Space Quote: Blue Origin to be Key Link With Red Planet

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of the MTO orbiting Mars. (Blue Origin)

“[Mars Telecommunications Orbiter] is the backbone of America’s Mars exploration program for the next decade and beyond and will provide the reliable communications capacity that will keep future robotic and human missions connected to each other and to Earth…This awarded contract is a testament to the Blue Origin team that has been building Blue Ring with exactly this kind of mission in mind. We’re ready, and so is the hardware.”

–Statement by Tory Bruno, president, Blue National Security at Blue Origin, discussing the role of the planned MTO mission for NASA. The MTO is a firm-fixed-price contract with a maximum potential value of approximately $700 million. Part of the Moon to Mars Artemis program, the MTO is expected to be delivered to NASA no later than December 31, 2028.

Television: Blade Runner 2099

Posted on by onespaceman2000

If you are not in the mood this weekend to see The Dog Stars, the latest Ridley Scott film, remember we still have another Ridley Scott show coming later this year.

Blade Runner 2099, a new 8-episode series, premieres on Amazon Prime this November 25th. While Mr. Scott was not involved with this production, his view of the future continues to amaze and haunt us.

Set in Los Angeles 50 years after the last film, the new series includes plenty of humans and Replicants, but this time it is the Replicants who are on top. It is quite a twist in the story at a time when AI is everywhere and AI-related unemployment is a continual worry.

This trailer on Youtube shows you what to expect from the new series.

Unfortunately, Harrison Ford will not be returning for this new series, but it still boasts a good number of well known talent, including Michelle Yeoh (Star Trek: Discovery), Hunter Schafer (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), Dimitri Abold (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), Lewis Gribben (Somewhere Boy), Matthew Needham (House of the Dragon), Maurizio Lombardi (Ripley), and others.

I want to walk into the future with my eyes wide open, so I am eager to watch the new series.

Pic of the Week: A Halloween Preview – N44

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Nebula LHA 120-N44, or N44, as captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. (NASA, ESA/Hubble, D. Gouliermis)

Talk about eerie. This week’s image is from the NASA/European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hubble Space telescope. The ghostly image shows nebula LHA 120-N44, or N44, which is about 160,000 light-years away. It is within the Large Magellanic Cloud that orbits our galaxy.

Here is more from NASA describing what you are seeing:

N44 is dominated by two features: a vast central void and a shell of dense, dusty gas. The central void is a ‘superbubble’ spanning roughly 210 by 140 light-years across. The glittering stars at the center of the void are responsible for its creation; through their powerful stellar winds and explosive supernovae, these stars expelled much of the gas from which they were born.

When the stars of N44’s central star cluster swept away this gas, the expelled gas compressed and formed a shell around the superbubble. New stars are forming in this compressed gas shell, making N44 an interesting target for astronomers who are using the nebula to study how stars form in this environment. Their goal is to understand how long it takes from the collapse of cold gas clouds into dense knots to the moment nuclear fusion ignites in the heart of a newborn star.

Survey Results: Americans and UFOs

Posted on by onespaceman2000

Americans are skeptical about their government for many reasons beyond the Epstein Files. In the case of UFOs, they continue to believe that Uncle Sam is withholding the truth. As shown in the figure above, this skepticism has grown over the years.

The results from a recent Gallup poll, outlined in Americans Still Skeptical That UFOs Are Aliens, have even more to say about how American feel, including:

  • 37% believe at least some UFOs have been alien spacecraft;
  • Individuals between age 30 to 49 are more likely to believe UFOs have been alien spacecraft; and
  • 17% of Americans say they have personally seen something they thought was a UFO.

Steven Spielberg, creator of this summer’s blockbuster movie Disclosure Day, is probably not all that surprised by these results. He has been telling this same story about encounters with aliens since 1977 with his movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

I think it is also reasonable to be skeptical about the existence of UFOs at this point. As Carl Sagan stated in his book Other Worlds:

UFOs: The reliable cases are uninteresting and in the interesting cases are unreliable.

Hence, it might be reasonable to be skeptical on both fronts – we cannot trust our government to properly share what it knows about UFOs, yet what it knows about UFOs is of no real value.

Space Quote: Better Late Than Never

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Nancy Grace Roman with a scale model of the Hubble Space Telescope. (NASA)

“I just want to thank everybody, and congratulate you. Boy, it looked beautiful on television…Jared is doing a fantastic job, you are doing a fantastic job, and I’m supplying you all that money.”

–Statement by President Trump to NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman after the successful launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Of course, this is the same president that submitted multiple budgets over the years that would have eliminated this same telescope as well as many other NASA programs. In fact, only the bipartisan efforts of Congress made the launch possible by “supplying…all that money.” Given the status of other White House efforts in Iran and elsewhere, it makes sense the president is looking for a win. Let’s hope NASA has plenty more wins coming up to keep the budget ax far away.