New Horizons Closing for July Flyby

I know I am being a bit redundant   -  but you have to admit that as far as NASA's New Horizons mission is concerned  -  It is  starting to heat up in the coldest part of the solar system.

NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft is nearing its History making July 14 Encounter with Pluto, giving us up close data that here to fore has been from ground based and Earth orbiting space observations.

This means that the New Horizons spacecraft will be sending back  first-ever close up images  of distant Pluto and its moons.

New Horizons is the fastest spacecraft ever launched, has traveled a longer time and farther away – more than nine years and three billion miles – than any space mission in history to reach its primary target. (voyager may have traveled further but had completed its mission and reached it primary target decades ago)

Its flyby of Pluto on July 14 will complete its primary mission, but may also open the door to new data in the Kuiper Belt, a large area beyond Neptune’s orbit with with numerous and interesting objects.

Interestingly, even with New Horizons closer to Pluto than the Earth is to the Sun, the Pluto system resembles little more than bright dots in the distance. That's enough however for the team team operating the spacecraft to  navigate New Horizons toward a  target 7,750 miles from Pluto’s surface. This is critical, since the craft's computer can not receive commands in real time and it needs to know where to  point its science instruments as it  passes Pluto.

Another real interesting data point:  New Horizons’s work doesn’t end with the flyby. Because its time close to Pluto is so short, New Horizons is designed to gather as much data as it can, as quickly as it can,which means, taking about 100 times as much data on close approach as it can send home before flying away.  The spacecraft will send the data stored in onboard memory for a full 16 months after close approach.

For more on the New Horizons mission, here is the NASA link http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons

Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson Speaks on MSNBC's Rock Center

Xnewsman sends in a facinating clip for MSNBC's Rock Center which recently hosted Neil DeGrasse Tyson and spoke in part of Gingrich's plan to place a colony on the Moon. I think it is telling that Neil's bullet points have been some of the same that I have expressed in the past. I love the quip about two spacefaring nations......see if you agree.......

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SpaceX successful Falcon9 / Dragon Launch

SpaceX experienced a brilliantly successful launch of it's Falcon 9 launch vehicle, delivering a Dragon, reusable space capsule into orbit.

Here is a description of the Dragon capsule, from SpaceX's site
Dragon is a free-flying, reusable spacecraft ... developed by SpaceX .... the Dragon spacecraft is made up of a pressurized capsule and unpressurized trunk used for Earth to LEO transport of pressurized cargo, unpressurized cargo, and/or crew members.

The Dragon was delivered to orbit and according to the SpaceX site

(Dragon re-enters and) Lands on Target in the Pacific Ocean, 500 miles Off of the Coast of Southern California

This also means that SpaceX became the first commercial company in history to re-enter a spacecraft from low-Earth orbit.

Hawking asks:What's the future of manned vs robotic missions?

I read in an article in "The Daily Galaxy" online magazine, that Stephen Hawkings has asked a question that has certainly weighed on many person's minds, exactly what is in the cards so to speak, concerning space exploration missions and will they be robotic or human crewed missions.

Hawing has said:
"Robotic missions are much cheaper and may provide more scientific information, but they don't catch the public imagination in the same way, and they don't spread the human race into space, which I'm arguing should be our long-term strategy. If the human race is to continue for another million years, we will have to boldly go where no one has gone before."


The concern being, will robotic explorers be able to step outside their mission parameters, to say, recognize lifeforms that it was not specifically programmed to look for.

Astronomer and planetary scientist at Cornell University Jim Bell in an article in Scientific American said that you might think that being so heavily vested in robotic exploration that he would dismiss manned missions as too costly but he added: “Although astronaut missions are much more expensive and risky than robotic craft, they are absolutely critical to the success of our exploration program."

The article continues with quotes on the subject from luminaries like Ben Bova.

Read complete article here

Mysterious ribbon of energy surrounds the Solar System

At the edge of our solar system, between us and the rest of the galaxy mysterious bright band of surprising high-energy emissions. As Shaun Sauders puts it, when he sent me the article from Space.com, "the 'fence' around our local backyard".

This high energy area was discovered by the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft, launched in October 2008, while it was orbiting Earth. The IBEX was monitoring incoming neutral atoms that originate billions of miles away at the solar system's.

The truly remarkable results do not resemble any of the current theories or models of that region of "near" space. What scientists expected to see was a small, gradual variations at the interstellar boundary. However, IBEX is showed a very narrow ribbon that is two to three times brighter than anything else in the sky.

The energy ribbon lies at the very edge of the solar system's heliosphere, where the stream of charged particles from the sun finally fade to the cosmic background. It is in this area that the charged particles from the sun meet neutral atoms and exchange electrons which makes the charged particles also neutral. This transfer of energy causes a faint glow.

This interaction was first explored by the Voyager 1 spacecraft in 2004 when it first encountered the shock wave of the charged particle encountering the neutral atoms at the heliopause and again in 2007 with Voyager 2.

Read complete space.com article

India's first space mission beyond Earth orbit launched successfully

India has now succesfully joined the all too small group of countries who have sent scientific missions beyond low Earth orbit. Launched at 0052 GMT, Oct. 22, Chandrayaan-1 carries with it 11 scientific experiments including three from the European Space Agency, two from NASA, and one from Bulgaria.

Chandrayaan-1 will map the surface of the Moon, determine its mineralogy content, and land a small impact probe which will "give ISRO [Indian Space Research Organization] scientists experience to be used in subsequent lunar landing missions."

The mission cost a relatively minuscule $86m for a mission that is a small step forward in humanity's eventual colonization of the Moon and is a well-deserved source of pride for an important, developing country.

<Space.com Article>

<Moon Daily Article>

<Variety SF Article>

Dissent Grows as Scientists Oppose NASA’s New Moon Mission

As plans mount for NASA's push for a permanent base on the Moon, pressure mounts from many quarters, opposing the Moon missions.

Trouble is brewing as a growing group of former mission managers, planetary scientists and astronauts argues against any manned moon mission at all. One alternative, they say: Send astronauts to an asteroid as a better preparation for a Martian landing.

It should be noted that the group as a whole does not oppose plans to land astronauts on Mars, however, Robert Walker, a former congressman and a member of the Presidential Commission on the Implementation of the United States Space Exploration Policy, points out that “Having a U.S. presence on the moon at least gives us the chance to keep an eye on the standard of conduct,” In military terms, the moon can be seen as the ultimate high ground. A nation could set up hard-to-defeat microwave or laser weapons platforms aimed at in-orbit satellites or, in the best sci-fi tradition, to launch large rocks at the Earth with “mass drivers.” (These were the weapon of choice for Robert Heinlein’s revolutionary protagonists in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.) Vocal opponents of the lunar base plan have two basic criticisms. First, the mission hasn’t sparked enthusiasm. Second is that a lunar base may not be practical. For instance, such an installation would require a lunar supply of water ice; probes have suggested the presence of water, but have not proven it. The argument is also made that the moon is too close to the Earth to provide a good practice run for a Mars mission. Scientists also point out the lack of reusable parts in the Constellation program, the high costs of which many claim NASA is underestimating.

Thanks to Shaun A. Saunders for the post from Popular Mechanics

Nasa outlines manned Mars vision

Nasa has released details of its strategy for sending a human crew to Mars within the next few decades. The plan is to send a "minimal" crew on a 30-month round trip to the Red Planet. The "Mars ship" would be assembled in low-Earth orbit using three to four Ares V rockets. The mission's journey from Earth to Mars would take six to seven months in a spacecraft powered by an advanced cryogenic fuel propulsion system. The cargo lander and surface habitat would be sent to Mars separately, launched before the crew. Once there, astronauts could spend up to 16 months on the Martian surface, and would use nuclear energy to power their habitat. Nasa has said that they plan on using future Moon missions to test out some of the hardware that that would have to be developed for the extended Mars mission.

Thanks to Shaun A. Saunders for the post

pictures from bbc news article

Sun light caused mysterious blemishes on Iapetus

From the NewScientist online magazine

Blame the Sun for the mysterious dark blemishes on Saturn's moon Iapetus. New photos from the Cassini spacecraft reveal the splotches are mainly found on the sunward-facing slopes of craters and mountains, suggesting a runaway heating process is tainting portions of the moon. Cassini's imaging team members found that there are sharp-edged dark spots all over the surface, even on the moon's bright trailing hemisphere. Careful analysis revealed that these isolated spots are preferentially located on the sunward facing slopes of craters. That suggests that as the slopes get slightly warmer, ice there starts to evaporate. That exposes more dark stuff in the ice, which is then ready to retain even more solar heat.

thanks to Shaun Saunders for the update

Cassini Is On The Trail Of A Runaway Mystery

From Sciencedaily.com

NASA scientists are on the trail of Iapetus' mysterious dark side, which seems to be home to a bizarre "runaway" process that is transporting vaporized water ice from the dark areas to the white areas of the Saturnian moon. This "thermal segregation" model may explain many details of the moon's strange and dramatically two-toned appearance, which have been revealed exquisitely in images collected during a recent close flyby of Iapetus by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Infrared observations from the flyby confirm that the dark material is warm enough (approximately minus 230 degrees Fahrenheit or 127 Kelvin) for very slow release of water vapor from water ice, and this process is probably a major factor in determining the distinct brightness boundaries.

Ben Bova speaks on space exploration

Author and editor - Ben Bova talks about space exploration, and he sums up justification for manned spaceflight in just two words: Human survival. Here’s his two minutes of reasoning on why NASA is worth the money, and why it still isn’t enough.