MAIN ARTICLE: A Scientist's Guide to Finding Alien Life: Where, When, and in What Universe.
Page 2: All over solar system; monitor climate from orbit
Poll Results: The poll yesterday was the 26th time the Weekly Tracking Poll has been ran, scroll down for the totals, click subscribe for more space news.
Star Trek: In the News. 'Star Trek XI' Finishes A Strong $22M In Third Week
Yesterday's Comments: "That arm is Canadian! Tips for loving Canada" - David Kroning
Today's Poll: Should the ISS be opened up to the China, India and Brazil?
LET THE HUNT BEGIN:
Researchers are now rethinking were you can look for extraterrestrial lifeforms, not other star systems but a lot closer to home.
A Scientist's Guide to Finding Alien Life:
Where, When, and in What Universe.
"Things were not looking so good for alien life in 1976, after the Viking I spacecraft landed on Mars, stretched out its robotic arm, and gathered up a fist-size pile of red dirt for chemical testing. Results from the probe’s built-in lab were anything but encouraging. There were no clear signs of biological activity, and the pictures Viking beamed back showed a bleak, frozen desert world, backing up that grim assessment. It appeared that our best hope for finding life on another planet had blown away like dust in a Martian windstorm.
What a difference 33 years makes. Back then, Mars seemed the only remotely plausible place beyond Earth where biology could have taken root. Today our conception of life in the universe is being turned on its head as scientists are finding a whole lot of inviting real estate out there. As a result, they are beginning to think not in terms of single places to look for life but in terms of "habitable zones"—maps of the myriad places where living things could conceivably thrive beyond Earth. Such abodes of life may lie on other planets and moons throughout our galaxy, throughout the universe, and even beyond.
The pace of progress is staggering. Just last November new studies of Saturn’s moon Enceladus strengthened the case for a reservoir of warm water buried beneath its craggy surface. Nobody had ever thought of this roughly 300-mile-wide icy satellite as anything special—until the Cassini spacecraft witnessed geysers of water vapor blowing out from its surface. Now Enceladus joins Jupiter’s moon Europa on the growing list of unlikely solar system locales that seem to harbor liquid water and, in principle, the ingredients for life.
Astronomers are also closing in on a possibly huge number of Earth-like worlds around other stars. Since the mid-1990s they have already identified roughly 340 extrasolar planets. Most of these are massive gaseous bodies, but the latest searches are turning up ever-smaller worlds. Two months ago the European satellite Corot spotted an extrasolar planet less than twice the diameter of Earth (see "The Inspiring Boom in Super-Earths"), and NASA’s new Kepler probe is poised to start searching for genuine analogues of Earth later this year. Meanwhile, recent discoveries show that microorganisms are much hardier than we thought, meaning that even planets that are not terribly Earth-like might still be suited to biology."
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PAGE 2:
As I have mentioned before, every so often a comment is made (see "President Obama names new NASA Administrator.", 'Americans in Space', May 23, 2009) that really strikes me and I feel it should be given a little more light.
Here is a comment by auntialias that is a really good read:
All over solar system; monitor climate from orbit
"This response is not even going to attempt to address the relatively tiny size of the NASA budget compared to all the other financial concerns of deficit/funding/etc. I don't know exactly, but the scale is roughly like saying, "I'll help you pay your hundred dollar debt. Will these three pennies help?"
I could, I suppose look up some of the articles and lists of things developed by NASA that are now a part of our everyday life. One-off inventions that become commercial technologies. Oh, like stuff to monitor for heart attacks. On the ground.
(health care- CHECK. food security -- well, clean water security: CHECK)
Those things are cool. But consider what it is we are doing, what we're reaching for.
We are all over our solar system... we have 2 functioning rovers on Mars since (gasp) 2004! That's 5 years! Doing amazing science. Space is hard. We're just coming up on the 1-year anniversary of the Phoenix Mars Lander mission, which plunked itself into some ice in the Martian polar region, dug down, and discovered all sorts of things about the
Last week I talked w/ my family about the moon landing. What I remember about the day -- we were at a mountain cabin, lisening to it on the radio. Mom recalled that, too. She also spoke of the night of the landing, looking up and seeing the full moon. She thought, It looks just the same, but it's different now.
I have that "it's different now" relationship to that little red dot in the night sky -- Mars. As of last year's landing, all the names of my nieces and nephews are on a disk attached to the spacecraft that's now located on the next planet away from ours (thanks, Planetary Society!).
Hey, slow down there for just a moment. Let me say that again.
Their names are on a DVD located on a neighboring planetary body.
My name isn't on it, but will be on the Mars Science Laboratory, aka MSL (disclosure/disclaimer: My boyfriend is working on the radar system to land MSL on the surface of Mars.)
Hundreds and thousands of years ago, our ancestors looked up in the night sky at the red wanderers and other wanderers, and considered them to be gods or mysterious presences of some ineffable significance. Mars, the god of war.
And now people I've met have had a part in a major collaborative effort to design, build, fly and operate two spacecraft that have been on the surface of that mysterious god of war neighboring body. I have a coffee-table book "postcards from Mars" -- our entire picture of ourselves and solar system and the universe had changed as a result of the kinds of things we've learned over the last couple of decades.
Space is hard. Humans in space is very hard. Robots in space is not as hard, nor as expensive. And this generation of kids growing up have a relationship to our spacecraft (which now tweet!) and relate to them with all the benefits of anthropomorphic ways that perhaps my parents generation is not able to do. So when you hear the elders of NASA say that "well, we need humans in space to really inspire the children," you're looking at an outdated, generational thing.
And while I'm not gung-ho on the Shuttle/Space Station program (lotta money for little return, vs. science/robotic arm of NASA which gets TONS of science for the $), I'm thrilled about the success of the latest Shuttle Mission to repair the Hubble Telescope, which has produced the best science bang for the buck. Bar none.
Watch the video of letting go of the Hubble, and see it and the surface of our planet together in the video frame...
Yes, let's do something about climate change on the ground.... but how are you going to monitor said change? Offhand, I can think of one set of orbiters -- Poseidon and Jason (I saw the jason launch) which orbit the earth, tracking the height of the ocean's surface... small, tell-tale chagnes in height that tell us what's happening with ocean currents, giving the ability to forecast El Niño or La Niña (shorter term) climate events. And building up data which allow us to understand, longer term climate events.
Want visuals of what's happening to the ice on Earth's polar regions? (such as this photo) You can't get perspective like that except from orbit, which means investing money in science and space and NASA.
OCO... Orbiting Carbon Observatory, alas, didn't make it to orbit after launch earlier this year. JPL got a good dose of stimulus money, and I'm sure they'll be applying some of that to a mission re-do, to building another OCO from the spare parts, testing it, and making another launch attempt. Being able to monitor carbon levels from space is a way for those of us on the ground to keep tabs on changes in the climate.
Okay, I'm done with naming missions off the top of my head, and looked and see that there's a whole page devoted to JPL's Earth Science Missions. The Phrase "Global Climate Change" is the subhead just under the major heading, "Earth." (er, yes, one more thing.. see the mission at the bottom of the list? Shuttle Radar Topography Mission? My boyfriend worked on that, too. The mission was financed by the DoD, who wanted a high-quality 3D map of nearly all the surface of the world. DoD paid for it, but those maps have gone out into the world, and have been used for lots of stuff. Like Google Earth. Anyway, I wrote about it here, how that's the greatest mission. Way too personal and mushy and stuff, but there it is.)"
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PAGE 3:
Mining the Moons of Mars
"If platinum were required for high efficiency fuel cells for automobiles, only 20% of the world's ground vehicles could be supplied. This of course doesn't even include the substantially higher demand for platinum if electrolysis became the primary means for producing hydrogen for a carbon neutral hydrocarbon fuel and industrial chemical economy.
While alternatives to platinum use in fuel cells and electrodes for electrolysis are currently being intensely pursued by researches, it is interesting to note that while platinum is rare in the regolith of Earth, it is extremely abundant in space-- in the form of asteroids. In fact, the largest sources of platinum on Earth occur in regions that appear to have been hit by large asteroid impacts in the more recent geologic past."
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POLL RESULTS:
Yesterday's poll was the 26th week of running the Weekly Tracking Poll (WTP). Here is the total picture after 26 weeks. The most amazing number after six months was only four percent of DKOS members, who participated in these polls, thought that the NASA budget should stay were it is today.
The last Gallup poll on space spending I saw had a 14% return for people who thought the NASA budget should be cut, The WTP had 12% who wanted to see the space budget cut, close enough to be statistically significant.
CHART 1 - 26 week totals.
CHART 2 - Yesterday's WTP.
CHART 3 - Most votes on a WTP.
CHART 4 - Least votes on a WTP.
WEEKLY TRACKING POLL ARCHIVES:
Sun May 24, 2009, Sat May 16, 2009
Sat May 7, 2009, Sat May 2, 2009, Sat Apr 25, 2009, Sat Apr 18, 2009, Sat Apr 11, 2009
Sat Apr 04, 2009, --FLOOD WEEK--, Sat Mar 21, 2009, Sat Mar 14, 2009, Sat Mar 07, 2009
Sat Feb 28, 2009, Sat Feb 21, 2009, Sat Feb 14, 2009, Sat Feb 07, 2009, Sat Jan 31, 2009
Sat Jan 24, 2009, Sat Jan 17, 2009, Sun Jan 11, 2009, Sat Jan 03, 2009, Sat Dec 27, 2008
Sat Dec 20, 2008, Sat Dec 13, 2008, Sat Dec 6, 2008, Sat Nov 29, 2008, Sat Nov 22, 2008
'Star Trek XI' Finishes A Strong $22M In Third Week
" "Terminator Salvation" finished second at the domestic box office this weekend, while "Star Trek XI" could become the top movie of 2009 (so far) by next weekend.
"Salvation" earned a strong $43 million over the weekend, bringing its extended weekend total to $56.4 million, according to Reuters. That was not enough to top "Night at the Museum 2," which took control of the box office with $53.5 million. The Ben Stiller comedy did not have an early release, so it actually finished the extended weekend behind "Salvation."
"Star Trek XI" looked impressive in its third week, hauling in another $22 million, and finishing ahead of last week's No. 1 "Angels & Demons," which dropped to No. 4 with $21.4 million. "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" finished in sixth place with $7.8 million.
"Star Trek" now has grossed $183.5 million in the domestic box office, more than $20 million ahead of "Wolverine," despite coming out a week later. It's also less than $10 million behind the top movie of the year so far, "Monsters & Aliens," which sits at $193.1 million. In fact, even if "Star Trek" falls another 50 percent in its fourth week, it could still become the top-grossing movie of 2009 with only "Transformers 2" and "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" coming up that could threaten it.
"Star Trek" already has grossed more than $300 million worldwide. It is now the 107th top grossing movie of all time, according to MovieWeb, and should easily break the top 100 next weekend. Even with a 50 percent drop, "Star Trek" should supplant "Men In Black II" in the top 95 grossing movies of all time."
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YESTERDAY'S COMMENTS:
"I loved going to the new Star Trek movie It was like visiting a time when we had optimism. We knew we could make it in space. We knew that there were all kinds of interesting things to do and become just because space holds mysteries. The Hubble pictures reminds us of the glories awaiting us.
But for too long we have been the "can't do" nation. We have been at the mercy of small souls with even smaller vision pecking away at our self esteem and our vision.
To go back to that "can do" mentality would be awesome, but we have to revamp our media - the media that worships Hannity and Rush and Cheney. We have to revamp our educational system - the leave no child left untested mentality. We have to rethink our ideas about how to share, how to harness resources better, how to utilize our economy better (capitalism may need a rewrite) and how to prioritize. The latter in particular needs a new focus. It is not enough that we have an efficient government. It is not enough that we have an "unfettered" free style economy. We need to determine whether jobs or transfer payments or safety nets or social programs or arts or you name it are really very important to us and why. And I am not sure we are smart enough to do that. Somehow we have lost the ability to grow leaders. We have lost the ability to have a global vision. We have lost the capability of even understanding the current world, let alone understanding ourselves and our place in that world. And without knowing where we are and where we want to go we cannot formulate ways to get there." - glitterscale
"While I believe in international access to the ISS - of which I'm not really that big of a fan, by the way since I prefer space robots to space people - I think NASA should not outsource launching humans, to the extent they go to space, to other countries.
This is a key science based technology in this country and we have to stop acting like we can afford to lose industries like that to save a few bucks.
Instead of protecting the car CULTure finance types, we should protect our science based industries. Our space program - merits and demerits aside - has lead to major advances in materials science, energy science and robotics. This is not intellectual capital that we should try to save a few bucks by outsourcing." - NNadir
"Love the shuttle coverage, "debris in orbit"
~60% greater chance of collision with a fast-moving object.
~debris-riddled region of space 375 miles above ...
~Dodging Space Junk: Shuttle Looks Good So Far
Well I hope you all remember that satellite that Bush wanted blown up by his missile defense missile last year during the Lunar Eclipse?
Well I guess most of it is still up there.
There simply needs a world wide moratorium on blowin crap up in orbit, otherwise we're just making shrapnel.
This could be somebodies house in the near future, so if you are against orbital velocity debris shrapnel paying you a visit while you comment on Vlads Feb 17th, 2032 Dairy "Autumn on Mars", then Heave Ho, pass the word, its fairly simple to tell people :
Stop blowin crap up in orbit." - Roger Fox
"again, more than 4% in the poll with conditions: get rid of weapons to destroy the world 100x over, once is enough, and refocus union aerospace workers and engineers to space exploration. It will do wonders for our standing in the world and benefit mankind as a whole.
Or put more simply by Tom Wolfe:
No bucks - no Buck Rodgers " - Jeffersonian Democrat
THE SPACE FUNNY PAGE:
Submitted to the comments section by JekyllnHyde.
TODAY'S POLL:
Today's poll relates to comments made by Buzz Aldrin (see "Buzz Aldrin: America is Lost in Space.", 'Americans in Space', May 24, 2009) in a recent article he penned. In it he called for more international cooperation by bringing in China, India, and Brazil as partners in the International Space Station (ISS).
Read other NASA and Space diaries on DKOS.
