Moon Base Needs Good Location

If, as planned, the United States eventually establishes a lunar base in 2020, one of the most tempting patches of moonscape is Shackleton Crater at the south pole.

There may be water ice for drinking or converting to rocket fuel, the nearly constant sunlight at the rim is ideal for solar power, and the temperature is relatively bearable.

But perhaps the most compelling reason is something far more primal: surviving the lunar night, which lasts 14 Earth days and can hit temperatures so cold that oxygen turns to liquid. - Christian Science Monitor

Space research is pointless. There, I said it!

Obama Seeks Space Arms Ban

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's pledge to seek a worldwide ban on weapons in space marks a dramatic shift in U.S. policy while posing the tricky issue of defining whether a satellite can be a weapon.

Moments after Obama's inauguration last week, the White House website was updated to include policy statements on a range of issues, including a pledge to restore U.S. leadership on space issues and seek a worldwide ban on weapons that interfere with military and commercial satellites.

It also promised to look at threats to U.S. satellites, contingency plans to keep information flowing from them, and what steps are needed to protect spacecraft against attack.

This is just what Noam Chomsky calls for in Failed States.

Astronauts Hitch Giant Crate To Space Station

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Astronauts hitched a giant shipping crate full of home improvement "goodies" to the international space station on Monday, a critical step for boosting the population in orbit.

It was the first major job for the crews of the linked space station and space shuttle Endeavour, and highlighted their first full day together.

"We're here to work," the space station's skipper, Mike Fincke, called down. "This is the can-do crew."

Thank you, Ben Tan, thank you.

NASA's Close Look Of Saturn's Moon's Geysers

Exquisite close-ups of fissures on a tiny frozen moon of Saturn will provide the latest clues in solving the riddle of how a 310-mile-wide ice ball could possibly be shooting geysers of vapor and icy particles.
Since the discovery of the jets in 2005, the moon, Enceladus, has jumped to near the top of the list of potential places for life in the solar system. A warm spot near Enceladus’s south pole powers the jets and may also melt below-surface ice into water, a necessity for living organisms.
On Monday, the NASA spacecraft Cassini made its latest flyby of Enceladus (pronounced en-SELL-ah-dus), passing 30 miles above the moon’s surface at 64,000 miles per hour. - New York Times

A classic example of messing with astronomers.

Research Confirms Giant Lake On Titan

A giant, glassy lake larger than North America's Lake Ontario graces the south pole of Saturn's largest moon Titan, new research confirms.

"This is the first observation that really pins down that Titan has a surface lake filled with liquid," said lead researcher Robert Brown of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson.

Called Ontario Lacus, the lake extends 150 miles (235 kilometers) and covers an area of about 7,800 square miles (20,000 square kilometers). The lake structure is filled mostly with methane and ethane, hydrocarbons that are gases on Earth but liquid on the bone-chilling surface of Titan. - Space.com

Does this mean anything? No. Who cares about space? Let's just worry about Earth for now.

Zojeeze It's Ice!

NASA's Phoenix lander sends photos showing that white chunks seen days ago have disappeared, delighting scientists.

Images from NASA's Phoenix lander released late Thursday appeared to confirm the presence of buried ice, the first evidence that the spacecraft landed in the right spot last month to find water on Mars.

Pictures taken of a trench dug earlier in the week by the lander's nearly 8-foot-long robotic arm showed that eight small, whitish chunks of material at the base of the trench had disappeared by Thursday. - Los Angeles Times

No Ice In Mars...Yet

In its first chemical analysis of soil from Mars' northern plains, NASA's Phoenix lander has turned up no evidence of water, scientists said Monday.

Still, researchers remained confident that the craft is in the right place to uncover veins of ice believed to lie only inches beneath the surface.

A soil sample was cooked twice in one of Phoenix's eight ovens over the last few days, according to William Boynton, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA. The first test reached 95 degrees, the second 350 degrees. - Los Angeles Times

If you really think about it...isn't this just a waste of money?

NASA scientist returns to Wakefield

WAKEFIELD — “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
This quote by Eleanor Roosevelt hangs on the auditorium wall of the Our Lady of Nazareth Academy to inspire all students but last Wednesday it seemed to apply solely to Dr. Suzanne M.M. Young.
The 1985 academy graduate is one of six women on a team of 70 male scientists collaborating on NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander spacecraft mission. She said she is “the voice of the science team,” and on April 16, “the voice” gave a stunning multi-media presentation on the scientific specifics of the mission to students of the academy, the Odyssey Day School, and St. Joseph School.
Among her other tasks, Young is the strategic plan integrator for science operations and is responsible for delivering a fully developed science plan that fits data, time and power limits and contains all the experiments needed so engineers can sequence her plan.
After Young’s presentation, she demonstrated a prototype of the robot she helped design. The robot will be used to collect soil samples on Mars and Young will be at Mission Control in Houston throughout the summer to analyze findings. For the first time ever, the mission is dominated by academics and each individual was required to undergo a series of operation readiness tests before the launch.
“Last week’s largest trajectory put us perfectly on the path to Mars and our landing site,” she said.
The Andover native told students that she was once where they are and now she is “on her way to Mars.”

Check out Dr. Young's college résumé!

After graduating from the academy in 1985, Young earned two master of arts degrees from Brandeis and Harvard universities, though most of her courses were taken at MIT. She received her doctorate degree from Harvard, where she taught. She also taught at the University of New Hampshire and is an adjunct professor at Tufts University.

Saturn's moon farts, spacecraft collects gas

A spacecraft whizzed past Saturn's moon Enceladus Wednesday and through a huge geyser spurting from its south pole, collecting samples of ice and gas shooting about 500 miles into space.

Here's a funny part of this piece, at least if you know a little bit about classic rock.

Amanda Hendrix, a scientist involved in the mission from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said Cassini was passing as close as 30 miles above the surface, although not that close around the geysers.

I can't imagine how many times she's been asked if she's related to Jimi.

Acamademic Application

In today's installment of Academic Application, I will be putting my years of study of the Spanish language to use, attempting to translate a story from Telemundo's website for all you gringos.

TOKIO (AFP) - Científicos japoneses se declararon el jueves convencidos de que existe un noveno planeta, hasta ahora desconocido, que gravita en los confines de nuestro sistema solar, dos años después de que la comunidad científica excluyera de esa categoría.

TOKYO (AFP) - Japanese scientists announced Thursday that they are convinced that a new planet exists, which they did not know until now, and that lies in the confines of our solar system, two years after the scientific community ignored that topic.
Okay, let's see the English version of that article and see how close I got.

TOKYO (AFP) — Scientists at a Japanese university said Thursday they believed another planet up to two-thirds the size of the Earth was orbiting in the far reaches of the solar system.

The researchers at Kobe University in western Japan said calculations using computer simulations led them to conclude it was only a matter of time before the mysterious "Planet X" was found.

"Because of the very cold temperature, its surface would be covered with ice, icy ammonia and methane," Kobe University professor Tadashi Mukai, the lead researcher, told AFP.

The study by Mukai and researcher Patryk Lykawka will be published in the April issue of the US-based Astronomical Journal.

"The possibility is high that a yet unknown, planet-class celestial body, measuring 30 percent to 70 percent of the Earth's mass, exists in the outer edges of the solar system," said a summary of the research released by Kobe University.

"If research is conducted on a wide scale, the planet is likely to be discovered in less than 10 years," it said.

Planet X -- so called by scientists as it is yet unfound -- would have an oblong elliptical solar orbit and circle the sun every thousand years, the team said, estimating its radius was 15 to 26 billion kilometres.

The study comes two years after school textbooks had to be rewritten when Pluto was booted out of the list of planets.

Oh...two years after Pluto was excluded. I got three out of four clauses right...not too bad.

Canadian astronauts to visit I.S.S.

MONTREAL — Two Canadian astronauts will be visiting the International Space
Station next year.

They have astronauts in Canada?

Spacewalk proceeds not exactly according to plan

HOUSTON — Two spacewalking astronauts floated out of a hatch on the
international space station on Monday to help install a new European lab, while
a crewmate who was supposed to participate in the outing helped from inside.

Space. The final frontier. I always wanted to go there.

Satellite May Strike Earth

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Government officials say a large U.S. spy satellite has lost power and could hit the Earth in late February or March.

Officials are unsure where it will land and say the satellite may contain hazardous materials. A spokesman for the National Security Council says government agencies are monitoring the situation. There was no comment on whether it could be shot down with a missile.

A similar situation occurred in 2002 when a 7,000 pound science satellite landed harmlessly into the Persian Gulf.

Hopefully, this will also land in a large body of water.