In June of last year, we were told by NASA that the 14
year mission of Rover Opportunity might be coming to an end. The rover was
caught in a planet-encircling dust storm. This did not allow light from the sun
to reach the rover’s solar panels, and her battery were becoming drained.
This year NASA tried to get Opportunity up and running,
but their best efforts did not work. NASA sent one more transmission to
Opportunity on 12 February, 2019, but no response was received. The following
day NASA announced that the mission was concluded.
At least the roving part is completed. Years will be spent by scientists and geologists and engineers pouring over the treasure trove of data sent back by Opportunity. All that information will improve the likelihood of another outstanding success in a future mission to Mars – or beyond.
If Opportunity had a middle name it would be Success.
The rover was originally planned as a 90-day mission. Opportunity lasted for 14
years. Her sister rover, Spirit, lasted about half as long, but also well
beyond her planned 90-day mission
Why mentioned them now, nearly 6 months after the conclusion
of the mission? Because they are a model for success, and we should always talk
about success. Plus I’ve been hoping that we would hear from her.
Maybe someday an astronaut will walk up and dust off
her panels, and Opportunity will say, “Welcome to Mars”.
Image is derived from
photos on the NASA Mars Mission website, https://mars.nasa.gov/mer/ . The background
is of Opportunity’s last panorama picture.
More information on the rovers and future missions to
Mars may be found there. MER stands for “Mars Exploration Rover”.
Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to drive
across the country. I was going from the east coast to central New Mexico. I
intended to take advantage of the time on the road and see as many sights as I could.
The trip was in the Spring. There is not a better time of year to travel. Its cooler, and we would not be running into the larger summer crowds. I have made the drive several times before, but by different routes. I always enjoy it. This is a beautiful country, full of beautiful people most of whom are happy to tell you the best place to eat, the best routes, and the sights in their state not to miss. When traveling, the old adage, “You can draw more flies with honey than with vinegar,” is excellent advice. People are friendly. And I believe they are more than willing to help someone who asks them a question. Especially about their hometown. It all has to do with Sense of Place. The people you meet are at home, and are generally proud of their home, and are happy to brag about it.
When I am traveling this far I like to stop and see the country, and what better places to go and see than our National Parks. We decided to first go to Arizona and see the Grand Canyon; we would circle back to New Mexico. I had been to the Grand Canyon twice before, but it is always worth the trip. The first time I saw it was in 1971 on my way to California. but I drove past Winslow, Arizona without a thought (1). At that time, I had not heard of The Eagles or any of their music, so going past Winslow made no difference to me. I was heading to California for duty in the Navy.
However, during the early 1970s in southern California I heard numerous songs by the Eagles. They fit a shift I was making in what I listened to on the radio. So when I first heard the song “Take it Easy” (2) by The Eagles, like many people, I was hooked. It had a bit of a country feel to it, but I felt it to be more of a folk ballad of missed opportunity. And it fit my life.
When I drove back east from California in 1974, I went past Winslow again. But this time when I saw the sign for the turnoff, I started singing the song, but I zoomed past heading east on I-40. I would stop sometime in the future.
It would be 45 years before I came to Winslow again. In 2019, after seeing the Grand Canyon, we had turned around and were heading east to Albuquerque. The Grand Canyon had been a terrific extension of our trip (3).
This time I would go into Winslow and see what there was to see. Maybe I would find that corner and stop, and take it easy.
In 1999 the City of Winslow had selected the corner of
Second St. & Kinsley Ave. as an appropriate
place to erect a statue and to create a mural of the scene that reflects the
story of the song. I was glad to see the statue and mural and to know
that others had an attachment to the song and the story it told.
The morning was cool so after we visited the statue and mural we crossed the street for a cup of coffee and a sweet roll. When we came out we walked around for a while and then went past the statue on the corner on the way to our car.
I saw several people around the statue and the mural. I was happy to see others had come out to pay homage to their youth. We were grey beards all.
“Lighten up while you still can Don’t even try to understand Just find a place to make your stand And take it easy.”
(1). I did stop at the Meteor Crater and then got back on the road heading west. I wrote about my experience in my post of 27 January 2019, “Meteor Crater”.
The Indian Space Research Organization
(ISRO) issued a press release today that India successfully launched
their Chandrayaan-2 mission to the Moon.
After reaching its orbit around the Earth, the spacecraft will begin its nearly
60-day journey. The landing on the Moon is scheduled for September 7, 2019.
ISRO chairman, Dr. K. Sivan stated, ““Today is
the beginning of the historical journey of India towards Moon … .” It truly is
as India continues its scientific quest to aid humanity to reach out to the
moon – and beyond.
We congratulate India on their success and
look forward to a soft landing.
And we recall the lines from Robert Heinlein’s
story, “The Green Hills of Earth,”
“Up
leaps a race of Earthmen,
Out, far, and onward yet —“.
This is an update to
my post of 21 July, 2019, “Back to the Moon!” which speaks to the several nations
that are reaching out for the Moon to expand our understand of that body and
the to reach outward beyond that.
The image is
combination of a launch picture from the NBC News website, and the badge of the
ISRO.
Today is the 50th anniversary of mankind’s first landing
on the Moon. We celebrate the men and women of the United States , and truly of
all nations, who worked to make the event happen, and who celebrate it’s reality.
We all look forward to “peace for all mankind”.
Did any other story
of the future written by Robert Heinlein look to the future with such a clear
gaze. The character, D.D. Harriman in the 1940 science fiction story, The Man Who Sold the Moon, faces the reality
that comes to all visionaries. What’s on the moon and how do you get people to
buy it. At the very start of the story Mr. Harriman’s partner says to him, “…
and don’t give me any guff about tourist trade and fabulous lunar jewels. I’ve
had it.”
Today and this
week and this year the moon is being sold; and its being bought. Again this is
by visionaries. But are they right.? Is there profit to made on the moon? Can
whatever resources that lie on its surface or buried in the moon’s crust and
its interior be found and recovered for use?
This is the
question that some forward thinkers are trying to answer.
The Washington
Post’s lead article in the Business section on 17 February, 2019, “The Moon is Suddenly White Hot”, explores
the current activities of nations and individuals/corporations who are sending landers
to the Moon to start scratching the surface to determine if there are “lunar
jewels” that can easily be picked up.
First what are
these jewels? First of all there is the question of whether there is water on
the moon. This is followed by questions related to the value and usability of
minerals and compounds that may be found on the moon and put to use in
industry. What are they? Where are they? Can they be mined (picked up even) and
processed? Will they need to be brought back to earth for processing or can
that be done on the moon, in situ? And is there a profit in it?
We don’t know the answer to these questions yet. That’s why nations and corporations are sinking hundreds and thousands of millions of dollars into making a soft landing on the moon and roving around and finding out the answers to our questions. And at this time we aren’t even talking about getting people, men and women, back onto the lunar surface.
Last year China succeeded
in a soft landing of Chang’e 4 on the far
side of the moon. Their rover is currently “asleep” as the sun is on the
near-side of the moon and the far-side is in truth the dark-side. When the sun
returns to the far-side of the moon, the rover, Yutu, will continue its mission
of investigating the Moon’s magnetic filed, and analysis of the surface dust as
well as a seismometer to study the interior of the moon.
Israel Space Industries
(ISI) with their partners attempted to make a soft landing with their Beersheet
mission, but their lander failed and crashed into the moon’s surface in April..
The lander mission was to study the Moon’s
magnetic field. Initially they said they would try again. But ISI and its
partners have said they will not make a second attempt – just yet. I can only
imagine that they will make another attempt. There are not only riches at
stake, but a good bit of national pride.
India is next up
with their Chandrayaan-2
mission. The Indian Space
Research Organization (ISRO) mission has an orbiter, and a lander
with a rover. The launch is scheduled for Monday, 22 July. The elements of the mission
include the orbiter which will survey the surface of the Moon and the rover which
will study the surface material as well as the make-up of the moon to a depth
of 10 meters and beyond.
The U.S. has long
range plans for landing men and women back on the moon. Russia also has this as
a goal. However, we are likely ten years away from either to make a serious
attempt. Both nations intend to send unmanned missions to the lunar surface
before then.
Mr. Davenport in his
Washington Post article, “The Moon is Suddenly
White Hot”, comments “… the moon is drawing investors and explorers the way
the promise of the American West once did.” A great deal of the effort on the
moon will focus on the Moon’s south polar region where it is thought that there
may be the possibility of extracting weather from the minerals of the Moon.
That would truly
be a “Lunar Jewel”!
Articles reviewed
for this post include:
“The Moon is Suddenly White Hot” in the Washington Post ,February 17, 2019,
print edition; by Christian Davenport
Art work based on “The Moon is Suddenly White Hot” in the Washington Post ,February 17, 2019
and Robert
Heinlein’s book, The Man Who sold the Moon, Signet Edition, 1951.
Its night time
on the far side of the moon. On 11 July the China National Space Administration
(CNSA) announced it had sent commands to its Chang’e-4
probe on the far side of the moon to go into its dormant state. The lander
and the rover will both ‘sleep’ through the 14 day lunar night before they are
sent commands to wake up and continue the mission. The lander and rover require
sunlight to charge their electrical systems and so can only operate during the moon’s
daytime. For the moon to completely rotate on its axis and the sunlight to
return, takes approximately 29 days. The nighttime, when there is no sun, and
the daytime, when the sun’s light reaches the surface of the far side of the
moon, are both approximately 14.5 days. The progress of the lunar days across
the surface of the moon can be easily seen from Earth in the changes phases of
the moon.
However, as
explained in the CNSA 11 July report, “As a result of
the tidal locking effect [between the Earth and the Moon], the moon’s
revolution cycle is the same as its rotation cycle, and the same side always
faces Earth.”
This synchronicity has historically caused the far-side of the moon to remain unseen and a mystery (1). That is until the early days of humanity’s first tentative steps into space. In October 1959 a lunar probe, Luna 3, launched by the Soviet Union, sent back pictures of the far side of the moon. The first humans to see the far side of the moon were the American astronauts in Apollo 8 as they orbited the moon (10 times) in December 1968.
There is still a great deal to discover about the moon, both on the far side and on the side that faces the earth. The return of the sun, and the return of the Chang’e-4 probe to its mission, may enable further discoveries and help humanity to heighten the potential of humanity’s return to the moon – and to go beyond.
The pictures at the top include (upper) a picture from the current Chinese mission on the moon, and two pictures (lower) from Apollo 8.
(1) Lil Wayne’s song “Dark Side of the Moon” – with Nicki Minaj – speaks to the mystery of the far side of the moon. – “On the dark side of the moon I’ll be waiting, I’ll be waiting for you On the dark side of the moon And If you happen to get there before me Leave a message in the dust just for me If I don’t see it I’ll be waiting for you On the dark side of the moon (yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)” (Lyrics copied from https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/lilwayne/darksideofthemoon.html .)
The Mole is stuck, but there may not be anything touching
it.
NASA and its partner Germany’s DLR are still trying to
figure if they can get the inSight Mole unstuck. According to an article
published by NASA on 5 July, the team now believes that the Mole has created a
cavity so that there is no soil surrounding it. The Mole needs interaction
(touching) the Martian soil in order to move forward/downwards. Without the
surrounding soil the Mole cannot penetrate further.
The problematic void may be like a cavity formed under a
“bridge” similar to a bridge/arch that can form in bulk carrier cargo vessels.
Due to normal vibration during the voyage or in the unloading process, a bridge
or an arch of the material being transported/unloaded can form across the
material. The bridge/arch will not allow the material above it to fall into the
cavity created by the unloading process. The bridge/arch may have been formed
by the Mole in the Martian soil due to the vibration of the mole mechanism.
These vibrations may have caused the material below the bridge/arch to collapse.
The bridge/arch does not allow the Martian soil which the Mole has already
penetrated to collapse into the cavity.
If the material were able to collapse into the cavity perhaps the Mole
could progress to is mission depth.
The pictures in this article show that NASA has moved the
Mole mechanism from above the mole hole. The hole is indicated by the yellow
arrow. The placement of the feet of the mechanism are shown by orange
semi-circles. The tether that provides energy to the Mole and which allows data
transmission up to the lander is shown by the curved green line. NASA will have
to ensure that when it places the mechanism back over the hole that the tether
is not crimped or broken.
In my original post on the inSight lander (4/4/2019 – Mars inSight
H-P cubed) I asked whether it would be possible to remove the Mole and start at
another location. The answer is no; the Mole cannot be extracted. There is no
way to extract the Mole and then reload it into its mechanism so it could start
again. And even if it did, would it only form another cavity and be in a
similar situation?
Links to two articles on bridging are given below. The key to preventing bridging in earth-bound hoppers is control of material flow based on its cohesion and friction on the sides of the container. On Mars, well, it’s different. In the case were a bridge/arch forms, it is generally necessary to shock/vibrate the material so it will start to flow. In the case of the Mole, a shock might allow bridge arch to collapse filling the cavity with soil and the Mole may be able to move forward again.
Right now, according to current thinking, the Mole is probably
dangling in this cavity. It needs material around it to move. Maybe if there
was a nine-pound hammer on the lander it could give the area close to the hole
a good whack. But that is not the case.
We all hope that the NASA/DLR team will be able to develop a
means for the mole to move forward again.
Who is up for a nice long walk? How
about a trek across 2,000 plus miles of frozen ice north of the Arctic Circle?
A young, female Artic Fox was ready for it, and so off she went. She walked (or picturing a fox, she trotted) from Norway’s Svalbard archipelago (well west of Norway in the Arctic Ocean.) to Ellesmere Island well to the east of mainland Canada. She had previously been fitted with a radio collar by the Norwegian Polar Institute and was tracked as she covered the 2,175 miles. The straight-line distance between the two points is 935 miles. So, it is evident that the fox wandered a bit on her path. Her path took her across the frozen Arctic Ocean and across, or if she stayed on the frozen sea ice (which I doubt) near to, the northern end of Greenland. According to The Guardian article in which I first read about the fox, she took 76 days to make the trek. That gives an average distance of 29 miles per day. The article also stated that she walked an astonishing 96 miles on one of those days. Why the burst of speed? Maybe she saw what she was following and wanted to get closer. Perhaps something was following her, and she wanted to get away.
What could have been the reason for such a walk? Its reason enough for me just to see what’s on the other side of the distant hills. But a walk of this distance is much, much further than I have ever walked. At one time I had entertained the idea of walking across the United States, but for numerous reasons that did not happen. However, I generally walk between 600 and 800 miles in a year. That may be no great distance compared to hikers and walkers of a higher order. But for me, each mile and each hour spent outside enjoying whatever weather the day grants me, is a delight. The enjoyment can be multiplied by the animals and other people I might meet on the trail.
Which reminds me of a verse from a great hiking song – The Happy Wanderer, or “I love to go a-wandering”.
“I wave my hat to all I meet And They wave back to me And blackbirds call so loud and sweet From ev’ry green wood tree”.
I wonder what the little fox met along her track. Were there other foxes? Perhaps she saw a polar bear, and perhaps the bear’s attention was why she put in the 96 mile day. Did she see a narwhale rising at its breathing hole, first its pike piercing the air and then its rounded form lifting high out of the water. Or perhaps she heard the singing of the Beluga whale.
When the fox started her trek in
March 2018, her fur may have still been pure white. She blended in well with
the ice and snow all around her. When she arrived in Ellesmere Island in July
she was likely covered in her summer coat of brown. The Artic Fox changes color
throughout the year in order to match the seasonal landscape of her
environment. In Winter, she is white. In Summer, she is brown to dark brown to
black. And in-between her fur is changing and has a grizzled appearance. This
in-between “morph” is called Blue. So, often the Artic Fox is called the Blue
Fox. Wikipedia has good article, titled Artic Fox. It describes her well, and
has excellent pictures of the fox in its habitat and in its different
colorations.
The little vixen’s trek across the
Arctic Ocean was doubtlessly a grueling journey. I hope she found what she was
looking for.
First of all – it’s good to
be back. I apologize for the lengthy dry spell in my blogs, but it could not be
helped (see blog post “Sorry-but there was an accident”, 6/29). I am glad to be
back. And I am very glad that you are back reading my articles. I hope that my
recovery will soon allow me to get back out to experience the joy of long hikes
in the woods.
Recently, there have been
numerous articles regrading Boaty McBoatface, and I want to salute the vessel,
the drone, the scientists, and the findings.
First the vessel. You may
remember in 2016 there was a public request by a British government bureau, the
British Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), to submit names for a new
scientific vessel. The vessel was a 425 foot (129 meter), $300 million ocean-going
ice breaker and research vessel dedicated to the study of the oceans of the
Antarctic regions.
I need to mention the
importance of the protein provided by the oceans to the world’s population.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in
2014 “ten percent of the world’s population depends on fisheries for
their livelihoods, and 4.3 billion people are reliant on fish for 15 percent of
their animal protein intake.” [1] The
oceans are an important resource and must be studied and protected.
The name for the vessel that the majority of people, those who visited the NERC website, recommended was Boaty McBoatface. I believe the world agreed it was a very funny, but a rather silly, name for a vessel of its size and importance.
The vessel, due to its expense and significance, was eventually named Royal Research Ship (RRS) David Attenborough after the famed broadcaster and natural historian. This name had also scored highly on the NERC website. But what then to do with that great and popular name of Boaty? The scientific community decided to use the name for a new and important drone vehicle. The new drone was planned for exploration of the oceans and specifically to collect data related to the temperature regions/levels of the ocean water surrounding Antarctica.
The new Boaty McBoatface submersible, is a research drone which can be launched and recovered from a larger research vessel. The submersible drone is a Autosub Long Range (ALR). Boaty McBoatface is the first of its class and is designated ALR-1. According to the NERC, the ALR submersibles can be at sea for weeks to months. This length of time and data gathering capability is far longer than research drones that are currently utilized by the NERC. Other autonomous vehicles of the Boaty class are planned for development, construction, and use for research of the Southern Ocean and perhaps others of the world’s seven seas.
ALR Boaty McBoatface, has been in the news recently for its data collection during its first scientific voyage. The data provides information regarding the effect of increasingly stronger winds on the rise of ocean surface water temperatures. This is one of the many feed-back loops related to global warming. According to an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) [2], ALR-1 (Boaty), traveled 112 miles on its first voyage. Its path took it through high walled underwater valleys of the Orkney Passage in the depths of the Southern Ocean near Antarctica. The vessel measured temperature, salinity (saltiness), as well as the turbulence at different depths.
The findings of Boaty’s maiden voyage reveal how increasingly stronger winds on the surface of the Southern
Ocean create turbulence deep under the surface. This turbulence results in a
mixing of the warm water at the middle levels with the colder waters from the
depths of the Southern Ocean. This mixing causes the temperature of the waters in
the lower level to warm and move upward through the water column. This can be a
significant factor in rising sea levels. As the warmer water raises the overall
ocean temperature, the water tends to expand due to the warming and thus causes
the sea level to rise. If the deep-water warming contributes to a warming of
the ocean’s surface waters this may increase the rate of evaporation from the
surface into the atmosphere which can contribute to more rain and snow inland
and greater strength to ocean storms.
According to the PNAS article, the significance of the findings of this previously undocumented mixing mechanism of the overturning circulation in the Southern Ocean is a better understanding that the deep-ocean waters are rapidly laundered through intensified near-boundary turbulence and boundary–interior exchange. As the conditions triggering this mechanism are common to other branches of the overturning circulation, the findings highlight a requirement for representing the newly-understood circulation in computer models of the overturning in the Southern Ocean and its effect of rising ocean water temperatures.
Congratulations to Boaty and the entire research team.
The artwork for this blog post is based on Figure 2 of the PNAS article (graph (D) showing the potential vorticity in red and blue and the neutral density of the deep water shown by the black contour lines). The image of the ALR-1 is taken from the internet.
