David A. Hardy
Destination Moon: The 350-Year History of Lunar Exploration
Infographic by Karl Tate
July 16, 2014 || Space.com
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While today may belong to the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, it’s important not to forget another important anniversary for NASA - the landing of the Viking 1 spacecraft on Mars!
On July 20th, 1976, the Viking 1 lander separated from the orbiter and touched down at Chryse Planitia, a flat lowland region in the northern hemisphere of Mars. Immediately following touchdown, the lander made history by taking and transmitting the first complete photograph taken from the surface of Mars. The image (http://goo.gl/6C5L6m) was of the Viking 1 lander’s foot as an indication of how far it had sunk into the Martian surface. Between itself and its companion, Viking 2, this historic photograph was just the first of more than 50,000 images taken from the Martian surface, as well as from orbit, and transmitted back to Earth.
What makes Viking 1 especially worth noting is that it was not only the first attempt by the United States at landing on Mars, but it was also the first spacecraft to successfully do so and perform its mission. While the Soviet Mars 3 mission was the first to achieve a soft landing of a spacecraft on Mars it stopped transmitting data 15 seconds after landing. During those few seconds of transmission, it sent the first partial photograph taken from the surface of Mars although nothing was identifiable in it.
During its operation on the Martian surface, Viking 1 became the record holder for longest Mars surface mission at 2307 days, until Mars Rover Opportunity took the record in 2010.
To read more about Viking 1:
http://goo.gl/NOxjpM
http://goo.gl/iKPlJ6
http://goo.gl/6klaq9
To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before
Whether and when NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, humankind’s most distant object, broke through to interstellar space, the space between stars, has been a thorny issue. For the last year, claims have surfaced every few months that Voyager 1 has “left our solar system”.
Voyager 1 is exploring an even more unfamiliar place than our Earth’s sea floors — a place more than 11 billion miles (17 billion kilometers) away from our sun. It has been sending back so much unexpected data that the science team has been grappling with the question of how to explain all the information. None of the handful of models the Voyager team uses as blueprints have accounted for the observations about the transition between our heliosphere and the interstellar medium in detail. The team has known it might take months, or longer, to understand the data fully and draw their conclusions.
Since the 1960s, most scientists have defined our solar system as going out to the Oort Cloud, where the comets that swing by our sun on long timescales originate. That area is where the gravity of other stars begins to dominate that of the sun. It will take about 300 years for Voyager 1 to reach the inner edge of the Oort Cloud and possibly about 30,000 years to fly beyond it. Informally, of course, “solar system” typically means the planetary neighborhood around our sun. Because of this ambiguity, the Voyager team has lately favored talking about interstellar space, which is specifically the space between each star’s realm of plasma influence.
Voyager 1, which is working with a finite power supply, has enough electrical power to keep operating the fields and particles science instruments through at least 2020, which will mark 43 years of continual operation. At that point, mission managers will have to start turning off these instruments one by one to conserve power, with the last one turning off around 2025.
The spacecraft will continue sending engineering data for a few more years after the last science instrument is turned off, but after that it will be sailing on as a silent ambassador. In about 40,000 years, it will be closer to the star AC +79 3888 than our own sun. (AC +79 3888 is traveling toward us faster than we are traveling towards it, so while Alpha Centauri is the next closest star now, it won’t be in 40,000 years.) And for the rest of time, Voyager 1 will continue orbiting around the heart of the Milky Way galaxy, with our sun but a tiny point of light among many.
For more information about Voyager, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/voyager and http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov.
With the days rapidly dwindling until New Horizons makes humanity’s first reconnaissance of Pluto, a stunning new video was released showing the mission’s planetary predecessors.
Paying homage to over 50 years of planetary exploration, the National Space Society’s video shows the groundbreaking missions which opened up the solar system to all of us back here on Earth.
Through the Pioneer, Mariner, and Voyager missions, the worlds of the solar system were no longer mysterious to scientists and astronomers on Earth. The years of the planet’s first reconnaissance and spacecraft are shown in a fitting tribute to New Horizon’s foundations.
Now, 53 years after our initial visits to other worlds, our exploration of the solar system’s major celestial bodies draws to a close. We’ve spent half a century broadening our cosmic horizons; what new horizons will be found at, and beyond, Pluto?
Margaret Hamilton is a computer scientist and mathematician. She was the lead software engineer for Project Apollo. Her work prevented an abort of the Apollo 11 moon landing. She’s also credited for coining the term “software engineer.”
Those stacks are the code she wrote for Apollo 11. Incredible.
We talk about curiosity, the thrill of exploring, but rarely its purpose, particularly regarding space exploration. It’s necessary for the survival of life and to perpetuate our existence. Period. We must go. There is no backup plan and we owe it to our evolutionary lineage to preserve the genetic fabric of Earth life. As Tsiolkovsky said: “Earth is the cradle of mankind, but one cannot live in a cradle forever.” No matter your “opinion” on Elon Musk, someone right now in this era is on a mission to see this task through by taking the risks needed without pandering to the stifling methodologies of old. Musk is the proverbial “Sputnik” of entrepreneurs, and is spurring others to reach higher, see further. The goal is to survive and flourish, not to temporarily exist and whither.
Image by DecoEchoes @ deviant art.
Rich always provides incredible perspective on the space program and its importance to humanity. Also, this image would make an incredible postcard or poster.
It has been over 50 years since we left Earth. We are now almost 14 trillion miles away from home. Out here, where the stars are distant, and faint, is a place no one has ever seen before. The Alpha Centauri system, with its seven planets, the farthest worlds to ever be explored by humankind.
Half a century ago, we left our home in search of another. We had left our planet in waste and ruin. A dark chapter in human history, where we threw away our home. Our only home. We poisoned ourselves, and we drove ourselves to the brink of extinction, over money and resources and power. While some accepted the fate of the human race, a bright young generation of scientists, with the stars in their eyes and the universe in their hearts, led us down the only path we have left. To leave our home. To fight for our right to exist.
Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.
From an unpublished story of mine by the same name. The basic concept was the story of a generation of kids born on a starship, they never saw Earth, and they won’t live long enough to see their destination. It’s the story of them struggling to find meaning and a purpose. Listen here.
God I’m so excited to be born when I was. We’re gearing up for another space race. Were at the dawn of becoming an interplanetary species and very shortly after, probably in the span of a human lifetime, we’ll be an interstellar one. There’s gonna be people on Mars soon. If you thought the moon landing was “one giant leap for mankind” can you imagine putting people on Mars? Can you imagine living in this renaissance of becoming a spacefairing species? Can you imagine having ships equipped for raising generations of people? Fuck, I’m excited to be part of it
Surround yourself in the Universe with modcloth's Spaced Out quilt and pillow shams, and Soft Side of the Moon pillow. They make a charming combination for a deep space sleep!
—Emily
Anonymous asked:
Pop quiz. Explain how the lunar phases relate to eclipses.
For some reason this is giving me real “if you don’t know this obscure fact you’re not a real fan” vibes.
You can only get solar eclipses during a new moon because the moon has to be between the Earth and the sun. If the moon is between the Earth and the sun, no light reflecting off the moon comes to us on Earth.
You can only have a lunar eclipse during a full moon because the earth has to be exactly between the moon and the sun.
So on and so forth, obligatory umbra-penumbra diagram, blah blah blah