GM=tc^3

T Minus 1 Day in Florida

2012-01-30T14:45:00.010-10:00

With the retirement of the Shuttles, NASA layoffs and a general lack of direction, it has been easy to believe that Washington does not care for spaceflight. Thanks to the Florida primary, for the last week Space has been an issue in the US. Newt Gingrich, with the audacity of hope, called for a Moonbase by the year 2021. Last week, Space an Issue For 2012? this blog suggested that Mitt Romney come up with a turnaround strategy. Along with a changing speed of light, this prediction has come true.

Friday a letter supporting Romney appeared signed by eight Space notables. These included Mike Griffin, former NASA administrator and architect of the Constellation Program. The list also included Eric Andersen, CEO of Space Adventures, astronauts Gene Cernan and Bob Crippen. In October 2010 Cernan, Neil Armstrong and Jim Lovell signed their own letter severely criticizing what has happened to NASA. Cernan has also called upon NASA administrator Charlie Bolden to resign.

Text of Letter from mittromney.com

"The U.S. space program is a strategic national asset, which makes critical contributions to our scientific knowledge, technological innovation, economic competitiveness, national security, and international leadership. We have watched with dismay as President Obama dismantled the structure that was guiding both the government and commercial space sectors, while providing no purpose or vision or mission. This failure of leadership has thrust the space program into disarray and triggered a dangerous erosion of our technical workforce and capabilities. In short, we have a space program unworthy of a great nation."

Newt Gingrich's call for a Moonbase ignited a debate about Space. The quick response, with experts on board, shows Mitt Romney's organizational skills. Unlike Gingrich, Romney has not yet offered a specific goal for Space. The competitiveness of this race has forced the Space issue into the open. Whatever the results of tomorrow's primary, whoever ends up in the White House, he will have a promise to keep.

Witness For the Prosecution

2012-01-27T12:36:00.003-10:00

Tabitha Clegg, the eccentric witness in Agatha Christie's WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION, playing onstage in Houston this weekend. More about expert witnesses coming soon!

The Moon in 2021?

2012-01-25T19:02:00.009-10:00

"Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."

On July 20, 1969 humanity established a base on the Moon. Achieving that goal accelerated human science, from smaller microprocessors to evidence for a changing speed of light. Thousands were inspired to study math and science. Not by coincidence, human achievement flowered in the time of the Moon landings. Tranqulity Base was soon evacuated, but could be established again. A permanent base on the Moon is simply a matter of will.

Continuing the election story, a gauntlet has been laid. Tuesday in Florida, candidate Newt Gingrich vowed to start a base on the Moon by the end of his second term, the year 2021. Plans for the Moon have been seduced and abandoned for the past 40 years. Is a Moon settlement in that time frame possible? The Moon is achievable by more than one path.

The Orion Multi Purpose Crew Vehicle is being developed by Lockheed Martin. Officially Orion's mission is crew return from low Earth orbit. A first unmanned flight has been scheduled for early 2014 atop a Delta IV booster. That flight will go to an altitude of 8000 km, exposing Orion to the radiation environment of deep Space. The reentry will be at speeds approaching that of lunar return. In today's difficult budget environment Lockheed engineers are designing Orion to go beyond.

The Space Launch System is being designed at Marshall Space Flight Center. SLS will initially be based on Shuttle-derived hardware--an 8.3 meter diameter first stage, RS-25 engines, and 5-segment solid rocket boosters. The big booster will have an initial payload to orbit of 70 metric tons. The first flight of SLS is scheduled for 2017, carrying an unmanned Orion toward the Moon.

Presently the year 2021 is envisioned with a crewed flight of Orion boosted atop SLS. The destination has not been chosen, but it could easily be an Apollo 8-type flight around the Moon. Other destinations will be possible, such as a Lagrange point or an asteroid.

If plans are started early enough, following flights could carry a Lunar Surface Module. Lunar landings would require 2 SLS launches, one for Orion and a second launch for the Lunar Module. If the lunar module is ready, the landing could occur as early as 2022. This seems early, but Apollo 11 followed Apollo 8 by only 7 months. This landing, the first step in a lunar base, would occur within a few months of Mr. Newt's goal.

Gingrich also spoke about prizes for private Space companies, akin to the Orteig Prize won by Charles Lindbergh. The SpaceX Falcon Heavy booster will be capable of placing 53 tons in low Earth orbit. Their Dragon capsule has an escape system that is also adaptable to planetary landings. With modifications Dragon could land a crew on the Moon. With the right incentive, perhaps SpaceX could reach the Moon faster and cheaper than NASA.

A lunar landing could also occur with international partners. The head of Russia's Roskosmos recently spoke about cooperating with Americans on the Moon. The Space Station was originally a West-only project, then nearly abandoned by the Clinton administration before being reimagined as a partnership with Russia. Perhaps international partners could contribute a Lunar Module to dock with Orion.

There are numerous paths to a lunar base. Orion and SLS could be combined with a new Lunar Module. The SpaceX Faldon Heavy and Dragon might be capable of a lunar landing. International partners could be involved. Any of these combinations could land the first elements of a lunar base by 2021. All that is required, all that has been required for 40 years, is the will. Perhaps another President will set a goal of lunar settlement.

Space an Issue in 2012?

2012-01-23T05:57:00.012-10:00

During 2000, Americans learned that a presidential election can hinge on a few votes in the "Swing State" of Florida. The swing votes are concentrated in the Interstate 4 corridor, running from Tampa to Kennedy Space Center. President Bush paid little attention to Space until 2003. In the wake of Columbia, Bush enacted the Vision for Space Exploration. NASA Administrator Mike Griffin responded with the Constellation program.

Candidate Barack Obama in late 2007 proposed paying for an expanded education program by delaying Constellation 5 years, effectively killing it. When Florida became a battleground in the presidential primaries, he reversed himself and promised to support Constellation. (Hillary Clinton decisively won the Florida primary, but due to a rules fight Florida delegates were stripped of half their votes). In the general election, Obama won Florida and the presidency.

Once in office, President Obama did more than delay Constellation, he cancelled it. Thousands of NASA employees, many living in the I-4 corridor, have been laid off. The man-caused depression affects thousands more, from the restaurants where NASA workers eat to the salons that do our hair. The budget for education, in contrast, has soared dramatically.

Space was not an issue in the 2012 election, until last week. The current White House occupant never meets with NASA's Administrator. Mitt Romney had been expected to easily win South Carolina and Florida, sealing the Republican nomination. Because of Newt Gingrich's surprise win in South Carolina, the battle to challenge Obama will extend to the January 31 Florida primary and probably beyond. Again those votes in the Space Coast and I-4 corridor will be critical.

Newt Gingrich has promised to give a "visionary" speech on Space this week.
Gingrich has a longstanding interest in Space, and even once wrote a book about Space development. If the nomination battle extends to Texas, Space could even be an issue in Houston. Romney, if he wants to remain in the game, would be well-advised to come up with a turnaround strategy involving Space. Thanks to South Carolina, Space could become a critical issue in choosing the next US President.

Gelareh

2012-01-19T12:47:00.004-10:00

During the 2009 protests in Iran, the world watched as the young woman Neda Soltani was shot and bled to death on the street. Neda was a symbol of thousands who were murdered, beaten or imprisoned by this terrible regime. Despite the terrible actions of the regime, the world's leaders did nothing.

Gelareh Bagherzadeh, 30, was a scientist and molecular biology student at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. She was a key member of SabzHouston, a group peacefully protesting for women's rights and freedom in her native Iran. In interviews Gelareh was reticent about giving her full name, in fear of retribution. Late Sunday night she was silenced by a single bullet to the head near her home in Southwest Houston.

The Houston police have no clues in the murder. The assassin, who followed or laid in wait for her, has escaped without a trace. This terrible act of violence against a women's rights advocate is suspiciously like an international "hit". (Travelling to another country to murder someone is called war.) Will there ever be justice for Neda or Gelareh?

King Day

2012-01-16T07:54:00.004-10:00

Happy Martin Luther King Day in the US! In researching the life of Dr. King, I was surprised to learn he was a Republican. During the 1960's most of the opposition to civil rights came from the other party. This post was originally published in 2010:

Another Nobel Prize Winner: This Sunday, October 16, Washington's Martin Luther King Memorial will be dedicated. The ceremony would have happened earlier, but the surprise earthquake in September caused postponement. Even the US Eastern seaboard is vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis. Because of the delay, we visitors to DC have been able to preview the monument. Behind a 30-foot King statue is a marble wall filled with his quotes. One of King's bits of wisdom could apply to physicists puzzling about "dark energies."

"Darkness can not drive out darkness, only light can do that."

The answer to apparent acceleration of the universe has not been found in hypothetical "dark" energies. Such speculations are rejected by the public and will harm the reputation of physicists. Redshifts of distant objects are roughly proportional to recession velocity divided by the speed of light, v/c. The non-linear redshifts of Type Ia supernovae, which just won its discoverers their own Nobel, is more plausibly due not to v accelerating, but to c slowing down. The answer to the mystery is not in the dark, but in light.

In 2009 the Nobel Peace Prize committee inexplicably rewarded a man with no record of peace, leading to much ridicule. This year's award goes to Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee from Liberia, and Tawakkol Karman from Yemen. All three women have faced and continue to face formidable opposition. Karman, the first Arab woman to win the Prize, has been detained and harassed by mobs with clubs. Women who face such challenges deserve the Nobel Prize.

Crystals From Space

2012-01-04T12:29:00.015-10:00

Happy New Year! In October, The Whole Pie, this blog recounted the Nobel Prize-winning discovery by Dr. Daniel Schechtman of quasicrystals. Unlike most crystalline structures, quasicrystals form mathematical patterns that do not repeat. Dr. Schechtman discovered quasicrystals in 1982, waiting 29 years for his prize.

At first noone believed him. Someone handed Schechtman a crystallography book and suggested he reread it. He was asked to leave his research group. It was 2 years before he could get a paper published. Nobel winner Linus Pauling condemned Schechtman's work. He had great difficulty getting other researchers to confirm his results.

The first evidence of extraterrestrial life came from a Martian meteorite. Naturally formed quasicrystals were discovered during 2009 in the Koryak mountains of Russia. No one could explain how they formed. The January 2 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences contains a paper claiming that these quasicrystals arrived on Earth via another meteorite. The paper proposes that naturally occurring quasicrystals formed in deep Space. Evidence for the extraterrestrial origin of a natural quasicrystal

“Our evidence indicates that quasicrystals can form naturally under astrophysical conditions and remain stable over cosmic timescales.”

According to the paper, these quasicrystals formed about 4.5 billion years ago. At one time scientist doubted that quasicrystals existed at all. Daniel Schechtman faced great opposition to his findings. Discovery in Russia of natural quasicrystals was baffling. They may have originated in Space near the dawn of our solar system.

Burned Again

2011-12-31T23:30:00.002-10:00

During the week of December 19, the library at Cairo's Institut d'Egypte was set afire. Security forces failed to respond to the fire, though their headquarters were close by. The Institute was founded by Napoleon after his 1798 conquest of Egypt. In the wake of his invasion, Napoleon brought with him many scholars who made discoveries like the Rosetta Stone. The library contained about 200,000 volumes, a priceless resource of Egyptian history.

Carl Sagan's COSMOS recalls the burning of Alexandria's library, the greatest of its time. More than a repository of scrolls, the library was a center of study and scholarship, what we would today call a university. Supposedly it contained a complete history of the ancient world, knowledge now lost. Among those who held the title of Head Librarian were Erastothenes, who in the 3rd century BC calculated Earth's circumference; and Aristarchus, who in the 2nd century BC suggested that Earth was not centre of the universe. Euclid and Archimedes also studied at the library,

In COSMOS we read about Hypatia, the last librarian of Alexandria and a woman famed in her time for mathematics. She was also a philosopher and astronomer. Alexandria's library was burned several times: by Julius Caesar's forces in 48 BC, by the Roman Emperor Aurelian in 270 AD, by the Coptic Pope Theophilus in 391 AD, and by Muslims in 642 AD. Hypatia was horribly murdered by a mob in 415 AD. (Sagan's book takes some liberties with history, linking her death with the burning of the library).

Has humanity advanced in these thousands of years? The historical record shows that burning of books can be a tactic of any philosophy. Today in our computer age we have censors trolling the internet and Arxiv deleting or attacking what does not agree with them. What has not changed is that we must always be vigilant against those who would burn books. Those who would burn books will also burn people.

From ancient times until this month some people will try to burn libraries. Erastothenes' spherical Earth, Aristarchus' cosmology, and the achievements of Hypatia outlived them by thousands of years. Discoveries about nature are truths that can not be censored. If the speed of light slows down or a Black Hole exists nearby, no human censorship can prevent it.

Air Launch

2011-12-15T23:59:00.003-10:00

Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen has announced plans with Scaled Composites to build the world's largest airplane, with a wingspan of 120 meters. This huge bird would look like the Wings Over the World aircraft in HG Wells' THINGS TO COME. It would be first stage of an air-launched orbital booster system developed with SpaceX. The 5-engine rocket looks like SpaceX's cancelled Falcon 5/Dragon, which would have a launch weight of 130 tons. In theory such an air-launched booster offers many advantages, as described in the 3-minute video.

Paul Allen has spent money encouraging Space before, as when he put up funds for the 10 million dollar X-Prize. This project would be 2-3 orders of magnitude bigger. As Howard Hughes and others have found, building a plane this size from scratch is incredibly expensive. (The Airbus A-380 cost about 15 billion to develop). The hangar door in the animation is nearly 150 meters wide! Before building the 747, Boeing first needed to construct the world's largest building in Everett, Washington as an assembly line.

The aircraft design in this animation looks like it has not been completely developed, unlike the stunningly original aircraft that Scaled is known for. For example, a pressurised aircraft would not have straight fuselage sides. The center section may need to gain area. A larger center section provides more lift, structural strength, and access between the hulls. Perhaps the designers will consider using two existing 747 or C-5 Galaxy hulls and twinning them with a new center section.

NASA studied such twinned aircraft in the 1970's. A major issue is runway width. The standard airport runway is 45 meters wide. Runway 12/30 at Scaled Composites' home in Mojave is 60 meters wide, but rated for aircraft of no more than 120,000 pounds. The concrete strip in the animation appears to be about 90 meters wide and very long. Building one such runway would cost around a billion dollars, and you would need one every place this bird would land. Emergency landings at other fields would be unthinkable.

Since the new 747-8 freighter has a payload capacity of 135 tons, they could also consider launching their 130 ton rocket from atop one. It will not be the first time a 747 has launched a Space Shuttle! In the 1970's NASA considered using giant twin airplanes as Shuttle carrier aircraft, but settled on the familiar 747. Developing an all-new aircraft was considered too expensive.

The dreamers behind this project deserve every encouragement. Hopefully they realise the challenges of such an enormous project. NASA has studied giant twin-hulled aircraft since the 1970's. We can hope that Paul Allen and allies can improve on the past.

Peace Wins Over Darkness

2011-12-12T22:18:00.008-10:00

Back in October, Darkness Can Not Drive Out Darkness, this blog pointed to the three women who shared this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkol Karman bring more light to the world than "dark energy." In Sunday's New York Times they were hailed again:

"In a ceremony in Oslo that repeatedly invoked gender equality and the democratic strivings of the Arab Spring, the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was presented to three female activists and political leaders on Saturday for 'their nonviolent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights' as peacemakers."

Sunday's Times contained no mention of the three men who divided up the Physics Prize. Perhaps claiming discovery of "dark energy" does not interest the Times writers anymore. Hint: try rewarding a woman from a challenging background. Only two women have been given the Physics Prize--Marie Curie in 1903 and Maria Goeppert Mayer in 1963. The day she wins the Physics prize will easily make the front page.

UPDATE: Nick Suntzeff, co-founder of the High-Z supernova search, quoted in Eric Berger's Houston Chronicle blog:

"This must be perhaps the only Nobel Prize ever awarded for a discovery for which we have no explanation, not even an inkling of one."

Pearl

2011-12-07T18:35:00.010-10:00

Aloha! Here are a few photos from Pearl Harbor as it looks today. The Captain's chair of the battleship USS Missouri. The ship is covered in steel plate in some places 18 inches thick! They don't build ships like this anymore.

An unforgettable view out the Missouri bridge windows to the USS Arizona Memorial. US involvement in the war began with the attack here 70 years ago and ended with the surrender ceremony on Missouri's deck in Tokyo harbor.

The Pacific Aviation Museum on Ford Island. This B-25 bomber is in the colours of Doolittle's raiders. They launched from USS Hornet to bomb Tokyo.

The 16-inch gun turrets. Missouri and other Iowa-Class battleships carried 9 such giant rifles. They could each fire a 2700-pound shell 40 kilometres! Due to Earth's curvature a battleship can only fire as far as it can see, leaving the advantage to aeroplanes. For centuries ships with cannon dominated naval warfare.

Isaac Newton saw warships armed with cannon. He saw that the faster a cannonball is fired, the farther it travels. Newton deduced that a projectile moving fast enough would "fall" around the Earth's curve, becoming a satellite. The farther a satellite orbits from Earth, the slower its velocity. Newton surmised that the Moon's orbit followed the same law of gravitation.

If Newton were alive today he would see that particles of light (photons) appear to travel at the same velocity. He would also see evidence that Space/Time began at a tiny point, called a "Big Bang." As the Universe gets older, every point in Space/Time travels farther from that initial singularity.

Perhaps Newton would deduce that gravitation affects all particles, even those of light. Just as satellites circle the Earth, he might surmise that photons are locked in orbit around a "Big Bang." As light particles move farther in Space/Time from the Big Bang, their velocity must also slow.

GM=tc^3. Where G is Newton's gravitational constant, M and t are mass and age of the Universe. As time t increases, speed of light c is predicted to slow. Newton's laws continue to guide our spacecraft to the planets. The power of ideas lasts longer and travels much farther than a battleship's guns.

Mammoth Hunter

2011-11-30T22:52:00.000-10:00

13,800 years ago giant mastodons ruled the Pacific Northwest, while other creatures cowered in fear. At this time someone figured out that humans, working together as a group, could bring down a mastodon. A mastodon's tusk could be sharpened and fashioned into a spear. At first he or she was ridiculed and told it was impossible. Eventually the human tribe faced the mastodon in a fierce battle. One brave human flung a spear into the beast's ribs and brought it down. Many centuries later the mastodon would be extinct and humans would rule the Earth.

In 1977 paleontologist Carl Gustafson came upon a giant tusk that had been found by a bowling-alley owner in Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After a few hours' digging Gustafson uncovered the mastodon's skeleton, buried for thousands of years. He also found a fragment of tusk jammed between the ribs, as if it had been fashioned into a spear and thrust there. After running some tests, Gustafson concluded that humans had brought the beast down with a spear nearly 14,000 years before.

For 35 years Gustafson's discovery was ignored or ridiculed by the scientific establishment. Anthropology was stuck in a Clovis-first model, which stated that "Clovis people" predated humans in North America. Challenges to the Clovis-first model were subject to great criticism. Unfortunately Gustafson's evidence was not completely convincing. Radiocarbon dating at the time left large margins of error. The spear fragment could be interpreted as just a bone. Gustafson reached retirement age before his ideas were accepted.

"I was pretty bitter about the whole thing for a long time," Gustafson said recently. "I don't like saying it. I never really admitted it except to my wife. It was so frustrating. But I'm very humbled and happy it turned out this way."

Gustafson produced very few papers about his discovery. In his defense, publishing a groundbreaking idea in peer-reviewed journals can be nearly impossible. Only recently other scientists put Gustafson's fragments through modern DNA, CT and dating tests. The samples were sent to other labs to check the results. In a new paper in the journal SCIENCE, researchers concluded that Gustafson was right all along.

One colleague has called Gustafson the J. Harlan Bretz of anthropology. Bretz was a geologist who in the 1920's theorized that Eastern Washington had once been covered in a giant flood. 50 years would pass before other scientists realized that Bretz was right. A more apt comparison might be to Alfred Wegener, who concluded that Earth's continents drifted and was also ridiculed for decades. New and groundbreaking ideas can take decades or longer to be accepted.

13,800 years ago humans learned to make a spear and conquer the mastodon. 35 years ago Carl Gustafson found the buried evidence. For decades Gustafson's discovery was ignored. He was frustrated well into his retirement. Finally other scientists with modern tools realised he was right all along. Like many new ideas, Gustafson's discovery took a long time to be accepted. Hooray for Carl Gustafson and all the brave Carls in the Northwest!

Still Faster Than Light

2011-11-28T23:39:00.002-10:00

Like an Earth-centered cosmos, a fixed speed of light is a scientific edifice that shows signs of cracking. Neutrinos are mysterious particles that pass through matter nearly undisturbed. Millions of them pass through our bodies each second. Wolfgang Pauli first predicted their existence in 1930, but his prediction was so revolutionary that he did not present it until the Solvang conference in 1933. Not until 1956 was the existence of Pauli's neutrinos proven. Recently neutrinos were found to transform between their three flavours spontaneously.

In September the OPERA collaboration reported that neutrinos have been clocked traveling slightly faster than light, Neutrinos Pass Through Light Barrier. This result challenges the Physics we read in books, that nothing travels faster than light. Fortunately, neutrinos don't read books.

Other physicists have challenged the OPERA results, but in a new set of experiments this month the group verified their findings. Some of the OPERA group would not put their name on the initial report, but their doubts have slowly been erased. zmore tests by other groups will be needed to prove the superluminal neutrinos. As readers of this blog know, there is a body of evidence that light itself slows with time. The speed-of-light barrier is slowly breaking down.

Banquet

2011-11-27T18:18:00.000-10:00

Happy Thanksgiving week in the US! Most of NASA took the week off, though last Wednesday at Johnson Space Center was a banquet featuring the ST-135 crew. Former NASA administrator Michael Griffin is in the foreground wearing glasses. Dr. Grifin had some choice remarks about the current direction of NASA.

Astronaut Sandy Magnus, one of the first people I met upon coming to JSC. Author Gloria Skurzynski also received an award for her writings about Space.. How nice to live in a world where women can dream about the stars.

Uranus Hot Spot

2011-11-23T22:51:00.002-10:00

This photo of Uranus was taken by the Gemini North telescope atop Mauna Kea. It shows a mysterious spot ten times brighter than the planetary background. Astronomer Heidi Hammel appealed on her Facebook page for others to confirm this observation. Hopefully the Hubble Space Telescope can be used to get better images.

The spot is interpreted as an eruption of methane gas high in Uranus' atmosphere. Heat and methane indicate an internal source. Uranus was thought to emit very little heat compared to Jupiter or Saturn. The planet's spin axis in tilted nearly sideways from the solar system plane, so one hemisphere can be warmed uniformly for 42 years. How such a concentrated hot spot could appear is a complete mystery.

If Uranus formed around a Black Hole, the singularity would provide a source of internal heat nearly indefinitely. Radiation would erupt in jets from the Black Hole, following magnetic field lines. Uranus' magnetic poles are tilted 59 degrees from the spin axis, indicating the direction of the Black Hole's spin axis. Because of this tilt, heat plumes from the jets do not erupt at the poles but are carried along in the atmosphere to erupt in the lower latitudes.

This hot spot occurs at 22.5 degrees North, roughly at rest with the planetary interior. This could be more than just an asteroid impact. Source of the hot spot must be something deep inside Uranus. The interior of a giant planet like Uranus is a good place to find a Black Hole.

Vettes Day

2011-11-18T19:55:00.006-10:00

Veterans Day (Armistice Day) was celebrated with a big parade through downtown Houston. I was able to drive with a contingent of patriotically dressed Corvettes. Since Alan Shepard arrived in 1959 driving a shiny new Corvette, the American sports car has been a minior tradition among NASA personnel.

The reviewing stand with VIP's and members of the military. This was a busy few days; more posts are coming soon. Time slows down everything, even a Corvette. Why not a slowing speed of light?

Ballunar

2011-10-31T16:21:00.003-10:00

Happy Halloween! October 21-23 was the annual Ballunar Festival in Johnson Space Center, which proves that some sort of "inflation" exists. Saturday and Sunday morning the balloons were released in an impromptu race. Here they drift right by my lanai. The evening was celebrated with music and a balloon glow.

The balloons' shape disproves one tenet of cosmic inflation, that the universe is flat like the Earth. As a balloon fills with hot air, tension of the envelope pulls it into a spherical shape. In the universe, that tension is provided by gravity. The 3 dimensions that we move in can be thought of as the envelope of a 4-dimensional expanding universe. Thinkers from Pascal to Einstein and even Edgar Allan Poe have thought the universe is a sphere. The shape of a balloon is much more beautiful than flatness.

The White Room

2011-10-28T23:22:00.000-10:00

This is the access arm used by crews to enter the Space Shuttles. It was installed 45 meters up in Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center. The first crew to board via this arm was the ill-fated Challenger mission in 1986. It was also used by STS-26 for the return to flight following Challenger. A total of 53 Shuttle missions boarded via this arm from Pad 39B.

The arm led to the White Room, a sealed area from which astronauts entered the spacecraft. The room also contained racks for helmets and equipment. Shuttle astronauts rode to the pad without their headgear, which was donned as they boarded. The White Room, access arm and rotating service structure swung away after the hatch was closed. Pad 39B hosted launches until 2006.

Atlantis (right) on Pad 39-A and Endeavour (left) on 39-B during 2009. Pad 39-B has lightning towers installed in anticipation of the Ares 1-X test. In 2009 this pad was briefly used by Endeavour as a backup for STS-125, the last Hubble Space Telescope repair flight. After STS-125 returned safely, Pad 39-B was modified for the Ares 1-X test. On October 18 the Servicing Arm and White Room arrived in Johnson Space Center, where they will be put on permanent display. Pad 39-A, where crews launched for the Moon, has been kept intact for the future.

Red Tails

2011-10-25T23:20:00.004-10:00

This year's Wings Over Houston Airshow October 15-16 was headlined by the red jets of the Canadian Snowbirds aerobatic team. 2-minute video zooms in on their unique 9-jet formation.

On display was this P-51 Mustang restored in the Red-Tailed paint scheme of the famous Tuskegee Airmen. Until the 1940's black Americans served in segregated military units and were not allowed to fly aircraft. WW2 brought out the best in America, and a small unit of pilots was trained in Tuskegee, Alabama. Outside the base they still faced the prejudices of the South. The Tuskegee Airmen served with great distinction in North Africa and later Europe, escorting bombers over Berlin. Bomber commanders specifically requested the Red Tails for their bravery. (During WW2 American women were trained as pilots, even fighter pilots, but were not allowed in combat.) In January 2012 will premiere RED TAILS, a big-budget big effects movie produced by George Lucas.

This P-51 Mustang was restored by the Commemorative Air Force starting in 1996. A tragic crash in 2004 necessitated the aircraft be restored again. It can be seen with RISE ABOVE, a travelling exhibit and movie theatre telling the Tuskegee Airmen story. Hopefully the Tuskegee Airmen's story can inspire future generations.

The Six RISE ABOVE Principles:

* Aim High

* Believe in Yourself

* Use Your Brain

* Never Quit

* Be Ready To Go

* Expect To Win

These are principles that even a scientist can follow.

The Capitol Dome

2011-10-23T23:20:00.001-10:00

The entrance to our hotel in Washington is in sight of the Capitol Dome. Something is universal about the spherical shape. Domes have been part of human architecture for thousands of years. The architecture of our bodies is full spherical cells. Moons, planets, stars and even raindrops form spherical shapes. Many great thinkers have thought that the Universe itself is spherical.

Blaise Pascal, one of the great mathematicians of all time, thought the Universe was spherical. "Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere," wrote Pascal. Edgar Allen Poe, who lived near here in Baltimore, also thought the Universe was spherical. The spherical Universe was subject of Poe's EUREKA, a prose about cosmology. Among all his great works of poetry and fiction, Poe was most proud of the little-known EUREKA.

Most prescient, Poe suggested that this spherical universe expanded from a tiny point! "From the one particle. as a center, let us suppose to be irradiated spherically--in all directions--to immeasurable but still to definite distances in the previously vacant space." 75 years later Alexander Friedmann, who was a big Poe fan, also predicted an expanding Universe.

Einstein realized that if the Universe contained enough mass, gravity would bend it into a sphere of four dimensions. He also realized that gravity would also cause the sphere to collapse, unless it were already expanding. Einstein then added a repulsive "cosmological constant" to prevent collapse. Later, when Edwin Hubble's observations showed that the Universe was expanding, Einstein considered the CC his greatest blunder.

Today it is fashionable for cosmologists to say that our Universe is flat, like the Earth. If you question cosmologists, they will first ignore you but then admit that on the large scale it must be spherical. If the Universe expanded from a tiny point, it is topologically impossible for it to be flat. The exponential expansion called inflation would have expanded the sphere so much that it would appear flat to our observations. On the largest scales, the Universe must still be spherical.

The beauty of the Capitol dome reminds us that the spherical shape is universal. Applied to the Universe, great thinkers like Pascal, Einstein and Poe considered our Space/Time to be spherical. Edgar Allen Poe made amazing predictions like an expanding universe. Einstein first proposed a cosmological constant, then considered it a great blunder. Though it is fashionable to say the universe is flat, fashions change with time.

We finish the meeting with a banquet at the Rayburn Senate Office building, close to the Capitol. As the spherical Sun disappears behind the curve of a spherical Earth, we are reminded how universal the sphere is.

Udvar-Hazy

2011-10-22T23:19:00.004-10:00

The National air and Space Museum on the Washington Mall is a huge building, so big that a Skylab Space Station occupies just one corner. Even this structure can not contain the whole collection, so the larger aircraft are displayed at the Stephen F. Udvar Hazy center near Dulles Field. In the last post we saw the test vehicle Enterprise in a place of honour for Space Shuttles. The B-29 Enola Gay gives some idea of the scale of this building.

Even in this bigger space, the Concorde SST is a tight fit. From a high catwalk, it is difficult to get the whole plane in one shot. In its heyday Concorde regularly carried passengers at cruise speed of Mach 2. It could not travel faster, due to the effects of heat on an aluminum airframe. The cancelled Boeing SST would have been even bigger, 90 meters long. Planned to be built of lighter heat-resistant titanium, America's SST would have cruised at Mach 3. What would airports look like if these giants had survived?

Sustained flight at Mach 3 had been proven practical in the 1960's by this aircraft. Fitting for a plane that travelled to the edge of Space, the SR-71 Blackbird has a choice location in front of the entrance to the Space Hall.

Enterprise is not the only historic object in the Space Hall. The Astronaut Quarantine Facility housed the Apollo 11 crew on their return to an aircraft carrier. Prior to their mission, no fresh samples had ever been returned from the Moon. Scientists were not completely sure that the Moon was lifeless, and there was some fear of an ANDROMEDA STRAIN contagion. After the first Apollo missions and their samples had returned, the science community finally concluded that there were no Moon bogs.

In another corner is the miniature Mothership from CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. Like our Space Station, it appears to be assembled from cylindrical modules. Something is universal about the circular shape. We can only imagine what sort of propulsion systems would drive a craft like this to the stars. Hopefully the Smithsonian will someday display a real starship.

My photo of Enterprise headlines the new Carnival of Space!

Enterprise

2011-10-18T23:29:00.000-10:00

The Udvar-Hazy center of the National Air and Space Museum, close to Dulles Airport, is home to the test vehicle Enterprise. During the 1970's Enterprise was drop-tested from a 747 as preparation for the Shuttle program. Last week, in The Latest from NASM, we saw the original Starship Enterprise miniature on display by the Washington Mall. The name Enterprise was the result of a letter-writing campaign by thousands of STAR TREK fans. At the end of the Shuttle journey, we can think about the future.

Presently this room is slated to be taken over by the Shuttle Discovery. Enterprise would then be transferred to the Intrepid Air Space museum in New York City. The Intrepid is just a 4.5 hour drive from Washington, and the choice leaves the middle of the US without a Shuttle. Space Center Houston and the Air Force Museum in Dayton, who were not awarded Shuttles, are quite unhappy with the choice. Sadly, even on Earth there are not enough Shuttles to go around.

Beneath Enterprise's port wing is a small display case with early Shuttle concepts. Originally the system was envisioned as being fully reusable. A winged first stage would glide back to Earth after each launch, to be refueled and used again. The configuration finally built, with solid rocket boosters and an expendable tank, was less expensive to develop but had much higher operating costs. As this system was being built, NASA envisioned 50 flights per year. Such a flight rate proved to be impractical. The dream of a fully reusable Space Transportation System has still not been realized.

As we heard from Elon Musk in Washington, SpaceX is planning a fully Reusable booster. His concept is different, with wingless unmanned boosters automatically returning to land vertically. Elon claims that the fully reusable concept could reduce launch costs a hundredfold. We can wish him the best of luck.

We are able to economically travel to Washington DC because of reusable aircraft. Most of the denizens of the Air and Space Museum, from the Wright Brothers' plane, were designed to be used repeatedly. The Starship Enterprise of the future is, like a Navy ship, fully reusable. The Enterprise design that sits in Udvar-Hazy is the result of many compromises. An economical fully reusable Space Transportation System is still in the future.

Darkness Can Not Drive Out Darkness

2011-10-14T05:58:00.003-10:00

Another Nobel Prize Winner: This Sunday, October 16, Washington's Martin Luther King Memorial will be dedicated. The ceremony would have happened earlier, but the surprise earthquake in September caused postponement. Even the US Eastern seaboard is vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis. Because of the delay, we visitors to DC have been able to preview the monument. Behind a 30-foot King statue is a marble wall filled with his quotes. One of King's bits of wisdom could apply to physicists puzzling about "dark energies."

"Darkness can not drive out darkness, only light can do that."

The answer to apparent acceleration of the universe has not been found in hypothetical "dark" energies. Such speculations are rejected by the public and will harm the reputation of physicists. Redshifts of distant objects are roughly proportional to recession velocity divided by the speed of light, v/c. The non-linear redshifts of Type Ia supernovae, which just won its discoverers their own Nobel, is more plausibly due not to v accelerating, but to c slowing down. The answer to the mystery is not in the dark, but in light.

In 2009 the Nobel Peace Prize committee inexplicably rewarded a man with no record of peace, leading to much ridicule. This year's award goes to Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee from Liberia, and Tawakkol Karman from Yemen. All three women have faced and continue to face formidable opposition. Karman, the first Arab woman to win the Prize, has been detained and harassed by mobs with clubs. Women who face such challenges deserve the Nobel Prize.

Higher Authority

2011-10-12T03:57:00.005-10:00

Here is someone who has revolutionized science, was selfless in pursuit of the truth, overcame skepticism and outright prejudice, while maintaining a child's wonder about the universe. Rather than just learn equations from a book, this scientist thought up new equations! The statue of Albert Einstein sits in front of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington.

The sculptor, Robert Berks, gave Einstein a notebook with three of his famous equations.

E=mc^2

The most famous Einstein equation, equating energy with mass. It was published as a quick addendum to one of his 1905 papers. Einstein published 4 revolutionary papers in a short time. The world took years to realize their significance. Today E=mc^2 is ubiquitous, even to those who don't understand what it means.

eV = h $\nu$ - A

The photoelectric effect, which Einstein explained using quantum mechanics. This probably got the attention of Annalen der Physik editor Max Planck, one of the founders of quantum mechanics. There was no system of "peer review" in 1905; publication of papers was solely the decision of editors like Planck. If not for Planck, Einstein might have waited indefinitely to be published. Einstein's solution to the photoelectric effect was the official reason for his 1921 Nobel Prize, for even in 1921 Relativity was controversial.

Ruv-½guvR=-κTuv

The Einstein equation for gravitation, part of his General Theory of Relativity published in 1915. General Relativity predicted that gravity is actually a curvature of Space/Time. Einstein tried to apply this curvature to the entire universe, imagining it as a sphere of four dimensions rather than 3. We move in the 3-D surface of the sphere. Photons travel like satellites in orbit around the sphere with velocity c.

Einstein realized that the gravity which causes Space to be curved into a sphere would also cause it to collapse, unless it were expanding. Einstein could have predicted an expanding universe, which would have been one of history's great scientific predictions. Certainly the prediction would have been ridiculed at first. 15 years later Edwin Hubble's observations would show that the universe was indeed expanding.

To support his spherical Space/Time, Einstein added a repulsive "cosmological constant" to the equation. When Hubble showed that the universe was expanding, Einstein removed the constant. Later Einstein would call the CC his greatest blunder. Recently it has been fashionable to add the repulsive constant again. So far, Einstein has still not been convinced. His notebook shows that there is no cosmological constant.

We can learn a lot from Einstein. The very formulation of original equations is proof of his unusual mind. Finding equations that made testable predictions made Einstein even more special. We learn that even Nobel Prize winners make blunders. The inclusion of a cosmological constant also hides another prediction, that the speed of light c is not always constant.

NEXT: We visit another Nobel Prize Winner.

Latest from NASM

2011-10-09T16:30:00.005-10:00

Saturday and Sunday we had a few Washington hours for another pilgrimage to the National Air and Space Museum. One week later, Saturday October 8, the entire museum was shut down due to protesters. Why would anyone want to protest this place? This is what the protest was allegedly about, a display of military drone aircraft. How many people travelled thousands of miles to have their museum plans disrupted? We suspect that the demonstrators were unhappy with US policy. There is plenty to be angry about, but such protests belong at the White House.

A room devoted to the Wright Brothers' achievements. NASM is Washington's most popular attraction, a place devoted to our universal fascination with flight. The aircraft and displays here are beyond priceless. Among them are Russian spacecraft and Axis warplanes from WW2. The machines are fascinating, regardless of the policies they were tools of.

This is not a mockup, but a spaceworthy Skylab 2 built to be flown after Skylab 1. Though it makes a fascinating exhibit, what a waste to be not flown in Space. Could we make a similar mistake again? Some say that the Space Shuttle orbiters have many useful flights left, and should not yet be put in museums.

The USS Enterprise from the classic STAR TREK series is presently in the basement of the souvenir shop, among the bargain items. The Enterprise Space Shuttle test vehicle is at the NASM Udvar-Hazy museum near Dulles airport. Space will always be central to humanity's dreams for the future.

Serenity vs. Censorship

2011-10-08T17:54:00.004-10:00

The TV show FIREFLY and its feature film SERENITY told of a motley crew of rebels fighting an oppressive regime. For real censorship we needed to look no further than University of Wisconsin in Stout. The trouble began after Theatre Professor James Miller put this poster on his door. Campus police threatened Miller with charges of disorderly conduct, and reported him to a "threat assessment team." Professor Miller than put up another poster that read "WARNING: FASCISM" that led to more trouble.

As word of the outrage spread via bloggers, a national outcry came to include actors Nathan Fillion and Adam Baldwin from the show. Finally the university police and their threat assessment team backed down. The university will now stage workshops on a forgotten item called the First Amendment. A college should be a place of free expression, but instead they reinforce uniformity of thought. Hooray for the Browncoats!

First they came for the Serenity fans, and I said nothing because they are a minority. Then they came for the Star Trek fans, claiming that Trekkies were attacking Star Wars fans. I said nothing because I don't watch Star Trek. Then they came for all science fiction fans, and I said nothing. Finally they came for me, and there was no one left.

Austin

2011-10-07T03:55:00.001-10:00

The way to Washington has a detour to Austin, Capitol of Texas. Austin is also well known for its lively music and arts scene. Near 6th Street you can see the home of author O. Henry. In late August Austin hosted the Armadillo Con science fiction convention. The weekend of September 24-25 6th Street was cordoned off for the Pecan Street Festival, full of live entertainment. That same week Austin hosted the joint annual meeting of the National Society of Hispanic Physicists (NSHP) and National Society of Black Physicists (NSBP). All things change with time, and the growing size of this meeting is a sign of positive change.

At Thursday's dinner the speaker was physicist Stephen Weinberg. As many respected scientists do today, he railed about the mystery of an "accelerating" universe. He lamented cancellation of the Superconducting Supercollider in the 1990's and in the same breath condemned the International Space Station. With all due respect to Dr. Weinberg, experiments on the Moon and ISS may end up solving his "dark" mystery. The answer to the accelerating puzzle may not be in dark, but in light.

Weinberg's textbook on Relativity, which nearly every graduate student must study, takes great liberties with Einstein theory. He completely omits the i factor for time, which is a key to considering Space/Time as one entity. Weinberg completely ignores the possibilities in c, the speed of light. In his book he repeats an absurdity: h = c =1. The Planck value and c are definitely not equal to 1, and this may have led a generation of physicists down a dark path. If c were constant, the only way to explain supernova redshifts is by conjuring "dark" energies.

On Friday night we heard from Astronaut Pier Sellers, who devoted much of his career to assembling ISS. He brought some more NASA video showing Space missions. As astronauts tend to be, Pier was upbeat about space stations and the future. The scientific output from ISS is just beginning. We would happily share a spacecraft with Pier.

The Whole Pie

2011-10-06T15:41:00.006-10:00

The year's Nobel Prize for Physics is divided like a pie among three males who will receive 50, 25 and 25 percent of the loot. However the Chemistry Prize has rightly been awarded to one person, Dr. Daniel Schechtman. He discovered quasicrystals, a new form of crystalline matter in 1982. Dr. Schechtman, 70, has waited 29 years for his prize.

At one time scientists thought that crystals only formed in repeating patterns. The quasicrystals found by Schechtman formed mathematical patterns that never repeated. Their electrons would form in patterns of 10, a symnetry never seen before. Viewed from other directions, the crystals would exhibit fivefold symnetry. Such formations were counter to everything known to science.

Dr. Schechtman's results faced great challenges in being accepted. At first Schechtman was handed a crystallography textbook and told to reread it. Later Schechtman was asked to leave his research group. After being rejected by one journal, Schechtman's paper was published two years later by Physical Review Letters. No less a figure than Linus Pauling, who already had a Nobel Prize, denounced Schechtman. Finally 3 other scientists were convinced enough to confirm Schechtman's discovery.

Dr. Daniel Schechtman discovered a new form of crystal that had been completely overlooked by other scientists. Quasicrystals formed in patterns that were thought to be impossible. At first Schechtman was not believed, and had difficulty even being published. Few scientists believed him at first. Finally, nearly 30 years later, Schechtman has received his prize.

Did Beatniks Find Sputnik?

2011-10-04T14:19:00.008-10:00

Today October 4 is 54th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite. Sunday I found a replica of Sputnik hanging in the main hall of Washington's National Air and Space Museum. The replica hangs alongside the original Spaceship One and X-1. The place of honour is well-deserved, for Sputnik was the first step into Space. The effects of Sputnik on human society are too numerous to mention.

On Broadway in San Francisco's North Beach is the Beat Museum. The museum, slightly smaller than NASM, is devoted to the Beat Generation poets and writers like Alan Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. In the 1950's they gathered nearby at City Lights Bookstore and Cafe Vesuvio to counter American culture. In 1958 legendary San Francisco columnist Herb Caen coined the term Beatnik in response to Sputnik. Among its books and artifacts, the Beat Museum also displays a replica of Sputnik. Another fascinating story has that the Beatniks has located remains of Sputnik!

Sputnik was presumed to have burned up on reentry around January 4, 1958. The exact date and location are unknown, for missile tracking systems as we know them had not been completed at the time. In November 2006 a man wandered into the Beat Museum with a strange story. Pieces of Sputnik had fallen in America.

The trail led to Southern California resident Bob Morgan. He was 8 years old early in the morning of December 8, 1957 when a strange glow appeared near an oak tree. Investigating, Bob Morgan and his family found some glowing plastic pieces that appeared to have fallen from the sky. In 1957, man-made parts falling from Space could mean just one thing--Sputnik.

The Morgan family contacted the military through a local radio station. They handed the parts over to some representatives of the government, hoping for a promised 50,000 dollar reward. The reward never appeared, but the Thomas family recovered most of the parts weeks later. The military seemed to forget about the incident and the reward.

In the ensuing years, Bob Thomas attempted to ascertain exactly what the parts were. Fortunately Soviet magazines published diagrams of Sputnik to compare with the parts. The diameter of one tube does neatly correspond to Sputnik's interior, and the tubes do resemble parts pictured within Sputnik. The only instrument within Sputnik was a radio transmitter, but it also contained a cooling system for the extreme temperatures of Space. Plastic tubing could have formed part of the cooling system. No official investigation has ever been made as to the origin of these mysterious parts. Nevertheless, Sputnik parts falling to America make a fascination tale.

Dear Astronomer hosts the new Carnival of Space!

Eyes On the Nobel Prize

2011-10-04T08:58:00.008-10:00

Despite evidence to the contrary, the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics will be shared by 3 scientists who claimed to have discovered an "accelerating universe." They found evidence for acceleration in redshifts of distant Type Ia supernovae. Somehow science seems to have overlooked what a child might ask: what if the universe isn't accelerating but light slows down?

Next they want a Space-based experiment, once called JDEM but now called WFIRST. Such a mission could not launch until at least 7 years after the James Webb Space Telescope, 2025 at the earliest. The cost of WFIRST would be more than 1000 Nobel Prizes. Long before WFIRST or anything like it launches, there will be evidence that light slows. With all the alternatives to an accelerating universe, this prize might be premature.

Illusions

2011-09-30T23:28:00.000-10:00

More doubts about a repulsive "dark energy" arise every day. In a new paper accepted by Physical Review D, Christos Tsagas of Aristotle University in Greece suggests that apparent acceleration of the universe could be an illusion. The cause would be our galaxy being part of a "dark flow". Such a flow would make expansion of the universe appear nonuniform, creating the illusion of acceleration. The paper builds on work by Alexander Kashlinsky here in NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

This blog reported Kashlinsky's work back in September 2008, Going With the Flow. That year Kashlinsky reported that clusters of galaxies, including our Milky Way, appear to be moving at 600 km/sec toward some unseen attractor. What kind of enormous object could cause this flow is unknown, but it could be a super-sized ultra massive Black Hole. Old models of cosmology can not even account for the Black Holes within galaxies. Such immensely massive objects, along with the illusion of acceleration, are predicted by GM=tc^3 and a changing speed of light.

Reusable

2011-09-30T00:56:00.002-10:00

Back in Texas, the Federal Aviation Administration plans to issue permits for testing SpaceX's Grasshopper vehicle at their McGregor test site. SpaceX will also be building launch facilities here in Texas, preparing for a 3-year test program. Grasshopper consists of a Falcon 9 1st stage tank, a Merlin 1-D engine, four landing legs, and additional tankage. The tests would culminate in Grasshopper lifting off and landing vertically.

Through the miracle of reusable airplanes, we can travel inexpensively from Texas to Washington DC. Yesterday September 29 here in Washington, SpaceX's Elon Musk spoke to us at the National Press Club. He revealed that SpaceX is working on a fully reusable version of the Falcon 9-Dragon combo. As seen in this 4-minute video, the first and second stages would both return to land vertically. The Dragon spacecraft, upon completion of it's mission, would reenter and land using it's escape engines.

A fully reusable spacecraft has been a dream since early concepts of the Space Shuttle. Original concepts for Shuttle visualized a two-stage vehicle with a winged flyback booster. The risk and development costs led to the solid boosters and expendable tank. If every piece could be flown again, Elon estimates that costs per launch could decrease a hundredfold. With today's technology,Elon thinks that a fully reusable booster can finally become reality.

The Falcon Heavy would use 3 parallel Falcon 9 first stages to lift up to 53 tons into orbit. Could Falcon Heavy also be made fully reusable? That would greatly decrease the costs of Heavy Lift. NASA is presently designing a Space Launch System using components adapted from Shuttle to launch 70 tons and up into orbit. A fully reusable launcher would give NASA and SLS some serious competition.

Cluster

2011-09-29T10:12:00.007-10:00

Washington DC was rainy last night, but today's weather is lovely. The Canada-America-Mexico Physics conference is in the Liaison Capitol Hill hotel, within sight of the Capitol Building. Photos coming soon.

Proponents of "dark energy" claim that it's existence is proven, even if not a single sample exists. For proof they cite a complex chain of reasoning. Like the Emperor's New Clothes, only the truly enlightened can understand the evidence. Everyone else, even other scientists, can only quote the meme that DE must exist.

The September 29 issue of NATURE contains this paper:

Gravitational redshift of galaxies in clusters as predicted by general relativity

"The theoretical framework of cosmology is mainly defined by gravity, of which general relativity is the current model. Recent tests of general relativity within the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (ΛCDM) model have found a concordance between predictions and the observations of the growth rate and clustering of the cosmic web. General relativity has not hitherto been tested on cosmological scales independently of the assumptions of the ΛCDM model. Here we report an observation of the gravitational redshift of light coming from galaxies in clusters at the 99 per cent confidence level, based on archival data. Our measurement agrees with the predictions of general relativity and its modification created to explain cosmic acceleration without the need for dark energy..."

Despite the many press releases about "dark energy," doubts continue to grow. While data may fit a universe with DE, the same data also corresponds to no DE at all. Hypotheses of a repulsive "dark energy" has not led to theory, just a divergence of speculations that erode the reputation of science. While there will be no samples of DE, there is evidence of a changing speed of light.

Neutrinos Pass Through LIght Barrier

2011-09-23T00:33:00.000-10:00

Neutrinos are shadowy particles that can pass right through the Earth. For a long time they were thought to be massless, now scientists know that neutrinos have a tiny mass. Neutrinos were found in three flavors: electron, muon and tau. Recently neutrinos were found to change from one flavor to another. These discoveries were not part of the Standard model of particle Physics.

CERN is known for the giant Large Hadron Collider. Built to discover the theorized Higgs boson, LHC has so far failed to find the Higgs. Scientists are beginning to doubt that the Higgs exists at all. If the Higgs boson is not found, the Standard model will be in jeopardy. Other experiments at CERN may be just as important for Physics.

Today researchers from CERN will announce that neutrinos can travel faster than light. From Nature.com:

Particles Break Light Speed Limit

The OPERA detector is located 1400 meters underground and 730 km from CERN. OPERA is designed to detect neutrinos emanating from CERN experiments. By timing neutrino travel over this baseline, researchers can say with confidence that they have exceeded the speed of light. For a long time that speed was considered an inviolable constant. As followers of this blog know, c is slowing down. All things change with time, and someday a constant speed of light will be seen as just a stipulation.

DAWN Brings a Vesta Mystery

2011-09-22T08:36:00.006-10:00

The DAWN spacecraft orbiting Vesta has allowed scientists to create this false colour model of the asteroid. Vesta's South Pole contains an enormous depression hundreds of kilometers across. At first the depression was thought to be an impact crater, but it's shape is all wrong. More mysterious, at the South Pole is an enormous mountain 15 km high, one of the tallest peaks in the Solar System. Scientists are baffled as to how such a huge mountain could form here.

We are fortunate to have samples of Vesta that arrived on Earth as meteorites. Vesta meteorites show signs of volcanic heating. How heating could occur on an asteroid has also been a mystery. The answer to these puzzles may be something that formed shortly after the Big Bang.

Vesta's formation could be explained if it formed around a small Black Hole. As seen on Saturn's moon Enceladus, the singularity would cause the South Pole to be heated. This permanent hot spot would support volcanic action almost indefinitely. A mountain would build up until it rivaled Olympus Mons in height. Lava rocks from the volcano would be ejected into Space, a few of them reaching Earth as meteorites. Even an asteroid could potentially be home to a Black Hole.

Remembering

2011-09-19T23:18:00.000-10:00

Another photo from USS Lexington: on September 11, 2011 we held a remembrance ceremony with members of all branches of the military. (The writer was on duty at a Naval base 10 years ago.) We would prefer to remember 2001 for Space Odysseys to the planets or big discoveries in Physics. In addition to terror and fear, someday we will remember the positive.

Vettes and Jets 2011

2011-09-17T23:26:00.006-10:00

USS Lexington AVT-16 is an Essex-class carrier built (mostly by women) during WW2. For many years she was stationed in Pensacola, Florida as training carrier. Navy aircrew, including many future astronauts, learned the important art of carrier landings on the "Lex." Based in Corpus Christi, Texas, she is the oldest surviving aircraft carrier in the world. The weekend of September 10-11 she was host to "Jets and Vettes on the Lex," a Corvette show with nearly 350 cars on display. Photo is of a former Naval aircrew with her current ride. In background is one of the T-2 Buckeye jet trainers that operated off Lexington.

One of our F-14 Tomcats in the colors of VF-84 "Jolly Rogers," Carrier Air Wing 8 assigned to USS Nimitz. F-14 pilots and Radar Intercept Officers (RIO) loved fast cars, Corvettes or Porsches. Early Saturday morning our cars rode the aircraft elevator to the flight deck.

Looking forward from Lexington bridge. An F/A-18 Hornet in Blue Angel colors also sits near a catapult. The Hornet has replaced the F-14 as the US Navy's primary carrier-borne fighter.

Looking aft with A-3 Skywarrior. From the 1960's, the Corvette was preferred car of NASA astronauts. Pete Conrad's Apollo 12 crew rode to training 3 matching Vettes. The Corvette is considered the only American sports car in continuous production. As the astronauts' preferred ride, Corvettes are also a part of NASA history.

Space Launch System

2011-09-14T23:37:00.002-10:00

Today NASA formally unveiled this Space Launch System (SLS), which would replace Ares to launch missions beyond Earth orbit. This design resembles the DIRECT system championed by rebel engineers. It is planned to initially launch 70 ton payloads to low Earth orbit, eventually evolving to 130 tons. SpaceX's planned Falcon Heavy would launch 53 tons. This plan will leverage the expertise and human resources of the Shuttle program.

Black Holes Are Dark

2011-09-09T09:27:00.007-10:00

The above statement points to an obvious solution of the "dark matter" mystery. Since the work of Fritz Zwicky in the 1930's and Vera Rubin in the 1950's, astronomers have suspected that galaxies contain hidden mass. Something that is dark but has gravitational attraction is a perfect description of Black Holes, billions of them populating the galactic halo. Yet physicists tend to ignore Black Holes as "dark matter" candidates, preferring to search for exotic particles like neutralinos and WIMPS. None of these speculated particles has ever been found. Scientists from a particle physics background would prefer if the answer was in their exotic particles.

The August 23 issue of NEW SCIENTIST contains an interesting article:

Is the Universe Made of Holes?

"MOST of the matter in the universe gives out no light, or at least so little that it is currently undetectable. Yet we know it is out there because its gravity keeps stars and galaxies in their orbits. Pretty much everyone thinks that this so-called dark matter is made of hitherto undiscovered subatomic particles. Physicists are hopeful they will find a candidate in high-speed collisions at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland.

"But could we have got dark matter all wrong? Mike Hawkins thinks so. He believes that rather than particles, what we call dark matter is actually legions of black holes created shortly after the big bang."

Because the speed of light was once much faster, primordial singularities could have formed with a variety of masses. Mathematics predicts
that 23.87% of mass will have collapsed into singularities, surrounding the galaxies in haloes of dark mass. Some of these primordial Black Holes could exist in our solar system, even within Earth's core. The solution to this dark mystery may be beneath our feet.

The Peasants Are Revolting

2011-08-31T03:46:00.009-10:00

Across the globe, from Tripoli to Texas, people are protesting their national governments. Often these regimes are composed of an elite few who have lost touch with reality. They try to stay in power by controlling what the press is allowed to publish. In this way they can set terms of debate, and marginalize dissent. Despite their attempts to stay in power, regimes are being swept away.

In the science world, there is growing resistance to the idea of "dark energy." In turn, DE has led to doubts and confusion about dark matter. A former string theorist, now exiled to China, writes in Alpha Meme:

"The public repulsion against dark matter and dark energy is really annoying. Rob Knop at scientopia compares it to 17th century catholic church mentality; Ethan picks it up and bangs the dark matter explains everything drum although dark matter does not fit very well to galaxy rotation curves – Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) fits much better:"

The "dark energy" link to Wikipedia clearly states that DE is a "hypothetical" form if energy. The link from a former member of the Supernova Cosmology Project, one group which claimed to discover DE, is equally dismissive of the public. He now blogs from Squamish, British Columbia:

"I am regularly struck, when giving public outreach talks, or when hearing the topic of Dark Matter discussed amongst the general non-Astronomer public, at the separation between acceptance of Dark Matter between astronomers and the general (informed) public. (The general public at large probably doesn't have enough of a clue about Dark Matter even to have a wrong opinion, alas!)"

Remarks like this will alienate the public which funds science. In turn this will lead to more ridicule for "dark energy" and its advocates. The idea of a repulsive energy has been very bad for science. When will the scientists admit that the Emperor has no clothes? A simple expression like GM=tc^3 shines light on these dark mysteries.

Moon Tree

2011-08-17T12:20:00.006-10:00

This tree in Monterey, California was grown from a seed carried by Apollo 14. Stuart Roosa carried the tiny seed as he orbited the Moon in the Command Module. After being raised at a nursery in Placerville, the seedling was planted here in 1976. The little seed has grown very quickly! Redwoods are the tallest living things on Earth, with the tallest known specimen reaching 114 meters.

The person by the tree had the honour of doing experiments with Lunar Sample 14003,96. This was a contingency sample brought back by Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell from the surface. Shepard later turned the sample handle into the famous golf club. Apollo 14 was also one of the missions bringing a Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment. Data from LLRE is direct evidence that the speed of light is slowing down. From small seeds grow great trees.

The Farthest Quasar

2011-08-13T23:30:00.000-10:00

In the June 30 issue of NATURE, astronomers report discovery of the most distant quasar ever found. Once these enormously bright lights were called quasi stellar objects because scientists had no idea how distant or bright they really are. ULAS J1120+0641 dates from a time 12.9 billion years ago, about 770 million years after the Big Bang. This quasar emits 60 trillion times as much light as our Sun! It is powered by a Black Hole of 2 billion solar masses.

Dating from a time when few stars existed, this quasar is far too old to have formed from a collapsing star. It's central Black Hole must have formed from direct collapse shortly after the Big Bang. Size of a primordial Black Hole is related to the speed of light. Discovery of this massively powerful quasar is one more bit of evidence that c was much faster in the early Universe.

Juno Launches

2011-08-06T19:42:00.001-10:00

(From this blog March 2007)

This photo of Jupiter combines a visual image from Hubble with X-ray data from the Chandra spacecraft. The North and South poles are alive with X-rays. Like Earth's aurora, this display occurs in both poles simultaneously 140,000 km distant! Something in Jupiter's core links the poles. Jupiter has an immense magnetic field, the strongest in the solar system. Presence of a singularity would explain Jupiter’s field, and why Jupiter gives off nearly twice as much heat as it receives from the Sun.

Cassini has seen a huge hurricane at Saturn's South Pole. The largest planet does not have a storm centred at the South Pole because Jupiter’s magnetic poles do not line up with the geographic poles. The magnetic field is angled 9.5 degrees, indicating that Jupiter’s singularity is offset like that of Earth. Jupiter completes its day in less than 10 Earth-hours. A southern jet radiating from Jupiter’s core would be bent further outward by the rapid rotation. Magnetic fields would cause the storm to rotate in an anti-clockwise direction as seen from above. For signs of such a storm, we can look at the latitude of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.

Astronomers like Geoffrey Marcy and Debra Fisher have found "hot Jupiters" in other solar systems, giant planets orbiting very close to stars. Old ideas of planet formation can not explain these objects. They could not have formed solely from condensing gas, for solar radiation would cause the gas to evaporate. Presently astronomers speculate that they formed farther from their suns, and then drifted closer after formation. All of them? If that is true, why haven't our giant planets drifted into the Sun?

If giant planets formed around singularities, a Black Hole's gravity would prevent them from dissipating. Hot Jupiters could then form extremely close to stars. Rotating Black Holes could also account for the magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune, and why those fields are far offset from the planets’ rotation axes. Jupiter's X-rays could result from the polar jets of a Black Hole.

Friday August 5 the Juno spacecraft successfully launched from Cape Canaveral atop an Atlas V booster. Juno will arrive in Jupiter orbit during July 2016. Attached to Juno is a plaque depicting Galileo. 500 years ago in 1610 Galileo's telescope was first to spot the moons of Jupiter. Though thinkers like Copernicus had proposed that Earth was not centre of the universe, the Galilean satellites were the first evidence of objects circling something other than Earth. Galileo's discovery challenged the prevailing cosmology.

During Galileo's time scientists also disagreed whether light travelled instantaneously or had a finite speed. Galileo suggested stationing lanterns on distant hilltops to time light's travel, but of course he lacked an accurate clock. The first measurement of the finite speed of light was based upon eclipses of the moons Galileo discovered. In the 17th century Ole Roemer explained an anomaly in timing of occultations with a delay caused by the speed of light. In 1676 Roemer predicted that one moon would appear late, and his prediction proved precisely correct. Decades passed before Ole Roemer's results were generally accepted.

Today we have laser lanterns and the distant hilltop of the Moon. The Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment from Apollo has stationed reflectors on the Moon's surface. The initial purpose was to determine the Moon's distance, but LLRE has other applications. Measurements using the Moon can determine that light's finite speed is slowing down. New data about this coming soon.

Vesta Turns

2011-08-05T19:48:00.003-10:00

The Dawn spacecraft took this series of views of asteroid Vesta. We are fortunate to have meteorite samples of Vesta, blown off in some cataclysm. Vesta rocks show signs of melting, as if born in a volcano. What caused pieces of Vesta to be blown off is a mystery. Scientists have suggested a nearby supernova explosion, but such a catastrophe would have affected other bodies such as Earth.

A minor planet like Vesta could also be home to a tiny Black Hole. This dwarf planet would have formed around the singularity like a pearl around a grain of sand. The Black Hole would be too tiny to swallow Vesta, but the small amount it did eat would make the interior warm. A Black Hole could make Vesta volcanic, even sending some pieces hurtling into Space. Vesta contains tiny clues to the formation of our planet Earth.

Mars Water Today

2011-08-04T19:47:00.003-10:00

(2-minute video from JPL) Repeated observations with the HiRise camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have found these changing gully-like features, probably formed by liquid water flowing today. These features appear and disappear seasonally like stream beds. The water would likely be briny, leading to a lower freezing point. On Earth we often see life in briny water. Creatures like the common brine shrimp can even lie dormant for long periods when water runs dry. Recently researchers at California's Mono Lake claimed to find evidence of microbes that use alkali in their chemistry. The evidence for life on Mars continues to gather.

Our research on Martian meteorites shows signs of fossil life nearly 4 billion years old. Old theories of astrophysics claim that the Sun at this time was barely 75 percent as bright, so Earth and Mars would have been frozen solid. Evidence from both planets indicates flowing water billions of years ago. The Sun converts its fuel to energy according to E=mc^2. Because the speed of light was higher in the distant past, solar luminosity is calculated to be almost exactly today's value. If c had not changed in the amounts predicted, life would not have evolved on Earth. Evidence for "c change" is also gathering.

Higgs To Be Confirmed, Or Not

2011-07-31T20:37:00.004-10:00

A headline in Christian Science Monitor confidently states:

The God Particle Existence To Be Confirmed by 2012

This refers to the elusive Higgs Boson, whose existence is predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics. The term "God Particle" was coined by physicist Leon Lederman in the 1990's while seeking funding for the Superconducting Supercollider. When that project was cancelled by the Clinton administration, it was a huge setback for US science. Physicists had to find work in other fields, like cosmology.

Since SSC was cancelled, the Large Hadron Collider has been built in Europe. Though the headline predicts a discovery, so far LHC has found no Higgs. The phase space it could inhabit has grown smaller. By 2012 LHC may have found no Higgs at all.

In big ticket projects, there is a great danger of overconfidence. Scientists must justify their funding by predicting what they will discover. Gravity Probe B was designed to find evidence of relativistic frame dragging. Though the data proved difficult to separate fr noise, Grav Probe 's operators concluded that they had confirmed relativity. There is great pressure to skew the results toward a preselected discovery.

Since the SSC was cancelled, many physicists moved into studies of the Universe. In the late 1990's they claimed discovery of a repulsive "dark energy" causing the universe to accelerate. Following the habits of Physics, they developed a "standard model" for cosmology. Results of other experiments, such as WMAP, were interpreted as confirming the model. As in the Higgs search, there is great danger of overconfidence. Future experiments may confirm that "standard models" are wrong.

Near Earth Object Discovered

2011-07-30T23:46:00.000-10:00

The Lunar Science Forum at NASA Ames finished this week. According to press releases, the new plan is for humans to reach an Near Earth Object by 2025. However the technology needed, such as heavy lift boosters and a crew capsule, is struggling for funding. The challenges of taking a crew millions of miles from Earth are daunting. Studies have found that the NEO's we can reach by 2025 are mostly small, with diameters of 20-40 meters. The public may not be excited about spending billions to reach such small objects. Researchers can point to little science on an NEO that can not be accomplished with unmanned spacecraft. Some doubt if there is a goal at all.

Fortunately NASA has discovered this Near Earth Object only 384,400 kilometers away. It is large enough to support multiple missions. It is known to contain water and other resources that astronauts could exploit. The possible benefits to science would be enormous, from geology to astronomy. As one example, a radio telescope on the far side of this object would be shielded from the electromagnetic noise of Earth. Possibly after looking at more distant NEO's, the US will consider going here first.

As readers of this blog know, the Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment (LLRE) has found evidence that light is slowing down as we speak. A simple expression GM=tc^3 predicts that this object 384,400 kilometers away will appear to recede an additional 0.935 cm/yr. Data from LLRE, when compared with other experiments, verifies the prediction more precisley that Mercury's precession. Science has so far overlooked the evidence, even though it stares us in the face each night.

Lunar Science Forum

2011-07-20T05:45:00.007-10:00

42 years ago today Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon! Today I'm at NASA Ames in California for the Lunar Science Forum and other meetings. The main question, as it has been for decades, is when will humans return to the Moon?

Vesta Day

2011-07-15T16:26:00.002-10:00

Today July 15 the DAWN spacecraft is scheduled to rendezvous with asteroid Vesta. We already have samples of Vesta thanks to the Camel Donga meteorite. In 2015 DAWN will encounter Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt and a minor planet in it's own right. Ceres is known to contain water, by some estimates as much fresh water as Earth. Many discoveries can come from these new worlds.

The Webb Tightens

2011-07-09T09:34:00.003-10:00

An appropriations bill currently going through the US Congress would end all funding for the James Webb Space Telescope. JWST was originally intended to cost just 1 billion, but the price tag has risen to at least 6.5 billion dollars. The launch date has slipped to 2018 or later. Though JWST is new technology with inherent risks, some in Congress are getting tired of the cost.

This blog has tried to chronicle the sad state of NASA's astrophysics program. A Joint "Dark Energy" Mission was muscled to the front of the funding line, pushing aside promising projects like an X-Ray observatory. JDEM was also originally estimated to cost about 1 billion, though no one knows the real price. Along the way a Terrestrial Planet Finder mission was also left to wither. JDEM was then delayed to at least 2025 by the mounting costs of JWST. If the flagship mission is cancelled, astrophysics will be left with nothing.

All is not lost for Physics. JWST funding could be restored to the bill. Newton and Einstein made their advances without large labs or spacecraft. All a physicist needs to figure out that GM=tc^3 is a pencil and paper. The evidence is plain to see. Tangled Webb or not, scientific discovery marches quietly on.

XCOR Makes Fireworks

2011-07-04T22:03:00.002-10:00

Happy Independence Day in the US!

Last weekend was the Apollo-Con science fiction convention in Houston (photo below). One surprise guest was friend, NASA astronaut and Sci Fi fan Stanley Love. He was dressed as a Space traveller too! Near the end of the Shuttle program, Stan gave a fascinating presentation on orbital flight. I couldn't enter the masquerade this year, for I was performing at a play (THE 6TH TRUMPET) in Houston Saturday night. July 1-4 the Westercon regional Sci Fi convention was in San Jose, California. Also last week in San Jose was a galaxy forum from the International Lunar Observatory Association. Among the presentations, we heard from a representative of Virgin Galactic.

At Westercon we were visited by a representative of XCOR Aerospace. They may beat Virgin to the punch with their Lynx spacecraft. Like the original promise of the Shuttle, Lynx can be quickly serviced and turned around on the ground. Leaving out a carrier vehicle makes testing and operations much simpler. Lynx will launch from a runway at Mojave Spaceport, easily passing the Von Karman limit of Earth's atmosphere. With astronaut pilots like Rick Searfoss at the controls, a passenger's view will be just like that of a Shuttle pilot. The Shuttle era is ending, but soon we will have multiple opportunities to reach Space.

Peculiar

2011-06-30T18:12:00.002-10:00

Apologies that this article took a few days to be noticed, from DAILY GALAXY:

Something Peculiar Is Going On

"Simulations based on the standard cosmological model indicate that galaxies should be uniformly distributed. But the universe appears to be clumpier than astronomers expected, according to the largest galaxy survey ever conducted."

Using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, researchers made a 3-D map of 723,556 galaxies more than 4 billion light years away. Their paper appears in the June 13 issue of Physical Review Letters. The clumping found in the data could indicate that "dark energy" does not exist at all, and that we need to change old ideas about gravity. A change in the speed of light would account for the increased clumping quite nicely.

Physical Review Letters, 106, 241301, June 13, 2011

"Dark Energy Is a Fiction"

2011-06-29T18:16:00.005-10:00

This is the title of an article in DAILY GALAXY. The article refers to researchers in Spain who have submitted to Physical Review D. They conclude that "cosmic acceleration" is an illusion caused by time itself slowing down. Time slowing down is mathematically equivalent to a changing speed of light!

Dark Energy Is a Fiction

When the speed of light itself is not constant, scientists will need some constant to anchor their reality. Logically it is much simpler to consider time flowing at a constant rate, and light to be slowing. We would then need to determine whether the $ \mu $ or $ \epsilon $, which are both related to c, change. Rather than today's shrinking job market, a c change would keep physicists busy for years.

Hole in the Earth Spreads

2011-06-25T18:11:00.001-10:00

June is the 5th birthday of this little blog! There was a big increase in traffic this month. This article by Terrence Aym appeared June 6 on the website beforeitsnews.com:

Scientist: Black Hole Has Breached Earth's Core

"A brilliant scientist suggests a black hole may be responsible for recent Earth changes.

"What is causing the geomagnetic field flux? Why have regions of the field ripped and collapsed exposing Earth to the solar max fury rapidly approaching in 2012? Why is the Earth's core seemingly spinning crazily out of control and behaving in a way never before seen? L. Riofrio, who has worked with NASA, believes a black hole is in Earth's core."

Aym's article has been seen by over 17,500 readers worldwide. It has been picked up and repeated on Xenophilia , Mists of Avalon , and countless other websites. Somewhere the name Riofrio was confused with French geophysicist Arnaud Chulliat, leading to a series of nearly identical posts using his name. This blog pointed to Arnaud's work back in February, Magnetic Pole Flipping? , though his work does not consider Black Holes.

Since the scientist was not involved with writing the article, there are a few inaccuracies. The scientist only learned about this article while backstage on June 24! A Black Hole "breach" in Earth's core sounds a bit sensationalized, but journalists have their priorities. The "brilliant" writing is most welcome. Remember, the press heard it from Terrence Aym first!

Best comment:

"I mean, the photo used in the blog talking about the Earth eating black hole looks like a pic jacked off a Russian dating site..."

Asteroid Life

2011-06-22T16:29:00.000-10:00

Speaking of asteroids and life, this article just appeared in COSMOS magazine:

Meteorite Shows How Precursors of Life Evolved

"Organic matter found in a meteorite shows how the chemical precursors of life developed in deep space, with some asteroids acting like 'molecular factories' transforming life's ingredients before shipping them to Earth."

The article refers to the Tagish Lake meteorite, which was found in British Columbia in 2000. Examination of the meteorite has found organic molecules, the precursors of life. Many scientists have suggested that life may have began somewhere in Space, its precursors landing on Earth via meteorite or comet impacts. We may all be descended from extraterrestrial life.

Still Another Top 50!

2011-06-16T16:39:00.003-10:00

These writings have not received a Shaw Prize, a Gruber Prize, or a Macarthur Grant. More important, this little blog has made another Top 50 list:

Radiology Technician's Top 50 Astronomy Blogs

Physics applied to medicine saves far more lives than fictional dark energies ever will. Thank you, Radiology Technicians! Getting science to a diverse public is far more important than following the herd.

Video Approaching Vesta

2011-06-13T16:19:00.006-10:00

The DAWN spacecraft took this video on June 1 as it approached asteroid Vesta at a distance of 483,000 kilometers. At 100 km in diameter, this is the second largest asteroid after Ceres. We are fortunate to have samples from Vesta thanks to the Camel Donga meteorite found in Australia during 1984. This is the only asteroid to have a basaltic surface formed by volcanic processes. How asteroid Vesta could have been hot is a mystery. Even a small world like Vesta could conceivably be home to a tiny Black Hole.

Worms

2011-06-12T16:29:00.001-10:00

In Hawaii and Chile, we have seen two frightening examples of Earth's internal heat. The June 2 issue of NATURE reports the discovery of tiny worms or nematodes in a South African gold mine. The nematodes were found in water from depths over 3 kilometers. Previously scientists doubted that complex life forms could exist at such depths.

In recent decades bacteria have been discovered living at great depths. The nematodes apparently live off the bacteria, their small size allowing them to exist in tiny cracks in the rock. Carbon-14 dating suggests that this watery habitat has not seen light for over 2900 years. Bacteria and nematodes form a subsurface ecosystem far removed from sunlight. The very existence of this liquid habitat is a byproduct of Earth's internal heat. Without this heat, water in Earth's interior would be frozen solid.

Previously NASA astrobiologists, whom this scientist has had the pleasure of working with, discovered worm-like forms in a Martian meteorite. The Martian forms, resembling fossilized life, developed deep below the planet's surface billions of years ago. Discovery of nematodes deep in Earth's interior shows that even complex life forms can exist in planetary interiors. In 4 billion years, could worm-like bacteria have evolved into Martian worms?

Previous posts have suggested that Earth's internal heat could be product of a tiny Black Hole. Growing evidence suggests that life may have developed in planetary interiors before it appeared on the surface. Such life in sunless depths would draw energy from the interior. Similar life forms could also form in asteroids and even distant Kuiper Belt objects. The appearance of life beneath Earth and elsewhere may be due to heat from a tiny Black Hole.

Halemaumau Erupts

2011-06-11T15:54:00.001-10:00

Aloha! Here on the Big Island we have experienced the slow motion eruption of Kilauea, much more gentle than the Chilean event. Our Hawaiian mountains are shield volcanoes, known for gentle growth with occasional eruptions. Recently Halema'uma'u crater within Kilauea volcano has been slowly filling with lava, causing concern that it could overflow. Presently the closest we are allowed to approach is this view from Jagger Museum.

The main eruption has been at Pu'u O'o vent, East of Kilauea crater. The Hawaiian Islands are slowly drifting to the Northwest over a volcanic hot spot in Earth's mantle. Seen from our island's frame of reference, the center of eruption has been slowly moving Southwest. Once it caused the Northwestern Islands to form first, starting with Kauai. Beneath the sea East of the Big Island, a new island is building. On May 27 we hiked to the top of Napau Crater, which is the closest we can approach. Pu'u O'o is the steaming vent to the left. The crater's interior looks like this:

All Earth's internal heat, which causes earthquakes and volcanoes, could emanate from a primordial Black Hole less than one millimeter in diameter! This heat also formed the continents and islands we live on. Deep within Earth, forms of life live entirely off this heat. The Black Hole also generates a magnetic field that guides compass needles and protects us from Space radiation. How wonderful and mysterious are the small things!

Volcano in Chile

2011-06-10T06:09:00.011-10:00

Image taken June 8 by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite.

Since June 4 Chile's Puyehue volcano has been violently erupting, sending smoke and ash many miles into the atmosphere. In this photo the ash cloud appears to have made a turn, going North before being caught in Easterly winds and drifting past the mouth of Rio de la Plata. The cloud has closed airports in Argentina and even Brazil.

What could cause such smoke and fury? Why is Earth's interior, along with that of other planets, so hot? The textbook answer is "radioactive decay," but radioactive elements are rare in Earth's core. Meteorites dating from the time of Earth's formation are composed of nickel and iron. Radioactive elements were created in supernova explosions, and arrived much later.

Earth's crust, in which we sit, has the largest proportion of radioactive elements. Earth's core has temperatures in thousands of degrees, hot enough to melt lead. Even the most radioactive samples that can be found in the crust are not hot enough to melt. The hypothesis of radioactive decay in Earth's core is not supported by geological evidence.

If Earth formed around a tiny Black Hole, radiation from the singularity would keep the core hot indefinitely. The Black Hole would be barely the size of a grain of sand, but have a mass nearly 1/10 that of the Moon. With the surface area of a pinhole, it would be far too tiny to suck us up. For the Black Hole to swallow Earth, the inrushing material would have to exceed the speed of light. The tiny amount that is swallowed would generate radiation, which would oppose gravity's inward pull while keeping the core hot.

A Black Hole in Earth would rotate independently of the planet, dragging ionized material along with it. This would generate a magnetic field that would not necessarily be aligned with Earth's geographic poles. From time to time the magnetic pole would appear to migrate or change direction, exactly as has been recently observed on Earth. Earth's magnetic field protects the planet from the radiation of Space, making life possible on the surface.

Humans have long looked at volcanoes with terror and awe. Earth's internal heat formed the continents we live on. Beneath the surface, many forms of life thrive in darkness by living off this heat. The magnetic field protects us from harmful radiation. We owe all this to a tiny Black Hole, but humans may not be evolved enough to recognize a Black Hole beneath their feet. No wonder it is angry.

Video from Russia Today.

According to ClustrMaps, 419 blog visits in past 24 hours!

Dark Energy Bad for Planets

2011-06-06T07:14:00.012-10:00

(Disclaimer: This writer took Honours Physics from Dr. Marcy and received an A. Otherwise she is not involved in any of the missions mentioned, except for knowing the principals and the story.)

Happy D-Day June 6!

Dr. Geoffrey Marcy, along with colleague Paul Butler, were first to discover planets orbiting other stars. (However, another group in Europe beat them to the publishing line.) Since 1995 Dr. Marcy has become the leading planet hunter, discovering hundreds of new worlds. May 27 at a symposium in MIT, Dr. Marcy expressed his anger that a Terrestrial Planet Finder mission, which he has long advocated, has been pushed out of the funding queue. TPF was conceived to examine the nearest stars for habitable planets. Dr. Marcy lamented that planet hunting does not have support in the astrophysics community. In a 2001 Decadal survey, TPF was a number one priority. Since then many of NASA's astrophysics missions have been cancelled, largely due to emphasis on "dark energy."

In the 2006 NASA budget, TPF was delayed indefinitely. The troubles continued in 2007, when an ad hoc committee of the National Research Council pushed a Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM) to the front of the astrophysics line. In Newport Beach this writer argued to the committee that "dark energy" would be bad for science. In the 2010 Decadal Survey, a cobbled-together concept called WFIRST, based on JDEM, was given first priority. Now, due to the mounting costs of the James Webb Space Telescope, WFIRST or anything like it are not likely to fly until year 2030.

How many times does a Cassandra have to warn that "dark energy" is a bad idea? While press stories crow about DE, other promising science has been pushed aside. TPF has also faced competition from a Space Interferometry Mission. Among the wreckage is an International X-Ray Observatory (IXO) and the LISA mission to search for gravitational waves, also delayed indefinitely. The end result is that no missions, even "dark energy" missions, will fly anytime soon.

Discovery of new worlds is a great achievement for science. Humans have long dreamed about exploring planets in other solar systems. Dr. Marcy, the Kepler mission, and others have shown that extrasolar planets are many and varied. The bottom line is that untold numbers of planets exist, while "dark energy" probably does not. Why should emphasis on DE be allowed to wreck science?

Manta Ray Dive

2011-06-05T05:02:00.006-10:00

The night was clear as the boats shined their lights into the waters off Kona. Standing in fins at our boat's dive platform, I placed one hand over mask and regulator, then took a Giant Step into the black water. Equalizing pressure on descent was difficult this night; our dive leader had to turn back when he could not equalize. Finally we settled on the bottom, in a rough circle like a campfire. We shined our dive lights above us to attract plankton and waited. We were hoping to meet with creatures who were as adept in this underwater world as we were clumsy.

Courtesy of Big Island Divers, this is what we saw the night of May 25. First one Manta appeared, then another, eventually a dozen surrounded our group. The Manta Ray is a gentle filter-feeder, living off plankton and small shrimp. Our dive lights attracted the plankton into glowing clouds above each diver. Nearly every night in this place Manta and human meet in a regular ritual. Attracting Mantas to this spot took years of patient work.

These big creatures, with wingspans up to 4 meters, effortlessly turned and dove among us. Many times a Manta would head straight for a diver so that the human cold see straight into its mouth, then deftly steer away at the last moment to miss the diver by inches. their huge wings swept breezy an inch from our bodies without touching. Sometimes two Mantas would head for each other, then turn in unison to face each other belly to belly. They are the masters of this environment.

When humans encounter alien creatures on some distant world, their meetings could be much like this. Since water has been found so abundant in the Universe, extraterrestrials could live like the Manta in a faraway ocean. Their domain may also be one of darkness, in the interior of a world like Europa or possibly Ceres. Once they are found. developing the rituals of communication may take years of work. The weightless underwater world has many similarities to outer Space.

That night we retired to the Sheraton Keahou Bay, in an oceanfront room with Mantas swimming outside the Lanai. The hotel's lights have attracted plankton and Mantas for years, making the bay into another Manta site. These gentle creatures have developed a ritual for encountering humans. We slept and dreamed about someday meeting extraterrestrials across a great and dark ocean.

Trapped by the Webb

2011-06-01T06:34:00.007-10:00

While the press crows about "dark energy," the real story is that Physics support is sinking. The Director of NASA's Astrophysics Division lords over a shrinking plate of projects. As this little blog has reported in What a Tangled Webb We Weave, When First We Practice to Deceive, and other posts, costs of the James Webb Space Telescope are consuming most of his budget. Some scenarios have JWST not launching until 2022-24. Any SNAP, JDEM, WFIRST or similar mission could not launch for at least 7 tears after.

Despite the press stories, only a tiny minority of scientists believe in "dark energy." Others try to invoke its existence to try to get more of the shrinking funding pie. There is not a single particle or track in a bubble chamber to prove DE's existence. Like the Emperor's New Clothes, it can only be seen by an enlightened few. With JWST delays, a "dark energy" mission will not fly until at least 2030! Long before then the world will know that the universe isn't accelerating, but light is slowing down.

Armies of Light

2011-05-30T05:28:00.002-10:00

Happy Memorial Day in the US! This month we have visited both Pearl Harbor on Oahu and the site of Camp Tarawa on the Big Island, where 50,000 Marines were stationed in WW2. Though Moon samples are precious, we should salute another previous resource, our World War 2 veterans. Australia and other Pacific nations also contributed citizens to the struggle. The city of Townsville in Queensland was also a base for US Marines. As we continually grapple with totalitarianism and other "dark energies," the triumphs of WW2 veterans show that light will always win.

Wet Moon

2011-05-29T06:18:00.003-10:00

Hilo is on the wet side of the Big Island, a place of frequent rain. Trade winds from the Northeast are interrupted by mountainous Mauna Kea and Kilauea, dumping their precipitation here. We are surrounded by gardens and waterfalls. Thanks to abundant water, this side of the Big Island is a garden of life.

A new study of Apollo 17 samples indicates that the Moon contains 100 times more water than previously thought. This finding builds upon previous studies that have found ever more water. The researchers had to complete months of paperwork to use priceless Apollo samples, a process which this scientist has also experienced. The authors of this new study see the need for more samples to expand upon their findings. Up until a short time ago we had a plan to return by the early 2020's. Scientists and engineers still hope that humans will return again walk on the Moon.

Superstar Burns Bright

2011-05-28T06:52:00.006-10:00

Aloha! From Oahu we have moved on to a favourite place, the Big Island. This is a place to observe erupting volcanoes and dive with giant Manta Rays. Photos coming soon!

The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) has discovered that star VFTS 682 is a "superstar" 3 million times as bright as our Sun. With a mass 150 times that of the Sun, VFTS 682 is not part of any known star cluster. The very existence of this star challenges old theories of star formation.

Since the time of Pierre Laplace, stars and stellar systems have been thought to condense from clouds of gas. In Space gas clouds tend to dissipate rather than contract. The heat generated from gravitational contraction would paradoxically make gas dissipate even faster. Somehow gas has contracted until a star ignites, many trillions of times in the Universe.

The Big Bang is theorized to have created thousands of Black Holes. If a Black Hole encountered a gas cloud, the event would draw gas inward until temperature and pressure ignited a star. Presence of the Black Hole would stabilize the new star and prevent it from dissipating. The rotating core around the Black Hole would generate a Sun's magnetic field. Like a Hawaiian pearl around a tiny grain of sand, stars like our Sun could have formed around Black Holes.

A Black Hole inside our bright Sun may be too simple for humans to understand. Primitive peoples associate Black Holes with darkness and destruction. The mathematics of our Sun's core are extremely simple, yet even educated humans have difficulty overcoming prejudice. Though humans may owe their Sun's existence to the Black Hole, it's presence may not be suspected for centuries.

VFTS 682 is a solitary star, existing away from any star clusters or groupings. This star burns brighter than any in the galaxy. Humans, even scientists, tend to think like herds. Group minds, by their very nature, are slow to pick up new ideas. The group thinks an old idea is right, even when observations say the group is wrong. Humans will follow a group even if it leads to war and destruction. However, the light from a solitary star can prove old ideas wrong. Perhaps VFTS 682 contains a lesson for scientists.

Spirit Loss of Signal

2011-05-24T12:33:00.002-10:00

After no contact with the Spirit rover for a year, mission controllers will this week cease attempts to contact her. Spirit and Opportunity have both survived on Mars long past their design endurance.

The Dark Emperor's New Clothes?

2011-05-22T17:53:00.002-10:00

Aloha from Waikiki!

Another study has been released, of galaxy clustering, that claims to be consistent with an LCDM cosmology. In the press it is trumpeted as "confirming" the existence of a repulsive "dark energy." Like the Emperor's New Clothes, DE needs repeated confirmations by it's believers that it exists. What are they insecure about? More about this coming soon.

UPDATE from COSMOS magazine May 24:

"This is a remarkable survey, and a convincing fit to the standard hypothesis of a homogeneous cosmology that includes Einstein's cosmological constant," said Thomas Buchert, a professor of cosmology at Claude Bernard University, France.

"However, it does not rule out alternatives to the standard model, and it does not prove that dark energy 'exists'."

This view is also taken by David Wiltshire, a theoretical cosmologist from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. "If one makes the assumption that the universe expands as a uniform fluid, then these measurements are independent evidence for dark energy," he said.

"However, I see no reason for making the standard assumptions." Wiltshire himself prefers an alternative model of the universe that has no need for dark energy.

Whale Shark Afuera

2011-05-15T16:08:00.007-10:00

The Whale Shark (Rhincodon typus) is the largest of all fishes, a gentle giant that feeds on plankton and fish eggs. They spend most of their lives in deep waters far from land. A diver in a place like Hawaii is considered lucky to see just one passing by. Until recently the Whale Shark was thought to live a solitary existence. Since 2002 there have been stories from Mexican fisherman of huge congregations. 2006 saw the largest concentration ever seen, an event called the Afuera. Nearly every year since then hundreds of Whale Sharks have gathered here on the surface of the Caribbean.

This amazing event is little-known to the outside world. This year discovery of the Afuera has reached the level of a peer-reviewed paper:

An Unprecedented Aggregation of Whale Sharks, Rhincodon typus, in Mexican Coastal Waters of the Caribbean Sea

Sometime this Summer the Whale Sharks are likely to come again, for reasons human scientists are just starting to figure out. The natural world is far stranger than we even imagine.

Jetman

2011-05-12T04:51:00.001-10:00

On May 7 Swiss Yves Rossy successfully flew over the Grand Canyon in his custom jet suit and wings. A former airline pilot, Rossy has spent years perfecting his system. He is the only one who can fly it, having previously flown over the English Channel and (unsuccessfully) the Strait of Gibraltar. There is no instrumentation save for an audio altimeter. Someone should design this man a helmet-mounted display. Perhaps the future of flight is like Icarus, a human with wings.

Vesta Sighted

2011-05-11T12:22:00.005-10:00

The Dawn spacecraft has taken its first photograph of asteroid Vesta from a distance of 1.21 million km. Dawn was launched on September 27, 2007 from Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 17-B atop a Delta 2 booster. An ion propulsion system gives Dawn the endurance to reach its targets in the asteroid belt. Dawn is scheduled to go into orbit around Vesta, the second largest asteroid, on July 15. The spacecraft will rendezvous with Ceres in 2015.

Bode's Law predicts that another planet should lie between Mars and Jupiter. Ceres is the largest asteroid and first to be discovered. Ceres was thought to be the missing planet until other asteroids were found. Vesta is 530 km in diameter, though today it still looks like a tiny dot. We are fortunate to have samples from Vesta thanks to the Camel Donga meteorite, which can be seen in the Museum of Natural History. (See Night at the Museum!)

Ceres has recently been found to contain water; by some estimates more liquid water than Earth! Observations suggest that Ceres is differentiated into core and mantle, which would mean that it was melted early in its history. Ultraviolet observations have found water vapour near Ceres' North Pole. Liquid water is one indicator that Ceres could be suitable for life. How such a small body could be heated is a complete mystery, though Ceres' 10^{21} kg mass could easily hide a small Black Hole. More than just big rocks, the asteroids are new worlds that could contain Black Holes and even life.

Flood

2011-05-10T11:24:00.005-10:00

Before and after satellite photos of the Missisippi River. The crest of the flood is still moving South toward the Gulf of Mexico, recently passing Memphis. This is the biggest flood on the Mississippi and lower Ohio rivers since 1937. Last week huge tornadoes blew across Alabama and six other States.

Multiple disasters of Earth's climate have been occurring in the central United States. Wildfires set off by drought have ravaged the State of Texas, burning over 8500 square kilometers or three times the area of Rhode Island. The fires have claimed at least 400 homes and the lives of two firefighters. For some reason the fire has not been declared a federal disaster area. Remember the story about Nero fiddling while Rome burned?

Morpheus: If At First You Don't Succeed...

2011-05-08T17:59:00.003-10:00

Whoops! As we see in this 20-second video, the Morpheus lander test on May 3 didn't go very well. In this tethered test, Morpheus appears to veer out of control. The test on May 4, Innovation Day, went better. Meanwhile launch of STS-134, once scheduled for April 19, has been delayed until at least May 16 due to problems with the Auxiliary Power Unit (APU).

Bin Laden Compound and Hideout?

2011-05-02T02:56:00.007-10:00

Thank heaven for satellites. Details are still coming in, but Osama Bin Laden's hideout appears to have been this structure in Abbottabad, Pakistan. It's located at 34.187663 North, 73.242517 East in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Bin Laden had lots of neighbours, including Pakistan's military academy, so it is suspicious how he could hide here without someone knowing. Thank heaven for US Navy SEALS too!

It should be noted that early Sunday morning enjoyed a nearly new Moon, so the Navy SEALS would have more cover of darkness in which to ambush their prey. The Moon's thin crescent was doubtless a factor in planning the raid. UPDATE: Better photo added.

Dragon to Mars?

2011-04-30T23:55:00.001-10:00

According to Ken Bowersox, Elon Musk has long wanted Mars. Musk supposedly started SpaceX after inquiring about launch prices and finding they were too high. This video advertises how the Dragon spacecraft only requires a launch escape system to be human-rated. The innovative LES dispenses with the escape tower seen from Mercury to Apollo in favour of side-mounted rockets. Since these don't have to be jettisoned, there are abort options all the way to orbit.

If the LES engines are not used for escape, they can be used for landing! The last part of the video shows Dragon landing on a planet that can only be Mars. A habitat and some sort of return vehicle appear to be prepositioned at the landing site. Dragon would be cramped quarters for an 8-month journey. Possibly it would make the voyage attached to some sort of habitat module. The hab would have to be well-stoked with supplies and shielded from the radiation of deep space. Dragon is designed with a heat shield tough enough to survive a return from the Moon. This video is a fascinating glimpse into SpaceX future plans.

Morpheus Hover Test

2011-04-28T15:34:00.000-10:00

30 second video: Tethered hover test of the Morpheus lunar lander prototype at Johnson Space Center on April 27, about 3:30 PM.

Hot Enough 2

2011-04-23T18:55:00.007-10:00

McDonald Observatory in Texas on April 17. The big dome is the 9.2 meter Hobby-Eberly telescope. Suffering from its own drought, Texas is experiencing scattered wildfires from East to West. The Rockhouse fire covers 202,000 acres. Eighteen separate fires together cover about 1 million acres. At this writing, McDonald Observatory seems to have escaped danger.

Observatories tend to be built on isolated mountaintops, which can be prime locations for fires. In August 2009 an arson fire came within 500 meters of California's famous Mount Wilson Observatory. The Station Fire did consume two firefighters and about 160,000 acres. In May 2007, Griffith Park Above the Fire, another California fire came very close to Los Angeles' Griffith Observatory. In January 2003 a brushfire devastated Australia's Mount Stromlo observatory, wiping out 6 of the telescopes. Mount Stromlo is still rebuilding.

Hot Enough?

2011-04-22T07:21:00.007-10:00

London at 7:30 AM on April 22. We are always concerned with Earth's climate, even before royal weddings. After another freezing Winter, England and Wales suffered the driest March in more than a century. (Texas is also undergoing drought.) With yesterday's temperature of 26C, London is having its hottest April on record. We all remember stories of biblical plagues. At first the Pharoahs denied there were plagues at all, then they said the plagues were not a result of their actions. Finally the Pharoahs were forced to let the people free. When will the people be free?

Morpheus Fires!

2011-04-19T13:52:00.007-10:00

Tuesday afternoon at JSC I witnessed a hot-fire test of the Morpheus lunar lander prototype. This is about as close as JSC employees can get. Johnson Space Center is not normally a rocket site. JSC designed the Space Shuttles, trains astronauts, and is home to Mission Control. It is a convenient tourist destination for the entire middle of the USA. We in Houston naturally think that JSC deserves a Shuttle for display.

Catching Some Gamma Rays

2011-04-18T16:55:00.001-10:00

Gamma ray burster GRB 110328A as imaged by the SWIFT spacecraft. GRB's occur suddenly and briefly, often in places of the sky where nothing was seen before. SWIFT was specifically designed to catch GRB's on the fly, focusing on them immediately after they occur. Curiously, this GRB, which was first seen March 28, has lasted for days. Gamma radiation has repeatedly flared then faded. Space.com article Scientists are not sure why this gamma ray burst is so long-lasting. They think that its power source must be a massive Black Hole.

Through Gravity's Lens

2011-04-15T17:01:00.006-10:00

Hubble photo of the gravitational lens in cluster Abell 383. The curving arcs are galaxies behind Abell, their images bent by gravity. This cluster has far more mass than is visible. Abell 383 would also be a good place to seek massive Black Holes.

Monday night attendees at the Humans in Space Symposium were treated to a showing of the Hubble IMAX 3-D movie at Houston's Museum of Natural Science. The film was introduced by astrophysicist, former astronaut and Hubble repairman Dr, John Grunsfeld. (The very next night HMNS was site of a Tweetup celebrating Yuri's night.)

A galaxy newly found by Hubble and the Swift telescope has been found to have formed only 950 million years after the Big Bang. Astronomers used our Keck 2 telescope atop Mauna Kea to determine the galaxy's redshift. Stars within this galaxy appear to be 750 milllion years old, meaning they were formed when the Universe was only 200 million years old. Space.com story. Old theories of star formation can not explain how they could have formed when the Universe was so young. The cores of these stars may have formed around primordial Black Holes.

Webb: When First We Practice to Deceive

2011-04-13T04:49:00.008-10:00

Just last November we heard that the James Webb Space Telescope was at least 1.5 billion over it's 5 billion budget. At the time it needed an immediate 500 million to meet a launch date of 2016. What a Tangled Webb We Weave. At the beginning of this week we learned that LISA and IXO, two surviving mission concepts from NASA's Beyond Einstein program, would lose all funding due to the mounting costs of JWST. WFIRST, formerly JDEM/SNAP/DESTINY, an ill-starred attempt to quantify "dark energy," was deferred indefinitely. Monday April 11, in testimony before a US Senate committee, Charlie Bolden said NASA doesn't want any extra funds for JWST. He implied that the telescope will not fly until at least 2018. Once we had a goal to reach the Moon in this decade, but Bolden and his boss seem willing to let the Moon slip away too.

The longer a Space project takes to fly, the more costs mount. JWST was originally estimated to cost about 1 billion, but will cost over 6.5 billion. When a "dark energy" mission was first proposed, it was also to cost less than a billion. It is common in government to low-ball the cost estimates to get a project started. WFIRST would take at least 7 years to develop after JWST launches, so the dream of a "dark energy" mission slips again to after the year 2025.

The hypothesis of an accelerating universe is based entirely on the redshifts of Type Ia supernovae. The cosmic microwave background, dating from only 380,000 years after the Big Bang, tells us nothing about acceleration. Redshifts are roughly equal to v/c, an objects velocity divided by the speed of light. A child could figure out what hundreds of physicists have overlooked: the universe is not accelerating, but light has been slowing down. Long before any "dark energy" mission flies, there will be evidence of a real "c change" in Physics.

Yuri's Day and Night

2011-04-12T04:16:00.003-10:00

Happy April 12! This is also the 150th anniversary of the firing on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, the start of America's Civil Way. The 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's flight (and the 30th year since the first Shuttle flight) seems much more positive. We are at the Humans in Space Symposium at Houston's Galleria. Monday morning we heard from Skylab 1 astronaut Joe Kerwin. Last night was a showing of the Hubble 3D IMAX movie at Houston's Museum of Narural Science hosted by John Grunsfeld. More Yuri's Night celebrations will be held worldwide!

End of Beyond Einstein?

2011-04-10T13:12:00.010-10:00

With a hat tip to Steinn Sigurdsson and Kea, last week saw stories that both the Laser Interferometry Space Antenna (LISA) and an International X-Ray Observatory (IXO) were to lose funding. For years this blog been chronicling NASA's Beyond Einstein program and the effect of "dark energy." The writer attended an Observing Dark Energy Workshop and the Beyond Einstein conference in Stanford during 2004, and the 2006 HEAD meeting in San Francisco, where Principal Investigator Harvey Tanenbaum described the planned X-Ray mission. In 2007 a scientist argued before the National Research Council that emphasis on DE would be bad for science.

LISA was a plan to send 3 spacecraft in formation to detect hypothetical gravity waves. IXO evolved from CON-X, a Space-based X-Ray observatory. These were considered first priorities in the Beyond Einstein program, yet in 2007 were pushed out of line in favour of a Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM). In August 2010 JDEM was itself replaced by WFIRST, which would seek extrasolar planets and look for DE on the way. November brought news that the entire astrophysics budget would be eaten by cost overruns on the James Webb Space Telescope.

The WFIRST Progress Report lists as its third goal, "Supernovae as a probe of the expansion history." No explicit mention of "dark energy," which many doubt even exists. The DE advocates are reduced to sub-committee advisors in this Powerpoint plan. WFIRST is described by Steinn as "a hack of a powerpoint presentation no one else had seen." There is reason to doubt that JDEM, WFIRST or anything similar will ever fly.

Is this the end of Beyond Einstein? No by a long shot! These missions would be expensive and not launch until years in the future. The case for existence of gravitational waves is questionable--the LIGO experiment has not detected any. The evidence for "dark energy" is even shakier; the redshifts of Type Ia supernovae can be explained by GM=tc^3 and a changing speed of light. The real advances may have been accomplished with little more than pen and paper.

The local conditions of Special Relativity, which do not allow for gravity, can be linked with the curved Space/Time of General Relativity. The solution can explain much about the Universe--its size, expansion rate and whether that expansion will stop or reverse. A bit of math can explain the non-linear increase of supernova redshifts, the cosmic horizon problem, the "flatness" problem, even the 4.507034% proportion of baryons. Long before the expensive Space missions would have launched, we may already be Beyond Einstein.

Virgin in San Francisco

2011-04-08T14:32:00.000-10:00

Thursday April 7, to help celebrate the opening of a new Virgin terminal at SFO, SpaceShipTwo arrived in San Francisco carried by its WhiteKnightTwo aircraft. The aerial footage is from a Virgin A-320 that flew in company. Among the celebrities on the Airbus were Richard Branson and Buzz Aldrin. This event was intended to foreshadow the day when commercial spacecraft will leave from airports.

Morpheus Test

2011-04-07T18:18:00.005-10:00

3:40 video of coworkers at JSC doing a cold-flow test on the Morpheus lunar lander prototype. Liquid nitrogen is run through the fuel system to check for leaks without using explosive fuel. We also used nitrogen in Building 31 to protect lunar samples from the environment. NASA's mysterious Project M investigated sending a Robonaut to the Moon within 1000 days of a go-ahead. M has morphed into Morpheus, a prototype lunar lander built in partnership with Armadillo Aerospace. Who says we don't have fun in Houston?

Falcon Heavy

2011-04-05T15:55:00.003-10:00

Today SpaceX formally announced development of the Falcon Heavy. Outwardly it looks like three of the human-rated Falcon 9 strapped together. With 27 Merlin engines in the lower stages, Falcon Heavy is designed to complete its mission even if multiple engines fail. Inside it has propellant-crossfeed capability, so when the boosters separate the inner stage will have nearly full tanks. Falcon is Heavy enough to launch small spacecraft to Mars.

The launcher will lift a surprisingly large 53 metric tons to Low Earth Orbit. The Space Shuttle can carry only about 28 tons. If Falcon were much heavier, it would compete with NASA's undefined heavy lift launcher. Washington is still arguing whether their booster should launch 70 or 130 tons. According to their website, "SpaceX agrees with the need to develop a vehicle of that class as the best way to conduct a large number of human missions to Mars." Meanwhile they have plans for an advanced engine that will take the place of 9 Merlins, and still larger Falcon X and Falcon XX. If the US government dithers, private industry may lead the way to the planets.

Whiskers

2011-03-31T07:13:00.004-10:00

Last year friend Jennifer Ouellette wrote this for Discovery News:

Graphite Whiskers to Determine Fate of Our Universe?

Graphite is the carbon form seen in pencils, which are all a cosmologist really needs to work. By exposing graphite to common adhesive tape, physicists have produced graphene, a material with many potential uses. The APS meeting in Dallas last month was full of presentations on graphene and its applications. Recently graphite has been found to occur naturally in tubelike whiskers, even in Space. Today graphite whiskers have been found in Moon samples.

Apollo 17 landed in Mare Serenitatis. The Sea of Serenity is said to form one eye of the Man in the Moon. Mare Serenitatis was also home to the fictional Moon Kingdom in SAILOR MOON before it was overcome by cosmic dark energy. Apollo 17also carried Harrison Schmitt, the only geologist yet to have explored the Moon. Evidence from the Moon may be dark energy's undoing.

Our Apollo samples are over 40 years old, yet they still yield new discoveries. Examining Apollo 17 regolith samples using the technique of Raman spectroscopy, scientists at JPL have found traces of graphite whiskers. They could be leftovers from 3.9 billion years ago, when the Moon and solar systems underwent a Late Heavy Bombardment of meteors. The whiskers would have arrived on the Moon via meteorites, having formed in deep Space.

In 2008 other astronomers found traces of graphite whiskers in 3 different meteorites. Graphite dust may be common in the Universe. The dust would block light in infrared wavelenghts. If so, its presence might dim the light from distant supernovae. That dimming is the only evidence of "cosmic acceleration" or "dark energy." Other sorts of cosmic dust might also explain away dark energy.

Redshifts are related to the speed of light. The other explanation is that the Universe is not accelerating but the speed of light is slowing down. If the "accelerating" redshifts are caused by dust, there is other evidence for c slowing. Since this blog started, evidence for c change has also been found from the Moon. Like whiskers on the Man in the Moon, alternatives to "dark energy" continue to sprout.

UPDATE: "Dark energy" skeptic Subir Sarkar of Oxford reports that the Hubble WFC2 data only rules out some void models, not others. An assertion in the press that DE's existence has been proven is premature, to say the least.

Inflation May Need Air

2011-03-29T16:43:00.002-10:00

In the late 1970's, when rising prices were on everyone's mind, Alan Guth and others proposed that the universe had also suffered from inflation. According to inflation, when the universe was only 10^{-33} seconds old it expanded at warp speed, many times faster than light. Though it appeared to solve some puzzles in cosmology, inflation would violate both the First Law of Thermodynamics (conservation of energy) and Relativity's stipulation that nothing travels faster than light.

To power inflation, physicists had to infer repulsive "scalar fields" or "inflatons." None of these imaginary forces has ever been observed in nature. Inflation can never be demonstrated by experiment--humans can not time-travel to the first 10^{-33} seconds to observe inflation, and no human experiment can approach the titanic energies near the Big Bang. Nevertheless, inflation theories have been a cottage industry for 3 decades.

In the cover story of this month's SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, cosmologist Paul Steinhardt asks:

The Inflation Debate: Is the theory at the heart of modern cosmology fundamentally flawed?

"In brief: Cosmic inflation is so widely accepted that it is often taken as established fact. The idea is that the geometry and uniformity of the cosmos were established during an intense early growth spurt.

"But some of the theory’s creators, including the author, are having second thoughts. As the original theory has developed, cracks have appeared in its logical foundations.

"Highly improbable conditions are required to start inflation. Worse, inflation goes on eternally, producing infinitely many outcomes, so the theory makes no firm observational predictions."

Steinhardt, one of inflation's founders, has abandoned the idea and is now advocating a cyclic universe. Other alternatives have also appeared. A cosmology where light was much faster in the early universe would sidestep the problem of expanding faster than light. Varying c would solve the same problems that inflation claims--why the universe appears uniform and why it is at a critical density. For inflation to work, the overall density must be tuned to a very precise value. According to GM=tc^3 the "critical" density is the stable density.

Inflation appeared to solve cosmological puzzles and provided much food for thought. Though a useful step, inflation can never be proven. Unlike inflation, a GM=tc^3 model makes a surprising and testable prediction--light is still slowing down at a tiny rate. Evidence for a "c change" may be here with us today.

Nautilus-X

2011-03-28T17:40:00.003-10:00

NASA concept for a long-duration exploration vehicle capable of travel to Mars and beyond. Nautilus-X would be assembled near Earth, tested by journeying to lunar orbit, and be reused for different missions. A centrifuge is included to help the crew cope with microgravity, though the wheel doesn't seem to have much headroom. This design isn't as simple and sexy as 2001's Discovery, and would have serious problems with crew radiation exposure. Still it is nice to see someone in the office thinking this far ahead.

Yet Another Top 50!

2011-03-27T07:03:00.014-10:00

This scientist has not been awarded the million dollar Shaw Prize, the half million dollar Gruber Prize, a MacArthur Grant or this year's Einstein Prize. Experience shows that people who have those things remain insecure, living in fear that someone will show that cosmic acceleration doesn't exist. Instead of getting greedy for more, we are happy for all the people who do care. Another Top 50 blog list has been discovered, from Laboratorytechnician.org:

50 Phenomenal Astrophysics Blogs

"GM=tc^3: Subtitled Adventures in Space/Time, Riofrio's blog explores the cosmos with a scientific perspective and a curiosity for the unknown."

Scientific perspective and curiosity for the unknown is all one really needs. Thank you, Laboratory Technician! Science could not function without you!

The Dark Strikes Back

2011-03-25T16:42:00.017-10:00

This blog has often reported speculation about a repulsive "dark" energy. Curiously, Dark Lords refuse to acknowledge alternative ideas. From their first paper back in 1998, they have tried to rule out other explanations. A Space.com article Bizarre Dark Energy Theory has been picked up by everyone from CBS to the Albuquerque Express. Using data from Hubble's WFC2 camera, which astronauts installed during STS-125, a Dark Lord claims to have ruled out an alternative to DE.

This may be referring to the "Bubble" hypothesis from Oxford's Timothy Clifton and Pedro Ferreira. In this theory, we live inside a cosmic "bubble" of different density. This led SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN to ask in a cover story: Does Dark Energy Really Exist? We reported in 2009:

Now They Ask: Does It Really Exist?

Alternately the Dark Lord may be trying to squelch a theory from Blake Temple of UC Davis and Joel Smoller. Their work suggests that our galaxy is in the middle of a density fluctuation that mimics the effects of acceleration. This led NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC to ask:

Dark Energy's Demise?

Today there are multiple alternatives to a repulsive "dark" energy. The Dark Lord has not yet ruled out the simplest alternative, one that can not be ruled out no matter how many supernovae are found. Redshifts are proportional to v/c, velocity divided by the speed of light. The universe may not be accelerating, but the speed of light is slowing down.

Dark Lords can call this "Undesirable No. 1"

UPDATE: Void proponent and "dark energy" skeptic Subir Sarkar of Oxford reports that the WFC2 data only rules out some void models, not others. The assertion that DE's existence is proved is quite premature.

Herd in Dallas

2011-03-24T16:45:00.013-10:00

This has been a very busy week at the huge American Physical Society meeting in Dallas. APS has taken over the convention center and most of the good hotels. There was a large and attentive audience for Monday's talk: Lunar Orbit Anomaly and GM=tc^3 Cosmology. Tuesday was filled with poster sessions and meetings with APS journal editors. Wednesday started with another meeting, this one with Physical Review Letters. The Physical Society of Japan is holding a collection for tsunami relief. Scientists came from every continent to hear talks.

In front of the convention center is this sculpture of cosmologists. The herd finds it easy to follow fashionable ideas, be they "inflation" or "dark energy." Has anyone told them the awful fate that awaits the end of their journey? How inflation can never be proven experimentally? How "dark energy" will be remembered alongside ether and epicycles? As physicists head for slaughter, they feel safe in their great numbers.

Supermoon Tonight

2011-03-19T09:26:00.016-10:00

The view from my lanai. Everyone look at the Moon tonight! As with the planets, the Moon orbits in an ellipse. Tonight's full Moon coincides with perigee in the lunar orbit, leading to a "supermoon." The Moon will appear larger than ever before.

One moon ago February 21 this paper appeared from Lorenzo Lorio:

On the anomalous secular increase of the eccentricity of the orbit
of the Moon

The eccentricity of an ellipse measures its departure from a circle. According to Lorio, the Moon's eccentricity has increased at an anomalous rate. He is generous enough to examine a variety of possible causes, from General Relativity's Lense-Thirring effect to an undiscovered planet. If this effect is confirmed, it adds to a number of anomalies in solar system orbits.

Anomalies in orbits can have great significance. Mercury's elliptical orbit precesses at 5600 arcseconds per century, but a discrepancy of only 43 arcsec/century was enough to prove General Relativity. Readers of this blog know that the Moon is receding from Earth 1/3 faster than geology says. The anomaly may be predicted even more precisely than Mercury's precession! If you are in Dallas, Texas for the American Physical Society meeting next week, you might enjoy this talk:

Lunar Orbit Anomaly and GM=tc^3 Cosmology

ABSTRACT: Studies of the Moon at Johnson Space Center have confirmed a large anomaly in lunar orbital distance, with possible applications to Relativity. Our Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment has reported the Moon's semimajor axis increasing at 3.82 ± .07 cm/yr, anomalously high. If the Moon were gaining angular momentum at this rate, it would have coincided with Earth less than 2 Gyr ago. The Mansfield sediment (Bills, Ray 2000) measures lunar recession at 2.9 ± 0.6 cm/yr. Additional observations independently measure a recession rate of 2.82 ± .08 cm/yr. LLRE differs from independent experiments by 10 sigma. A cosmology where speed of light c is related to time t by GM=tc^3 has been suggested to predict the redshifts of Type Ia supernovae, and a 4.507034% proportion of baryonic matter (Riofrio 2004). If c were changing in the amount predicted, lunar orbital distance would appear to increase by an additional 0.935 cm/yr. An anomaly in the lunar orbit may be precisely accounted for, shedding light on puzzles of "dark energy.'' In Planck units this may be summarised as M=R=t.

Enceladus is Hot, Hot

2011-03-18T12:35:00.004-10:00

Previously this blog has reported ever-increasing estimates of the heat coming from Saturn's moon Enceladus. Our Cassini spacecraft has found that little moon's South Pole is a "hot spot" spewing gas and water vapour into Space. Enceladus is a laboratory in which contains clues to a tiny Black Hole. A central singularity would affect our understanding of many objects, including Earth.

Way back in June 2006, the estimates of Enceladus' heat output were around 1 gigawatt. This was reported in Here Be Dragons.

"In 2005 our Cassini spacecraft made some amazing discoveries about Saturn and her moons. The moon Enceladus has a volcanic "hot spot" centred on its South Pole. The pole, which should be the coldest region on the moon, is the hottest! This spot emits an enormous plume of vapour which maintains Saturn's E Ring. Old theories of radioactive decay or tidal stress can not explain this hot spot.

"Enceladus' core and behaviour can be modelled with a central singularity of 10^12 kg. This mass is typical for a primordial singularity. This object consumes only 2.8 kg per year and generates 10^9 watts of radiation. Water and other molecules near this centre are heated to a plasma. Electrons are stripped from atoms, and the resulting ions are drawn into circular orbits. The resulting current generates a magnetic field with the "positive" pole in the South.

"Electrons and positively charged ions spiral along magnetic field lines to form bipolar jets, the classic sign of a singularity. The Northern jet is composed of electrons which are absorbed by the moon's interior. More energetic ions of the Southern jet penetrate these layers to warm the South Pole. Escaping ions spiral into space, exactly as observed by Cassini."

By December 2007, estimates of the heat were up to 6 GW, AGU's Expanding Universe.

"Monday morning in Moscone South Room 102 Carolyn Porco began a series of talks on Saturn moons. Jennifer Meyer made the surprise assertion that Enceladus' 6 GW of heat can not be accounted for by tidal forces. The conventional estimate from tidal heating is only 0.12 GW. The old hypothesis or "radioactive decay" does not work for these icy moons. In desperation some researchers are conjecturing a meteorite strike at the South Pole, a true deus ex machina. Enceladus' core is an excellent place to consider a Black Hole."

Hooray for Jennifer Meyer, young and daring to question the orthodoxy! This month estimates of the heat are up to 15.8 gigawatts!
JPL Press Release:

"Heat output from the south polar region of Saturn's moon Enceladus is much greater than was previously thought possible, according to a new analysis of data collected by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The study was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research on March 4.

"Data from Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer of Enceladus' south polar terrain, which is marked by linear fissures, indicate that the internal heat-generated power is about 15.8 gigawatts, approximately 2.6 times the power output of all the hot springs in the Yellowstone region, or comparable to 20 coal-fueled power stations."

15.8 gigawatts is far more than can be produced by radioactive decay, tidal forces, a meteorite strike, or any other theory so far considered. It is well within the range that could be produced by a tiny Black Hole. Saturn's little moon is a laboratory where we can observe the processes that created our Earth. Earth also generates internal heat, as if our planet were formed around a Black Hole. Earth also has a magnetic field, the existence of which baffled even Einstein. Rotation of the Black Hole would create a field that would not necessarily be aligned with Earth's geographic poles. These mysteries shoud make minds consider a Hole in the Earth.

PhD: Phobos and Deimos

2011-03-15T06:13:00.003-10:00

3 conferences in 3 weeks, in 3 different cities! People actually get paid to have this much fun? The Phobos-Deimos conference is happening at NASA Ames in California. We just heard famous planetary scientist William K. Hartmann talk about theories of a late-heavy bombardment of asteroids. Evidence from Earth's Moon points to a huge storm of impacts 3.9 billion years ago. According to Hartmann, not all scientists agree. No one is sure how the Martian moons originated. Since Apollo, most have agreed that our Moon is the result of a giant impact. The answers may wait until people have visited Phobos and Deimos.

Tsunami

2011-03-13T05:27:00.000-10:00

As we watch the horrifying footage from Japan and elsewhere, hearts go out to the friends whose lives are affected. Previously this blog has warned of the dangers of tsunamis, which could touch every place from Hawaii to New York. The earthquake, and Earth's core heat, could be products of a tiny Black Hole in the Earth.

Above is a favourite place, Kelakekua Bay on the Big Island. It was the site of great tragedy when Captain Cook's blood was spilled in 1779. Today it has some of the best snorkelling reefs on the island. Spinner dolphins are often seen in the bay too. The bay was created in an enormous tsunami.

The steep cliff on the far side of the bay marks where a 30-km chunk of the shoreline broke free 120,000 years ago and plunged into the sea. The resulting tsunami completely submerged the island of Kaho'olawe, 1427 feet high! The wave continued and nearly inundated the island of Lanai. Today on Lanai you can still find chunks of coral deposited at the 1000-foot level.

Cumbre Vieja volcano in the Canary Islands looks peaceful now. Undersea surveys have found a 400 cubic km landslide, the debris of a prehistoric eruption. Previous activity has caused the Western slope to come loose, creating a North-South fracture. Another large eruption would cause 500 cubic kilometres of mountain to crash into the sea. Dr. Simon Day and Steven Ward have modelled what would happen next.

The initial impact would create a water dome 900 meters high, collapsing and spreading like a stone in a giant pond. A massive tsunami would race across the Atlantic at nearly 800 km/hr. The coast of Morocco would be struck by waves 100 meters high. Waves up to 50 meters from crest to trough would strike the US East Coast. Water would inundate coasts from Britain to Brazil.

The Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 produced waves up to 30 m high. Krakatoa's eruption in 1883 created 6 m waves, killing 30,000 people. The damage in New York City alone would make 9/11 look like a college prank. The Northeastern US is also vulnerable to earthquakes. As recently as 1925 a magnitude 7 quake struck the region. Unlike California or Hawaii, New York has never prepared for a major earthquake.

Before Einstein and Planck some scientists believed they knew everything about physics. Even today some will tell you that they have inventoried everything in the Universe. It is the height of folly to think we know everything in nature. Earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis could be the hiccoughs of a Black Hole less than a millimetre across. The Universe has power and mystery far beyond human understanding.

LPSC 2011

2011-03-12T19:44:00.003-10:00

The Woodlands Waterway Marriott, North of Houston. This week March 7-11 was the big Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in the Woodlands. Monday afternoon scientist Robin Canup lectured on formation of planetary satellites. Later Monday the MESSENGER team reported on the spacecraft's approach to Mercury orbit, due this St. Patricks Day!

Tuesday afternoon we heard new results from the Mars meteorite team at Johnson Space Center. Study of the Nahkla Martian meteorite show sings of carbonates, a key indicator of life. Tuesday evening the Antarctic Meteorite search (ANSMET) reported on 1200 new meteorites recovered from Antarctica to JSC.

Thursday morning Japanese researchers reported that the Hayabusa spacecraft had returned tiny particles of asteroid regolith to Earth. The roundtrip journey to asteroid Itokawa took seven years! On the way three of the spacecraft's four ion thrusters failed. Finally in 2010 the sample capsule returned by parachute to Australia. We hope to learn more about asteroids for future human missions.

We also heard the first news about the enormous earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The more we understand Earth and the processes within its interior, the better prepared we will be. The source of Earth's core heat could be mysterious as a Black Hole.

In Woodlands you might also have heard this presentation:

Lunar Orbit Anomaly and GM=tc^3 Cosmology

INTRODUCTION: Studies of the Moon, made thanks to Johnson Space Center, have confirmed a large anomaly in lunar orbital evolution. The Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment (LLRE) has reported the Moon's semimajor axis increasing at 3.82±.07 cm/yr, anomalously high. Tidal data indicates a recession rate of only 2.9 ± 0.6 cm/yr. Additional observations independently measure a recession rate of 2.82 ± .08 cm/yr. A cosmology where speed of light c is related to time t by GM=tc^3 has been suggested to predict the redshifts of Type Ia supernovae. By this hypothesis, lunar orbital distance would appear to increase an additional 0.935 cm/yr. An anomaly in the lunar orbit may be precisely accounted for, shedding light on puzzles of "dark energy.'' This hypothesis may also explain the “faint young sun” paradox of astrophysics.

More Life From Meteorites

2011-03-05T18:32:00.008-10:00

Disclaimer: This scientist had the pleasure of working with researchers who found signs of fossilised life in an Antarctic Martian meteorite. Since 1996 many others have claimed alternate explanations for the fossils. The most recent research from the Mars meteorite team focused on magnetites. These were found in patterns that could not be produced except via biology. Though many have claimed in the press that the 1996 findings were disproven, the evidence for life in meteorites continues to grow.

Richard B. Hoover of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center has spent the last 10 years travelling to remote spots like Antarctica in search of CI1 carbonaceous chondrite meteorites. These rare meteorites are thought to originate in asteroids and comets. In a paper published Friday in the Journal of Cosmology, he claims evidence that life is common in the solar system.

Fossils of Cyanobacteria in CI1 Carbonaceous Meteorites

The Scanning electron Microscope image is from the Ivuna meteorite, found in Tanzania. This filament is encased in a carbonaceous sheath. It is very simlar to Earthly bacteria, both in shape and chemical makeup. It is hard to imagine how it could have formed, except through biology.

Using examples from multiple CI1 meteorites, Hoover advances the argument that life is common: in asteroids, moons and comets. Life's appearance on Earth could have been the result of meteorites/comets. We could all be descendants of Space travellers. Hoover's paper adds to evidence of life from multiple Martian meteorites. The evidence for extraterrestrial life continues to grow. As we dreamed via science fiction stories, life could be everywhere.

STS-133 Memories

2011-03-02T16:19:00.005-10:00

A couple more photos to remember the STS-133 launch. Waiting by the river in Titusville with about 100,000 others. Spaceflight has many supporters, of all ages worldwide and across the political spectrum.

Go, baby go! The STS-133 launch and smoke trail. It is amazing that humans can accomplish something like this.