New Horizons

On January 19 NASA launched the New Horizons spacecraft on a 9 year journey to Pluto. Why would I write about that now? Well, on April 6 New Horizons will cross the orbit of Mars having left Earth only 78 days before. In other words, this spacecraft is moving fast. At launch, NH was whipped up to a speed of ~25,000 mph. At that speed, the spacecraft reached the orbit of the moon in just under 9 hours. To put that in perspective, the Apollo missions to the moon required 3 days to cross the distance between the Earth and moon. A typical spacecraft mission to Mars requires about 6 months cruise time. So, reaching the orbit of Mars in 78 days is quite an accomplishment. NH will reach Jupiter in February 2007 and use a gravity assist to boost speed even further for the remainder of the cruise to Pluto and beyond.

New Horizons is exciting to me because it is our first reconnaissance of Pluto, we really have no idea what it looks like. That kind of visual mystery fascinates me and takes me back to the summer of 1989 when I saw the first images of Neptune returned from Voyager 2. In that case we basically knew what Neptune looked like, but the details were the best part. Neptune had enormous storms and varieties of colors, and we were expecting it to be dormant for the most part. I imagine Pluto will offer plenty of surprises as well. New Horizons executes the Pluto flyby in July 2015. I will have just turned 40 and will hopefully have a few kids to share the excitement with.

space tourism

So, CNN ran an article this week about space tourism, a reality that is getting more and more attention as the months go by. Several private companies are now in the hunt to launch a commercially viable spacecraft capable of carrying up to 6 or so passengers on a suborbital flight. The expected cost of such a ticket is expected to top nearly a quarter million dollars, making such flights the playground of the rich and famous for now. One of the contending companies, Virgin Galactic, would appear to be the front runner right now. Virgin Galactic was formed around, and purchased the design rights to, SpaceShipOne, which successfully completed two test flights within a 14 day period in 2004 to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize. The X Prize was designed to spur private investment in space tourism, and thankfully it worked. I had the good fortune to attend two of the test flights in the Mojave Desert in June and September 2004. Despite ripping winds, bitter pre-dawn cold, and sweltering noontime heat, I wouldn't have missed it. It was a unique experience, and if those launches end up being the first steps toward putting everyday people in space, I'm thrilled to say I was there. The picture shows SpaceShipOne after the second successful launch, with pilot Mike Melvill riding on top. It doesn't look like much, but she screamed to the top of the atmosphere in about 90 seconds after being piggybacked on a more conventional aircraft up to 40,000 ft. Virgin Galactic is working on a similar craft for commercial use that will carry several more passengers. Some of the other companies presently have plans to begin testing their systems within the next year. So, space tourism is coming.

As for me, would I go? At the age of 30, I know that an affordable ticket to space will likely come late in life for me. I hope it happens before I am 60. Barring any health concerns and family objections, I will go. There are certain life experiences you feel destined to have, and for me this is one of them.

a start

My intent here is to write about newsworthy events in science and astronomy in particular. I believe that should be at least as interesting as what I had for lunch today, but maybe I'm missing the point of this whole blog thing. Anyway, my main motivation is just to bring some of the interesting science and astronomy I encounter every day to the attention of friends and family, because some of this stuff is just damn cool. So, here goes...