An artist who made many of us dreamers has passed away. Robert McCall is responsible for some of the most awe-inspiring images from the space age. Some futurists weave their tales with a pen, he did it with a brush. Click on the links to check out his amazing work.
An animation created for the Museum of Natural History traversing the space between the Dali Lama and the Afterglow. The known universe in a little over six minutes.
Here’s a pretty animation by Roy Prol of what it would look like if Earth had rings like Saturn. The funny thing is, this is where we’re headed if we don’t get a handle on the space trash we’ve been depositing in orbit for years.
Read MoreThis is a great day for science. Scientists have confirmed the existence of water on the Moon. Although it has been suspected for a very long (too long) time, today we have hard evidence. The implications of this revelation are very exciting… It gives us purpose.
From this day forward we have a reason to go to the Moon other than to study it. The water ice in the lunar soil, which there is a lot of according to the findings, will power industry on the moon. Big Oil can begin to harvest Helium3. Big Virgin can set up a tourism base. NASA will have the means to finally take the first steps toward branching out into the solar system and permanently extending humankinds reach.
These are exciting and geeky times.
Read MoreThought this was pretty cool. It’s a map by National Geographic documenting humankind’s entire historical presence in space. From landings to flybys. A couple of surprises here.
We’ve sent more missions to Venus than Mars. Mars still gets all the glamorous ones, with cute robots and full color 3D panoramic surface images, but it’s surprising we’ve visited the morning star more often. I suppose the insights Venus gives us on weather and global warming can’t be overlooked. And, you know, it’s pretty close.
It’s also surprising we’ve only orbited our Sun 9 times. Sure, it’s a trickier number to pull off given the extreme temperatures involved. But that’s our warmth. Our life. The reason we exist. (at least one of them. The other being Mad Men.) The night sky is filled with billions of stars and this is the only one we get to examine up close. There’s no telling what we’ll learn as we continue studying it. New sources of energy. Insights into the universe. God. Ramp it up boys.
Click the picture to enlarge.
Nothing like shooting two bullets at a rock… for science! This morning, NASA conducted a test to determine whether water ice exists in the lunar soil, by plunging two care packages into the moon. Sweet sweet Luna. What did she ever do to you beside provide her warm moonlight upon thee?
I can confidently tell you, without all the fancy testing and explosions and special effects, that yes water ice does exist on Luna. But we’ll wait to see what comes of the test.
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40 years… and we haven’t gone back. 40 years… And we haven’t gone any further. Sure, lets celebrate the 40th anniversary of the moon landings. Hey, I went to see Moon this weekend in honor of it. (Good movie, Sam Rockwell was great.)
It has been a dubious 40 years for space travel. We are a far cry away from the glory of Apollo. Since Apollo 17 left the Moon in December of ’72, we have done nothing but poke around the celestial bushes. The shuttle program is a failed experiment that never delivered on it’s original promise. The International Space Station is a scaled down version of itself, that is not doing much more than what could have been achieved in the 70′s. The most visible success that has provided both scientific fulfillment and generated public interest is Hubble. And that’s just a flying telescope. Where are the people? Human space flight is what gets people GAGA for NASA.
There are many very good reasons why we should go back to Luna and establish a permanent manned presence there.
Here are a few:
1) Stoke the collective imagination again. Especially now. Get people excited. This country needs something to get behind. To show that we can do something “that is hard.”
2) Science! You can construct a radio telescope on the far side of the moon. Free from the radio interference of Earth, and the size of Texas. That’s big.
3) Practice for Mars. Test the technologies we’ll eventually use for missions to Mars. But test them in your backyard.
4) Abundant energy. They’ve got this thing on the Moon called Helium-3. You can find it in the lunar soil. Helium-3 is a fuel for nuclear fusion. Can’t really find the stuff on Earth. But it’s like, everywhere on the moon. The potential for clean and abundant energy, well I shouldn’t have to tell you why that’s good.
I know it’s a difficult time to make requests for weekend jaunts to the Moon. But lets hope the next 40 years aren’t as stagnate as the last. There is more technology in my iPhone than the Apollo astronauts had at their disposal and yet we’re still stuck. I can not and will not believe that the only reason we went to the Moon was to outdo the Russians. What about the human spirit to explore (and conquer?)
Lets go back faster, better, cheaper.
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Focus your eyes on the true jewel of the Jupiter system. A gorgeous world called Ganymede. As a cherub of Jupiter, Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system and one of a few potential spots for life beyond our own planet. Sure, Europa gets all the press and Io gets all the googily eyes, but Ganymede is like the shy pretty girl that does all her homework and still knows how to party.
Or one could say Ganymede is George Harrison of the four Galilean moons. She quietly waits in the background with her sparkling channels and her wonderous craters, while John and Paul get all the adoration. Until you realize that, she’ll probably make the best solo record of all of them.
As a testament to it’s beauty, Ganymede was believed to be a star upon initial discovery.
Missions to this gem have been proposed and canceled due to budget cuts (read: Iraqi War) with the next mission tentatively scheduled for 2020. Attention to Ganymede will be at a minimum with Europa being the main focus of that mission, but at least we’ll be able to take a closer look with better tech.
Colonization of the Jovian moons has always held a special place to futurists because of their size (Ganymede has a larger diameter than Mercury) and captured heat from the gas giant. Like Europa, a liquid ocean is believed to flow beneath it’s surface, further adding to the fascination. Ganymede is one of the few celestial bodies in the solar system to have it’s own atmosphere and magnetosphere- two things that make Earth so perfect for life. Though it’s oxygen atmosphere is thin and tenuonous, knowing that a moon can have such things tickles the imagination.
Imagine sitting on a rock where the moon, in this case Jupiter, takes up 80% of the night sky. Walking freely like Superman in a gravity 1/10th that of which you are accustomed to. An artificial and transparent dome above your head to keep in the oxygen/carbon dioxide/nitrogen stew that gives you life. Just protected enough from the radiation your mother planet continuously emminates. Perhaps you’ll take a road trip around the globe. It only takes a couple days in your high-speed tumbler. Thoughts like these make me giddy.
This concludes today’s astronomy class.
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