Posts Tagged ‘nasa’

Wired NASA Slogan Winners

Posted: 1 October 2007 in Uncategorized
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Wired has announced the winners of the NASA slogan contest they were running a while back. As I said in a previous post, I made a submission, but not long after doing that I soon regretted it. My choice of slogan was more of a sci-fi joke, so had no chance. I thought it was at least mildly amusing, but it got voted down pretty harshly, so apparently not.

“Earth is not room enough.”

So the winners were announced today and they aren’t bad. The top 3 are:

  1. Exploring Other Worlds, Understanding Our Own
  2. NASA: Explorers Wanted
  3. NASA: Bringing the Universe to Your Doorstep

Well, they aren’t great. The first choice is definitely my favorite of the three. They also listed the entire top 25, but I won’t reproduce them all here. My favorites of those are:

  • Fueling Imagination
  • Innovation Through Exploration
  • The Universe is Waiting

And my favorite amusing entry:

  • Ad Astra, Per Asparagus

Dawn liftoff

Posted: 28 September 2007 in Uncategorized
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NASA’s image of the day is the Dawn spacecraft launching via a Delta II rocket. It’s heading to two asteroids: Ceres (actually a dwarf planet) and Vesta. The journey will take several years. In March 2009, Dawn will slingshot around Mars to arrive at Vesta in September of 2011, where it will stay for about seven months. After that it will head to the dwarf planet Ceres, a journey of three more years, arriving in February of 2015. Five months later, the primary mission will end.

The Dawn spacecraft will be using an ion propulsion system. This allows the spacecraft to travel with much less weight. An electrical charge is used to accelerate Xenon atoms at rates 10 times faster than chemical fuels. Because the force it takes to accelerate something depends on its mass (F = ma), the lighter (less massive) a spacecraft is, the less it takes to move it. Petroleum is heavy, so using it for a spacecraft really doesn’t work very well, but it is used for launch vehicles like the Delta II rocket. The petroleum used is known as RP-1 (Refined Petroleum) and is mixed with liquid oxygen. The ion propulsion drive is fuel efficient but not exactly speedy. No one is going to brag about 0 to 60 mph in 4 days. The bonus is, the spacecraft only uses 10 ounces of fuel per day at full burn. At that rate, Dawn can go about 1500 days, but it won’t need to be at full burn every day.

 

Dawn launch - courtesy NASA.

Dawn

Posted: 12 September 2007 in Uncategorized
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Dawn on the launchpad awaiting the September 26th launch.The Dawn spacecraft is currently sitting on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral, where it will wait until September 26th for launch. NASA always chooses these vague, optimistic names for spacecraft. The Mars rovers have names like Spirit and Opportunity or old probes with names like Voyager and Pioneer. Of course there are the dreadfully functional names like Mars Polar Lander. And of course, the odd barbarian always finds his way into the crowd: Viking. But I think that Dawn is named well. Here we have a spacecraft that is actually going to the asteroid belt and examine the asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet (ala Pluto) Ceres. Of course, Ceres is a smidge smaller than Pluto having a radius of 475 km versus Pluto’s 1153 km. The great thing about asteroids, though, is that their escape velocity is relatively minor. Ceres is only 1.2 km/s, or about 4320 km/h (2685 mph). This is nothing when you consider the escape velocity of Mars is 18,097 km/s (11,247 mph). The bonus here is that spacecraft going to Ceres expend less fuel in their approach (slowing down) and less fuel on take-off.

Dawn will only be orbiting these bodies, not landing on them. Dawn’s mission is to study the formation of these two objects, but I think the longterm effects are much more important. For one, it will give us experience in working with the asteroid belt. Many sci-fi writers have speculated that the asteroid belt will be a great place for space stations and mining operations. If Dawn finds the right things, it could spur further exploration of the asteroid belt. Maybe one day my great grandchildren will visit the space mining museum on 243 Ida (below) and spend the night at the bed and breakfast on its moon Dactyl (the speck on the right).

The asteroid 243 Ida and its moon Dactyl. NASA image: public domain.

 

New NASA Slogan

Posted: 7 September 2007 in Uncategorized
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NASA is looking for a new slogan and Wired wants one of its readers to be the one who comes up with it. Vote for mine or come up with your own. My proposed slogan is “Earth is not room enough.”

The Space Station goes gimmicky

Posted: 28 August 2007 in Uncategorized
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As a big fan of both Star Wars and the International Space Station, you would think that the upcoming marriage of the two would delight me. You would be wrong.

Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber will be flown to Houston, where it will be sent off by Chewie and a host of other minor Star Wars characters, including R2 and some stormtroopers. Then, it will be carried along with the new Italian-built Harmony node to the space station by STS-120 (Discovery) on October 23rd. At the end of the mission, it will be brought home and probably gain a few tens-of-thousands of dollars in value as a result. The reason for this gimmick is the 30th anniversary of the Star Wars franchise.

I suppose the reason I hate this cheap, pointless exercise so much is that I am really angry with people not appreciating the sheer awesomeness that is the International Space Station. Most Americans would be shocked to learn that there are currently people living in space. The fact that they don’t already know it says to me that something has gone horribly wrong in our national psyche. So NASA feels the need to allow this gimmick to proceed, perhaps in hopes of increasing awareness and therefore funding. Maybe it’s not so much anger I feel as it is sorrow, for the futility I sense in trying to change the status quo with such a cheap trick.

Or maybe I’m just being way too dramatic — a charge that has oft been levelled at me. I will not deny it. Probably the LucasArts people wanted to generate some buzz for their franchise and the NASA geeks, having a high probability of being devoted Star Wars fans, accepted gladly.

Space.com: “NASA Shuttle to Launch Luke Skywalker’s Lightsaber”

Microsoft Photosynth

Posted: 6 August 2007 in Uncategorized
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While I’m not usually into endorsing anything related to Microsoft, they do appear to have a rather cool offering with Photosynth.  It uses multiple images to compile a three-dimensional representation of the subject.  I’ve used the firefox extension to look at the Shuttle Endeavor from many different angles and many of the pictures are high-res enough that you can zoom in and see the shuttle up close and personal.  Worth a few minutes examination, at any rate.

Microsoft Photosynth: http://labs.live.com/photosynth/
Shuttle Endeavor:  http://media.labs.live.com/photosynth/NASA/default.htm

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