A More Peaceful Competition

China's New Space Exploration Vision Shoots for the Moon | China Space Program & Chinese Space Missions | Human Spaceflight & China Moon Missions | Space.com:

""The report includes an impressive list of accomplishments, impressive as much for the political will for success demonstrated as the technical achievements," Johnson-Freese said. Furthermore, the document notes that "guaranteed funding" through "multiple funding streams" is a goal, she added.

"The Chinese do an excellent job in learning from others and I think they do not want to see themselves in NASA's position of having lots of good ideas, but more rhetorical political support than actual funding to follow through on those ideas," Johnson-Freese said."

'via Blog this'

Any form of government will work perfectly if the people in charge are perfect. Since people aren't perfect, I prefer democracy. But there are definitely certain attributes of tyrannical communism that helps to get things accomplished. Joking aside, I don't think that we will see a new space race with China, at least, not like the first one. There's certainly a heady atmosphere of nationalism to be sure, but there isn't near the same feeling of hostility that permeated the Cold War era. Though I do hope that we (Europe, Russia, et al) start competing to be the best in space. Just not with bombs and trying to destroy each other and stuff. But with you know, telescopes and satellites and rovers and stuff. Science is way cooler than wholesale death any day.

A More Peaceful Competition

How to Settle, Once and for All, the Whole "What's a Planet?" Debate | New Planets | DISCOVER Magazine

I like this article. There's one part in particular I enjoyed, where the author is talking about how scientists work with concepts, and not definitions. Which is why Pluto was ultimately demoted. Scientists changed their concept of 'planet' after finding a whole bunch of other objects in the solar system. The concept of 'planet' no longer includes Pluto, which is fine. As N.D. Tyson says, "We put Pluto with it's brethren." Pluto is now the star of a whole new concept in the solar system.

How to Settle, Once and for All, the Whole "What's a Planet?" Debate | New Planets | DISCOVER Magazine:

'via Blog this'

This also clears up a misconception about the Linnean taxonomic system. We don't define animals, like the Desert Horned Lizard. Sure, we call it Phrynosoma platyrhinos, of the Family Phrynosomatidae, Order Squamata. But these classisifications are only concepts that help us find order and connection in the natural world. We do not define the natural world. But we do have conceptions about the world, and these conceptions help us to learn about the world. For example, because both the Desert Horned Lizard and Short-horned Lizard are in the Genus Phrynosoma I know that those two creatures are related. Why? Because the concepts of evolutionary biology and the Linnean taxonomic system.

How to Settle, Once and for All, the Whole "What's a Planet?" Debate | New Planets | DISCOVER Magazine

SOPA & PIPA

So there's this whole kerfluffle happening in regards to two bills in congress, S.O.P.A & P.I.P.A. These bills are intended to stop online piracy by overseas offenders. But there are many who say that while yes, the bill does achieve that goal, it also opens the door to extreme censorship, shifts the burden of proof onto those accused, and ultimately assumes guilt rather than innocence. I'll not try and give a thorough run down of the bills and their potential repercussions. But I will post a bunch of links for further reading by those interested.

Reddit
Popular Mechanics
Stanford Law Review
CBS News
Money.CNN
Bad Astronomy

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.3261: (The actual SOPA bill)

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:S.968: (The actual PIPA bill)

SOPA & PIPA

Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey

So I checked out this article from Universe today, which is about the recent rash of astronauts who are selling their Apollo mission memorabilia. NASA doesn't like it, astronauts say they have the right to sell their personal property, and so the two groups are working together to find an agreeable solution, nice and friendly.

After reading the article I decided to check out the authors blog, Vintage Space. I particularly enjoyed this piece written about Apollo 8, or more accurately, the events that led up to the Apollo 8 mission.

Reading this made me wonder what John McCain had to do with with Apollo 8 (You'll have to read the article to find out why). This lead to some genealogical confusion for a bit, but this article from PBS and good ol' Wikipedia helped clear things up for me.

I enjoyed this particular journey through history, I highly recommend reading these articles. Especially the PBS one.

Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey

Triangle is a funny word

In the interest of increasing awesome I will now share with you this video series! These are drawn in that nifty whiteboard doodle, except it's mostly done on notebook paper. But that only adds more flavor to the awesome. These videos are made by Vi Hart and have a really eclectic style that  is both amusing and entertaining (triangles triangles triangles) Short, fast paced, these are great for someone already immersed in the subject discussed to find new factoids or think about things in new ways. And if I were just learning this stuff again I would totally dig these videos as a distraction from homework. Of course I'll let you discover what the subjects discussed actually are. Be amused! Be entertained! Go to the link!

Triangle is a funny word

Contradiction

I have been reading a blog called Behind The Black by Robert Zimmerman for some time now. I find we have some things in common. He posts cool stuff about space! Plus a whole host of other stuff ranging from awesome college football plays to interesting comments on topical issues. Unfortunately I must disagree with his stance on climate change. As level headed as he seems when it comes to understanding the intricacies of NASA contracts and how they will effect the emerging private space sector is a stark contrast to his blind devotion to climate change denial. I have for the most part refrained from making arguments against his position. It's his blog and his opinion. Though I will correct the more egregious paraphrases and misinterpretations. But for the most I keep my opinion to myself.

But in a recent post he asked questions, and I decided to answer them. I would suggest going to the original post to get the background. I am posting my comment below the break.

Contradiction

The Mirror's Truth*

The Kepler space craft has been looking for planets for about three years now. It's kind of hard to imagine so much time has gone past. But just look at what it has accomplished! Well over two thousand planet candidates, of which experts estimate 80% will turn out to be the real deal. 1600+ new planets! In three years! I can dig it. Of course it will take time to confirm which candidates are actually planets or not. That's fine, patience is a virtue and all that. So why is three years any different than two years, or one year, other than the amount of planet candidates? The type of planets we might soon start to find.

You see, the Kepler team requires three transits (when the planet passes in front of the star, causing a dip in the light, which is how Kepler finds planets) in order to confirm a candidate as a planet. Which means that if there are any planets kinda like Earth out there, now is about the earliest we would be expecting to start seeing them. Of course, we would have to be able to detect a planet similar in size to Earth orbiting a similar star (the ultimate hope of this planet hunting game is to find a planet that isn't just similar (Small, rocky, and in the habitable zone) but a mirror image of Earth (Same size, density, star type, habitable zone, etc). From the dip in the light curve of a star that is produced by a planet transiting it we can determine orbital period (time between transits), size (how much light gets blocked), and from this we can estimate mass**, density, and from that composition etc. Which means that in order to find a mirror Earth we have to find a planet similar in size around another star. Which we have just done!

Which is exciting yes, but a more ordinary form of exciting. This was always known about the Kepler mission, that it would take awhile to start finding small, rocky planets similar to our own. We knew that to find a mirror Earth we would have to wait about three years. So while it's exciting to be at this particular cusp of history, it's not unexpected. What is exciting is found in this infographic I stole from space.com.

Source:LiveScience


You see that teeny weeny little yellow triangle in the bottom graphic? Yeah, that's Kepler's search area. That miniscule blip on our galactic neighborhood is all that Kepler is looking at. And it has returned thousands of candidates, adding potentially hundreds of new planets to our understanding of the cosmos. And it has just proven that it is indeed capable of finding the elusive mirror Earth. From what, like one tenth of one percent of the galaxy? That's what's so exciting to me. This is by no measure a comprehensive catalogue of galactic planets. It's not even a full sweep of the immediate neighborhood. This is standing on the porch and counting the number of houses until the end of the block.

We have so much more left to discover!

*I couldn't  think of a title, so I went with In Flames.

** A different technique is used which measures the gravitational tug on a star by a planet to determine it's mass. But this technique only works for planets massive enough to noticeably move their parent star. In this case, we know that these planets have a maximum mass [they aren't moving their star around], we know what their orbital period is, and we have a good idea of the size. From these three things we can get a rough estimate of their mass. I didn't figure this out until after I posted the article. I should know by now that I should read Bad Astronomy to get my facts straight.

The Mirror's Truth*

Been Looking Forward To This

So, there's this company called SpaceX. I may have mentioned them once or twice before. Any way, They have been hoping to combine two of their demo flights into one demo. Which would mean that if this demo, now announced as Feb. 7, goes according to plan, SpaceX is ready to start commercial supply missions to the ISS. This would make them the first company capable of anything even close to that in the history of the world. Neat!

Image via Wikipedia

Been Looking Forward To This

Curiouser

It looks like we're making progress on creating our next set of Mars rovers. And this time it will be international! Hopefully. If it all works out. Spaceflight Now has an article about the next step in creating the next missions to Mars. I mentioned this in a previous post, but now we're starting to get more details. I would like to note that the reason given in the article as to why we can't fund another Atlas 5 is because funds are being used to fund the James Webb Space Telescope. I wonder what Phil Plait's reaction will be?

Curiouser