Armageddon and Asteroids

"The Bible calls this day "Armageddon" - the end of all things. And yet, for the first time in the history of the planet, a species has the technology to prevent its own extinction. All of you praying with us need to know that everything that can be done to prevent this disaster is being called into service. The human thirst for excellence, knowledge; every step up the ladder of science; every adventurous reach into space; all of our combined modern technologies and imaginations; even the wars that we've fought have provided us the tools to wage this terrible battle. Through all of the chaos that is our history; through all of the wrongs and the discord; through all of the pain and suffering; through all of our times, there is one thing that has nourished our souls, and elevated our species above its origins, and that is our courage."

--The President in ARMAGEDDON--

This fanciful rover vehicle was built for the movie. Euro-Disney's ARMAGEDDON attraction also takes us inside the movie's broken down Russian Space Station. Through special effects we experience collisions, fires and depressurisation! The artists were inspired by the Russian MIR station, which experienced all three.

Though the movie is fun, it contains more technical errors than STAR WARS. A wheeled vehicle could not get traction in the low gravity of an asteroid, so it has upward-pointing jets pinning it to the surface! Even small asteroids "whoosh" by in the movie's vacuum of Space. One forecast, however, may have been ahead of its time. The 2 movie spacecraft are launched around the Moon and to an asteroid atop standard Shuttle Enternal Tanks and 4-segment Solid Rocket Boosters. This is very much like the "Sidemount" concept being studied by NASA and the Augustine Commission.

The hardware being built for the Moon can also take humans to an asteroid. After movies like ARMAGEDDON and DEEP IMPACT, such a mission would fire the public imagination. Despite their danger, asteroids could also be the source of limitless resources. Even a small asteroid could potentially contain more iron than humans have used in all history! Some scientists believe that asteroid Ceres contains more water than Earth. Realistic versions of this vehicle could someday be drilling for minerals on the Moon and asteroids.

UPDATE: Congratulations to the crew of Endeavour and Godspeed for a successful mission!

Nautilus

Congratulations to SpaceX for a second successful flight of Falcon 1 into orbit! Note the "Columbiad" cannon on Space Mountain. Jules Verne foresaw it all!

The "Mysteries of the Nautilus" is unique to Euro-Disney. California Disneyland put the sets of 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA on display until the 1960's. Under the guidance of Hollywood propmaster (and LEAGUES fan) Tom Scherman, Disney's Nautilus has been rebuilt in the lagoon alongside Space Mountain. With a plot that is actually better than the novel, the 1956 movie is a true classic.

We descend "underwater" to explore the interior, including Nemo's cabin. Captain Nemo, being an independent explorer, relied on neither Paris nor Greenwich for longitude. As in the movie, distances on the chart are measured from his base at Vulcania.
Verne described the Nautilus as spindle-shaped. Originally Walt Disney wanted a streamlined hull, like modern subs. Production Designer Peter Ellenshaw added the barbed fins and Victorian detailing that filmgoers fell in love with. In Verne's novel the salon, dining room and library were separate compartments. The movie combined them into one big set. An animatronic giant squid lurks outside the viewports, occasionally approaching the ship.

Verne wrote that Nautilus used electric motors, but was unclear about the source of electricity. In 1956 the US Navy had built a real Nautilus, and Disney made the movie sub atomic-powered.

Verne dreamed about a limitless source of energy. As late as 1909 if someone had lectured about the future of energy they would have talked about coal and oil. Though the world had not yet taken notice, in 1905 a scientist had written E=mc^2. By 1945 humans had built both nuclear reactors and an atomic bomb. In 1954 the real Nautilus was launched.

If someone in 2009 lectures about the future they may talk about solar, power satellites, and the always-distant possibility of controlled fusion. Already we know of far greater sources. Nuclear fusion turns only 0.7% of its fuel into energy. Matter falling into a Black Hole can turn almost 50% into energy. Instead of scarce Helium-3 the fuel could be anything, even old issues of National Geographic. The food that a single Frenchwoman eats, about 1 ton per year, could provide all the electricity needs of Europe! All we need is to capture a single microscopic Black Hole. That could be nearer than we think.


The access point for the nuclear reactor is visible between the aft personnel hatch and the skiff. As we wait in line for Space Mountain, Verne's Nautilus provides wonder and much food for thought. NEXT: Death by asteroid?

Shadow of the Moon and Wonder Of It All

STS-127 attempted to launch bot Saturday and Sunday nights. After each day's launch was scrubbed, the evening was not lost. Saturday night, University of Houston Clear Lake (adjacent to JSC) played the documentary SHADOW OF THE MOON, introduced by Flight Controller Glenn Lunney. The movie told the intimate story of 8 men who landed on the Moon. Only 9 moonwalkers survive, and their experiences are priceless.

Sunday night at 8:00 PM Space Center Houston's IMAX theatre was host to the new film THE WONDER OF IT ALL. Way back in May 2008 we previewed this fine film at ISDC in Wahington. WONDER also features interviews with the men who walked on the Moon. Here director Jeffrey Roth answers questions with Apollo 7 astronaut Walter Cunningham (who looks great, by the way).

Another launch attempt is scheduled for 6:51 PM ET Monday. Our hopes still travel with the astronauts into Space.

UPDATE: At about 6:30 PM EST, we received a NO GO for weather. They will try again Wednesday. Meanwhile in the Pacific, SpaceX is counting down to launch Falcon 1 into orbit. What an exciting week!

Disney in Paris

Each Disney park is a bit different, which makes it fun to visit them all. Disneyland Resort Paris emphasises the European roots of fairy tales, starting with the castle.

Tomorrowland has become Discoveryland, inspired by France's native son Jules Verne. The decor is 19th century steampunk, full of brass and rivets. A redesigned Space Mountain blasts you off in a cannon like FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON. The Hyperion airship from Disney's ISLAND AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD was inspired by the French Lebaudy airships of 100 years ago.

Not everything in Discoveryland is steampunk-- this X-wing fighter decorates the Star Tours outpost. There is no monorail, but the park has a rail station served by TGV and RER from Paris. In Europe the dream of superfast trains has already come true. NEXT: Mysteries of the Nautilus.

Change Coming

Thursday was a meeting with JSC Director Mike Coats. He was full of praise for incoming administrator Charlie Bolden. Not only were Coats and Bolden both astronauts, but they were in the same class at Annapolis years ago. There are possible changes to the Constellation program. The Orion shape is here to stay but can also fit on alternate boosters. As this is being written STS-127 is poised for launch after a delay from lightning Saturday. This is a very exciting time to be at NASA.

Ole Roemer and the Observatoire

For the "Invisible Universe" conference, Paris Observatory was location of a welcoming ceremony Sunday and a farewell cocktail Friday. The grounds contain a line marking the Prime Meridian. For many years navigators disagreed whether to measure longitude from here or Greenwich. Eventually Britain's mastery of the seas led the world to adopt the Greenwich Observatory as Prime Meridian.

For centuries scientists disagreed whether light had a finite speed at all. Aristotle and even Kepler believed that light travelled instantaneously. This was once a reasonable assumption, for light travels so fast that to most observers it seems instantaneous. Galileo suggested stationing observers on distant hilltops with lanterns to determine if there was a time delay. This would have been difficult for Galileo, because a good clock had not been invented!

Young astronomer Ole Roemer came to work at this observatory in 1672, working for Dominic Cassini. At the time there was an anomaly in observations of the Galilean moon Io. The time when the moon emerged from behind Jupiter appeared strangely delayed. Cassini ordered his staff to make more precise observations to resolve the puzzle. Roemer realized that, if light had a finite speed it would take time to cross Io's orbit, delaying the moon's apparent emergence. Using data from this observatory, Roemer was first to measure the speed of light.

Having made a great discovery, Roemer was unable to convince his elders. Cassini was a distinguished astronomer in his own right, but believed that light travelled instantaneously. Finally in 1675 Roemer was bold enough to present the results on his own. He also predicted that on November 9, 1676 Io would appear at 5:35:45 rather than 5:25:45 as astronomers had calculated. Though Roemer's prediction was correct, Cassini and others who followed him insisted that there was no speed of light. It was 50 years before other experiments proved that light had a finite speed.

As scientists once believed that light travelled instantaneously, today they say that its speed is finite but fixed. This was once a reasonable assumption, for channge in c is so slow that to most observers it seems constant. Observations of high-redshift supernovae indicate that light has slowed over time. This result is corroborated by measurements of solar luminosity and light signals reflected from Earth's moon. We will not have to wait 50 years to prove that the speed of light is slowing.

Lumiere

As promised, photos from Paris and the "Invisible Universe" meeting. Here is the view from UNESCO headquarters, the conference site. The parade ground lies in front of Ecole Militaire, where French officers are trained.

Eiffel Tower from Champ Du Mars. In 1783 the Montgolfier Brothers launched their first manned balloon from this site. Since radios were introduced a century ago, the tower has been a natural site for transmitting antennas. Signals radiate outward at the speed of light. Space and Time are one phenomenon, also related by the speed of light. If an event is outside this expanding sphere, its separation is spacelike-the tower's signal is too late to affect that event. If you are "within the sound of my voice" our separation is timelike, literally a matter of time. From this simple principle (without a fixed c) one can derive all the equations of the Lorentz tranformation.

Wednesday the scientists took a boat tour down the Seine and around Ile St. Louis. A long day of meetings leaves one worse for wear. On a hot Summer night crowds gathered around the riverbanks. In the cafe atmosphere of Paris, scientists discussed new ideas like a changing speed of light.

Paris in the Summer When It Sizzles

The weather in Paris has been quite warm this week, around 80 F. After Houston and 100 F temperatures, the weather seems cool. The climate is getting better for new ideas in physics. The "Invisible Universe" conference heard a variety of alternatives to cosmology's standard model. MOND received particular attention, culminating in a long talk by John Moffatt Thursday. Though the majority still believes in Dark Matter, a small group of researchers worldwide are still studying MOND. It is pleasing that other ideas are bieng heard and considered.

Focus on a cosmic constant as the explanation for "dark energy" has led science nowhere. Scientists are now considering a number of soultions including modifications to gravity. Alternative ideas face a high barrier in matching the "predictions" of LCDM. Soon science will learn of a Theory which actually predicts the standard parameters, and also predicts a changing speed of light.

Proportion of baryonic matter is predicted as 4.507034%, where WMAP has found 4.4 +/- 0.3%

The amount of dark mass in galaxies and clusters is 23.87%, where WMAP has found 23 +/- 4%

That leaves 71.62% for other stuff, where WMAP has found 73 +/- 4%

In solving the problem of "dark energy," GM=tc^3 has a very bright future. Pictures from Paris coming soon!

MOND

The UNESCO palace, site of the "Invisible Universe" conference, is across from Ecole Militaire and within sight of the Eiffel Tower. Today there was time for a visit to the War Museum and Napoleon's tomb between talks. Last night I shared a table with Mordecai Milgrom and his wife. This afternoon Milgrom gave a 45-minute talk on MOND, modified Newtonian gravity.

While scientists since Fritz Zwicky and Vera Rubin have looked for "dark matter," Mordecai and colleagues have been developing MOND as an alternative for the last 25 years. Since DM has never been directly observed, the field is open to alternatives. He claims that MOND can match the predictions of DM. The theory is far from complete, Milgrom admits, but today he was able to present before an international audience.

Though they sound similiar, "dark matter" and "dark energy" would be quite different if they both existed. One would attract and the other repel. They possibly share the quality of being misnamed. DM could be made of Black Holes that have never been matter at all. DE can be explained by a changing speed of light. They are both inferences that have never been directly observed.

One of Mordecai's slides had an interesting equation:
a ~ cHo
This is remarkably similar to R = ct, suggesting that they are on to something. (Thanks to nige for pointing out the correct form, which he has pointed out before.) It is good that alternative ideas are being heard.

City of Light Pt. 2

Today at the Invisible Universe, saw talks by George Smoot, Adam Reiss, Ned Wright and others. We ended up having a French banquet at the Pavilion Dauphine. Study of "dark energy" now embraces a variety of ideas. Even Riess admits it might be something other than a cosmic constant. One of these days they may consider a changing speed of light...

City of Light

Am in Paris this week for the "Invisible Universe" international conference. Saturday saw Latin Quarter and Opera House. Today saw Louvre, a reception at the Paris Observatory, and an evening on the Eiffel Tower. Photos soon. In the City light is still slowing.

GM=tc^3 and the Paper Trail

In reponse to Carl and others, here is a partial list of papers on GM=tc^3. An early published paper came from a meeting near Tucson, Arizona March 2004. The paper sits on the shelf in a volume published by Astronomical Society of the Pacific:


Observing Dark Energy.

For a more reasonable price, the paper is sold by the British Library.

GM = tc^3 Space/Time Explanation of Supernova Data

Thanks to NASA and the "Beyond Einstein" program, a similar paper from May 2004 is available at the SLAC website.

GM = tc^3 Space/Time Explanation of Supernova Data

The data chart from this paper is courtesy of the Supernova Cosmology Project and some hand-drawn marks. Theory's prediction matches the "accelerating" data precisely, reason to take notice.

Report to International Astronomical Union at their 2005 meeting in Bali.

Space/Time as Possible Solution to Supernova and Other Problems

The previous papers were published before this little blog started. A longer, but not complete list is available at the Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System, which is much more complete than other archives. Since Max Planck is no longer editor at Annalen der Physik, publishing papers requires quite a lot of patience!

Since this paper trail began, additional data has been found in the Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment and the "Faint Young Sun." It is impossible to prove experimentally that c is constant, because a more accurate experiment can always prove that foolish. Accumulating evidence supports a most surprising prediction, that the speed of light is slowing according to GM=tc^3.

Sidesaddle

On June 17, before the Augustine Commission, Shuttle Program Manager John Shannon described this "Sidemount" development of the Space Shuttle. This is very similiar to Shuttle-C, a cargo version of the Shuttle that was unfortunately never built. By removing the winged orbiter, Shuttle-C could bring twice as much payload to orbit. ISS could have been built with half as many launches and less risk to crews. When Norman Augustine was proposing a course for NASA 20 years ago, Shuttle-C was part of the plan.

The Sidemount booster uses components that are proven and human-rated, like the standard External Tank and 4-segment Solid Rocket Boosters. Because so much is common with Shuttle, this could be built for about 6.6 billion, far less than Ares I. The huge, expensive Ares V would not be needed. Instead of one big and one little rocket, a Moon mission would require 2 launches of one medium-sized booster. Orion would launch with an extra stage to boost the crew into lunar orbit, where it would rendezvous with the lander. Launch Complex 39 and much of the Shuttle workforce would be maintained.

There are some tradeoffs: The weight of the lander is reduced from 48 tons to 28 tons. The Apollo Lunar Module weighed 16 tons. There is a question whether the Space Shuttle Main Engines would be used, and whether those engines would be recovered after flight. Putting an escape tower alongside the External Tank could raise separation issues. At first glance, the Sidemount appears to offer many advantages over the current Constellation architecture. In a limited time of limited budgets, this proposal needs to be examined seriously.

Compliments Get You Nowhere, But Keep Talking

From a student's short paper published in 2004, after some years' work. The hand-drawn line shows that either the universe is accelerating relative to light (violating the First Law of Thermodynamics) OR that light itself is slowing down. Prediction of GM=tc^3 precisely matches the "accelerating" curve. Despite this fit to data, scientists continue to peddle an accelerating universe with a repulsive "dark energy."

However, more and more people are seeing the light. This year the International Astronomical Union is devoting a 3-day symposium to the student's question:

Are the Fundamental Constants Varying With Space/Time?.

A recent commenter asked something so evocative that it should be printed here:

"So, you say that you can better 'conceptualise' this than all the thousands of physicists in the last about 90 years who have studied General Relativity, and better than the even more thousands of mathematicians who have studied Riemannian geometry for even more decades?"

This could be the week's biggest compliment, or a sympton of why new ideas meet such a high potential barrier. It is simliar to what our Czech friend wrote in his 2006 blog post.

"Start to advocate the nice Riofrio, a full-time researcher in cosmology who is suppressed by the sexist pigs in cosmology, despite having her "GM=tc^3" theory of the Cosmos that is far simpler, more important, and more testable than anything that Sean Carroll or any of his colleagues have ever invented during decades if not centuries of their fruitless and expensive efforts."

All one can reply is that discoveries like Relativity or Gravity are almost always made by lone researchers. A good idea takes almost no time to be processed by a single brain. However, a collaboration of 1000 physicists will take forever to accept a new idea. Some of those 1000 minds will not even read their group e-mails. A few of them will never, never accept the new idea. Somewhere along the way the originators of the idea will be told to shut up if they want to stay in physics. It should be axiomatic that a single determined mind is more capable than the group of 1000 minds.

History also shows that one determined mind will work 10, 20 years or however long it takes to solve a problem. No collaboration of 1000 minds could hold together that long, or agree on anything at the end. Epicycles, string theory, inflation and "dark energy" have all led to a divergence of ideas with no solution. Group minds are better for engineering projects like building spacecraft or bigger accelerators.

A student's education has uncovered great resistance to new ideas. It is a great surprise when a young mind solves a problem that has baffled many minds. Possibly for that reason, a "potential barrier" forms among all those jealous physicists. However, history has also shown that a single determined mind is more nimble than a group mind. Quantum mechanics shows that even high potential barriers can be tunnelled through.

Science in a Land of the Lost

A lighter note: In the hilarious new movie LAND OF THE LOST, Will Ferrell plays scientist Dr. Rick Marshall, whose theories of time are ignored by the mainstream. In a TODAY show interview his work is called nonsense by Matt Lauer. At the movie's end, when Lauer has been proven wrong, the TODAY host attacks Marshall with fists! Playing himself, Matt Lauer accurately portrays the mainstream media.

One reviewer, not a scientist but possibly one who has heard that GM=tc^3, noted an interesting angle:

"My guess is that this aspect of the film was not intended as direct satire but instead simply reflects something the filmmakers picked up in the contemporary zeitgeist. However, its presence in the central story of the film and the bookend scenes--which are in very important places in the film, the beginning and end--gives it great prominence and suggests that skepticism toward such claims of consensus has entered the culture as a real phenomenon.

"The claim of consensus and refusal to address scientific evidence, of course, is the direct opposite of the scientific method, which is based on continual attempts to disprove accepted theories and hypotheses. The scientific method treats all claims as hypotheses, not facts, and requires humility on the part of the scientist.

"TODAY, by contrast, on subjects as varied as earth's temperature record, the process(es) of species origination, and EVEN WHETHER THE SPEED OF LIGHT IS CONSTANT, many people knowingly misuse science for political purposes, arguing that "the science is settled" on a variety of issues when it most certainly is not. (People have done this throughout history, of course.)

The Word Gets Out

Democracy protesters gather in Naghshe Jahan Square, Esfehan, Iran. This photo arrived via Twitpic.

UPDATE: The next protest is on at 4 PM Tehran time. Spread the word!

We live in a world where information is at our fingertips, yet mainstream media tells us that Osama Bin Laden is alive and the Universe is dominated by "dark energy.". Forces of darkness try to control the media so that even intelligent people are kept in the dark. Despite the dictatorship's best efforts, word of the uprising is getting out via blogs and Twitter.

In Iran bands of thugs, some imported from abroad, have beaten people senseless and ramsacked college campuses. This was written by "Kaveh" from Tabriz:

Don't Accept This Coup

Ahmadinejad has taken revenge on the students of Iran during these violent days. The regime's aim is to damage universities, since they are the first base of change, movement and protest.

I live in the dorms at Tehran University. I was asleep when Basij militiamen entered my room early Monday morning, demolished everything and started beating us. A man with a long beard broke my notebook and said: "It is destroyed, this book that you were using against Islam and Ahmadinejad."

They beat students more when they saw posters of Mousavi in their rooms. And they carried big knives and guns.

They also attacked the women's dormitory next door. The Supreme Leader calls us rioters, but I want to ask him: How can sleeping women in their beds be rioters? Is this the Islamic justice he believes in?

President Obama's speech was good; he says that he will support us. He also said that nations must decide the fate of their countries by themselves. I agree with him, but now we don't have any power to change the situation, so we need help and attention.

We ask the president not to accept this coup d'etat.

LRO/LCROSS Liftoff

Thursday 3:00 PM at the Lunar and Planetary Institute was a lecture by Walter Kiefer on the Aristarchus region of the Moon. The Moon contains many "pyroclastic deposits," similiar to lava fields on our Big Island. Aristarchus is the largest pyroclastic deposit on the Moon, composed of many layers of solidified lava. Digging in these layers could give us a history of solar and supernova events. With abundant resources for fuel and oxygen, Aristarchus is a prime choice for future human landings.

After the lecture, televisions at LPI were tuned to NASA TV for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter LRO/LCROSS launch. After a slight delay for weather, the Atlas rocket lifted off at 4:12 PM Houston time. This mission is a needed precursor to those future human landings. Everyone at LPI in Houston has great hope that scientists will again walk on the Moon.

Warm Wet Mars and the Speed of Light

Solar luminosity vs. solar system age. L/Lo is luminosity as a fraction of present value. Lower line is standard solar model. Upper line indicates luminosity when c change is a factor. If speed of light c is precisely related to Universe age t by GM = tc^3, luminosity remains within a comfortable range for life to evolve.

From a University of Colorado at Boulder press release. Using the HIRISE experiment onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, scientists have found definitive evidence of shorelines on ancient Mars. The features are signs of an ancient lake about 3.4 billions years old. This adds to meteorite evidence that early Mars was warm enought for liquid water and life.

According to standard models, several billion years ago the Sun shone with only 75% of its present luminosity. Earth and Mars would have been frozen solid. This "faint young Sun" is a hypothesis that is not supported by experement. A mountain of evidence from Earth and Mars shows that both planets were warm when the model says they were frozen.

Fortunately, the Sun turns fuel to energy according to E=mc^2. If the speed of light changed according to GM=tc^3, solar luminosity would remain within a comfortable range. If c had not changed in the amounts predicted, life would not have evolved on Earth.

The evidence is mounting! Soon there will be still more evidence from the Moon, an anomaly like that of Mercury's orbit. While scientists continue to peddle "dark energy," this growing mass of data is largely overlooked.

Defiance

A defiant Persian woman waving the green flag standing up to the security forces this weekend. Supposedly the women have shown bravery in situations where men ran. Despite violent crackdowns and killings, the protests continues. The world has been watching with great interest and sympathy. Shortly this blog will link to more pictures and video.

According to the BBC, 1-2 million people marched in Tehran Monday.

Also from the weekend, CNN reports that students are pleading for the US not to accept this illegitimate government. Where is the US leadership? Why does the President of the US not strongly condemn the regime?

UPDATE: At his moment, there are reports of the Iranian Army moving into Tehran! The people still have strength in numbers--if the crowds stay strong, even an Army will have difficulty crushing them. A few IED's planted at strategic locations would help too. Where is the American President?

Lunar Surface Rendezvous

Another peek into the hatch of the Orion mockup. In a Lunar Surface Rendezvous, Orion would land on the Moon, where it would be refuelled for the return trip by a second, unmanned lander.

John Kennedy challenged America to put a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth. When the first Moon missions were planned, engineers faced a dilemma. No chemical rocket could land crew on the Moon and return them in one launch. Von Braun's first plan called for two launches and an Earth orbit rendezvous. One vehicle would provide fuel for the other to reach the Moon. Rebel engineers proposed a riskier Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR). Thanks to those determined engineers the US reached the Moon in the 1960's.

The present Constellation plan uses both Earth Orbit Rendezvous and Lunar Orbit Rendezvous. Each crewed mission to the Moon will require launching both Ares I and the big Ares V. As we saw this weekend with STS-127, many things can delay a rocket launch. If either Ares I or Ares V fails to make the rendezvous, a very expensive mission could be scrubbed.

Former NASA engineer Dan Adamo has come up with an alternate plan, a Lunar Surface Rendezvous. In this scenario two Ares V vehicles would separately launch to the Moon, one bringing crew and the other fuel. The key to the plan is a refuelling at the landing site. Hitting the same landing site on the Moon is fairly easy--40 years ago Apollo 12 landed within feet of Surveyor. According to Dan, this plan offers many advantages for reliability and crew safety.

Friday in Johnson Space Center Building 16 Dan had a chance to present his plan to interested NASA personnel. The NASA engineers know their jobs and asked very detailed questions. Dan has also tried to contact the Augustine Commission. In this critical year 2009, multiple plans for reaching the Moon will be considered. Let us hope that minority ideas get their chance.

Kaguya Into the Moon

Wednesday June 10 Japan's Kaguya probe crashed into the Moon. Many telescopes were focused on this event. This 1:15 video shows the view as Kaguya descended within 15 km of the surface. This is similiar to the view astronauts would have before landing.

Orion

Orion mockup in Johnson Space Center Bldg 9

The Orion spacecraft is key to travel beyond low Earth orbit. Modelled after Max Faget's design for Apollo, it will travel much farther than Shuttle or SpaceX's Dragon. Even competing architectures like DIRECT are based on this design. As demonstrated 40 years ago, it is a great shape for the Moon and beyond.

Friday at JSC was a briefing on the current status of Orion with managers Mark Geyer and Larry Price. They showed some never-before-seen videos of engine firings and Launch Abort System tests. Overall they were upbeat about the program. They feel the Orion portion of Constellation is on track for a March 2015 human flight.

Every program like this has bumps. This week a report claimed that Air Force experts doubt the LAS' ability to carry the crew away from an exploding booster. Concerns like this need to be addressed. A greater challenge lies in the Ares I booster. Though the means to carry it is subject to change, Max Faget's reentry shape still survives.

Next Big Future hosts the new Carnival of Space!

GM = tc^3 Outlives GM

Since last year, someone in Houston has become known for owning an electric vehicle.

Monday morning June 1 General Motors filed for bankruptcy. Given their history of building wasteful SUV's it is hard to feel sorry. The Chrysler Corporation will shortly follow into Chapter 11. These corporations may stagger on like zombies, sustained by government takeovers. Subsidies cannot possibly work, for if these companies were good investments then real investors would buy them. No amount of taxpayer dollars will make people want to buy cars. Ford Motor Company, which has so far resisted government control, may be the only surviving major US auto manufacturer.

There is a precedent in commercial aviation. As late as the 1970’s the US had a “Big 3” making jet airliners: Boeing, Lockheed and McDonnell-Douglas. After the expensive L-1011, Lockheed stopped making commercial jets. McDonnell-Douglas, which was already product of a merger with the Douglas Aircraft Company, combined with Boeing in the 1990’s. Jet manufacturing moved overseas with the rise of Airbus and smaller competitors Bombardier and Embraer. With the success of the 787, Boeing is today the sole US commercial jet builder.

With the end of the Cold War, the US aerospace industry consolidated. Grumman Iron Works built the Lunar Module and Naval aircraft like the F-14 and A-6. It merged with Northrop, maker of the B-2 bomber, to become Northrop-Grumman. Lockheed merged with Martin Aircraft to become Lockheed-Martin. This consolidation took place without any government subsidy. Quite the opposite, it occurred in response to the government downsizing defence dollars.

Proponents of "dark energy" seem to dominate, but once Houston was dominated by an energy corporation called Enron. At its height Enron employed 22,000 people, far more than the physicists who peddle “dark energy.” Enron’s profits appeared to accelerate like the universe, but those profits were sustained by fraud. Like the best liars, Enron employees believed that their frauds were the truth. They willfully ignored evidence that Enron was a house of cards ready to fall. The difference between Enron and “dark energy” is that Enron actually owned some energy.

GM = tc^3 has many advantages over GM survivability. GM = tc^3 has no overhead, no legacy costs, no benefits promised to workers, no union pay scales. GM = tc^3 needs no expensive “dark energy” probes, for the evidence already exists. Several lines of data say that light has been slowing according to GM = tc^3 for billions of years. If true, GM = tc^3 will last far longer than any human corporation. Who wants a ride?

From Street Performer to Space

The STS-125 crew is back in town! Today this writer ended up in the JSC cafeteria line right in front of spacewalker Michael Good. Just as we reached the front of the queue the cashier ran out of pennies and he patiently waited. All one could say to the Good man was, “Welcome back!”

While Kea is in Canada, perhaps she will run into Guy Laliberte. Rumour has it that Laliberte will be the next paid spaceflight participant, going up with TMA-16 in October. He left home at age 18 to hitch across Europe, performing on street corners as a stiltwalker and fire-eater. Laliberte enjoyed street performing and considered it a perfect art form. His skills led him to found the world-famous Cirque de Soleil. Today the street performer has a billion dollars in his cup.

Laliberte’s road to Space has been seeded by risk. The life of a street performer can be a rough one. The pay is unsteady and often low. We can be harassed, robbed, attacked and even arrested. In 1984 the troupe landed a contract to perform for Quebec’s 375th anniversary. Guy recalls, “We had every problem starting a big top could have. The tent fell down on the first day. We had problems getting people into shows. It was only with the courage and arrogance of youth that we survived.”

In 1987 Laliberte bet everything to perform at the Los Angeles Art Festival opening. “If we failed,” he recalls, “there was no cash for gas to come home.” The LA appearance was a success, leading to contracts and financial success. Tonight Cirque de Soleil has 6 shows running simultaneously in Las Vegas. In addition to his circus activities, Laliberte in 2007 placed 4th in the Las Vegas World Poker Tour.

Some people complain that NASA has become risk-averse, but Guy LaLiberte is no stranger to risk. His shows have entertained huge crowds and given him the wherewithal to follow his dreams. To explore the Universe, we must take risks. Guy Laliberte’s bravery and circus skills would be a welcome addition to Space.

Another Voice

Nige reminds us of the work by Richard Lieu at Univeristy of Alabama. Lieu has been another voice crying out in the wilderness, pointing out inconsistencies in mainstream science. He helped organise "Outstanding Questions for the Standard Cosmological Model," a conference (funded by the NSF) in London which this writer was unfortunately late for. Nige agrees on many things, including the sad incompetence of the local government.

Lieu's 2007 paper was entitled LCDM cosmology: how much suppression of credible evidence, and does the model really lead its competitors, using all evidence? His conclusions:

"Cosmologists should not pretend to be mainstream physicists, because there is only one irreproducible Universe and control experiments are impossible. The claim to overwhelming evidence in support of dark energy and dark matter is an act of exaggeration which involves heavy selection of evidence and an inconsiderate attitude towards alternative models with fewer (or no) dark components. When all evidence are taken into account, it is by no means clear that LCDM wins by such leaps and bounds.

"Thus I do not see the wisdom of funding agencies in planning such ambitious and expensive programs to perform dark energy research, to the detriment of other fields of astronomy, as though cosmology has now become a branch of physics, which it will never be. These programs all have the common starting point that dark energy is really out there - no question about it. I hope the present article demonstrated the contrary."

Lieu measures the hodgepodge "LCDM" comsology with some alternatives you might not have heard about--from T. Shanks (2007), Subir Sarkar and Alain Blanchard (2003). These little-known cosmologies use the Einstein-de Sitter model where Omega = 1, and match just as many observations. Their main failing is not matching supernova data, for which the "standard model" adds the fudge factor of "dark energy."

Mainstream science and press promotes a hodgepodge model Through papers and conferences, word is getting out that there is Trouble with Physics. Alternative models explain as many observations as the mainstream, except for supernovae. All these models need is a changing speed of light.

UPDATE: As this is published, we have word that Home Secretary "Jackboot Jacqui" Smith is finally stepping down. Was it the Orweellian monitoring of cel phone calls and internet traffic? The ID scheme that would cost each citizen 60 pounds on top of the billions for implementing it? Charging a second home to the taxpayer while living with her sister? Making her husband a paid assistant? Said husband watching dirty movies at home alone and charging the taxpayer? Her giving him a 400 dollar iPhone and charging that too? She will shortly stand for re-election in her home district, though she is not popular enough to get elected dog-catcher. This relates to science in that dictatorship allows mediocrity to reach the top.

"Inconsistent"

Wondrous Kea has spent the last week in a cosmology conbference at Perimeter Institute in Ontario. She links to Glenn Starkman's talk, If the CMB is right, it is inconsistent with standard inflationary Lambda CDM. Starkman has been a voice crying out in the wilderness, pointing out that the inflationary paradigm is ruled out by both COBE and WMAP experiments. Here is the data graph, this time from David Spergel of the WMAP team. Even those people are asking whether the Universe is finite after all.

According to the inflationary paradigm, the Universe was initially small but expanded at warp speed, many times faster thanb light. Today it would be flat, like Earth. Density fluctuations would be the same at all scales. Reality intrudes: fluctuations are nearly zero beyond 60 degrees. This indicates curvature in the Universe as surely as a ship's sails disappearing over the horizon.

Why does this graph not get more attention? Physicists blindly follow the epicycles of inflated LCDM because no alternatives have been presented to them. In the past those alternatives had difficulty even getting published. The world is changing, and people are starting to wonder whether the Universe is curved or the speed of light can change. The data is consistent with a Universe of radius R = ct. Theory also predicts 4.507034% baryons and 23.87% dark mass, precisely as found by WMAP. A growing body of evidence supports the most surprising prediction, a changing speed of light.

Altair

NASA is bending metal to build spacecraft for the Moon. Previously in Johnson Space Center Building 220 we saw a mockup Moonbase under construction. Today we have an exclusive look at a mockup of the Altair lander being built. Here is the airlock module and small model of the completed Altair.

The ascent and airlock modules are posed with a Spacesuit for scale. The designers chose to minimize the size of the ascent module. 4 people will have to spend a week in that little thing! For scientists, the weight of lunar samples that can be returned will be limited. We hope to include modern miniaturised microscopes so that the astronauts can choose which rocks are valuable enough to return. Altair is designed to return 100 kg of samples, but designer John Gruner said at the Lunar Planetary Science Conference that it can be raised to 250 kg.

The completed Altair will be big, nearly 4 stories tall. These platforms will allow engineers to rapidly stack the modules for different configurations. They are still not sure how payloads will be lowered to the surface. Altair will be the last Constellation spacecraft to be built, so the design is subject to change. If all goes well, 10 years from now people will again walk on the Moon.

Beagle 2 the Moon

The years 1968-69 were a very exciting time in Space. 1968 saw Apollo 7 launch into Earth orbit and Apollo 8 boldly circle the Moon. 40 years ago this month the Apollo 10 crew came within a few miles of the lunar surface. The Apollo and lunar module were respectively named Charlie Brown and Snoopy.

The 1960's were also the heyday of Charles Schulz' Peanuts comic strip. After the tragedy of Apollo 1, NASA adopted Snoopy as a safety mascot. Schulz first drew Snoopy as an astronaut for a pin awarded to exemplary employees. He also drew Snoopy for safety posters which appeared at NASA workcenters. Schulz thought that Snoopy's voyage into Space with Apollo 10 was the highlight of his successful life.

Today, the black & white Communications Carrier Assemblies that astronauts wear beneath their helmets have are known as "Snoopy caps." The Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, California is hosting a unique exhibit "To the Moon: Snoopy Soars With NASA" through July 20. The exhibit includes original drawings and NASA memorabilia from that exciting time. On June 27 they welcome special guest Rusty Schweickhart. Bring your skates, because the museum has a very nice ice skating rink.

Beagle 2 (named after Charles Darwin's ship) was the unsuccessful Mars lander that disappeared in 2003. We are still not sure if the lander actually reached Mars. Scientists here at Johnson Space Center have proposed Beagle 2 the Moon. This inexpensive mission would test the Beagle 2 science package on our satellite. We may someday hear from the Moon that the Beagle has landed.

NEXT: Looking forward, an exclusive look at a new lunar lander taking shape.

Mang's Bat Page hosts the new Carnival Of Space!

No Sex Pt II: Houston, We Have a Hit

Thanks to all those who made the last post one of the most-viewed ever. Before we return to scientific matters, here is a photo from the theatre poster now appearing all over Johnson Space Center. (I wonder who did that?) Houston, your last chance to see the play is this weekend!

On the meantime, Britain's government has proven that matter can implode into a Black Hole. Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer, thinks he can solve the budget problem by raising the top tax rate to 50 percent. This drew protests from artists like Andrew Lloyd Webber and Michael Caine. We greatly admire Caine and would give him a warm welcome in Texas.

Today we learn that Alistair Darling has avoided paying taxes himself. He changed his address 4 times in 4 years to avoid the tax rules. Darling hired an accountant to show him how to avoid taxes, and made the taxpayer pay for the accountant! The Prime Minister claimed two different grace and favour homes to avoid taxes, while enjoying a free home at Downing Street. They have produced a man-made Black Hole, and Britain is spiralling into it.

Speaking of accountants and tax avoidance, the company's next play is THE PRODUCERS!

No Sex Please, We're British!

The unforgettable words of Lubos Motl from 2006:

"This is another contribution to the discussion whether physics PhDs must inevitably understand basics of modern physics. Well, they may have other virtues, of course. ;-)"

The Number One Players began performing for NASA employees at Johnson Space Center in the 1980's. In 1991 the Company moved to the beautiful Harbour Playhouse, largest live theatre in the area. The farce NO SEX PLEASE, WE'RE BRITISH ran for 8 years in London. This photo, from a Galveston paper, features Brian Treybig and Rebecca Bauerlein. In the centre, as Susan the Call Girl, is a familiar face--the programme says she is a scientist at JSC and a member of Screen Actors Guild. Due to overwhelming crowds, NO SEX has been extended to May 31.

Many, many scientists secretly engage in prostitution. This usually involves following fashionable ideas, like strings or dark energies, to get funding and jobs. Because of the rampant prostitution in science, more logical ideas like a changing speed of light are willfully ignored. If an actress is able to play one onstage, she may be unconcerned about becoming a real prostitute.

The real British government is madder than any farce. Previously this blog has sadly noted the Orwellian incompetence of the Home Office, Send In the Clowns and Borders as a Weapon of Censorship. Like a character in our farce, the Home Secretary's husband (who was already on the public payroll as a Parliamentary Aide) was caught watching dirty movies at home alone and charging them as expenses. Since the above posts, Immigration Minister Phil Woolas (appointed by the Home Secretary) was caught charging women's shoes, nail polish and panty liners to the taxpayer. The same week the Prime Minister's makeup notes were left in a taxicab by a bungling aide. (Gordon Brown uses Clinique.) Many other MP's have made the public pay for second homes they did not need. Since these expenses were revealed in the Daily Telegraph, public outrage at Parliament has exploded.

On May 14, Speaker Michael Martin resigned in disgrace, the first Parliament Speaker to resign in 314 years. Martin, like every other parliamentary scofflaw, is still voting and drawing salary. While Martin's expenses were relatively small, he covered up the scandal by making expense reports a State secret. When the story broke, Martin hinted at prosecuting those who leaked the information.

The secret expense reports were leaked to the Daily Telegraph by brave ex-SAS officer John Wick and American expatriate David Gewanter. Gewanter now fears arrest, deportation or worse.

‘I am an American. I was brought up there and I believe that a free Press is the most important and the only defence of our personal freedoms, our liberty and democracy.

‘This Government has been systematically cutting back on our freedoms, our liberty and democracy for some years. That is why I have done it and why I have done it for nothing.

‘Your Government seems to think that people like me are about to sell the stuff to criminals and terrorists and are undermining democracy, but I am not. I am exposing these people for what they are.’

He said his involvement would mean ‘a real serious problem. I’ll get deported or I’ll get locked up or they’ll make life miserable for me for ever’.

On June 4 Britain elects representatives to the European Parliament. The Labour Party is polling below 20%, behind even the UK Independence Party! UKIP believes that Britain should stop surrendering her sovereignity before it is too late. Already the Queen has expressed her great displeasure to Gordon Brown. If Labour does even half as badly as expected, Brown will be forced to call an election he will certainly lose.

A sure sign of dictatorship is that mediocre people rise to the top. The Prime Minister, his Home Secretary, Immigration Minister and entire government are going down faster than a cheap hooker. In the meantime, someone is having a wonderful, wonderful time spoofing the British. She has been cheered by hundreds and will be appearing for other audiences worldwide. Who is smiling now?

Moonbase

Johnson Space Center Building 220 was once home to the X-38 Crew Return Vehicle, which unfortunately was cancelled in 2002. Let us wish better luck for this project. Every human being has contemplated the Moon, and humans have dreamed about living there for decades. In the 1950's Arthur Clarke proposed a lunar base composed of inflatable modules. Today, there are serious planes to finally go to the Moon and stay. For the first time, NASA is building full-scale mockups of a lunar base!

Here for the first time we see the mockups under construction. To the left is a cylindrical habitat, and in the background is a toroidal module. Between the modules, the Lunar Electric Rover is poised for docking with its wheels pointed sideways.

This cylindrical habitat module would be carried in one piece atop a lander like Altair. How it would be lowered from a 3-story tall lander is still being explored. Living space may get cramped in here, for the diameter is even smaller than ISS modules.

The interior of the toroidal module offers much more space. In this concept, a central core would be placed on the Moon and the outer volume would be inflatable. This concept offers much more living Space, and is close to Arthur Clarke's proposal. The wait has taken decades, but this time a lunar outpost may finally happen.

Trillions

How much is a trillion? Watching old episodes of COSMOS, it is easy to recall Carl Sagan marvelling at “billions and billions.” Soon Americans will face a proposed annual deficit of 1.8 TRILLION dollars. This is a big, big number--so far removed from our experience that few can conceive of it. Such numbers are beyond astronomical, for previously only physicists or astronomers had to use them. Perhaps someone thinks that voters are not intelligent enough to grasp 1.8 trillion. It is science’s duty to explain the meaning of trillions.

HOW BIG?

One trillion is 10 raised to the twelfth power, 10^12, 1 followed by 12 zeroes or 1,000,000,000,000. A million, million dollars are very difficult to put into perspective. A million dollar bills laid end to end would form a row 156 kilometres long. To make a trillion, each dollar in that row would be the base of a million-strong column. Each of those columns would reach 65 kilometres. A trillion dollar bills would cover an area of 10,000 square kilometers, large as the States of Hawaii or Massachusetts.

Such a pile of money would truly touch the sky. The paper that makes up dollar bills is 0.01 cm thick. If a trillion dollars were stacked one atop another, they would reach to 100,000 kilometres, more than 1/4 the distance to the Moon. Just stacking those dollars would create a Space Elevator and ensure perpetual access to Space. A trillion dollars would build a city-sized settlement on the Moon or a constellation of solar power satellites. Would the taxpayer get as much for a 1.8 trillion-dollar deficit?

Possibly the only way to envision astronomical numbers is through astronomy. Our Milky Way galaxy contains about 250 billion stars. The number of galaxies in the Universe is also in the hundreds of billions. The years 2000-2008 contained the highest US deficits in history. The highest of these deficits was 450 billion, roughly equal to the number of stars in a galaxy. The projected 2009 deficit is double the record, over 900 billion. The proposed deficit of 1.8 trillion is double 2009’s deficit, 7 times the number of stars in our galaxy! Humans on our tiny dot have barely the vision to conceive of such numbers, much less borrow them.

The proposed deficit is 6000 dollars for every woman, man and child in the US. Only 100 million Americans actually pay federal tax, so each would incur 18,000 dollars of additional debt in a single year. This would add to the 11 trillion dollars of existing US national debt; over 100,000 dollars for each taxpayer. In addition to his or her personal debt, each taxpayer already owes enough for a 4-year college degree, a light plane or a very nice car.

The deficit cannot be blamed on one political party. It grew during 2000-2008 and doubled in 2009, when one party was in power. One reason for the spike was the 700 billion dollar TARP bank “bailout,” signed by the same party’s President. The 787 billion-dollar “stimulus” package was pushed by the other party’s President. Many more billions were spent on "bailouts" for well-connected companies "too big to fail." (see below) These vast sums spent by both parties did not prevent the US from sliding into recession or stop today's unemployment from growing.

INFLATION

The downside of a deficit is inflation. If a government prints money excessively, it erodes the value of a currency and causes prices to rise. In extreme cases, like 1930’s Germany or Zimbabwe today, a currency can become virtually worthless. The last period of US inflation was in the 1970’s, beyond the memory of many voters. If deficits continue to grow, they may learn the meaning of inflation.

In the late 1970’s, when high prices were on everyone’s mind, physicist Alan Guth and others came up with the inflationary paradigm. According to this idea the early Universe inflated at warp speed, many times faster than light. Inflation had the convenient property of being untestable. No experiment could time-travel to the first 10^(-33) seconds of the Universe, or approach the titanic energies near the Big Bang.

Inflation would violate both the First Law of Thermodynamics (conservation of energy) and Relativity’s stipulation that nothing travels faster than light. The various inflationary theories rely on “inflatons,” scalar fields and other entities that have never been seen in Nature. Despite its lack of success the inflationary paradigm persists, crowding out more promising ideas like a changing speed of light.

ONE VOICE

This explanation of trillions may be a voice crying out in the wilderness. Few will likely read it; or it will be crowded out by noise in the media. Like inflation, a faulty idea can gain momentum of its own, drawing attention from a changing speed of light. A government will try to pass a 1.8 trillion-dollar deficit over a public which cannot conceive of such a number. The deficit, and the 11 trillion dollar national debt, will be passed on to our generation.