Dohiyi Mir

A Quadrillionth Of A Watt

Bad Astronomy shows us a weird time-lapse of the Very Large Array, which reminded me of an episode of Cosmos and this reasonably stunning piece of information:

Modern radio telescopes are exquisitely sensitive; a distant quasar is so faint that itsdetected radiation amounts perhaps to a quadrillionth of a watt. The total amount of energy from outside the solar system ever received by all the radio telescopes on the planet Earth is less thanthe energy of a single snowflake striking the ground. 

We got plenty of snowflakes today, but I will trust Carl and not test his assertion.

ntodd

PS--The half-assed NTodd Computer Fundraiser continues, so please consider tossing a few quadrillionths of a buck in the tipjar if you can.

Saviors Of The Universe

Flash Gordon, in honor of Freddie Mercury's 65th birthday and Voyager 1's big 3-4 

ntodd

Juno What?

In honor of Juno's launch yesterday, I'm watching my absolute favorite episode of Cosmos, Traveller's Tales.

Ever since the late-70s, thanks to Voyager, Carl Sagan and an astronomy class at the University of Toledo, I've been obsessed with Jupiter.  I feel the same thrill now with the latest probe that I did three decades ago.  It's highly unlikely that I'll ever get to go there, but I sure like thinking about it and at least visiting vicariously through our robots.

ntodd

PS--Computers sure have come a long way since then, eh?  Talk about stone knives and bear skins...

[Update: forgot to mention that Cosmos is coming back!

Carl Sagan revolutionized popular astronomy with his book and TV show "Cosmos", which had an audience of hundreds of millions of people. We’ve learned a lot about our Universe since then, and we’re overdue for a modern version of Sagan’s show. So I’m pleased to find out that Neil Tyson will be hosting a revamped and updated version of "Cosmos"!

He’s working with Ann Druyan (Sagan’s widow and herself a science popularizer), Steve Soter (who also worked on the original show), and Seth MacFarlane, creator of "Family Guy". I know, that may sound weird, but MacFarlane is a big science fan, a friend of Neil’s, and commonly puts a lot of science into his shows.

NTodd can't wait.]

 

Gosh, That's Pretty

The final STS landing.

ntodd

Capture Confirmed

Atlantis docked at the ISS for the last time ever.

In honor of the ending era, and anticipating Apollo 11's anniversary, I've required the family to view From The Earth To The Moon.  Again.

In the first episode, Gemini VIII flown by Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott made the first ever docking in space with the Agena target vehicle.  

Shit went wrong after that, so they also made the first successful emergency landing.  Anyway, it's gonna be weird not sending people into space on our own ships for a while...

ntodd

Wicked Cool Star Stuff

I love the Internet.  Go see great vids of the Milkway in timelapse and Cassini's view of Saturn.

(h/t Phil Plait)

ntodd

Cinco De Mayo 50 Years Ago

Alan Shepard became the first American in space 50 years ago today:

Technicians bolted the hatch slightly after 6 a.m. and the last face Shepard saw was Glenn's, grinning through the periscope.

After that, they faced five hours' worth of delays. Shepard took it in stride at first and his colleagues did their best to keep him relaxed with little jokes. "Don't cry too much, Jose," Deke Slayton told him, referring to the Bill Dana routine.

Inevitably: "Man, I gotta go pee."
"You're kidding me," Gordon Cooper radioed back.
"Nope. Check and see if I can get out and relieve myself."
Cooper checked but the answer was no. Shepard got snappy and told them that if they didn't let him out, he would go in his suit. The technicians didn't like that very much, fearing that he would short out the electronics in his suit. They talked the technicians into turning off the electronics. Minutes later, "Well, I'm a wetback now."

It just seemed like one problem after another. After three hours of waiting, he made his famous snap to technicians: "I'm cooler than you are. Why don't you fix your little problem and light this candle?"

They sorted out the technical problems and the countdown clock finally reached zero. "Liftoff and the clock has started," he radioed to Mission Control. "You're on your way, Jose," Deke Slayton answered. Crowds watching live from the beach or listening to the live broadcast went berserk.

It seems kinda fitting that Al went up on Cinco de Mayo given how much he was identified with Bill Dana's José Jiménez routine.  Of course, that was half a century ago and wasn't exactly the most pluralistic thing:

Kliph Nesteroff: [Y]ou chose to stop performing as Jose Jimenez and retire the character. In retrospect you have said that was a mistake. Before we dive into that, I am curious if there was a level of protest from the Hispanic community about the depiction that lead you to that decision...

Bill Dana: It was as much about my desire for my own identity. My biggest fans were in the Latino community and I was working with Ricardo Montalban, Anthony Quinn, Vikki Carr and Joe Kapp the football player. Anybody that was part of the [Civil Rights] movement knew that I was part of the movement. The word Chicano was invented and was a source of debate [at the time]. "Well what does that mean? Chicanery?" That sort of thing. I got the very first award [from] The National Hispanic Media Coalition; their first image Award. So, it was mainly a public relations problem that I wasn't more aggressive in [letting my activism be known]. 

Kliph Nesteroff: You made the announcement that you were retiring Jose Jimenez at a "Mexican-American Cultural Festival."

Bill Dana: Yes, it was at a sports arena. [The late sixties backlash] was kind of a shocking thing for not only me, but Ricardo Montalban... they had him pegged as a Latin lover [stereotype]. He was denigrated as much as I was. But people like Anthony Quinn and Vikki Carr loved Jose and identified it as a unique character and not as a"We don't need no stinkin' badges" kind of thing; a negative thing. But it was a period of revolution. I was ready to move on to other stuff too. As I said before, we have a thing in our family of not taking bows for stuff. I was finally recognized by the National Hispanic Media Coalition and I'm still on their advisory board.

Kliph Nesteroff: So who were your actual detractors?

Bill Dana: Part of it was a group... I don't remember their name. There was a lot of anti-Semitism mixed in with it. They were attacking all the powerful Jews including Lew Wasserman. They had me on that list [and it was upsetting that] the most famous Latino at that time was a Hungarian Jew (laughs). It didn't thrill those guys. Again, my biggest fans came from the [Hispanic community]. Jimmy Smits and Carlos Santana were huge fans and have written me.

Sounds a bit like "some of my best friends are..." but whatever.

Apropos of nothing, the first astronaut from Mexico went into space in 1985 on Atlantis' second flight.  Rodolfo Neri Vela was born in Guerrero, which in 1849 was formed partially from territory of Puebla, the state where Cinco de Mayo is actually celebrated (in contrast to most of the country).

Now you know.

ntodd

Space Cadets

Poor, poor Houston:

Now that the space shuttle program is ending, no other place in the world deserves a retired shuttle more than Houston, Texas. Put simply, this decision should be a no-brainer.

But Houston has been overlooked. Shuttles are going to Los Angeles, Florida, and Washington. The prototype Enterprise is headed to New York City. "We were tremendously surprised," said Susan Marenoff-Zausner, president of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York after NASA made the announcement. No kidding.

Sadly, it seems partisan politics permeates this announcement. And we are demanding answers.

Wait, politics might have entered into this?  Like it entered into the selection of Houston for the MCC in the first place?

Texas undoubtedly exerted an enormous political influence on such a decision.  Lyndon B. Johnson was Vice President and head of the Space Council, Albert Thomas headed the House Appropriations Committee, Bob Casey and Olin E. Teague were members of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics, and Teague headed the Subcommittee on Manned Space Flight. Finally, Sam Rayburn was Speaker of the House of Representatives.

But whatever, if politics played a role, so be it.  It ain't like Texas has been all that supportive of the national government of late.  Funny how you want the Feds to keep out, unless they've got goodies.

And while TX Reps Poe and Olson are at it:

The first word spoken on the moon landing was "Houston," not New York City.

Holy Specious Argument, Batman!  Every damned mission talked to Houston thanks to the aforementioned political process that established the Space Center there.  Yet every single spacecraft was launched from Florida, not Texas.  And Houston has a lovely bounty of those space artifacts already:

This incredible collection includes: an original model of the Goddard Rocket; the actual Mercury Atlas 9 "Faith 7" capsule flown by Gordon Cooper; the Gemini V Spacecraft piloted by Pete Conrad and Gordon Cooper; a Lunar Roving Vehicle Trainer, the Apollo 17 Command Module, the giant Skylab Trainer, and the Apollo-Soyuz Trainer.

There's also a Saturn V rocket.  You know, the biggest engine ever built that just happened to take people to the moon.  And the CSM for (cancelled) Apollo 19.

The Texas Whiners also decry what NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said:

This was a very difficult decision, but one that was made with the American public in mind. In the end, these choices provide the greatest number of people with the best opportunity to share in the history and accomplishments of NASA's remarkable Space Shuttle Program.

The whining response:

Here's our justification for Houston: Houston is the fourth largest city in the United States, visited by nearly 7 million international visitors every year. More than 750,000 people a year visit the Johnson Space Center in Houston to glimpse the history of space exploration.

Um, yeah, that's nice.  They are aware that NYC and LA are the #1 and #2 largest cities, right?  And NYC gets 48M international visitors?  And Houston doesn't even make the top 5 international destinations?

It makes perfect sense that an orbiter would go to those large population and tourism centers to allow the most people to see the vehicles.  And of course Kennedy deserves one, as does the Smithsonian.  Sorry Houston didn't make the cut--probably would have if we hadn't lost 2 machines to disaster, but them's the breaks.

You've got some awesome toys, and the honor of controlling all American human spaceflight.  Stop pissing and moaning.  Perhaps your constituents would be better served if you stopped focusing on trivial things and worked on, oh...a jobs program, some stimulus, etc, so there'd be more employment opportunities in Houston.

ntodd

It's Very Crowded In Space

Man has traversed the reaches of outer space, and that man is a Communist.

 - Emmett Seaborn (From The Earth to The Moon)

The whole event seems as fictional as Lane Smith's character.  50 years ago humanity gingerly stepped off terra firma and into the shallows of the cosmic ocean (h/t Carl Sagan). A tad before my time, but it always was magical to me, as was the subsequent Space Race.

Today's a slightly less momentous anniversary as well: it's been 30 years since Columbia lifted off for her maiden voyage, kicking off an era that is (thankfully) winding down this year.  

I have a love-hate relationship with the Shuttle Transportation System program.  The Space Shuttle is a bit of a clunker and kinda was even before it got to the pad.  A 50s dream evolved into a 60s vision designed with 70s technology that shouldn't have beyond the 80s, one could say.  A nice idea from the heady early days that proved more expensive and deadlier than anybody had imagined:

Back in '76 I had debated the merits of the shuttle program in my language arts class at Maumee Valley Country Day School--I was on the "pro" side, and a good friend was "con" (our teacher declared it a draw, much to my dismay).  A few years later I'd seen the first moving pictures of Jupiter's Red Spot, compiled from data sent back from Voyager 1.  It was a giddy time for space geeks like me.

To see the first re-usable spacecraft finally ready for primetime was wicked cool.  I remember watching the landing in Mr. Buckenberger's 7th grade science class, in the same place where I'd learned all about Voyagers 1 and 2 in the first place (Carl Sagan's Cosmos notwithstanding).  I thought NASA could do anything.  Yet five years down the road I sat with the rest of Mrs. Zuchowski's high-school physics class and sadly watched the endless replays of Challenger exploding 71 seconds into its flight (Zuch had been part of the "Teacher in Space" program).

Back to '81.  The A&P grocery store down the road from us went up in flames at the same time Columbia left the pad on its maiden voyage.  We saw billows of black smoke crossing our front yard and we joked that was from the launch.  Then my friends and I rode our bikes down to the store to watch the firefighters put out the blaze.  I never imagined that I would watch the ship disintegrate in flame, live on TV over 20 years later.

Columbia's second mission also stuck with me because it's a beautiful example about the law of unintended consequences and how you must always proceed with caution when "fixing" problems:

Well-designed shuttle components have frequently developed complications, and small changes have created dramatic problems. On Columbia's second mission, in November 1981, a fuel cell became contaminated and stopped working. The particle causing the problem was tiny, but it forced three days to be cut from the five-day mission.

As soon as the shuttle landed, NASA engineers started working on a fix. They devised a filter to keep out contaminants and, as a safety measure, put in a second filter as well. There were no contaminants on the next mission, but hydrogen gas collected between the filters and seeped into a tank. A single spark would have caused an explosion aboard the shuttle.

Yeah, yeah, why bother with people up there when robots are so much cheaper and safer and now smarter than before?  Anti-human spaceflight fuddyduddies be damned is all I have to say about that.

Anyway, I will miss the Shuttle in all its dangerous, battered, less-useful-than-anticipated glory.

ntodd

You Got Rocks In Yer Head, Jack!

Phil Plait:

The twelve men who walked on the Moon are heroes. I have no doubt in my mind about that: the risks they took to stand on the surface of another world were fiercesome, and no matter what their fortitude is not in doubt. I’ve met many of them at various meetings, and quite liked them.

But that doesn’t make them infallible, of course. I’ve written about Apollo 14′s Ed Mitchell diving headlong into antiscience...now I fear I must add Apollo 17′s Harrison Schmitt to the list. 

I hate to do this, since he is an advocate for space travel and was the only classically-trained scientist to walk on the Moon (he’s a geologist). However, he’s a climate change denialist. And while everyone is entitled to their opinions, facts are not negotiable. And this is now doubly important since Schmitt was recently appointed to run New Mexico’s Department of Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources, where he will have to make decisions directly related to that state’s contribution to climate change.

Apparently, he’s been using blatantly wrong information to support his arguments...In a nutshell, Schmitt has claimed that arctic sea ice is growing in extent, and in 2009 was back to levels seen in 1989. There are two problems with this claim. 

The first is that it’s wrong; Schmitt used cherry-picked data from both of those years that made it seem as if the coverage of ice had grown, but in fact when you look at the monthly and yearly averages, it’s clear the extent of ice dropped by several percent. In fact, this last January had the lowest sea ice extent for that month since at least 1979!

The second problem is just as bad: sea ice extent is not a good measure of warming; instead, volume is a much better indicator. You can cover a lot of area of the arctic with ice, but if it’s thin ice it’ll melt in the summer. If, on the other hand, the ice is thicker (has more depth or volume) then it won’t melt as readily. So saying the ice covers more area — even if true which it clearly is not — doesn’t mean much, because a single particularly cold winter can freeze the surface water, but that’ll all melt easily once summer hits. However, if the Earth is warming, then you’d expect the volume of ice to decrease, since the increasing temperatures will actually affect water temperatures, melting the ice below the surface.

And...that’s what’s happening. 

This is so disappointing.  Schmitt is one of my favorite Apollo astronauts, and with all the nutjob stuff some of his colleagues have devolved into, I thought as the only scientist to take a moonwalk he might be immune to that sort of thing, even being a Republican.  Oh well, maybe Dr Lee Silver can talk some sense into his former student.

ntodd