smiling for cassini

Remember when we all smiled and waved at Saturn back in July, while the Cassini spacecraft snapped our photo? Well, the full mosaic from that magical day has finally been processed by Cassini's imaging team, and boy, is it a stunner. I'm not at all embarrassed to admit that it brought a tear to my eye the moment I saw it in full size...

Like a lens that might be utilized to view either the incredibly small or the incredibly distant, this mosaic compels us both to look inward, at how we might improve ourselves and the health of our only home, and to keep dreaming, about what else awaits us so long as we continue on in our quest to explore the solar system and beyond. (Indeed, if ever an image were appropriate to use as a call to action for those deciding the budgetary fates of our national space program, this one would be it.)

The timing of today's release coincides with the ceremonial hand-off of the late Carl Sagan's papers to the Library of Congress, where they have recently been archived for future generations to examine. We can all be sure that Sagan would have been quite pleased with this most magnificent interplanetary portrait... It is, of course, not only a thing of beauty, perfectly planned to take advantage of a breathtaking alignment of the sun, Saturn, and Earth. The image also reminds us just how tiny we are in the grand scheme of the cosmos—and how important it is to connect regularly with our fellow human beings so that we may reflect on our shared place in the universe.

I'm proud to have played a minor role in the planning of the #DayEarthSmiled and will remember these past months, and those 15 peaceful minutes in July, for many moons to come. For further insight, I highly recommend the latest Captain's Log from Cassini's imaging leader, Carolyn Porco, which beautifully summarizes her intent for the project and describes the many hidden treats you'll find if you take a closer look at the final mosaic.

Even if you missed the big event this past summer, take heart in knowing that your essence was captured in time and in space in this spectacular image in the year 2013. ∞

remembering columbia

Ten years ago today, I was at home, still half asleep, when I received word of the space shuttle Columbia tragedy. My mom rang, but as I was wont to do in those days, I let the machine pick up. Clearly upset, she began to leave a message explaining the heartbreaking news. I eventually picked up and turned on the television... I could never bring myself to erase that message; it died along with my phone system in 2011.

In the years since then, there have been plenty of remembrances, many of them artistic in nature. I remember walking in Brooklyn past a street mural, painted by school children, depicting the Columbia crew. There is, of course, a memorial at the Kennedy Space Center, which I visited a few years ago. More recently, I discovered a lovely, if haunting, song called "The Commander Thinks Aloud," by the Long Winters...

Just three days before the accident, John Lennon's "Imagine" was the wake-up song for the Columbia crew. I recommend you listen to the clip in its entirety, as it includes not only the song as it was played in low earth orbit that day, but the inspirational, timeless, and, at least to me, tear-inducing comments of astronauts Willie McCool and Ilan Ramon.

RIP to the Columbia seven. You will not be forgotten. ∞

sally k. ride (1951 - 2012)

The world mourns today after learning the fate of one of America’s brightest stars. Sally Ride, the eminent physicist, astronaut, educator, writer, and champion of girls everywhere, died yesterday at her home after a private 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer. She was 61.

To say I was floored by the news of Sally’s death would be a profound understatement. To be perfectly honest, I’m still reeling a bit from the shock and have been taken aback at how hard the news has hit me . . .

Like many young girls growing up in the 1980s, I had wide eyes to the future and counted “astronaut” as a legitimate career path. I was too young to remember the day in 1983 that Sally Kristen Ride made history as the first American woman to rocket into outer space. But as I’ve recounted previously, it didn’t take long for me to internalize that there was no stopping girls from exploring the cosmos in person, if that’s what we wanted to do. And as the first of my gender to do that here in the States, it was impossible for Sally Ride not to become a role model.

Little could I guess that some 15 years later I’d get the chance to work directly with that role model. I was a budding science journalist when I was presented with the opportunity to work for Sally at a little startup called Space.com. At the time, she was the president of the fledgling company, whose mission was to be the go-to Web portal for all things space and astronomy. Being offered a job there was as much of a dream come true as I could have imagined at that stage in my life, and I’ll never forget the day we first met, shortly after I had accepted a staff writer position . . . Sally was warm and cheerful and welcoming, and I couldn’t wait to get to work explaining to our readers all that scientists were uncovering about the universe. It eventually became clear, however, that Sally was struggling through some significant ideological differences with the other managers at Space.com. And after about six months, she left for greener pastures. I was sad to see her go, but knew she’d find success in her next adventure.

Back in her home state of California, Sally turned her attention toward teaching the next generation of youngsters about the wonders of science and technology. This had actually been a priority for her well before her Space.com days. Among other things, Sally had penned a couple of educational science books, and she’d initiated an ingenious program known as EarthKAM, which allowed middle schoolers to request specific photos of the Earth to be taken by cameras aboard the space shuttle and International Space Station. So it was no surprise when she decided to form a company, Sally Ride Science, which would focus its efforts on helping nurture students’—especially girls’—interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

In the years since then, Sally had become an outspoken advocate for increased funding for STEM education. She was friendly with President Obama and had made a number of trips to the White House in an effort to make science and engineering cool to kids and important to parents. She also stressed the vital role of teachers and mentors in nurturing interest in the STEM areas, especially in our youngest students. It was heartbreaking for me to read a blog post she wrote just a couple of months ago, knowing now that she probably understood it would be one of her last opportunities to publicly voice her passion:

"Getting more students—girls and minorities in particular—excited about and engaged in STEM studies starts with inspirational teachers. When I was a girl, I had a teacher who realized that I had an affinity for science. She encouraged me and challenged me to pursue that interest, helping to give me the confidence to achieve and do the hard work required to become a scientist and an astronaut. My hope is that each of the teachers trained at the [Sally Ride Science] Academy will create that spark in other children, helping them to dream big and then have the courage and conviction to follow those dreams."

* * *
When news of Sally’s passing entered my synapses, I had been listening to—of all things—the Mozart Requiem in D Minor. I was actually scheduled to sing just a couple of hours later in a performance of the Requiem at a composer conference in Wellesley, MA. I think if it had been just about any other piece, I would have cancelled . . . My heart was heavy, and I wasn't in the mood for a cheerful gathering of singers and musicians. But the fact that it was the Requiem, a moving, sacred piece commemorating the death of an 18th century countess that was left famously incomplete after the premature death of Mozart himself, convinced me to go through with it. It was a strange evening; at times I felt myself drifting from the libretto in front of me deep into the melancholy of the music. At the same time, the experience was cathartic to say the least. Things really hit home, though, when I returned to an email confirming that BrainPOP, the educational company I work for, would be featuring her movie the following day. We usually give a reason for featuring public figures—it’s their birthday, or the anniversary of some big accomplishment. The reason we were giving for featuring the animation I had conceived of just a few years earlier? “In Memory of Sally Ride, 1951 – 2012.”

In the end, I certainly respect Sally’s choice to keep her illness hidden from the public, but I have to say I wish I’d had the opportunity to express my appreciation one last time. As I continue on in my journey, I can only hope to have even a fraction of the impact that Sally had in terms of inspiring kids to “reach for the stars.” Sally, thank you for blessing this planet with your grace, courage, and fortitude. You will be in our hearts and minds for a long, long time to come. ∞

where no toy has gone before

The folks at NASA threw a cute little curveball at the pre-launch briefing for the Jupiter-bound Juno spacecraft today: They announced that three specially made LEGO minifigures would be flying to the outer solar system along with the spacecraft, which is scheduled to lift off Friday from the Kennedy Space Center. The three figures represent Galileo Galilei, who used his early telescopes to study Jupiter and its moons some four centuries ago; the Roman goddess Juno, namesake of the Juno craft; and the Roman god Jupiter. (In case you've forgotten your ancient mythology, Juno is the equivalent of the Greek Hera, and Jupiter is the same as Zeus.) Unlike normal plastic LEGOs, these figs were molded out of a special aluminum blend that should withstand the harsh launch and interplanetary environments the figs will experience in the upcoming days and years on their journey to the Jovian system.

If you follow along with my blog or Twitter feed, you know that I'm a big LEGO fan, especially when brick creations help folks get excited about science and technology. It's heartening to know that LEGO and NASA have made a strong commitment to one another within the past year, since our nation's future rests on our inspiring today's children to become tomorrow's mathematicians, scientists, and engineers. Can't wait to see what's next! ∞

up up and away

last one by shlomi yoav

And so it is time for me to bid adieu to the space shuttle. The very last mission is set to begin this week with the launch of the Atlantis orbiter from the Kennedy Space Center on the Florida coast. This particular launch is a gift from the American people, whose representatives voted last year to tack on one last go before the entire shuttle fleet is permanently grounded and the orbiters put on their pedestals for future generations to ooh and ahh at. Yet those same politicians are also now looking to drastically defund NASA in what amounts to a serious rethinking of whether or not America has a real future in space. Will the U.S. forever take a back seat to the Russians or Chinese or anyone else in our quest to land humans on Mars? It could very well happen. In the U.S. we certainly like to talk the talk when it comes to being innovators, in space development and otherwise, but so often in the past decades, walking the walk has proven to be another story altogether.

Millions of words will be spoken, penned, blogged, and microblogged about this final countdown, so I won't clog the fiber optic cables with too many thoughts on this bittersweet occasion. But I will say that in the end I choose to believe that the American people will keep outer space in mind when they fill out their ballots of the future. And how, you ask, will we do this in the face of economic uncertainty, declining political will and an ever-straining space budget? By reaching out to each other. In the past couple of years I've met, virtually and in real life, more folks than I'd ever known existed who consider space exploration—both robotic and human-based—one of the most important endeavors humanity can undertake. And these folks have passion. If we can group together, to share our excitement with those unaware of what our space program actually does, to get our representatives to think beyond the next election and out toward the stars, to teach our little ones about what they might one day discover beyond our blue planet, we'll have a force to be reckoned with when it comes to our future in the cosmos.

A friend of mine is still hoping to be an astronaut someday. Despite NASA's uncertain future, he and others like him are keeping the dream alive by continuing to do what astronauts and all scientists do: constantly asking questions. What a stupendous waste it will be if we let this collective bundle of energy and human spirit go for naught.

And with that, I'll leave you with this brilliant 45-minute visual feast of the space shuttle on its way off the pad. I dare you not to marvel as you sit and watch, agog and wide-eyed, at the ingenuity it took to make this peculiar bird fly up, up, and away. &infin

remembering challenger

I was only eight when the Challenger disaster occurred on that icy January morning in 1986. I distinctly remember perching on my chair in Mrs. M's third grade class, eager to watch the launch on the bulky brown television that had been wheeled in so that my fellow classmates and I could feel like we were a part of the action. At the time, it seemed a matter of course—at least to us kids—that people could routinely travel to space and to the moon. Even girls could be shuttle explorers after Sally Ride had flown on the Challenger three years earlier! We were encouraged to include 'astronaut' among our future career choices anytime a grown-up asked. And we did.

Third grade happened to coincide with my first real exposure to astronomy, too. It was the first time, for instance, that I learned about my very eager mother . . . not to mention the pizzas she'd just served us—though there are plenty of folks today who'd urge us to skip the pizza. As a child of the 80s, imagining that someday I, too, might fly through the asteroid belt or make a quick trip to the canyons of Mars seemed a perfectly reasonable ambition. I was ready to sign up.

To add to the excitement of the day, we'd been told that Christa McAuliffe was going to become the first schoolteacher ever, in the history of the world, to travel into space. We knew about this not just because it was all over the news, but because our school's phys ed teacher had also applied for the Teacher in Space program. And boy, did he get us excited about it! I don't recall whether Mr. W ever disclosed how far along in the process he'd reached before being cut, but he'd clearly felt that doing experiments to gauge how microgravity affected physical fitness would have been one of the greatest gifts he could give to students at our elementary school and around the country.

And then . . . the forked puffy cloud. The confusion. The silence.

It's clear to me now that I was too young to truly understand death. I had actually lost a grandmother just a month before, but my still-developing brain prevented me from grasping the enormity of her passing until much later. Obviously it was the same for these seven people I'd never even met. Yet my classmates and I knew right away that something terrible had just happened. And we were all a little scared.

The Challenger incident has stayed with me over the past quarter-century, well into my adult life. My love of all things space grew as time marched on, and when the shuttle program resumed, I once again looked forward to watching launches on the news, and later, on NASA TV. But to this day, there's a palpable anxiousness in the last hour or so before liftoff. And until I hear the "main engine cutoff" call from mission control, my heart remains firmly embedded in my throat. Sadly, ever since the Columbia breakup in 2003, shuttle landings have become equally nerve-wracking for the same grim reasons.

To be sure, I recognize that many of us put our lives on the line every single day. I think of miners and factory workers who endure precarious and downright dangerous conditions on a daily basis. And there are the firefighters, police officers, and other civil servants who purposely risk bodily harm for the sake of the common good. Heck, every time we get behind the wheel we put ourselves at the mercy of road conditions and other drivers. And yet I can't help but get verklempt when I think of the men and women who voluntarily strap themselves to the back of a rocket and hope that a million things go right on their way out to the stars and back. One of my longtime dreams of attending a shuttle launch finally came true last May, and I can assure you that there were tears streaming down my cheeks as I watched that plume reach deep into the brilliant Florida sky. As with every mission since STS-51-L, I was thinking of Challenger that afternoon—and yes, Columbia, too.

So today marks 25 years since that fateful morning back in 1986. I'm now 33, and sad to say I haven't yet booked my flight to the asteroid belt. In 2007, though, Christa McAuliffe's alternate, fellow teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan, did eventually carry the torch for educators when she flew aboard the shuttle Endeavor and visited the International Space Station.

The legacies of those lost with the Challenger—Jarvis, McAuliffe, McNair, Onizuka, Resnik, Smith, and Scobee—live on in all of us who were watching that day. I, for one, will never forget. ∞

Lego photo courtesy of BriXwerX on Flickr

space coast adventures

Last week I had the privilege of being a guest for the final launch of the space shuttle Atlantis from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, FL. The launch itself was magical, a once-in-a-lifetime event that certainly lived up to the hype of being way better in person than on TV. But I also took an extra day to explore the KSC grounds since I'd never visited before, and I was pleasantly surprised at the depth of the offerings, both for children and adults alike.

As of this writing, there are only two planned shuttle missions to go before the entire space program ceases. Naturally, there is quite a bit of concern about lost jobs and a decline in tourism on the Space Coast following the STS-134 mission, which is currently slated to launch in November. But I'd argue that KSC can remain a tourist destination for some time, with or without shuttle launches, if NASA can step up its game and do a little more to draw people in. Aside from the main visitor center, which caters more to children, I was particularly impressed with the newer Saturn V Center, which houses not only an entire full-scale Saturn V rocket but a wonderful museum dedicated to the history and science behind the Apollo program. After this year it might be quite a while before we see piloted missions launching from the Cape again, so I'd suggest NASA would be wise to hurry up and build a similar annex dedicated to the shuttle program to help sustain tourism in the area.

In the meantime, I still think KSC is well worth a visit for anyone interested in space exploration. And of course, if you have the chance to attend one of the two remaining shuttle launches, by all means do it! Just know that there will be lines, and lots of them, if you happen to stop by around launch time. Anyway, here are some pics from my recent adventures on the Space Coast! ∞

to the moon(s)

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the first human steps on the giant orb that lights our skies at night and captivates our collective imagination. And of course, in this instant news age of Twitter and blog reporting (ahem), it's no surprise that pretty much every media outlet is covering the event—and that businesses are using any angle they can to cash in.

But what was surprising to me about the day in question, July 20, 1969 (N.B. it was already July 21st in the U.K. and points east when Neil Armstrong put his boot down), was that the only way people could really follow along was via radio. I'd heard stories of people watching the news on television that night and of feeling glued to the set as the reports came in. Yet until yesterday, when, prompted by the death of newscaster Walter Cronkite I watched the CBS broadcast (see below) for the first time, I had never realized just how in-the-dark the country and the world really was about what was happening. And frankly, it starts to make sense why all these conspiracy theorists might have been so skeptical!

As you can see for yourself, the broadcast included a crude animation of what was supposedly happening as the Eagle landed. And that was it, folks! The only other clue people had that this was actually taking place was the rather anticlimactic radio broadcast between the Eagle astronauts and NASA's Houston command center. Today, of course, we take for granted that it's standard operating procedure for space agencies to provide live video feeds from high-resolution cameras flanking rockets and other spacecraft as they're flung through the atmosphere, into space, and onto the surfaces of other worlds. So it really makes me appreciate just how far we've come since then.


As for our future on the moon, much has been discussed about the next couple of decades of human spaceflight, and I'm somewhat ambivalent about our current direction. Certainly I'd love to see humans achieve ever-more impressive feats and conquer the cosmos one planet at a time. But I'm not sure that setting up a base on the moon is going to be our best way to make that happen. I would definitely want to make sure that programs like Cassini and New Horizons, which are doing advanced scouting to help us figure out which are really the most interesting and worthwhile places to send humans, get properly funded before we start sending people to hang out on the rather dull and relatively uninteresting moon. (Sorry, moon; nothing personal.) Either way, the leaders at NASA and the other space agencies will have a lot of hard questions to answer in the coming years, and I don't envy their difficult task.

For today, though, I think we can all agree that taking a look back at what we've achieved so far makes a lot of sense, especially when old-school science fiction is so much fun! Among other things, this little media frenzy might very well be a career-changing inspiration to a future planetary scientist or astronaut-in-waiting. And who knows? Perhaps that young girl watching a moon special on TV this evening will grow up to be the first person to walk on Enceladus or Titan or Europa—all moons with a lot more promise of life than our cold, yet ever-enchanting, Luna.

meatball vs. worm

A couple of years ago I wrote a short piece on the history of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's logo. This weekend, The New York Times featured their own discussion on the subject in their Men's Fashion special magazine. Here's a quick recap: In 1959, NASA started out with its Insignia, nicknamed "the meatball" (top). A couple of decades later, the agency revamped their image with the slick Logotype, better know as "the worm" (bottom). But then in 1992, in an effort to revive their image of their Apollo glory days, NASA decided to bring back the meatball, which is today the administration's official symbol (they also have a separate seal, which is used mostly for internal and ceremonial purposes).

The Times added some curious tidbits to the discussion, but what I found noteworthy was what they didn't mention. Of particular interest was that they neglected to point out—as I did in my piece [subscription required]—that the meatball was and is a royal pain in the butt for designers. For one thing, the official colors don't reproduce well on printed materials. And for another, the tiny stars are really hard to see in certain contexts. As a result, NASA has its own special page dedicated to directing graphic artists and other media types how to use the meatball properly . . . and improperly.

Okay, so I thought it would be fun to poll you readers are there (if there are any of you left!) to gauge your preference. So what shall it be? Meatball or worm? ∞

the future of nasa

Over the past month, there has been much speculation about the future direction of America's space program. During the Bush administration, it seemed as though internal squabbles at NASA were a dime a dozen and that mismanagement was more rule than exception. For evidence of that, look no further than the op-ed pages of The New York Times, where former science administrator Alan Stern recently wrote a scathing article about the agency after resigning from his post. (You can check out some responses here.)

To outsiders, it has often seemed like NASA has mostly been treading water these past eight years. Despite several well-publicized spacecraft missions (often, it should be noted, planned well before Bush took office), the shuttle program suffered some major setbacks—especially after the Columbia breakup disaster in 2003. And the question of overall vision for what we should (or shouldn't) be doing next for human spaceflight has essentially remained unanswered.

Sadly, the issue got relatively little play during the presidential campaigning this year. And so far, evidence suggests that the Obama team hasn't exactly formulated a coherent plan that's much better than the current one. But one thing that seems pretty clear is that Obama is going to kill the Constellation project—Bush's plan to send humans back to the moon in preparation for eventually going to Mars—at least in the near term. It's hard to blame him; there have been many critics of the Constellation program from both outside and within NASA.

Instead, it is seeming more and more likely that Obama's vision for NASA will involve more funding for science projects—and science education—rather than human spaceflight. To me, this would be a welcome change. For one thing, in order to get ourselves to a place like Mars or Europa, we need to know everything there is to know about those bodies before we go there. And since we can do quite a lot with robots (a.k.a. unmanned spacecraft and probes), we might as well send as many of them as possible to scout these places out before we invest the billions of dollars it will cost to get humans there. But also, people often forget that science research done by NASA helps us in a big way back home as well—for instance, with national security and studies on the environment. Plus, if we don't have kids getting interested in science again, we're going to fall even farther behind on space exploration.

One of the first orders of business, of course, is choosing leadership. It seems pretty obvious that the current administrator, Michael Griffin, will be out. But who will fill his shoes? And how much of a leash will this new person be on? All of this remains to be seen. I do have confidence that Obama will make space science more of a priority than his predecessor over the long term, but I can see NASA taking a serious hit of funding in the near term. Which is too bad, considering just how little NASA actually gets compared to the total U.S. budget. (This year's $700 billion bailout would have funded all of NASA 39 times over...) Still, I'm hopeful that things will change for the better over the next four years. &infin

cassini lives on

Oh, happy day! Today NASA announced that the Cassini spaceraft, which has been orbiting around Saturn and its moons for the past four years, will have its life extended until 2010. The mission, which has provided scientists with gobs and gobs of new data and images from the Saturnian neighborhood of our solar system (including the ridiculously cool shot you see here of a total eclipse of the sun), was originally scheduled to end this July. I interviewed Cassini imaging team leader Carolyn Porco back in 2006 for Discover magazine, and she said she thought it would be "colosally shortsighted for NASA and Congress to halt the Cassini mission [this year], when it has become one of the most phenomenally successful endeavors we've ever undertaken." Apparently, her bosses agreed, and I couldn't be happier for the program, which was actually also one of the last missions that my uncle worked on before retiring from the European Space Agency (the mission is a joint NASA/ESA/Italian Space Agency project). ∞

hello, mercury!

I was very excited last week when NASA's MESSENGER probe flew by Mercury on its Herculean journey toward the sun. The mission has already been three and a half years in the making, and it will ultimately land the probe in orbit around the solar system's smallest planet.

For those who aren't up on their planetary exploration history, until last week Mercury remained the only planet in our solar system that we hadn't seen in detail all the way around. We'd seen the surface of small moons hundreds of millions of kilometers further away, but until last week, we'd only seen about half of Mercury's surface—planetary scientists could only guess at what the rest looked like! Luckily for us, the waiting game is largely over. While the mission doesn't officially begin for another three years (this was just the first close flyby), I'd say it can already be called a success with the data that has been sent to mission scientists back in the U.S. The image you see above (full size available here) was one of about 1,200 snapped by MESSENGER on its brief visit. All of these are currently being analyzed by the MESSENGER team, but it looks like they've already noticed some interesting features in the newly observed areas, including geologic features called "rilles" and strange-looking craters.

In case you were wondering why the probe just flew by instead of going directly into Mercury orbit, keep this in mind: The problem with getting a spaceship to Mercury is that anything that goes anywhere near it has to take into account the massive gravitational pull of our star. In order for MESSENGER to get into orbit around Mercury without being sucked into the sun, the spacecraft had/has to follow a dizzying flight plan that slips it into Mercury orbit after making circular orbits that get closer and closer to the sun. Here's a rendering of the trajectory, by the way, and here's a good article that describes the mission. Anyway, congrats to the MESSENGER team, and I'll be looking forward to a successful orbit insertion in 2011! ∞