The NASA Equation

NASA gives a lot more than it gets. After working at Johnson Space Center for 13 years, I saw first hand the great engineering and technological advances developed there and then sent out to the business section. It is part of the NASA charter.

In fact, a recent NASA Agency report explains, "NASA generated more than $64.3 billion in total economic output during fiscal year 2019, supported more than 312,000 jobs nationwide, and generated an estimated $7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes throughout the United States."  This was all gained from NASA's budget of 1/2 of 1% of the federal budget. Awesome return on investment.

NASA has 10 centers operating across the U.S. and its economic impact is not just limited to states with NASA facilities. All 50 states receive economic gain from NASA’s research and space exploration missions.

It is one of the high points of this wildfire burning, Midwest flooding, hurricane spawning, 2020 pandemic "new normal." So, let's look to the stars for some positive relief and hope that next year we have a science data and aerospace driven outlook with less worries, better health, and a trustworthy COVID-19 vaccine that works. 

Stay healthy and remember to vote. Go science!

Starman - Sparking the Exploration Imagination

What a fantastic and inventive way to highlight the launch of new space hardware! A red Tesla and a Starman going where no sports car has gone before! Epic! Whimsical! Totally fun! Way to go SpaceX!

When was the last time you got to use those adjectives when talking or writing about the U.S. Space program? A VERY long time I'll wager. 

I worked at Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX for 13 years at the beginning of the Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs. It was super interesting and we made history nearly every day, albeit incrementally. 

The senior scientists and engineers said it was not as exciting as the "good old days" of Gemini and Apollo when we knew very little about space and were exploring it with primitive and limited data processing capabilities. 

Now a forward thinking, early-adopter, inventor, billionaire has sparked our collective imagination with a visual we will never forget. The generations to come will have a positive benchmark in their push to the stars. Go science!

Congrats Peggy Whitson!

As you might remember, I worked at NASA-Johnson Space Center for several years and was privileged to know and work alongside incredibly talented and courageous scientists, engineers, computer scientists and astronauts. One of those was Peggy Whitson who now holds the longest total combined time in space of any human. Peggy is a huge supporter of STEM education and all it offers. Check out this video of her talk with the President about all the opportunities in STEM and what her work means to her. Go science!

Leonid Meteor Shower

When I was a kid, we used to spend two weeks in the summer camping at a nearby reservoir. My brother and I often slept in the ski boat that was anchored out. We entertained ourselves by counting meteors as they flashed by in the dark sky. 

I credit those exciting observations with my subsequent interest in science and eventual work at NASA-Johnson Space Center. So cool.

Tonight, the Slooh Community Observatory, an astronomy broadcast service, will host a live webcast (Nov. 16) showing live views of the Leonid meteor shower. 

The livestream will host live meteor feeds from the observatory at the Institute of Astrophysics in the Canary Islands, as well as live streams from the United Kingdom, and Slooh’s HQ in Connecticut. Go science!

Leonid Meteor Shower

When I was a kid, we used to spend two weeks in the summer camping at a nearby reservoir. My brother and I often slept in the ski boat that was anchored out. We often entertained ourselves by counting meteors as they flashed by in the dark sky. 

I credit those exciting observations with my subsequent interest in science and eventual work at NASA-Johnson Space Center. So cool.

Tonight, the Slooh Community Observatory, an astronomy broadcast service, will host a live webcast (Nov. 16) showing live views of the Leonid meteor shower. 

The livestream will host live meteor feeds from the observatory at the Institute of Astrophysics in the Canary Islands, as well as live streams from the United Kingdom, and Slooh’s HQ in Connecticut. Go science!

NASA Asteroid Redirect Program

Scientists believe the dinosaurs were wiped out from the collision of an asteroid (about 7-8 miles wide) with the Earth. The resulting volcanic activity and dust cloud blocked sunlight and plants/animals died. A planet killer would be around 60 miles wide.

However, a half mile wide asteroid would also ruin your day as its impact would be roughly that of 100 billion tons of TNT and cause wide-spread earthquakes.

If you're like me, an asteroid colliding with the Earth is not on your DVR list of scheduled events anytime soon. Ditto for Netflix coverage in the next several thousand years. Hopefully, we will be vacationing on Alpha Centauri by then. Anyway, it doesn't look like there are any likely planetary colliders in the neighborhood.

But even if there were, NASA has a new program called the Asteroid Redirect Program that will land on a large asteroid, grab a boulder to study and then redirect the asteroid into a stable orbit around the moon. Although it seems like a new Bruce Willis or Matt Damon film, this mission is set to launch by 2020. 

Sounds like the operational outcome of all the work astronomers have been doing for years. Now instead of just shouting, "Incoming!" We'll soon have correctional space technology and a plan to divert disaster. Go Science!

Citizen Science - Disk Detective

We discuss cool science research regularly here, but today I want to focus on doing science as a lay person or "citizen science."

Interested in space and finding new planetary systems? Then, check out DiskDective.org where you can be part of a NASA and Zooinverse crowdsourcing project whose main goal is to publish scientific results from data collected from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), the Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS).

How?

Well, planets are created from immense clouds of dust, gas, and rock that swirl about a common center of gravity to form "debris disks" around a star. The rotating debris, from an angstrom up to a centimeter in size, come together in the disk to form planets.

Identifying these disks and possible planets takes computer and people power. You can help search for likely debris disks at the Disk Dectective website. The tutorial is simple and explains everything from how to know what you are looking at to how to compare images from different space scans. It's more fun than a video game and you are doing real science. Give it a try and let me know how you do. 

Find more citizen science projects on a variety of topics listed here, here, and here. Definitely something for everyone. Go science!

Could We Actually Live on Mars?

Many of you know how much I love the videos from asapScience. They answer everything from health questions to life on Mars. For folks who have never heard of them. Check them out on YouTube. If you are like me, you'll be a subscriber too. (asapScience has no idea I endorse them. They are just cool.) I pin a lot of their videos here as well. Go science!

Arkansas Science Festival

Since I love science and technology, some of you have probably heard me say, "All science, all the time" when asked about my interests and this blog. Well, here is another chance to share science research and discoveries. On October 6th, 2014, I will be hosting a Science Cafe at Godfrey's in Jonesboro, AR, starting at 6:30 p.m. as part of the Arkansas Science Festival.

The topic is: Rocket Science - Motors, Models, and Microorganisms in Space Exploration. My panelists will be David Thomas, Ph.D., Prof. of Biology, Lyon College, Ed Wilson, Ph.D., Professor of Chemistry, Harding University, and Tillman Kennon, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Science Education, Arkansas State University. Each of these folks do research in various aspects of space exploration. It will be a fun and relaxed evening with each panelist speaking for a few minutes about his work and then the event opened up for Q&A.

I may also be persuaded to provide a few stories from my 13 years at NASA- Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX and will have a some of my science books available for purchase afterwards. I look forward to seeing you there! Go science!

Interstellar Stardust and Its Absence

An international team of 23 scientists, has created maps (using data from 500,000 stars over a ten year period) of space materials located between the stars of the Milky Way. This material includes atoms and molecules left behind when a star dies, as well as building blocks for new stars and planets. The results published in the Aug. 15, 2014 issue of the journal Science may help astronomers solve a stardust puzzle that was first seen in 1922 in a graduate student's photographs of distant stars.

The research team focused on a strange feature in the light from stars; diffuse interstellar bands or "DIBs" (i.e., dark lines in the grad student's photographs). These visual and near-infrared spectra absorption lines seemed to show missing starlight as if something in the interstellar medium between Earth and the star was sucking up (not a technical term) the light. In fact, scientists have spotted more than 400 interstellar bands, but why the bands appear and their exact location are a mystery. 

Rosemary Wyse, a Johns Hopkins professor of physics and astronomy who played a major role in the research reports, "But we still don't know why stars form where they do. This study is giving us new clues about the interstellar medium out of which the stars form."

Finding the cause will allow researchers to better understand the physical conditions and chemistry of the space between stars and more on how stars and galaxies form. Go science!

Origami, Space and Solar Arrays

I love creativity in all its forms so when I came across this video on how engineers turned to origami to solve astronomical space problems (e.g., solar array design), I was hooked. 

Found in nature as fractals, math (specifically geometry) is complex and elegant. I love looking at the patterns of minerals, ferns, snowflakes, etc. The mirroring and pattern progression are beautiful and mesmerizing. Enter engineers looking for a way to compact a large solar array into a much smaller space (launch space is expensive). Voila! Art and engineering collide to create a functional, economic solution. 

Who knew the origami we all played with as kids could further space research? In my mind it just goes to show that art and science are intricately intertwined. Go science! (and art and engineering!) 

Ever wonder what happens to water wrung out in space? Two Nova Scotia high school students, Kendra Lemke and Meredith Faulkner, sent an experiment to the Canadian Space Agency asking this question. Astronaut Chris Hadfield tested it out on the International Space Station. The results are weird and amazing. Surface tension makes the water behave very strangely. Check it out! 

Pinterest for Science

If you're like me, adding another social media program to an already full plate is daunting. But, I'm a visually oriented science geek and Pinterest feeds my need for the latest science images/links and allows me to SAVE them. So I justify the hours I spend on Pinterest as getting organized!

It's fun and something I've come to look forward to. If a picture is worth a thousand words, I'm way ahead of the curve in keeping up with science, photography, writing, humor, cooking, etc. Plus, I get to exchange favorite wow moments with the ease of a "pin". Here is a link to my science and nature board. http://pinterest.com/sciwhisperer/science/
Send me your favorites. I can hardly wait!

Time Faster on Earth than in Space?

You know you have a strong science bent when you get excited about Bill Nye the Science Guy making new Consider the Following videos. Well I am and he did. Check out Bill's simple explanation on how fast time passes on Earth compared to outer space. You might be surprise at the answer! http://www.billnye.com/media/consider-the-following-videos/

Mars Triangle

If you enjoy spying cosmic coolness in the night sky, you won't want to miss the alignment in the west/southwest sky tomorrow evening at twilight of Mars, Saturn, and the star Spica. Here is a link for a sneak peek to what you will see.  http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/ataglance/ 
Enjoy!