Space Art by David A Hardy

I have seen David A. Hardy's art in The Planetary Society's magazine The Planetary Report, so I decided to check out his webpage. I was impressed with the variety of pieces.  I recommend a visit to Mr. Hardy's site at AstroArt.org.  One of my favorites was Sagan's Moon shown to the left.  Here is how he explains this painting:

Carl Sagan commissioned this acrylic painting of a Jupiter-type exoplanet with an earthlike moon, seen from another, airless moon. There is no reason why a large satellite of a gas-giant should not have air and water, and therefore life – though it's seasons and the pattern of night, day and eclipses would be complicated!

Note Regarding the Image:  All material is Copyright ©David A. Hardy/AstroArt.org. It is NOT 'public domain', and any unauthorised use will be detected and action taken.

SpaceX: We Have Liftoff!

Yesterday (May 22nd), at 3:44 am EST, SpaceX successfully launched the Falcon 9 from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for a rendezvous with the International Space Station.  While much more remains to be done, this is a hopeful start to a new era in space. 

“We obviously have to go through a number of steps to berth with the Space Station, but everything is looking really good and I think I would count today as a success no matter what happens with the rest of the mission,” CEO Elon Musk said in a SpaceX press release.

Musk went on to state,

This mission heralds the dawn of a new era of space exploration, one in which there is a significant commercial space element. It is like the advent of the Internet in the mid-1990s when commercial companies entered what was originally a government endeavor. That move dramatically accelerated the pace of advancement and made the Internet accessible to the mass market. I think we’re at a similar inflection point for space. I hope and I believe that this mission will be historic in marking that turning point towards a rapid advancement in space transportation technology.

NASA's Administrator Charles Bolden had his own sentiments as well:
 
I want to congratulate SpaceX for its successful launch, and salute the NASA team that worked alongside them to make it happen. 

Today marks the beginning of a new era in exploration; a private company has launched a spacecraft to the International Space Station that will attempt to dock there for the first time. And while there is a lot of work ahead to successfully complete this mission, we are certainly off to good start. 

Under President Obama’s leadership, the nation is embarking upon an ambitious exploration program that will take us farther into space than we have ever traveled before, while helping create good-paying jobs right here in the United States of America. 

We’re handing off to the private sector our transportation to the International Space Station so that NASA can focus on what we do best -- exploring even deeper into our solar system, with missions to an asteroid and Mars on the horizon. 

We’re committed to ending the outsourcing of work on America’s space program and bringing these jobs back to the United States. 

And we’re working to promote competition and have multiple private sector partners so we don’t find ourselves in the situation we are today -- having only one way to get to the space station. 

The decision to end the shuttle program back in 2004 was a difficult one. But with the kind of hard work, determination and ingenuity for which NASA and this nation are known, we’re now on the brink of a new future. 

A future that stands on the shoulders of Mercury and Gemini; Apollo and Shuttle. A future that embraces the innovation the private sector brings to the table, and a future that opens up the skies to endless possibilities. ‪ 

Again, congratulations to the SpaceX and NASA teams, and Godspeed Dragon.

Does this make Musk the Google or Facebook of the space program?  We shall see, but SpaceX has done what no other private company has done before.  As with Facebook, the future is unknown and subject to some rough seas ahead, but like NASA I would put my money on Musk and those who follow.

Update:  On May 25th at 12:02 pm EST the Dragon successfully docked with the International Space Station. And at 5:53 am EST today the Dragon hatch was open and the mission was determined to be a success (here is the NASA video of the hatch opening).  That's one big step for SpaceX and an even bigger step for a nation with its hopes set on commercial partners.

Second Update:  On May 31st at 11:42 am EST the Dragon safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean about 560 miles west of Baja California.

Space X Mission Patch

Each NASA space mission needed a patch to remember the event, and SpaceX is no different.  Above is the official patch for the latest (delayed) mission.  According to Collectspace, the official flight kit" onboard the Dragon includes: 2,000 lapel pins that are in the shape of the space station; 2,900 patches, 4,000 decals and 750 lapel pins with the NASA COTS 2 emblem; 2,500 SpaceX mission patches; and one copper medallion.  These items will be returned to earth, unlike the supplies heading to the International Space Station.  Telephone operators are standing by for your order...

By the Way: Light is Still Pretty Fast

You may remember my earlier piece about the 10 Biggest Science Stories, including this story:

Flying faster than the speed of light just might be possible after all:  Discusses the CERN experiment that found neutrinos may have been traveling faster than light.

We we can re-categorize this story under Worst Science Stories.  It seems the CERN experiment had some problems.  In fact, the scientist associated with the experiment has resigned.  As reported by the Wall Street Journal,

CERN now says it had identified two possible effects that could have affected the interpretation of the data. One relates to a device known as an oscillator that plays a role in synchronizing clocks at the Swiss and Italian ends. If the oscillator was wrongly calibrated, that would mean the neutrinos had actually traveled slower than light, and all would be right with the world.

A separate—and more troublesome—glitch may have occurred in a fiber-optic cable that brings a Global Positioning System, or GPS, signal to a master clock.

"If this is the case, it could have led to an underestimate of the time of flight of the neutrinos," CERN said in a one-paragraph "update" posted on its website.

Even last year there were a number of skeptics about this CERN findings, called OPERA.  As The Telegraph reported last November,

..another group of scientists conducting a separate study on the same beam of neutrinos at Gran Sasso claims their findings "refute a superluminal (faster than light) interpretation of the OPERA result."  Rather than measuring the time it took the neutrinos to travel from CERN to Gran Sasso the second experiment, known as ICARUS, monitored how much energy they had when they arrived.  Physicists believe that travelling even slightly faster than light would cause the particles to lose most of their energy in the process.  But the ICARUS team's calculations, published online last weekend, seemed to show they arrived with exactly the amount of energy particles moving at light speed should have had – and no more.  

Just a quick note.  It was so much easier to find Internet stories on the success of the CERN experiment rather than its failure.  This says a lot about our news reporters, where the breaking news is put on page one and the correction of the story on page 16.  I wanted to make sure I did not do that here (besides, I don't have a page 16 on the blog).

The Pending Launch of Falcon 9

On April 30, SpaceX successfully completed a 2 second static fire the Falcon 9's engines in preparation for the upcoming launch. SpaceX is hoping for a May 19th launch target with a backup on May 22nd.  With a successful mission, including the docking of the Dragon capsule with the International Space Station (ISS), the American space industry gets closer to filling the transportation gap left behind by the space shuttles. 

Should all go well, Space X will continue with it $1.6 billion contract with NASA to conduct 12 cargo missions to the space station with its Dragon spacecraft.  And it cannot come soon enough.  The Falcon 9 launch and dragon visit was initially scheduled for last year, and even the May launch seems optimistic to some.

And Space X has competition, with Orbital Technologies, Corp., also preparing for a test flight later this year.  Orbital Technologies has a $1.9 billion contract to provide eight cargo delivery missions to the ISS. The company will use its Antares rocket to place the Cygnus spacecraft in orbit. 

You have to love this new private sector space race!

Update:  According to NASA,  the May 19th launch has been scrubbed and the new goal is May 22nd or 23rd.  NASA reported the following: 

A SpaceX Falcon 9 aborted its launch May 19 moments after its engines ignited when computers detected higher pressure readings than allowed. The center engine pressure built above limits and a shutdown occurred one-half second before liftoff, SpaceX officials said.

The next launch attempt could come as early as Tuesday, May 22, but that determination won't be made until the engine itself is inspected, said Gwynne Shotwell, president of Space Exploration Technologies of Hawthorne, Calif., known as SpaceX. There also is an opportunity May 23.

Great Images: Old Moon in Turin

This photo, first shared by Space.com, was taken by Stefano De Rosa on December 4, 2011 outside the Basilica of Superga on the hills outside Turin. 

And We Were Worried About the Chinese

As we contemplate the latest race to the moon and potential plans for a moon base (yes, as discussed by Newt Gingrich), maybe we need to consider whether or not someone has already beat us to the moon.  Could an earlier German space program have placed a secret base on the moon?  The answer is no, but its the great premise of Iron Sky released at the Berlin Film Festival last month.  This hilarious little film set in 2018 breathes life back into the "attack from mars" genre, with a fun twist.  I mean, a secret Nazi base on the dark side of the moon that attacks Earth with spacecraft shaped like Zeppelins?  This film teaser tells it all.  At this point with all of the space program in a funk, I am happy to see any off-planet attention.

That is not to say Hollywood is missing in action (Iron Sky is a product of Finland), but a number of the more films coming out of California have been pretty bleak.  Yes, we have a new Star Trek motion picture on the horizon, but I am thinking back to Melancholia and Another Earth. 

In the case of Melancholia, you have a newly identified stray planet dancing in the Earth's orbit until it decides the dance is over (see image to right).  This makes for a very dark movie, not to say the action before the disaster gives us any reason to be cheering for Earth.  The film is beautiful to watch.  Ultimate destruction has never been so amazing.  And where did this new planet come from?  We don't get much from the movie, though is was not really intended as a scientific film.  One character does make an interesting comment noting that with the extinguishing of life on Earth all life will disappear from the universe.  But I think that's the depression talking.

Another Earth is a quirky film on the appearance of a mirror Earth slowly arriving and then pairing up with our Earth.  Again, this is not intended as a scientific film but rather a statement about possibilities and how things could be different if one event in a life were to change. 

Hence, planets are backdrops to stories rather than the main characters.  That is fine in itself.  But we need to be adventurers acting on the universe to learn more this world of ours.  We do not want to sit here waiting for the universe to come to us, maybe with disastrous consequences.  Colonies in our solar system and elsewhere can protect us from an extinction event like Melancholia.  And I too am interested in other Earths, but they will be found on a much more distant horizon using telescopes that will entail millions if not billions of dollars in expenditures.  Disney spent $250 million on a dud movie about travel to Mars in John Carter, while we earthlings continue to ponder whether or not we really have the funds and ambitions to make a trip to Mars a reality.  I look forward to more hopeful movies that dream about space missions beyond our small, blue planet.  And, just as importantly if not more so, I look forward to steps that will turn these dreams into reality.  To go where no man has gone before (sorry, I could not help myself).