Space is Not a Luxury

Earth's Pale Blue Dot

The Planetary Society is an organization dedicated to human exploration of space and advancement of science. I’ve been a member off and  on over the years and applaud the work this group does to bring awareness of space and science to the public.  Recently they sent around a statement from their board of directors about science and research that resonates quite deeply with me.

Rather than paraphrase it, I’m reprinting below because I think it’s important to remember that the correct applications of scientific knowledge by nations around the globe will help bring about a more positive future for everyone our our pale blue dot of a planet.

In light of the economic turmoil currently roiling nations around the globe, The Planetary Society’s Board of Directors believes that it is vital that we not lose sight of the importance and long-term economic benefit of maintaining a strong commitment to scientific research, including space exploration.  Today the Board issued the following statement:

From monitoring Earth from space to studying long-term climate change on other worlds, the space program enables scientists to paint the big picture ­ helping us to better understand the global forces that affect us all.  No one nation alone benefits from better understanding that picture, and to paint it large and detailed enough, no one nation alone can bear the expense.

As Voyager 1 prepared to leave our planetary neighborhood, Carl Sagan, co-founder of The Planetary Society, suggested the spacecraft be turned for one last look at its home planet.  The resulting image of Earth as a single blue point of light gave us a profound new view of our world ­ from a perspective possible only through space exploration.

Sagan wrote, “It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience.  There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

Or Just Plain Walking…Period.

Okay, so when I was a kid, we landed astronauts on the Moon. I figured it was only a matter of time before the rest of us would get to go, whether as passengers, tourists, or workers. Well… it hasn’t happened yet. For whatever reasons, going back to the Moon has been backburnered since the early ’70s and it doesn’t look like it will happen anytime soon. Ditto with Mars. Not that we’ve sent anybody there, but our eyes are certainly turned that way, what with all the rovers and orbiters and landers we’ve been sending to tell us the geological history of the Red Planet. I used to think that the first generation of Mars-nauts was in elementary school, but I wonder if that’s been too optimistic on my part. Is it possible that that first wave of Martian explorers to set foot on the planet aren’t even born yet? Tell me it ain’t so. Same with our chances to go to the Moon! But, there are deeper issues than MY wish to go to another planet. I read today that no matter who is elected president of the U.S., NASA will face shortfalls in funding. This basically tells me that our country (the U.S.) isn’t interested in funding basic research (which always pays itself back in many ways). I suspect that it looks very easy to cut NASA and research funding, which is a very small part of a huge federal budget. But, those cuts may be the ones that our moms always warned us about — the ones where you cut off your nose to spite your face. Traveling to other planets aside, money for basic research and sciences always comes back manyfold in terms of paychecks, tax revenues to towns where researchers live and work, and in the well-known “spinoffs” from basic research. Anyone who has gone to a doctor, bought groceries, driven a car, played a video game, or bought fresh food has benefitted from basic science research and, in many cases, from space science and astronomy research. Don’t believe me? Do a little Googling on the term “space spinoffs”. Or… if you’re just too tired to do that, try this one on for size: science develops a robotic leg that allows a rover to move across the ground on another planet. That leg design gets picked up by a medical researcher who sees a way to restore broken joints. That research ends up providing a new knee or ankle to an accident victim or a wounded soldier. Take out the basic research funding and what do you have? Think about it.

How We Might Look to the Neighbors*

*If They Had a Good Set of Instruments and a Clear View

Astronomers are enjoying an unprecedented time of planetary discovery. As of May, 2008, here have been 293 planets found around other stars. That number will change, and in fact, it already has, and it’s only the 2nd of June.

These planetary discoveries have the potential to teach us a lot about how and where planets are scattered around the galaxy, and perhaps other galaxies as well. But, here’s what’s also cool–at least one mission out there, the former Deep Impact Mission to a comet–is now spending its time looking for other planets. And, once in a while it turns its eye back to Earth to look at our home planet as if it were an exoplanet. It’s not the first time a spacecraft has looked at Earth, but it is the first time one has done it with an array of instruments tuned to study the light from our planet (and others) in high detail.

The image here was taken by the spacecraft on May 29, 2008, and shows the Moon in its orbit around Earth. It shows our planet from the spacecraft-eye view; if a nearby civilization had a similar spacecraft and looked at us with it, they’d likely see a bright spot (if they could manage to separate us out from the glare of the Sun).  If they had a REALLY good instrument, they’d probably notice that our brightness would dim occasionally and periodically, almost like something is passing in front of us.

The idea behind looking at our home world as if it was an alien planet is so that we can use what we find to compare it to other planets we might find. If we can understand how we look to the neighbors (i.e. our color, atmospheric properties, distribution of continents and oceans) then it will help us recognize similar properties when we see them on other planets.

At the summer meeting of the American Astronomical Society, being held this week in Saint Louis, astronomers working on the EPOXI mission (using the Deep Impact craft) talked about their work. They said that later this summer they’ll release a time-lapse movie of the Moon transiting Earth. As it passes between Earth and the point of view of the spacecraft, it will cover up places like the deserts of North African, which reflect a lot of light.

To a distant observer, this kind of transit would show up as a dimming of the planet (which would actually appear pretty bright since its surface areas and clouds reflect light). This well-known transit effect is also how astronomers can “see” or actually infer the existence of larger planets around stars. The light blockage is what what helps them detect the existence of a planet. So, the story of planetary discovery keeps on ticking, like that well-known battery-operated bunny rabbit. There are, in fact, more results from the meeting that I’ll write about in another post. But for now, enjoy the pretty sight of Earth from “alien eyes” and think about what it will be like when we find another Earth out there.

Where Getting There is Half the Fun!

“Syrtis Base, Mars Explorer II here. We are on final approach to Stickney Crater. Request permission for landing.”

“Roger that, ME-II. Your approach is good. You are cleared for landing.”

Someday a bright bunch of folks who are maybe only in first grade or middle school right now are going to be coming in for final approach to Phobos, one of the two moons of Mars. They’ll be explorers, armed with scientific equipment and a sense of adventure, ready to stick themselves on this little world and figure out why looks the way it does.

When they get there, this might very well be the scene that confronts them. It’s Stickney Crater, a honkin’ big scar on the surface of this little moon. Stickney has its own craters inside, and the whole moon is scarred by some mysterious grooves that planetary scientists haven’t quite figured out yet.

Something happened to this little world, either when it first formed (maybe as a knock-off from Mars or as part of the asteroid belt), or later on when Mars and the other inner planets were bombarded by interplanetary debris. Either way, it’s gotten pretty beat up over the eons since it was first born.

While we may not be able to go to Photos ourselves just yet, we can explore it in high-resolution images released by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRise camera. They’ve just released a series of high-resolution images that you can download and enlarge on your computer screen. See for yourself the cratered, grooved surface of the Mars moon our children or grandchildren may someday explore!

Celebrating the Life of a Phenomenal Man

Carl Sagan, from the Planetary Society web site.

It has been 11 years since astronomer Carl Sagan died following a battle with myelodysplasia. To commemorate his loss, and more important, to celebrate his life, many of us are blogging about Dr. Sagan or putting comments about him on the Celebrating Sagan blog.

To say that Dr. Sagan was a hero to a great many of us would be an understatement. For all of us who came to science popularization as a result of the phenomenal Cosmos series (created with Ann Druyan), who read his science popularization books, and who followed in his footsteps as writers and researchers, Carl Sagan was the foremost practitioner of science outreach and popularization. Simply put, he embraced and shared a passion for science and truth.

Cosmos may have brought him to public attention in a very broad way, but it was hardly the first thing he did. Do a search on Amazon and you’ll find an amazing number of products—books, music, DVDs, CDs, and so on—that he had a hand in creating (or that he inspired). All are still popular more than a decade after his passing.

One of his greatest hits isn’t something that you can pick up at Amazon or download from iTunes. It’s called the Voyager Record—a sort of audio-visual time capsule that recorded a brief moment of humanity’s time in the universe. There are copies of this album on the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft, each of which is speeding out from the Sun, never to return. Whenever I think of Carl Sagan, I think of those albums. He headed up the committee that created them; he fought for them to be put on the spacecraft, and in some sense, they carry his vision of humanity (with all our brilliance and foibles) along with them.

The Voyager Record

I often wonder what Carl Sagan would say today, if we were still alive and watching the current rush by some short-sighted politicians in the world to dehumanize science and scientists. These “leaders” seem to care for little more than the next election, the next corporate donation, the next fundamentalist endorsement. Would he have to rewrite the book Demon-Haunted World, where he describes the fallacies of too much reliance on short-sighted religious prophets and the uneducated embrace of pseudo-sciences by people who fear science? Would he need to add on new chapters with examples of people who disregard their critical thinking skills just so they won’t be bothered by uncomfortable truths about their leaders, their country, their planet?

I’ve had many “godly” people tell me that Carl Sagan hated religion, which of course is nonsense. Most times they haven’t taken the time to read his works and understand his points. A careful reading of his works has showed me that Sagan wasn’t about hate. He disliked, intensely, the way that many people willingly let others do their thinking for them. He disapproved of the silliness of pseudo-sciences and those who use science to promote nonscientific theories as a cover for religious indoctrination in the schools. But, hate people or religion? There’s no proof of it. And science is all about the honest search for truth and the proof of it.

Carl Sagan’s greatest legacy is and will continue to be the embrace of science and what it can tell us about the universe. How the cosmos works, where it’s come from, where it’s going, our place in it; those are things that science can tell us about. We have to be willing to do our part, too, by stepping up to the challenge and using science as the exploration tool that it is. And that, along with a record of images and sounds from our planet, is all a large part of what Carl Sagan left for us as a gift and a encouragement to explore our cosmos and all the ideas (whether uncomfortable or not) that exploration brings.