a very dark, dark field with absolutely no chance of any interfering light from any source, you might see Uranus, but that depends on other conditions, too). I’ve seen Jupiter’s four bright moons, through a telescope but with my own eyes, too (but you have to cover up Jupiter with a magazine to see them; it’s much less of a challenge to spot them even with birding binoculars or a decent pair of opera glasses).
Nowadays, we have a problem of riches. Thanks to the hard work of astronomers, astrophysicists and others trained to observe the telltale signs of wobble and movement, there are over a thousand planets at our disposal. Sure, they’re ridiculously far away and chances are you’ll never see any of them though your backyard reflector. But you might see the star they’re rotating, and imagine what kind of life lives upon these exoplanets, as they’re called.
Do you want to blow your mind? The New York Times has an amazing interactive graphic that’ll keep you busy for hours. I can’t even find the words to describe how amazing this chart is, but if you check it out, make sure you scroll down to the end. I won’t give away what’s there, except you’ll gasp and say, “hmm! The ones found are the result of NASA’s Kepler mission that have confirmed planets rotating around stars. If you click on some of the graphics on the above link, up will come information about the planet and its sun.
Of course, it’s impossible to find appropriate names for this batch that seems to be growing daily. That doesn’t mean there hasn’t been attempts. The International Astronomical Union is sponsoring a contest for that very purpose. Have any ideas? Here’s your chance to honor a hitherto anonymous planet with a memorable, catchy handle, just as you would a baby.
Trouble is, what would the inhabitants of said world think?
Mars, the alluring tempter of a planet, now exists in map form, easily accessible at the touch of a computer key. That’s it, just above the copy of this blog post. As you can see, there’s peaks and valleys, plus polar ice caps. From the shape of things, one can imagine where water might have flowed and accumulated.
Here’s another view: rotating Mars
The last map was created in 1987, when technology and resources were scant and crude, compared to today’s standards. Previous maps consisted of data taken from Viking probes and other sources. What made this latest incarnation possible is the use of the Mars Global Surveyor and the laser altimeter, which bounces up to 600 laser beams to the surface. Such details, as ages of rocks, were gathered from these sources.
Now, doesn’t that sound like a great title for a sci-fi novel?
Actually, this story’s true and it is a great story for a movie.
Way back when Jimmy Carter was president, in 1978, the International Sun-Earth Explorer 3 was launched with the mission to investigate solar wind’s interaction with the Earth’s magnetic field. Later, it was renamed the International Cometary Explorer (ICE) to study comets. In September 1985, it passed through the tail of Comet Giacobini-Zinner, and in 1986 it was tasked with the mission to observe Halley’s Comet. During the same year, three rocket burns put it on a course to position it above the moon on August 10, 2014. With the ICE so near, a space shuttle could snatch it and return it to earth, and NASA had this in mind because it planned to donate it to the National Air and Space Museum.
After a few more missions, it was retired in 1997, although it loops around the sun in a 355 day orbit. It will catch up with and pass the Earth this August 2014. But in 1999, the Deep Space Network was upgraded and the transmitters that communicated with ICE were themselves retired, although no one said this to ICE, who continued its end of the bargain by remaining open to communication. It’s sort of like being kept on hold and waiting forever, without anyone telling you that the person who put you there went home a long time ago, leaving you to listen to horrible Kenny G music in the meantime.
And really, that should have been the end of the story. But it isn’t.
Within the confines of yet another decommissioned icon, an entrepreneurial engineer named Dennis Wingo has managed the impossible. He and his team have begun communicating with ICE once more. Mr. Wingo’s company is Skycorp and it’s located in an ex-McDonalds in a decommissioned Navy base that has been repurposed for nonprofits, academia and small technology firms.
A decommissioned satellite linked with a decommissioned burger factory is kind of cool. There’s something very Max Headroom about it. I like it.
Through Mr. Wingo’s determination, a group of engineers, including those who originally worked on the project, plus a crowd funding site RocketHub, they raised approximately $160,ooo to breathe life in the old gal. And NASA’s doing its part too, donating time on its Deep Space Network to help getting ICE going again.
ICE is still doing its job out there and observing solar flares and other phenomena, as was discovered. So there was great optimism to position it over the moon as originally planned, which now requires 400 pulses to place it over the sweet spot. There’s been a few minor setbacks, but if all goes well, Mr. Wingo and his team are all set to pull ICE into a moon gravity-based slingshot into an orbit around the earth, so it can receive instructions for a new mission.
I have to admit that this story has me cheering. Why should there be a whole pile of forgotten and unused satellites and space paraphernalia after NASA and all the world’s other space agencies no longer need them? It’s an excellent opportunity for others, corporations like Skycorp but also universities and even astronomy and engineering clubs to find other purposes for them? Sure, one can say that leaves opportunities for crimes we haven’t even imagined yet. On the other hand, I’m sticking with the belief that a lot of good can come from that zombie named ICE, and its other colleagues out there.
Just imagine the stories that can be dreamed up from this real-life adventure…
There’s a really hard worker out there, a senior citizen by many standards, who labors daily to investigate new discoveries and justify employment. It’s a familiar circumstance, as anyone who’s been to McDonald’s lately and notices the grey-haired workers slinging burgers behind the counter.
Except this time, we’re talking about a enterprising, determined robot named Opportunity.
NASA’s ten-year-old scrappy little fella keeps plugging away, searching through the red dust looking for, well, new opportunities. And like many senior citizens out there, he’s survived wretched conditions: blazing heat, frigid winters, uncertain circumstances, life out in the open without so much as a complaint. Somehow, someway it’s continued to plug away at the only job it has ever known, and that’s reporting its findings back to the scientists who record its reports and disseminate whatever they contain in the name of research.
Those days might end a whole lot sooner than anyone thinks. The 2015 NASA budget has been slashed, with zero funds for our Earthern expatriate.
What’s becoming of America and its intrepidness? I mean, really?
I’m not really a political person, but when I see opportunities lost (and this isn’t a pun) such as the one on Mars, I feel a bit more of our prestige going down the toilet. We should be proud that a robot as resilient as Opportunity still continues to operate. as we almost certainly are with Voyagers 1 and 2. And yes, there are plenty other missions slated for Mars, including manned ones. But why quit an Opportunity now, when there’s still so much to be gained?
Our nation once threw itself into the space race full tilt. Those days have ebbed, but the drive to encourage and educate young scientists isn’t fostered as diligently as it once was, or should still be. I find this ironic, since we seem to be heading into second golden age of Sci-Fi. With all the interest in what’s going to unfold in the future, shouldn’t we take a little hunk of our past and keep it going?
Though we’re gaining ground of what sort of planet Mars truly is, it’s become a group effort among nations. Everybody who’s industrialized seems to have their eyes set squarely on Mars, for science and the inevitable drive for profit.
Which leaves me to wonder: is America up to the challenge anymore? Does America really care about its space legacy? Has it lost its imagination about how far we can go?
I sure hope not. I’m still betting Star Trek is a chronicle of the future, sent back to us here in the past, just like ST IV: The Journey Home.
Recently I made a post about diplomacy in space, wherein American astronauts and Russian Cosmonauts worked together through the years, regardless of events that transpired between Washington and Moscow. It seemed like a good thing. Offering scientists to work together peacefully as they cooperatively build such innovations as the International Space Station is unprecedented, if you think about it. And I say unprecedented because despite all the fireworks between our two nations, our shared space mission has continued throughout a number of years. The only explosions have come from transports launching space shuttles heavenward.
That’s coming to a close now. Thanks to whatever’s coming down in the Crimea crisis, pretty much all cooperative efforts between Russia and the United States is ending, or, more specifically, between NASA and Moscow. There’s a point to be had, for sure, as in there’s a right way to approach a situation (through diplomacy) and a wrong way (through invasion, or threats thereof). Does the United States really want to have representatives from Russia’s space initiatives mingling with its American counterparts? On one hand, they are there for the science. On the other, their intentions might lie elsewhere.
Still, we’ve come this far, and if there’s mutual trust built between everyone who’s shared the same common goal, then what’s to quibble about? It’s my belief that by cutting short all cooperation, we are only stopping ourselves from achieving greater things. I mean, who has all the lock on innovation anyway? Isn’t it possible for everyone to work together? Or, at least, leave the scientists to be scientists and the politicians to be, well, politicians.
Think of not only what could come of the United States and Russia’s shared goals, but other nations as well. Already, we have the ISS with any number of crew members achieving the impossible in space. There’s all sorts of people participating in all sorts of experiments, so that those of us stuck here on earth might find some benefit to their discoveries sooner or later.
And although the US and Russia have the longest tradition, other nations are catching up to both of us. Take, for example, India. They’ve got some of the world’s best engineers that are trained and paid at a fraction of the cost as their Russian and American counterparts. What’s to stop them from overtaking us and them? China’s going full tilt ahead, as is Brazil. There’s many more in the wings in Europe and elsewhere. Pretty soon, we’re all going to be yesterday’s news as the up-and-coming nations put squabbles aside and perhaps partner to do a little crowing of their own regarding space achievements.
It’s not hard to conceive that these relative space newbies will find their own raison d’être to work with private enterprises to generate vast profits over what can be mined from the lunar surface and lassoing asteroids for minerals. They’ll find the way at lower costs and higher efficiencies. Why worry and wonder what the United States and Russia’s going to do when India, China, Brazil and the rest have their own futures to carve?
Only my opinion, folks. But truly, there’s so much more to be gained from cooperation than not. Need an example? The shared history speaks for itself.
I’ve got myself hooked into a whole batch of NASA, ESA and tons of other space-related Twitter feeds that keep me posted on what’s going down up there. You know, on the International Space Station.
I might be waxing romantic here, but why is it that for all of the problems the United States and Russia have had over the years, the space program shared between them seems to be a model of diplomacy?
I’m not dumb. I’m certain there are complexities and complications that I haven’t even considered or comprehended. Yet, here I was only a few moments ago, looking at the latest crew for Mission 39/40 that will ride a Soyuz up to the ISS: Alexander Skvortsov, Oleg Artemyev, Steve Swanson launch on Tuesday. In May, Reid Wiseman, Maxim Suraev, Alexander Gerst (a German, representing ESA) join them.
Looking through all of the images in the gallery, everyone seems totally preoccupied with their impending mission and what they intend to accomplish once aboard the ISS. Everyone is intent on completing their pre-launch tasks and training. There’s lots of photo-op shoots too, all smiles and poses. It’s more than obvious that all are dedicated to their jobs and more than likely they deem themselves fortunate to participate in this great adventure.
Does everyone discuss the current political situation embroiling our respective nations? Can’t say that they do, or even it they’re thinking about it. I’m sure it enters their minds. We’d never know about it.
Perhaps the tacit message that the crew of Mission 39/40 is sending us is this: we come in peace. We work together towards a greater goal. All of us can accomplish the impossible.
The Brazilian Space Agency’s Control Center at the Alcântara Launch Center (photograph produced by Agência Brasil, a public Brazilian news agency).
Yes, it goes without saying that the United States, Russia and China have space programs. India’s is growing by leaps and bounds, and not a day goes by when there’s loads of comments flying about saying how they’d rather spend their money launching rockets than feeding their population.
Sure, sure, these nations have a whole lot of resources (i.e., money, engineers) to send just about anything into orbit and back. But how many of you know about Agência Espacial Brasileira (AFB for short)?
What, you didn’t know Brazil had its own space program?
You’d be surprised how many people out there have absolutely no idea that not only does Brazil have a space program, its launch site is the closest to the equator, offering excellent trajectory for geosynchronous satellites, or those with the same orbital period as the Earth.
There are two launch sites within Brazil: Alcântara Launch Center and Barreira do Inferno Launch Center. Alcântara (otherwise known as Centro de Lançamento de Alcântara or CLA) is located in the state of Maranhão on the Alcântara peninsula. It’s the closest to the equator, next to the sea and in a relatively low populated area. It’s also the main launch site in Brazil. The second site, Barreira do Inferno Launch Center (known as Centro de Lançamento da Barreira do Inferno or CLBI) is located in Parnamirim, Rio Grande do Norte state. Its main purpose is to launch sounding, or research rockets into space as well as support Alcântara.
The AFB has plenty of activity. Since 1990, they’ve been launching and/or developing a multitude of their own missions, as well as cooperative projects with the United States, Russia, China, Argentina and Japan, even the Ukraine. Brazil’s launched satellites of its own that collect intelligence and weather data.
Marco Pontes is the first Brazilian astronaut. He shares space cred with both NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency. Presently, he’s developing and fabricating parts for the International Space Station, and is on standby for future missions.
As the space race ratchets up across the globe, Brazil is poised to be a significant player. Keep your eye on them…and watch their future launch into the heavens.
Moon, Stars and Beyond 