Category Archives: media

endeavour, launches, media, NASA, sky & telescope magazine

Out to Launch

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and Back Again

Endeavour with her support structure rolled away, April 26, 2011. Image copyright Carolyn Collins Petersen.

Well, we went down to Florida to film the launch of space shuttle Endeavour (Mission STS-134) a week ago, but as everybody who follows the space program knows, the launch got scrubbed a few hours before scheduled blast-off due to a failed component deep inside the orbiter. (You can read more about that here.)

Mark and I are accredited press (covering for Sky & Telescope.com) and were also going to film the launch in fulldome video.  We still plan to return and cover the launch festivities, as soon as NASA announces the date for the next try.In fact, S&T ran a pre-launch story I wrote, and I have a couple of other stories just waiting to be finished and uploaded after launch (or whenever it goes).

It wasn’t our first launch visit; that was in 1983, followed by a spectacular launch visit in 1993. We are pretty excited about seeing this one, since it was the shuttle that took up the first Hubble Space Telescope servicing crew, and that’s the second launch I saw. At the time, I was working on an HST instrument team, so it was a pretty personal experience, knowing that the crew was going to be working to make things right so we could do our science. Now, not quite 18 years later, I get to see these things as a science writer and documentary producer, but I still get as excited as I always have about seeing a launch.

One of the coolest experiences we had during the run-up to the scrubbed launch day a week or so back was the opportunity to go out to the pad and watch as the support structure rolled away to reveal Endeavour sitting there like a moth on her external tank. The press folks at the Kennedy Space Center arranged for a press visit and so we found ourselves standing there, a few hundred yards from the orbiter in the dark of night, watching as the structure slowly rolled away. It was — and I say this channeling my inner space geek — one of the most awesome sights!

We didn’t even mind the mosquitos and muggy air; the sight of the orbiter was just stunning. And, I was very aware that this was an experience that not everyone gets to have — the opportunity to be that close to an orbiter the day before it thunders up into the sky on the backs of its rockets and fuel tanks.  Geek that I am, I just drank in the site and didn’t want to leave.

While we were waiting for the servicing structure to roll back, I got into an interesting conversation with a woman and her husband who had come out as part of the NASA launch Tweetup group. They’d been invited along on the press tour to the launch pad. Her name was Clare and her husband was Sean. He looked familiar — at first I thought he was a science writer I’d met at a meeting earlier this year.  We chatted about writing for Twitter and Facebook, and since it was something of a long wait, Seth went around taking pictures before the retraction started. Mark was nearby, with our allsky camera ready to start shooting when the retraction started.

Clare and I ended up talking about space launches, Griffith Observatory (they live in LA), and a lot of other topics of mutual interest to people who are standing around waiting for something cool to happen that they know is a rare experience and worth waiting for. Turns out Clare and her husband are fairly well-known actors: Clare Grant and Seth Green, and apparently, very much into the space program — as Mark and I are.  I enjoyed the conversation we had very much and it was fun to get to know some new people who shared the same passion with us.

Conversations like that, shared with people from other walks of life, really remind me just how much the exploration of space really touches people.  The Kennedy Space Center was swarming, not just with press folk, but also the Tweeters — who were also from everywhere and of all ages. They got special tours and chances to see things that many of us who have covered space launches for years have seen before — but are new to them.  I felt bad for them when the launch was scrubbed because it’s not clear that they will get to come back for the next attempt. I hope they can, because a launch is an amazing experience.

I plan to go back, and I hope that all the others who made the trip can come back, too.  While NASA isn’t shutting down space exploration, these last two launches are special to all of us who see space exploration as an important thing.  The launches mark the end of one era, and hopefully, the beginning of a new one in humanity’s steps out to the stars.

earthquakes, media, mis-education, nuclear power

It’s a Blast at a Nuclear Plant

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NOT a Nuclear Blast

Note: I’ve updated this story, see final paragraph.

The continuing coverage of the disasters in Japan has been, for the most part, pretty concentrated on the actual events and the efforts to rescue people and deal with the aftermath. I have only seen a few whackadoo and crackpot postings about supposedly magical, looney, or other mystical causes for these disasters. The natural catastrophe of an earthquake, followed by a tsunami, has a huge effect on human structures and life. I, and probably most of you reading this, watched yesterday the many videos that have been posted showing the inexorable push of water inland during the tsunami. It was pretty awe-inspiring (and not in a good way) to watch those waves push houses (some of them burning) inland, engulfing people in cars and trucks,  and turning the landscape into a vast dump of debris. This is the nature of a natural catastrophe, and we struggle to comprehend and understand it. It’s bigger than we are in power and magnitude. As I said yesterday, this is what we face by evolving and living on a planet with tectonic plates and shifting subsurface rock. It is a story life on Earth has always had to deal with.

Then, there’s this story about the nuclear power plant pumps failing.

Nuclear power is, like any other power source, accompanied by pluses and minuses. The plus side gives you lots of power that isn’t likely to go away very soon. It’s reliable and could well be the answer to our future power needs. However, there’s a minus. A big one. It requires extremely careful handling and planning, and I can’t think of too many more people on this planet MORE careful than the Japanese. They planned for earthquakes and other disasters when they built their power plants. And yet, this one bit them hard, despite their safety planning. As I write this (Saturday morning), we read that the power plant operators have flooded the nuclear containment area with sea water in an effort to cool down the reactor that has been overheating ever since its cooling pumps failed.

Earlier today, a hydrogen explosion at the plant leveled part of the building.  It did NOT breach the core, but that has NOT stopped CNN (for example) from greeting us with the headline saying, “Pump system caused nuclear blast.”  (CNN has since changed the headline.)

Well, yes, the pump system failed. And there WAS a blast. But, it was NOT a nuclear blast. It was a non-nuclear explosion at a nuclear plant. A nuclear blast would have been a nuclear explosion, sort of like the ones that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II,or that dotted the South Pacific and Nevada, or other parts of the world during the worst of the nuclear armaments race.

There’s a precise and fine difference between an explosion at a nuclear plant and a nuclear explosion. An astute editor and headline writer would know that difference and would not have written it that way.  A better headline (and a more accurate one) would be:  “Blast levels nuclear plant walls” — and, it’s the same  length as the original headline.  And, in news and journalism, accuracy is supposed to be everything.  Unless you are going for shock value.

The good news here is that, at this point, the core of the Fukushima Daiichi reactor has not melted down and the seawater is cooling the core. Radiation levels in the immediate area are falling, and the crews are working to get this thing under control.  I would imagine that those crews are at great risk themselves, particularly from the radiation effects. That is one of the downsides of nuclear power — it is a dangerous way to light our homes and offices. But, that is the nature of working with nuclear reactors. Their rewards come with risk. So do other forms of power generation — something we should all be educated on as we make our way through a world that is constantly looking for more ways to power our technology and our lives.

For a good explanation of the basics of nuclear power plants, read this fine entry at BoingBoing.

Moral of the story:  look beyond the headlines. And, if you want to help out the folks in Japan as they struggle back to normalcy, here’s a list (compiled by my friend Phil Plait) of places where you can direct your donations. We’re all on this planet together, so let’s help each other out.

Note:  this entry was written early Saturday, March 12 at a time when the Japanese authorities were still confident that there would be no meltdown of the plant’s core.  Now, more than ten hours later, they are measuring radioactive isotopes in the air around the plant. Authorities are still working to stabilize the core and struggling to understand the readings they are getting. It is possible that the measuring instruments are damaged; it is also possible that the core is undergoing some kind of breach.  There is simply not enough data to go on at this point. However, as of Saturday night, authorities in Japan are telling the media that they are assuming there has been a meltdown in a second reactor. If so, this could become very much more catastrophic for the country that is already reeling from the earthquake and tsunami damage. I’d recommend that you read the  coverage of the situation from the BBC, NHK, AlJazeera, and CNN, to keep on top of the situation. And, as I mentioned above, if you can do so, please help the people of Japan in any way that you can.