Cassini's Fantastic Photos of Recent Enceladus Flyby

Here is a historic photo taken by the Cassini probe of it's

recent dive through the frozen water geyser erupting from Enceladus'south pole. On the 28th of October 2015 Cassini dove to within 18.6 miles of Enceladus' surface. The tiny icey moon is thought to be a promicing hideout for alien life. The geyser (which is geothermally heated) is spewing water which Cassini availed itself of. So at 12,000 mph the probe collected a drop which it is now analyzing .

Check out the complete Gizmodo article by selecting HERE

BMU #448 is now online

This week I do a live gig! Mainly for the extra time to get the story "A Matter of Character" by Ed McKeown, ready.   It still had glitches, but not so bad. 

Next, from the blog  Kallimus says goodby for now.  

David Scholes tells us that his newest book is on  Amazon.  

NASA is showing great interest in Shackleton's crater.  

The Star Trek merch store has a new item that I am sure all Trekies would love to add to their collections.  

I review Jupiter acceding. 

Lastly:  I found an article that speculated on China's capabilities of landing a man on the moon. 

You can go to the podcast episode directly  HERE   or log to the podcast HERE

NASA Considering "Luna"forming Moon

NASA is looking for funding for rather ambitious research projects.  One very unusual project concerns the moon and Shackleton (wow, those that listen to the podcast may well recognize that name) Crater.  NASA's plan is to send autonomous robots to transform the crater into an environment habitat to house the robots and associated equipment.  NASA is aiming at eventually turning the crater habitat into one that can also house human beings. 

Much more can be had at the Popular Science web page HERE

BMU #409 Is Now Online

 

For an opening to this week's program I start with Mushi - shi opening song "The Sore Feet Song" by Ally Kerr.  For fans, there is a follow on season now available.

This week from the blog, the canceled boost glide tech used in the Boeing X20 Dyna Soar that originated in the 50s and canceled by the end of the decade.  The weird thing? Maybe it wasn't all that canceled?

Next I review the movie "On The Beach" based on the Nevil Shute novel of the same name.

There may be more proof that the Moon WAS created by a giant impactor.

Again the Hubble Space Telescope has taken ground breaking deep field photos that will change a lot of what we know about the formation of the early universe.

Finally Phil Temple sends in "The Little Thief" by Phil Temple

Was the Moon Created by a Giant Collision? German Scientists Say Most Deff

 

Most theories about the formation of the Moon use a "Huge Impact" a a probable cause for the Moon's creation.  Problem? Oh yes, analysis of samples from the moon show that they are identical with those of Earth's.  No third planet material is detected in either samples, which is a major setback to proving said theory.  

Now a German team has re-examined the moon rock samples and discovered a measurable difference in the ratio of Oxygen isotopes with the samples having a slightly higher concentration of Oxygen 17 than Earth rock does, which the researchers claim is evidence that a rogue planet played a part in the formation of the moon.

Of course not everyone is sold.  Critics of the updated huge impactor suggest that they would    expect a more radical difference in chemical compositions between Earth and the theoretical huge asteroid.  The German team also had only a small sample set to work with, but the lead researcher is pretty convinced: "This confirms the giant impact hypothesis."

NASA Unveils Three Possible Future Moon Landers

Astrobotic's Griffin Lander

Recently, NASA had asked private industry to present concepts of a future Moon lander. NASA has revealed that three of  the landers have been chosen for further consideration.  The three companies that made the cut were: Astrobotic Technology Inc's Griffin lander, Masten Space Systems Inc's XEUS lander  and Moon Express Inc's MX-1 Lander.  These three companies concept landers will move on to the "Lunar Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown  initiative" or the "Lunar CATALYST".

NASA is not providing any funding, however  the agency is prepared to offer assistance in technical matters, access to test facilities, equipment loans and software for three years.

From the article:

• Both Astrobotic and Moon Express are competing for the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize awarded to a private team that can land and perform activities on the surface of the moon by Dec. 31, 2015.

NASA Wants Commercial Robotic Luna Landers

That's right!  NASA is looking at private industry to develop a robotic Luna lander for the purpose of delivering cargo to the Moon's surface. 

In an excerpt from their announcement NASA said that the lander

• "could support commercial activities on the moon while enabling new science and exploration missions of interest to the larger scientific and academic communities."

NASA isn't being to clear on what these companies are supposed to do once they get there, but it has rekindled the debate of who "owns" the Moon.  Back at the beginning of spaceflight, the thought was due to the exorbitant cost, only governments would ever go to the Moon.  Now that commercial is a reality, the question once again is who owns the Moon, can anyone "own" even a piece of it.  Should the be allowed to?

My caveat would be that we would have to live with the decision every time we look up.  That is stretching it a lot but I do make at least a valid point.   Think about it.

New Scientist online has a good piece on this HERE

Russia Wants to do a Mission to Ganymede

 

Russia has allocated 1.5 million dollars for the development of a technical proposal to land a probe on the surface of  Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon.

Ganymede would be an excellent choice.  It is the largest moon in the solar system, 8% larger than Mercury but has only 45% of Mercury's  mass.

The Russian mission will be called Laplas-P1, would consist of two spacecraft launched by separate heavy lift  launch vehicles. The trip to Jupiter would take upwards of nine years. 

 In all likelihood a prototype would not be available until 2017, with a launch date of 2023 the arrival could not take place any earlier that 2030.

For more check out the IO9 article HERE

Phobos Flyby

Check out this photo.  The rock in the center frame is Phobos, one of Mars' moons.  The photo is curtsey of the Mars Express orbiter, skimming the surface at a mere 28 miles!

Why?  Well the ten year old orbiter was helping scientists to determine the density of the moon.  One unfortunate thing is, no cameras were in use at the time because of the orbiter's orientation, but this week it did make a 300 mile pass which did have cameras pointed at the moon.

If you think the photo here is spectacular, take note.....it was taken at over 4000 miles.  Yes, we are going to have some spectacular results once the data is transmitted to Earth.

For more.....check out the Dvice image of the day  HERE 

Chang'e #3 is on the Moon!

Check out this YouTube video of China's Chang'e #3 Jade Rabbit as the probe/lander descends and lands on the moon. Got to admit, shades of Apollo here, as the craft descends, hovers, chooses a landing spot and lands. All captured on video.

According to the Popular Science article, Chang'e 3 didn't land where the engineers had chosen but in a much younger geological zone.

From the article HERE :
China's next plans are for craft, Chang'e 5 and Chang'e 6, that will be able to not only land on the moon, but also scoop up some samples and return again to Earth. the #4 craft is a backup for Chang'e 3.

 

Moon Based Solar Cells Could Power the Earth

An article on Dvice reports on a truly originally inventive idea from Shimizu Corp.  to build an array of solar cells will extend along the entire 6,8353 mile lunar equator. This belt will eventually grow  to a width of  249 miles in width. 

Construction would be left to construction robots who wold be shipped to the Moon along with the supplies needed to construct the  array. Once installed, the Sun-facing cells would collect energy and store it until they were facing the Earth once more. Then laser and microwave transmitters would fire up, beaming power to their partner stations around the globe.

The microwave antennas on the Moon would be 12 miles in diameter augmented with high density laser transmitter 


Shimizu Corp's Plan

 DVice article on the solar project

Is the Moon a planet?

Anyone that has spent any amount of time looking at the moon has got to ask themselves that question.  I know it is not that simplistic.  The moon is simply too damn big to be captured by the Earth.  More than likely it was formed early in Earth's history when Earth was struck by a Mars sized objects. 

It is clear that the Moon has been with the Earth for much of Earth's history, but that doesn't go anywhere near far enough to explain the phenomenon that is Earth's largest satellite.

First the Moon is huge, a full quarter the size of Earth....nearly a planet in it's own right.  Matter of fact, the Moon is so large that it in truth doesn't orbit the Earth as much a travel along with Earth, in a sinusoidal pattern that sometimes has it slightly ahead and sometimes slightly behind the Earth and one which if you plotted one complete "orbit" you would find that it does not center on the core of Earth but some 3 thousand miles from the center.  This means of course that both bodies "orbit" this commonality.

The pair would seem to then have a co orbit something like this, but due to the Moon size, the Sun in reality has more influence on the Moon than the Earth, so the orbit would appear more like this, with the orbit more centered around the sun with the Earth playing tug of war....

But as attractive as these orbits are, in truth the orbit of the Moon around the Sun is almost circular with no where near the large perturbations of these examples.  The point being that many of the criteria that have been accepted as rules to go by in determining a planet could apply to the Moon! 

Read the IO9 article here
 

Super Moon This Weekend!

Xnewsman is telling us to watch the sky's 7:32 am Eastern Time Sunday the 23rd. Why?  For this year's "super" moon.  This will be the time when the moon will be at it's closest to the Earth in it's monthly orbit.  Full Moons happen each month but the super moon is once a year and this year's will be spectacular.  The moon is calculated as being 16,000 mile closer than it's usual orbit, lending to a 10% larger and 30% brighter moon.  

Don't miss it!

Get Your Thumbs Out, NASA Says We Might Return to the Moon.....

As hitchhikers that is. As in "Hey are you going to the Moon? Can I catch a ride?" Just where did I

get such an audacious idea? Well I was reading Dvice blog when I came across this article: 

• During a webcast for the National Academy of Sciences' medical committee last month, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said: "I have never said the United States is not going back to the lunar surface. I just said that in the foreseeable future, given the budget that NASA currently has and given where we are and what we need technologically if we’re going to go to Mars, then it will not be the United States that leads an expedition to the lunar surface…"

Bolden later stated: 

• "If somebody else is going, we will provide our engineering expertise and the only condition is that I be allowed to send an astronaut as a part of the crew."

As the article points out, NASA is aiming for Mars but with China planning for a permanent Luna base, NASA may at least want to rethink that position. 

Dvice blog article link

May 5th 1961 Alan B. Shepard - First Man From U.S. In Space

Alan Shepard became the first American in space when the Freedom 7 spacecraft lifted off from Florida on May 5, 1961. Not to be one to set on his laurels, Shepard continued with the program and 12 years later, he become the fifth man to walk on the moon.

Now for the nit pickers out there, yes I know -  sub orbital and ballistic, but give it a rest! After all these years, give the man his due.  When he was taken off active flight status, missing his chance at the first Gemini, he continued on in a planning and advisory position.  After surgery to correct an inner ear problem he ones again gained a seat on Apollo 14.   Yeah, I think he had the right stuff. 

Click HERE for the Space.com article

Hey have you seen comet Pan-STARRS yet?   It is visible here in the Northern hemisphere at twilight in the southwest sky, and should be until the end of the month. 

Photographer Dan Finnerty took a series of still photos, in Altadena California, of the comet in the evening sky setting beside the moon.  The series is really spectacular!  Here is the Vimeo short film of the photos set in time lapse mode.
Comet Pan-Starrs Moonset from Dan Finnerty on Vimeo.

If it fails to play here, click the vimeo at the bottom of the video.

Water On Young Moon Rivaled That of Earth

A study of Luna material brought back to Earth during the 1972 Apollo mission shows evidence that the moon, may contain as much subterranean water as the Earth.  

Estimates have it that Luna's mantle may contain 100 times more water than was previously thought. 

This could be more troublesome than anything however.  The present convention has the moon formed by collision with a Mars sized object and ejecting the moon as part of the collision.  If this is the case though, the the intense heat of the impact would have vaporized on the primordial moon.  

Read more here on Mail Online 

New Russian Luna Spacecraft

Standing on decades of successful operation of the Soyuz, Russia has made no secret that it has plans that place their crafts well outside Earth orbit.   To effect these plans Russia has finalized the design for a new spacecraft capable of transporting humans to the Moon. 

The "Prospective Piloted Transport System, as it has been designated, design contract has been was awarded to Energia in 2009 and is the company that presently construct the Soyuz.  All indications point to the PPTS being ready for flight soon.   Energia  execs have said  "If we get normal financing, we will start flight tests of the spaceship in 2017."   

Here is the complete Dvice article   and the original RT article here

TWO NASA SATS Crashed

The GRAIl satellites, refereed to, affectionately as Ebb and Flow, entered service in late 2011 early 2012 produced highly detailed gravity maps that shows a scarred surface rivaled only by an even more battered interior. The Moon's crust is thinner than expected and that it is shot through with lava-filled cracks evidence that the Moon expanded early in it's history.

NASA has for a year had a pair of satellites orbiting the Moon. NASA's Gravity


Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) enabling scientists to make detailed gravity maps that aided researchers to better understand the sub-surface lunar makeup.


On December 17 the Grail probes were instructed to impact a mountain at the northern pole, which the did within 20 seconds of each other at 5:28 p.m. EST.


















Wikipedia GRAIL link HERE

Well We Ever Return to the Moon?

Here we have an excellent and very personal short from Andrew Chaikin. Mr. Chaikin witnessed the last Apollo launch and on the anniversary of Apollo 17's mission he makes a good case for returning. His reasoning is that here is another world for all respects and only 3 days away! What better place to train to work and survive on other planets (if we are to go there)than our own back door! Plus it goes without saying that Apollo only scratched the surface in it's exploration of the Moon, there is so much left to be studied in a place that is for all intents from the beginning of our solar system. It's a good vid, check it out!