Everything Goes Wrong

Quickly, these are some important developments in space. This past week, two things have set back Man's presence in space.

First, the Hubble Telescope's main camera lost two thirds of its capacity when it short circuited. "We believe that the wide field channel and high resolution channel on the ACS instruments are no longer available to us," said Preston Burch, the Hubble program manager. It will take until 2008 for NASA to launch a repair mission and keep the telescope operational.

Second, the newest satellite from European satellite giant SES New Skies, the NSS-8, was destroyed in an explosion on the launch pad early on Tuesday. Of course, the hubristic company still has a site up extolling the virtues of their now defunct brainchild. Here's a photo of the satellite's fiery demise.The company plans to attempt another launch in 2009.

I don't want to make it seem as if I am celebrating these accidents, but my point is clear. Space is not the place for mankind. All our fancy machinery breaks down and fails us. Give me a telescope and a notebook and a clear night and I will read the stars for you.

Meteorite Madness 1

This post will begin a series of posts on meteorites. These posts will be more technical and less subjective than my others, and I hope that the jargon will not dilute the underlying message. I will attempt to make my writing as accessible as possible for everyone from veteran astrogeologists to a Boy Scout with his first telescope. Please join me and my meteorite (right)!

Meteorite Basics

All of our extraterrestrial samples, except for the Moon rocks returned by the Apollo Project, are meteorites. History has documented accounts of stones falling from the sky in every language from Chinese to Greek. Of course, these ancient peoples accounted for the phenomenon in a variety of ludicrous ways. Strong winds would supposedly blow the stones into the sky and from whence they fell back to the Earth. One of the most holy Muslim relics is the black stone (the Hadschar al Aswad) of the Kaaba (left), which is widely believed to be a fragment of a meteorite and may be the oldest preserved fragment from an observed fall. Such was the fate of a meteorite when it fall onto the ancient Earth.

But even after meteorites were recognized as genuine natural phenomena, debates raged over the places and processes of their origin. In 1879, it was seriously proposed that meteorites were terrestrial fragments that had been placed in near-Earth space by immense volcanic explosions. Since then, our understanding of meteorites has progressed slowly and is still in a rather primitive state compared with our current understanding of terrestrial rocks and even lunar samples. This is why we urgently need to divert energy and resources to the problem of meteorites. Although a vast descriptive and analytical literature of meteorites exists, the critical lack of certainty as to their places of origin has severely limited interpretations of modes of meteorite origin and possible genetic relations between different meteorite types.

More than 3600 different meteorites are preserved in collections throughout the world and that number is growing astronomically (pun intended). A meteorite fall may consist of thousands of of stone fragments or individual pieces of iron, but all of these pieces are considered part of the same meteorite. In virtually all cases, multiple falls are known to be the result of a larger individual piece into many more fragments under the immense aerodynamic pressure from the hypervelocity entry of the meteoroid into the dense portion of the Earth's atmosphere. Reported falls of meteorites are common.

If a recovered meteorite was not observed during its luminous passage through the atmosphere as a meteor or bolide, but is recognized as such by its texture, mineralogy, chemistry, surface features or unusual occurrence, it is termed a "find" (as opposed to a "fall"). By international convention, meteorites are named for the closest post office or community to the location of the fall or find that is easily located on a small scale map of the area.

Question: Why Explore Space?

Answer: We shouldn't. At least not yet.

Recently, NASA administrator Michael Griffin (right) wrote an article defending his agency's bloated budget and unfocused vision entitled "Why Explore Space?". You can read the whole article for yourself here. It's mostly mealy-mouthed mush, simple explanations for the untrained mind, rambling on about the Pilgrims and accepted human loses in the name of a greater good. But he also attempts to defend himself from harsher critics as well, such as the Columbia Accident Investigation Board and myself.

The Board reported that space travel was expensive, dangerous, and difficult. I would add that the scientific rewards are insignificant and could easily be augmented if a small portion of NASA's enormous budget was transferred to studying Space Geology. Very little technology has advanced since the inception of the space program in the 1950s and I hardly think that Mr. Griffin can justify a budget $16.3 billion with the "innovations" of NERF balls and Tang.

Mr. Griffin responds to this criticism with two main points. First, he believes that exploring space has strategic benefits for the United States. Second, he believes that the focus of the Vision for Space Exploration provides America with a clear set of goals to reach. These include: Complete the International Space Station (by 2010), retire the Space Shuttle (2010), develop the Orion space vehicle (2008), explore the Moon (2008), and explore Mars and other destinations with manned and unmanned missions. But this set of goals does not match with Mr. Griffin's first point.

If space exploration provides a strategic advantage for the United States, then why is the nation all atwitter over China's exploits (left) in the past week. We are the most accomplished country in the history of the world as far as space exploration, but it has not provided any strategic advantage for us. Other countries gain anti-satellite technologies (the USSR in the 1980s, China currently) and it propogates a space arms race that diverts energy and money from gaining knowledge about space.

If we turned inward, looked more closely at the space that comes to us, we would not fall victim to these traps. Mr. Griffin offers a panacea with a pointed vision and grand rhetoric. But his logic is faulty and holds no answers. There are more questions we may resolve with our feet firmly on the ground than risking life and limb (not to mention billions of dollars) hurtling through space.

History of the Sky

Since the beginning of time, Man has been fascinated with the dome above his head. I am speaking of the sky. Mythology across every culture is littered with stories about the creation of the sky, about the gods who control the sky, and about the dangers of Man venturing into the other domain. Often the sky god is the most powerful of all the gods, and often he is the father of mankind. For instance, in the Rig Veda, a collection of ancient Hindu hymns, Indra is described as the king of the gods. He has authority over the sky and the power to make rain with his thunderbolt. He is depicted as a man with four long arms riding a white elephant (above). In Greek mythology, Zeus has similar powers. For ancient Man, the sky was the seat of the greatest power in the universe.

But the sky was also a source of malevolent danger for Man. Sky gods are often petty and quarrelsome, and quick to smite those who displease them. The Maori people of New Zealand believed that the sky god, Rangi, held his beloved wife Papa, the Earth, in a tight embrace in order to prevent the creation of the world. Only the god of the forests, Tane, was able to separate the two and allow the world to be born. Another example would be the now familiar parable of Icarus. As long as he has dared to dream, Man has believed that if we ventured too far into the domain of the gods, we were doomed to death.

Now technology has taken us further into the sky than these ancient peoples could fathom. The ballooning Parisians of the 1780s advanced man one stage, the Wright Brothers another, Chuck Yeager yet another, and finally American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts (right) triumphed over the sky. We overcame all the barriers and left the sky and the planet behind.

I was seventeen years old when Neil Armstrong walked on the surface of the moon. I can not deny that the event sent a powerful message of valiant perseverance and human ingenuity. But I was disturbed by the warnings of the ancients. Had we gone too far? Had we angered God? And would our triumph over one of the oldest sources of fascination and fear for Man result in a deeply cynical and morally bankrupt society? With the benefit of nearly 40 years of reflection, I believe that the answer to all of my questions is a resounding yes.

This is one of the central components of my belief that we need to return to Space Geology. Man has an unquenchable desire to learn more, but too often he rushes forward into new ideas without fully understanding those of the past. Space Geology holds many answers that we have yet to uncover, and these mysteries must be addressed before we can move upward and outward.

Let the Space Come to Us

Man's first forays into the Space were ill-conceived ventures. In little more than tin cans with rockets, we sent our heroes into the sky with only the protection of their tin cans keeping them from the icy void of the Space. But we COULD do it, so Man's arrogance won the day.

I am proposing a return to the science of space geology. Let the space come to us. The Leonid Meteor Shower (right) is one such example. Hundreds of thousands of pieces of space matter collide with Earth every day and night. We have only begun to scratch the surface of their knowledge. There is still so much we can learn from Space Geology.

In the coming future, I will attempt to keep on top of all the new information we learn from Space Geology. I will also give brief lessons on the principles of the science and I may occasionally dabble in other disciplines as well. I hope that many of you come along for the ride! Be sure to bring your hopes and imaginations!