Footprints on the moon.
Well, now that we have an orbiter around the moon with eagle eyes, someone ought to write a poem called "Footprints on the moon". You can look at the pictures here.
There's the lunar landers from 1969 and later, still
there. You can see some scientific equipment, still up there. And you can see
the footprints from the astronauts, going back and forth between them.
This is the only other place (we could probably call it a planet if it had been
by itself and not circling Earth) where we've walked besides good ol' terra
firma. I bet it's quiet up there now. So quiet that some say that the
footprints could last millions of years before they are eroded away.
So what's the point of this blog? Just to think back a bit. We just had a
celebration of the 40th anniversary of the lunar landing. Forty years ago. Wow.
I also wanted to think forward a bit too.
But what about now? Well, we have 2 probes there.. The Lunar Reconnaissance
Orbiter (LRO) and another probe that is going to slam into a crater at one of
the poles? Why? Because there's a lot of reason to believe that there's water
up there.
"Where there's water, there's life." Probably not right now. But if
the moon has water, then it's a lot easier for us to go too. Water breaks down
into hydrogen and oxygen. Fuel and breathing. Plus it's nice to be able to
drink something too. People on the moon, though, would have to bring their own
bourbon, but that's a different story.
I guess I just wanted to put the big picture out there. We're arguing about
health care and a slew of other things. In the big picture, humans can grow and
evolve. We can become more just and empathetic. We can learn about the world that we live and other worlds. And I also just
wanted to say that it's nice having a government that is again realizing that science education, implementation, and that everyone knowing some basics is important.
And I also just wanted to say that it's nice having a government that is again realizing that science education, implementation, and that everyone knowing some basics is important.
Amen to this!
July 20, 2009 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah. After I finish this so-far so-depressing read, "Bad Money", I'm picking up "Unscientific America", which is about how science has been treated and how it should be treated in America.
How can we compete, grow, regain our stature in the world if we are just a bunch of ignoramuses? How can we successfully transition from oil to renewables? How can we keep on top of technology and invent the next internet?
July 20, 2009 11:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, but sending men to the Moon had little to do with science.
Scientists recognize this. So should all of us.
July 21, 2009 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
A Colbert interview? Seriously? This guy is a dottering old fool. He's the scientific equivalent to a "birther" ... simply ignores facts that don't match what he's peddling.
He praises Hubble as an example of the "good" NASA and decries the manned missions that keep it running! Had a robot been sent to perform the upgrades/repairs to Hubble, the mission would have failed. Human workers encountered a bevy of totally unforeseen problems and were able to adjust - at times applying specialized skills such as automotive repair experience. A robot that could accomplish everything described in the article would need to be something like the positronic pseudo-humans of Asimov's fiction.
Also, this guy either doesn't realize or doesn't care to acknowledge that every day experiments are being conducted in the space station that simply could not be done on earth and would likely be impossible if a specialized robot were required to conduct each protocol. Park seems to believe that these experiments could be accomplished in 25 seconds worth of weightlessness (and subsequent application of 2G+ pullout forces) using elliptic trajectories in traditional aircraft (Vomit Comet/Weightless Wonder). I'm not sure if he's being disingenuous or is just horribly uninformed.
And to say it didn't advance science to place a person on the moon - or even into orbit - is asinine ... unless you don't count mathematics, physics, chemistry, engineering, geology and biology to as sciences. One needs to narrow the entirety of the experience and derived knowledge gained from the program into a very, very small box - and ignore the level of solid state technology and robotics extant in 1969 - to make the assertions you are parroting.
July 21, 2009 2:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
HERE HERE
July 21, 2009 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
He certainly is crotchety. And, you are right, he kind of glosses over a thing or two. There was a lot of fallout from the lunar landings.
July 21, 2009 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Park is somewhat notorious ... they trot him out every time someone wants to slash NASA funding. Kind of like the guys who can consistently be counted on to criticize carbon emissions studies or those who see tax cuts as the valid response to every economic situation.
July 21, 2009 5:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
There was *not* a lot of fallout from Apollo. Much of the technology was grabbed from the Air Force to ensure that we met JFK's goal.
Please check out THE MAN WHO RAN THE MOON to better understand the real politics of NASA. (JFK was ready to shut NASA down just as soon as the moon was reached... he was *not* a space romantic as some like to portray.)
Perhaps the most important thing out of the Apollo program was the Earthrise photo... but that didn't even require the landing on the moon.
July 21, 2009 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Um.... sorry KGB. Bob Park is a very well respected scientist -- and a highly influential one. As far as "Colbert Report", they have lots of high-powered people on there... you don't think less of those people do you? Remember when Obama went on Daily Show?
I suggest you check out Bob Park's weekly column:
http://www.bobpark.org/
and his books (available at Amazon).
July 21, 2009 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can tell you don't know much about what's going on in the space station. One of the reasons for the "experiments" about spiders and webs and such is that there is *nothing* to do up there. There is no cost effective experiment that needs microgravity to run things.
You can't even claim we are getting decent data on humans up there because they are in low earth orbit. There is nothing that the space station is good far, except maybe as a port to build a spaceship that won't go through a planetary atmosphere -- and no one proposes that these days.
Inside NASA, there is a serious battle that has been waged for years along the lines of Park's arguments. Because the *science community* knows there is little value in what NASA wants to do. Manned missions are there for only one solid reason: to keep public interest. But the return on dollar invested approaches zero compared to all the scientific data brought about by satellites, in-situ probes, and rovers -- at a hugely reduced cost.
July 21, 2009 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Solid state technology?
Surely you jest!
Radiation is a known problem in space on circuits -- in other words, an issue that has to be solved for space that has no analog here.
No. The semiconductor industry didn't see much development as a result of NASA. The DOD drive for missiles and the drive for consumer products was more than enough. And much of the electronics inside the rockets and capsules was analog.
I'm surprised you didn't mention TANG and VELCRO.
The biggest technical push was the Saturn V rocket... which has no consumer spinoff at all.
July 21, 2009 6:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some tech points:
a) The Hubble was forced to be designed to shuttle standards (to justify the shuttle). As a result, when the fleet was grounded because of the Challenger incident, it delayed the whole program.
b) It's true that there was a problem with the Hubble, but you don't need the shuttle to carry out the repairs. The lifting power of the shuttle isn't cost effective and never will be (and we scrapped rockets purposely to justify the shuttle program).
c) There is no cost-effective manufacturing or commercial research that requires zero-g.
July 21, 2009 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
PS Steven Chu (Sec DOE) is on Daily Show tonight. Should we dismiss what he says since it's the "Daily Show"?
Seriously, kgb, if you want to discuss the merits of Park's comments, you needn't try to dis him on the basis of being on Colbert!
July 21, 2009 6:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe sending people to the moon was somewhat political, but the science reaped from the moon has been astronomical (heh heh, sorry).
To examine the material brought back from the moon sparked innovations here that were unprecedented. On your typical CSI TV show, the examiners may use mass spectrometers, electron microscopes, and many other techniques that either were greatly improved or invented on their own just to examine moon rocks. The money that NASA and the NSF spent there now aids biologists, chemists, forensic scientists, and geologists in their research. And I'm only scratching at the surface here.
Another recent probe, the Stardust mission, was sent into space, and now examination of returned dust grains (some from other Solar Systems or stars!) is prompting new innovations in nanoscience--because they are trying to squeeze as much info as possible out of these tiny grains.
It's like a cascading calvacade of science.
July 21, 2009 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
No it was not. Where is your evidence for this?
None of this is true.
In fact, much of what you are describing is for equipment used in the semiconductor industry. And that wasn't spun out of NASA either.
Seriously, I like you but this is patently not true. Nanotech is proceeding along just fine with or without NASA and doesn't require NASA in the least. Please stick to actual facts and references.
Finally, I note that Stardust was a robotic mission. It gives us some basic science... but that's Bob Park's point: the basis science has come out of the robotic misssion, not the manned ones.
July 21, 2009 6:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
CT, this was an informal blog. I'm an isotopic geochemist funded by NSF and in a couple months NASA, I know whole labs were set up to handle Apollo materials. I know that many improvements were created to work with lunar rocks.
In my job we use microanalytical techniques like Secondary Ionization Mass Spectrometry (SIMS) or now NanoSIMS. With NanoSIMS I've analyzed isotopes of meteoritic materials with a beam 200 nanometers across. There aren't many of these instruments and I can tell you that millions from the National Science Foundation (NSF) has gone to setting up machines, developing techniques, and working with the materials returned from the Stardust missions. When we work with these types of materials, there's a lot of back and forth with the companies that develop the technology. We specify design changes that will allow better resolution. We write software. We provide a market for these specialized machines before they are developed commercially. Or, sometimes a machine is developed first commercially--say in the mining industry. We take that technology, improve it, or have it improved. This doesn't happen solely in a vacuum and believe-it-or-not does improve the instrumentation or the application. Right now some in my group are using a brand new instrument for analysis and also for nanotechnological film experimentation. This machine isn't common yet in normal nanoscience experimentation, and the work that my colleagues accomplishes will smooth the path for others who use the instrument, particularly those in industry who'd rather see if something works before they invest. As far as Stardust goes, there were years of preparation for this mission. Whether or not nanotech "needs" NASA isn't my concern, but many advances have been accomplished with federal money--some from NASA (also the DOE and NSF).
Apollo 15 actually carried a mass spectrometer that had been design specifically to analyze the moon's tenuous atmosphere. Basically, they miniaturized a mass spec. But there were many people who worked tirelessly before Apollo even launched to set up equipment that could actually tell us something about what the materials that they were dealing with. In the years since Apollo, these rocks are still producing new science as a new technique or instrument is developed. Even now, it's creating a driver for new science to emerge. Whenever an improvement happens, its published, and others can and do use this information. Besides sharing information through publication, there is also leakage of people going from research to work in the private sector and back, which also has exchanged information.
You forget the preparation that was made for Apollo materials and the interdisciplinary relationships that came from this preparation. I can tell you absolutely that the instruments that I've mentioned were improved during this time and allow many applications today that were unforeseen then.
I'm away from my office and will be for the next week, but if you want proof and references, I can begin to feed them to you when I'm back. I have to tell you that my first reaction to your "None of this is true" was anger. It's like a layperson telling a doctor that they have no idea how the body works. At first, they are going to be angry. Then they'll realize that there's a lot that they don't know. But still they probably know a bit more than the average person. To my field, Apollo facilitated many advances. That much I can tell you absolutely.
July 22, 2009 12:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your logic is backwards.
The key aspects in nanoscience, etc. would have happened with or without Apollo. If there is some connection that got used as a result of Apollo, great. But you are talking drivers. Apollo didn't drive anything key.
If you are saying Apollo drove lunar science, that's true. But while it's important to you, it's hard to make the general case that the Moon has given us deeper insights into Earth. It adds to knowledge, which is great. But, again, you could have gotten the benefits without Astronauts. A simple sample-return mission could have gotten you what you need. Moreover, as you are aware chunks of the Moon (and Mars) are recovered on Earth on an annual basis -- funded by NSF.
You are angry for the reasons that all academics are angry when challenged: they want to claim grand importance in what they do. Sometimes, it's warrented, sometimes not. But seriously, if you are a real scientist, then your blog is incredibly sloppy:
Eroded? Exactly how? That's a word used for weathered surfaces -- not ones exposed only to micrometeors.
With your science background, I now claim that your comments about water are irresponsible. It will never be cost effective to gather this "water" and perform electrolysis. Yes, I know quacks like Zubrin is out there. So what? It's more fun to talk about fantasy then deal with reality.
Care to talk about the NASA experiment to slam something into the Moon to disturb the regolith in such a crude way? It's irresponsible and will ruin the area for all time, but it's required to hype the ideas that "water is there to enable everything."
Talk about non-scientific -- and selfish!
To summarize:
a) NASA driving key technology, besides rockets, is a myth. It's more cost effective if there is a need for something technological to fund that, and not hope for dribble back -- in part, because it rarely comes anyway.
b) Manned exploration isn't needed as robotic exploration has provided most of the true science return from NASA.
And lastly, you may find that other here know as much as, if not more, materials science and it's associated technology as you.
You need to reread my comments. I never said there was no science return. But I will beat back the myths that because of NASA we have all these wonderful tech spin-offs. Most of the real engineering return was in airfoils and aerodynamics.
July 22, 2009 8:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
BTW, thanks, that was pretty funny.
July 21, 2009 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
By the way Matya, Good post.
I think like that also from time to time. That is when my thinking is clearer.
THIS WAS A BIG DEAL.
THIS IS IMPORTANT.
THE SPACE PROGRAM IS IMPORTANT.
July 21, 2009 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks DD. We just saw the movie "Moon" a couple weeks ago (Keven Spacey voices this movie's HAL wannabee), and it got me thinking.
July 21, 2009 3:09 PM | Reply | Permalink