Voyager probe 'leaves Solar System'

From the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24026153

The Voyager-1 spacecraft has become the first manmade object to leave the Solar System.

Scientists say the probe's instruments indicate it has moved beyond the bubble of hot gas from our Sun and is now moving in the space between the stars.

Launched in 1977, Voyager was sent initially to study the outer planets, but then just kept on going.

Today, the veteran Nasa mission is almost 19 billion km (12 billion miles) from home.

This distance is so vast that it takes 17 hours now for a radio signal sent from Voyager to reach receivers here on Earth.

"This is really a key milestone that we'd been hoping we would reach when we started this project over 40 years ago - that we would get a spacecraft into interstellar space," said Prof Ed Stone, the chief scientist on the venture.

"Scientifically it's a major milestone, but also historically - this is one of those journeys of exploration like circumnavigating the globe for the first time or having a footprint on the Moon for the first time. This is the first time we've begun to explore the space between the stars," he told BBC News.

Sensors on Voyager had been indicating for some time that its local environment had changed.

The data that finally convinced the mission team to call the jump to interstellar space came from the probe's Plasma Wave Science (PWS) instrument. This can measure the density of charged particles in Voyager's vicinity.

Readings taken in April/May this year and October/November last year revealed a near-100-fold jump in the number of protons occupying every cubic metre of space.

Scientists have long theorised such a spike would eventually be observed if Voyager could get beyond the influence of the magnetic fields and particle wind that billow from the surface of the Sun.

When the Voyager team put the new data together with information from the other instruments onboard, they calculated the moment of escape to have occurred on or about 25 August, 2012. This conclusion is contained in a report published by the journal Science.

"This is big; it's really impressive - the first human-made object to make it out into interstellar space," said Prof Don Gurnett from the University of Iowa and the principal investigator on the PWS.

On 25 August, 2012, Voyager-1 was some 121 Astronomical Units away. That is, 121 times the separation between the Earth and the Sun.

Breaching the boundary, known technically as the heliopause, was, said the English Astronomer Royal, Prof Sir Martin Rees, a remarkable achievement: "It's utterly astonishing that this fragile artefact, based on 1970s technology, can signal its presence from this immense distance."

Although now embedded in the gas, dust and magnetic fields from other stars, Voyager still feels a gravitational tug from the Sun, just as some comets do that lie even further out in space. But to all intents and purposes, it has left what most people would define as the Solar System. It is now in a completely new domain.

Nasa's Voyager probes

• Voyager 2 launched on 20 August 1977; Voyager 1 lifted off on 5 September the same year
• Their official missions were to study Jupiter and Saturn, but the probes were able to continue on
• The Voyager 1 probe is now the furthest human-built object from Earth
• Both probes carry discs with recordings designed to portray the diversity of culture on Earth

• To boldly go beyond the Solar System

Voyager-1 departed Earth on 5 September 1977, a few days after its sister spacecraft, Voyager-2.

The pair's primary objective was to survey the planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune - a task they completed in 1989.

They were then steered towards deep space. It is expected that their plutonium power sources will stop supplying electricity in about 10 years, at which point their instruments and their 20W transmitters will die.

Voyager-1 will not approach another star for nearly 40,000 years, even though it is moving at 45km/s (100,000mph).

"Voyager-1 will be in orbit around the centre of our galaxy with all its stars for billions of years," said Prof Stone.

The probe's work is not quite done, however. For as long as they have working instruments, scientists will want to sample the new environment.

The new region through which Voyager is now flying was generated and sculpted by big stars that exploded millions of years ago.

There is indirect evidence and models to describe the conditions in this medium, but Voyager can now measure them for real and report back.

The renowned British planetary scientist Prof Fred Taylor commented: "As a young post-doc, I went to [Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory] and worked for a while with the team that was doing the science definition study for the Outer Planets Grand Tour, which later became Voyager.

"It seemed so incredible and exciting to think we would see and explore Jupiter and Saturn close up, let alone Uranus and Neptune.

"The idea that the spacecraft would then exit the Solar System altogether was so way out, figuratively as well as literally, that we didn't even discuss it then, although I suppose we knew it would happen someday. Forty-three years later, that day has arrived, and Voyager is still finding new frontiers."

The Sun sits in an extensive bubble of hot gas called the heliosphere

• Solar wind: The stream of charged particles blown off the Sun and travelling at "supersonic" speeds (white arrows)
• Termination shock: Area where particles from the Sun begin to slow and clash with matter from deep space
• Heliosheath: A vast, turbulent expanse where the solar wind piles up as it presses outward against interstellar matter
• Heliopause: The boundary between the solar wind and the interstellar wind, where the pressure of both are in balance

Time Runs Out for Telescope, Examining Kepler's Contribution to Space Research

From PBS: Time Runs Out for Telescope, Examining Kepler's Contribution to Space Research

JUDY WOODRUFF: The U.S. space agency confirmed yesterday that its renowned Kepler telescope is beyond repair, a big blow in its search for planets.
The Kepler was launched into an orbit around the sun in 2009, its purpose, observe stars thousands of light years from Earth that may harbor Earth-like planets. By looking at what happens to the light emanated by the stars, it's discovered more than 3,500 possible planets, more than 100 of which have been independently confirmed.

          

But it has not yet found one planet that has the right conditions for sustaining life as here on Earth. NASA says the spacecraft's wheels, which are critical for keeping it pointed correctly, do not work anymore. Astronomers are now assessing its legacy.
Michael Lemonick is the author of a book about Kepler called “Mirror Earth." He has long written about space and science for TIME magazine.
Michael Lemonick, welcome to the NewsHour.
Tell us a little bit more about what the original mission for the Kepler was.

MORE: Wheels Stopped for Kepler, but Still More to Study

MICHAEL LEMONICK, author: The original mission was to take a census, really, of a group of stars, an average group of stars, to find out what percentage of them have planets of any kind, and what sizes those planets come in and how far they are from their stars, how the temperature on the surface of those planets would be, if you were there.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And why is that important? And how much of that mission did it get done?
MICHAEL LEMONICK: It got -- well, first of all, it got a huge amount done.
It's important because when -- the reason we look for planets around other stars at all is because we're interested in whether there is life elsewhere in the universe. And the best bet for life, we would think, would be on a planet just like Earth, that is, about the same size as Earth, orbiting a star like sun, with the right temperature for water to exist in liquid form, which is a requirement for life, we think.
And since we know there's a planet like that already in the universe, and life is here, we want to look for a planet like that elsewhere as the best bet for finding life.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And so what happened to the telescope? We mentioned the wheels not working. What -- was this something they expected would go wrong?
MICHAEL LEMONICK: Well, so, these wheels help the telescope point very precisely at the stars it's looking at.
You have to hold the telescope very steady in order to detect the very faint fluctuations in light that happen when a planet goes in front of a star, so it dims just a tiny bit. And the wheels help keep it pointed incredibly precisely. And they have had four of these reaction wheels that the satellite went up with.
One of them failed last year. Another one failed last spring. And with only two wheels still working, you can't point with the accuracy that you need. And so the telescope is still in perfect working order. It just can't aim in the direction that it's supposed to.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Michael Lemonick, it must be incredibly frustrating for the NASA scientists who put so much effort into this. How are they taking it?
MICHAEL LEMONICK: Well, they're actually taking it pretty well. When Kepler was first approved in 2000, it was approved for a four-year mission. That's what the scientists asked for. And NASA said, yes, you can have four years.
And they have completed the four years. In 2012, the scientists said, wow, we could do better science if we had another several years, and they got another three-and-a-half. But the first primary phase of the mission has been completed. And only the first two years worth of data from those four years have been analyzed yet. And those numbers you quoted in the introduction, all those planets it's found already, that's just from the first two years of data.
So they have got two more years' worth to probe through, many more discoveries to make. All they're -- all that is lacking is the ability to then go even deeper and look even further. So they're disappointed, of course. They would have liked to do more with this amazing satellite, but they're incredibly satisfied with what they found already.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But in terms of adding to our understanding of space, you're saying this is significant?
MICHAEL LEMONICK: This is very significant.
What they have done in the survey is discovered what they are convinced are more than 3,000 planets. They haven't all been confirmed yet, but most of them will be. And what they see is that if you look out around average stars, you will see some planets, like Jupiter, big, gassy, giant planets that would be very inhospitable to life, more, smaller planets like Neptune, still not very hospitable.
But as you get smaller and smaller and closer to Earth in size, there are more and more planets. And if they extrapolate from what they have seen, one estimate, one lowball estimate is that in the Milky Way, there would be 17 billion planets with just the right conditions for life, and that's a low estimate. There are probably more than that.
So, we didn't know any of this before Kepler. Now we know that Earth-like planets are almost certainly very common in the Milky Way. Fifteen years ago, we didn't even know there were planets at all around other stars. Now we know that Earths are very common in the Milky Way.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And what do they believe it's going to take to find out where those other Earths are?
MICHAEL LEMONICK: Well, so Kepler's primary mission is often misunderstood.
It wasn't specifically to find those planets in particular. It was to get an idea of how common they are. That's the basic mission. So, if it found that Earth-like planets are very rare, that tells astronomers, OK, maybe it's not worth going out now and trying to find specific ones. What it's found instead is that Earth-like planets are probably very common.
There are probably plenty of them reasonably close to us, and now we can start targeting, with new telescopes, targeting stars closer to Earth than the Kepler stars, which are quite far away, looking for those planets, and, ultimately, with more powerful telescopes, looking at their atmospheres and their surfaces to try and determine whether there's really life there, because it's one thing to say, yes, this is a good place where life could exist.
We want to be able to say, yes, life does exist on these planets. And that is now not a crazy thing to try and do, thanks to Kepler. We now know it's not a quixotic endeavor.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, that is pretty exciting.
Michael Lemonick, thank you very much.
MICHAEL LEMONICK: I think so.
Thank you.

Showdown over NASA funding likely

From USA Today: Showdown over NASA funding likely

WASHINGTON — A Senate panel Tuesday narrowly approved a bill reauthorizing NASA, setting up a showdown with the House over how much money the nation's space program should get.

The three-year bill, which now heads to the full Senate, would give the space agency $18.1 billion in fiscal year 2014, $18.4 billion in 2015 and $18.8 billion in 2016 -- $2 billion more per year than the U.S. House is considering. NASA received $17.7 billion in fiscal 2013, which ends Sept. 30.

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee passed the bill 13-12 along party lines, with Democrats in favor and Republicans opposed.

"While it's not as much as we'd like NASA to have, it's certainly a step in the right direction," Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said after the vote. Nelson chairs the Science and Space Subcommittee that helped shape and steer the legislation.

If the Democratic-led Senate passes the bill as expected, lawmakers likely will have to reconcile it with a House bill that promises NASA much less. Earlier this month, lawmakers on the GOP-led House Science, Space and Technology Committee settled on a funding figure closer to $16.8 billion for fiscal 2014 and fiscal 2015. A vote on the House floor is expected later this year.

The partisan conflict over NASA funding largely involves each party's view of how much money is available to spend on most federal programs, such as space and science.

Republicans are unwilling to go beyond the overall allocations spelled out in the budget they approved earlier this year. Those levels assume the government-wide budget cuts Congress agreed to in 2011 -- known as sequestration -- will remain in effect.

Democrats on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee argued Tuesday that NASA reauthorization should be based on how much money the agency realistically needs, not on what might be available in the next budget cycle.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., called a Republican amendment to reduce the bill's funding levels "a misguided attempt to really turn the committee into nothing but the Appropriations (Committee)."

"And I think we have very important technology-mission oversight that we have to focus on," she said.

South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the top Republican on the panel, sounded optimistic that lawmakers can compromise.

The NASA bill "will likely need even more work before (it) reflects the kind of consensus that has characterized our committee's enacted legislation," he told panel members. "With additional effort, however, I am hopeful that we can get there in the weeks and months ahead."

The difference is not just about money. It's also about NASA's overall direction and whether the agency should be allowed — or trusted — to pursue the course it's laid out for the next few years.
Both the House and Senate measures would provide money to continue developing NASA's top priorities: a deep-space mission to Mars, a joint venture with aerospace firms to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station, and completion of the James Webb Space Telescope.

But while the Senate bill would permit an asteroid retrieval mission the agency wants to undertake as part of its stepping-stone approach to Mars, the House measure strictly prohibits it.

"I don't think that is the position of a committee to be telling the scientists and the NASA experts of what we should be doing," Nelson said Tuesday.

Buzz Aldrin on Why We Should Go to Mars

From Smithsonian:  Buzz Aldrin on Why We Should Go to Mars

A member of the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, Buzz Aldrin was the second man to walk on the moon. In the years since, he has become an advocate for space exploration and technology, calling for renewed U.S. investment in the space program. In Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration, Aldrin lays out a detailed, multi-stage plan for journeying to the red planet that would culminate in the first permanent human settlement beyond the Earth.
It’s been more than four decades since you landed on the moon. What’s your assessment of the U.S. space program since then?
The United States has had periods of ambition, but it has not financed them appropriately. Interest waned after the first Apollo landing on the moon. There was the conflict in Vietnam that attracted attention and financing and U.S. government support, and then a general disinterest by the American people in American leadership and technology. Our standing in education in the world, in science, technology, engineering and math, began to go up because of Apollo and then back down again. I’m trying to fix a lot of that.
The space shuttle has been the most high-profile program in the years since Apollo. Do you think it was a success?
It killed two crews, it was way over budget, and it hasn’t really accomplished what it set out to do. Of course we pioneered international cooperation and zero gravity experiments and we gained medical knowledge about long-term habitation in space. But the experiments were disappointing for the results of a national laboratory. We had to rely on Russian contributions to build the space station. And now the United States is financing the Russian space program in order to keep our people, in America, at our $100 billion space station, because we had to retire the shuttle.
NASA ended the space shuttle program in 2011. Do you think that was premature?
No, the program needed cancelling, but NASA and the U.S. had seven years between the beginning of 2004 and the end of 2010 to come up with a replacement for the shuttle, which it failed to do.
You’ve worried about the U.S. falling behind. Do you see other government space agencies doing better work? The Russians, for example, or the European Space Agency?
Well, they’re not well-financed either. But they continue to be able to transport crews to the $100 billion International Space Station. And the Chinese have advanced, with Russian assistance, to potentially surpass the United States.
During the Apollo program we were in a so-called “space race” with the Soviet Union. Do you think that it’s important for the U.S. to lead the world in space exploration, or should it be more of a partnership between nations?
Absolutely the United States should lead in space, for the survival of the United States. It’s inspiring for the next generation. If we lose leadership, then we’ll be using Chinese capability to inspire Americans.
You were critical of President Bush and NASA’s proposal to return to the moon, but the moon does play a role in your conception of a mission to Mars. Can you explain?
To send humans back to the moon would not be advancing. It would be more than 50 years after the first moon landing when we got there, and we’d probably be welcomed by the Chinese. But we should return to the moon without astronauts and build, with robots, an international lunar base, so that we know how to build a base on Mars robotically.
What would the moon base look like?
I think it should be an early version of a habitation module for a U.S. interplanetary spacecraft. We would put it there for testing temperature control, the temperature changes with 14 days of sunlight and 14 days of darkness on the moon, radiation protection—that’s absolutely necessary for venturing beyond the earth’s magnetic field.
After we build the moon base, you believe we should use what we learned and send humans to Mars’ moon, Phobos, to build a base on Mars.
That would be my preference. We’ve learned, with the robots Spirit and Opportunity on the surface of Mars, that you can’t control them adequately from the Earth. What we’ve done in five years on Mars could be done in one week—that’s a significant advance—if we had human intelligence in orbit around Mars. It’s much, much easier to send people there for a year and a half and then bring them back, before sending them back later to permanently land on Mars.
So to return to Earth, it’s easier to launch off Phobos than Mars, because Phobos is a smaller body with less gravity?
Yes. We need to build the base on Mars from orbit before sending people to the surface. And they will be permanent settlers and not return to earth, like the Pilgrims on the Mayflower left Europe.
You think we can actually get humans to live out their lives on Mars?
Absolutely.
How can people be persuaded to do that? You’d be asking them to sacrifice a lot. It’s a big step.
It wouldn’t be a problem, getting volunteers, fully capable people, to assume that mission for the rest of their lives. They will realize that they will go down in history. The pilgrims were a big step, too. Columbus was a big step. Magellan was a big step.
Why should humans colonize another planet?
There may be diseases, there may be nuclear conflict or there may be an impact by a very large asteroid that endangers the human race. Stephen Hawking says we have about 200 years. And I said to him, I think we could make it to another planet in less than 50 years.

President Kennedy famously announced in 1961 that we should send a man to the moon by the end of that decade. Do you think we need a similar declaration in order to kick start the Mars mission?
That is my goal. A leader on Earth who makes such a commitment will go down in history more than Alexander the Great, Queen Isabella or almost anyone. The 50^th anniversary celebrations of Apollo 11 through Apollo 17, between 2019 and 2022, should be a very significant time period for the leader of a country on Earth to make a commitment for human beings to establish permanence on another planet in the solar system. But instead of the one decade that Kennedy used for the moon, we would probably require two decades.
You’ve been a big supporter of space tourism, but so far it’s only been available to a wealthy few. Do you think it can lead to innovation?
Certainly it can, by inspiring young people, industry and the government. One of the first space tourists [Dennis Tito], buying his own ticket to fly on the Russian spacecraft to the Russian-augmented United States space station, is the initiator and the leader of “Inspiration Mars,” a proposal to fly a married couple around Mars and back in 2018.
What do you think of that idea?
It’s a very inspiring mission, which I strongly support. It would be a year and a half, for the crew, and we would learn many things about having people in space for a long duration: radiation exposure, the high-speed reentry, many other things. But the major thing is firing up our leaders and the people to adequately fund further exploration.
A lot of American technological genius these days seems to be devoted to social media and the Internet. Do you worry that our best minds are working on apps for your iPhone rather than trying to get us to Mars?
Not necessarily. That’s progress, and I’m trying to keep up with communication enhancement and information technology, so I can communicate with this younger generation. Sometimes people pay more attention to me than they do to the news from NASA. An example is “Dancing with the Stars,” the popular TV program. For many people I’m more known for that and several other television appearances than for the moon landing. I try and remain visible to the public. Your generation developed all of this technology, and I’m trying to catch up with all of it. But it obviously is a distraction, just like the Notre Dame football team and the Lone Ranger were for me growing up.
What was it like to walk on the moon?
My observation was, “Magnificent desolation.” It was magnificent for the human race to be able, as Neil Armstrong said, to take that step. But the desolation for the people taking that small step—it was more desolate than any scenery here on Earth.
What were your emotions when you were taking that step?
Caution, apprehension and exhilaration. Not fear. That comes after. I was following my commander and executing what we trained for.
Do you have a question for Buzz Aldrin? Ask him as a part of our “The Future is Here” conference on June 1. The answers will be filmed and streamed live from the event on that day.
He will also be signing copies of his book at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, from 11 am to 2 pm on June 1 in the museum gift shop.

Take your blood pressure medication!

Spent most of yesterday in the hospital, where my mother was admitted. Her doctor had changed her blood pressure medication a couple of weeks ago, it wasn't doing the job. Unfortunately her doctor was out of town and a home therapist said we should take her to the Emergency Room.

Bad idea, as far as I'm concerned. Put her back on her old medication which was working, just causing her to cough.

Instead we brought her to the emergency room, and since she's old and deaf, this got her more stressed out and scared than ever, because they were all gathered around her shouting questions and wanting to run tests and I'm sure she thought she was dying or something, which sent her blood pressure even higher.

She spent the night there, and is still in today for more tests, which I don't think she needs but I guess since they've got her in there they want to get their money's worth out of our insurance...  she's in a private room which must be costing a fortune....

The reason for my headline... she was about 40 when she was first diagnosed with high blood pressure...took pills for a couple of days but didn't like how they made her feel....so she stopped taking them and tried to do the "natural remedy" thing.

Result, 20 years later she had congestive heart failure, and now instead of taking 1 pill a day she has to take 4. And has to go into the hospital periodically on occasions like these.

Moral of the story - go get your blood pressure checked, and if you have high blood pressure make sure you take your meds, otherwise believe me you'll wish you had, when it is too late...

Voyager 1 space probe reaches outer fringe of solar system

From Reuters:  Voyager 1 space probe reaches outer fringe of solar system


(Reuters) - Voyager 1, launched in 1977 to explore the outer planets, has passed into a new region on its way out of the solar system, scientists said on Wednesday.
The spacecraft, now more than 11 billion miles (18 billion km) away, detected two distinct and related changes in its environment on August 25, 2012, scientists write in paper to be published in Geophysical Research Letters and emailed to Reuters on Wednesday.
The probe detected dramatic changes in the levels of two types of radiation, one that stays inside the solar system, the other which comes from interstellar space.
The number of particles inside the solar system's bubble in space, a region called the heliosphere, dropped to less than 1 percent of previously detected levels, while radiation from interstellar sources nearly doubled, said astronomer and lead author Bill Webber, professor emeritus at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

 

Scientists are not yet ready to say Voyager is in interstellar space, however.
The probe, which blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on September 5, 1977, may be in a new and previously unknown boundary region between the heliosphere and interstellar space.
Webber refers to this area as the "heliocliff."
"It's outside the normal heliosphere," Webber said in a statement. "Everything we're measuring is different and exciting."
In December, scientists said Voyager had reached what they called a "magnetic highway," where magnetic field lines from the sun connect with magnetic field lines from interstellar space.
"We believe this is the last leg of our journey to interstellar space," Voyager project scientist Edward Stone said at the time. "Our best guess is it's likely just a few months to a couple years away."
In a statement on Wednesday, Stone said more evidence is needed to indicate Voyager has left the solar system.
"It is the consensus of the Voyager science team that Voyager 1 has not yet left the solar system or reached interstellar space," Stone said.
"A change in the direction of the magnetic field is the last critical indicator of reaching interstellar space and that change of direction has not yet been observed," he said.
Voyager 1 and a sister spacecraft, Voyager 2, were launched 16 days apart in 1977 to fly past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
Voyager 2 is traveling on a different path out of the solar system and is not believed to have reached the magnetic highway toward interstellar space yet.

 

Never get involved in a land war in Asia

and never agree to transcribe 20 hours of meetings from an Australian business meeting.

That's what I've been doing for the last 4 days...utter nightmare. Could NOT understand their accents. Making it worse were the bad audio levels and the fact that a lot of the people preesnt insisted on talking over each other from all around the room except in front of the microphone... I will never transcribe ANYTHING every again.

Anyway, so sorry to be MIA from my blogs.

National Geographic Space Exploration Timeline

It's a presentation, so you have to go see it via a computer, but it looks pretty cool so check it out.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/125/timelines/space-exploration/?source=hp_125_nghistoryt_imeline_20130215

Fallen Heroes of Space Exploration: A Memorial

From Space.com: Fallen Heroes of Space Exploration: A Memorial

Apollo 1 Crew Credit: NASAOn Jan. 27, 1967, NASA experienced its first space disaster - the deaths of three astronauts during a training excercise for the Apollo 1 mission. Pictured are the three Apollo 1 prime crewmembers intended for the first manned Apollo space flight: (L to R) Edward H. White II, Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, and Roger B. Chaffee. A fire inside the Apollo Command Module during a test took the lives of all three astronauts. NASA had not experienced a disaster of this magnitude previously.   Go to the link to see all of the photos.

 

Challenger Center inspires love of space exploration

From NWIT Times:  Challenger Center inspires love of space exploration

Challenger Learning Center students explore outer space while still on Earth but thanks to that experience, many start setting their sights to the stars.
The science education center, on Hammond Purdue University Calumet campus, uses space as the hook to get kids interested in career skills related to science, technology, engineering and math, also known as STEM.
It does 95 percent of its work during school based field trips, but also features public programs such as Family Science Night and summer camps, said Becky Manis, the center’s executive director.
New this school year is "Moon Based Explorers", which was developed for students in kindergarten through second grade.
“It’s all part of a simulation where they pretend they are astronauts and use their skills,” Manis said. “It’s Next Generation Standards based. It also meets the Common Core Standards for language and math.”
Kindergartners at Elliott Elementary School in Munster took advantage of the new program.
“They love all the hands-on experiments that help them understand what would be needed to live away from Earth,” said Julie Glavin, a kindergarten through fifth grade science teacher at the school. “They really enjoy putting on their space suits and ‘going to the moon.’ ”
Elliott students have been taking field trips to the center since its inception and currently its kindergartners, third- and fifth- graders visit.
“Its activities provide, inform and enhance the school’s science curriculum,” Glavin said. “Most importantly, the Challenger Center is very complimentary to the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) initiative that is becoming integral in instructing 21st century learners.”
Karey Shanks, who currently teaches second grade at Elliott, said she always enjoyed visiting the Challenger Center when she taught fifth grade.
“This experience provided an event that was memorable,” she said. “Even years after the students left Elliott School, they remembered their Challenger Center experiences.”
The Challenger Center helped her students gain confidence, she said, because it gave them grown-up achievements.
“They really felt like astronauts and did not want to let their team members down,” she said of the life-like experience. It inspired her students to aspire to be astronauts or scientists.
“Lights, sirens, computers, robotic arms, controlled radiation chambers, medical tests, smoke, what was not to love?” she said. The students loved every part of it from the chamber where they entered the space station to problem solving in mission control to debriefing and speaking with astronaut Jerry Ross.
Shanks said the experience was so real that many of her students truly believed they discovered a new object in space, and she was honored when they often chose to name it after her.
The center staff hopes to reach more future scientists with a new underwater astronaut training camp, which they hope to launch as a summer camp, Manis said. Working with SCUBA instructors, camp attendees will mimic the astronauts’ work in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab and practice tasks in the pool.
Another plan for the summer is an intergenerational camp that will bring together grandparents and their grandkids.
Summer camp registration typically begins in March and sessions fill up quickly.
“Our center is not just about space but it’s about the science and engineering and math. It’s about work force ready skills. If you think about our future, how much knowledge citizens will need to be productive and strengthen the U.S. We have such a heavy future ahead of us and we need to prepare our kids for the future. Our programs do that. They inspire kids by using space as the hook.”
Manis said the programs are highly educational with a lot of content built into them so teachers can match many standards.
“It should make it easy for teachers to prove that the field trips they take here are worthwhile.”
For more information on the center, call 219-989-3250 or visit www.clcnwi.com.

 

OMG!

Never realized I hadn't posted in over 2 weeks!

Sorry, folks

Things have just gotten away from me the last week and a half...posting should be back on schedule starting this weekend.

Herschel: The Asteroid Apophis More Massive Than Thought

From Sci-News:  Herschel: Asteroid Apophis More Massive Than Thought

New observations of the asteroid Apophis made with ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory as it approached our planet few days ago show the asteroid to be bigger than first thought.

Herschel’s view of the asteroid Apophis at wavelengths 70, 100 and 160 microns (ESA / Herschel / PACS / MACH-11 / MPE / B.Altieri / ESAC / C. Kiss / Konkoly Observatory)

Apophis (known as 99942 and 2004 MN4) is a near-Earth asteroid discovered on June 19, 2004 by R. A. Tucker, D. J. Tholen and F. Bernardi at the Kitt Peak National Observatory.
ESA’s Herschel observed the asteroid on January 5-6, 2013 during about 2 hours on its approach to Earth at about 14.5 million km.
“As well as the data being scientifically important in their own right, understanding key properties of asteroids will provide vital details for missions that might eventually visit potentially hazardous objects,” said Dr Laurence O’Rourke of the European Space Astronomy Center in Spain.
Herschel provided the first thermal infrared observations of Apophis at different wavelengths, which together with optical measurements helped refine estimates of the asteroid’s properties.
Previous estimates bracketed the asteroid’s average diameter at 270 ± 60 m; the new observations returned a more precise diameter of 325 ± 15 m.
“The 20% increase in diameter, from 270 to 325 m, translates into a 75% increase in our estimates of the asteroid’s volume or mass,” explained Dr Thomas Müller of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, who led the analysis of the new Herschel data.
By analyzing the heat emitted by Apophis, Herschel also provided a new estimate of the asteroid’s albedo of 0.23. This value means that 23% of the sunlight falling onto the asteroid is reflected; the rest is absorbed and heats up the asteroid. The previous albedo estimate for Apophis was 0.33.
“These numbers are first estimates based on the Herschel measurements alone, and other ongoing ground-based campaigns might produce additional pieces of information which will allow us to improve our results,” Dr Müller said.
“Although Apophis initially caught public interest as a possible Earth impactor, which is now considered highly improbable for the foreseeable future, it is of considerable interest in its own right, and as an example of the class of Near Earth Objects,” said Dr Göran Pilbratt, ESA’s Herschel Project Scientist. “Our unique Herschel measurements play a key role for the physical characterization of Apophis, and will improve the long-term prediction of its orbit.”

 

Posts resume Thursday

I know I've been saying this periodically but this will be the last time I say it...I'm visiting relatives and although they have Wi fi I don't have a private room to work.

I'll be home Thursaday and will get back into the swing of things then.

Russia to allocate 2.1 trln rubles for space exploration by 2020 - Medvedev

From Russia: Beyond the Healines:  Russia to allocate 2.1 trln rubles for space exploration by 2020 - Medvedev

The Russian space exploration industry will receive 2.1 trillion rubles in funding in 2013-2020, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said.

"Historically, our positions in the space exploration field have probably been the strongest in the world, and this should be maintained. Russia has been and will remain a leading space power," Medvedev said at the last government session in 2012 on Thursday.

"The aggregate size of financing is very significant - 2 trillion and 100 billion rubles, including extra-budgetary sources," the premier said.

"Quite a lot of problems" have piled up in the industry, Medvedev said. He recalled that conferences on optimizing the industry's administration and improvement of rocket equipment's quality and reliability were held three times from August to November.

 "The draft government program is aimed at attaining these objectives and ensuring defense capability and security in the development of this country's economy and social sector and further exploration of outer space," he said.

This program would enable Russia to be properly involved in promising joint projects, such as the International Space Station or the exploration of the Moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies, he said.

Medvedev also emphasized that, given proper funding, rocket industry enterprises must increase their labor productivity and improve the quality and reliability of its products. "As for reliability, I specifically emphasize this word. This is a key factor now," he said.