Elvis Has Left the Building...

So to speak...

Oh, That's Gonna Leave a Mark!

Let's say that you're a big government organization.  Let's say that you have an application where your computers really, really need to be reliable.  Like, say, NASA's computers on the International Space Station.  What's the absolute last operating system you would choose for those computers?

Everyone I know in IT or programming would instantly say “Windows!”.  Naturally, NASA chose Windows.  Windows XP, to be precise.

But...even NASA eventually got tired of crashing, virus-vulnerable computers.  They just switched to Linux (Debian 6). 

Somewhere a Microsoft salesperson is being boiled in oil while Bill Gates stirs and Steve Ballmer piles on the coal...

Hurricane on Saturn...

NASA is calling it “The Rose”.  I'll call it awesome:

Mercury Map...

NASA has published a new false-color map of the entire planet of Mercury. 

I remember Mariner 10, when it returned the first photos from Mercury – grainy, black-and-white, and seemingly miraculous.  At right is an example of those first photos.  Now we have this incredibly detailed image that's chock full of information encoded in those false colors, revealing the kinds of geology over the entire planet's surface.

Straight Out of Science Fiction...

NASA is actually considering capturing an asteroid, hauling it back toward Earth, and parking it in lunar orbit.  Wow!  That's straight out of a pulp magazine's space opera of the '50s!

It gets a little less exciting as you examine the details...

First, we're talking about a really little asteroid - just twenty feet or so in diameter.  Secondly, NASA really doesn't have much interesting in mind for this thing.  They want to study it (which could be done anywhere, of course), and (wait for it!) they want to land astronauts on it.  Why?  Because that's one of their goals, given to them by Obama.  And it's too damned hard to go out and land astronauts on asteroids in their native milieu - so of course, we need to bring the asteroids to us.  So we can land on it, plant a little flag, do a little brag, and then knock a few rocks off with a rock hammer.

Once again, for what these combined missions would cost (the robotic mission to capture an asteroid, plus the manned mission to the asteroid once it's parked in orbit around the moon), we could make 10 or so Cassini missions, sending capable robotic explorers on long, complex missions in the outer solar system.  Such missions would return vastly more science data than this single manned mission.

Naturally, we won't do it.  The political optics for the robotic missions suck, unfortunately.  It's apparently only a few curmudgeons like me who support them.  Everyone else wants the drama and romance of the manned missions, even if there's nothing particularly useful about them...

Warp Drive?

Maybe not quite as fictional a construct as once believed?

For those of you who are not science fiction readers, the “warp drive” (under whatever name) is one of two standard devices used by science fiction stories that postulate civilizations across multiple star systems.  The other standard device is the “worm hole”.  Both of these are used to get around the awkward relativistic restriction against traveling faster than the speed of light.  Readers are basically asked to accept these magical devices in order to make the stories' plots work.

Well, maybe the warp drive isn't quite as impossible as physics once told us it was.  NASA is working on one.  Really!

Our Moon?!?!

Did some kid run amok on the moon with a set of different colored paints?  What is this?

This particular image shows the thickness of the lunar crust around the entire surface of the moon.  The data to create this image came from NASA's GRAIL satellites, delightfully named Ebb and Flow, which measure the gravitational field of the moon with unprecedented resolution and precision.  The crustal thickness map is just one of many results from the mission.  More here and here...

Earth at Night...

NASA has posted some beautiful composite photos and movies made by the Earth Observatory satellite, showing the night sky of Earth.  It took me several tries to download the movie; I suspect the site is overloaded as this has gotten wide distribution.  As usual, you can use the brightness of any given area as a proxy for human wealth – check out North Korea, Yemen, and Mali to see what impoverished areas look like.

Dragon Cleared for Launch...

The SpaceX Dragon space craft has been cleared for launch, tentatively scheduled for April 30th.  This is a private space venture (which I support), but publicly funded as a resupply mission to the ISS (space station) – which I do not support.  What I'd really like to see is open commercial competition for NASA's robotic explorers.  Several private space companies are clamoring for exactly that, but the NASA bureaucracy is furiously resisting, of course.

We're doomed to the government we elect...

Space Shuttle Video...

NASA released this video pieced together from footage shot on two shuttle missions.  The cameras are mounted at several points on the solid-fuel boosters, which broke away from the shuttle itself shortly into each flight, roughly 30 miles high.  The footage shows not only the “boost phase” (where the solid-fuel boosters are actually firing), but also the boosters' re-entry through the atmosphere and splashdown in the ocean.  There are two boosters on each launch, and often one can be seen in the other's camera as they tumble toward the earth together.

This particular video has been enhanced in two ways.  First, flight data (such as altitude and speed) has been superimposed on the video.  I found this data fascinating.  For example, you can see that the boosters arc up after detachment (carried by their inertia), then arc down, gain speed, and finally are slowed down as they re-enter the atmosphere.  Second, audio has been added in the studio.  I don't know where they got the audio from, but I thought it added a lot to the experience of watching the video.

Here it is:

iPad Cool...

This is just plain cool – a NASA visualization application for the iPad, with content updated several times a month...

Curiosity Ready To Go...

The Curiosity Mars Rover is on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, scheduled to lift off about an hour from this post...

Surprise! Or, How I Learned to Love Magnetic Foam...

The Voyager robotic spacecraft are still doing great science work, some 34 years after they were launched.  Scientists interpreting the data from the energetic particle and flow instruments have deduced that the two spacecraft are traveling through a “foamy” (i.e., filled with bubbles) magnetic field environment – a most unexpected finding.

You've heard me rant about this many times before, but one more time can't hurt: these robotic space explorers return far more scientific bang for the buck than our manned space program has ever dreamed about doing.  I'd love to see us dramatically reform our government-paid space program.  I'd be an enthusiastic proponent of something like this: cut NASA's budget by 80%, immediately abandon all manned space programs and anything related to them, and focus exclusively on robotic space exploration with specific scientific objectives.  Manned space exploration should be left to the commercial interests, if there are any...

Moon Mission Dead?

It's looking likely that the Obama administration will implement a policy that I support.  This is such a rare event that it calls for special celebration around here.  Woo hoo!

That policy?  Abandoning the “return to the moon” objectives set by President G. W. Bush.  Implicitly this also means abandoning the next step: a manned mission to Mars.  Obama is angling toward commercialization of space, by encouraging NASA to use commercial launchers instead of NASA's (outrageously expensive) launch vehicles.

It sounds wonderful.  It also sounds like something a fiscally conservative Republican or Libertarian might do, and most unlike something a leftie like Obama would do.  I think this might have been slipped into his plans by some jokester.

But there's a big caveat.  Any such proposal would have to pass Congress, and we have a surprising number of congresscritters in thrall to the NASA powers-that-be.  This is because since it's origins in the 1950s, several bureaucratically-savvy NASA administrators have cleverly located NASA facilities supporting the manned space program all over the danged place.  There are darned few states that don't take home some yummy NASA pork.

So don't hold your breath.

But I'm sure keeping my fingers crossed...