The Antimatter Plot Thickens…

I realize it’s been egregiously silent here at the Astrowright blog for some time.  Apparently, I am not immune to the same disappointing (as a reader) dry spells experienced in/by so many other blogs I’ve followed during the years. 

(With grad school, teaching at CSN, my day-job working for DOE, a side-business or two in flux, moonlighting the occasional and surreal TV project, and with a 1&1/2-year-old at home – let’s just say I’ve come to terms with the reality that I’m not a juggling Jedi yet.)

Excuses aside, however, I wanted to take a moment to relay a devastatingly exciting potential discovery, which itself was prompted by a pleasant surprise…

CERN’s ALPHA experiment – our Anti-Virgil into Dante’s Antimatter Inferno? (Credit: CERN)

Antimatter in Focus

As reported on SpaceRef.com and NASAWatch.com, which prominently featured the antimatter symbol I created a couple of years back (i.e., the pleasant surprise – thanks, Keith!), we may be one giant leap closer to figuring out antimatter - and with it, peer a little farther into the mysterious underpinnings of the Fundamental Forces of Nature.

In an article titled, “Does Antimatter Fall Up or Down?” Keith Cowing reports that researchers at CERN’s Alpha Experiment recently published in Nature Communications their tantalizing antimatter research progress.  

Specifically, these CERN specialists have identified a process for finally determining whether or not gravity acts upon antimatter the same way it does upon ”ordinary” matter, even if they haven’t answered the question quite yet.  (See Keith’s article for more details on their experiment, what it means, and where it’s going.)

Down the Anti-Rabbit Hole

So, why do we or should we care about figuring out what antimatter really is and how the universe treats it?  Well, quite simply, it has the possibility of providing new solutions to many current problems in physics. 

Dark Energy, Dark Matter, and questions about early Cosmic Inflation all essentially deal with versions of the same issue: There are apparent problems with the amount of force we see in the universe versus how much we should expect. 

Perhaps a shift in our understanding of fundamental forces, like gravity, will shed new light.

This is to say nothing of the mystery concerning why the universe appears to be all matter and generally no antimatter.  According to physics as we understand it, there’s no reason for the bias.  (Why not areas of high concentrations of antimatter and others of normal matter?)

Why did matter win?

And to make matters yet more interesting, the late, great Dr. Richard Feynman (and others) have described antimatter as being inditinguishable from (or perhaps actually being!) ordinary matter moving backwards through time.  While few physicists believe this is actually the case, it certainly bends neurons considering that it remains a physical possibility*.

(*I should note that this idea of antiparticles moving “backwards” in time, in order to be true, requires a reconstruction of what we mean by “time.”  This is because antiparticles don’t blip out of existence as they move to the “past” with respect to us as we, presumably, continue to move into the “future.”  Instead, we remain with the antiparticles in the same measurable “now” in the universe…)

Antimatter – A Guiding Star

Keep an eye on this one, folks.  It could very well be that the study of antimatter provides us the wedge we need to evolve beyond peering through the keyhole at the universe and instead throw open the door.

Optimistic?  Admittedly. 

However, we’re due for our big 21st Century paradigm shift in the sciences.  What with the recent 100 Year Starship Symposium hinting at what the future has to offer us (along with humanity’s expanding view of our galactic neighborhood and our desire to get out there and engage it), it’s high time we get on inventing that superluminal propulsion system to Alpha Centauri, already.

I’m not getting any younger.

Forecasting the End: The Science of Rogue Planets

I’m pleased to report that I had the opportunity to consult on (and occasionally appear in) an astronomy/geoscience/climate science crossover project for the Weather Channel this past year, entitled, Forecasting the End.

The show, which premiers this evening, uses extremely-low-probability astronomical or geophysical disasters as a hook to explore and present astronomy, geology, meteorology, and physics concepts in a novel (and admittedly fantastic) way.

Of the six-episode series, the first deals with the concept of so-called “rogue” planets, a timely subject of recent research.

What is a Rogue Planet?

Many astrophysicists, astronomers, and exoplanetologists have set their research sights on puzzling out exactly how it is that new star systems go about forming planets, (in this case “exoplanets,” or planets outside our solar system).  Interestingly, the fruits of their labor have in recent years led to the realization that the process is a frequently violent one.  -So violent, in fact, that during the gravity tango performed between a fledgling solar system’s new planets, one of these “dancers” is thrown right off of the dance floor.

In other words, it seems that planets are often ejected from their home star system in the chaos surrounding a newly-formed star.  This actually serves to help the “dance” between the rest of the worlds calm into a more stable, final set of orbits, perhaps turning it into more of a “march.”

Any one of these escaped exoplanets, then, becomes a “rogue” planet – left to wander the cosmos along its lonely escape trajectory for billions of years.

-And to confirm that this knowledge is more than just theoretical, astronomers revealed last November that they captured what looks for all the world to be a rogue planet in the flesh a mere 75 light-years away:

Infrared image of rogue planet CFBDSIR2149. (Credit: CFHT/P. Delorme)

Rogue Planet as Cosmic Bard

Astronomy-savvy readers may recall a splash last year when researchers reported calculating that there may be billions of these dark, lonely worlds wandering the galaxy.  However, as the “giggle-check” champion astronomer Phil Plait of “Bad Astronomy” fame was quick to point out, compared to the amount of free space in the galaxy, the odds of a collision with these seemingly innumerable rogue planets – any collision – are mind-bendingly slim.

Hence, while the Forecasting’s exercise deals with a disaster that is legitimately statistically possible, it is a threat far less likely than, say, being hit by a meteorite.  Or winning the lottery three times in a row.

Instead, the rogue planet has a different, more sublime function.  It can help us tell a story, and in the telling, learn a little bit more about the Earth.

By exploring the “What if?” scenario provided by the idea of a rogue planet breezing through our solar system, we have the opportunity to illuminate a seemingly-unrelated and often misunderstood phenomena at work much closer to home (and – for the “aha” moment – much more relevant to traditional weather):  Seasons.

Wherefore Art Thou Seasons?

The cosmic roots of our annual swing between months spent shoveling snow and sunning on sandy beaches may not be at all intuitive.  However, this reality becomes much easier to grasp in terms of a cosmic disaster.

Allow me to explain.

Many (intuitively) misunderstand why it is that the seasons exist at all, believing logically that summer is when the Earth is closest to the Sun, and winter is when we’re farthest away.  This is actually not the case.

Why not?  Simply, because the Earth’s orbit is almost perfectly circular, there really isn’t that much difference between the heat received by the Earth at closest and farthest approach to and from the Sun.

Instead, the seasons are caused by the fact that the Earth is tilted as it goes around the Sun.  This means that the Earth doesn’t stand “upright” as it goes round, but rather, it leans:

Illustration that weather seasons are related to the Earth’s axis tilt; Summer on the hemisphere (northern or southern) pointed toward the sun, and winter for the hemisphere pointed away. (Credit: Ben McGee)

Consequently, summer is when your side of the Earth (northern or southern hemisphere) is pointed toward the Sun, and winter is when your side of the planet is pointed away.

This is also why, at the equator, the temperature is so consistent throughout the year – at the geographic middle of the planet, straddling the line between hemispheres, you’re neither pointed toward or away during any time of year and experience sunny temperatures year-round.  In contrast, if the “near-and-far” season misconception were true, one would expect snowy winters in Barbados, which simply never occurs…

Playing with Weather via Orbital Dynamics

All of this having been said, the reality explained above – the current cause of our seasons – goes completely out the window in the scenario explored in Forecasting’s rogue planet episode.  There, the orbits of Jupiter and the inner planets are enlongated by a rogue planet flyby (ignoring for the sake of brevity orbital resonances that might make such a shift even more catastrophic than advertised), which has a surprising result:

Such an event turns the previously-mentioned misconception (that seasons are caused by distance with respect to the Sun) into fact for life on Earth!

In such a scenario, the shape of Earth’s orbit becomes more oval (ellipse) than circle, and it travels much closer to and farther away from the Sun during its yearly course (aphelion and perihelion) than it does now.  As a result, seasonal changes due to the Earth’s axial tilt are totally overwhelmed by the global swing in temperatures based just on proximity to the Sun.

NOTE: These effects were actually scientifically modeled on Earth by Penn State astronomer Darren Williams and paleoclimatologist David Pollard in an effort to explore the habitability of worlds with more elliptical orbits around other stars and were published in the International Journal of Astrobiology in 2002.  This paper, which formed the conceptual basis for the effects depicted in this episode, can be found here.

So now, on a post-rogue-planet-soon-to-be-apocalyptic Earth, everyone on the planet experiences summer and winter globally, which leads to a rapid sort of climate change completely disruptive to our way of life:

With an elliptical orbit, (where during half the year the Earth is much closer to the Sun than the other), Earth’s seasons are global and driven by proximity to the Sun. (Credit: Ben McGee)

Earthly Take-Home in an Exoplanetary Context

Aside from the tantalizing (for space scientists) or terrifying (for everyone else) infinitesimally-remote specter of some sort of  interaction with a rogue planet, this episode provides a a roundabout and extreme way to drive home a simple truth:  Astronomy relates directly to weather.

The knowledge that the study of the universe beyond can help us understand life at home is a powerful one, and the take-home truth (to me) of the rogue planet episode is that orbit shapes and axis tilts work to define the temperature (weather) for any world orbiting a star.

-And today, because our orbit is not elliptical, it is the tilt of our axis that dominates our climate and causes our seasons.

________________________________________
Stay tuned for more, and I’ll try and have one of these out for each episode!

Surviving Radiation in Space

Apollo 10 image of Earth taken from 100,000 miles away.
[Credit: NASA]

For those who are interested in the reality of radiation exposure on Earth, in space, on the Moon, and what this exposure means for our prospects of manned exploration of the Solar System, read on!

The Myths and Truths of Death by Space Radiation

There are persistent groves of misinformation taking root about the lethality of radiation doses for astronauts, particularly for those who are bound for the Moon and/or Near-Earth-Objects, (such as asteroids for research or mining).

Unfortunately, these claims have been given the capacity for widespread proliferation in the fertile cyber-soil of the Internet, and worse, they usually sprout symbiotically with claims that the Moon landings were hoaxed, e.g.:

“We could never have landed on the Moon because the astronauts could never have survived the radiation from cosmic sources/the Van Allen Belts/solar wind.  Therefore, at a sound stage in the Nevada desert…”

Well, since most of these authors capitalize on the preexisting, prevalent fear of radiation to sugar-coat their misinformation pill, most people are unprepared to distinguish technically-compelling pseudoscientific fluff from interpretations of actual data.   So, the below is an effort to arm you, fellow readers, with a guide to help navigate these murky radiation/Moon hoax waters.

NOTE: NASA has produced a factsheet on space radiation as well, which covers the basics of radiation and its effects and measurement.

By reviewing some of this information, you’ll ideally emerge with an enhanced ability to see for yourselves if these radiation-lethality claims hold water.

(SPOILER ALERT: They don’t.)

So, to begin, let’s review what we know about radiation exposure right here on planet Earth.

Current Regulation Levels and Common Radiation Doses

After nearly a half-century of dedicated research, it has been found that there is no detectable increase in the incidence of cancer (the primary threat of penetrating gamma-ray radiation exposure) for people who receive an annual radiation dose of 5,000 millirem (5 rem) or less.

Consequently, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) federal regulations currently limit nuclear workers to an annual dose of that amount.  Further, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) federal regulations, to be on the safe side, currently limit radiological workers’ annual doses to one tenth of the NRC’s limit (500 millirem) unless there is some sort of extreme circumstance or emergency.

But what do these numbers mean?  To help visualize this data, please see the below graph, which places these numbers in simple context with radiation doses we receive naturally from things we all can more easily comprehend, like a chest x-ray:

Current radiation exposure limits and common doses. [Chart credit: Ben W. McGee]

As you can see, there is a certain amount of radiation exposure that we all receive just from standing on planet Earth (see the far right-hand side of the graph).  This natural radiation is unavoidable – cosmic rays can penetrate just about any shield that is not located deep within the Earth, which is itself radioactive and contributing gamma rays from below.  In fact, you will note that the DOE administrative limit mentioned above is actually less than the amount of radiation we all already receive from Earth, plants*, rocks, air, and even ourselves* in a given year.  (*Roughly 1-2% of all potassium on earth is the radioactive isotope, K-40.)

The take-home here is that none of the numbers in the above graph indicate any sort of imminent danger.  In fact, all doses depicted above are evidenced to be “safe” levels, in that they are either natural or below any exposure that the data indicates increases the incidence of cancer in a population (see: ICRP, NCRP).

NOTE:  There are actually two separate dangers that get confused during conversations about the health effects of radiation.  The first kind of danger is for lower-level exposures, which is the danger of increasing your risk of developing cancer later in life.  -This is exactly like the common knowledge that more time spent sunning or tanning during youth equates to an increased risk of skin cancer later on in life.  (It won’t harm you now, but it could harm you later.  It’s a roll of the dice based on your own health, habits, luck, and genetics.) 

The second kind of danger is immediate - the damage and destruction of cells due to a brief, intense exposure to radiation.  Following the sun-tanning analogy, this is akin to a sunburn but spread throughout your body – damage directly caused by the radiation due to its intensity.  While this may also increase your risk of cancer, the threat here is direct injury and your body’s ability to cope.

How do these natural and regulated levels of radiation exposure compare to the radiation dose levels we really know to be definitely unsafe?  For that, see the following expanded graph, which has been color-coded to relate it to the previous one:

Dangerous radiation levels in context. [Chart credit: Ben W. McGee]

So, as you can see, this graph allows you to immediately identify relationships between ordinary and dangerous radiation exposures to help you understand the concept of radiation exposure and recognize how intense radiation has to be in order to be considered truly dangerous.

• For instance, you have to be exposed to an intensity of radiation ten million times that of Earth’s normal background levels before worrying about developing radiation sickness.  That’s ten thousand times more powerful than a chest x-ray.

• You would also need to receive 1,000 chest x-ray scans before worrying about definitely having increased your risk of developing cancer later in life by a single percentage point.

Now, with a little context, we can start to evaluate how bad the space radiation environment really is.

Explorer-1, launched in 1958. [Credit: NASA/MSFC]

Debunking Lethal Radiation from the Van Allen Belts

The United States’ first spacecraft, Explorer-1, detected the presence of so-called “belts” of radiation around the Earth.  These were named after the scientist who designed the instrument that discovered them, Dr. James Van Allen of the University of Iowa.  However, we have learned much since then, including measurements from the radiation instrument RADOM aboard the much more recent Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft (launched in 2008).

Results from RADOM showed that the inner Van Allen belt, which extends from roughly 1,000 miles above the Earth to a little more than 6,000 miles up, appears to be composed of highly energetic particles, such as solar protons, (meaning they pack a higher radiation “kick”).  The outer belt, on the other hand, extends from a little more than 9,000 miles up to a full 33,000 miles up, and it appears to be a little gentler – it is composed primarily of electrons (beta particles).

So, just how bad was the radiation measured there?  Well, it wasn’t something to dismiss (and was academically quite interesting), but it also wasn’t something that would strike fear into the hearts of mission planners:

Peak radiation exposure while traveling through the inner, more powerful belt reached 13,000 millirem per hour, (or 13 rem per hour).  So, if an astronaut were to park in worst part of the inner Van Allen belt for an hour with no shielding, he or she would receive a radiation dose nearly three times the annual “safe” dose for DOE workers and may have bumped up their lifetime risk of a fatal cancer by a percentage point.

Fortunately, however, the time the Apollo astronauts spent traveling through the highest radiation zone of the inner Van Allen belt (at a screaming 11,000+ miles per hr) was fractional – their doses averaged 120 millirem per day.

Go ahead and compare this to the above graphs.

So, it is clear that the Apollo astronauts’ radiation doses in this case were much less than a common CT scan and far less than what a modern astronaut on the International Space Station receives during a 6-month tour (~7,000 millirem).

Hence, simply passing through the Van Allen Belts is anything but lethal.

Astronaut exposed to the raw space radiation environment on Apollo 8. [Credit: NASA]

Debunking Lethal Radiation Doses from the Earth to the Moon

Like our own sun, all of the other stars in the night sky are nuclear reactors.  Consequently, a constant “rain” of high-energy particles and gamma rays comes at us from the rest of the galaxy, which we call Galactic Cosmic Radiation, or GCR.

Many claim that in “deep space,” e.g., the space between the Earth and the Moon or between Earth and Mars, GCR would prove lethal for a human being.  Yet, the data indicates otherwise.  (Actually, GCR is the primary source of radiation an astronaut normally experiences in all cases, whether in Earth orbit or beyond.)

Let’s have a look.

The data we have about radiation doses during travel from the Earth to the Moon, like with the Van Allen Belts, are not limited to the old Apollo mission data.  For example, the same Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft mentioned above also traveled from the Earth to the Moon and showed a dose during the five day trip (a.k.a. during “translunar injection“) of 1.2 millirem per hour.

Granted, while this is a level nearly a hundred times the average gamma-ray background radiation intensity on Earth, it is still low enough to not present an immediate concern.  Why?  See the above graphs for a comparison – An astronaut would have to spent more than 170 days in this radiation field before even reaching the NRC’s limit for nuclear workers, which equates to no statistical increase in developing cancer.

This sort of radiation exposure becomes an issue when planning long-term missions to the Moon or Mars, which involve several months to years of exposure time, but it certainly bore no immediate threat to Apollo astronauts traveling to-and-from the Moon in a matter of days.

View of the Taurus-Littrow Apollo 17 landing site. [Credit: NASA]

Debunking Lethal Radiation on the Moon

Like with the trip from the Earth to the moon, radiation doses on the lunar surface did not even approach immediate danger levels, and while they fluctuated strongly with changes in the Sun’s output, the Moon itself was observed to act as a shield from galactic cosmic radiation.

Consequently, doses received by astronauts on the lunar surface were actually less than that received in lunar orbit, and again, averaged 120 millirem per day.

This value is completely consistent with measurements from the RADOM instrument in 2008 that showed radiation dose rates in lunar orbit of approximately 1-2 millirem per hour.

And again, these are far from doses that would pose an imminent threat to an astronaut’s ability to function.  An astronaut would, quite simply, need to stand in a radiation field of an intensity one hundred thousand times greater for a full hour before suffering the effects of radiation sickness.

The final space radiation threat data in context, plotted in green, can be seen in the following chart:

Space radiation doses in context. [Chart credit: Ben W. McGee]

Looking Ahead to Planetary Exploration

What does this all mean for the future of manned space exploration?  While all of this does show that claims of radiation lethality in space are plainly false, it also indicates that radiation mitigation will have to be a central planning issue in order for future astronauts to remain within the current bounds of acceptable risk.

Prevailing wisdom accepts that spaceflight and planetary exploration is inherently dangerous and limits what is considered to be acceptable risk to a 3% increase in fatal consequences as a result of radiation exposure – regulations for radiation exposure that are more lenient for astronauts than for other radiation workers.  (Surprisingly, however, this level of risk acceptance is actually more conservative than what is currently accepted for workers in other, much more prosaic terrestrial jobs in many industrial and natural resource fields… but that’s another story.)

There is some research to suggest that chronic, lower-intensity radiation exposure to some of the soft tissues of the eye may lead to secondary negative health effects, such as cataracts, but we’ve only just begun to learn what effects the many alien factors of the space environment have on human physiology, including gravity-induced modifications of bone, muscle, and organ function.  -And again, these effects are not imminently prohibitive and are certainly not immediately lethal.

The Take-Home

Radiation exposure is one of space’s primary threats – but it is not the primary threat.

A lack of atmospheric pressure, the presence of boiling and/or freezing temperature extremes, an intrinsic lack of breathable air and water, and the necessity of shielding against (or avoidance of) micrometeoroids are all arguably more pressing threats.

Radiation at any exposure rate measured in cislunar space certainly wouldn’t prevent an astronaut from visiting the moon, and only if trapped in the most unlikely and unfortunate of orbits would an astronaut ever need be concerned about the possibility of developing a radiation-induced depression of the immune system and – at the extreme – acute radiation sickness.

Take alarmists with a grain of salt and look to the data for the truth.  In fact, it can be seriously argued that conquering our fear of the atom may actually be the means by which the rest of the solar system is opened to humanity.

In my view, that’s where the real conversation is.

_____________________________________________________________

For more information on space radiation doses to astronauts, link (PDF) to the following landmark document, “Space Radiation Organ Doses for Astronauts on Past and Future Missions” by F.A. Cucinotta.

Why Support Human Spaceflight?

NASA plans to test the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle in low-Earth orbit in 2014. (Image credit: NASA)

It seems that an eternal question plagues conversations about the future of commercial or governmental spaceflight: “To man (a spacecraft), or not to man?”

-This query is one I am often posed when I reveal my own spaceflight ambitions.  Many wonder why we bother with the incredible expense of sending humans off-world when critics argue that 1) the same or better work could be performed with robotic spacecraft; 2) laboratory experiments in space add little value to what we can achieve here on Earth; or 3) that in the context of state-supported spaceflight these activities divert crucial funds from other social needs.

Well, as it would turn out, former NASA Director of Life Sciences Dr. Joan Vernikos has answers.

Defending Human Spaceflight

Astronaut Edward H. White II, pilot on the Gemini-Titan 4 spaceflight, is shown during his egress from the spacecraft. (Image credit: NASA)

In a sweeping article she authored back in 2008 for the medical journal Hippokratia entitled, “Human Exploration of Space: why, where, what for?”, Vernikos exposes the many failings of these criticisms while highlighting a spectrum of commercial and societal applications for human space research.

• For starters, she points out that the repair and upgrades of the Hubble Space Telescope - universally hailed as not only the most important telescope in history but also as one of humanity’s most successful scientific endeavors - was only possible via the use of skilled and trained astronauts.
• Expressing a fair amount of foresight, Vernikos then goes on to point out that commercial space travel providers (see: SpaceX) will rely on the knowledge gained from human spaceflight to support a safe and secure experience both for researchers and adventurers.
• There’s the classic and no-less-relevant argument that human explorers have capabilities for innovation, troubleshooting, creative problem-solving, and adaptation simple unavailable to robotic counterparts.  This is particularly useful when utilizing very sensitive instrumentation and performing research with many unknowns or variables.

But these points, suitable defenses on their own, pale in comparison to Vernikos’s description of the commercial enterprise that grew out of the Shuttle-era…

Exploring the Space Applications Market

The reality of trickle-down consumer technology and products that were originally developed for human spaceflight applications is breathtaking.  It truly seems that anyone who downplays the commercial and social trickle-down benefits of tackling the challenges of human spaceflight simply hasn’t done their homework.  For example, Vernikos (here emphasizing her medical background) describes in detail that space exploration is directly responsible for:

• The ubiquitous reflective, anti-UV, anti-glare coating on eyeglasses
• Small-scale blood-testing (requiring drops instead of vials)
• The entire field of telemedicine
• In-utero fetal monitoring
• Genetic pathogen-detection sensors
• Telemetry computing for the civil and environmental industries
• Enhanced breast cancer diagnostics using the Hubble Telescope digital imaging system
• Tissue engineering
• Enhanced antibiotics generation
• Bed-rest countermeasures

-And this is just the tip of the iceberg.  In this way, Vernikos promotes redirecting attention to the idea of the “Space Applications Market,” which is the name she gives to the commercial arena where these NASA-driven technological and knowledge advances are incorporated into commercial and societal applications.

Instead of the microgravity-tended orbital commercial manufacturing or power-generation facilities that many assumed would be the means by which commercial enterprise would capitalize on human space exploration, it’s been the smaller-scale technological innovations and applications that make a (if not somewhat obscured) powerful impact both on the economy as well as on our daily lives.  Just look at the above list of advances in health technology and medical know-how.

-And new research suggesting a possible link between exposure to ionizing radiation in space and neurodegeneration – an accelerated onset of Alzheimer’s Disease – means that the greatest medical advances as a result of human spaceflight may yet be ahead of us.

All it will take is support for human spaceflight.

Escape Trajectory Artifacts at WAC-7

Artist depiction of Pioneer 10. (Credit: Don Davis for NASA)

Just a quick update today on something I’ve been excited to talk about for some time:

I’ve been working during the past year with Dr. Colleen Beck of the Desert Research Institute on long-term planetary science/space archaeology crossover research, the first fruit of which has just hit the cyberverse.

In short, in an upcoming presentation at the Seventh World Archaeology Congress in Jordan on the 18th entitled, “The Bottle as the Message: Solar System Escape Trajectory Artifacts,” Dr. Beck and I are assessing what our escape trajectory spacecraft are really saying about us…  and how the famed Sagan/Drake engraved plaques and records intended as tools for extraterrestrial intelligence under a distant future recovery scenario may actually be serving as a scientific red herring in our own minds when compared to the extraordinary informational value of the spacecraft itself.

More to follow (and a slew of lingering posts on other topics)!

Remembering September 12, 1962

JFK at Rice University, Sept 12, 1962.

Exactly a half-century ago today, President John F. Kennedy declared in a landmark speech America’s rationale for achieving the impossible: Going to the Moon. 

And it is in this speech, which we commemmorate on the day after another anniversary marked by such tragedy, in a social climate today burdened with so much loss, strife, and economic depression, that we can draw inspiration and hope for the future. 

Unlike our opponents at the time, Kennedy’s message was a message of freedom and peace in space.  And to ensure it, he had to sell it to the American people. 

Remarkably, with as relevant as his words continue to be, he could very well have been speaking to the America of today:

“… [T]his country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them.  This country was conquered by those who moved forward…”

“We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people.  For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own.  … [S]pace can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.  There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet.  Its hazards are hostile to us all.  Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again.”

“We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.”

“The growth of science and education will be enriched by new knowledge of our universe and environment, by new techniques of learning and mapping and observation, by new tools and computers for industry, medicine, the home as well as the school.”

“…[T]he space effort itself … has already created a great number of new companies, and tens of thousands of new jobs.  Space and related industries are generating new demands in investment and skilled personnel … and this region will share greatly in its growth.”

“William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding of the Plymouth Bay Colony, said that all great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage.”

“Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.”

We might look upon the International Space Station today as the realization of Kennedy’s vow for peaceful, knowledge-centered pursuits in space.  -And private companies like Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, XCOR Aerospace, and Planetary Resources are today challenging the hardships of space in the pursuit of space’s rewards.

As we look to heal – economically, socially, spiritually – we might look to space as the ideal environment that Kennedy championed, which holds true today: A frontier yet-unblemished by conflicts over belief, religion, combative nationalism, or economic strife; A place from which all explorers emerge with a renewed sense of kinship with our lonely world and the inhabitants of its many diverse and unique cultures; A place where we go to forge technological solutions and harvest knowledge from the very farthest extent of our reach so that all might benefit from it; A place where we have constantly demonstrated the best qualities of humankind.

Today, fifty years after Kennedy set us on a path that many would argue changed the course of history, whether considering the issue of jobs, rights, prejudice, education, or wars, I believe we need space much more than it needs us.

And Kennedy helped light the way.  

09/12/62 – Semper Exploro

Calling the Space Privateers

Closeup of pioneering planetary geologist Jack Schmitt at the LRV (Lunar Rover) with Earth overhead during Apollo 17 Lunar EVA #3. (Credit: NASA)

Today, I’d like to offer a rejoinder to Michael Hanlon’s article from The Telegraph a couple of weeks back, entitled, “There’s only one question for NASA: Is anybody out there?“

In it, Hanlon offers an argument against regular human space exploration in favor of dedicated robotic missions devoted exclusively to astrobiology research.  Whether via orbiters, landers, rovers, or telescopes, he argues that working to answer the question of whether or not we are alone in the universe has the advantages of  “being scientifically valid, being relatively cheap and connecting with the public imagination.”

Some concessions about the efficiency of human explorers aside, Hanlon makes it perfectly clear how he feels about all research that isn’t astrobiology-related, deriding the Space Shuttle program as “pointless” and the International Space Station as an “orbiting white elephant.”  He lauds the recent spectacular landing of the Mars Science Laboratory, Curiosity, as a model mission, while dismissing the broad appeal of human exploration to the public as “nebulous” and merely “vicarious excitement.” 

Well, despite Hanlon’s opnion, there are good and valid reasons to support human space exploration.   Because the manned-versus-unmanned space program argument has been done to death, I won’t rehash the whole diatribe here except to offer three quotes:

• “Robots are important also. If I don my pure-scientist hat, I would say just send robots; I’ll stay down here and get the data. But nobody’s ever given a parade for a robot. Nobody’s ever named a high school after a robot. So when I don my public-educator hat, I have to recognize the elements of exploration that excite people. It’s not only the discoveries and the beautiful photos that come down from the heavens; it’s the vicarious participation in discovery itself.”  — Neil deGrasse Tyson
• “The greatest gain from [human] space travel consists in the extension of our knowledge. In a hundred years this newly won knowledge will pay huge and unexpected dividends.” — Werner von Braun
• “The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn’t have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don’t have a space program, it’ll serve us right!” — Arthur C. Clarke/Larry Niven

However, there is a much more intriguing aspect to Hanlon’s article, one that likely went largely unnoticed; A particular line in Hanlon’s article caught my eye, where he supercedes the tired, man vs. machine debate and instead advises that NASA should “leave the flag-planting, for now, to the privateers and to other nations.”

The privateers!

To my knowledge, this is amongst the first times the word has been used in a human space exploration context.  Let’s take a closer look.

The SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft is pictured just prior to being released by the International Space Station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm on May 31, 2012 for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. (Credit: NASA)

In its 16th-to-19th-century context, “privateer” referred to a private individual or seafaring ship authorized by a government during war to attack foreign trade shipments.  These charges weren’t the equivalent of a charter, as the privateering ships went unpaid by the government.  Instead, they relied on investors who were willing to gamble on lucrative captured goods and enemy ships. 

This made the privateer fundamentally different from a mercenary.  In my mind, they became something more akin to Adventure Capitalists.

While not a direct parallel, the usage of this term in the modern space exploration context invokes tantalizing suggestions.  Might the government issue a non-binding license to claim unused space resources (satellites, junk) by their own or other nations, or perhaps to operate in proximity to national assets, (such as the ISS), in the act of attempting a rescue?

In this case, would private industry underwrite the cost of a spacecraft launch for tens of millions of dollars if the case for a suitable potential reward be made?  Might such a reward be measured in terms of salvaged materials or serviced satellites?  Perhaps purchasing a rocket and a spacecraft to have on standby in the event of an on-orbit astronaut emergency (medical, technical) would be lucrative if a successful rescue mission were independently launched and the crew recovered?  (Is a modest 100-200% return-on-investment too much to ask for the value of averted disaster and the possible loss of highly-trained human lives?)  In this context, venturing to fund a privateer is no more risky than drilling an exploratory oil well – the trick is nailing the reward. 

“Space Privateering,” then, suggests a new form of orbital venture capitalism that exists irrespective of government charters.  It means having a ship, a launch capability, and the foresight to use them when and where it might matter most to planetside governments and/or corporations.

So, how about it?  Are any corporations willing to bet against the house and fund privateers as international rescue, salvage or repair ships?  Would the FAA consider rapid privateer launch licensing?

I say we work to find out.  Calling all space privateers!