Cumbrian Sky

Subject: Phoenix - 7 days from Mars...
Time: 5:41:44 AM EDT
Author:  stuartatk

Wow.. look at that... after all the months and weeks of waiting, we're now just 7 days away from the landing of Phoenix on Mars. It's going to be a long, long week, ticking off each day as it passes, but this time next week we'll be just a dozen or so hours away from those gut-wrenchingly frightening "7 minutes of terror" as Phoenix plummets through Mars' atmosphere and attempts its landing in the martian arctic. We'll be talking a lot about Phoenix during the next week, so keep checking back here for regular updates, and tips for how you can make the most out of this amazing event...

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Subject: 9 Days To Go..!
Time: 3:21:49 AM EDT
Author:  stuartatk

Wow... look at that... 9 days to go... just 9 more days left to go until Phoenix - hopefully - lands on Mars, shows us a whole new side of Mars, and teaches us more about the conditions up near the pole, both now and in the distant past. It doesn't seem 5 minutes ago since I was thinking "Just a month to go..." and now here we are, just over a week left. Tick tick tick...

Interest in Phoenix is really climbing now. The Phoenix Twitter page now has well over 1,700 people signed up to "follow" it, and JPL are putting out regular press releases now giving details of media events and coverage. And it's only going to get busier...

This might interest you if you're following the Phoenix mission. Barry Goldstein is the Project Manager of the Phoenix mission, and yesterday he took part in a live Question and Answer session over at the always-excellent spacEurope website of my great friend Rui....

Barry answered a huge number of questions all about the mission, and gave some fascinating insights into what's planned - and what's hoped for -once Phoenix has landed.

What? You missed it? Oh well, never mind, if you click here you can read the Q&A in all its glory by scrolling down the piece and clicking on the "60 comments" link... ! :-)

And as a final present, you really, REALLY have to go here and take a look at a newly-released animation of the Phoenix Entry, Descent and Landing. You want to be downloading one of the versions of this animation:

Phoenix EDL Animation - This animation featuring a heads-up display shows second-by second the entry, descent and landing of the Phoenix Mars Lander on May 25, 2008.

...it's simply awesome, one of the most inspiring, exciting and terrifying simulations I've ever seen. Go look at it now. No, NOW.

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Subject: Carnival of Space time again...
Time: 12:14:41 PM EDT
Author:  stuartatk

The 54th (54th!!!) Carnival of Space is now up online. Click here to go take a look!

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Subject: NASA'S Big Announcement
Time: 1:28:23 AM EDT
Author:  stuartatk

... so what was it? What had NASA found after 50 years of searching? A black hole in our cosmic neighbourhood? A brown dwarf orbiting the Sun? A parking space in Kendal? No. They'd found a "very young supernova remnant".

I known that that'll be an exciting and significant discovery for the people who study these things, but I can't help thinking they over-hyped this.

Full story here at Sky & Telescope.

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Subject: Eleven Days from Mars - Part 1
Time: 9:03:42 AM EDT
Author:  stuartatk

 

WELCOME TO CARNIVAL OF SPACE #54 READERS!

 

Well, here we are… a little over eleven days until Phoenix lands on Mars and the interest is (finally?) starting to mount Out There in the normal world. Of course, spaceflight enthusiasts have been counting down the days, hours and minutes until Phoenix lands for ages already, but until the past couple of days it’s had quite a low public profile. But yesterday there was a big NASA Press Briefing, shown live on NASA TV, and this morning Phoenix is big news across the internet’s news sites, and will no doubt start to creep into TV news reports soon, too. Soon we’ll be into single-figures-days away from another landing on Mars, and our first view of a whole new part of the Red Planet, Barsoom’s arctic.

 

Hopefully.

 

It’s easy to forget – or, more honestly, ignore – the fact that landing on Mars is hard. Very hard. Mars has killed more spaceprobes than it has allowed to live. It actually seems to take a perverse pleasure in allowing scientists and engineers to invest years, sometimes even decades of their lives in missions that fail at the very last moment. Am I the only one who’s noticed that, apart from in one case - the ill-fated Rusaian Phobos mission, which plummeted back into Earth’s ocean after launch went horribly wrong - Mars cruelly waits until probes actually arrive at Mars before murdering them? It’s as if the Red Planet plays with the men and women involved in these missions, and sits back and waits, bides its time, like a spider hiding in a shadowed crack in a wall, before striking. Think about it. Mars Polar Lander… Beagle 2… Mars Surveyor… all launched without a hitch, all cruised through interplanetary space without incident, but then, finally, when Mars was literally almost close enough to touch, after the hard work of designing, building and launching the probe were months and years behind them, and the people involved in the missions were starting to believe that they had Done It, Marsreached out with its hand and either swatted the probes out of the sky, or closed around them and made them vanish into the dark, leaving control rooms and labs full of bewildered men and women with “What happened?” and “That’s not fair… not fair…” expressions on their faces.

 

Does a similar, cruel fate await the men and women behind Phoenix? We’ll have to wait and see. Phoenix either will, or won’t, land on Mars and work, it’s as simple as that, there are no grey areas. In fact, it’s probably best not to think of the number of ways the mission could go wrong, or fail altogether. Every time I watch that brilliant computer animation showing Phoenix’s Entry, Descent and Landing I run through a mental checklist of potential Mission Killers, I just can’t help it. The atmospheric entry could go wrong – an error in entry angle of just a degree would either doom the probe to a fiery death in Mars’ atmosphere, or sentence it to exile in space after skipping off it and barrelling back out into the darkness uncontrollably. If it survives re-entry, the parachute could fail to open properly, or just not open at all, and Phoenix would slam into Green Valley like an egg dropped from the top of a skyscraper. If the parachute slows the probe, Phoenix could fail to detach from it, which would mean a really bad day for NASA. Even if that goes well the braking rockets could fail, and we’re back to the Humpty Dumpty scenario. And even if all those things go perfectly, Phoenix could land on a boulder, or in a trench. And even if it lands on ground as flat as Keira Knightley’s chest, a mechanical fault could mean the robot arm stays stubbornly locked in place, or the camera mast doesn’t deploy, or the solar panels don’t unfold, or… or…

 

Or, it could all work perfectly, and in the early hours of May 26th I’ll be sat here at my computer, gazing, open mouthed, at the first images ever taken of the north polar region of Mars, and seeing the Red Planet in a whole new – arctic – light.

 

Either way, we’ll know in less than two weeks.

 

Two weeks doesn’t sound very long, but boy it feels like an eternity, doesn’t it? I don’t know about you, but I’m in full on calendar- and diary- and wall-planner watching mode. If you’re anything like me you’re feeling a heady, sickening mixture of excitement, fear, impatience and dread. And if that’s how I – a humble spaceflight enthusiast – am feeling, how on Earth are the men and women involved IN the mission feeling? What must it be like for them, to have come all this way, to have been a part of this adventure, to have invested so much time, money and belief in the little spaceprobe now hurtling towards Mars, and know that it could all end in a moment, so many millions of miles away that they wouldn’t even know their dreams had died until several minutes later?

 

But I’m convinced that all will be well, and that Phoenix will touchdown safely in the rock- and boulder-free heart of Green Valley and show us a new Mars. I’ve got all my Phoenix websites bookmarked and I’m telling everyone who will listen (and many who won’t!) about the mission. I’m writing pieces about Phoenix for the paper and describing its mission in my Outreach talks. Soon I’ll be recording slots about Phoenix for my local radio stations, and I’ve already started putting together the Outreach talk I’m scheduled to give at my local Museum on May 31st, leaving its end section blank, ready to be filled withthe first images sent back in triumph by Phoenix from the martian arctic. 

 

There’s now a lot of public interest in Phoenix, a lot of it because, mistakenly, many people believe it is actually going there to look for living, breathing martians. But people do seem genuinely interested in and excited by the prospect of a new probe landing on Mars and sending back new pictures. Maybe it’s because the twin Mars rovers have been so successful, and their photographs have been splashed across websites, newspaper front pages and magazine spreads for the past four years. Maybe it’s because there’s just generally more interest in “space” now, thanks to the steady flow of incredible images from the Hubble Space Telescope and better online and TV coverage of the shuttle’s missions to the space station. Maybe it’s because NASA has been shouting from the rooftops that it is planning to send people back to the Moon, at last… Whatever the reason, there are now a lot more people looking forward to this mission than there were when the rovers landed four years ago.

 

But one thing hasn’t changed. There are still people who are protesting at the cost of the mission, who tell me that exploring Mars, exploring space at all, is a waste of money, that the money spent on "space" would be “better spent here, on Earth, solving OUR problems”…

 

I used to enter into a debate with such people and convince them that space exploration was a worthy, noble pursuit. I used to try and describe the scientific benefits it brings, the advancements in knowledge and understanding. I used to make the case that exploration is in our nature, encoded into our DNA in a way, that mankind is a curious species that is always impatient to see over thenext hill, past the far horizon, etc etc. And I still do, and I find that many people are genuinely interested to hear how the exploration of space has helped mould and shape our modern world, with the super fast computers, mobile communications and satellite technology we all take so much for granted.

 

But sometimes I realise I’m wasting my breath and sense that no matter how good a case I make for the continuing exploration of space they’re just not going to buy it. They’re very comfortable sitting up there on their high horse of indignation and outrage, and no matter how hard I pull on their leg they won’t come off it. So now I try a different tack.

 

I serve them up a huge dish of guilt, accompanied by a generous side order of hypocrisy.

I make them feel guilty about even daring to criticise the cost of space exploration when the way they live THEIR lives, the things THEY do, the choices THEY make all make them hypocrites.

 

I let them have their say first, of course, I let them dig their offended hole with their great big heavy shovel of morality, let them puff out their chests and lecture me on how much good could be done down here on Earth with the money spent “up there”, and then I tell them that they don’t have the right to lecture me about money being “wasted” on space when they make decisions, and buy things every day, that cost a lot more money – a LOT more money – than is spent on space.

 

“Do you ever buy a newspaper?” I might ask. Yes? Well, every newspaper is 80p you could have chosen to put in a charity collection box, or tin, but didn’t. You didn’t NEED a newspaper, but you decided you wanted one.

 

Do you ever rent a DVD from your local video store? You do? Fine. But every time you hand over £4 to the spotty assistant behind the counter that’s £4 you could have donated to a charity appeal for earthquake, famine or disaster victims. But you didn’t. You hired that movie instead.

Every time you buy a pint of beer, or a glass of wine in your local pub, that’s money you could have donated to pay for AIDS drugs in Africa. Every time you buy a tin of food for your cat or dog, that’s money you could have given to a Romanian orphanage. Every time you treat yourself to a takeaway Chinese or Indian meal, or a pizza, that’s a tenner you could have given to help street kids in Brazil, or Mexico; every time you buy a lipstick, or a bottle of aftershave, to make yourself look or smell nice, that’s cash you could have given to a charity paying for sight-restoring operations for the blind in India. You make choices, and purchases, a dozen times every week that spend money that could be spent on “better things”, but you see nothing wrong with it. Yet you want to take money away from space exploration, which helps us in so many practical, scientific and humanitarian ways? Give me a break.

 

Am I being a bit harsh? I don’t think so. Actually, truth be told, I don’t care. We have no choice but to explore space. We can’t live on this island planet forever, we simply have to get off at some point. And if some people want to stand in the way of that because they want to be hypocritical well, I’m sorry, but they’re fair game.

 

(please scroll down the page - orclick here - for part 2 of this post)

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Subject: Eleven days from Mars - Part 2
Time: 9:03:11 AM EDT
Author:  stuartatk

I was convinced of this fact when I was faced with a very self-righteous individual who had come along to one of my Outreach talks. I figured that everyone was there because they were interested in the subject (not me, ha!) and that I’d effectively be ‘preaching to the converted’. Not so. This guy had clearly just come along to preach that space exploration was an extravagant luxury, that we should spend all the money spent on “rockets and that stuff” here on Earth, to help the poor, etc. As he told me all this I saw he was wearing a replica football (soccer, to US readers) shirt. That alone must have cost him £40 if not £50, but I let that point go. I had more ammunition to use.

 

I asked him which team he supported – already knowing the answer thanks to the shirt, of course – and when he told me, proudly, I hit him with a broadside. All cannons. Smoke everywhere.

 

Had he ever written to his club protesting, I asked him, that some of the footballers in his team were paid over £100,000 a week when there children starving in Africa? Had he ever declared in front of his fellow fans how immoral it was to buy a new player for millions of pounds when there were babies dying of AIDS in his own country? Had he ever told a program seller at a game that no, he wouldn’t buy one, not when there were young girls on the streets of London having to sell their bodies because they had no money for food? Had he cancelled his subscription to satellite TV because he thought the money would be better spent paying for anti-malaria drugs for people in Bangladesh?

 

Silence. A sputtering, outraged, embarrassed silence, admittedly, but a silence nonetheless.

 

And I know that’s not a very “PC” view to take, but I have finally got sick of being lectured about this by people who have no right to lecture me, you know?

 

And if they're not a sports fan? Plan B: the movies.

 

I wouldn’t swear to it, of course, but I think it’s pretty safe to assume that almost everyone who shouts out against the cost of space exploration has been to a cinema to watch a film, or at least hired one from their local video store or library, in the past year, and not given a moment’s thought to the money it cost to make that film. Films are a part of our daily lives, we just take them for granted, and enjoy watching them. That’s not a crime, of course, a night at the flicks – or curled up on your sofa with a DVD and a bottle of wine – is one of life’s pleasures, but while enjoying it none of us stops and thinks about how much the movie we’re watching cost to film. But if you take a moment to research the figures you discover we’re talking a quite staggering amount of money. I know most of those movies actually MAKE money, but that money doesn’t go to “good causes”, it goes towards making MORE MOVIES, and paying Hollywood stars to be IN those movies.

 

You ready for some figures? You might want to sit down…

 

How much do you think it cost New Line to make RUSH HOUR 3? Answer: $180 MILLION. SPIDER MAN 3 cost $258m, making it the most expensive move made to date (according to my figures here). That makes TITANIC’s bill of $200m look quite modest, but it did make almost $2bn in return, so a good investment in that case.

 

You want to talk about throwing money away? Then don’t use space missions that develop terrestrial technology and add to mankind’s knowledge as an example, not when the “comedy” EVAN ALMIGHTY cost Universal $175m, but only made $173m back, and Paramount coughed up $145m for SAHARA and only got $121m back…

 

Let me stress here that I’m not against the movie industry. I’m a huge movie fan, love them, devour them. I’m just pointing out that the people who tell me that money spent on space is wasted are the same people who don’t care that it cost a fortune to make a movie that entertained – or bored – them for just two hours.

 

So, if anyone tells me that Phoenix is a “waste of money”, that the money it cost would have been better spent here on Earth, they’d better be ready to prove to me that they have never bought a Big Mac, didn’t go to watch any of the LORD OF THE RINGS movies and have never bought a can of tuna chunks in jelly for their cat, because otherwise they’ve had chances to give money to all those good causes they want the space program to pay for but didn’t, and they’re in no position to criticise.

 

But back to Phoenix, and as I sit here writing this the “Phoenix Countdown Clock” I have open in a browser window says there just eleven days and eleven hours to go until landing. I can’t wait, even though it will mean a loooong night for me and other space enthusiasts on this side of the planet, because the landing occurs around midnight our time and the first pictures won’t come in until almost 2am next morning. I don’t care, I’ll still be here, sat at my PC. I’ve done it before. The MER landings happened in the "wee small hours" for us here in the UK, and when Spirit landed I didn't get ANY sleep that night - I couldn't even get up early - because the previous evening I was a guest on BBC Radio 5 Live, talking about the missions from a space enthusiast's point of view, a member of a phone in panel which also included a well-known Brit science writer and a member of the MER team (wish I could remember who now!!!) who was interviewed over the phone. I had to travel through to Carlisle (30 miles away), get let into the studio by a producer then sit on my own in an automated studio and just talk into a mic for an hour, on and off, contributing to the discussion. That discussion was meant to be about the scientific return expected from the rovers, but because the radio presenter was a complete frakking idiot it turned into one of those "is space exploration really worth it?" debates, with Mr and Mrs Angrys calling in to pour scorn on space and insist the money should be better spent elsewhere. Well, pretty soon our reasonable voices were being drowned out, as the presenter encouraged more "debate", and by the time the show finished it was just a waste of time, and in the taxi on the way home I was pretty fed up...

 

... then I sat at my computer, fired up NASA TV - then on dial-up, so the RealPlayer screen was a tiny, shuddering, constantly re-buffering mess of pixels and fractals - and sat back to watch the landing of Spirit. And I will never, even if I live to be a million, forget the drama and excitement and horror of those next few hours... When the control room erupted into cheers and whoops, and people started punching the air and slapping backs I literally burst into tears, it was so emotional. I'd loved Mars for as long as I could remember, and finally, FINALLY, I was going to be able to participate in a mission. It was all the sweeter because, days earlier, Beagle - which we all had such high hopes for - had simply vanished, and we were all numb with disbelief about that... but we were back on Mars, and when I finally left the computer, and walked out into the sunlight, I was absolutely wrung out but shaking with relief and excitement...

 

And in just 11 days and 11 hours I’ll put myself through it all over again.

 

I can’t wait…!

 

 

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Subject: EAS Meeting Report - May 2008: Talk by Doug Ellison, UMSF
Time: 2:55:06 PM EDT
Author:  stuartatk

Last night's meeting of the Eddington Astrononomical Society - Kendal's astronomical society, which was named after Sir Arthur Eddington, the famous astronomer who was born in the town - was a huge success, with more than 30 people, members and guests, gathering at Kendal Museum to hear a special lecture by Doug Ellison, the founder of the renowned and respected unmannedspaceflight.com forum.

Doug very kindly travelled up from his home in Leicester to talk to us, so it was great to see so many people at the meeting on such a hot and sunny evening - when the temptation must have been to soak up as much sunshine as possible and not descend the steps down into the heart of the museum to listen to a talk about Mars! - but I'm sure that everyone who came along was happy they made the right decision, because Doug gave a presentation that was slick, funny and entertaining, and packed to bursting with fascinating information.

The meeting began with EAS Chairman, Ken Hough, greeting and thanking everyone for coming, giving a brief biog of Doug, and then inviting EAS Secretary Stuart Atkinson to give the monthly "News Notes". Usually these 'notes' are very comprehensive, covering just about every astronomy- and spaceflight-related news story from the previous month in considerable detail, and can last half an hour or more, but this month (to the obvious disbelief and incredulity of many EAS members!) Stuart promised to keep the notes 'brief'. But, showing amazing self restraint, Stuart did indeed manage to keep his news notes to just 15 mins, and in that time managed to cover the latest news and images from the Mars rovers and the Hubble Space Telescope, look ahead to the landing of Phoenix on Mars on May 25th, and also speculate about just what long-awaited "discovery" NASA will be announcing on Wednesday evening...

With the news notes completed it was time for Doug Ellison to take the floor, and give his much anticipated presentation. This was Doug's second talk to EAS - he visited us last year when he gave a hugely enjoyable talk, describing the many and various mishaps (both unavoidable and avoidable!) that had happened during missions to Jupiter, Mars, Saturn and other planets - so it was no surprise that there was such a good turnout for his return visit.

For his second visit to Kendal, Doug - who not only runs one of the busiest and most respected online space enthusiast groups on the whole of the internet inunmannedspaceflight.com, but lectures on space and space technology around the country and reports from space conferences and seminars for The Planetary Society too - talked to us first about how different spaceprobes have taken pictures of Mars with different cameras and camera systems over the years, and then moved on to give a guide to the Phoenix mission and describe what it hopes to achieve when it lands on Mars in now under a fortnight's time.

Illustrating his talk with dozens of images - some familiar, some never seen by EAS members before, but all fascinating - Doug took his audience on a trip through time, explaining and showing how our view of Mars has changed, and evolved, as each new probe has arrived at the Red Planet, bringing a fancy new camera with it. From the early mega-basic-camera days of Viking, to the very latest wonders revealed by MRO's "spy satellite" HiRISE camera, Doug showed everyone how our understanding of Mars has been revolutionised, again and again, over the past few decades, and over the course of 45 mins the audience saw Mars through Viking's eyes, with images of patches of frost lingering in the shadows of the rocks at Chryse and Utopia Planitia, and through HiRISE's incredible Big Eye, which can see rocks and features on the surface of Mars smaller than 30cm wide, and every mission inbetween...

After a much-needed and much-deserved break (which wasn't really much of a break, to be honest, as he was kept busy talking to interested EAS members!) Doug described the epic missions of the twin Mars Exploration Rovers, showcasing some truly stunning panoramic images, and showing some breathtaking 3D images - which the audience were able to see in 3D with the 3D glasses Doug gave out for them to use - before closing his talk with a detailed look at the mission of the Phoenix probe, that will land on Mars on May 25th. At the end of that part of his presentation no-one in the audience was left in any doubt that Phoenix is a truly significant mission, with fantastic hardware and remarkably sophisticated and ambitious scientific instruments, and I'm sure that if everything goes to plan many more EAS members will now be following the mission a lot more closely in the days that follow the landing. 

The applause that Doug received at the end of his talk was very well deserved, and even though we were running late he took time to answer a few questionsbefore our Chairman, reluctantly, brought the meeting to a close.

All in all it was a superb night, and everyone in EAS would like to thank Doug for travelling up to see us at our home at Kendal Museum. We're already looking forward to a third visit from Doug next year!

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Subject: Phoenix: 14 days from Mars...
Time: 2:45:37 AM EDT
Author:  stuartatk

Yes, it's now just two weeks until Landing Day. Two weeks until the Phoenix probe sets down - hopefully - near the north pole of Mars and continues the quest to find life on the Red Planet that began with the Viking orbiters, back in those golden Sagan years of the mid-70s. I know, I know, Phoenix isn't actually looking for life itself, but the way I see it its experiments - to discover if the environment there was once hospitable for life - is part of the ongoing quest to discover life on Mars, and anything it tells us, good news or bad, will help us move towards finally finding an answer to that question.

NASA will soon begin holding regular pre-landing Phoenix briefings, and their web content will start building too. The wonderful people at JPL have now set up a Twitter page for Phoenix, where you can go and read regular - very brief! - updates on what's happening. It'll be fun to follow this Twitter page on landing night, flicking between it, other websites and NASA TV between 11pm and early morning our time...

 

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Subject: I give up...
Time: 10:02:51 AM EDT
Author:  stuartatk

The "astrology vs astronomy" battle is as eternal and endless as the battles between good and evil, dark and light, Dr Who and the Daleks... but I was stunned and more than a little shocked to find the two clashing so noisily in a discount bookshop here in Kendal recently, when I saw a small (and pretty useless, it has to be said) telescope on sale in there. This is what is printed on the box...

That's a bit hard to see, I know, so take a look at the proper pic here...

No, you're not seeing things, that really is a telescope that you can use to "explore the wonders of astrology".

AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

And from the "University of Oxford", too! Now, I'm not even sure there IS a "University of Oxford"... I suspect that could be a sneaky play on words by the makers, designed to make people think the scope is recommended by Oxford University. I'll have to do a little digging.

Unbelievable, eh?

Update: I just Googled "University of Oxford" and that is, apparently, the official name for 'Oxford University'. So, being charitable, I'm tempted to believe it's just a printing error... but even so it's something the printers and the University people should have spotted. I'm going to email them a link to this post and see what they have to say.

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Subject: So what IS NASA about to announce..?
Time: 8:46:43 AM EDT
Author:  stuartatk

Now this is interesting...

On the always-excellent Universe Today website, there's a teaser story about a big NASA announcement next week...

This past Wednesday, NASA announced they have scheduled a press conference for next Wednesday, May 14, at 1 p.m. EDT, to reveal the discovery of an object in our galaxy that astronomers have been hunting for more than 50 years.

Hmmm, what could that be?

Well, the internet - okay, the space geek community on the internet! - is already approaching meltdown as the news conference approaches. Inevitably some people think it will be the announcement of the detection of an alien signal. Others think we'll be hearing that NASA has finally discovered a truly Earth-like planet in orbit around a distant star. And others still are confident NASA has found liquid water on Mars, and are setting the stage for the landing of Phoenix on May 25th...

All of them are wrong, I'm pretty sure.

There are clues in the story. The object discovered is in our GALAXY, not solar system, so it's a long, long way away. And an alien signal isn't an "object", is it? And if you read on the story goes on to say...

NASA says the finding was made by combining data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory with ground-based observations...

X-rays, eh? That means it's a very distant, very high energy object. I think that helps us narrow down the possibilities a lot...

My personal prime suspects are:

* A super-massive black hole

* A supernova on the other side of our Galaxy

* Two colliding black holes.

.... but of course, I'm just guessing, and have no idea, really! We'll have to wait until teatime Wednesday to find out... Watch this space! :-)

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