Fighting Over Shuttles

The space shuttle era is scheduled to end next year, and museums and other sites around the country have begun jockeying to get one of the three remaining shuttles to display.

The National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D. C., is odds on favorite to get one of them, but there are several contenders for the other two. A Florida group that includes Bob Crippen, the pilot of the very first shuttle flight, has organized to argue that one shuttle should be on display at Kennedy Space Center, for instance. The KSC Visitors Center is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Florida.

Of course, if the Obama administration decides to extend the shuttle program to cut down on the gap betweem the last shuttle flight and the first Orion flight, the fight for a shuttle to display might go on for an extra year or more. We can only hope that, whenever the program ends, there are still three shuttles to distribute.

Ashes In Space

The ashes of Majel Barrett Roddenberry, along with the remainder of the ashes of her husband, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, will be lifted into deep space by Celestis, the company that has been offering this unique service for several years. Gene Roddenberry died in 1991, and Celestis flew some of his ashes into space in 1997. The flight carrying both Roddenberrys is scheduled for 2012.

Majel passed away of leukemia last month. She was 76.

Apollo 1 Anniversary

Forty-two years ago yesterday, at the end of a long, frustrating day of training in the new Apollo command module, a fire broke out in the capsule and roared through the pure oxygen atmosphere within, killing astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chafee. The accident stunned NASA and the nation. Grissom had been one of the Original Seven Mercury astronauts, and White was the first American to walk in space. Chafee was training for his first mission.

The three, however, did not die in vain. They had committed their lives to helping put Americans on the Moon, and after the fire, the command module was extensively redesigned, becoming a much more capable spacecraft. So capable, in fact, that it not only took nine crews to the Moon and brought them all home safely, but did so after shrugging off a lightning strike just after the launch of Apollo 12 and surviving the famous explosion in the service module during Apollo 13.

Challenger

Twenty-three years ago tomorrow, the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after launch. The members of that Challenger crew were the first humans to die during a NASA space mission. They remain the only people to die in the launch phase of a NASA mission. Given the complexity and inherent risk of launching spacecraft with current technology, that is a remarkable safety record-- one perhaps too little acknowledged.

In fact, the overall safety record of human spaceflight is astounding when put against the difficulty of the task. Newcomer China has flown only successful manned missions so far. The Russian Soyuz has a remarkable safety record that spans decades. The early years of in-atmosphere aviation, on the other hand, are littered with death and disaster.

The private spaceflight industry will start out with much better technology than NASA or the Soviets had early on, and it will have a much more robust knowledge base to draw upon. The problem will be exceeding NASA's safety record.

Nearby Asteroid Found

Even after five decades of space exploration, new stuff can turn up right in our backyard.

The asteroid currently designated 2009 BD seems to travel in essentially the same orbit Earth does, staying just beyond the Moon. The body is tiny, which is no doubt why it hasn't been noticed until now. At roughly 30 feet in diameter, it would not be a Doomsday rock even if it collided with Earth, and there's no reason to think it will ever do that.

Indeed, it could be a boon. If NASA wants to fly a manned mission beyond the Moon sometime in the near future, 2009 BD seems a convenient first target.

Tracking Global Warming

Japan has just launched a satellite designed to monitor greenhouse gasses in the Earth's atmosphere. Several nations and organizations are studying the atmosphere to learn about the advance, if any, of global warming, and the satellite is a major piece of Japan's contribution.

After checking out the systems of the satellite, it should begin producing data by the spring.

Super Neptune Found

The search for smaller and smaller exoplanets is beginning to produce results. So far, most of the 300 exoplanets found have been huge worlds-- Jupiter-sized and larger. That's no doubt to be expected, but the worlds astronomers really want to find are the Earth-sized ones that may support life.

We are getting closer.

Recently, planet humters discovered a world in orbit around a star 120 light years away that is roughly five Neptune masses. That's still a big world, but it's the smallest exoplanet found to date.