One of my former students, who shall remain delightedly anonymous, suggested that I make this blog about science newsy stuff. I like the idea, but that's not all I'm about.
However...
When I come across things that are interesting, I want to share them. So, here is my first Science Newsy Stuff post:
First, you would have to have been almost comatose to not notice that President Obama has effectively canceled all space activity outside of low-earth orbit. Now, our astronauts have to hitch a ride with the RUSSIANS, which, being a child of the Cold War era, I find utterly reprehensible. All those gains, advances, achievements that meant WE were the good guys, and WE beat the EVIL SOVIETS - they mean nothing now... because we're hitching a ride on their rockets. Dude, what were you smoking when you decided that? Bad, bad, bad decision. What does our country have to shoot for now? No goals, no "Sputnik moment" as Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson has said.
Who's that, you say? He's the really smart African-American dude who has shown up on all kinds of television programs, including Steven Colbert and John Stewart's programs, talking about why we need space exploration. I'm currently working on reading his book, Space Chronicles. It's a good read, you should check it out. He also has a weekly radio program called "Star Talk Radio." But I digress.
I find President Obama's choice to be disheartening and short-sighted. When I was a kid, we launched two probes, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, in 1977. They have been slingshotting themselves around planets and moons in our solar system, sending back fantastic images of Jupiter and its moons, Saturn, Saturn's rings, Uranus (the planet, immature noobs), Neptune, and beyond. In 1990, Carl Sagan suggested that Voyager 1, which had left the plane of planetary orbits, turn around and take a photograph of the planets. Our beloved home, Earth, occupies one little blue dot, and prompted Sagan to record "Pale Blue Dot," which I am linking to on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g You really need to watch it. Puts everything in perspective.
Now the Voyager probes are nearing the edge of our solar system. What's the "edge," you ask? Apparently it's when the solar winds - charged particles moving outward from the sun - dissipate into nothingness. At that point, we'll know that the Voyagers have reached interstellar space. The news story is all over, but perhaps NASA tells the story best. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/voyager/index.html Or you could read the article that I read, in Smithsonian: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Timothy-Ferris-on-Voyagers-Never-Ending-Journey.html?utm_source=direct&utm_medium=printmagazine&utm_campaign=2012-May&utm_content=voyager
We've sent many other probes into our solar system since Voyager 1 and 2. There has been Galileo, which went to Jupiter. Cassini visited Saturn and is still dinking around the planet and its moons. And let's not forget the little Mars rover that is diligently digging samples of dirt and rocks to analyze and report back to earth. When scientists learned that Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, might have water beneath its icy surface, they chose to deliberately incinerate Galileo into the Jovian atmosphere upon completion of its mission rather than risk it crashing into Europa and contaminating it. Today, NASA Solar System Exploration reports that recent data sent back from Cassini about Titan, one of Saturn's moons, indicate it might have water beneath its icy surface, too. Check it out: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/display.cfm?News_ID=39823
DO YOU KNOW WHAT I AM SAYING TO YOU??? WATER!!!! ON TWO OTHER BODIES IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM!!!!
I now come full circle back to Carl Sagan, who wrote many books, including Cosmos, which was broadcast as a critically-acclaimed TV series, and Contact, which was made into one of my favorite movies ever, starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey. One of the best lines from Contact is the quip that if we're the only living beings out there, it seems to be an awful waste of space.
Maybe it's not such a waste of space, after all. Godspeed, Voyagers.
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