Photo Caption: Space Shuttle Atlantis at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida after arriving at Pad 39A on April 21, 2010, in preparation for flight STS-132. Click on the image to see Atlantis up close and personal.

This is a Teachable Moments in the News QuickLinks Post. It connects a news story with this Blog’s existing powerful library of Posts and Resource Pages. The cited Posts and Pages provide a deep understanding of concepts in the earth and space sciences relevant to the news story. Teachers—the Posts and Pages are also designed for use as lessons, allowing you to easily bring current science into the classroom as a teachable moment. Each cited Post is outlined in the Teachers Lesson Planner, which includes the Post’s essential questions, concepts, objectives, and math skills.

This is it. The moment when the reality of loss truly begins to sink in. There are three flights of the space shuttle left, one for each of the remaining orbiters—Atlantis, Discovery, and Endeavour. Currently scheduled for launch Friday, May 14, at 2:20 pm EDT, it is Atlantis’ time to soar one last time.

I will be posting these Teachable Moments for each of the remaining flights in the hope that parents and teachers will be able to tune in with our children, and savor the end of an era before the fleet is retired for museum display, forever standing in silent testimony to a remarkable human achievement of days gone by.

Follow the flight of Atlantis on NASA TV. You can also follow along with NASA”s STS-132 Launch Blog, which will begin coverage at 9:00 am EDT on May 14. Other NASA pages of interest:

Countdown Clock and Mission Description

STS-132 Image Gallery

STS-132 Mission Timeline

Here is a NASA video on the rollout of Atlantis to Pad 39-A

Below are previous posts at Blog on the Universe that powerfully address the science, history, and politics of human spaceflight—and can be used to help make the flight of Atlantis a Teachable Moment.

You might start with my February 6, 2010 post Shuttle Endeavour About to Blast Off on its Second to Last Mission, where I imagine what it will be like as the era of the Space Shuttle fades into history along with Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. It’s a powerful lesson for students not realizing they are living through a moment in history.

The Business Trip

Essential questions: How far is ‘Outer Space’? What does this imply for the thickness of Earth’s atmosphere?

Weekly Challenge 4: You Want Me to Do What With a Bathroom Scale?

Essential question: Why are astronauts weightless in space?

TMN QuickLinks: Shuttle Atlantis in Orbit, Make it a Teachable Moment

Essential question: When a space shuttle launches—how heavy, how fast, how far?

Commentary on Blue Ribbon Panel Exploring NASA’s Strategic Options for Human Space Flight

Essential question: What should be the goal of human space flight?

Shuttle Atlantis Home! Prompts Me to Look at America’s Future … and I’m Troubled

Essential questions: Is the end of the space shuttle era a symptom of a larger problem for America? Are we taking science and technology education seriously?

Teachers and Parents: make sure to read about The Teacher’s Toolbox which is designed to help you put this Blog to work for your class and your children. If you’re new to Blog on the Universe read About this Blog.

Photocredit: NASA

Photo Caption: Stop what you are doing for a moment, just imagine the stark contrast between the surface of this world and the vacuum of space, and click on this photo for a Zoom. Be thankful on this 40th Earth Day for the veil of atmosphere above you, slender as it may be. NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft took this image of Mercury’s northern horizon on September 29, 2009, during its third and final flyby of Mercury, as we were covering the event live via Twitter from Mission Control in Columbia, Maryland. This image captures portions of Mercury we had never before seen—it represents history in the making. I invite you to read more about this image at the MESSENGER mission gallery.

This post is a Teachable Moment in the News.

This is crossposted at the Space Tweep Society Blog HERE.

FLASH: We interrupt the rhythm of your daily lives to bring you news from beyond Earth, from a tiny robot determined to take the human race to an alien world. Many of you tuned in September 2009 when Blog on the Universe provided live coverage of the MESSENGER spacecraft’s flyby of Mercury, the last gravity assist needed to get the spacecraft on course for Mercury orbital insertion in March 2011. We are now less than 11 months from that historic first—a spacecraft in orbit around the mysterious inner-most planet of our Solar System. You might want to bookmark the countdown clock.

Since last September 29, 7 months of our lives have been filled with a new school year, passage of seasons, and the ebb and flow of over 200 days. Meanwhile, dutifully navigating through the harsh environment of space, our little spacecraft has been steadily gaining on its rendezvous with destiny on March 18, 2011, under the watchful eyes of its extended family back on Earth—the MESSENGER Team. For this team, those 200+ days were filled with assessing data already broadcast to Earth from MESSENGER’s 3 prior flybys of the planet, and preparing for orbital insertion and on-orbit operations.

These engineers and scientists are the current generation of explorers on the frontiers of human exploration, and ought to be held up to our children as heroes and role models in the age of high technology—and at a time when America needs to step to the plate in science and technology education if we are to compete in the 21st century (you might want to read my related essay at Huffington Post.) So meet these heroes and role models—the Core Team, the Science Team, the Instrument Team, the Engineering Team, and the Mission Operations Team. Have a conversation with your kids, or if you are a teacher, have a conversation with your class about this remarkable group of folks. And to really get up close and personal, read how cool operations engineer Ray Espiritu got from his dream in middle school to being part of the MESSENGER mission. Read highlights on the lives of other MESSENGER Team members using the button at the bottom of the Highlights Page.

So now for some really exciting news sent to the entire MESSENGER Team via email on April 18, 2010, by Eric J. Finnegan, MESSENGER Mission Systems Engineer. I have provided the text of Eric’s email without modification to give you a sense of the behind-the-scenes communication and spirit of teamwork that a group of folks like you and me is undertaking on behalf of humanity. We are now fully engaged in preparations for an encounter with another world—

Public Relations

This month, preparations for orbital operations came front and center, with a press release describing the extent of preparations the team is conducting, tactfully described by our Payload Operations Manager, Alice Berman.

Navigation 

It hasn’t taken long—the navigation and guidance and control teams have almost closed the gap on Mercury. Over the last month, the predicted trajectory of the satellite has been narrowed to within 1-sigma of the target. Through careful management of the solar array positions and body orientations, the predicted trajectory of the spacecraft is now less than 10 km off the b-plane aim point and less than one minute from the target arrival time needed for Mercury Orbit Insertion. The likelihood of future trajectory correction maneuvers is rapidly diminishing!

MOI Readiness

The operations and engineering teams continue to prepare for events before, during and after the Mercury Orbit Insertion maneuver. The team is considering all possible nominal and anomalous conditions to ensure a robust execution plan, thereby ensuring a successful Mercury insertion. The next milestone for the team will be a Fault Management Review, occurring on June 2. An independent team of reviewers will look over the teams preparation plans and provide any necessary recommendations to ensure successful execution of this mission critical event.

Orbital Operations Readiness

The engineering and operations teams have completed all of the detailed table top reviews covering the necessary flight operations for each of the spacecraft subsystems. Furthermore, all of the detailed discussion meetings between the mission operations team and the instrument engineers, to review the on-board and ground command procedures for orbital operations have been conducted. These series of meeting and reviews have resulted in a number of items that will need to be worked off over the next several months as the teams work towards the fall Orbital Readiness Review.

The science planning and mission operations teams completed the most recent week-in-the-life (WITL) test activity on 24 March. A team debriefing meeting was conducted to cover the activities and lessons learned from the five week exercise. This activity required the MESSENGER team to process two consecutive weeks of orbital operations in a real-time test-as-you-fly environment. The next WITL test activity will exercise four consecutive weeks of orbital operations. The kickoff meeting for this multi-week activity is scheduled for 21 April.

This month, the instrument scientists started the final verification activities for the planning functions of the MESSENGER Scibox software. on April 5, the latest configured version of the SciBox software was released allowing instrument scientists to start evaluation of the software-generated observation plan. Presentations of these observing plans by the instrument scientists to the cognizant Science Discipline Groups will commence at the end of April. In parallel with this activity, the operations and guidance and control teams are working their way through verification of the commanding functions of the Scibox software. Over 10 weeks of the 52 week orbital schedule have been processed by the G&C team using high fidelity dynamics simulations to ensure safe execution of the auto generated command sequences. The operations team has processed 5 weeks of orbital schedules though their command verification tools and vehicle state simulations, ensuring valid execution as well as identifying a few command efficiencies. Processing of the Scibox software generated command sequences will continue until all 52 weeks of scheduled science activities have been processed through the verification tools from both teams.

As a cumulative test of orbital readiness, the operations team kicked off planning activities for a full flight execution of orbital operations, to occur this summer. Current plans are to execute 1-2 weeks of orbital operations, in a cadence and manner that will be utilized during orbit. This activity will flight verify the end-to-end operations of the MESSENGER system.

There are many activities to complete before March 18, 2011, however all members of the MESSENGER team are now engaged and are working toward successful execution of orbital operations.

—Eric J. Finnegan MESSENGER Mission Systems Engineer

We wish the best to this remarkable group of folks for the continued success of MESSENGER, and stay tuned for mission updates, and extensive live coverage of MESSENGER orbital insertion. And readers, I invite you to put your thoughts to ‘paper’ with a comment below:)

The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education oversees the MESSENGER Educator Fellowship Program and other MESSENGER education and public outreach activities, including the development of compendia of lessons on Solar System exploration and science, and programming for families at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. Consider one of the Center’s programs for your community. Blog on the Universe is also one of the Center’s programs.

Photocredti: NASA

Photo Caption: Space Shuttle Discovery docked at the International Space Station on April 16,2010. The Leonardo Multi-Purpose Logistics Module is visible in Discovery’s payload bay. More at the NASA image library for STS-131.

This is a Teachable Moments in the News QuickLinks Post. It connects a news story with this Blog’s existing powerful library of Posts and Resource Pages. The cited Posts and Pages provide a deep understanding of concepts in the earth and space sciences relevant to the news story. Teachers—the Posts and Pages are also designed for use as lessons, allowing you to easily bring current science into the classroom as a teachable moment. Each cited Post is outlined in the Teachers Lesson Planner, which includes the Post’s essential questions, concepts, objectives, and math skills.

Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-131) is landing today. There are only 3 more flights of the Shuttle through September 2010 before retirement of the fleet. Watch Discovery’s landing on NASA TV with your class this morning.

Make this a teachable moment! Below are previous posts at Blog on the Universe that powerfully address the science, history, and politics of human spaceflight—and all of them embrace the notion that science education is about conceptual understanding at an emotional level.

I suggest you start with my February 6, 2010 post Shuttle Endeavour About to Blast Off on its Second to Last Mission, where I talk about what it will be like for all of us when the Space Shuttle stops flying, and the era of this remarkable machine fades into history. This is a very powerful lesson for students that may not realize they are living through a moment in history.

Finally, if you have memories of the Space Shuttle you’d like to share with other readers of this Blog, you’re invited to leave a comment below.

Posts to explore in class and at home—

The Business Trip

Essential questions: How far is ‘Outer Space’? What does this imply for the thickness of Earth’s atmosphere?

Weekly Challenge 4: You Want Me to Do What With a Bathroom Scale?

Essential question: Why are astronauts weightless in space?

TMN QuickLinks: Shuttle Atlantis in Orbit, Make it a Teachable Moment

Essential question: When a space shuttle launches—how heavy, how fast, how far?

Commentary on Blue Ribbon Panel Exploring NASA’s Strategic Options for Human Space Flight

Essential question: What should be the goal of human space flight?

Shuttle Atlantis Home! Prompts Me to Look at America’s Future … and I’m Troubled

Essential questions: Is the end of the space shuttle era a symptom of a larger problem for America? Are we taking science and technology education seriously?

Teachers and Parents: make sure to read about The Teacher’s Toolbox which is designed to help you put this Blog to work for your class and your children. If you’re new to Blog on the Universe read About this Blog.

Photocredit: NASA

Photo Caption: Endeavour in orbit on flight STS-118, August 15, 2007. Click on the image for a breathtaking close up view. Read more about the image, and visit the STS-118 image gallery at NASA.

This is a Teachable Moments in the News QuickLinks Post. It connects a news story with this Blog’s existing powerful library of Posts and Resource Pages. The cited Posts and Pages provide a deep understanding of concepts in the earth and space sciences relevant to the news story. Teachers—the Posts and Pages are also designed for use as lessons, allowing you to easily bring current science into the classroom as a teachable moment. Each cited Post is outlined in the Teachers Lesson Planner, which includes the Post’s essential questions, concepts, objectives, and math skills.

This is crossposted at the Huffington Post HERE.

Follow the flight of Endeavour (STS-130) with liftoff currently scheduled for Monday, Feb. 8, 2010, 4:14 a.m. EST, at NASA’s Space Shuttle website.

A different kind of countdown has begun. It is now 2010. Before the next New Year’s celebration, the U.S. Space Shuttle program will be just a memory. Those that took pride in following along as this remarkable vehicle broke the surly bonds of Earth will surely feel they’ve lost a friend, and the pain of a very personal page turned forever will linger for quite some time. Those of you that follow news of the day as daily ritual, every so often hearing about a Space Shuttle blasting off or returning to Earth, will no longer experience that quick smile acknowledging pride in American leadership and technological prowess—at least not when it comes to human spaceflight.

The older generations world-wide will tell children what it was like to see a Shuttle blast off. It’s a sight that will be preserved in perpetuity on the internet, or whatever the internet will morph into. But in just 5 or 6 years we will be telling children about that time through which we lived when the Shuttle was flying—and these children will have no memory of it, for they will have been born in the post-shuttle age. Soon, the ancient history of Apollo will marry with the ancient history of the Space Shuttle for this new generation.

You and I are not alone in our living memories of Shuttle. Half the people alive today didn’t even know of a time when the Shuttle wasn’t flying, all of them born after April 1981 when John Young and Robert Crippen piloted Columbia into space as STS-1.

What’s the future for America in human spaceflight? The current long term plan for at least getting humans to low earth orbit—which is where you’ll find the International Space Station, a pretty hefty taxpayer investment—is to hand responsibility over to commercial companies with no current track record of getting even a single human there. So I’d like to put those companies on notice here. You’ve got big shoes to fill, and a spacefaring nation that is watching. You need to do us proud.

Since sometimes words are not enough, if you haven’t clicked on the photo above to see Endeavour up close in orbit, please do. And if you have, I know you’d like to click on it again—so be my guest.

Finally, if you have memories of the Space Shuttle you’d like to share with other readers of this Blog, you’re invited to leave a comment below.

Make Endeavour in orbit a teachable moment with your kids, or if you’re a teacher, with your class. Below are previous posts at Blog on the Universe that powerfully address the science, history, and politics of human spaceflight—and all of them embrace the notion that science education is about conceptual understanding at an emotional level.

The Business Trip

Essential questions: How far is ‘Outer Space’? What does this imply for the thickness of Earth’s atmosphere?

Weekly Challenge 4: You Want Me to Do What With a Bathroom Scale?

Essential question: Why are astronauts weightless in space?

TMN QuickLinks: Shuttle Atlantis in Orbit, Make it a Teachable Moment

Essential question: When a space shuttle launches—how heavy, how fast, how far?

Commentary on Blue Ribbon Panel Exploring NASA’s Strategic Options for Human Space Flight

Essential question: What should be the goal of human space flight?

Shuttle Atlantis Home! Prompts Me to Look at America’s Future … and I’m Troubled

Essential questions: Is the end of the space shuttle era a symptom of a larger problem for America? Are we taking science and technology education seriously?

Teachers and Parents: make sure to read about The Teacher’s Toolbox which is designed to help you put this Blog to work for your class and your children. If you’re new to Blog on the Universe read About this Blog.

To Teachers:

How did I figure out how many people alive today were born after the first flight of the space shuttle?

Make this an interdisciplinary teachable moment. Here is the data for the current (2010) world population by age group, as well as the total world population. Have your students figure out how long ago the first Shuttle flew, and how many people were born since then.

Solution: Shuttle has been flying for 29 years (since April 1981). Adding together all those born in the last 29 years gives 3.5 billion people, which is a little more than half (51%) of the total world population.

Here’s an extension. Have your students figure out how many people have been born since the first landing on the Moon on July 20, 1969, during the flight of Apollo 11. And since your students weren’t around then, let them live that experience through the eyes of others (including me) using these earlier Blog on the Universe posts:

Yesterday’s Launch of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Brings Back Memories of Apollo 11

Essential question: What was it like to live through the flight of Apollo 11—the most historic voyage in the history of the human race?

SPECIAL POST: Where Were You During the Flight of Apollo 11? Remember and Share—

Essential question: What were the experiences of people that lived through the historic flight of Apollo 11?

An Apollo 11 Personal Story

Essential questions: What is it like to meet your hero? What is the nature of human exploration?

Photocredit: NASA

This post is a Teachable Moment in the News and a Dr. Jeff’s Jeffism.

It’s been a wonderful year for me here at Blog on the Universe. We launched in May 2009, not knowing if the concept would catch on. It did, and in just 7 months I’ve had the good fortune of reaching and conversing with tens of thousands of educators, science and space enthusiasts, science writers, environmentalists, homeschool moms and dads, ed techs, and scifi fans. The Blog now has a pretty eclectic following … which is very cool.

To all of you that follow the ol’ blog, may you and your families have a healthy, joyous, and prosperous 2010! And my advice is live in the moment.

Now for something completely different (Monty Python?) While I was tweeting to my PLN earlier today I came up with some New Years fun facts and Jeffisms of sorts. Thought I’d collect them all and share them here with you. Teachers and parents, you might want to discuss these with your kids!

Ponder this: From the moment the New Year began to the end of the first day in 2010, YOU on Earth have traveled a whopping 1.6 MILLION miles (2.6 MILLION km) along Earth’s orbit around the Sun.

That’s the same as traveling 200 Earth diameters. Another way to think about it—today you traveled the diameter of Earth every 7 minutes … and you didn’t even feel a breeze.

I actually wrote a blog post about your travels through space aboard Spaceship Earth. If you liked my New Years thought above, you’ll really like this post.

Ponder this too: You may have been standing there watching the clock as it counted down to midnight. But actually … YOU were flying to the location of midnight on Earth at up to 1,000 mph (1,600 km/hr) due to Earth’s rotation. The clock was just keeping track of your flight. Did you remember to buckle up?

Fun fact: It’s 2010. Thank goodness we made it through another 31,557,600 seconds since New Years 2009. (Hummm that’s almost pi x 10⁷ —that’s creepy.)

More pondering: the location in Earth’s orbit where you marked the start of YOUR 2010 orbit of the Sun is different from someone in another time zone.  In other words, someone on the opposite side of Earth from you started their New Year 800,000 miles (1,300,000 km) from where you started yours.

Earth to other planets: hey guys, I must be at that strange, rather non-descript place in my orbit again, ’cause the bipeds are all celebrating.

Other planets to Earth: we know, we saw fireworks sweeping across your surface as their cities and towns moved into midnight. Weird critters you’ve got living on you.

Pluto to Earth: hey if you were more like me, those bipeds would only celebrate every 240 Earth years!

Earth to Pluto: yeah but if I were more like you, there wouldn’t be any bipeds here, and hey, why am I talking to you anyway? You’re not a planet any more.

Pluto to Earth: even I think that’s pretty cold.

Hey gang, ready for another orbit of the Sun here at Blog on the Universe? May it be a safe journey, and I promise I’ll try to be a good guide.

—Doctor Jeff

Photocredit: NASA, ESA and J. Hester (ASU)

This is a Teachable Moment in the News and a Dr. Jeff Speaks Out.

This is crossposted at the Huffington Post HERE.

I had a day of meetings yesterday, with no connection to the outside world. When I got home a good friend stopped over and asked if I heard what Al Gore had said in Copenhagen, and the firestorm it created in the world media. I had not. So I made a beeline for the computer and sought out the circus-sphere passing for journalism these days. Here is what I found.

A Timesonline story titled “Inconvenient truth for Al Gore as his north pole sums don’t add up”, may have been the focal point. Apparently Mr. Gore said, as reported by the Timesonline—

“These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”

However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.

“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”

This led the Timesonline to conclude, that—

The embarrassing error cast another shadow over the conference after the controversy over the hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, which appeared to suggest that scientists had manipulated data to strengthen their argument that human activities were causing global warming.

But this story did not add up to me. My problem was two-fold. First, Mr. Gore stated a dire prediction about the Arctic and attributed the prediction to Dr. Wieslaw Maslowski. Given Gore is not a climate scientist, citing his source was the right and prudent thing to do. Maslowski was apparently contacted by some organization or individual (I should assume the Timesonline but I won’t) and the Timesonline then quoted Maslowski’s denial. So here we have two individuals with differing stories, but with a distinction—Mr. Gore was attributing his statement to Dr. Maslowski. But Maslowski was not attributing anything to Gore. Clearly someone was wrong, whether by mistake or by design. But based on the story, I didn’t know which one. Which brings me to my second problem—Timesonline immediately assumed the problem was with Gore, the story was picked up globally, and quickly turned into “there goes Al Gore again, and this time we got ‘em!”

But the pesky distinction between the two was an obvious pathway for me to explore—Gore cited Maslowski, so was there any formal record of Maslowski’s past statements about Arctic sea ice coverage? I found no evidence that anyone reporting the story had bothered to look.

Is this what journalism passes for these days? No need to check sources carefully? Forget due diligence? Gore caught twisting the truth—even lying—is good for sales and readership? And it doesn’t matter whether he did or not, because perception is reality today, not truth?

Earth to journalists. Let me clue you in. I’m not a journalist but I’ll do your due diligence for you. It’s REALLY easy in the age of the internet. Here, let me show you how it’s done.

Dr. Wieslaw Maslowski is a Research Professor in the Department of Oceanography at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey California. All this is from his bio on the NPS website. His research includes: arctic oceanography, numerical ocean and sea ice modeling, and climate change—again from the NPS website. He sounds like a qualified expert to me. Apparently the media has thought so too. Here is what Dr. Maslowski told the New York Times, October 2, 2007 (just 2 years ago)—

“Experts say the ice retreat is likely to be even bigger next summer because this winter’s freeze is starting from such a huge ice deficit. At least one researcher, Wieslaw Maslowski of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., projects a blue Arctic Ocean in summers by 2013.”

Want him in his own words? Here, at Beyond Zero Emissions, is Dr. Maslowski interviewed by Matthew Wright, with a post date of March 24, 2008 (less than 2 years ago.) Read the transcript of the interview, and by all means download the podcast.

“We speak to Wieslaw Maslowski about his prediction that by the summer of 2013, we will have completely lost ice cover in the Arctic. Dr. Maslowski says that the complete loss of summer ice may actually happen sooner.”

Wright: “Ok. So now, it was reported in The New York Times that you said that 2013 was a possibility, and perhaps you’d actually projected this some years ago, that we could lose the summer sea ice extent – that’s in the summer solstice is it?”

Maslowski: “That is correct.”

Maslowski (later in the interview): “There are some model simulations, single model simulations, that are suggesting that it could possibly occur as early as 2050 or maybe even as early as 2030. Comparing those models simulations predictions with the satellite observations of the Arctic sea ice extent actually shows that most of those models are too conservative predicting the current and the past ice extent changes in the Arctic as has been observed. So the idea is that the climate models – they’re underestimating, they are too conservative in their prediction.”

Maslowski is on the record stating he thought it possible that we’d lose all summer ice cover in the Arctic by 2013. Let’s do some math. That is 3.5 years from now.  Gore said 75% chance in 5 to 7 years based apparently on personal conversations with Maslowski. You know what? Gore’s statement was a CONSERVATIVE estimate relative to what I found Maslowski has said on the record.

Does anybody care that journalistic integrity is important in the midst of a contentious debate? Will ‘journalists’ like Hannah Devlin, Ben Webster, and Philippe Naughton (see Timesonline) apologize to Mr. Gore for not doing their jobs? Will anyone give the guy any credit for standing up for what he believes in? Mr. Vice President, hang in there. I know you know how Galileo felt.

And a note to the Timesonline. Should I believe your quote from Dr. Maslowski? If so, then shouldn’t someone ask Dr. Maslowski why his quote is inconsistent with what he has said on the record? Dr. Maslowski, your credibility as a researcher is on the line.

Let’s debate the quality of the data and the interpretation of the data. Let’s do it in the context of science. As a planet, let’s explore and debate the global courses of action that can and should be considered based on what these data are telling us. And let’s do it with journalists recognizing the important role they play in keeping us all informed, and the sacred trust that that entails.

Finally, aside from the spitting back and forth on who said what (which could have been avoided if journalists did their jobs) does anybody care that complete loss of sea ice coverage in the Arctic, even if by 2050, would represent a dramatic climatic change in a geological instant in time?

For an understanding of rapid climatic change in the context of geologic time, and the correlation to human activity, see A Day in the Life of the Earth, here at Blog on the Universe.

Photo Caption: Image taken September 29, 2009 by MESSENGER’s Narrow Angle Camera (NAC). The distance across the bottom of the image is 250 miles (410 km), which means the crater at lower left is about 80 miles (130 km) across! The crater’s appearance points to Mercury’s volcanic past—to a time when the crater was filled with lava and now only portions of the crater’s circular rim are visible. (Click on image for zoom.)

This post is a Teachable Moment in the News.

Remember the MESSENGER spacecraft we were all following back in September as it flew by Mercury? The little spacecraft that gave us all a scare during the September 29 flyby (hey little fella, don’t do that again) is day-by-day getting closer to orbital insertion on March 18, 2011. We’re now just 15 months away!

I promised to keep you all posted with new mission updates. My last was October 17, and there have been a bunch of things piling up to report. I could have just quietly inserted the new updates on the MESSENGER Mission Updates page here at the Blog, and snuck in a date change in the Teachable Moments in the News QuickLinks Box in the upper right corner above (your cue to look in upper right corner). But hey! When Time Magazine names a family member as one of the 50 Best Inventions of 2009 (and by the way, we were number 11) YOU’VE JUST GOT TO CELEBRATE WITH AN OFFICIAL POST!

And a BIG thanks to Dr. Harri Vanhala, (another) cool astrophysicist here at the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education, for feeding me all the updates information. Dr. Harri (to his fans) also manages the MESSENGER Educator Fellowship Program, and oversaw the development of the brand spanking new Mission Design curriculum package that will be available in Spring 2010. The package has lots of middle and high school lessons that engage students in the design process for a robotic spacecraft mission to another planet, and teachers—you’ll be able to download it lesson by lesson at no cost. Your tax dollars at work.

So I invite y’all (a shout out to my friends in Houston and Corpus Christi) to check out the MESSENGER Mission Updates page for a link to the official honor from Time Magazine, LOTS of new images of Mercury, a way cool podcast on the results of the September 29 flyby by Team Member Bob Hirshon of the American Assocation for the Advancement of Science, and a link for the NASA Teleconference which showcased the scientific findings from the flyby.

Keep Truckin’ MESSENGER. And you folks in the blogosphere—stay tuned right here.

Photocredit: NASA

This is a Teachable Moment in the News and a Dr. Jeff Speaks Out.

This is crossposted at the Huffington Post HERE and at the Space Tweep Society Blog HERE.

I just watched space shuttle Atlantis land at Kennedy. I had lots and lots of mixed emotions. The shuttle is just a remarkable technological achievement, and watching it land can be a pretty emotional experience.

But the space shuttle was never supposed to be more than a space truck to low Earth orbit. I was left reflecting on my childhood when I watched Apollo astronauts walking on the Moon, and dreamed of what awaited us in the 21st century in terms of human spaceflight. It has definitely not come to pass. In fact, approaching 2010 we are now at a crossroads. Shuttle has just 5 more flights, and then the U.S. will need to rely on the Russians for years just to have astronaut access to the International Space Station. And that’s just keeping the status quo with humans continuing to travel no farther from the surface of Earth than a couple hundred miles. I drive farther than that visiting my mom just north of New York City from my home near Washington, DC. It’s called low Earth orbit, and we’ve been stuck here now for 37 YEARS. Is this the grand vision for human spaceflight we embraced 40 years ago when we saw Armstrong and Aldrin walking on the Moon?

So what exactly are we doing as a nation in terms of leadership in human spaceflight? Are we embracing a strategic long-term plan or an administration flavor of the month? Should human spaceflight be a high technology priority for America? Should we allow this leadership to pass to other nations? Won’t such action surely help erode our larger ‘brand’ as a leader and innovator in science and technology? Is it really about the NASA budget shortfall recently identified by the White House-appointed Committee headed by Norman Augustine, or is it something far more substantial, reflecting a nation trying to redefine itself—no, make that a superpower unsure of how to chart its course in the 21st century after the rules of the road seem to have dramatically changed? Is it the inability to muster a national will on virtually anything in light of a seemingly perfect storm of crises here at home, and globally?

My sadness over an unrealized vision for human spaceflight only leads me to a more general realization. And it’s this realization that is very troubling, even ominous. Will America be able to compete in the global high technology marketplace of the 21st century? Are we taking science and technology education seriously? Are PARENTS taking science and technology education seriously? Do Americans know that our national prowess in science and technology is about the future of our children, our standard of living, and the American dream? Do Americans truly know this is of national strategic importance? We are living through changes forced by globalization and a new marketplace. Are jobs lost ever coming back? More importantly—are we training Americans—all Americans—in our grade K-12 system and in our colleges and universities, in skills required by 21st century jobs? This is far bigger than leadership in spaceflight. It’s about the science and technology required to address global problems from energy, to climate change, to managing limited resources in the midst of growing populations. Will America be capable of stepping to the plate in the face of these challenges—in the face of these remarkable opportunities?

WE LANDED HUMANS ON THE MOON. IT IS STILL HARD TO FATHOM. IT WAS THE MOST REMARKABLE JOURNEY THE HUMAN RACE HAS EVER UNDERTAKEN (my view). It was raw inspiration propelling generations of young Americans to the frontiers of science and technology. Yet it seems to me that a vibrant, healthy nation, is only as good as its next success. The question before us—are we now destined in the words of Dylan Thomas to “just go gentle into that good night?” I firmly believe it is up to us.

I am very troubled. And as an American … I can say it hurts. I’m very interested in your thoughts on this, so please feel free to share below.

I had written in an earlier post my view on the needed driver for the future of U.S. human spaceflight.

Here is what it was like for me living through Apollo, and a later chance encounter with Buzz Aldrin. It will give you a sense of where I’m coming from, and might reconnect you with a vision for the future from a time long ago.

Photocredit: NASA

Photo Caption: The Pleiades as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope.

This post is a Teachable Moment in the News.

So here I am in NY, visiting my mom and my sister’s family. We’re sitting on the couch and my sister comes up with this bizarre Thanksgiving challenge. “Hey Jeffrey! (my family calls me Jeffrey … yuck), why don’t you come up with a personal Thanksgiving story involving the pilgrims. Sort of a 3 degrees of separation thing.” Ok, fine. Here goes—

I’m now (unfortunately) 52 years old. In 52 years, in the year 2061, Halley’s Comet will return. And if you look up on Thanksgiving Night in 2061, at the famously visible star cluster the Pleiades, the light you see will have traveled 440 years from the Pleiades to your eye. So that light must have left the Pleiades in the year 1621 (that’s 2061 – 440), and in just the right direction to hit your eye which is staring at the Pleiades in 2061. And hey look! There goes Halley’s Comet. But that means that the light you see on Thanksgiving Night 2061 left the Pleiades when the Pilgrims were holding the first Thanksgiving in 1621 in Plymouth colony.

Now here is the spooky part. I actually went to Pilgrim Monument on my way to Nantucket, when I was visiting my good friend who was the Director of Nantucket’s Maria Mitchell Observatory. I knew him ’cause we worked together a few years earlier in the Lab for Astrophysics at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. And while working in the Lab, I made lots of trips to the Big Island of Hawai’i where I was part of teams at the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility on the summit of Mauna Kea studying among other things—Halley’s Comet. And right next to the NASA telescope you can now find the Japanese National Telescope called Subaru, which in Japanese means …. “Pleiades”.  (I know!!!)  Hey you Subaru owners, look at the emblem on your car—it’s that star cluster.

So ‘sis, how’d I do?  “Jeffrey I just got chills—I’ve owned 4 Subarus.”

Happy Thanksgiving 2009!!

ps-

I’m claiming a heaping helping of writer’s artistic license, since I’ve assumed the Pleiades is exactly 440 light years away. But don’t tell my sister.

Photocredit: NASA, ESA and AURA/Caltech

Photo Caption: Atlantis blasts off from Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, 2:28 p.m. EST, November 16, 2009.

This is a Teachable Moments in the News QuickLinks Post. It connects a news story with this Blog’s existing powerful library of Posts and Resource Pages. The cited Posts and Pages provide a deep understanding of concepts in the earth and space sciences relevant to the news story. Teachers—the Posts and Pages are also designed for use as lessons, allowing you to easily bring current science into the classroom as a teachable moment. Each cited Post is outlined in the Teachers Lesson Planner, which includes the Post’s essential questions, concepts, objectives, and math skills.

This is crossposted at the Huffington Post HERE.

A space shuttle has now lifted off from Kennedy Space Center 129 times. The flight of Atlantis that began on November 16 is also the 31^st to the International Space Station. After she returns to Earth, a space shuttle will clear the tower only 5 more times before the fleet—Discovery, Endeavour, and Atlantis—is retired in 2010. Atlantis is scheduled to go up only once more.

We take the technical aspects of shuttle flights for granted, even the shuttle flights themselves. But it’s a remarkable technological achievement that deserves both our reflection and awe. So let me help. Here’s what happened November 16 close to 2:30 pm EST, when folks on the west coast of the U.S. were thinking about where to go for lunch. East coasters were looking forward to the end of the work day. But down at Kennedy Space Center, a now famous clock was ticking.

Sitting at Pad 39A before launch, the orbiter Atlantis, its external tank, and the two solid rocket boosters weighed in at a combined 4,522,383 lbs. Let’s put that in familiar terms. That’s 2,261 TONS …. or about 1,300 cars (assuming the weight of a 2010 Toyota Camry V6) … or 30,000 average human adults. Yet only 6 human adults were aboard, waiting to leave our Earth. It’s something we humans have been able to do for less than 50 years. It’s worth noting that well over a billion of us alive today remember a time when we could not.

Pointing heavenward, Atlantis waited. At a height of 184 feet (56.1 m) she was a nearly 20-story-tall machine waiting for the clock to tick down to T=0. Just 6.6 seconds before T=0 the three main engines on the orbiter ignited. At T=0 the vehicle was explosively unattached from the Pad (you need to detach from the planet rather quickly), the solid rocket boosters (SRBs) ignited, and this massive, magnificent machine was set into motion …. up.

Imagine a 20 story building moving slowly down the street. Boy, that would be something to see. Imagine a 20 story building racing down the street at 60 miles an hour. Imagine a 20 story building accelerating ….. UP, and already traveling more than 60 miles per hour by the time it cleared the tower at Pad 39A—after traveling less than twice its height. The space shuttle does 0 to 60 mph (0 to 100 km/hr) in 5.5 seconds, not too impressive by racetrack standards. It does beat the 6.2 seconds for the 2010 Toyota Camry V6. But did I mention the shuttle is going UP, and it weighs as much as 1,300 Camrys? You’ve got to just step back from this and recognize what we’re talking about here.

And it keeps accelerating. The two solid rocket boosters separated 2 minutes after launch, when the vehicle was already at an altitude of about 24 miles (39 km). Just 8.5 minutes after liftoff, the shuttle was in a preliminary orbit at an altitude of 140 miles (225 km), and moving over 17,000 miles per hour (27,400 km/hr)—that’s fast enough to go from New York City to San Francisco (2570 miles; 4,140 km) in just under 7 minutes. It’s fast enough to go around the entire Earth every hour and a half. In more poetic terms, it’s fast enough for the astronauts to see a sunrise every 90 minutes.

As we count down the final flights of the space shuttle, I invite you to use Atlantis in orbit as a teachable moment with your kids, or if you are a teacher, with your class. Below are two previous posts at Blog on the Universe that ask a couple of cool questions: “How far is outer space?” and “Why are the astronauts weightless?” And if you missed it, here’s the launch of Atlantis on YouTube.

Weekly Challenge 4: You Want Me to Do What With a Bathroom Scale?

Essential question: Why are astronauts weightless in space?

The Business Trip

Essential questions: How far is ‘Outer Space’? What does this imply for the thickness of Earth’s atmosphere?

Teachers and Parents: make sure to read about The Teacher’s Toolbox which is designed to help you put this Blog to work for your class and your children. If you’re new to Blog on the Universe read About this Blog.

Photocredit: NASA