Image (Credit): Mare Tranquillitatis pit crater revealing boulders on an otherwise smooth floor. (NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University)
If you are looking for a comfortable spot on the Moon, you could do much worse than a lunar pit. These pits have shaded portions that maintain a comfortable temperature of about 63 F. That is much better than the surface temperatures of 260 F in the day and minus 280 F at night. Such pits can also be useful to visitors by protecting them cosmic rays, solar radiation, and micrometeorites.
You may ask why we are looking at building space habitats when such locations exist. A good question, but I expect the location, size, and stability of these pits will also be important. Maybe they can at least serve as a safe shelter should the be needed.
More study is necessary, of course, before any big decisions on human settlement can be contemplated.
You can read more about the lunar pits here. You can also check out this video.
Image (Credit): The July 24th launch of a Long March 5B rocket transporting China’s second module for its Tiangong space station. (CNS/AFP/Getty Images)
A few days ago debris from China’s Long March 5B rocket landed in the waters off the Philippine island of Palawan. The 1.8 million pounds of rocket brought a module to the Chinese space station. Such problems with Chinese rocket debris is a clear example that China needs to follow both SpaceX and Blue Origin and start using resusable rockets in the future.
The People’s Republic of China did not share specific trajectory information as their Long March 5B rocket fell back to Earth.
All spacefaring nations should follow established best practices, and do their part to share this type of information in advance to allow reliable predictions of potential debris impact risk, especially for heavy-lift vehicles, like the Long March 5B, which carry a significant risk of loss of life and property.
Doing so is critical to the responsible use of space and to ensure the safety of people here on Earth.
China has plans to develop reusable rockets for future heavy-lift missions to its space station and the Moon. This would certainly reduce the risk to parties below and hopefully add some efficiencies to the launch process.
Of course, China is not alone when it comes to falling space debris. SpaceX appears to be responsible for debris that landed in Australia last month (see below). While confirmation is still needed, the material appears to be from a SpaceX Dragon capsule.
Image (Credit): One of the panels of the debris found in Australia. (The Guardian/Brad Tucker)
Image (Credit): Lt. Nyota Uhura on the deck of the U.S.S. Enterprise. (Paramount)
This weekend we lost actress Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Nyota Uhura on the original Star Trek television series. She was 89.
Back in 1966, her role as part of the crew on the U.S.S. Enterprise was a risky and eye-opening move by creator Gene Roddenberry in a nation divided by race (as well as many other issues – sound familiar?). In an NPR interview, Mr. Nichols noted how civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. encouraged her to remain with the Star Trek series at a time she was considering leaving:
He complimented me on the manner in which I’d created the character. I thanked him, and I think I said something like, Dr. King, I wish I could be out there marching with you. He said, no, no, no. No, you don’t understand. We don’t need you on the – to march. You are marching. You are reflecting what we are fighting for. So, I said to him, thank you so much. And I’m going to miss my co-stars.
And his face got very, very serious. And he said, what are you talking about? And I said, well, I told Gene just yesterday that I’m going to leave the show after the first year because I’ve been offered – and he stopped me and said: You cannot do that. And I was stunned. He said, don’t you understand what this man has achieved? For the first time, we are being seen the world over as we should be seen. He says, do you understand that this is the only show that my wife Coretta and I will allow our little children to stay up and watch. I was speechless.
An impressive endorsement.
The last time I saw Ms. Nichols was on the History Channel special on the television series: The Center Seat: 55 Years of Star Trek. I enjoyed listening to her stories about her time with the television series and related movies. I recommend the program as a way to learn more about Ms. Nichols as well as the other actors associated with the Star Trek phenomena.
Image (Credit): International Space Station. (NASA)
Have you ever wondered about all of the scientific projects, past and present, on the International Space Station (ISS)? Quite a bit has happened onboard the station since it was first occupied back in November 2000.
Fortunately, NASA maintains an inventory of all of these projects. The Space Station Research Explorer provides information on all of the experiments, separated into six categories:
Biology and Biotechnology;
Earth and Space Science;
Educational Activities;
Human Research;
Physical science; and
Technology.
For instance, back in 2017 the station supported an experiment under “Earth and Space Science” titled ASTERIA:
The Arcsecond Space Telescope Enabling Research in Astrophysics (ASTERIA) is a six-unit (6U) CubeSat deployed from the International Space Station (ISS) that tests new technologies for astronomical observation, such as the detection of planets outside our solar system (a.k.a., exoplanets). Observing exoplanets requires repeated observation of stars over a long period of time from a dark environment, so that the small shadow of an orbiting planet can be detected passing through the star’s light. ASTERIA uses advanced pointing control technology, new thermal stabilization features, and the scalable CubeSat-platform to perform these complex measurements.
Some projects still lack information. These incomplete projects tend to be sponsored by ROSCOSMOS, though the Russian space agency has plenty of complete projects as well.
Image (Credit): Russian cosmonauts headed for the ISSget ready to board the Soyuz MS-21 spacecraft prior to its launch at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 18, 2022. (Roscosmos)
“Of course, we will fulfill all our obligations to our partners, but the decision about withdrawing from the station after 2024 has been made.”
-Statement by Yuri Borisov regarding Russia’s participation in the International Space Station (ISS), as quoted by Reuters. Mr. Borisov was recently appointed director-general of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos. However, like his predecessor, he may have spoken without thinking through the consequences. Time magazine quoted Vladimir Solovyov, an ISS flight director, who stated, “We, of course, need to continue operating the ISS until we create a more or less tangible backlog for ROSS. We must take into account that if we stop manned flights for several years, then it will be very difficult to restore what has been achieved.” In other words, the withdrawal may not be anytime soon. Not a very good start for Mr. Borisov.
Our Awesome Universe 