Koppernigk

The most beautiful desert in the Solar system

Read more about this part real, part simulated image on Mars (large!). The prespective is fantastic. And there might have been .... water .... in the past too... a recent stunning discovery..... again. :)

A generation gap?

Here's another take on the problem I discussed yesterday about Obama's plans to change course. it seems there's a generation gap at work! Well, that means I'm "young and excited". How right can they be, especially with the y-word!

"Call it NASA: The Next Generation. The president is pointing America toward a new direction in space, and some heroes from NASA's long-ago glory days don't like it.

New rockets to the moon have been canceled. And the space shuttles are about to be mothballed. Instead, the Obama administration wants to rely more on private companies to fly into space over the next few years, while also working to develop a big, new government rocket ship.

But the plan lacks details, and neither a specific initial destination nor a spacecraft has been settled on.

The old space hands aren't buying it. From Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, to the last astronaut to leave his footprints there, many Apollo-era space veterans are upset. They especially don't like President Barack Obama's cancellation of President George W. Bush's return-to-the-moon mission. They accuse Obama of abandoning American leadership in space to the Chinese and Russians. ..." (AP)

Into space: the real challenge

George W. Bush told NASA to return to the Moon as a first step to go to Mars. Barack Obama now states that going back to the Moon or hopping down from Earth to low Earth orbit could as well be done by commercial partners (you could say Russia is one of them) but reaching new frontiers needs new technologies. Let's put our efforts into that.

I must say I agree with him. The same goes for European development. It's great to shoot one satellite into orbit after another with Ariane, but what do we really gain with it other than that we get better with every launch? In this case it means doing the same over and over again without really progressing. The same goes for initiatives in Inda or China. What difference does it make that they fly into space or to the Moon? Been there, done that. Nothing new. In the US nearly the whole Constellation program was nothing more than reinventing what NASA did over 40 years ago. Why did we forget it in the first place?

If we want to leave Earth and overcome all the problems going out as human species, of being exposed to prolongued radiation, weightlessness, isolation, we should unite forces and cooperate by going into space with a plan. A plan for humankind, not for the USA, Russia, Europe, India, China or whatever country likes to fire off spacecraft into the big nowhere. What do we want to achieve with space travel? It's imperative that neither party gets a decisive say. As we can see that's possible with the ISS. Not everyone is enamored with it, but it's at least a symbol of world cooperation. Every journey starts with a first step.

It's better to put our collecive money into real breakthrough inventions or developments. As an addition here's an op-ed at SPACE.com.

And maybe it's the first step for a whole new paradigm in human development, countering the problems of outer space together as a human race. Remember what that nefarious "omnipotent" Q - character from Star Trek The Next Generation said to Captain Picard after the unpteenth trial of humankind; it was one of the best quotes from that series: “That is the exploration that awaits you. Not mapping stars and studying nebula; but charting the unknown possibilities of existence.”

Brainstorming into space

If you want to participate in a discussion about the future of space exploration by NASA, you should check out OpenNASA, part of the Obama Open Government initiative. You can sign up here.

2010, still no space odyssey

"The year 2010 has arrived, but humans have yet to travel out to the gas giants of our solar system as portrayed by Arthur C. Clarke in his book "2010: Odyssey Two" — much less unearth alien artifacts on the moon.

Clarke was more than just a science fiction legend — he was a physicist, and in 1945, the same year he sold his first story, he was the first to propose the concept of geostationary telecommunications satellite networks, more than a decade before the first orbital rocket flight. He died in 2008 at age 90.

Clarke's book "2010" debuted in 1982 as a sequel to his iconic work "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Now, 28 years later, the real 2010 leaves much to be desired. Let's see how far we have to go before reaching Clarke's vision of our present: ..." (SPACE.com)

Rhea and Titan, courtesy Cassini

Spacecraft Cassini has returned some spectacular pictures from Enceladus. No doubt a lot will hit the net when they've been processed. Browsing the unprocessed images I found the one below. The caption says it's Rhea at approximately 1,148,072 kilometers away.

In the background you can see Titan and the haze (or should we call it eternal fog?) surrounding the Saturnian moon. In this picture, Titan is at a distance of about 600,000 kilometers from Rhea.

Rhea has a diameter of 1,500 kilometers, Titan is more than 5,000 kilometers in diameter. These two are far apart in diameter, and yet they are the biggest and the second biggest Moon of Saturn.

It makes you wonder. A Mars size satellite with a thick atmosphere and all other Moons very recognizable as "moons" with craters and all. Titan no doubt was a decent planet long ago which happened to pass too close to Saturn it seems. And then we called it a moon. Just bad luck for Titan? Who knows.

Even more wonderful is the hierarchy from the Greek pantheon. Rhea was a Titan in greek mythology. She married Kronos (who happened to be her brother, as Gaia (Mother Earth) was the mother of both). Kronos is known as Saturn by the Romans. One of their children was Zeus; the Romans called him Jupiter.

As you can see, the relations in the solar system are as convoluted as those in the Roman and Greek pantheon.

Solar Sailing

"News that The Planetary Society has begun a new solar sailing program made headlines in major media outlets around the world this past week. LightSail garnered coverage in such publications as the New York Times, New Scientist, Scientific American, and in Associated Press and Reuter wire stories that appeared in hundreds of newspapers and websites.

As our Executive Director Louis Friedman said, "We're back!" "(The Planetary Society)

Wave Rosetta goodbye

Rosetta, the spacecraft that's heading for comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and will become an artificial satellite of the comet, is right on target for the last gravity assist of Earth. After that it will head for its final destination, eventually putting a lander on the comet as well. If all goes well, Rosetta will reach 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014.

"After the trajectory correction manoeuvre on 22 October, Rosetta has lined up on a near-perfect Earth approach path. The manoeuvre was so precise that mission controllers decided not to use the additional manoeuvre slot that was available yesterday.

Rosetta's orbit has been determined using radiometric data received from ESA and NASA ground stations, and estimates now show that she will pass within a few kilometers of the planned point of closest approach during next week’s Earth swingby. If necessary, additional manoeuvre slots are available at 24 and 6 hours prior to closest approach.

Rosetta is now forecast to pass over a watery point just South of the island of Java at an altitude of 2481 km at 13.34 km/s relative to Earth. This estimate will be updated in the coming days. " (ESA)

If you want to track Rosetta on its closest approach on November 13, read the mission blog and charts here.

These Mars cars are getting bigger and bigger

"If you found your grandmother's diary, tattered and dust covered, up in the attic, would you read it? Of course you would. Granny was a pistol! Brush off the dust, open up the little book, and foray into her lively and interesting past.

Dust cloaks some fascinating tales in other places, too. NASA scientists will soon brush the dust off some Martian rocks that are practically bursting their seams to give their lively account of the red planet's past. The Mars Science Lab -- aptly named "Curiosity" -- is heading up there in 2011 to read the diary of Mars.

The small, car-sized rover will ramble about on the rocky surface, gizmos at full tilt, not only brushing dust off rocks but also vaporizing them with a laser beam, gathering samples to analyze on the spot, taking high resolution photographs, and more." (NASA)

Cassini and the fruits of hard work

JPL has created a nice slideshow with the fruit of years of observations by the Cassini spacecraft. I could do without the noisy music (and so could we all, by muting the sound, heh) but the selection gives a good impression of the wealth of new information the little critter has collected for us out there.

Click on the link above or on the picture to visit the flash version.

Let's go

These days more people are being critical of human space travel. I don't understand why. No one told us to stay away from the top of the Mount Everest. No one told us not to dive to the bottom of the ocean, No one ever told us to put away our bike and not paddle up to the top of the Mont Ventoux. A lot of human activities in this category only cost money and pay nothing in return but the optimistic view that people can tear down barriers and meet any challenge. So my question is: why go to Mars when we can sit behind our laptops and look at the results like the ones below? Because we want to see it with our own eyes, not the eyes of a robotic camera. That's way. Go, human space travelers

"Mars Express image of a region close to Ma’adim Vallis, one of the largest canyons on Mars. After Valles Marineris, Ma’adim Vallis is one of the largest canyons on Mars. The imaged region lies south-east of Ma’adim Vallis; the pictures are centred at about 29°S and 182°E and have a ground resolution of 15 m/pixel.

Ma’adim Vallis is located between the volcanic region of Tharsis, which harbours four volcanoes, including the largest in the Solar System, and the Hellas Planitia impact basin. The canyon, 20 km wide and 2 km deep, originates in the southern highlands close to the ‘dichotomy boundary’ and ends in Gusev crater. The dichotomy boundary is a narrow region separating the cratered highlands, located mostly in the southern hemisphere of Mars, from the northern hemisphere's lowland plains." (ESA)

Still waving or fallen prey to the Moon elements?

"Is the U.S. flag planted on the moon 40 years ago still standing? That's just one of many questions researchers hope will be answered this year by new pictures of old Apollo landing sites.

A plan to photograph the historic lunar locations with NASA's new Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), revealed yesterday on SPACE.com, should be a boon to lunar archaeologists who aim to solve some longstanding mysteries and also get a historic-landmark designation for the Apollo 11 touchdown site.

The first moon landing by the Apollo 11 crew took place July 20, 1969.

The new photos, expected in coming days, weeks and months, will be of keen interest to archaeologists involved in the Lunar Legacy Project. They contend that Apollo 11's Tranquility Base should be seen as an anthropological site and deserves preservation for all present and future inhabitants of the Earth..." (SPACE.com)

Let it snow - on Mars

"Favorable chemistry and episodes with thin films of liquid water during ongoing, long-term climate cycles may sometimes make the area where NASA's Phoenix Mars mission landed last year a favorable environment for microbes.

Interpretations of data that Phoenix returned during its five months of operation on a Martian arctic plain fill four papers in this week's edition of the journal Science, the first major peer-reviewed reports on the mission's findings. Phoenix ended communications in November 2008 as the approach of Martian winter depleted energy from the lander's solar panels.

"Not only did we find water ice, as expected, but the soil chemistry and minerals we observed lead us to believe this site had a wetter and warmer climate in the recent past -- the last few million years -- and could again in the future," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson.

A paper about Phoenix water studies, for which Smith is the lead author with 36 coauthors from six nations, cites clues supporting an interpretation that the soil has had films of liquid water in the recent past. The evidence for water and potential nutrients "implies that this region could have previously met the criteria for habitability" during portions of continuing climate cycles, these authors conclude..." (University of Arizona)

Towering structures in the rings of Saturn

This is absolutely cool: see some towering structures in the rings of Saturn passing by here. The rings itself are about 10 meters thick, these extensions might well be 1.5 kilometers high.

Blueberries on Mars

A video about the blueberries on Mars, pointing at the rather large possibility that a long time ago this part of Mars was flooded in water instead of "bone dry". (SPACE.com)

Humans: no safe mode and reboot possibilities in space

It's not about oxygen, or about headaches, or about weakening muscles, it's about radiation. A MRO reboot and safe mode situation might have given us another reminder of the dangers in outer space. And this is just a machine. If we humans want to follow, there's still a lot to do.

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is in safe mode and in communications with Earth after an unexpected rebooting of its computer Wednesday evening, June 3.

The spontaneous reboot resembles a Feb. 23 event on the spacecraft. Engineers concluded the most likely cause for that event was a cosmic ray or solar particle hitting electronics and causing an erroneous voltage reading.

Jim Erickson, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., said, "The spacecraft is sending down high-rate engineering data, power positive, batteries fully charged, sun pointed and thermally safe. The flight team is cautiously bringing the orbiter back to normal operations. We should be resuming our exploration of Mars by next week."

The reboot occurred at approximately 6:10 p.m. PDT (9:10 p.m. EDT) on June 3. This is the sixth time since the spacecraft began its primary science phase in November 2006 that it has entered safe mode, which is its programmed precaution when it senses a condition for which it does not know a more specific response." (JPL)

Phoenix (maybe) revisited

While in the southern hemisphere the winter is approaching, here, up north the reverse is the case. While it gets warmer and warmer outside it reminds us of the harsh circumstances around the phoenix Mars lander, now silent. But the moment approaches that it's one year on Mars. Around that time, October of this year, the Phoenix team will attempt to contact the lander. If they succeed, they should be able to revive it and start sending it commands again.
Sadly, this is very unlikely, as the lander has been tested to withstand minus 55 degrees Celsius, but at this very moment surrounding temperatures on Mars around the pole are more likely to hit minus 125.

Anyhow, they will try to contact it in or around October of this year. When in in southern hemisphere the summer will be approaching and we here higher up will find ourself approaching winter. Earth winter that is. No need for minus 100 over here.

(Phoenix Mars Mission)

Success factors of some sturdy critters

Mars Rover Spirit seems to have overcome its computer glitches and reboots. By now 5 years and 4 months on Mars both rovers are still doing well, save for some little handicaps like a wheel that's stuck and some major handicaps like diminished power supply due to dusty solar panels - occasionally blown a bit cleaner by Mars winds and dust devils.

Interesting to know is why the two Mars Rovers hold out so long. The expectations by JPL/NASA were a 90 day working period, but that seems to have been not very realistic. I wonder if it was PR or a real expectation. If it was PR, well, good for them, but if it was not, I'm very interested in a few other things. What are the reasons of these "miscalculations". What factors were responsible for the longer life span - so much longer than expected? What are current expectations and what are they based upon? These are all critical success factors we can learn from. That especially holds for even more hostile climates like on Jovian or Saturnian moons, on the lookout for life or water in freezing circumstances, or visiting Plutoids and other outer Solar System bodies. Think about Pioneer spacecraft still working after more than 35 years, but only at low levels and not as active as the Mars Rovers.

I couldn't find anything on the Mars Rover sites, but would like to read some thoughts by the highly successful mission team about the success factors keeping the Rovers rolling so well. So not only a kudos, but also a "how come?". Maybe in the future, when they finally give up - if they ever will.

It didn't forget to start driving again

"NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit drove on Thursday for the first time since April 8, acting on commands from engineers who are still investigating bouts of amnesia and other unusual behavior exhibited by Spirit in the past two weeks.

The drive took Spirit about 1.7 meters (5.6 feet) toward destinations about 150 meters (about 500 feet) away. The rover has already operated more than 20 times longer than its original prime mission on Mars.

This week, rover engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., judged that it would be safe to send Spirit commands for Thursday's drive. They also anticipated that, if the rover did have another amnesia event, the day's outcome could be helpful in diagnosing those events. .." (NASA/JPL)

Boldly Going Nowhere

Seth Shostak, from SETI, has an interesting take on interstellar travel. From blasting ourselves into the confines of Proxima Centauri to telepresence: Boldly Going Nowhere.