The Joint Newsletter of
The Seattle Area Chapters of
The National Space Society
NSS Seattle
And
The Mars Society Puget Sound
»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»» March 2000 «««««««««««««««««««««
Volume 2, Issue III
Contents:
A Review of the Movie, “Mission to Mars”
The first serious Hollywood movie about Mars exploration, Mission to Mars (M2M) is in your local theater. The local Mars Society and National Space Society Chapters have a display in the lobby of the Pacific Place Theatre (General Cinemas) in Seattle. On opening night, several of us went into the next to last showing (after being at the display most of the day). A brief synopsis.
The movie is set in the year 2020 (and later), and is primarily about a rescue attempt of the first manned Mars mission. We only see the people of the first mission (Mars 1) briefly, as they lose communitions with mission control due to finding ‘something’ on the surface while doing their mission. Mission control happens to be in the “World Space Station” or the International Space Station in disguise with a spare tire. The second mission (Mars 2) plan is changed to become a rescue mission. Incidentally, one person in mission control should be recognizable, for he was not always an actor. Continued...futher down
NSS SEATTLE Proceedings
The National Space Society is an international
membership group
dedicated to furthering the exploration and development of space.
The Seattle
chapter mission is to facilitate Space Activism and all pro-Space
activities; and to provide
a gathering place for space enthusiasts to meet, exchange
information and ideas.
President:
Christopher Erickson aster@wolfenet.com
Vice President: Chris Vancil
CLVANCIL@aol.com
Secretary/Editor:
Randy Rumley
rjrumley@juno.com
Treasurer:
David Stuart
DSTUART@prodigy.net
Chapter meetings are held at 7:00 PM on the second
Sunday of each month, at the
Museum of Flight; parking is available in the lot North of the
museum.
To receive information
regarding upcoming events please send your name and addresses
to: Randy Rumley; 12008 S.E. 223rd Drive Kent, WA 98031
so·journ(sņ jūrn), to stay for a time in a place; live
temporarily.
President's Message
This last month, Seattle NSS was represented at the Washington State Engineering, Science and Technology Fair at the Crossroad Shopping Center in Bellevue. The turnout was great, and those that spoke with us were enthusiastic. In many cases I noticed something in those we spoke with, and that was a reluctance to admit to an interest in Space. Stepping right past the initial reluctance we told them of the real work, progress, and possibilities all around them. We described the legitimacy of the plans of the private sector, and this certainly validated many of their own desires.
Those people who were before us know that they were speaking to people with an interest, and knowledge of Space efforts. Though it may be an exciting issue to them personally, they asked us questions and remained somewhat skeptical - I began to suspect that they felt that they were supposed to be skeptical.
We may often bring up the subject of Space Travel with friends and co-workers, and find skepticism, and ridicule; and it may be coming from the same point of view: I don't want people to think that I'm a Trekkie! What breaks down this conception? How about Boeing and their part in Sea Launch? There is also the X-prize competition with its high level of competitors. The recent launches of China's man-rated capsule, and Huntsville's Rockoon (Balloon launched rocket) serve to demonstrate as well, that Space is another destination, and that reaping the benefits is what is beginning to happen today.
Christopher A. Erickson
President, NSS Seattle
March 12 Meeting
This month Kelly Wright from Space Access LLC will be giving a talk titled: "A new Era in Space Access". This is about the Space Access reusable launch system and a general overview of developments in the launch industry.
The meeting will is on March 12th (Sunday) at 7:00 PM in the Red Barn classroom at the Museum of Flight. Refreshments are available, bring more if you wish.
February 13 Meeting
Our speaker was Loren Busch of the Seattle Astronomical Society. He gave a talk titled "The care and feeding of your telescope" and discussed the different types of telescopes and what could be done with them. For more information on the Seattle Astronomical Society, visit www.scn.org/ip/sastro/
This meeting is airing on AT&T cable channel 29/77 on March 12th at 7:00PM, so set your recorders.
ISDC
The International Space Development Conference will be held in Tucson this year. The dates are May 25th 29th. There will be several technical space related programs as well as tours of the Kartchner Caverns, Kitt Peak observatory, the Pima Air and Space Museum, Biosphere 2, and others. Registration is $75 for NSS members, $95 for others, children 14 and under are charged only $10. Register online at www.tucson2000.org, or www.nss.org.
Mars Society Puget Sound Proceedings
The Mars Society was founded in August 1998 and is an international organization dedicated to furthering the goal of the exploration and settlement of the Red Planet.
This will be done by:
Officers of Mars Society Puget Sound
Jim Burk, President
Dustin Green, Vice President
V Mark Tye, Secretary
David Stuart, Treasurer
Randy Rumley, Editor, Sojourner
com Please check out our Mars Society Web site: http://www.marssociety.org/pugetsound
President's Report
This month sees the release of Hollywood's first attempt in the 21st century to depict a realistic Humans to Mars mission, with the release of MISSION TO MARS by Disney. Once again, the lure of aliens and the translation into tickets bought has been too much to resist for the execs. While the movie depicts space travel semi-realistically, but many felt the realism work was wasted when the aliens came into the script.
Plus they bought into the whole "Face on Mars" campaign. Are the apparent structures in the Cydonia region the evidence for an ancient city on Mars, possibly built by extraterrestrials or ancient man? Over 30 years of NASA image analysis says NO. A closet industry which sells books on Atlantis, flying saucer technology, and Nazi UFOs says YES. I've seen most of the "evidence", and read some of the crackpot materials. My mind is made up, the face is artificial. All you need to see are the latest MGS images, which clearly show the "face" as a cratered mountain ridge. Nobody serious about Mars believes in the face; if it were true we'd all have a lot less work to do getting people interested in Mars.
The new movies are a good outreach tool, it will bring people into the fold and get them interested about Mars, but at what cost? Once again Hollywood has equated little green men to Mars, in a modern incarnation as benevolent aliens. When we do get to Mars for real, will everybody be asking where the little green men are? Will they be disappointed if the explorers find the first true specimen of alien (but surprisingly Earth-like) single-celled life on Mars? Green aliens are good for entertainment, but not for scientific curiosity; the latter I feel we're losing as a society
Jim Burk
President, Mars Society Puget Sound
Monthly Chapter Meeting Minutes
Saturday 19 February 2000
Location: Bellevue Regional Library, Rm.#6
1111 – 110th Ave NE Bellevue, WA 98004
(425)450-1765 Time 1400 – 1640
Eleven persons were in attendance including the four Chapter officers. Jim Burk, President, gave a half hour presentation on the Mars Direct mission profile, including several variations, all of which engendered much discussion. We plan to have similar talks at the beginning of each meeting to make them more interesting and informative, rather than simply cover administrative issues. If you have a favorite topic that you would like to talk about, or something that you think we all should be informed about, please let us know. We decided to share a table with NSS (National Space Society) at the National Engineer's Week Engineer's Fair to be held at the Crossroads Mall on 26, 27 February 2000. The details for manning the table and setting up displays were worked out so that we could have good coverage of our own booth while allowing plenty of time to mingle with people from the other organizations in hopes of gaining new speaker contacts and members. The $150 cost for the booth will be shared with NSS. The 4 Corners Meeting is still a possibility with the date now set for 17,18 June 2000. Agenda suggestions include: lava tubes, Mars Direct, Dr. Forward's work, meteorite location and identification. Chris Vancil was unanimously elected to be our Chapter Representative to the (National) Mars Society. Chris has worked on the Chapter Rep. task force since it was formed at the last Convention in Boulder and helped develop the bylaws adopted recently. CD-ROM update: Graphical menus are being worked on. The third CD will have Astrobiology as the subject and the fourth will be on M.A.R.S. Dustin Green, Vice President, will check with the Everett Library about a more "hands on" type of talk for younger people. Marsnews.com needs in depth articles on some of the past Mars missions such as Viking. This is a good opportunity to bring history to light and have your prose posted for all mankind to see and admire. Much of the information needed is available on NASA and other government sites but it needs to be sifted through and made into presentable articles.
V. M. Tye, Secretary MSPS
New project from the Mars Society:
Mars Society Launches Pressurized Rover Project
The Mars Society is initiating a project to develop one or more analog pressurized rovers to use in field research in Mars analog environments around the world. Pressurized rovers, which could allow week-long field trips by Mars explorers in a shirt-sleeve environment, have been the subject of considerable discussion, but little real engineering, architectural, or operational research, for some time. The Mars Society’s analog pressurized rovers will allow one or more concepts for such vehicles to be put to the test of supporting actual field work. In the process the Mars Society intends to help produce the knowledge base necessary to develop strategies that maximize the effectiveness of pressurized rovers in combined operations with other mission assets, including robots, pedestrian astronauts, astronauts using unpressurized light vehicles, Mars base habitat personnel, mission control, and the terrestrial scientific community. The Pressurized Rover Project will be conducted on a basis that allows maximum opportunity for Mars Society Chapter participation. Chapters or others who wish to participate should form design groups to develop their concept and then present their proposed concept to a special session on analog pressurized rovers that will be held at the Third International Mars Society Convention in Toronto in August (see www.marssociety.org for convention details.) One or more concepts determined to be the most promising will then be selected by the Mars Society for support. The group selected would then be responsible for building the rover, with funds for parts coming from Mars Society HQ. The program thus follows the model of the highly successful solar car races, in which university based teams have developed many innovative solar-powered cars with limited sponsorship support from automobile companies or others. Once developed, the rovers will be used to conduct research operations by Mars Society members in Mars analog environments in North America, Eurasia, Australia, the polar regions, or elsewhere. Requirements: The Mars analog pressurized rover represents an Operational, rather than an Engineering test-bed for an actual Mars rover. Therefore, it need not be actually pressurized and the use of a conventional internal combustion engine and drive train for propulsion is acceptable. However, the rover must: 1. Contain complete living accommodations for a crew of at least 2 for a week-long excursion. 2. Be capable of off-road mobility over difficult terrain – the rougher the better. 3. Be capable of at least 20 mph over easy terrain. 4. Have a one-way range of at least 200 miles. 5. Have a mass of 1500 kg or less, the less the better. 6. Be transportable in a C-130 aircraft, with lighter aircraft (DC-3) preferred. Analog rovers need not contain airlocks. However the crew of those that do not will have to operate accordingly (i.e. suit up before any hatch can be opened.). While there is no specific defined requirement, it is desired that the vehicle have as minimal an environmental footprint as possible. It is clear that the requirements/desirements listed above are in some degree of internal conflict. The lightest and most nimble rovers will tend to offer the most cramped and uncomfortable accommodations. Concepts will be selected for support based upon achieving the best compromise combination of the required attributes, the quality of the team proposing to build the rover, and the amount of funds required from Mars Society HQ for their construction. Those requiring further guidance as to the desired qualities for the Mars Society’s analog rovers should contact Kurt Micheels (kmicheels@aol.com). Well, I know we have engineers around here, any ideas? Ed.
Review of, “Mission to Mars” continued
Touchstone Pictures (Disney)
Director: Brian De Palma
Stars: Gary Sinise,
Tim Robbins, Jerry O'Connell,
Don Cheadle, Connie Nielsen
Opened: March 10, 2000
We next find the stars of the movie nearing Mars orbit. Some interesting debris hits their spacecraft, and they have some catastrophic failures of equipment. If anyone remembers Terry Burlison’s talk on orbital mechanics, watch these scenes carefully. Eventually they land, but without much with them, and they have to hike to the Mars 1 landing site. As Mars is prone to do, there is a dust storm brewing and headed their way. They do find one member of the first crew still alive, though he looks like he came straight from filming “Planet of the Apes”. In between repairing the Earth Return Vehicle and living in the Hab (sound familiar), they find out what may have happened to knock out all the electronics. Something technological is on Mars. Herein lies the groaner… It is the ‘Face’. The last few minutes are spent looking in the face while in a hurry to get off the planet before the dust storm hits too badly. My comments on the movie: Although there is the major groaner and some technical details that are questionable, I think this was a pretty good first shot at serious humans to Mars film. There were points in where I had a hard time sitting still and not laughing, but there were also some good edge of the seat parts. I would say that they did a better job technically with this one than at least one of the two ‘impact’ movies of last year. Some of the dialog was corny or overdone, but I think that kind of thing is necessary to get the younger viewers interested in going to Mars. That is the reason why we were in the lobby, Education! I enjoyed the experience as a whole and will see it again. I hope you enjoy it also.
Randy J. Rumley
Deep Space / JPL Mission News,
Galileo Spacecraft To Fly With A Friend, Earn Bonus Miles
JPL Release: March 8, 2000
NASA plans to renew the solar system passport of the Galileo spacecraft by extending the mission exploring Jupiter and its moons through the end of 2000, when Galileo may embark on a joint scientific expedition with another solar system explorer, the Saturn-bound Cassini spacecraft. "This extended travel ticket enables us to continue studying Jupiter and its fascinating moons," said Jim Erickson, Galileo Project Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. During this new extension, called the Galileo Millennium Mission, tour planners hope to include three high-priority scientific observations in 2000: Galileo would team with Cassini for simultaneous observations of the Jupiter system and its magnetic environment from two vantage points. Cassini will visit Jupiter's neighborhood in December 2000. Jupiter's powerful gravity will be used to "slingshot" Cassini toward Saturn. Galileo will perform two additional flybys of Jupiter's moon Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, on May 20 and December 28. Scientists hope these flybys will tell us more about Ganymede's geologic history, including the highest resolution pictures ever taken of this icy world. Results will be analyzed from the January 3 flyby of Jupiter's moon Europa and the closest-ever flyby of the volcanic moon Io on February 22. That encounter, at an altitude of only 200 kilometers (124 miles), may have been the last tour of that unique environment for years to come. The close-up images will add to Galileo's bulging scrapbook, which already contains about 14,000 pictures beamed back to Earth so far. "For the first time ever, two spacecraft will simultaneously explore an outer planet," Cassini Project Scientist Dr. Dennis Matson said about the planned Jupiter observation by Cassini and Galileo. "One spacecraft will be inside Jupiter's magnetic envelope, with the other outside where it can observe the powerful solar wind pressing on the envelope. From the two vantage points, we'll watch cause and effect as the wind changes the magnetic properties around Jupiter." "We have a unique opportunity to study this dynamic system with two highly capable spacecraft at the same time," added Galileo Project Scientist Dr. Torrence Johnson. "It's a real bonus for both missions." Galileo's original two-year mission ended in December 1997, and a two-year extension called the Galileo Europa Mission, ended on January 31, 2000. Galileo engineers are fond of saying that the spacecraft has lived well past its warranty. The spacecraft has already endured nearly three times the radiation it was designed to withstand, but repeated exposure to Jupiter's radiation has taken its toll. Galileo was zapped with particularly high doses of radiation during recent flybys of Io, which lies deep within Jupiter's radiation belts. "As Galileo continues operating in Jupiter's harsh radiation environment, it's a challenge for our operations team to keep the spacecraft healthy," Erickson said. "But we like to think of Galileo as the 'little spacecraft that could.'" Galileo mission planners are currently exploring various options for the mission's eventual conclusion, including possible further encounters with Io and another Jovian moon, Callisto. Planners are looking into a possible impact with Io or Jupiter for a mission finale, with other options are also being considered. They are trying to avoid an impact with Europa because recent evidence suggests there may be a liquid ocean beneath its icy crust, raising the possibility that life could exist there. More information on the Galileo mission is available at http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov . Additional information about the Cassini mission is available at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini .
Successful Start of the Historic Interstellar Dust Collection by
STARDUST
Tom Duxbury
STARDUST
Flight Director February 22, 2000
The aerogel collector was successfully deployed today to begin the interstellar dust collection. The commanded timeline was followed precisely with the heat shield on the Sample Return Capsule (SRC) opening, followed by the shoulder motor moving the collector out of the SRC and then finally the wrist motor extending the collector fully to its collection position where it sticks above the spacecraft shielding and into the cometary dust stream. The deployment was confirmed during deployment with small torques detected by the attitude control system for the proper duration as well as the motors turning for the proper time duration. The final confirmation came with the shoulder and wrist microswitches being triggered when deployment was complete. In the spacecraft current orbit where it just came out of solar conjuction, its inertial velocity direction is about 50 degrees away from traveling directly with the interstellar dust stream. Over the next few months as the spacecraft orbit curves around the sun, the spacecraft motion will parallel the dust stream motion. After the collector was fully deployed today and all subsystems were verified to be operating nominally, a command was sent to move the collector 50 degrees in the direction of closing to position the collector surface area normal to the interstellar dust stream flow. Every few weeks we will command this angle by a few degrees to keep the collector surface normal to the stream. Near the end of this first interstellar collection period, the collector will be fully deployed again. The collection will continue until at least 25 May 2000; however we are currently exploring extending this period by a few additional weeks. There are no microswitches in between the full open and full close positions to tell us the exact position of the aerogel collector. We will control this position during the next few months by commanding the wrist motor for a fixed length of time to provide the desired angle movement and verify this movement from telemetered wrist motor operating data. To reach its current 50 deg offset angle, the wrist motor was power on for about 20 seconds which was executed perfectly. The collector has two sides of aerogel: side A for interstellar dust collection and side B for cometary dust collection. We control which side of the collector is exposed to by orienting the spacecraft in inertial space. Currently the spacecraft is oriented with its dust shields pointing in the direction of its motion about the sun and the interstellar dust particles hitting the back side (side A) of the collector. The spacecraft orientation with be reversed relative to the comet Wild 2 particle stream so that the dust shields will protect the spacecraft while the collector is extended above these shields into the oncoming dust stream. As its name indicates, the interstellar particles to be collected now are from outside of our solar system. There is a very tenuous dust cloud within our galaxy, the Milky Way, which our solar system is moving through. The direction of the interstellar dust is opposite to the motion of the sun, which drags the planets with it, relative to the particle media. Thus the dust motion is small relative to the solar system motion that is controlling the direction of interstellar dust passing through our solar system. The interstellar dust stream was detected many years ago by earth orbiting spacecraft and information on this stream has been improved by early Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft. More recently the Ulysses and Galileo spacecraft have confirmed the stream direction as well as indicated that the density of particles in the stream is very low. With the size of the STARDUST collector being only about 0.1 meter square, we expect to collect on the order of 100 such particles during the 2 collection periods. We have just started the historic first collection period and will perform the second collection period in about two years, when again the spacecraft is traveling in the direction of the particle stream. High praise goes to the spacecraft builder and flight operations team at Lockheed Martin Astronautics in Denver, Colorado for this successful deployment and the start of this historic sample collection. The sample will be returned to earth for detailed science analyses in 2006 after the SRC lands in the Utah Test and Training Range. For more information on the STARDUST mission - the first ever comet sample return mission - please visit the STARDUST home page: http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov
View Inside Mars Reveals Rapid Cooling And Buried Channels
Some of Mars' best kept secrets, long buried beneath the surface of the red planet, were recently revealed by instruments on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. New observations of Mars reveal that the planet's flat northern lowlands were an early zone of high heat flow that later may have been the site of rapid water accumulation, according to a view of the Martian interior generated using data from Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft. Elevation and gravity measurements, which have been used to probe beneath the surface of Mars, indicate a period of rapid cooling early in Martian history, and evidence for large buried channels that could have formed from the flow of enormous volumes of water. This global view of the Martian interior was generated from gravity measurements with the Radio Science experiment and elevation measurements from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA), both on MGS. Gravity and topography measurements were combined to reveal the structure of the crust on Mars, which preserves the record of melting of the interior and the heat loss from the planet over time. "The crustal thickness map shows that, as for Earth, Mars has two distinct crustal provinces" explained Dr. Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, and lead author of a study to be published in the March 10, 2000, issue of Science. Beneath the rough southern highlands and Tharsis volcanic province the crust, estimated at 50 miles thick, thins progressively from the south pole toward the north. In contrast, the northern lowlands and Arabia Terra region of the southern highlands have a crust of uniform thickness, about 22 miles deep. The crustal structure accounts for the elevation of the Martian northern lowlands, which controlled the northward flow of water early in Martian history, producing a network of valleys and outflow channels. The new gravity field data suggest that the transport of water continued far into the northern plains. The gravity shows features interpreted as channels buried beneath the northern lowlands emanating from Valles Marineris and the Chryse and Kasei Valles outflow regions. The features are about 125 miles wide and over a thousand miles long. Their characteristics can be explained by water flow on the surface or in a submarine environment, with later burial by sediments. The large size of these channels implies that any bodies of water in the northern lowlands could have accumulated rapidly. The now-buried channels may represent the means for filling an early ocean. The gravity and topography also provide information on the cooling of Mars over time, which bears on the early climate and history of water. "The observations suggest that the northern lowlands was a location of high heat loss from the interior early in Martian history, probably due to a period of vigorous convection and possibly plate recycling inside of Mars," said Dr. Sean Solomon, Director of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, DC, and a co-author of the study. The high heat-loss zone corresponds to the part of Mars proposed to have been the site of an ancient ocean. The rapid transport of heat to the surface in this region would have released onto the surface and into the atmosphere gases and water or ice trapped in the interior. The time of rapid interior heat loss may correspond to the period when Mars had a warmer climate, liquid water flowed on the surface, and the planet's surface was shielded from the solar wind by a global magnetic field. During the ongoing Mars Global Surveyor mapping mission the Radio Science and MOLA experiments will continue to collect data on a near-continuous basis through the end of the mission in February, 2001. The MOLA instrument was designed and built by the Laser Remote Sensing Branch of Laboratory for Terrestrial Physics at Goddard. The Radio Science experiment is implemented from the Center for Radio Astronomy of Stanford University. The Mars Global Surveyor mission is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC, by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, a division of the California Institute of Technology. Information about the MGS Radio Science investigation can be found at: http://nova.stanford.edu/projects/mgs/dmwr.html The MGS home page is: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
SOHO Sees Right Through The Sun To Find Stormy Regions On The Other Side
March 3, 2000
A week's advance warning of potential bad weather in space is now possible thanks to the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft. With a technique that uses ripples on the Sun's visible surface to probe its interior, SOHO scientists have, for the first time, imaged solar storm regions on the far side of the Sun, the side facing away from the Earth. Like the unanticipated arrival of hurricanes before the advent of weather satellites, a group of previously hidden solar storm regions can rotate suddenly into view as the Sun turns, blazing away with explosive eruptions. The new technique, which uses the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) instrument on SOHO, gives a warning by creating a window to the far side of the Sun. "We've known for ten years that in theory we could make the Sun transparent all the way to the far side," according to Dr. Charles Lindsey of Solar Physics Research Corp., Tucson, AZ, and Dr. Douglas Braun of NorthWest Research Associates, Boulder, CO, authors of a paper describing the research to be published in the journal Science on March 10. "But we needed observations of exceptional quality. In the end we got them, from MDI on SOHO." Storm areas on the Sun, called active regions, are much larger than the Earth and consist of strong magnetic fields on the Sun's surface. Active regions produce explosions, called flares, and eruptions of plasma (hot, electrically charged gas), called coronal mass ejections. The radiation and plasma from these events sweep past the Earth, sometimes affecting spacecraft, power systems and disrupting radio communications. Understanding and forecasting solar eruptions and their consequences is a relatively new science called space weather. For more than 100 years, scientists have been aware that sunspots (groups of dark areas on the Sun's visible face) are often the scene of flares and other eruptions. Now they watch the Sun more closely than ever, because modern systems are much more vulnerable to solar disturbances than old technology. The experts can still be taken by surprise because the Sun rotates, bringing the effects of hidden active regions to bear on Earth. With a far- side preview of sunspots, nasty surprises for the space weather experts may now be avoidable. Ripples on the Sun's surface used to image the interior are caused by sound waves reverberating through the Sun. Analysis of solar sound waves is the science of helioseismology, and it opened the Sun's gaseous interior to investigation in much the same way as seismologists learned to explore the Earth's rocky interior with earthquake waves. The technique of helioseismic holography used by Lindsey and Braun examines a wide ring of sound waves that emanate from a small region on the far side and reach the near side by rebounding internally from the solar surface. An active region reveals itself because it possesses very strong magnetic fields that speed up the sound waves. Waves that pass through an active region have a round-trip travel time about 12 seconds shorter than the average of six hours. The difference becomes evident when sound waves shuttling back and forth get out of step with one another. MDI data for March 28-29, 1998, revealed on the far side a sunspot group that was not plainly visible on the near side until 10 days later. Observations for 24 hours were more than sufficient to detect the sunspots, which means that routine monitoring is a realistic possibility. SOHO is a cooperative project between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. The spacecraft was built in Europe for ESA and equipped with instruments by teams of scientists in Europe and the USA. The far-side helioseismology research was funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA. Images and additional information are available at: http://pao.gsfc.nasa.gov/gsfc/spacesci/sunearth.htm#soho
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Case for Space
By Mike Combs ©
(Note: printed with permission of the author, previously published in the Fall 1999 issue of Space Front, the magazine for the Space Frontier Society)
The full article can be found at: http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/case_spc.htm
The Case For Space by Mike Combs continued…
(from the last issue of SOJOURNER) Lest it be argued there's not enough raw material available to build this many orbital settlements, the resources of the asteroid Ceres alone would allow us to do this nearly a thousand times over. Space habitats represent an incredible economy of mass in comparison to planets. O'Neill was interested in shattering the limits to growth which were widely (if somewhat incorrectly) perceived in the 1960's. He once calculated that even if we limited ourselves to the resources of the asteroid belt (merely the most convenient source of materials, and not the only one), we could still build, in the form of orbital habitats, over 3,000 times the livable surface area of the Earth. Thus, Mars holds out the promise of becoming home to a planetary civilization, which might rival that of Earth. Orbital colonies can form a space-based civilization that far surpasses Earth's in both size and diversity.
Location Options
Martian settlements would be a home on Mars. Orbital settlements could be homes anywhere
in the solar system (and perhaps even beyond) that we care to be, as long as we're not
frequently eclipsed by a planet. One can locate further from the sun simply by making the
habitat mirrors bigger, and slightly concave, so as to concentrate the sunlight up to
Earthly levels. Even the apparent diameter of the sun in the sky would be the same as
we're presently used to. Habitat orbits beyond Pluto are not out of the question.
Unfortunately, this same solution cannot be used to raise the sunlight levels for colonies
on the surface of Mars, due to the impracticality of such flimsy mirrors in an environment
of gravity and weather. Some space-based societies will doubtless elect to remain close to
Earth, enjoying both real-time communication with, and speedy travel to, the homeworld.
Other groups, wishing to remain forever apart from Earth-centered civilization, could
choose to become far more remote than even Martians ever could. Significantly, orbital
territories would be mobile. This is yet another clear advantage that would scarcely even
occur to us Earth-bound folk, since it's an option we've never enjoyed here. If an orbital
community found itself next door to another that it simply couldn't stand, there would be
a solution short of "ethnic cleansing". They could simply attach engines, and
move.
Spreading Interstellar
At this point we cast our gaze even further afield, toward the distant stars. It's true
the perfection of our terraforming skills on Mars might ultimately make the settlement of
selected planets in certain other solar systems possible. But O'Neill habitats make every
solar system a candidate for settlement, regardless of the presence or absence of suitable
planets, or indeed any planets at all. Many solar systems may lack terrestrial planets due
to gravitational disruptions from superjovian planets or multiple suns. But from our
present understanding of the dynamics of solar system formation, systems without asteroids
or comets seem unlikely.
Getting What You Need
Thus far the discussion may seem a little one-sided. Aren't there any criteria by which
building settlements on Mars may have advantages over building them in free space? There's
one I'm aware of. The High Frontier scenario is dependent on the retrieval of resources to
High Earth Orbit, either from the lunar surface or from NEO's. The cost of transporting
these raw materials must be factored into the cost of establishing space habitats. On
Mars, the ores needed are literally underfoot. Both carbon and oxygen can be generated
from the atmosphere using technology already demonstrated in the laboratory. The Martian
atmosphere, while thin, is accessible anywhere on the planet. This is a significant
advantage. There are two questions then that must be answered. Number one is: Are the
costs of transporting the needed resources to Earth orbit so large that they exceed the
additional expenses of establishing colonies at the much more distant location of Mars?
The answer may not be presently clear. Mass-driver technology holds out the promise of
significant cost savings in the area of resource retrieval. A mass-driver erected on the
lunar surface can act as a catapult for launching ores into space for pennies a pound.
Less well known, a mass-driver can also function as a highly efficient reaction engine for
an asteroid ore transporter. Such an engine would require nothing other than solar energy
for power, and dirt for reaction mass. However, while demonstration models of mass-drivers
have validated that the desired payload accelerations are possible, the required speeds
have not yet been demonstrated. The other question is: Even if it should happen that ore
transportation costs were to make orbital settlements somewhat more expensive than Mars
settlements, would the difference completely overwhelm the many advantages of orbital
space we've discussed?
Robert Zubrin's Views
Since the passing of Gerard O'Neill in 1992, Dr. Robert Zubrin, founder of Pioneer
Astronautics and author of "The Case For Mars" has emerged as the foremost
public advocate of colonization beyond the Earth (the only other possible contender might
be Marshall Savage). Zubrin has designed strategies for voyaging to Mars that are much
less expensive than any previous proposals, and believes such journeys will lay the
foundation for a vast future Martian civilization. He's been quoted as referring to
O'Neill's concepts for constructing orbital habitats and Solar Power Satellites from space
resources as "absurd". In his paper "The Economic Viability of Mars
Colonization", Zubrin makes the following remark: But the biggest problem with the
Moon, as with all other airless planetary bodies and proposed artificial free-space
colonies (such as those proposed by Gerard O'Neill) is that sunlight is not available in a
form useful for growing crops. This is an extremely important point and it is not well
understood. This point is not only "not well understood", but is quite
surprising to one viewing things from the High Frontier perspective, which holds that
solar energy is more available in High Earth Orbit than on any planetary body. But Zubrin
proceeds to explain his logic. He reminds us that crops must be protected from space
radiation, and calculates this would require glass walls 10 cm thick, which is assumed to
be "prohibitively expensive". Then, apparently aware that this is in fact not
the solution proposed by O'Neill, he goes on to say: Use of reflectors and other
light-channeling devices would not solve this problem, as the reflector areas would have
to be enormous, essentially equal in area to the crop domains, creating preposterous
engineering problems if any significant acreage is to be illuminated. What these
preposterous engineering problems specifically are, he does not indicate. It's true we're
not normally accustomed to discussing the construction of mirrors miles across. But we
normally view things from the perspective of the Earth's surface, where such mirrors would
have to support their own weight, and withstand winds and other weather conditions. Space
mirrors will face no such requirements. In this same paper, Zubrin confesses that,
following several decades of atmospheric density buildup; the normal processes of
photosynthesis might take a millennia to add sufficient oxygen to the Martian atmosphere
to make it breathable. Thus, he anticipates that more high-tech methods will be employed
to speed up this process. One method he discusses is nanotechnology, which he estimates
might cut the time down to a mere thirty years. Zubrin chooses to consider mirrors the
size of cities preposterous. A proponent of High Frontier concepts might similarly choose
to view self-replicating machines the size of molecules as preposterous. So is that it? Is
this debate ultimately reduced to dueling prejudices? Perhaps. But this can be said: The
technology to create miles-scale mirrors in zero gravity and vacuum would certainly seem
to be more in hand than molecular nanotechnology. Some other methods Zubrin cites to
possibly speed up terraforming efforts are terrawatt-sized fusion reactors, space-based
lasers, and space-based reflectors; the latter of which is the very technology which he
will not allow may make independent orbital communities possible. In his paper on the
economic viability of Mars, Zubrin foresees a triangle trade amongst Earth, Mars, and the
Asteroid Belt. But this interplanetary economy is predicated on the assumption that
asteroid miners will be unable to grow their own foodstuff. This proceeds from Zubrin's
dismissal of the concept of space mirrors as big as cornfields. If the High Frontier
concept should prove correct, asteroid miners can live permanently in the belt in
Earth-like habitats perfectly capable of growing their own crops. In such a situation,
Mars would seem to have little to sell them.
Conclusions
Gerard O'Neill's findings prompted Isaac Asimov to coin a new phrase: "planetary
chauvinism". This refers to our natural tendency to assume activities elsewhere in
space are best done on the surface of a planet. But as seen here, almost any way you look
at it, planets are inconvenient things. When making serious proposals for colonization
beyond the Earth, we're obliged to set aside the romance of Burroughs and Bradbury, and
ask what strategies return the greatest benefits most quickly for the least investment. To
my mind, space is the place. Postscript: After publication of the above article, I started
a thread on the Usenet newsgroup sci.space.policy named "Which is better, Mars
settlements or space settlements?" in which I invited counter-points to the above.
Discussion continued in another thread entitled "Why Mars Now?". Firstly, one
poster made the case that on a terraformed Mars, the ecology would be "wilder".
It's doubtless true that the ecology in an orbital habitat will have to be much more
closely managed than any planetary ecology. And it may very well be that orbital
settlements will for a very long time remain too "park-like" for some folk's
tastes. Two others saw advantages for Mars where incremental expansion of living space was
concerned. One raised the possibility of a pressurized brickwork habitat for Mars made out
of indigenous materials. Making bricks is certainly a simpler materials process than
making steel plate, but I'm uncertain about the relative levels of labor involved. If we
care to make it a comparison between orbital settlements and terraforming Mars, I think
orbital settlements are the obvious winners in the incremental expansion category. One
poster, after urging that all debate on this subject cease, said he would only state one
advantage of Mars: Mars has more resources. While Mars certainly masses more than the belt
or even the moon, this argument doesn't consider the issues of ease of access, or costs of
exporting resources. One of the more frequent posters to the threads stated that Mars is
more popular, and expressed the opinion this single fact overrides all other
considerations. Perhaps one of the best points made by someone on the newsgroups was that
I was being somewhat unfair in my depiction of Robert Zubrin's views. It was pointed out
that the section of "The Case For Mars" from which I pulled the quote concerning
the impracticality of large space mirrors was from the near-term-future section of the
book. The reference to using orbital mirrors to aid in Mars terraforming efforts was from
a later section dealing with a much more distant future (one in which the engineering
difficulties of enormous space mirrors had presumably been worked out). It was almost
certainly wrong of me to leave the reader with the impression that Zubrin's points are
inconsistent. In fact, in his later book, "Entering Space", Zubrin, while
arguing forcefully that space settlements will never be built in support of SPS, later
says that a Type III (interstellar) civilization will build orbital habitats in asteroids
and Oort cloud objects "with many of the features envisioned by O'Neill". But I
think the point remains that Zubrin mentions High Frontier proposals only to compare them
to Mars Direct (a much more modest, and hence realizable, near-term goal). When discussing
much more future eras, High Frontier gets little or no mention, and no comparison is ever
made with proposed Mars terraforming efforts. Humanity is assumed to still be working the
Martian surface in an attempt to make it more Earthlike. This seems to assume that no
better alternative will be available even then. I don't think it's incorrect to say that
more than one reader of Zubrin has come away with an impression that orbital habitats are
forever impossible, given his stressing of the engineering difficulties over the short
term, and his nearly exclusive discussion of planetary engineering for later eras. The
quote "...human beings will never settle Earth orbit, because there is nothing there
to settle" seems open-ended, and without qualification with regard to time lines. I
would agree that High Frontier should not be proposed as an alternative to Mars Direct,
since (as stated near the beginning of this article) they are not comparable projects. I
still see the way clear to propose space settlements as an alternative to the large scale
settlement and/or terraformation of Mars, as by the time we've gained the technical
experience needed to re-engineer other worlds, there could be no doubt we could also
engineer large orbital structures as well. End
Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.
Will Rogers
NOTICE: This paper is made from dehydrated tiger skin - if thrown away without being read, a small water capsule breaks activating the tiger, which climbs from the wastebasket and devours the nonreader.
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