NASA | M Thomas Apple Author Page

Interstellar! If only…

September 26, 2024
MThomas

According to Thorne, who served as a consultant on the science of Interstellar, quantum mechanics could hypothetically explain a way to time travel via wormhole. So far, it’s a thought experiment that leads to the conclusion that you’d lose information along the way—not very practical.

First off, I’m incredibly annoyed at the way WordPress has screwed up the “quotation” function. It seems they are more focused on encouraging bloggers to use AI to write.

Uh. I don’t need AI. I blog. The end. WTH is the point of using AI to write my thoughts? It’s already being trained to USE my blog in the first place! Idiots.

OK. Second, the Popular Mechanics article I’m linking to is entitled “Interstellar travel is possible if we break into a higher dimension, scientists say.”

Only, that is NOT what scientists say. It’s still a thought experiment!

Chinese scientists “create” water from lunar soil

September 4, 2024
MThomas

Using the new method, one metric tonne of lunar soil will be able to produce about 51 to 76 kilograms of water, equivalent to more than a hundred 500-millileter bottles of water, or the daily drinking water consumption of 50 people, the state broadcaster said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/chinese-scientists-use-lunar-soil-produce-water-rcna167951

The soil was from the 2020 expedition, which was the first in 44 years to bring back soil from the Moon.

Considering all of NASA’s problems, it looks like China will have a moon base years before the US does…and probably in prime resource locations as well.

And don’t forget that the hydrogen in the soil can also be used for rocket fuel. It would be a lot easier to launch ships to Mars and beyond without having to deal with Earth’s gravity…

Sorry for the long absence…

September 2, 2024
MThomas

Haven’t posted anything in about five or six weeks. Sorry!

I was going to initially post something about the Boeing crew that got stranded on the ISS, but NASA kept delaying their decision to use SpaceX. It was a given that they’d have no choice.

Boeing, quite obviously, cannot be trusted to spend millions of taxpayer’s dollars and make a proper spacecraft.

Anyway, I’ll start posting something more interesting soon.

In the meantime, here’s a Star Trek TOS selfie by Catwoman. I mean Lee Meriwether. (S3:14, That Which Survives)

Time to see the Perseid Meteor shower! ☄️

July 18, 2024
MThomas

The Perseids get their name because the shooting stars appear to stream from a point in the sky where the constellation of Perseus is located…The constellation rises in the northeast, but meteors should be visible all over the sky if conditions are clear.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/perseid-meteor-shower-begins-see-shooting-stars-rcna161911

The best time to watch is after midnight in the northern hemisphere. The meteors are actually debris leftover from the Swift-Tuttle comet, discovered in the early 1860s.

The annual celestial event started this past Sunday and lasts for about two months, but the peak this year is around August 12th.

Perseus looks like this:

See https://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/perseus-constellation/ for more information about this group of constellations as well as the famous Greek myth behind them…

China just returned rocks from the Far Side of the Moon

June 26, 2024
MThomas

But China has also offered to share at least some of its new moon samples with American researchers, and NASA is allowing the U.S. scientists to submit proposals.

https://www.npr.org/2024/06/24/nx-s1-5015208/china-return-first-ever-sample-return-moon-far-side

This is a welcome change of heart. International politics need not prevent international space exploration.

On the other hand…

China is not planning a mere short-term, flags-and-footprints presence on the Moon. Their ambition is more like Nasa’s Artemis than it is Apollo. China plans to launch two separate missions to the south pole of the Moon around 2026 and 2028 – including testing using lunar soil to 3D print bricks – as precursors to a lunar base.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240510-change-6-is-just-the-tip-of-chinas-space-ambitions

A little competition might be just what’s needed to get humanity into space.

But a little competition might also go a bit too far…

“May you live in interesting times…”

Starliner to Earth: “We have a problem…”

June 17, 2024
MThomas

Starliner, the Boeing spacecraft whose launch was delayed by a helium leak, has now developed four additional helium leaks after docking successfully with the ISS.

They had to delay the docking due to a little problem with thrusters…

Five of the 28 thrusters were not operating but, after troubleshooting, Boeing recovered four of Starliner’s malfunctioning jets and NASA allowed the spacecraft to dock.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/boeing-nasa-delay-starliner-astronaut-return-june-22-rcna157259

So their return to Earth has been delayed so that they can run some more tests.

I sure hope they have built some redundancies to this system. Remember, this is Boeing. QC is not exactly high on their priorities list…

Boeing Starliner delayed. They should delay again.

May 15, 2024
MThomas

A contractor for Nasa urged the space agency to conduct more safety checks before the highly-anticipated first launch of its Starliner rocket – which is set to take off as soon as next week – “before something catastrophic happens”.

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/nasa-contractor-boeing-starliner-launch-b2542947.html

It was supposed to launch last week, but someone spotted a valve problem — *minutes* before the countdown procedure was about to start.

They’d better check for door plugs while they’re at it.

Boeing does not give a rat’s ass about whoever uses their products. They‘re only interest in paying dividends to stockholders. And of course paying the CEO’s ridiculously high salary.

NASA is trusting the future of space travel to people like Musk and companies like Boeing. Using taxpayer money to reward greed and incompetence.

We can do better than this.

Nuclear power on the Moon. Gee, no problem…

May 13, 2024
MThomas

The South Pole, where power plants are likely to be constructed (without human help…)

“The truth is that nuclear is the only option to power a moonbase,” says Simon Middleburgh from the Nuclear Futures Institute at Bangor University in Wales.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240417-the-nuclear-reactors-that-could-power-moon-bases

So far there are two major consortiums that have plans for moon bases:

The Artemis Accords, with 36 countries (the US, Japan, South Korea, UAE, India, etc.)

The countries that don’t like the US, the UK, and Canada (China, Russia, Belarus, Venezuela, Pakistan, South Africa, Egypt, Ajerbaijan)

OK, maybe a bit of an exaggeration, granted.

But there is no doubting the political ramifications of two competing groups of astronauts (cosmonauts, taikonauts) on the Moon.

And just wait until they get to Mars.

Imagine what might happen. (I did!)

“May you live in interesting times…”

Venus used to have as much water as Earth. What happened?

May 7, 2024
MThomas

Over time, that water has nearly all been lost. Figuring out how, when and why Venus lost its water helps planetary scientists like me understand what makes a planet habitable — or what can make a habitable planet transform into an uninhabitable world.
https://theconversation.com/venus-is-losing-water-faster-than-previously-thought-heres-what-that-could-mean-for-the-early-planets-habitability-229342

The process in which Venus lost most of its water is called “hydrodynamic escape.” When Venus got too hot, the hydrogen in its atmosphere left. (The linked article explains this using a metaphor of having too many blankets on your bed.)

However, Venus is still losing hydrogen, even though there is too little of it for hydrodynamic escape to work. So, logically, there must be another process at work: “HCO⁺ dissociative recombination,” in which individually positively charged atoms of hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen in the atmosphere react with negatively charged electrons. The process was first examined on Mars, and based on a reexamination of results from previous missions (Pioneer Venus 1 and Pioneer Venus 2), the same research group thinks it’s time to try it on Venus…perhaps a first step to seeing whether Venus had life at some point.

Well, hello, Voyager 1! The venerable spacecraft is once again making sense

April 23, 2024
MThomas

NASA says it is once again able to get meaningful information back from the Voyager 1 probe, after months of troubleshooting a glitch that had this venerable spacecraft sending home messages that made no sense.
https://www.npr.org/2024/04/23/1246392066/nasa-voyager-1-spacecraft-talks-back

Hmm. Just a short while ago, Voyager’s days were numbered.

I guess these things were built to last… (also built when NASA got a lot more funding…)

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