A Fitting Tribute to Ray Bradbury

NASA has decided to name the Curiosity landing site after Ray Bradbury, making the announcement on August 22nd, the day that would have been the author's 92nd birthday.  Called "Bradbury Landing," the author now has a permanent spot on the Red Planet many years after penning The Martian Chronicles. 

In the NASA press release, Michael Meyer, NASA program scientist for Curiosity, stated,

This was not a difficult choice for the science team...Many of us and millions of other readers were inspired in our lives by stories Ray Bradbury wrote to dream of the possibility of life on Mars.

I think this quote from Mr. Bradbury applies to many things, but certainly our latest adventure with curiosity:

Americans are far more remarkable than we give ourselves credit for. We've been so busy damning ourselves for years. We've done it all, and yet we don't take credit for it.

Curiosity Panorama from Mars

Take a look at this panoramic shot of the Martian surface put together by Andrew Bodrov.  It works best on an iPad or similar device.  I was wondering how Mr. Bodrov was able to do this until I read an explanation from NPR:

Earlier today, we published a panorama that purported to be stitched together from images taken by the NASA Mars rover Curiosity. Since that time, we have learned that the author of the panorama has said he used Adobe Photoshop to add a sun to the sky. According to Talking Points Memo, Andrew Bodrov used images from a 2005 Mars rover to approximate the size and appearance of the sun.

Mr. Bodrov's creativity, and contribution, is impressive.

Sally Ride's Stories

If you are interested in Sally Ride's career and some of her writings, you can find plenty of published material.  Many are geared for younger readers to engender their interest in space.  For instance, Ms. Ride's Space Shuttle adventures and more are recounted in her 1989 book for younger readers To Space & Back.  Ms. Ride also co-authored many other books with Tam O'Shaughnessy related to various aspects of the space program designed for younger readers, including:

-- Voyager: An Adventure to the Edge of the Solar System.  Published in 2005, Kirkus Reviews opined:

Astronaut/scientist Ride teams up with a science teacher for a book about the Voyager spacecrafts' epic journeys. During them, they passed close enough to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune to take detailed pictures and measurements; the result is a wealth of new information (especially about the planets' rings and moons), gorgeous color photos, and some scientific puzzles.

-- Exploring Our Solar System.  Published in 2003.  Booklist opined:

In this copiously illustrated volume, astronaut Ride and educator O'Shaughnessy offer a thrilling introduction to our solar system. Although our neighboring planets were "formed at about the same time and from about the same stuff," the authors write, "they are nine very different worlds." Each chapter takes readers on a planetary tour. The section on Earth includes a time line and theories of the evolution of life on our planet. The authors explain facts in simple, straightforward language that doesn't condescend to a young audience, and the visuals include exciting images from space, charts that contrast the planets' properties, and artists' renderings of unattainable space views and imagined explorations. Throughout, the authors successfully put the planets in wider context, as in the section "Venus, Earth and Mars--Why They Are So Different." Useful appended charts, including a full listing of all space flights, add to the appeal.

-- The Mystery of Mars.  Published in 1999.  School Library Journal opined:

Actually a physical portrait of two planets, this survey draws illuminating parallels and contrasts between the history, structure, and current state of both Earth and Mars. Imparting a vivid sense of how inhospitable the red planet is, at least to life as we know it, Ride and O'Shaughnessy supply a lively mix of sweeping claims ("Mars has the largest volcanoes and the longest, deepest canyons in the entire solar system"), specific observations, and logical extrapolations. The authors' comments are enhanced by a generous array of computer graphics, precisely detailed paintings, and recent photographs from both space and ground level. The material includes information gathered from the 1997 Pathfinder mission and a mention of the Mars Climate Orbiter, though not of the latter's failure. 

More Mars News: India

With all of the attention on NASA's Curiosity, many may have missed India's announcement that it would like to send a spacecraft to Mars next year.  The $82 million mission will orbit the planet and collect data.  India has already proved it space prowess back in 2008 when it sent a probe to the moon (Chandralayaan-1), so the idea is not all that far fetched. 

"This spaceship to Mars will be a huge step for us in the area of science and technology," said Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

India follows the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and China, who have already sent missions to Mars.

Of course, with India still recovering from a massive electricity blackout, the announcement could not have come at a worst time. Critics of the announcement worry that India has bigger problems at home and planetary missions are a luxury the Indian people cannot afford.  Of course, the United States had a few problems at home itself as it was planning some of its space missions.  For instance, the moon mission was being implemented while the country was facing the Vietnam War abroad and race riots at home.  Competition with Russia was still paramount during this period, as was national pride.  India is no different, though its competition is with neighboring China.
 
The announcement may have unintended consequences.  The United Kingdom is already reconsidering the economic assistance it provides to India.  The Economic Times reported Conservative MP Philip Davies stated, "If they can afford to have some high-tech mission to Mars they can afford to look after their own people without British taxpayers having to put their hands in their pockets for money they haven't got."

NASA Adminstrator's Jobs Report

Just as President Obama used the successful landing of Curiosity to sell the merits of a private sector space program, which really had nothing to do with the mission at hand, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden made sure to use his second paragraph to sell the jobs created by NASA, stated to be about 7,000 positions in 31 states.  This is also how we push Department of Defense programs that we do not really need but keep certain legislators in their own jobs.

Luckily, the statements contained a little bit of vision as well for those who want a space program for learning about space itself.  First, the United States intends to send humans to Mars in 2030, of course a date so comfortably in the distance that we do not really need to fund it under this administration.  A more near term goal is next year's mission involving the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) orbiter (pictured below).  According to NASA,

Scientists will use MAVEN data to determine the role that loss of volatile compounds—such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and water—from the Mars atmosphere to space has played through time, giving insight into the history of Mars' atmosphere and climate, liquid water, and planetary habitability.

This week's successful Mars mission makes future missions to the Red Planet more likely as it proves American know-how and garners more interest in all things Martian.  Let's cheer this week and push for even more starting next week. Mars awaits!

Here is the full statement by the Administrator: 

NASA is back on Mars – and getting ready for the next mission to the Red Planet! After an astounding 352 million mile journey and a harrowing landing that demonstrated cutting-edge technology, Curiosity, the largest rover ever sent to another planet, is in place and ready to work. This robotic laboratory will seek answers to one of humanity’s oldest questions as it investigates whether conditions have favored development of microbial life on the Red Planet. The mission is a critical planetary science mission -- and a precursor to sending humans to the Red Planet in the 2030’s, a goal set forth by President Obama. 

It’s another great leadership moment for our nation and a sign of the continued strength of NASA’s many programs in science, aeronautics and human spaceflight. It’s also important to remember that the $2.5 billion investment made in this project was not spent on Mars, but right here on Earth, supporting more than 7,000 jobs in at least 31 states.

With the retirement of the Shuttle program after its final flight in July 2011, some have suggested that NASA’s leadership in the exploration of space, including our extraordinary successes on Mars, was coming to an end. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Curiosity mission is only the latest in a long list of extraordinary NASA missions that established the United States as the undisputed world leader, and it will help guarantee that remains the case for many years to come.
When our Orion deep space crew vehicle takes its first test flight in 2014, it will travel farther into space than any spacecraft designed for humans has flown in the 40 years since our astronauts returned from the moon. 

In 2017, NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), a heavy-lift rocket that will provide an entirely new capability for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit, will launch Orion. 

We also reached a critically important milestone in May when SpaceX became the first private company to send a spacecraft -- the Dragon cargo capsule -- to the International Space Station and return it with cargo intact. This successful mission ushered in a new era in spaceflight -- and signaled a new way of doing business for NASA. And just a few days ago, we announced the next step in the Obama Administration’s aggressive plan to once again launch our astronauts from U.S. soil on spacecraft built by American companies. 

As part of our commitment to maintain American leadership in the exploration of Mars beyond the Curiosity mission, NASA will launch the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) orbiter next year. Earlier this year, I directed NASA’s science mission director, along with the head of human exploration, Chief Technologist, and Chief Scientist to develop a more integrated strategy to ensure that the next steps for Mars exploration will support the nation’s planetary science objectives as well as our human exploration goals. They are looking at many options, including another robotic mission to land on Mars in this decade. 

I am so proud of the NASA team that has made tonight’s challenging milestone possible. However, tomorrow we begin to plan for the next great challenge -- and start compiling incredible scientific data from Curiosity. For the past 50 years, NASA has specialized in doing the hard things. Thanks to the ingenuity of our teams across America and the world, we are poised for even greater success.

More Curosity Photos From Mars

NASA's Curiosity continues to send fascinating photos of the journey ahead.  Below is a shot of the distant rim of Gale Crater. 

 And below is a photo of the landing site with the various mission pieces scattered throughout the area.

 Here is NASA's description of the scene above:

The four main pieces of hardware that arrived on Mars with NASA's Curiosity rover were spotted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera captured this image about 24 hours after landing. The large, reduced-scale image points out the strewn hardware: the heat shield was the first piece to hit the ground, followed by the back shell attached to the parachute, then the rover itself touched down, and finally, after cables were cut, the sky crane flew away to the northwest and crashed. Relatively dark areas in all four spots are from disturbances of the bright dust on Mars, revealing the darker material below the surface dust.

Success: Curiosity Lands on Mars

We can all breath easy now.  Curiosity is safe and sound on the surface of Mars, landing earlier this morning.  To the right you can see Curiosity's first photo from the Red Planet.  NASA states, 

[The photo] was taken through a "fisheye" wide-angle lens on the left "eye" of a stereo pair of Hazard-Avoidance cameras on the left-rear side of the rover. The image is one-half of full resolution. The clear dust cover that protected the camera during landing has been sprung open. Part of the spring that released the dust cover can be seen at the bottom right, near the rover's wheel. 

Here is the statement by President Obama on the landing:

Tonight, on the planet Mars, the United States of America made history. 

The successful landing of Curiosity – the most sophisticated roving laboratory ever to land on another planet – marks an unprecedented feat of technology that will stand as a point of national pride far into the future. It proves that even the longest of odds are no match for our unique blend of ingenuity and determination.

Tonight’s success, delivered by NASA, parallels our major steps forward towards a vision for a new partnership with American companies to send American astronauts into space on American spacecraft. That partnership will save taxpayer dollars while allowing NASA to do what it has always done best – push the very boundaries of human knowledge. And tonight’s success reminds us that our preeminence – not just in space, but here on Earth – depends on continuing to invest wisely in the innovation, technology, and basic research that has always made our economy the envy of the world.

I congratulate and thank all the men and women of NASA who made this remarkable accomplishment a reality – and I eagerly await what Curiosity has yet to discover. 

This is a proud day for NASA.  I am not sure why the President felt it was necessary to align the success with his private sector vision.  Let's keep it simple.  Great job, NASA!

Another Space Program with Spare Parts for NASA

Earlier I noted how the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) already has its own space shuttle program and maybe more sharing of resources could assist NASA.  Well, I forgot that DoD is just one of a number of federal agencies with its own space program.  For instance, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), one of our spy agencies, runs its own satellite and telescope missions as well, though these telescopes peer back onto Earth.  And now it appears that some inter-agency sharing is underway.

The Washington Post reported that two left-over NRO telescopes sitting in Rochester, NY, will go to NASA.  Both telescopes are as large as the Hubble space telescope though they have a much wider field of view.  In fact, the telescopes may be better than the current Hubble telescope, and potentially meet the needs of the now stalled Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST). WFIRST's goals are exoplanet exploration, dark energy research, and galactic and extragalactic surveys.

The problem is that NASA will have to make a number of modifications to make them useful, and the funding problems at the Agency will make such modifications difficult.  NASA astrophysics director Paul Hertz said the new telescopes are unlikely to be launched before 2024, noting “Any dates earlier, like 2019 or 2020, is if money is no object,” Hertz said. 

While Congress continues to starve our space programs, it is nice to learn federal agencies are communicating.  This is not the same as having one national space program, but it is better than nothing.

Sally Ride, Rest in Peace

Sally Ride, America's first woman in space, died on Monday at the age of 61.  Ms. Ride's first entered the Earth's orbit via the Challenger Space Shuttle about 29 years ago on June 18, 1983.  Her list of accomplishments beyond this event is quite impressive:

-- Ph.D. in physics from Stanford. 
-- Joined NASA in 1978.
-- Helped develop a shuttle robot arm for NASA.
-- Part of the Rogers Commission to investigate the Challenger explosion in 1986.
-- Part of the commission to investigate the Columbia explosion in 2003.
-- Member of the Augustine Committee to make recommendations on the future of human spaceflight.
-- Science fellow at the Center for International Security and Arms Control at Stanford University.
-- Professor of physics at the University of California in San Diego.
-- Started Sally Ride Science in 2001 to encourage children to seek careers in science and technology.

While she was not the first woman in space, with Russia being the first nation to do so in 1963 (while China hit this goal earlier this year), Ms. Ride certainly blazed a bright trail for other woman to follow. She may also be the first gay astronaut.  Sally Ride Science's obituary noted:

In addition to Tam O’Shaughnessy, her partner of 27 years, Sally is survived by her mother, Joyce; her sister, Bear; her niece, Caitlin, and nephew, Whitney; her staff of 40 at Sally Ride Science; and many friends and colleagues around the country.

Most importantly, as her organization's biography noted, was her love of space and determination to share it with others:

Sally’s historic flight into space captured the nation’s imagination and made her a household name. She became a symbol of the ability of women to break barriers and a hero to generations of adventurous young girls. After retiring from NASA, Sally used her high profile to champion a cause she believed in passionately—inspiring young people, especially girls, to stick with their interest in science, to become scientifically literate, and to consider pursuing careers in science and engineering.

Sally, we wish you well on your new voyage.

Great Images: Jupiter and Ganymede

This image is part of the NASA Planetary Photo Journal Collection and found at nasaimages.org. Here is the photo's accompanying text:

The solar system's largest moon, Ganymede, is captured here alongside the planet Jupiter in a color picture taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 3, 2000.

Ganymede is larger than the planets Mercury and Pluto and Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Both Ganymede and Titan have greater surface area than the entire Eurasian continent on our planet. Cassini was 26.5 million kilometers (16.5 million miles) from Ganymede when this image was taken. The smallest visible features are about 160 kilometers (about 100 miles) across.

The bright area near the south (bottom) of Ganymede is Osiris, a large, relatively new crater surrounded by bright icy material ejected by the impact, which created it. Elsewhere, Ganymede displays dark terrains that NASA's Voyager and Galileo spacecraft have shown to be old and heavily cratered. The brighter terrains are younger and laced by grooves. Various kinds of grooved terrains have been seen on many icy moons in the solar system. These are believed to be the surface expressions of warm, pristine, water-rich materials that moved to the surface and froze.

Ganymede has proven to be a fascinating world, the only moon known to have a magnetosphere, or magnetic environment, produced by a convecting metal core. The interaction of Ganymede's and Jupiter's magnetospheres may produce dazzling variations in the auroral glows in Ganymede's tenuous atmosphere of oxygen.

Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. 

Here is an earlier shot of Ganymede from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Photojournal page:  

In this global view of Ganymede's trailing side, the colors are enhanced to emphasize color differences. The enhancement reveals frosty polar caps in addition to the two predominant terrains on Ganymede, bright, grooved terrain and older, dark furrowed areas. Many craters with diameters up to several dozen kilometers are visible. The violet hues at the poles may be the result of small particles of frost which would scatter more light at shorter wavelengths (the violet end of the spectrum). Ganymede's magnetic field, which was detected by the magnetometer on NASA's Galileo spacecraft in 1996, may be partly responsible for the appearance of the polar terrain. Compared to Earth's polar caps, Ganymede's polar terrain is relatively vast. The frost on Ganymede reaches latitudes as low as 40 degrees on average and 25 degrees at some locations. For comparison with Earth, Miami, Florida lies at 26 degrees north latitude, and Berlin, Germany is located at 52 degrees north.

North is to the top of the picture. The composite, which combines images taken with green, violet, and 1 micrometer filters, is centered at 306 degrees west longitude. The resolution is 9 kilometers (6 miles) per picture element. The images were taken on 29 March 1998 at a range of 918000 kilometers (570,000 miles) by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.

Anniversary of Skylab's Return to Earth

Thirty-three years ago on July 11 America's Skylab returned to earth in pieces littering the Indian Ocean and Australia.  First launched in 1974, Skylab was America's first space station and hosted three sets of 3-man U.S. space crews during its operation, with the station itself having been occupied a total of 171 days.  The station may have lasted longer had the new NASA Space Shuttle program been further along to repair the station and adjust its orbit.

What did Skylab accomplish? According to a NASA paper on the program, the primary impact was highlighting the value of a manned operation:

While the program unquestionably yielded valuable scientific information, its greatest value came from its demonstration of the importance of the human element in the space program. As John Disher, NASA Director of Advanced Programs in the Office of Space Transportation Systems, would later note, Skylab "turned around many people who thought men in space were a hindrance rather than a help." Echoing this sentiment, Program Director William Schneider stated that Skylab had shown that, regarding the space program, "the limit is only our resolve, not the ability of men to work, and not our technical knowledge." 

We need more of that resolve as we look to future manned missions.

The U.S. Still Has a Space Shuttle Program

Even with the demise of NASA's shuttle program, we should remember that the United States has been running a separate shuttle program under the Pentagon that is alive and well.  The USAF has been operating the X-37B unmanned shuttle, or  Orbital Test Vehicle-2 (OTV-2), which safely landed last month after being aloft since March 5, 2011.  This is the X-37B's second flight, the first one taking place in 2010 and lasting 244 days.

The X-37B is not only unmanned but also considerably smaller than the better known space shuttles, being only 29 feet long and 15 feet wide.  This mini-shuttle was originally planned by NASA and later picked up by the USAF.  A second larger craft, the X-37C, is also in the works.  This larger shuttle should be able to carry crew and cargo.

Earlier stories in The Register also discusses various aspects of the "secret" mini-shuttle program as well as NASA's shuttle program:

-- NASA saw the craft as a potential "lifeboat" for the International Space Station;
-- The X-37B is supposed to be much more advanced in terms of turnaround time, heat shields, and more than the Shuttle.
-- It is often forgotten nowadays that the Shuttle was originally intended not just for NASA operations from Cape Canaveral, but also for military operations from a dedicated complex at Vandenberg Airforce Base in California;
-- Hopes for out of the X-37B seem likely to focus on the same things the Air Force originally wanted from the Shuttle: mainly the ability to recover horrifyingly expensive surveillance hardware from space for repairs, replenishment of manoeuvring fuel and/or upgrading; and
-- If you want to get out into the wilder speculative realms you could postulate a mission lifting off to retrieve, not a US satellite, but someone else's. The initial launch would be explained as delivery of a normal secret payload, but in fact the spaceplane would lift empty, scoop up its target on one pass and return to land on a "Mission 3B" style profile without ever flying above a hostile telescope or radar station.

And how does the USAF describe the X-37B?  Here is what their factsheet says: "The primary objectives of the X-37B are twofold: reusable spacecraft technologies for America's future in space and operating experiments which can be returned to, and examined, on Earth."

Other space-faring nations see it a little differently.  Quoted in China Daily, Zhao Xiaozhuo, a research fellow of military studies under China's Academy of Military Science of the People's Liberation Army, said "As a superpower, the US has been calling for nuclear disarmament all these years and urged other countries to be more responsible for world peace and safety...But in the meantime, its development of the space plane may lead to an arms race in space." Of course, the Chinese have more and more happening in orbit, from spy satellites to space station missions, so their paranoia is understandable.

So it appears the U.S. has the funds to operate a separate space program with its own shuttles.  And now it is moving towards manned shuttles while NASA has no means to assist our astronauts in the International Space Station without the assistance of the Russians.  Does this make sense?

Chinese space success has been partly attributed to the combined civilian and military space program.  I can only wonder if two pots of money is really better than one, not to say the two are not already mixed.  While NASA and the USAF maintain separate launch facilities in Florida, the NASA space shuttle program was often used to launch military satellites. 

Maybe in a time of scarce resources, or at least the perception of scarce resources, more should be done to share equipment and even missions.  Yes, we want a "peaceful" and scientific NASA space program, but we are only kidding ourselves if we think NASA stands completely separate from our national defense goals.  The very existence of NASA is owed to its role in beating our Cold War adversary to the moon, and now we are facing other nations also racing to the moon while NASA seems to lack a meaningful manned mission.  And let's not forget the science done by Napoleon when he arrived in Egypt or Darwin when he was aboard the HMS Beagle, a 10-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy.  It may be time for some new thinking.

Interesting Note:   The British-built Beagle 2 was sent to Mars for scientific studies as part of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express mission.  Unfortunately, ESA lost contact with the Beagle 2 just before it was scheduled to land on the Martian surface.

The Planetary Society is Having a Curiosity Party

The Planetary Society will be watching and hopefully celebrating the successful landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars next month.  You can join the Society members at Planetfest 2012, being held August 4th and 5th in Pasadena, CA.   The purpose of the gathering is pretty simple: 

Few space events carry the power of a Mars landing in real-time – experienced with a community of other people interested in space, and with experts describing the process as it unfolds.  It’s nail-biting time as the countdown nears – to the yet unknown success or failure of one of engineering’s greatest feats, a landing on an alien world.  Discussions and entertainment wrap around the actual landing, building excitement and also knowledge, especially for future explorers.

Other similar events are being held in other parts of the country.  Check here for the latest list.

Whether or not you can attend an event you can still watch Planetfest 2012 via webcast.  Wherever you might be, you will want to watch this historic event.

Curiosity Landing Takes Place Next Month

NASA's Curiosity rover is scheduled to land on the surface of Mars on August 5th (at exactly 10:31 pm PT).  It will be nice to see more U.S. exploration of Mars, even if it is only a robotic mission.  Launched aboard an Atlas V on November 26, 2011, from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the car-sized rover has been slowly making its way to the Red Planet these past seven and a half months.

NASA has put together a nice video called 7 Minutes of Terror describing the 7 minutes from the time the spacecraft carrying Curiosity hits the Martian atmosphere to the point of landing on the surface.  I would all it 8 months of terror given the complexity of the mission, but I am not writing the script.  Given the fact that the entire landing had to be perfectly choreographed long ago and will happen without any intervention from NASA once it starts, in some ways the mission is more amazing and complex than one including human intervention.  I away find these missions, be it landing on the surface of a planet to looping around the solar system for the perfect fly-by of a distant planet, to be a more spectacular demonstration of mankind's ability than the construction of the pyramids or Notre Dame. 

If all goes well, which is always a question when traveling to Mars (just ask the Russians), Curiosity will begin its two-year exploration of Gale Crater and the informally named Mount Sharp, described by NASA as follows:

Mount Sharp rises about 3 miles (5 kilometers) above the landing target on the crater floor, higher than Mount Rainier above Seattle, though broader and closer. It is not simply a rebound peak from the asteroid impact that excavated Gale Crater. A rebound peak may be at its core, but the mountain displays hundreds of flat-lying geological layers that may be read as chapters in a more complex history billions of years old.

Twice as tall as the sequence of colorful bands exposed in Arizona's Grand Canyon, the stack of layers in Mount Sharp results from changing environments in which layers are deposited, younger on top of older, eon after eon, and then partially eroded away.

A successful landing will be the start of a new period of exploration and hopefully offer new insights to the life of Mars and maybe even the likelihood of prior life on Mar.  One can also hope that this mission will renew interest in future trips to Mars, including a manned mission down the road.  It is worth recalling that Curiosity itself was planned before President Obama took office and quite possibly would not have been possible under this Administration.  Moreover, the United States has already pulled out of ExoMars, another Mars mission planned with our European friends, forcing them to look to Russia for a reliable partner. Let's hope we can get past our current Earth-bound problems and reach for the stars (or at least neighboring planets) again.

Note:  Mount Sharp (shown below in terms of size) pays tribute to geologist Robert P. Sharp (1911-2004), a founder of planetary science, influential teacher of many current leaders in the field, and team member for NASA's first few Mars missions. Sharp taught geology at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), in Pasadena, from 1948 until past his retirement. Life magazine named him one of the 10 best college teachers in the nation.

"I think we have it"

With that statement, Rolf-Dieter Heuer, director general of CERN, announced the existence of the elusive Higgs-like particle.

So what does it all mean?  Here is how CERN describes the situation in its July 4 press release: 

The Standard Model describes the fundamental particles from which we, and every visible thing in the universe, are made, and the forces acting between them. All the matter that we can see, however, appears to be no more than about 4% of the total. A more exotic version of the Higgs particle could be a bridge to understanding the 96% of the universe that remains obscure.

So, in other words we have now found about 96 percent of the universe.  I guess that helps to fill the gap in our knowledge.  London's The Guardian put it high on the list of scientific achievements: 

The discovery of the Higgs particle ranks as one of the most important scientific advances of the past 100 years. It proves there is an invisible energy field that pervades the vacuum of the known universe. This field is thought to give mass to the smallest building blocks of matter, the quarks and electrons that make up atoms. Without the field, or something like it, there would be no planets, stars, or life as we know it.

The BBC covers the topic well in this documentary.  The story adds some useful context to the topic.

Update:  Slate magazine has a good analogy for explaining Higgs bosom:

Imagine a room full of physicists. Suddenly Einstein enters and attempts to cross the room, but the star-struck physicists cluster around him and impede his movements, effectively increasing his mass. Now imagine that I enter the room. As a lowly grad student, nobody wants to interact with me, so I pass through the physicists relatively unimpeded—no effective mass for me! Lastly, imagine that somebody whispers a rumor, causing the physicists to cluster together excitedly on their own.

In this analogy, the room full of physicists represents the Higgs field in space, Einstein represents a particle with high mass, I represent a particle with low mass (or no mass), and a cluster of physicists represents an excitation of the field, which is effectively a Higgs boson.

NASA News: NEOWISE Spots Hazards & Mining Possibilities

A recent NASA story notes that the NEOWISE project, an unplanned extension of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), has found more potentially hazardous asteroids than initially estimated by scientists (also called PHAs by those government types who can find a acronym for anything - AFA).  These PHAs can most likely make it through our atmosphere and do some serious damage below.  NASA findings indicate there are about 4,700 PHAs with diameters larger than 330 feet.  And where did they come from?  Most likely collisions in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

This could be good news for those who plan to mine the asteroids, such as Planetary Resources.  The company has a simple mission:

Planetary Resources’ mission is clear: apply commercial, innovative techniques to explore space. We will develop low-cost robotic spacecraft to explore the thousands of resource-rich asteroids within our reach. We will learn everything we can about them, then develop the most efficient capabilities to deliver these resources directly to both space-based and terrestrial customers. Asteroid mining may sound like fiction, but it’s just science.

Whether or not we need to go so far for such resources is another question.  Of course, this is something the private sector can decide.  As Slate noted: 

This space-mining venture is either going to be a spectacular success or a spectacular failure. Either way, the emphasis will be on spectacular. And the best part of all is that U.S. taxpayers won’t bear the risk if these extraordinary plans fail to pan out.

Hubble: There's an App for That

Do you need a little inspiration when going about your errands?  Is the night sky still hours away yet you want to see something interesting now?  Well, download the HubbleSite app from the iTunes store and you will have the universe at your fingertips. 

Here is the quick description from the app site: 

HubbleSite, the online home of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, invites you to help choose the world’s most popular Hubble images. Get wallpaper, Hubble facts, and more.

Hubble’s vast collection of images awaits your critical and discerning eye. Become part of the Hubble mission by voting for the most spectacular and awe-inspiring sights from Hubble’s archive.

The app provides a selection of Hubble wallpaper images, chosen and edited for visually stunning results on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Plus, get facts about Hubble history; the telescope; and the scientific discoveries it’s revealed, from the age of the universe to the mysterious force known as dark energy. The app has been optimized for iPhone and iPod Touch’s Retina display.

For over 20 years, Hubble has orbited the Earth, beaming home images of celestial splendor. Join in the excitement of the Hubble mission.

And if you need more, try out the  Hubble Top 100 app from the European Southern Observatory.  

Another Chinese Space Launch

China sent its first woman astronaut (Liu Yang) to space this week as the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft successfully docked with the orbiting Tiangong-1 space laboratory on Monday.  The Tiangong-1 was placed in orbit last fall as a prototype of a larger station to follow in 2020.  Over a 10-day period, three Chinese astronauts will stay aboard the "space station" to conduct tests. 

The great space race continues, with both the private sector (SpaceX) and other nations taking the lead.  China has already moved up its manned moon-landing to 2016, showing an increasing confidence in its space capabilities.  While the U.S. has lost its shuttles and will lose the $100 billion International Space Station by 2020, others are stepping up the challenge with broad plans for expansion.  SpaceX is even talking about $500,000 trips to Mars while the U.S. has no such plans on the drawing board. 

Great Images: Death of a Star

This computer-generated image from NASA shows the death of a red giant as it is consumed by a black hole (PS1-10jh) located 2 billion light-years from Earth.  The destruction was captured in 2010 by NASA's orbiting Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) and the ground-based Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii.

More on GALEX:  GALEX is an orbiting space telescope observing galaxies in ultraviolet light across 10 billion years of cosmic history. Launched into orbit on April 28th, 2003 and originally planned as a 29-month mission, its mission lifetime was extended. 

GALEX’s observations are telling scientists how galaxies, the basic structures of our Universe, evolve and change. Additionally, GALEX observations are investigating the causes of star formation during a period when most of the stars and elements we see today had their origins.

Led by the California Institute of Technology, GALEX is conducting several first-of-a-kind sky surveys, including an extra-galactic (beyond our galaxy) ultraviolet all-sky survey. During its mission GALEX will produce the first comprehensive map of a Universe of galaxies under construction, bringing us closer to understanding how galaxies like our own Milky Way were formed.

More on Pan-STARRS:  The Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System is a wide-field imaging facility developed at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy. The combination of relatively small mirrors with very large digital cameras results in an economical observing system that can observe the entire available sky several times each month. The prototype single-mirror telescope PS1 is now operational on Mount Haleakala; its scientific research program is being undertaken by the PS1 Science Consortium - a collaboration between ten research organizations in four countries,

A major goal of Pan-STARRS is to discover and characterize Earth-approaching objects, both asteroids and comets, that might pose a danger to our planet.  Its vast database is also ideal for research in several other astronomical areas, particularly those which involve an aspect of time variability.

Ray Bradbury: The Loss of a Dark Magician

Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.

It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.

 ― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

I have read a fair amount of science fiction over the years and Ray Bradbury was always one of my favorites.  He was certainly a gardener.  While his view of the future was not as consistently dark as Philip K. Dick's version, he often had a warning wrapped within his fascinating and insightful tales.  Given his lack of a college education and inability to drive a car, I find his understanding of the past, present, and future to be all the more amazing.  He was a man full of stories that needed to be shared. 

Hopefully, Bradbury's death last week at the age of 91 will only increase the attention paid to his work and cause us all to dream a little more and think harder about the world we want to inhabit.  As Bradbury said, in reference to his story Fahrenheit 451, "There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them."

The New York Times published a nice summary of Bradbury's take on the future called Uncle Ray's Dystopia, which was filled with examples of his warning about technology. The author sums up Bradbury's vision in this way: 

There’s already been a lot of rhapsodizing about Ray Bradbury’s “sense of wonder,” the dark magic and October chill he infused into his work. But let’s not turn him into something harmless, a kindly, childlike uncle spinning marvelous tales of rocket ships and dinosaurs. Don’t forget that he was also the crazy uncle, the dangerous one, a malcontent and a crank, alarming everyone at the dinner table with impassioned rants and dire warnings.

I think its time to take his stories off the shelf and read through them again.  I am sure I will see them in a new light now that many years have passed.  And I know I will miss the dark magician and his dire warnings.  As Bradbury noted in his own words, "People call me a science fiction writer, but I don't think that's quite true. I think that I'm a magician who is capable of making things appear and disappear right in front of you and you don't know how it happened."