Space News and Views by Mark Daymont

Armstrong's Life Commemorated

The Colors paraded at the Armstrong memorial gathering.

On September 13 the nation gathered together at the Washington National Cathedral to remember our first Moonwalker. Televised on NASA TV, and covered by Fox News (the other networks did not cover the event) the memorial brought together fellow astronauts, family and friends, and national leaders to remember and honor the life of one of America's greatest heroes.

The U.S. Navy posting the colors. Armstrong was a naval aviator before joining NASA as a civilian astronaut.

The speakers at the meeting talked about Armstrong as a dedicated engineer who loved exploring through science and adventure. They also spoke of his love of flight, and his great ability to inspire others. Speakers included Eugene Cernan, the last astronaut to walk on the Moon, former Secretary of the Treasury John Snow (a close friend of Armstrong), Administrator of NASA (and shuttle astronaut) Charlie Bolden, and religious leaders at the Cathedral. Michael Collins, the command module pilot of the Apollo 11 mission, led the congregation in scripture and prayers. Jazz singer/composer DIana Krall gave a moving rendition of "Fly me to the Moon" made famous by singer Frank Sinatra. There was also music by the U.S. Navy band "Sea Chanters," the Metropolitan Opera Brass, and the Cathedral Choir. It ended with a moving eulogy by Rev. Mariann Budde.

If you have the time, it is well worth your while to watch the proceedings at the NASA website. But be prepared to shed some tears. You can watch it at: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=152200361

After the memorial, the Armstrong family and other officials were hosted by the U.S. Navy on board the warship U.S.S. Phillipine Sea. Armstrong's ashes were buried at sea by Navy custom.

Farewell, Neil Armstrong.

50 Years Ago: Kennedy's Moon Speech Remembered

"We choose to go to the Moon..."

Last week NASA celebrated a another pivotal moment in history.

In May, 1961, President Kennedy had declared to Congress that Americans should have a goal to reach the Moon before the end of the decade. On September 12, 1962, the president spoke to a crowd of supporters at Rice University. HIs speech explained his guiding motives in creating a challenge for America to reach out and explore the Moon. "We choose to go to the Moon and do the other thing, not because it is easy but because it is hard.." he explained. While the original goal had its roots in the Cold War competing against the space efforts of the Soviet Union, his speech made it clear there were even greater opportunities for the growth of our nation, and that of the world.

To see and hear the speech, go to NASA's website at http://www.nasa.gov/topics/history/features/jfk_rice_speech_50th.html

Endeavor prepares for last trip to Museum

Shuttle Carrier 747 lands at Kennedy Space Center.

Shuttle Endeavor is preparing for its last trip.

Endeavor was built after the loss of the shuttle Challenger. The shuttle program came to an end when orbiter Atlantis landed at Kennedy Space Center in July of 2011. The shuttles are being dispersed to museums around the country. Endeavor will take off tomorrow on the back of the 747 and fly to Los Angeles for transfer to the California Science Center. Liftoff expected at sunrise, with a fly-over of the space center for all the fans.

 

Endeavor attached to the back of the shuttle carrier 747.

Expedition 32 Change of Command Ceremony.

Yesterday the Expedition 32 mission came to an end. In an official ceremony televised on NASA TV, Suni Williams of NASA became the new commander of the ISS. Cosmonauts Gennady Padalkin, Sergei Revin, and astronaut Joe Acaba boarded the Soyuz TMA-04M spacecraft and undocked just after 7 pm.

Joe Acaba on the ground.

The crew fired the retro rockets just before 10 pm EDT and the capsule came to a safe landing in Kazakhstan. The first section of the Expedition 32 crew had been in space 123 days. The current Expedition 33 crew is now astronaut Suni WIlliams (commanding the mission), Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko. They arrived in the station on July 17.

Akihiko posing in front of the Japan module.

After the last spacewalk covered here in August, their had been trouble with some bolts which prevented completion of some tasks. Another spacewalk was made (making three for the Expedition) to repair the bolts and complete the spacewalk tasks. To help her out, Suni Williams made a special tool to help her remove debris from the bolts, using her toothbrush (don't worry, she had another).

NASA"s latest hi-tech tool.

Showing the creative mind that astronauts are known for, the tool worked perfectly, the bolts were replaced, and the remaining tasks completed. Can't do that sort of work with a robot.  The current three-person crew now awaits their reinforcements. Part two of Expedition 33 will arrive in October.

Warp Drive Possible? Alpha Centauri in Two Weeks!

A Football Shaped Ship with a Warp Engine Ring.

From Gizmodo
Written by Jesus Diaz

"Perhaps a Star Trek experience within our lifetime is not such a remote possibility." These are the words of Dr. Harold "Sonny" White, the Advanced Propulsion Theme Lead for the NASA Engineering Directorate. Dr. White and his colleagues don't just believe a real life warp drive is theoretically possible; they've already started the work to create one.
Yes. A real warp drive, Scotty.

When it comes to space exploration, we are still cavemen. We got to the Moon and sent some freaking awesome robot to Mars. We also have those automatic doors that swoosh wide open when you get near them, but that's about it. It's cool, but we are far from being the space civilization we'll need to become to survive for millennia.

With our current propulsion technologies, interstellar flight is impossible. Even with experimental technology, like ion thrusters or a spaceship's backside firing freaking nuclear explosions, it would require staggering amounts of fuel and mass to get to any nearby star. And worse: it will require decades—centuries, even—to get there. The trip will be meaningless for those left behind. Only the ones going forward in search for a new star system would enjoy the result of the colossal effort. It's just not practical.

So we need an alternative. One that would allow us to travel extremely fast without breaking the laws of physics. Or as Dr. White puts it: "we want to go, really fast, while observing the 11th commandment: Thou shall not exceed the speed of light."

Searching for warp bubbles

The answer lies precisely in those laws of physics. Dr. White and other physicists have found loopholes in some mathematical equations—loopholes that indicate that warping the space-time fabric is indeed possible.

Working at NASA Eagleworks—a skunkworks operation deep at NASA's Johnson Space Center—Dr. White's team is trying to find proof of those loopholes. They have "initiated an interferometer test bed that will try to generate and detect a microscopic instance of a little warp bubble" using an instrument called the White-Juday Warp Field Interferometer.
It may sound like a small thing now, but the implications of the research huge. In his own words:

Although this is just a tiny instance of the phenomena, it will be existence proof for the idea of perturbing space time-a "Chicago pile" moment, as it were. Recall that December of 1942 saw the first demonstration of a controlled nuclear reaction that generated a whopping half watt. This existence proof was followed by the activation of a ~ four megawatt reactor in November of 1943. Existence proof for the practical application of a scientific idea can be a tipping point for technology development.

By creating one of these warp bubbles, the spaceship's engine will compress the space ahead and expand the space behind, moving it to another place without actually moving, and carrying none of the adverse effects of other travel methods. According to Dr. White, "by harnessing the physics of cosmic inflation, future spaceships crafted to satisfy the laws of these mathematical equations may actually be able to get somewhere unthinkably fast—and without adverse effects."

He says that, if everything is confirmed in these practical experiments, we would be able to create an engine that will get us to Alpha Centauri "in two weeks as measured by clocks here on Earth." The time will be the same in the spaceship and on Earth, he claims, and there will not be "tidal forces inside the bubble, no undue issues, and the proper acceleration is zero. When you turn the field on, everybody doesn't go slamming against the bulkhead, which would be a very short and sad trip."

The energy problem, solved

There was only one problem with all this: where does the energy come from? While we knew that warp drives were theoretically possible, physicists have always argued that they would require a ball of exotic matter the size of Jupiter to power it. Clearly, that was not practical. But thankfully, Dr. White has found a solution that changes the game completely.

The Eagleworks team has discovered that the energy requirements are much lower than previously thought. If they optimize the warp bubble thickness and "oscillate its intensity to reduce the stiffness of space time," they would be able to reduce the amount of fuel to manageable amount: instead of a Jupiter-sized ball of exotic matter, you will only need 500 kilograms to "send a 10-meter bubble (32.8 feet) at an effective velocity of 10c."

Ten c! That's ten times the speed of light, people (remember, the ship itself would not go faster than the speed of light. But effectively it will seem like it does).
That means that we would be able to visit Gliese 581g—a planet similar to Earth 20 light years away from our planet—in two years. Two years is nothing. It took Magellan three years to circumnavigate around our home planet—from August 1519 to September 1522. A four year roundtrip to see a planet like Earth is completely doable. And there are even closer destinations where we can send robots or astronauts.

The important thing is that there is now a door open to a different kind of exploration. That, like Dr. White says, "perhaps a Star Trek experience within our lifetime is not such a remote possibility." We may be witnessing the very beginning of a new age of space exploration, one that would finally take us from our pale blue dot back to where we belong.

I don't know about you, but I'm more excited than when Captain Kirk got his first unobtonanium underpants.

Voyager Lingers in the Land of Silence

Voyager Lingers in the Land of Silence  

The Voyager lingers in the Land of Silence.  Quietly and patiently she waits.

Her Bridge is still.  Where are the crews which once listened to her tales of brave sailors in the starry skies?  Are the villains in our adventures victorious?  Have our heroes faded away?

What is to become of our Lady Voyager?  Will we enjoy her ballads again?

We watch the canvas sails; waiting and listening for the swells of a patriotic wind calling us to our duty.

____________________________________

Yesterday I stopped at the school to grade a few math papers and answer an email or two.  It was a warm Saturday afternoon.  The mountains towering above the neighbor's trees blushed with Autumn.  This is my favorite time of year.  

I stepped out of the Battlestar and paused.  I saw something I'd never seen before.  It was a Saturday afternoon in September and the parking lot was empty, save for my Battlestar.    

The Space Center traffic was gone.  There were no cars filled with overly excited groups of children talking, laughing and shouting as they arrived and departed from this, the happiest place on Earth, (at least, of course, within a day's carriage ride of our Pleasant Grove).

I walked behind the school toward the Voyager's outside entrance.  I wondered if I had I stepped into some kind of  parallel universe?  The staff and volunteer's cars were gone.  There were no black shirted volunteers crossing the blacktop expanse carrying trash cans overflowing with pop bottles, decoded mission papers and pizza boxes.  It was quiet, except for the subdued shouting coming from the far end of the playground.  Two young soccer teams were in the throws of a fierce competition.  

I entered the school to feed the fish.  They were as confused as I.  It was 3:30 P.M. on a Saturday. The school's foyer should have been alive with adolescent crews loading their ships for their space edventures.  There were no explosions or huddled groups of volunteers blocking the halls.  There were no Supervisors in blue, barking orders and wondering why no one was listening. There was no music filling the halls or the sound of thick accented ship engineers gently leading their captains to the obvious solutions to their perplexing problems.

No, it was just me and the fish.

That is all.

I took my camera and took a few pictures to remember the day.  It was surreal.  The school felt sterile, like a piece of its soul was missing.

Be persevering Troops!  With a bit of luck and big chunk of change, we hope to be flying again soon.

Mr. W.