I'm a science writer and editor. I work with clients in the observatory and planetarium community, as well as my own book, web, planetarium, and other projects.
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Could you live on Mars? Would you want to? Would anybody want to? Why?
Forget about the political issues that always get raised when somebody brings up Mars exploration for now; they're a subject of another discussion. I want to focus people's thoughts on what it would be like if one could get to Mars and visit or live there. Would you want to?
It's not, as I've written in one of my planetarium shows, a quick jaunt. Anybody going to Mars has to be prepared for a lengthy Earth-Mars trajectory. You'd spend about 18 months getting there; that's a year and a half of low gravity conditions, living in close quarters with a bunch of other people and no chance to get outside for a stroll along the way. There's no way to stretch your legs, visit a waystation, check out some interesting side-trails. It's a straight shot.
And, when you get there, it's a whole new ecology to get used to. Probably you'd live underground or in heavily shielded quarters. You, along with everybody else, will have had extensive training in order to survive Mars; that training would include learning how to live in surface suits that feed you breathable air and protect you from the extreme ultraviolet radiation that cuts through Mars's thin atmosphere. You'd have a job to do; what it is will depend on what your skills are. Mars colonies (if that's what we intended to build) will need everything that any frontier "town" would need: people to build things, people to study things, people to suss out the dangerous conditions and help everybody else avoid them (or learn to live with them).
Even if you were part of a solely scientific expedition, everybody would have multiple jobs that span the science studies and survival goals. You can't send an infinite number of people to Mars, so the ones who DO go will have to be cross-trained.
Well, another little travel break took me out to Gemini Observatory in Hawai'i for a few days of meetings. Then, back to California, where I finally had a chance to show my folks around the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.
I like to work with observatories; have been doing it now for a few years. Most of the work I do is in public outreach, helping the astronomers get the message out about the work they do in their domes. Gemini has been a steady client since 2004, and Griffith hired me to write their exhibits in 2005-2006.
The work is endlessly fascinating. Just as an example, there's a press release out from Gemini Observatory about an odd little star that has a surprisingly active magnetic field. You can read more about it here. I started working on that press release in early autumn this year. The first step was to interview the scientist who headed the research team studying the star. We talked by phone a couple of times, and I did some background reading so that I could weave in some ideas about how stellar magnetic fields are generated. That way, we could make the case for why this star is so unusual.
The next step was to send the first draft of the press release to the folks at Gemini for their review, as well as to the scientist. It went through the review process, and the folks at Gemini then commissioned some space art to illustrate the star.
When I was in Hawai'i, I finished my part of the work, and from there it went to final review before today's publication date. That's a pretty typical creation/review process, and while I don't always write the press releases, I do get in on the review and editing process at some point. Along the way, I get to add to my store of astronomy knowledge, which is a constantly changing treasury.
Writing exhibits is quite a bit different; they reach out to a hugely wider audience than a press release, and each panel in an exhibit tells a story of its own. I was quite happy to show my folks and mother-in-law around Griffith, and was curious to see what they'd take away from what they saw. To my great delight, they got exactly what I'd hoped they'd get out of the visit, asking the questions we'd hoped to spur with our work. Plus, it was hugely satisfying to show off what amounts to the equivalent of a giant book spread out across tens of thousands of square feet of exhibit space!
TheSpacewriter, her folks, and Albert Einstein, at Griffith Observatory.
More First Steps to Space By Offering Prizes to Meet a Challenge
So, will the next steps on the Moon be taken in order to win a $30 million X-prize? If Google has its way, it will. They're offering that much money to whoever gets the first privately funded robotic rover on the Moon by the year 2012. It's a great prize, although it probably won't cover the actual costs of the rover. It almost really doesn't matter if it does, though. It's the spirit of the thing that really counts. That a foundation and a company would be willing to put their money with their mouth is speaks volumes about their commitment to moving humans ahead to explore the near-Earth environment. And, to do that, some radical moves need to be taken, both in funding and incentives as well as in the actual technology to do the job. In the history of technology, sometimes really good solutions have come about because of competition and pressure to do a job well. And, as we know from the history of space travel so far, the spinoffs benefit education, medicine, and many technologies we take for granted in our daily lives.
The X-Prize foundation doesn't just fund competitions for space travel, although their first big one, the Ansari Prize to prove that personal, affordable space flight is achievable. It went to Spaceship One and Mojave Aerospace Ventures, led by Burt Rutan and Paul Allen. It was a private team and they achieved a major breakthrough in space travel. If you go to the X-Prize Foundation's web site you'll find X-Prizes for a variety of other challenges: genomics and automotive breakthroughs, to name a couple. You can even suggest an X-Prize challenge, something breaktaking, audacious, and visionary. That's what it takes: an idea and a chance to push it through. Sort of like going to the Moon with a lunar buggy. There it is—let's go!
All my life I've been interested in going to space. It feels like the right place to be, considering that the origins of life and the elements that make up our bodies all come from space. It only makes sense that we take ourselves back out and show space what we've become out of those raw materials, right?
Of course, everybody knows that the U.S. and Russia were the first ones to go to space in any meaningful kind of way. That all began in the late 1950s and has continued to this day. A fair number of other countries have joined in a sort of slow diaspora to the regions beyond our planet. That list includes France (most recently as part of the European Space Agency, which includes 15 member nations and their national agencies), Japan (through Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), Canada (through ESA and NASA), China (through the China National Space Administration),and India (Indian Space Research Organisation). And for a couple of years now, the government of Dubai has been talking about getting into the space tourism business, along with others such as Virgin (of Virgin Atlantic) fame.
So, there's this interest in space. And it costs a lot of money, time, and technology to get us back to where we came from—safely and in one piece. I often wonder why we waste time and money on wars and internecine political struggles that have mostly to do with greed or the unnecessary imposition of one people's viewpoint on another (often unwilling) people. We could be be bettering people's lives with our technology and science, and also getting on with the business of exploring space. It's not an idle question and the answer requires us to be anything but petty, greedy, intolerant, and warlike. Living and working in space will be difficult enough. But, many of us continue to look to space as the place to go... someday.
When I was a little kid I thought the astronauts were THE coolest people alive. They got to go out into space, fly nifty spacecraft, and visit the Moon. I followed all the missions on TV, and once for a science project, I built an Apollo spacecraft with my dad. Sure, it was cardboard and wood, but it was MY spacecraft. I wanted to go out into space; still do, actually. But, for a variety of reasons, I'm a science writer and not a space astronaut, although I still do dream of going into space. Maybe someday...
I still think astronauts are among the coolest people I know. There are a lot more of them since I was a kid, and they aren't all fighter pilots anymore. Many are scientists and mission specialists and teachers (yeah, how 'bout that teacher in space, eh?). I've even met a few astronauts over the years, and it's nearly always been a pleasure to talk with them.
For the past few weeks I've been listening to a talking books version of astronaut Walter Cunningham's book The All-American Boys.* It's a pretty unique look at his experiences as an astronaut, along with some bracing commentary on NASA's culture and evolution. I'm still working my way through the CDs (it's a 22-CD set!), but it's been quite inspirational so far. I've learned a great many "I didn't know that" facts, such as the fact that in the early 1960s, an astronaut's pay was around $13,000-$15,000 a year! Sounds like nothing now, but back in that time, it must have looked fantastic—and, you got to play with cool toys and go into space. What was there NOT to like? Plenty, as we learn in the book.
Cunningham does the reading, and at first I felt like I was listening to a pilot do the reading, what with the laconic style. But, behind that sometimes-deadpan delivery is a riveting story of what it was like to be selected as an astronaut in the mid-60s and an often-critical look at culture of his employer (charged with getting an American to the Moon before the Russians could do it). Even when he's describing the unique (and apparently wart-filled) NASA culture of the time, Cunningham comes across with some very inspirational insights about what it takes to fasten on to a goal in life and then do everything you can to attain it.
So, listening to Cunningham describe his experiences brought me back full circle in my admiration of astronauts (and I plan to visit this theme a bit more when I write the full review of his book in a week or so, so stay tuned). We all have our heroes in life. Mine happen to include (but the list isn't limited to) astronauts. Perhaps it's a remnant of that period in my life when astronauts were the most public part of the mechanism that gave us the space program. I know that those guys (and a few women) who have gone into space are most definitely human beings behind that "hero" facade. Of course we all know about the astronauts who (like other human beings) make mistakes, very publicly. But, that doesn't diminish what it took for most astronauts to help their countries achieve space flight and exploration.
There's a valuable lesson to be learned in talking to (or listening to) astronauts, just as there's one to be learned from honest, fair, and successful astronomers or doctors and others who have achieved great things in the sciences. Our future lies in the hands of these folks who explore and dream and achieve things that move humans forward (and not backward, as we are so painfully learning in the U.S. today).
*(Full disclosure: Cunningham's publisher sent the CD version of his book to me for possible review on this blog.)
In keeping with the science fiction theme of the last entry, let's talk about star names and the mental visions they conjure up when we say them. Try Vindemiatrix, for example. It's the third-brightest star in the consellation Virgo. In his Star of the Week entry for this star, Jim Kaler describes the name of the star as a "somewhat corrupted feminized Latin form for the original Greek name that meant 'the Grape Gatherer.'"
When I say the word "Vindemiatrix" (pronounced "Vin-duh-me-AY-trix"), I think of a space-faring civilization living on Vindemiatrix III (a third planet out from that star). Now, I don't know whether there IS a third planet in orbit around this star, but it's a cool name.
How about Zuben Elschemali or Zuben Algenubi? Romantic-sounding, evocative of far-off lands on distant planets. I always wanted to hear those planets named in Star Trek or other science-fiction shows. I think I remember hearing Captain Picard once direct his ship to the Cor Caroli V system, which would be some planet(s) around stars in Canes Venatici.
To that end, I recently stumbled across a web site that has listed all the planets visited in the Star Trek universe. They've listed them by quadrant and spectral class, with their names. It's a spinoff of the book Star Trek Star Charts: The Complete Atlas of Star Trek, which I first examined at a Trek convention where I was a guest speaker a few years ago. A very cool way to teach star names and make them relevant.
The topic of unusual star names reminds me of the time I went down to New Mexico to cover a story for The Denver Post Empire Magazine. The story was about atmospheric physics, specifically how clouds become electrified enough to zot out lightning. The Irving Langmuir Lightning Lab atop Mt. Baldy in the center of the state near Socorro had a team of researchers studying cloud electrification and they had done some work where they basically reversed the charge of a cloud as it passed over the summit of the mountain. The local paper had run a headline saying "Scientists turn cloud upside down." My editor saw it and sent me down to the get the story.
The chief scientist was a guy named Bernard Vonnegut, and on the way up to meet him, I had been warned by the PR chief for New Mexico Tech not to ask Dr. Vonnegut about his famous younger brother, Kurt. So, I didn't. But I did spend several days atop the mountain with Dr. V, and learned a lot about cloud physics. So much so that I wrote a story that subsequently won a science writing award for the Post.
On the last day atop the mountain we were waiting for a cloud to form and Dr. V and I were sitting in a sunny room having a cold drink. We were sort of passing the time chit-chatting. He got up to check an instrument reading, and when he sat down he said, "I suppose you want to know something about my brother."
I burst out laughing and said, "Well, they told me not to ask you about him, and so I respected that." He laughed.
"I don't mind talking about Kurt. He's always been so imaginative. Back when I'd come home from college and he was a teenager, he'd tell me these stories about far-off stars and planets and worlds that he'd invented."
"Did he ever mention Tralfamador?" I asked.
Bernard nodded. "Yes, that was one of them."
Tralfamador is a world invented by a character in the book Slaughterhouse-Five. Even though the book is quite ironic and dystopic, I was always taken with the name Tralfamadore. It just sounds like a place so far away that you'd have to travel light-years to get there. Sort of like Vindemiatrix and Sirius and Zuben Elschemali and Miaplacidus and all the other stars whose names evoke not just meanings in Earth languages, but visions of far-off lands and distant stars with planets containing beings we have yet to meet.
The Layers of our atmosphere From NOAA via Wikipedia
People tend to think of "outer space" as "out there." Way far away. Light-years away maybe. But, it actually starts much closer to us than we think. The classical definition that describes the interface between our atmosphere and space where space starts is that "outer space" begins where our atmosphere is completely thinned out. That's at 100 kilometers (62 miles) overhead. If you happen to fly over that limit, then you're an astronaut. If you fly below it, you're a high-altitude flier (whether passenger or pilot).
So, once we get above that level, we're in outer space. Where does it end? Well, it stretches on throughout the cosmos, but when you land on another planet, you've left outer space and you're back into a planetary atmosphere. On Mars, for example, you'd be inside the atmosphere at 11 kilometers (about 7 miles).
Earth's atmosphere is pretty darned narrow when you look at it against the limb of our planet. All the life we know about, everybody we know or have known, or who has ever lived on this planet, did it inside a thin envelope of air that starts to thin out a few miles over our heads. The gravity of our planet holds the atmosphere pretty firmly in place, and radiation and particles from the Sun interact with the top of the atmosphere. It's a lively place, this interface between Earth and space.
"Top of the Atmosphere" courtesy NASA.
I've been reading with some interest about the companies that want to start up space tourism. There's a company in Florida that flies people through our atmosphere in a commercial "Vomit Comet" so they can experience several minutes of weightlessness. But those still fly inside our atmosphere. SpaceShipOne, designed by Burt Rutan, made the first non-governmental human spaceflight on June 21, 2004. There will be others, and perhaps in my lifetime, regular people will be able to take off and experience "outer space" for themselves. I hope I can be one of them.
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Adot's Notblog A fellow traveler blogger and astronomy enthusiast!
Astronomy Blog An astronomy blog pondering the big questions
which I first examined at a Trek convention where I was a guest speaker a few years ago. A very cool way to teach star names and make them relevant.
The Layers of
