The Geeks Blog

The score in deep space is NASA Probe 1, Comet 0 as the NASA Deep Space 1 probe survived a close encounter of the comet kind. The probe, launched 1998 at a cost of approximately $150 million, is one tough little piece of technology. The craft's original mission ­-- concluded in July 1999 ­-- was to test futuristic technologies, including ion propulsion and self-directed navigation systems. Deep Space 1 was the first craft to use ion propulsion to fly any significant distance. After finishing its initial technology tests, the probe went on to take pictures of the asteroid Braille. Then it survived a November 1999 breakdown of its autonomous guidance system to move on to its encounter with the comet Borrelly, which was to examine the gaseous outer layer of the Comet just inside the orbit of Mars. The Ion propulsion engine is more intriguing to me, but to see a NASA craft be so damend tough is a good thing to see.

Wired News now has pictures of the Comet-probe encounter I mentioned yesterday. Very cool.

With the world's focus torn away from the Columbia disaster by the current US administrations war mongering, the news that NASA engineers had concluded that issues during launch may cause total loss of crew and vehicle, but that they didn't say anything is shocking and disturbing, but conversations with those I know who are far more knowledgeable about the US space program has clarified that even if the damage had been noticed and a landing been scrubbed, it is far more likely that something would have gone wrong in the attempts to rescue the crew as it did not have the necessary equipment for docking to the International Space Station, nor for docking with another craft. In the end, no matter the cause, there was no way they could have been saved.

In other NASA news, in the wake of the announcement I mention above, the NASA head Sean O'Keefe said that the NASA administrators had reviewed the information from the engineers, but likely came to the same conclusion I just did, attempted reentry was the best way to save lives from likely accidents in very dangerous attempts to get Columbia fixed or the crew to another vehicle. Still, O'Keefe announced that they would be reviewing the process for information where critical dangers are faced by the shuttle crews, while others think NASA, the National Aeronautic and Space Agency should go look at the ocean first and foremost.

In what has got ot be the most startling revelation since the Space Shuttle Columbia broke up over Texas, NASA revealed that there is currently no way for a crew to inspect the shuttle for any possible damage if it is not equipped for a space walk. With that in mind, they also announced that the US Air Force will be correcting that by working on inspection probes that can be deployed from a satellite or the ship itself, and it would be able to move around the ship to give the crew and engineers on the ground a view of any problems with the ship. I suspect that as the cost of deploying these go down, it might become policy to have these things go over the entire ship looking for any damage as part of normal reentry procedures, or at least we can hope it will be.

The news from and about space this week has been promising, even if there are a few Wired reporters who seem to not want the shuttles to launch again, favoring instead a dedication to going beyond orbit with a manned flight, like the space program did with the race to space. The first big news is that the shuttle program may be reactivated soon, and will need to if spare parts, food and the like are to not run out. As it is, the crew that was just picked up yesterday had to stay an extra 2 months, which is the second big news. On Monday a Soyuz space vessel docked with the International Space Station and dropped off a replacement crew and picked up th old one, but it does not appear they improved the stock situation in space.

It hits me as I return from seeing and pondering over my first major celestial event in a while that the universe, while it is huge, is nicely effected by one planet moving in the way of the star of the galaxy. I got outside at around 9:20 local time(CST) and the moon was still 2/3rds visible. When I when to grab a few viewers, the moon was 1/2 full. The progression appeared so rapid, I thought it unlikely that it would hold off the next 45 minutes until apex at 10:13. Well, once it hit 1/4 left it seemed like it would take forever to apex, as it crawled from there on. As I watched for the last 35 minutes, I saw the moon shrink to a sliver, and the red part of the moon begin to make itself clear. By 10:15 by my clock, it was amazing, and several times on my walk home I saw the moon, and each time I stopped to ponder. Nothing like a lunar eclipse to humble men.

Ares, or Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Survey of Mars, is a new craft built for specifically one purpose, as it's name suggests, to fly over the terrain of Mars. The BBC reported on Friday that several successful half size flights have been done, and the go ahead has been given for a full sized model to be made. "Ares represents a dramatic leap in the exploration of Mars, as it combines many of the best aspects of an orbiter and a lander. Landers make detailed measurements of a small area, orbiters make cruder measurements over great swathes of terrain. An autonomous flyer bridges the gap between the two. The full-size prototype is scheduled to make its first flight later this year, with a similar deployment test in the upper reaches of the Earth's atmosphere."

There have been several pieces of news on the topic of Space, which has been very quiet since the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia. The first story is one of retrospection where the Columbia Accident Investigation Board's spokesman Tyrone Woodyard spoke up on what would have been possible had the troubles with the tiles on the shuttle been discovered before the shuttle returned, and put the chances of a rescue scenario as "technically possible, but very, very risky" to Wired.

Second, earlier in the week Wired also reported that NASA is bringing together a team of non NASA people who will be monitoring the agency as it returns to space. Included in the group will be leader Thomas Stafford and Richard Covey who piloted Discovery on the first flight after Challenger. "We are assembling some very seasoned veterans of lots of different experiences, who are not part of the (space) agency, to oversee ... our procedures and which options we chose and whether or not that's the right approach," NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said at a breakfast meeting on Capitol Hill. The idea of the program moving back to space is a good sign, and is much needed to bring back the confidence of the American, even world's people.

Lastly, BBC News reported that several of the companies that are aiming for a commercial trip to space are progressing quite quickly towards their completed mission. The leader is Scaled Composites, who's entry in the X-Prize contest has already done several test flights. "SpaceShipOne is a reusable suborbital spacecraft developed in secret with an estimated $20 million (£12.4 million) of finance, by Burt Rutan and unveiled at a recent ceremony in the Mojave Desert, California. The aim of SpaceShipOne, which is carried aloft by the White Knight aircraft for the first part of its journey, is to win the $10 million X-prize which will be awarded to the first craft that can carry three people to an altitude of 100 km twice in a two-week period."

I am just back from watching Mars for several hours, though only just outside the back door of my apartment building and with the naked eye. I doubt my interest in astronomy will ever become that as the level of someone like Bob Thompson, but I wouldn't mind snagging a low cost telescope so that all these celestial events that are technically visible to the naked eye, but would look even more impressive to the magnified eye, do. The lunar eclipse. The many meteor showers. Mars being visible, which will not happen again for something like 200 hundred years. all of these have been visible to the naked eye, but all of them have been less impressive without a telescope. The moon was hard to distinguish while covered. The meteor shower was not visible due to a full moon. Mars was simply a bright, orange coloured star in the sky to the eye.

While the whole of the world is watching that new brightly shining dot in the sky called Mars, the people the world leaves in charge of missions to such places is struggling to figure out the stuff right close to home, never mind light years away. '"The short answer is that we have no political directive to go to Mars," NASA spokesman John Ira Petty said Tuesday, shortly after the release of a report on the Columbia shuttle disaster. That report detailed NASA's problems, from poor communication within the agency to the lack of a shared national vision for human space flight. "We're developing the capability to do that if we get the directive, but Washington hasn't told us to go to Mars," said Petty.'

I hope, along with many people, to not be home at midnight, when The ScreenSavers would be on my TV. I hope instead to be out at Birds Hill Park, just outside Winnipeg, where the U of Manitoba, the Planetarium, and the RASC Winnipeg Center are having a Mars viewing. I haven't looked outside, nor even bothered to look at the weather channel. because I don't want to hear bad news. I want to go out and see Mars in all it's beauty tonight with great telescopes, and maybe see some of the other awesome sights and stars. The only hitch now is a ride. I have had 2 different plans fall through, and a coworker who said he might be able to scrounge a ride is off tonight and I do not have his number. *sigh*

I am looking out the window here and I see only one thing. Rain. I look up, and see only one thing. Cloud. Ok, well straight up is ceiling, but a little to the left I see cloud. This means, as you might have guessed, that this is the closest I am likely to get to Mars tonight. I stepped out my door 10 minutes after my last post, and new right away things would be dicey. I got to work and heard dire predictions of rain, and clouds all night. I called the Planetarium line and they don't say it is off, only telling of the many things that might be in the way. As for a ride, another coworker said he might go, and that he'd stop by if he was, but I also do not have his number, and with the weather as it is, my best bet for viewing might be on Friday at the Forks, in the middle of the city. Event has been cancelled

Clouds. Rain. Some clear sky. That is the forecast for the next several days, and today is much like yesterday, except it is a drizzle mist mix instead of a downpour. This bodes badly for tomorrow's viewing of nearby Mars. As I mentioned on Wednesday, since it was raining then, I had hopes of hitting the Forks for the public viewing there, but as you can see above, it is not looking too good. I am not sure what exactly I was hoping for, beyond weather clear enough to see the planet through a telescope, and actually tell it is Mars, but I doubt either will happen. Oh well, I have plenty to do Friday anyway, with Avon orders for coworkers coming in, and maybe catching one of the last regular season Goldeyes games of the year. Maybe I'll see them go to the playoffs.

Ok, when the weather finally clears enough for you to actually see the planet that everyone has been trying to see, and you bring a camera and you grab the extra set of batteries, it is a good idea to a) not lend out one half of the spare set of fully charged batteries, b) charge the original set up beforehand, and c) don't forget the tripod at home. All three of these things, as you can tell, I did not do. I lent out two of the four spare batteries I had, when my camera needs all 4, and the ones int he camera got as far as the splash screen before dying. I also forgot my tripod, so any pictures I did get of the planet likely would have been blurry. There were 400 or so people lined up for 10 or 12 telescopes when I arrived, and more had been through those lines before. I think RASC did good.

I am happy to be viewing pictures right now on the NASA web site that the Spirit rover is taking while still on it's launch pad. They may not be as good, right now, as they will be when it actually gets moving, but I am just happy to be seeing the first ground level shots of the red planet since the previous rover landed successfully, far too long ago for my exploration envious eyes to stand. what I originally thought were two competing landers, I have just discovered through research, is actually three landers. The Beagle 2 from the European Space Agency landed on Christmas day, but has not been heard of. Spirit is the first from NASA, and the other, Opportunity, is going to land sometime near the end of the month. Mars has clearly become the next big space race.

While NASA is rejoicing that they finally got another lander on the surface of Mars, the European Space Agency revealed that the first clear sky flyover of the expected Beagle 2 landing site found no signal from the lander which has been missing since it should have landed on Christmas day. While NASA is proudly displaying the pictures beamed back from Spirit, which landed in the first few days of the month, the ESA says it has likely lost the lander it named after the ship on which Charles Darwin developed his theory of evolution. NASA expects that Spirit will soon be moving over the surface of Mars, after tests to make sure it will all go good, and it is expected the rover will beam back even more spectacular images at that time. ESA says it will not give up on Mars.

Due to worries over the airbags that cushioned the landing of the rover Spirit being in it's path when it leaves the landing pad, the rover's departure to set off across the Martian soil has been delayed until at least the 14th, ABC News reports. "Two sections of the now-deflated air bags partially block the ramp that the rover is supposed to use. Engineers will work to further retract parts of the bags before Spirit begins its expedition to dig up rocks and soil." The three day delay of the rover will give NASA time to get the airbags out of the way, though time is something that NASA will have to give a lot of, as they also discovered that the landing site they thought they had, on a former lake bed, has turned out to be incorrect, and the search for signs of water will take awhile. Mars is not quite ours, not yet anyway.

It has now been more than 24 hours since NASA last heard from the Spirit rover that landed on Mars in early January. This is not the first time NASA has had trouble on Mars, with several other crafts being lost to Mars, though most were in orbit or on entry. The European Space Agency also recently lost the Beagle 2 rover, that was supposed to have landed around Christmas, but has not been heard from since it entered the atmosphere. A second NASA rover is supposed to land soon, the Opportunity, and all three 2004 landers were to look for signs of water having once been on Mars. Of course, the lack of contact from either Spirit or Beagle 2 are leading to dumb bad jokes about the two rovers off in a corner, but at the least Spirit did provide a lot of great pictures.

I know this is being posted a little... late, but in light of a number of recent news, this is one post I wanted to keep. I note as I write this that there have been many good advances for the US space program. This was originally dates on the 25th of January, just after the second NASA rover, Opportunity, landed successfully on Mars. As well, the word came down around the same point that the previously out of communication Spirit rover had been contacted and that NASA had high hopes on it's recovery. I asked recently in IRC why it was that the announcement by US dictator George W. Bush on plans to go to the moon again and then on to Mars was still in the news, and one person said 'they don't have anything else to be optimistic about'. I am not sure if this is true, but it does show one critical thing, and why I think that this mission is very important to the world.

The moon mission, a challenge by the president of the time, brought hope to the American people, and it was one of the most watched events in US history. NASA was very clear that following that successful mission, the viewers of NASA events plummeted. That is until Apollo 13. The thought that American astronauts might die drove ratings higher than the craft they were in. The American people, having seen a decade long goal achieved, lost interest because the space program failed to be interesting. Apollo 13, then Challenger, scared the space program, and the public. They did not want to risk lives, they didn't want to see more Americans dying for a goal that many people thought was unnecessary. The rhetoric that humans has no business going into space to explore when there are parts of the earth that remain a mystery.

This logic is close minded, self centered, and self limiting. Yes there is a lot of the planet we do not know, but without the space program half the technology we have now to further explore this world would still be pipe dreams. The space program allowed global communications that were never possible before, they allowed us to know and remember exactly were in the world we are using GPS, and critical technologies to save lives has been developed primarily to help the space program. The future of our race, the human race that is, is not here on earth. We are quickly running out of resources and places to build in this world, and we cannot continue at the pace we are going at right now. The two rovers on Mars prove that we can get craft there, to the planet that holds the first step of our path to the stars. We need to do all we can to get there, and soon.

The Mars Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have once again lived up to their names as NASA today announced they will be yet again extending their mission. The two rovers, the last of which landed on January 24, 2004, were expected to last 3 months on the martian surface. Their life was extended significantly over time as NASA found they had been made better than expected, or the surface wasn't as hard on them, and now today the rovers were given another 18 months to explore the surface of Mars. While it is unlikely, in fact highly improbable, that the rovers will explore vast portions of the surface, the Opportunity rover alone has travelled more than 8 times the originally planned distance, or about 3 miles. I look forward to more spectacular views to come from Mars.

This time of year has got to be a sore one for the folks out of NASA. Their 3 more spectacular and costly failures happened over the span of a few days and across 36 years. In 1967, on January 27th, the earliest of the three, Apollo 1, occurred. In 1986, on January 28th, the Challenger shuttle exploded on take off. In 2003, days after the crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia laid a plaque for the Challenger crew in space, I believe on the space station, the Shuttle tore up in the atmosphere on February 1st. I remember 2 of these events well. I was almost 7 years old when Challenger exploded. My nephew wasn't all that much older when, with a chill up my spine, I watched the events of 2003. I am not sure that to this day he understands completely what happened that day, when he sat beside his uncle who was visibly shaken. My hat goes off to the NASA family, for their courage to continue in their noble goal, to keep following the dream of space exploration. You honor their memories every day you keep going on.