March 2009 – Page 2 – astroengine.com

In the Event of ISS Naming Dispute, the Brian Bat Foundation Lodges Node 3 to be Called “Brian”

bbf_prop_11

As of Monday night (March 23rd), NASA had yet to officially announce the name of the upcoming Node 3 to be attached to the International Space Station. There is some controversy with the voting process as Stephen Colbert, presenter of the Comedy Channel’s “Colbert Report”, used his significant media presence to secure a win of the vote after appealing to his audience to vote for “Colbert”. NASA allowed the name to remain as a candidate and it went on to win the competition. Naturally, this outcome drew some surprise and doubt as to whether NASA will keep “Colbert” at all. In second place is the far more palatable “Serenity”, more suitable on so many levels.

However, should NASA go with the popular vote and name Node 3 “Colbert”, it might be seen as setting a bad president that celebrities can use their TV presence to force the outcome of what should be a scientific vote (and therefore get some stellar free advertising). If NASA decides not to use “Colbert” in favour of the second official choice of “Serenity”, NASA will suffer accusations of preventing the democratic process, thereby making public participation in mission naming a farce. Either way, although fairly minor, there could be some trouble ahead, and possibly bad press for NASA.

Therefore, as the Brian Bat Foundation‘s first official business, we are putting forward a proposition that in the event of a Node 3 naming dispute, NASA should consider using another, more suitable name for Node 3. It is not the name, it is the memory that is important, the memory of Brian the Discovery Bat who lost his life during the launch of the most recent shuttle mission to the ISS, STS-119. The Node 3 voting process was nearly over on that fateful Sunday night at Cape Canaveral, so voting for the name “Brian” wasn’t a possibility.

It’s about time Brian and all the other animals that have sacrificed their lives in the name of human space exploration are remembered in space as well as on the ground. Perhaps a component on the orbiting manned outpost could be the ideal location for such a memorial. Now that would be awesome!

A special thanks to @Barstein for suggesting the new possible name for Node 3 and to the ever watching spirit of Brian, @DiscoveryBat

Will NASA Really Call the ISS Node 3 “Colbert”?

The NASA Node 3 and ESA-built Cupola (NASA)

There’s a mini-storm brewing over the popular choice of the winning nomination for the name of the new segment of the International Space Station (ISS). The problem arose when NASA decided to invite nominations for names of the new addition; NASA had four “official” suggestions (including the popular “Serenity” option after the legendary spaceship from the TV show Firefly), but “Colbert” from the popular TV show, “The Colbert Report”, won with a vote count of over 230,000. This beat off “Serenity” by 40,000 votes, a convincing lead in my books.

All in all, I’d make this simple. NASA invited nominations and allowed the public to vote on it, so name Node 3 after a popular comedian and not a popular space ship. However, this may invite criticism that a celebrity can actively drum up support (perhaps unfairly) via a large audience. But is this enough to make the Colbert result null and void? Although NASA reserves the right to override the result, the agency should have removed Colbert from the voting before the process ended if it was indeed deemed unfair.

Personally, I would love to see Node 3 be named Serenity (as this Astroengineer is a serious Firefly nut), and “serene” is what this node will be as the ESA Copola will be attached, giving station astronauts an incredible viewing experience of the Earth and space, I can think of no better, peaceful viewing platform. To say “I’m entering Serenity,” sounds far better (and more decent) than “I’m entering Colbert,” but NASA may have to be fair on this. They invited public participation, and to defend the agency’s public image and guise of fairness (regardless of competition clauses), technically “Colbert” should be chosen. But I would be overjoyed if Node 3 was named Serenity, be damned with democratic fairness!

In any case, all the finalists were pretty cool, although I have no idea how Xenu made it into the top ten… there are a lot of Scientologists out there it seems, now that is where the real debate should be focused!

Happy 10th Birthday Universe Today!

The vintage UT logo from 1999

Wow! The Universe Today is ten years old!

It’s one of those websites that I took for granted for many years, until Fraser Cain gave me the outstanding opportunity to write for it on December 21st, 2007. Over at the site, Fraser provides an intimate look into why and how he got Universe Today started, but I thought I’d share some memories of when I first stumbled upon Fraser’s venture and how I had the crazy luck to start writing for him.

To set the scene: It was a cold, dark night, in the frozen Arctic wastes…
Continue reading “Happy 10th Birthday Universe Today!”

It was Only a Matter of Time…

With the looming retirement of the space shuttle, the ascension of space tourism and hopes of returning to the Moon by the year 2020, this is an exciting and uncertain time when it comes to space travel and exploration. But with uncertainty and excitement also come opportunities that could change the way we look at space for decades to come and give rise to brand new ways of doing business and spawn dozens of new companies. Flying excited passengers to the edge of space could be just the beginning of a whole new industry that serves scientists, explorers and even the worlds’ military powers.

Dr. Ian O’Neill, a veteran contributor to Universe Today and avid space blogger and Greg Fish, a popular science and business writer who’s work regularly appears on BusinessWeek.com, have joined forces to identify target markets for space minded entrepreneurs as well as lay out what issues need to be resolved along the way in Astroeconomics: Making Money From The Vacuum Of Space. Combining science with marketing and the basics entrepreneurship, O’Neill and Fish take a new look at the economics of space exploration to find business opportunities for space minded companies and put many long popular ideas about the future of space travel under the microscope to separate fact from fiction.

Ultimately, the writers argue, we’ll need to rethink our priorities in space and rather than focus on politics, flag planting and living in fear of taking on new and exciting projects, we should be trying our best to transition space travel to a market-driven system which serves government agencies with assets in space, scientific institutions and private enterprise. Commercialization of space is slowly but surely beginning to happen and Astroeconomics will help space minded entrepreneurs to complete this shift and make the most of it.

See World Of Weird Things »

Pins and Solar Arrays

Astronaut Richard Arnold participates in the STS-119 first scheduled spacewalk to connect the S6 truss segment to the ISS on Thursday March 19th, 2009 (NASA)

According to NASA, Space Shuttle Discovery’s STS-119 mission to install the remaining solar arrays is going to plan, apart from the small matter of a pin that was installed the wrong way. Although this might sound inconsequential, the mistake made during today’s spacewalk has jammed an equipment storage platform, eating up valuable time during the EVA, causing NASA mission control to evaluate the situation. At the moment, the platform is temporarily tethered in place until a solution is found to the pin that has been inserted incorrectly.

For more information on this news, check out the Associated Press article »

In the grand scheme of things, this won’t hinder progress too much. I am still in awe of any mission that makes the space station capable of supporting an expanded crew of six, creating the second brightest object in the nights sky (after the Moon). This bright speeding object is a huge, man-made array of solar panels. If we are capable of doing these things at an altitude of 350 km, anything is possible…

Twitter Hearts Space Science Blogging

It’s ~~Friday~~ Saturday [get comfortable, this turned into a long post], and I’ve been bogged down with a HUGE project I’ve been keeping under wraps for a couple of months (you will find out what that’s about on Monday), so I’ve been blogging in fits and starts. All going well, I’ll be back up to speed on the growing list of space news on Astroengine.com and the Universe Today very soon. However, as it’s the end of the week, I feel like posting my thoughts on Twitter, a microblogging platform that has become an invaluable tool not only for my science writing, but for meeting wonderful, like-minded people…
Continue reading “Twitter Hearts Space Science Blogging”

What Will Happen When the Sun Turns into a White Dwarf?

Strong tidal interactions are thought to shred any asteroids or comets as they get too close to a white dwarf (NASA)

All the way back in January, I had the great fortune to attend the American Astronomical Society’s (AAS) conference in Long Beach, California. I had a lot of fun. However, between the free beer and desperately searching for wireless Internet signal, I also did some work. During my travels, I spent some time browsing the poster sessions, trying to get inspiration for an article or two. You’d think that when presented with hundreds of stunning posters that inspiration wouldn’t be that far away. However, I was repeatedly frustrated by information overload and defaulted to a clueless meander up and down the pathways walled with intense science debates.

But then I saw it, right at the end of one of the poster walls, a question that got my imagination bubbling: “Will The Sun become a Metal Rich White Dwarf After Post Main Sequence Evolution?” The Sun? After the Main Sequence? Metal rich? To be honest, these were questions I’d never really pondered. What would happen when the Sun turns into a white dwarf? Fortunately, I had Dr John Debes to help me out with the answers…
Continue reading “What Will Happen When the Sun Turns into a White Dwarf?”

The Brian Bat Foundation

“Remembering the voluntary and accidental endeavours of animals in human spaceflight” — BrianTheBat.org

Just in case you haven’t heard, one little free-tailed bat from Florida caused quite a stir this week. Brian the Bat, who hitched a ride with Space Shuttle Discovery, captured the hearts and minds of the Twitter and blogging community, eventually spilling into the international stage. Although it was widely reported that “a bat” had been involved in the STS-119 launch, it seemed that the world reacted even more strongly to the fact I had personalized him by naming the little fella.

First, a major Norwegian publication referred to “Brian the Bat” (in wonderful articles written by Geir Barstein), followed swiftly by the UK’s Sun (reported by the excellent Paul Sutherland) and the Daily Mail.

So what was leant from the sad loss of Brian? The world has an appreciation/concern for the endeavours of animals in spaceflight. Therefore, today I have launched the Brian Bat Foundation (BrianTheBat.org), a section of Astroengine.com set up to keep track and celebrate the endeavours of animals in space flight. I have covered articles about mosquitoes, monkeys, dogs, spiders, butterflies and even tardigrades involved in space experiments, but there should also be an awareness that other animals are impacted by our spaceflight activities too. I hope The Brian Bat Foundation will do this, reporting on the funny, interesting and often tragic world of animals in space…

Visit BrianTheBat.org for more information »

Nominations

Know of a worthy space animal that needs a mention? Leave your suggestions in the comment box below and I’ll do some research, hopefully ending up with an article about the space pioneer.

What Have I Done? Worlds Media Adopt “Brian the Bat”!

The one day I’m on the road and can’t find an Internet connection was bound to be the very same day that the mother of all headline news breaks! “Brian the Bat” has been adopted by the mainstream media. Naturally, many websites and news sources picked up the tragic end of the little broken-winged free-tail bat that attempted to stow away on Space Shuttle Discovery’s STS-119 launch on Sunday. However, after pondering the little guy’s fate on Sunday, I did what I normally do when talking about a cute little furry animal… I named him.

For some reason that even I cannot explain, I tend to call animals “Brian” if I can’t think of another name, so it seemed only natural to call the Discovery bat, Brian. Now it seems the mainstream media has been paying attention to the random Twitterings about Brian.

I first got news from @Barstein that one of Norway’s largest papers (thank you Geir, for writing the article!), Dagbladet, had picked up the news, attributing Astroengine.com with the naming (awesome). I have yet to translate and read the article fully, but I will do in a short while (Starbucks ‘net connection permitting). Dagbladet then followed up with “Her dør flaggermusa Brian” (“Brian the bat dies here”).

I was already overwhelmed that a major Norwegian paper would celebrate Brian’s final hours, but then I find out that the Daily Mail Online (one of the biggest UK newspapers) also reported about Brian the Bat!

Wow, all because I call small furry animals “Brian”. The power of Twitter and blogging appears to be rather strong! Although I would have liked Astroengine’s international media début to be focused on some extreme astrophysics theory, I am honoured that I might have played a small roll in personalizing this unfortunate Florida free-tailed bat, possibly boosting his memory the world over. He paid the ultimate price for our push to the stars, Brian should be remembered for that…

UPDATE (4pm): The largest UK tabloid newspaper, The Sun has just published an article called “It’s a giant leap for batkind” mentioning that the bat’s name was Brian. I was a little disappointed not to have a link to the original article at first, but I’m actually very glad, Astroengine might blow a fuse if I got a link from one of those sites!

Bat News Update: It Gets Worse

Brian the Discovery Bat holds onto the external tank moments before launch (NASA/Damaris B. Sarria)

NASA has now given details about the circumstances of Brian’s demise. It turns out that Brian was in fact a free-tailed bat, and not a fruit bat as previously reported.

Also, NASA confirmed today’s news that Brian could be seen holding onto the orange external fuel tank as Space Shuttle Discovery cleared the tower during launch.

NASA was hopeful that Brian would fly away before Discovery even got close to launching, but it turns out that there was a reason for the bat’s stubbornness (and no, he wasn’t sleeping):

Based on images and video, a wildlife expert who provides support to the center said the small creature was a free tail bat that likely had a broken left wing and some problem with its right shoulder or wrist. The animal likely perished quickly during Discovery’s climb into orbit.

Now, that is sad. Brian was seen to be moving from time to time, and despite the deterrents put in place by NASA to frighten wildlife away from pre-launch shuttles (i.e. warning sirens), he refused to budge. This was probably because he was injured.

Naturally, this sad event has caused some anger, but I doubt NASA can be to blame for this unfortunate series of events. Bats have been seen to land on waiting shuttles on launch day in the past, only for them to fly away when the shuttle underwent fuelling, so ground control assumed Brian would simply fly away. However, they had no idea until after the fact that Brian was injured.

During shuttle launches (or any launches for that matter), local wildlife is bound to be impacted from time-to-time, and any creatures in the locale to the rockets perish in silence, with no media coverage. At least Brian went out in style. He will be remembered for a long time…

Ground Control To Brian Bat

To round off this captivating story, Karl Clodfelter (@DrKaz on Twitter) has adapted David Bowie’s “Ground Control To Major Tom”, very fitting. Here’s the original tune, so sing the following, starting about one minute in…

This is Ground Control to Brian Bat
You’ve really chosen bad
And the websites want to know just why you’re there
Now it’s time to leave the fuel tank if you dare

This is Brian Bat to Ground Control
I’m getting ready to soar
And I’m flying in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today

For here
Am I gripping insulation
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do…

[guitar solo] clap-clap

Source: NASA via @Barstein