MarsBlog - Part 89

Save the LUT

I hadn’t realized things were moving so quickly — it doesn’t look like there is a whole lot of time left to Save The LUT:

Demolition Has Begun!
NASA has been forced to accede to EPA demands that work proceed with disposal of LUT 1, which has been classified as “hazardous waste” due to its eroding paint surface.

On February 12th, the disposal work has re-started. Nevertheless, the cutting of the main structure will not begin for about two more weeks, probably in the week starting March 1st, giving us that much time to find a donor or business investor committed to preserving this historic artifact from the most incredible achievement ever undertaken by mankind.

The eroding paint can be safely removed while at the same time preserving this treasure of our past. LUT 1 can still be saved if the right conditions are met. NASA have provided the Space Restoration Society with a direct line to contact if such a donor comes forward. Anything past the March 1st date will result in less and less of the intact tower remaining for a pristine restoration. Six months from now there will be nothing remaining.

We need your support now more than ever – please sign the petition and get everyone you know to sign it too.

We have a form letter which you can print and mail to your senator and house represetatives.

The House and the Bush Plan

Keith Cowing covers last week’s House Science Committee’s hearing on the new space policy.

Surprisingly, the Representatives quoted seem to favor the policy (or at least did not express opposition to it). The only real controversies mentioned in the article had to do with the cancellation of the fourth Hubble servicing mission, and the potential for NASA center closures.

Both Marburger and O’Keefe argued that the new plan is in no way intended to be a “balloon” program, committing the fedgov today to spend hundreds of billions in some distant fiscal year, and would instead be conducted incrementally, adjusting to events along the way. By “events”, I take it they mean changes in the federal budget situation, maturation of new technologies during the program, success or failure of a particular milestone in the plan, etc. But one would hope that included with these “events” would also be the development of entrepreneurial alternatives, which NASA could employ to more quickly and cost-effectively achieve a given milestone (or a portion thereof) and move on to the next.

Those who believe that the plan is a “hoax” should take note of this — if they continue to dismiss the new vision for NASA, they won’t be able to exert any influence in the shaping of it to steer the agency in a direction more amenable to the budding alternative space industry. There is no guarantee that this new vision will be any less hostile to private space, but neither is there a guarantee that it must be hostile. Washing one’s hands of the whole matter, however, increases the odds that what comes out of the process will not be to one’s liking.

GSFC Tapped for Lunar Orbiter

Goddard has been given the go-ahead to begin planning for a lunar reconnaissance orbiter as part of the Moon-Mars plan.

On the one hand, this is a good thing, as it is one more signal that the new plan is not just smoke and mirrors (well, provided that a spacecraft actually does emerge from the Goddard work).

On the other hand…there is already a “reconnaissance orbiter” of sorts headed to the Moon this year: TransOrbital’s TrailBlazer. One might think, with Carly Fiorina on the Aldridge Commission and HP involved to at least some extent in TrailBlazer, that NASA might consider buying the TrailBlazer dataset. While this may not be the kind or level of detail of data that a big NASA mission would promise to return, it would be a good (not to mention immediate) first step — and it might eliminate some duplication of effort later on, freeing NASA’s orbiter from, say, the high-resolution visible-light mapping task so that it can focus on other tasks.

You Think Your Weather’s Bad

The MERs are returning some surprising, very unearthlike meteorological data.

It’s a Biggun’

Mars Express stares at volcano

Sandy In The Planum With Diamonds

This weird shot from Opportunity, referenced by recent traffic casualty Sandy Moondust, looks more like a Woodstock-era concert poster than a bit of scientific data.

The photo is a composite image of hematite concentration (via Mini-TES) overlaid onto a visible-light image of the surface. High concentrations of hematite are indicated in red, shading through green to lower concentrations indicated by blue. The bedrock outrcropping appears visibly lower in hematite than the soil. Some of the blue blobs closest to Opportunity look to me like beach-ball prints, where the soil was disturbed by airbags during the rover’s landing…which if true is a curious bit of data, since it implies the soil itself is low in hematite but for a very thin layer at the surface.

Nukes and Skycranes

Next Generation Rover: The Mars Science Laboratory.

Electronic Paper

Every once in a while, some news about the development of electronic paper (or electronic ink) comes out. This article from Forbes covers Philips’ unveiling of an ultra-thin flexible design, expected to be on the market in 2006.

Red Planet may have been a pretty lousy movie, but one of the neat gadgets on display in the film was the flexible, transparent map scroll, which the marooned astronauts used (for example) to find out where they were after their disastrous landing. Looks like we may see such things in the corner electronics store much sooner than 2050.

Zubrin Does D.C.

Zubrin DC Tour a Major Success
February 11, 2004

For further information about the
Mars Society, visit our website at www.marssociety.org

On February 5-6, Mars Society president Robert Zubrin visited Washington DC, meeting with numerous influential people and participating in two public events.

Continue reading Zubrin Does D.C.

Hey, Look!

I got a mention in a FOX News article! I’m famous!

Oh, oh yeah…and Rand Simberg handily dismantles the “Moon-Mars Plan is Bush Election-Year Pandering Hoax” in the same article, too.

(If you’re looking for the article in question, it’s here. Thanks for the plug, Rand!)

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