Many folks would like to see us back on the Moon and developing its resources.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

LADEE Project Scientist Update: The Legacy Lives On! - April 22, 2014

 LADEE Project Scientist Update: The Legacy Lives On! - April 22, 2014
Almost a year ago LADEE had a mission to the moon, remember? 
- LRK -

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NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft has impacted the Moon, capping an extremely successful operational mission. Science analysis will continue for months, as the science teams churn through the data and write papers about their findings. So LADEE is gone, but its science legacy lives on!
LADEE ran its science instruments almost non-stop right up to impact the evening of April 17, 2014, in an effort to gather as much low-altitude data as possible. Further study of the returned data will reveal what the instruments saw at these amazingly low orbits, just a few kilometers above the surface. Early results suggest that LADEE was low enough to see some new things, including increased dust density and possibly new atmospheric species. In an incredible race with time, LADEE’s Real Time Operations team queued and downloaded all science files just minutes prior to LADEE's impact.
As the clock was running out on the LADEE mission, we took advantage of an opportunity to replicate observations by the Apollo astronauts more than 40 years ago. (We hinted at this in an earlier update). We used one of the star tracker cameras to gaze out over the Moon's horizon, while LADEE was in the deep darkness of the lunar night and over the far side where no Earthshine can reach.
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Then in November 2014 it's crash site was imaged.
- LRK -
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NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has finally identified the impact crater created by the LADEE Spacecraft that crashed into the Moon back in April to close out its mission of exploring the tenuous lunar atmosphere to answer long-standing questions on its composition and processes ongoing therein to look into the development and evolution of planetary bodies with exospheres. LADEE - going by the full name 'Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer' - also served as a pathfinder for new technologies, testing a new satellite bus and demonstrating laser communications at large distances for future use in space applications.
LADEE launched back on September 7, 2013 blasting off atop a Minotaur V rocket that delivered the craft to a Lunar Transfer Orbit from which LADEE began using its own propulsion system to enter lunar orbit on October 6 followed by several orbit adjustments to begin science operations from a low orbit around the Moon on November 22. Due to its low orbit, LADEE's mission was limited in time as the spacecraft frequently had to perform orbital adjustment maneuvers to maintain a stable orbit. The mission was extended by four weeks since the vehicle's propellant supply lasted until April 11
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Thanks for looking up with me.
- LRK -
LADEE Project Scientist Update: December 2014
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The LADEE science team also has been busy analyzing the returned data, figuring out how the exosphere breathes and changes, and how the moon's tenuous dust shroud varies in time and space.
The Lunar Dust Experiment (LDEX) discovered a low-density cloud of small dust particles over the part of the moon that faces the more-or-less steady rain of micrometeoroid particles onto the lunar surface. The Earth/moon system orbits the sun with an average speed of 30 km/sec (67,000 mph), and like bugs on a car windshield, the interplanetary micrometeoroid materials smack into the "upstream" side of the Earth and moon. On Earth these cause meteors, which burn up in the atmosphere, but with the almost negligible atmosphere on the moon, these particles smash into the surface with tremendous speed. Each particle impact sends a spray of ejecta up into the lunar sky; this process is continuous but really increases when the moon encounters a micrometeoroid stream. The flux of incoming particles can increase by factors of up to ten times the normal rates – we see these as meteor showers on Earth. On the moon, it's a very heavy rain of tiny, tiny rocks, and the spray of ejecta increases accordingly.
LADEE saw these meteor shower dust particles several times during the mission. LADEE also looked for mysterious "levitated" dust, thought to be suspended by electric forces over the sunrise and sunset terminators. This mystery was prompted in part by astronaut sightings of a horizon glow seen from orbit. However, the spacecraft’s instruments found no evidence of anything that could be seen by the human eye.
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -
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Monday, February 23, 2015

The Martian Way - Asimov 1952

As I mentioned in the previous post, I am presently reading "Robot Dreams" a book of short stories by Asimov.. 
In it is Asimov's "The Martian Way".  He wrote it in 1952 and then it was thought that the  rings of Saturn were large chunks of ice. Nevermind that we know today the ice is much smaller  chunks. 

If it has been awhile since you read the story, I would encourage  you to read it again. Consider the politics of 1952.  Now chase an asteroid today and take into account  the politics of our time and squabbleso over budgets.  Will building on the Moon and Mars be an option?  And if they happen because of commercial interests will they be able to be self sufficient or will the drain on Earth's resources  be used to shut them down?
- LRK -
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"The Martian Way" is a science fiction novella by Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the November 1952 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction and reprinted in the collections The Martian Way and Other Stories (1955), The Best of Isaac Asimov (1973), and Robot Dreams(1986). It was also included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two (1973) after being voted one of the best novellas up to 1965
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Protagonists Mario Esteban Rioz and Ted Long are Scavengers: Mars-born humans who scour space for the spent lower stages of spacecraft, which are then recycled on the Martian moon of Phobos. At the beginning of the story, Rioz scolds Long for wasting power listening to Grounder (Earth-born) politician John Hilder's argument that Earth's settlements on Mars,Venus, and the Moon are useless drains on Earth's economy, and that spaceships are wasting irreplaceable water by using it as reaction mass.
A year later, Hilder has used his campaign against "Wasters" to gain power in Earth's Assembly, and has just reduced shipments of water to Mars, putting the Scavengers out of work. When Hamish Sankov, the head of the Martian colony, learns of Hilder's plan to desist all water shipments to Mars, he authorizes Long's plan to travel to Saturn and tow a fragment of ice from the rings to Mars.
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The Martian Way was Asimov's response to the McCarthy Era and an early exploration of terraforming Mars. Asimov's distaste for the anti-Communist campaigns of McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee was expressed in his portrayal of John Hilder's anti-Waster campaign. Asimov writes in his autobiography that he expected to be either lionized or condemned for his attack on McCarthyism, but the story actually generated no reaction at all.[1]As he notes elsewhere, "I must have been too subtle—or too unimportant."[2]
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PDF]ISAAC ASIMOV ROBOT DREAMS MASTERWORKS ... - eBookTrove

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html ..... 
Dreams,” written for this collection, is beautiful and humanizes a robot in a  
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l will continue  my reading of Asimov's  short stories and see what  they have to say or suggest. 
Thanks for looking up with me.
- LRK -
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/initiative/
NASA to Discuss Today Asteroid Redirect Mission Capture Concept, Next Step in Journey to Mars. NASA will host a media teleconference at 4 p.m. EST today  ...
December 17, 2014
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -
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Sunday, February 22, 2015

Signs Ahead For A Change Of Direction In Space

I am in Thailand visiting wife's sons and relatives and have not posted to the lunar-update since January.
Angie asked to join the list so I should attempt to fat finger something on my tablet to let her know there still is a list.

You will appreciate it is easier to read loaded material from the tablet than trying to type on one.
The Examiner article gives us something to consider and possibly hope for if you are one that would like to see humans going further than LEO.

I just finished reading on my tablet Issac Asimov's book "Foundation". 

I have the trilogy at home but that will have to wait our return to state side. 
Sitting in my air conditioned room is more pleasant than sitting outside in 30 C, 56% humidity. :-)

Presently reading "Robot Dreams" a book of short stories by Asimov.. 
- LRK -
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Signs Ahead For A Change Of Direction In Space
February 22, 2015

To say that the course of America’s space program has an uncertain future is to put the matter mildly Ever since President Obama officially announced the end of his predecessor’s Constellation space exploration program and doubled down on commercializing space travel to low Earth orbit, NASA has been the focus of controversy and acrimony.
The NASA budget that the president proposed is more or less status quo, though it does dole out a little money to start planning a mission to Europa. The White House does not seem willing to address the problems besetting America’s space program, which more than one observer has called “adrift.”
However, four recent developments related to space may point the way to a change in direction for America’s space efforts.
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It will be interesting to see just how the Moon develops in the years to come.
It will develop,  yes?
 
Thanks for looking up with me.
- LRK -
Congressional Hearings this Week to Focus on Commercial Space
There will be two important congressional hearings this week on Commercial Space.
First up on Tuesday, February 24th is the U.S. Human Exploration Goals and Commercial Space Competitiveness Senate Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness hearing chaired by U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
The hearing will take place in the Senate Russell Office Building - 253 at 2:00 p.m. EST.
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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Moon and Mars - Videos

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