The exo-adventures of Voyager 2

  Today marks 12,000 days of continuous service from our Voyager 1 spacecraft (12,015 days for Voyager 2) Our ambassadors to the outer solar system are still keeping in touch after 33 years away from home, and delivering some important information as they journey deeper into uncharted territory. In tribute, I decided to dust off the old blog and publish a draft I had written in May about hard-working Voyager’s more sensitive side, it’s musical message of humanity:  

So here and now I present to you, the exo-adventure of Voyager 2   !

   I came across an exciting, if not entirely credible story that one of our first deep-space probes, Voyager2, had been abducted by aliens and could now be broadcasting an encrypted message back to us. On April 22, with all other systems functioning normally, Voyager2’s data stream came home in an unknown format. The story was immediately interpreted by first-contact hopefuls as alien intervention, that is until NASA could prove otherwise in the weeks to follow.

 The idea is not as far-fetched as it sounds. When the Voyager twins were launched in 1977 to explore the outer solar system, it was well-considered that someday on their interstellar journey, they may be intercepted by some curious passer-by. Although the probes are incredibly wee compared to vastness of interstellar space, the possibility warranted more than just a Pioneer style plaque. A committee, chaired by Carl Sagan at Cornell University, would be responsible for compiling a message from humanity.   As an acomplished doctor in the philosophy of astronomy and astrophysics, Sagan understood that a  message into deep space is nothing to take lightly. He had already inspired millions with his passion for the planets, and his work with SETI made him somewhat of an expert on interstellar messages. He and his associates would design the gold-plated copper phonographic records for the two Voyager spacecraft containing sounds and songs of the Earth, multicultural greetings, as well as 115 analog images from around the world. Some of my favorite selections include Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Good, the whale songs, and an hour of recorded human brain activity. Talk about pressure to think good thoughts! I might have chosen a Buddhist monk for this mental message of peace, but it sounds like Sagan’s wife to-be, committee member  Ann Druyan, did a good job on humanity’s behalf.

” I had a one-hour mental itinerary of the information I wished to convey. I began by thinking about the history of Earth and the life it sustains. To the best of my abilities I tried to think something of the history of ideas and human social organization. I thought about the predicament that our civilization finds itself in and about the violence and poverty that make this planet a hell for so many of its inhabitants. Toward the end I permitted myself a personal statement of what it was like to fall in love.”          

The gold records were attached to the voyager spacecraft in a casing that was electroplated with a uranium isotope. Should the probes ever be recovered, the isotope’s half-life of over 4.5 billion years will make dating the probe a sinch for any advanced civilization. However, decoding the discs playing instructions may be another problem all together. The case was engraved with a graphical representation of how the record should be played, comparing its playing speed to the transition of the hydrogen atom. As a bonus, there is an included playing cartridge and stylus, just incase ET’s old turntable isn’t up to par anymore.

         

Finally, what alien communication could be complete without a word from the president of the United States? Jimmy Carter included a written letter with the disc addressed to an advanced civilization, a humbling activity that I think every politician should take part in. It’s a motivational activity, like writing a letter to yourself in the future. We might have all our future presidents do it from now on, just to keep them humble. Writing letters to aliens  would certainly make their actions more accountable to a “higher power”.    

“This Voyager spacecraft was constructed by the United States of America. We are a community of 240 million human beings among the more than 4 billion who inhabit the planet Earth. We human beings are still divided into nation states, but the states are rapidly becoming a single global civilization.

We cast this message into the cosmos. It is likely to survive a billion years into our future, when our civilization is profoundly altered and the surface of the Earth may be vastly changed. Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some –perhaps many– may have inhabited planets and spacefaring civilizations.

If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message:

       This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.

– Jimmy Carter

President of the United States of America”

  So far our message has travelled over 21 billion kilometers and remains unread. NASA was able to determine that the sudden scrabbled message in April was caused by a flipped-bit within Voyagers computer. The problem was quickly corrected from a mere 15 billion kilometers away, and Voyager was back in full health for its 12k anniversary on June 28th, but the exo-adventure is far from over. In the coming decade the probes will hit some rapids as they enter a region where solar winds gust against the interstellar medium. The probes final mission, as they journey ever farther into deep space, will be to measure the interactions between our star and the surrounding galactic environment.    

   From there, the probes will be little more than travelling monuments to intelligent life in our solar system. Their distance in space will mark our achievements, and our limitations, in a unique era. Perhaps the Voyager probes and the messages they carry will never hold much significance to extraterrestrial civilizations, but they will certainly serve as a point of interest to future generations, and remind us all that the human bar of achievement is set a million and a half kilometers higher everyday.                          

The Hubble Space Telescope

Well, it’s already time for this week’s Satellite Sunday feature. I must admit that when I started this space-flavored blog, I didn’t anticipate that April would be such a eventful month for the space industry. One might say I’ve thrown myself into theFIRE by starting a weekly spot during such a high traffic time, but that is the theme of this blog after all!

There’s no room for slouching this week either because on April 24th, our Hubble space telescope celebrated 20 years of starry-eyed service to humanity. When Hubble was originally launched in 1990, it’s highly anticipated first pictures would reveal that the $2.5 billion telescope had a slight vision problem, Space shuttle missions would have to be sent to fit Hubble with new glasses to counteract a microscopically flawed mirror.

By 1993 the telescope was delivering the sharpest images ever taken of the cosmos, inspiring millions with it’s unique perspective of the universe. After a final shuttle servicing mission in May 2009, Hubble’s keen eye is now 100x sharper than it was 20 years ago. Here’s a look back at some of our favorite jaw-dropping images!

Happy Birthday Hubble!

Well, it’s already time for this week’s Satellite Sunday feature. I must admit that when I started this space-flavored blog, I didn’t anticipate that April would be such a eventful month for the space industry. One might say I’ve thrown myself into theFIRE by starting a weekly spot during such a high traffic time, but that is the theme of this blog after all.

Robotic space plane launched with classified cargo

I love space secrets! Nothing gets the imagination moving quite like withheld information. It allows you to consider all kinds of mind-boggling possibilities, that may be in your best interests not to know. 

 

The X-37B was launched last night, with intentions not fit for public knowledge. This picture shows the x-37B, built by Boeing’s “Phantom Works” advanced-concepts shop, looking a little too innocent in the belly of the space shuttle. Once considered as a potential life boat for the ISS, the vehicle was later passed over to the Department of Defense for what I can only conclude to be secret defensive space purposes. 

The X-37B recharging its sinister battery

 

The experimental unmanned space plane is designed to make orbital passes and automated landings that could go unnoticed by opposing territories. The Iranian government has even come to regard the mini-shuttle as a “secret space warplane.” The truth is never usually as interesting as anything we could imagine, so lets all take a moment to enjoy the mystery.

Discovery’s 6,000,000 Mile Mission

The space shuttle Discovery landed on Tuesday, and even though that last post almost knocked the space-stuffin’ right outta me, I couldn’t resist doing a little write-up on the mission. After all, there are only 3 more shuttle missions to write about.

The space shuttle Discovery blasted off on April 5th for its 2 day journey to rendezvous with the International space station. The eldest shuttle at 26 years young, delivered 7 astronauts and some vital equipment when it docked with the ISS on April 7th. The crew would unpack and install new goodies for the nearly complete space station during their 10 days on board. First came a set of new gyros on April 8th, fresh ammonia tanks on the 9th, followed by a shiny new research window on the 10th, not to mention over 25,000 pounds of other food and science supplies transferred throughout the week.

The Discovery crew joined 3 other astronauts already in orbit, making this the first time 4 female astronauts have worked together in space, which I have no doubt, boosted morale and increased productivity. Naoko Yamazaki would become the second Japanese woman in space, and with veteran Soichi Noguchi, flight engineering Expedition 23 to the ISS, it would also be the first time 2 Japanese astronauts served together on board. I found this great video of mission highlights that will give you a feel for what life has been like in space over the past 2 weeks.

The shuttle departed the ISS on April 17 and returned home on April 20th. The landing was delayed due to some bad weather, independent of the plumes erupting from Iceland. However, the delays made for a record breaking mission when Discovery landed its longest flight to date, 15 days and 2.8 hours!

While Atlantis is rolling out to the launch pad for its final flight on May 14th, Discovery will begin its overhaul to prepare for the last shuttle flight ever in November. NASA will then decommission the shuttle fleet and donate Discovery to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

This incredible picture taken by Soichi Noguchi is one of the coolest space pics I’ve ever seen.  The blurring makes you feel like you took the picture yourself with your own crappy camera, looking out over some orange alien world! Is that the reflection of Naoko Yamazaki in the top right, or just a control panel?

The Iridium Satellite Constellation

This Sunday I’ll be introducing a new segment called Sunday’s Satellite. Every week I will feature a new orbiter, and explore how these sophisticated spacecraft assist humanity from their heavenly vantage. For my first choice, although I was tempted to start at the beginning with Sputnik, I decided to skip ahead to some satellites with a little more flare, the Iridium Satellite Constellation.

Most of us have witnessed a satellite pass at some time in our lives. They are those stars that wander steadily across the sky, probably taking secret government pictures of your underwear. Thousands of man-made satellites now orbit the earth, providing services we take for granted everyday. Their reflective solar panels and antennas catch the sun at favorable angles and they become visible in the night sky. Some orbiters flash erratically as they roll or tumble through space, and while most appear no brighter than the average star, Iridium’s network of communications satellites can produce flashes that appear over 55x brighter than Venus, a phenomena known as an Iridium flare.

The first time I saw an iridium flare, I braced myself for the end of the world. It was a cloudier night, with only a few clear bright stars, when suddenly something lit up the clouds with an increasing intensity. In those 3 seconds of unreal brightness, I envisioned Earth being incinerated by a gamma ray burst, or some hard, fast comet aimed right at my head. Instead, the light disappeared into the clouds, and I was left with a mystery. I wondered what could have produced such an intense burst of light, and finding out the answer would spark my interest in satellites and astronomy. My search would bring me to heavens-above.com, a website that tracks visible satellites based on the user’s location. I could now pinpoint when and where in the sky a flare would happen, and that kind of information could make me a shaman in some tribes!

Every other night I would drag my roommates out flare hunting, exciting the neighbors with my incessant sky watching. We were lucky enough to see a shuttle re-entry, the International Space Station, AND an Iridium flare, all in one beautiful, clear night! Like a nerdy master of ceremonies with his cue cards, I introduced every passing act during its procession across the sky. If you have never seen a flare for yourself, I found a video that represents the experience quite well. Notice a likeness to the end of days?

The Satellites

The Iridium constellation is a network of 66 communications satellites that provides voice and date coverage to every corner of the planet. The satellites have the unique ability to send seamless transmissions between themselves, which means that communication is possible in areas like the poles and open oceans, where land based coverage isn’t currently provided. Today the network is the only mobile satellite service that offers complete world coverage, and the first provider to relay data between its satellites in orbit.

The program began in the 1980’s fueled by Motorola, and originally called for 77 space vehicles, the atomic number of Iridium, plus several spares in a lower orbit ready in the event of a failure. This global communications grid would cross-link satellites using microwave bands in the electromagnetic spectrum, a characteristic still unique to the fleet. Most notably, they are designed with 3, highly reflective, silver coated main mission antennas, fixed at a 40 degree angles from the body of the spacecraft. These door-sized antennas are responsible for flaring, as they momentarily reflect the intensity of the sun, and spark a religion in some remote tribe. Calculating when, where and how brightly these flashes will occur requires some very intense computational mathematics, performed at the click of a button thanks to sites like Heavens Above.

The vehicles were produced and launched during an ambitious launch campaign in 1997 and ’98, their fast production made possible by innovative new methods that mass-produced the orbiters on a gimble. During an especially productive period, the company was churning out a new satellite every 4.3 days at a record low-cost of only $5 million per vehicle. All 66 satellites and 6 spares were delivered into their low earth orbits of 750km, by Russian, Chinese and US rockets, achieving a perfect success rate of 15/15 launches. However the failures of Iridium would soon overshadow its successes, when its over-priced services failed to catch on with a public already at-play with their new cellular phones. The company would buckle under enormous debt, and file for bankruptcy only a few years later. The $7 billion network  was sold for a mere $25 million,  with Boeing now in-charge of satellite operations. Services were triumphantly restored in 2001, with new technologies and new satellites launched the next year. Today the constellation is an invaluable tool to government agencies, aerospace and maritime industries, and disaster relief efforts.

An Iridium satellite made headlines recently when it was involved in the in world’s first orbital collision involving active satellites. Iridium 33 and Russian satellite Kosmos 2251 collided at speeds of 27000 kph over Siberia, creating an orbiting debris field of over 500 pieces. The incident fueled concerns that the cluttering of space is becoming a serious problem for the future of the space industry. For now, the orbit of every stray screw and panel is carefully observed in an attempt to protect our assets in orbit, but sooner or later we are probably going to need a fleet of trash collecting recycle-sats. A Sunday’s satellite for 2015?

 

Happy Birthday Space Shuttle, let’s do launch!

While the space shuttle Discovery flies high above, we here down on Earth wish the crew a happy and safe 29th!! May your birthday bumps next week be cushioned and well-calculated.

Almost everyday I think about how amazing it is that there are actually people living and working in space. We have had a continual human presence in space for almost 10 years, and I think we should all take more time to recognize how cool it is that there is a real space station flying over our heads 16 times per day at over 27 000 km/hr! The space station is an incredible feat of human ingenuity that now shines brighter than Venus, but today we celebrate our intrepid space shuttles.

On this day 29 years ago the first space shuttle was launched, and the day also happens to mark the 49th anniversary of the first human space flight. Since 1981 the shuttle fleet of 6 sleek space planes have been boosting billions of dollars worth of planetary probes, satellites, telescopes and space station components into orbit. Now in the middle of it’s 131st mission, here’s a look back at the launch that started it all.

The launch of space shuttle Columbia was the realized, idealistic vision of NASA’s Space Transportation System (STS).  A fleet of reusable space planes that could ferry astronauts to orbit and land as gracefully as a bird. Construction began on Columbia in 1975, and in its life it would fly 27 pioneering missions for mankind until her tragic end in February 2003, when a damaged heat shield led to disaster on reentry. New precautions are now taken to ensure the remaining shuttles, Discovery Atlantis and Endeavour, will not meet a similar fate. Here’s a picture I came across of Columbia in her birthday suit.

As I write these words, the shuttle Discovery is delayed at the ISS, undergoing rigorous inspection to be sure its return on Monday is as safe as possible. Discovery’s next flight is scheduled to be the last space shuttle ever flown when NASA retires the fleet this year. With plans to return to Apollo-style capsules, it wont be long before everyday images of the space shuttle will start to look almost retro, with a historical stylish charm.

There are only 3 remaining shuttle missions left in this epic chapter of human history, and if you have never seen the space shuttle yourself, flying visibly over your head several times a day, I encourage you to click here to find out when the next visible passes are. Try to catch it next week when the shuttle separates from the ISS. It appears as 2 bright stars chasing each other across the night sky, and it is definitely one of the coolest thing I have ever seen.

And now, to mark the day, here’s what birthday candles look like in micro-gravity… Happy Birthday Space Shuttle, and Merry Russian Cosmonauts Day too!!

I wish for a space elevator

Birthday Blog

Today is the first day of the life of this blog, and most serendipitously, today is also my day of birth. Yes, on this day 27 years ago I had the inspired idea that I might start a new life for myself outside the womb, and for 27 years now I have been on a path to know truth and reason in this expanse of seemingly infinite chaos. ALL will be explored in good time, but for now its time to party like a ten year old, CUZ IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!!!

I started my day with what is becoming my annual straight razor shave. To me nothing ushers in a new year like an impossibly smooth shave from an eighty year old man. A trembling razor to my throat reminds me of how good it is to be alive,  and that we owe our lives to the morality of our community. It reminded me of an old short story “Lather and nothing else” about a barber who contemplates murdering his confident client. Not a relaxing memory as my barber scrapes his vintage blade across my tentative face. It was hard not to imagine a grizzly barber shop murder in the style of Sweeny Todd. However, just as in that short story, there was lather, and nothing else. Warm lather too!  So I wasn’t murdered on my birthday, but I did return home with one of his wife’s lovely meat pies.

The rest of the day was spent enjoying food, a lot of food. For breakfast, a bagel with smoked salmon, cream cheese and a glass of extra pulp orange juice. Lunch, a banana split and a face plant into an angel food cake, and finally an extravagant dinner at a fancy restaurant. Oysters, escargot and steak au poivre, I even learned how to fold a napkin into a handsome shirt. It’s always so much fun to dress up and pretend your of the upper class, but at the end of the night its all just pretend… for now. I’m just getting started though!