Space Quote: A Space Detente with China?

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: factsanddetails.com

“With geopolitical tensions between Washington and Beijing extending into space, it is only to be expected that policymakers are looking back to the Cold War for helpful lessons. Unfortunately, it is far too easy to learn the wrong lessons from space cooperation during and immediately after the Cold War. Certainly, space cooperation was not a silver bullet to superpower problems on Earth and in space. The pattern of space cooperation between the United States and Russia is an important reminder that space cooperation has generally been the product of improving relations rather than the catalyst for change.”

-Statement by Aaron Bateman in his Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ article, “The Prospects for United States–China Space Cooperation are Limited.” The article suggests some ways that the two space-faring nations can find common ground even if they are not working on the same space missions as the American and Russians did in the past and still do today.

Do We Need to Fear Lunar Organisms?

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): A Tardigrade, or water bear, which may have landed on the Moon thanks to an Israeli mission. (NASA)

If we had a real chance of being harmed by life on the lunar surface, Covid 19 would be child’s play. The New York Times has an article, “Cosmic Luck: NASA’s Apollo 11 Moon Quarantine Broke Down,” indicates we were not really ready for any potential contamination during the Apollo program. The newspaper cites a recent study on the quarantine process, which noted:

As NASA prepared to land astronauts on the Moon in the 1960s, scientists and federal officials came to fear that they could bring lunar microorganisms back to Earth, with potentially grave consequences for human, plant, and animal life. To prevent this“back contamination,”representatives from NASA and a network of federal departments and services developed a protocol to quarantine astronauts, equipment, samples, and spacecraft exposed to lunar dust. Yet although NASA assured policy makers and an anxious public that it had implemented impermeable safeguards against the escape of lunar microorganisms, it had in fact prioritized likely risks to astronauts over unlikely risks to American society. To a degree previously unknown, the Apollo quarantine protocol suffered from numerous containment breaches that would likely have exposed the terrestrial biosphere to contamination—had lunar microorganisms actually existed.

Of course, now that we have landed on the moon and sent up multiple missions, the risk today is that we have contaminated the lunar surface, as noted in this second story from Futurism, “NASA Says There May Be Life on the Moon After All.” For instance, an earlier Israeli mission that crashed on the lunar surface was carrying thousands of microscopic Tardigrades. The story also cites meteors as a possible source of life that could have found refuge on the Moon.

I think I will put my money on the Tardigrades.

Podcast: Richard Dawkins Joins the Podcast Ranks

Posted on by onespaceman2000

Stay tuned for a new podcast from British evolutionary biologist and author Richard Dawkins. It is called The Poetry of Reality, and can be found here and elsewhere. The 2-minute preview clip sounds interesting as he discusses humans colonizing a new planet.

This is the write-up accompanying the new podcast:

The Poetry of Reality is hosted by world renowned evolutionary biologist and best-selling author, Professor Richard Dawkins. He has been celebrated globally for his honest critique of religion and tradition and his push for critical thinking. His books include The Selfish Gene, Climbing Mount Improbable, The God Delusion and Outgrowing God: A Beginner’s Guide. As founder of the Richard Dawkins Center for Reason and Science, Dawkins has long been known for his uncompromising passion for science, calling out for the pressing need in modern societies for scientific literacy and rational thinking, especially in the education of young minds. His relentless pursuit of truth, and his recognition of the beauty of life on earth, will feature in this podcast, as he charts his way through scientific and existential inquiries like ‘What are we doing here?’ and ‘When did life begin?’

I just listened to an interview with Dr. Dawson on another podcast, Unherd with Freddie Sayers. Listen to the last 3.5 minutes in the podcast for Dr. Dawson’s views on extraterrestrial life.

Pic of the Week: The Ongoing Perseverance Rover Mission

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover captured this mosaic of a hill nicknamed “Pinestand.”
(NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS)

This week’s image comes from NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance as it explores the to Jezero Crater. The photo was posted last month. It has been a little while since we directly our attention at the Red Planet.

The image shows what may be the result of a fast-moving river some time in the past. In the NASA write-up accompanying the photo above, we read:

“Pinestand” is an isolated hill bearing sedimentary layers that curve skyward, some as high as 66 feet (20 meters). Scientists think these tall layers may also have been formed by a powerful river, although they’re exploring other explanations, as well.

“These layers are anomalously tall for rivers on Earth,” [postdoctoral researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California Libby] Ives said. “But at the same time, the most common way to create these kinds of landforms would be a river.”