Hallmark
Astronaut Snoopy
Peanuts Celebrates NASA’S 50 Years in the U.S. Space Program
2008
Librarian’s Note: Sweeeeeeeet! Hallmark’s redoing their website so I don’t have a link, but it should be available at your local Hallmark store. Not sure why he has aviator goggles underneath the plastic helmet, but whatever. Be sure to pick up one for yourself, and please consider one for a local toy drive for disadvantaged children, since we never know where our next Einstein is going to come from. Besides, waging random good in the world is needed now more than ever, everywhere.
I apologize for the light level of posting of late. I’ve got a lot of things in the queue (and a full load at work), but none are quite ready:
1) Best of the Moon 2008, slated for publication on December 1st (or thereabouts). You can always visit Best of the Moon for 2006 and 2007 to get a preview.
2) Review of ‘Solar Sails’ by Vulpetti et al. This one is a thorough, layperson-level review of Solar sails and related variants. I’m about 2/3rds of the way through.
3) Teacher Tools article on Space Biology (this one is going to be hard). I’m shooting for mid-Dec.
4) Fiction reviews of ‘Space:1999 - Planets of Peril’, ‘Waters of the Moon - Tranquility’s Child’, and ‘Return to Luna’
5) Movie review of ‘Moon Zero-Two’
I, for one, am thankful that I live in a society that can envision, and realize, a space future that offers hope for the betterment of the world and an alternative to the random hate and destruction that seems to so permeate the human condition. It is far more difficult to create than to destroy, so the challenge is in building a better future for the world where we collect our energy directly from the Sun instead of burning it third-hand in coal, and where we harvest resources so that we don’t have to tear up our own planet to get the things we need for a technological society. Let us be thankful for those who work to create in our world, for it is thanks to them that we don’t live in caves and trees and eat raw meat.
Image Credit: Kiyo Komoda
from ‘Colonies in Space‘ by
Frederic Golden
is hosted by the generous host over at Starts With A Bang and explodes with a bountiful cornucopia of space feasting. A prelude to the upcoming Thanks-giving festival here in the U.S., this weeks Carnival of Space has food, food, and more food, with more than a score of space links to explore before sinking into a food coma.
Librarian’s Note: The author just sent me a copy for review, and I’m quite looking forward to this one. Young Blair is being dragged by her parents off to the Moon (a situation not unfamiliar to us military brats, who lose all of our friends again and again…), but a tragedy soon tests her fealty to her new home.
[Update: I recently got my copy from the publisher, and it looks like Amazon has them in stock as well. Just in time for the holidays!]
The most recent Carnival of Space is hosted at One Astronomer’s Noise (which is, of course, another astronomer’s data), and features a wide-ranging round-up of space links. This is the 79th Carnival of Space to date.
Librarian’s Note: I’ve been on vacation and traveling, so have been lax in posting the weekly Carnivals. It looks like I missed the 78th CoS at Simostronomy, and the Halloween edition 77th CoS at Tomorrow is Here. Lots of good reading to catch up on…
“Rocket Girls” by Housuke Nojiri and Muttiri Moon, from 2007 and just released on DVD here in the U.S.
I am sitting here being gob-smacked by this incredible show. I heard about the series a while back, and even looked for the Japanese DVD while I was in Beijing on a business trip last year. The basic premise of Rocket Girls is that a private company, Solomon Space Authority (SSA), is trying to provide satellite repair services via crewed spaceflight. Trouble is, their upgraded booster isn’t working out and they’ll have to downgrade to a proven design with less performance. This means their astronaut is too heavy.
Young Yukari has grown up with her mother, a driven businesswoman, since her father walked out and disappeared the first night of their honeymoon in the Solomons. Her mother never looked back, but Yukari always has, and during the summer break from her exclusive high school she goes to the Solomons to track down her missing father and confront him. Via a strange set of circumstances, her petite frame and mass earns her a chance to be an astronaut for SSA. She gets a high-tech skintight spacesuit and the training begins. Soon, it’s time for the proving flight. One that shows how dangerous it can be to operate at the bleeding edge of technology in the relatively new (to humans) environment of space.
That is but the introduction for this fine twelve episode series. Based on the premise (and my past viewing of Stratos4, which I discussed at the Rocket Gyrls Reading Club), I expected far more cheese than was evident here. I was actually surprised by the strong portrayals of strong women with strong interests in things like chemistry, biology, and medicine. The note on the back that the producers had the cooperation of the Japanese Aerospace eXploration Agency (JAXA) is evident in a big way. There is a high degree of technical fidelity (comparatively speaking), once the story gets going, and it’s easy to envision being there. There’s real danger and challenges to overcome, and the girls learn valuable life lessons along the way. The climax is an edge of your seat dramatic thrill ride.
I haven’t enjoyed an anime this much since Planetes. The story is one of bravery and hope and scientific endeavor. The characters are sympathetic even if the little girl voices can be a bit grating at times. I particularly like the private enterprise aspect of the story, where businessmen and financiers step up to the plate and start doing the kinds of things in space that government space enterprises are just institutionally incapable of doing. While the concept of a triplet of 15-17 year-old girl astronauts might seem implausible at first, young ladies do benefit from certain physical advantages that, for example, make them such fine acrobats. I’ve also heard more than once from folks who are likely to know that women also have certain aptitudes that make them excellent space navigators. So I don’t find the idea entirely implausible (just mostly).
My question is why aren’t we doing this kind of quality storytelling here in the U.S.? Grounded in values like courage and determination, telling stories with philosphical profundity and characters that are firm in their convictions. I don’t really watch TV, so I’m not in tune with what’s on the kids’ channels except by occasional exposure. What I do see doesn’t have this kind of animation and story quality. When I place it in the context of other anime titles in the Lunar Library, the exceeding of my expectations raises it close to the top of the list.
I would really like to see more of this kind of near-Earth, near-future space story. Unfortunately they’re few and far between. This one is rated 13+ agewise, probably for some mild cussin’. There’s really not any nudity to speak of, other than, you know, high-tech skin-tight bodysuits. I may get in trouble for saying so, but I can see this as being of value for young ladies under 13. The level of maturity of the potential viewer is of course the judgement of the parents.
Girl Hug in space after fixing the Pluto probe
I use a different set of ratings for High Frontier fiction versus the New-to-Full Moon technique I use for Moon fiction. This is in honor of Joseph Louis Lagrange, who mathematically mapped out the Lagrange points, those special locations in space with unusual characteristics. The Sun-Earth L-1 (about 1.5 million kilometers Sunward) is where we have the SOHO instrument watching the Sun for us, and SEL-2 (on the starward side of Earth) is where we want to put our next big deep space probe.
The Earth Moon L-1 (EML-1, or as I affectionately call it, Emily) is the gravitational hilltop between the gravity wells of the Earth and Moon. EML-4 is 60º ahead of the Moon in its 360º orbit around the Earth, while EML-5 is 60º behind the Moon in its orbit. A kind of gravitational mesa, objects placed at L-5 will wander around near the point, but won’t leave the mesa top unless impelled to do so (meaning very cheap station-keeping). In theory, but in actuality the perturbations that the Earth-Moon system experiences preclude any kind of natural accumulation of stuff there, but Jupiter is second only to the Sun in its gravitational influence in the Solar system, and the king of planets has some big stable gravitational mesas pushed up at its L-4 and L-5 points, and there are found the Trojan asteroids.
On this scale, L-1 is the lowest rating, while L-5 is the highest rating in honor of O’Neill’s desire to put space colonies at the Earth-Moon L-5 point. I hesitate to give “Rocket Girls” the highest rating, but it is certainly a very strong L-4.
Carridi, Steve (ed.)
“the year in SPACE - 2009 Desk Calendar”
Starry Messenger Press/The Planetary Society
2008
ISBN: 0-972-90045-4 Publisher’s Web Site
Librarian’s Note: Via special arrangement with the publisher, Out of the Cradle and Lunar Library readers can get discounts of 25-44% off the regular retail price. Just type ‘Out of the Cradle’ in the Internet discount box when purchasing.
Kemp, Kenny
“Destination Space: how space tourism is making science fiction a reality”
Virgin Books
2007
ISBN13: 978-0-753-51235-7 Publisher’s Web Site
NASA Innovative Partnerships Program
“Spinoff 2008: 50 Years of NASA-Derived Technologies (1958 - 2008)”
NASA Center for AeroSpace Information (CASI)
2008
ISBN13: 978-0-160-81423-5 On-Line Text Publisher’s Web Site
Rogers, Melissa, Gregory Vogt & Michael Wargo (eds.)
“Microgravity: A Teacher’s Guide With Activities in Science, Mathematics, and Technology”
NASA HQ
1997
EG-1997-08-110-HQ On-Line Text On-Line Text (pdf)
Librarian’s Note: Thanks to the Marshall Educator Resource Center (ERC) for several additions to the Lunar Library. I stopped by the ERC during a visit to the Space & Rocket Center, which I hadn’t seen since my 1999 trip to Adult Space Camp (an absolute blast!), while in Huntsville for an NSSBoard of Directors meeting (as I’ve been elected the Region 3 Rep). The ERC has friendly staff and nice facilities - the kids (and teachers) in the Huntsville area are pretty lucky to have such a resource, and the new Davidson Center is a nice Saturn V layout along the lines of the one at KSC.
Johns, Chris (ed.)
“National Geographic: The Once and Future Frontier - Space”
National Geographic Magazine
11/2008
ISSN: 1536-6596 Publisher’s Web Site
This time around we look at one of the more advanced topics in space, that of navigation. Unlike the movies, where spacecraft go zipping around, behaving more like aircraft in an atmosphere than boxes of thrusters in a vacuum, space navigation is a bit more complicated and typically involves hurtling through space at high velocity on a trajectory that is difficult to change in any significant way. A good grasp of mathematics is required to explore this field, and for advanced studies calculus is an absolute requirement, especially in things like matrices (which I never got my brain wrapped around). I rely a good deal on my ability to visualize the geometry of objects moving in three-dimensional space (which is where the need for matrices comes in when you’re dealing with different frames of reference) as a crutch when the math gets too hard.
Pretty much the first reference that everyone notes is from JPL, entitled “The Basics of Spaceflight”. This was part of the background reading recommended to participants in the Space Generation Forum back in 1999, where I first learned of it. Somewhere in the depths of the Lunar Library I have my original copy. In 2001 it was updated and web-ified, taking advantage of the power of hyperlinks to flesh out many of the concepts by linking to more thorough explanations of particular topics. Mini-quizzes check comprehension as the student works through the text, helping to make sure they don’t get in too far over their heads. This reference should be comprehensible to brighter middle-school students.
Once you’ve got the ‘Basics of Spaceflight’ down, it’s time to move on to a more advanced text, and the best one around is “Understanding Space: An Introduction to Astronautics”, edited by Jerry Jon Sellers. Developed by the folks at the U.S. Air Force Academy, this textbook is the best one around for easing people into the complexities of orbital mechanics and space navigation. It’s written at the undergraduate textbook level, but should be easily comprehensible to bright high-schoolers on a strong math track. I read through the 2000 edition as part of my extra studies for International Space University (ISU), but it has been updated with a hardcover 2004 edition. Better graphics and more of them for the explanations help make the concepts a bit more understandable. This one remains one of my favorites.
From here the reference books start getting tougher as the topics move from the circular restricted 3-body problem to things like perturbation theory and rotating frames of reference. Some tools to help with this are a pair of very different software programs available over the internet. The first is the open-source freeware program Orbiter. It has been around at least since my days at ISU, and is continually updated and added to by its growing community of fans. It takes great pride in the accuracy of its physics engine, and Bruce Irving of the Music of the Spheres blog has prepared an introductory tutorial which has an accompanying teacher’s guide. As Bruce describes it:
“Orbiter (written by Dr.Martin Schweiger of University College London) is great for demonstrating concepts such as planetary rotation, orbits, relative motion, forces, Newton’s Laws, and more. Advanced students can use it as a lab for experiments in physics, including orbital mechanics and atmospheric flight. Using some of the hundreds of avaialble free add-ons, students can explore the history of rocketry and Space flight, from Robert Goddard’s early rockets to Apollo, the space shuttle, and beyond. Orbiter is also expandable - users can even use free 3D modeling software to build and fly their own spacecraft.”
Bruce (who goes by the name Flying Singer at the Orbiter forums) was also kind enough to give a presentation on using Orbiter at the ISDC I helped put together, so a special shout-out to him for that.
Moving into the realm of what the professionals use, we have Satellite Tool Kit (STK) from AGI. We had a seminar on how to use the software as part of our studies at ISU, and I think that might have been where I first started getting really keen on space navigation as an area of interest. So much so that when the Team Project rolled around I wanted to work on the Trans-Mars Injection and arrival calculations, which I did. AGI has recognized the value that this program holds in the classroom, and so have created a Educational Alliance Program to provide educators with support resources. I wanted to use the Astrogator module for the Team Project, but we were too poor to buy the license.
Once you’ve got some hands-on experience with how orbital mechanics is used in space navigation, it’s time to whip out the definitive reference for this category, and that would have to be David Vallado’s “Fundamentals of Astrodynamics and Applications”, a meaty tome that weighs in at 958 pages all-in (the 3rd edition from 2007 has 1055 pages). It’s the most comprehensive treatment out there, and even includes a section on continuous thrust trajectories like the one used to take ESA’s SMART-1 mission to the Moon. It has an online support page for software and errata relating to the book.
One thing it doesn’t really touch on is a newer type of spacecraft trajectory that takes advantage of the warps in gravity caused by the planets, and the linkages between these warps. Researcher Ed Belbruno, author of “Fly Me to the Moon”, was one of the early ones to actually figure out how to make these work to our advantage, and used it to rescue a Japanese mission that had been inserted into a bad orbit. Using the warp in the Earth’s gravity well created by our Moon, he was able, over time, to put the spacecraft into a relatively usable orbit. These were termed ‘weak stability boundary trajectories’ which is a mouthful, but a very simple idea in practice. A good way to think of it is in terms of a surfer who has ridden his board to the top of a wave. Small adjustments in where he points the tip of the board will have a significant result in where he ends up at the end of the ride. The SMART-1 probe took advantage of this phenomenon when it rode up Earth’s gravity well and then slipped over the gravity ‘hill’ at the Earth-Moon L-1 point and rode down into the Moon’s gravity well.
The different gravity wells of the planets are linked by ‘ripples’ that are constantly moving as the planets move. These can be imagined as long waves in the Sun’s gravity well, and spacecraft can be sent sliding along the crests of these ripples, riding them (very, very slowly) to different points of the Solar system along what is, in effect, an interplanetary highway system. The significance of this is that we can create Hubble-ized space instruments (i.e. people can repair and upgrade them) that we can send out to Jupiter or Saturn to, for example, keep an eye on incoming objects from the Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt. When it’s time for servicing, the space probe is nudged back onto the interplanetary highway system and returns back to near-Earth space where it can be retrieved and serviced. In this way, we can get more value out of our space probes by reusing them and making them better instead of just throwing very expensive instruments into the void one after another.
These are the kinds of exciting new developments that are going on in the field of space navigation. Moonwalker Buzz Aldrin earned his doctorate for his work on the kinds of free-return trajectories that allowed us to conceive of a rescue for Apollo 13. We’ve come a long way since then as our mathematics, and computing heft, have advanced significantly, and so this is not a stale, dry field where we know everything, but rather one where there is significant work yet to be done. We can use these new understandings of space flight to change the way we approach how we design our space architecture.
And hopefully, there will soon be jobs for astrogators to take us to the Moon, the asteroids, Mars, the moons of Jupiter, and beyond…
