Man Off The Moon

We've moved! Visit us at www.scienceinseconds.com

George W. Bush's boy-like vision of putting more astronauts on the moon by 2020 was crushed this week with an announcement from the Obama administration that the Constellation program is being canceled.

The program was to use existing technology to put humans back in moon boots and, presumably, make moon-landing conspiracy theorists shut the hell up, once and for all. But, apparently, spending billions of dollars and thousands of hours to do something you've already done is "faux pas" for well-functioning government agencies like NASA.

So, when looking at funding requests last week, the Obama administration examined the over-budget, behind schedule, lacking in innovation project, and cut it. Not without criticism, of course: the cut will mean lost jobs at Alabama's Marshall Space Flight Center, and Republican representatives are not shy to use this as political fodder, calling it the "death march for the future of US space flight."

This hyperbolic statement completely ignores the $6 billion funding boost promised to NASA over the next five years. It also ignores the progress made in sending robots off to do our exploration for us, without the risks of radiation, dehydration, muscle atrophy, and cabin fever.

I mean, look how long the Mars rovers lasted - they are both over 2000 Martian days over warranty. And have you seen the new R2 robots from GM? Let's face it...us pitiful humans are on the way out of this space race we started a mere 53 years ago.

~Rheanna Sand

Party Time, Excellent

We've moved! Visit us at www.scienceinseconds.com

2009 was pretty spectacular for space enthusiasts - the Hubble telescope was fixed and NASA released some stunning images, the 40th anniversary of the Moon Landing passed by, and to celebrate, a group of engineers crashed a module right into it, spewing out all sorts of useful information.

The new year is picking up the pace already. Several new planets have been spotted in distant star systems - including one bigger than Jupiter with a density of styrofoam, a new space telescope, Hershcel, might even overshadow Hubble in the months to come, and data from the moon crash are showing more water than we previously thought, making the Moon even more attractive for colonization.

To underscore this point, Japanese and German scientists have been analyzing high-resolution images of the Moon from the Kaguya spacecraft, and have discovered a cave that could be a perfect candidate for human colonization, as it would provide shelter from the harsh lunar surface. Not to mention a wicked party space (think Matrix Reloaded).

The cave is likely a lava tube - a geological formation fairly common on Earth but never discovered on the Moon before. Kaguya photos showed a circular hole which they believe is a sort of skylight, a collapsed part of the cave roof.

Add to all of this the unveiling of the VSS Enterprise, the first commercial spaceship from Virgin Galactic…and sometimes it truly feels like the dawning of a new age.

~Rheanna Sand

The sky isn't falling...

We've moved! Visit us at www.scienceinseconds.com

NASA made history again this week…but not everyone sees it for the well-designed, perfectly executed, and totally awesome experiment that it was.

The spacecraft LCROSS completed its mission in the wee hours of Friday morning. It launched a rocket into the Cabeus crater near the south pole of the moon, analyzed the debris, and then crashed itself into the same crater. The instruments on board were designed to pick up infrared signatures of water and carbon-containing compounds. The impacts were minuscule, the scientific components were off the shelf, the budget was a fraction of most NASA missions, and yet…someone started a "save the moon" campaign?

Yes, that's right. One Huffington Post blogger questioned who gave NASA "permission" to so violently assault our moon. Please. Do not feel sorry for the moon. It has no feelings.

Besides…have you SEEN the moon? Those aren't acne scars. The lunar surface is peppered by cosmic debris on a daily basis. This pair of impacts do not compare to the beating its taken in its lifetime.

The explosions were so harmless, people on Earth really didn't get the spectacle they were hoping for. The NASA TV video is actually quite anticlimactic (may I suggest the animation below that is much more entertaining to watch).

The data, though, will help scientists figure out how much water and other useful substances are up there. We might have a colony up there someday, and this brings us one step closer.

Some may question the purpose behind such an endeavor. Others, including myself, see it as a worthwhile use for technology that is, sadly, most often used by the military. I say, if there are going to be rockets and bombs, and let's face it, there will always be rockets and bombs, why not use them for cool space experiments?

~Rheanna Sand

The Damp Side of the Moon

We've moved! Visit us at www.scienceinseconds.com

Three spacecraft have obtained some astonishing data that completely contradicts a widely held belief in planetary science: there is water on the Moon. And not just a couple of rogue molecules, either. The Moon is actually "painted" with water and hydroxyl (see the blue and orange/green above, respectively).

It's everywhere. And now two enormous mysteries remain: How did it get there? And forgive the phrase, but why on Earth didn't we see it before?

Already scientists are speculating.

The water was discovered by measuring sunlight reflected off the Moon's surface. Researchers observed a dip at the wavelength where water absorbs infrared light, and found that the amount of absorption varied with temperature. According to the researchers:

That suggests the water is being created when protons from the solar wind slam into the lunar surface. The collisions may free oxygen atoms in the minerals and allow them to recombine with protons and electrons to form water.

So why didn't we find it before? Well, we did. Lunar soil brought back from the Apollo mission did show signs of water. But the Apollo scientists, erring on the side of caution, dismissed it as being more likely a result of contamination on re-entry. Which just goes to show you, even skeptics can overdo it.

At an estimated concentration of one quart of water per cubic yard (about a liter per cubic meter), all that remains now is to determine the effect this discovery will have on future attempts to actually colonize and form settlements on the Moon.

For my part, I'm just dying to try a sip.

- Brit Trogen