27. Astrophysicist, writer, artist. Michigan. Business inquiries: kaijunobiz@gmail.com
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.
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.
Ode to Apollo 11 and the joy of discovery
We need another space race
Although, erm, preferably not another Cold War.
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
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
This Apollo 11 sweatsuit is an exact replica of the space suit that the astronauts from Apollo 11 wore to the moon, except, you know… in sweatsuit form.
—->http://odditymall.com/apollo-11-astronaut-sweatshirt-and-sweatpants
Neeeeddddd
Me: You know, I think I’m gonna make another space playlist-
Everyone else: Jess NO.
Me: Whoops.
Cover Credit: Tatiana Plakhova
I really love thinking about how lot of people always refer to things like traveling the stars and finding alien life and becoming an interstellar civilization as happening “long after I’m gone”. But think about this for a second. For example, I was born in 1997. The number of exoplanets, or planets orbiting other stars, that we knew of in 1997 was 12. We had known of 12 exoplanets. Today, NASA announced that Kepler had found 1,284 exoplanets. The total amount of exoplanets we’ve found in the last 20 or so years is 3,264, and it grows exponentially. Another example. People born in the late 1800s in Japan were born in the age of the samurai and died in the age of nuclear war. Think about where we were 50 years ago. 100 years ago. We’re advancing ever exponentially. Its impossible to determine how far we’ll be in 50 or 100 years. Think about how many things change in the span of a human life. We might get to see ourselves become a spacefaring people just yet.
I really love thinking about how lot of people always refer to things like traveling the stars and finding alien life and becoming an interstellar civilization as happening “long after I’m gone”. But think about this for a second. For example, I was born in 1997. The number of exoplanets, or planets orbiting other stars, that we knew of in 1997 was 12. We had known of 12 exoplanets. Today, NASA announced that Kepler had found 1,284 exoplanets. The total amount of exoplanets we’ve found in the last 20 or so years is 3,264, and it grows exponentially. Another example. People born in the late 1800s in Japan were born in the age of the samurai and died in the age of nuclear war. Think about where we were 50 years ago. 100 years ago. We’re advancing ever exponentially. Its impossible to determine how far we’ll be in 50 or 100 years. Think about how many things change in the span of a human life. We might get to see ourselves become a spacefaring people just yet.
