Probing Space

I've always been fascinated by space, when I was a kid I used to pore over astronomy books, reading about the findings of probes such as Viking 1 and 2.  I remember that I was really excited about the finding that the Mars atmosphere contained 1% oxygen (which apparently is wrong, I'm led to understand that it's actually 0.13%) because at the time I thought that it meant that, with some sort of oxygen extraction device, it could increase the feasibility of a Mars base.

Now, recently NASA reported that there appears to be quantities of hydrogen gas on Saturn's moon Enceladus, created by significant hydrothermal activity on its sea floor, as well as observing plumes of what appears to be water on Jupiter's moon Europa.

However, there's one thing when it comes to space exploration that puzzles me - why do space mission people feel the need to end their spacecraft?

The twin GRAIL lunar research spacecraft were smashed into the Moon into two impact sites named Ebb and Flow. The European Space Agencies' Rosetta spacecraft was slammed into a comet.  The Messenger spacecraft crashed into Mercury. And the Cassini spacecraft is shortly due to begin a final series of complex maneuvers before being sunk into the depths of Saturn, to be crushed by the heavy atmospheric pressures of the gas giant.

Illustration of Cassini Spacecraft's Grand Finale Dive
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

To be fair, the Cassini probe is hoped to carry out some unique research on its final descent into the planet.  And the Messenger one ran out of fuel.  But I'm not convinced that for at least some of these spacecraft the main intent of a crash landing isn't just to give an opportunity for one last press release, one high profile end to a long long story.  To give the mission team some closure.  And to be fair they probably deserve it after working on a mission for so many years.

But how much do these probes cost?  The Rosetta mission, for example, cost 1.4 billion Euros, while Cassini cost well over $3bn.  Seems like a lot of money spent on something if we ultimately wreck it - although, to be honest, I don't have a big issue with the cost, for me space travel is potentially one of the most important pieces of research that we can do, and as long as it completes its mission, I do think it's money well spent.

But what is more important to me is that I believe, in a few hundred years time, assuming that:

• Humans don't destroy themselves and the planet
• We actually manage to overcome our difficulties, and;
• We expand our civilisation into space

I suspect that we might actually like to recover some of these ancient artifacts of what will be primitive space travel.  We'll consider the casual destruction of these probes as historical crimes, and historians will spend a great deal of time and effort deciphering designs and textbooks to recreate impressions of spacecraft lost to time.  That is assuming that we have records of these spacecraft at all.

Think of the Early Middle Ages in Europe, how it is often referred to as the "Dark Ages", because we have so little surviving documentation that tells us what happened.  Or more recently, thousands of TV and radio shows have been lost because until the 1970s it was quite common to record over old tapes, or not record them in the first place.  I know the BBC have put great effort into recreating episodes of classics such as Hancock's Half Hour and Doctor Who, of which original recordings have been lost.

It's not too hard to imagine someone, several centuries from now, spending decades carefully analysing a modern day space probe - perhaps one of the Mars Rovers - desperately trying to obtain clues about our existence from the probes we sent out into space. Basic stuff - what did we eat? Who were our leaders? And what is a "selfie"?!?

Curiosity Self-Portrait at Martian Sand Dune
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

So my view is that rather than giving these craft a glorious but brief end, we should instead stick a M-Disc full of information in it (along with a DVD drive to read it), and when a probe has finished its expensive mission our mission controllers should allow it to rest safely, enabling future discovery.

Extra reading:

https://www.nature.com/news/saturn-spacecraft-begins-science-swan-song-1.21813 

https://www.wired.com/2016/09/ode-rosetta-spacecraft-going-die-comet/ 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/apr/29/nasas-messenger-spacecraft-to-crash-into-mercury-ending-mission 

https://www.universetoday.com/99035/end-of-mission-grail-spacecraft-impact-a-mountain-on-the-moon/ 

3 days to an asteroid impact - time to tweet!

The European Space Agency has been busy this year.  Not content with managing to land a fridge on a comet, they've now worked out that about three days before an asteroid hits the Earth, they would have worked out where it's going to hit.

Armed with this information however, what would you do?

Well, today we're here to provide you with a foolproof guide to help you.

Should a huge asteroid be predicted to hit the Earth in the next three days, DON'T PANIC.

Firstly, travel to your nearest supermarket and buy emergency phone chargers - you know the sort, the ones which are some sort of external battery pack for your phone.  These are absolutely critical because you will get no end of opportunities to tweet exciting news in the next few days, e.g.:

This guy doesn't even realise the difference between an asteroid and a comet.

Next, this is absolutely the time to start up your own YouTube channel.  Everyone in the world is going to want to hear just what is happening where you live.  You don't need to worry about the quality of your videos, everyone will be desperate to find out any information there is about the asteroid.  Make sure you make up information to include in your videos so ensure that people watch them.  Perhaps, from the precise angle that you're viewing the asteroid from, it looks like Angelina Jolie's left ankle?

Finally, and most importantly, you have to bear in mind your own protection.  This is a time to look after yourself.

We're talking skincare.

We have no idea what kind of radiation that bad boy is going to emit on its way down into the atmosphere, so it's definitely time for a good quality barrier cream, maybe even some of that ultra-thick Norwegian formula stuff.  Essentials include rubber gloves, a hat with a wide brim, and make sure that you only use pH balanced soap.

We hope that this has been useful for you, and remember... don't have nightmares.

A fridge lands on a comet

In less than 12 hours, a fridge called Phil will be touching down on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

Of course that's nonsense, but in less than 12 hours, a fridge sized lander called Philae will be landing on the aforementioned comet as part of the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission. The mission will analyse the comet and do all kinds of interesting stuff.

Find out all the latest, including watching the mission control room, at http://rosetta.esa.int/ - to be honest it's not that exciting, but I think everyone's been clearly briefed about the webcam - everyone looks busy (although you can't see their screens so they could be playing Solitaire) and they do seem to surreptitiously glance at the webcam when passing near it. And there appears to be music playing, I don't know if the music is actually playing in the control room or if its to replace whatever noise there is in the room, I assume that it's much like any other workplace and there's the danger of someone within the range of the webcam complaining about a co-worker, eating a bacon sandwich, or swearing when they realise that they forgot to charge their smartphone, so not transmitting sound is probably a good idea.

Nevertheless, I'm doing my best to piece together what's going on. There's a guy in a suit who walks around - I think that he's a boss of some sort, perhaps making sure that the mission will achieve its agreed objective of landing on a chunk of ice.

Then there are some guys with shaved heads with headsets on. I think that these are possibly telesales operatives selling secondhand fridges, as I presume prior to launching the mission they probably used a lot of fridges to see how to crash one into a comet without breaking it - they're probably a lot cheaper to damage than a space science probe.

There are also some other guys also wearing headsets but with hair. I think that these are IT technicians because I've seen them at least once get under a desk, which in my experience means that they are computer techies fixing the network or plugging in a USB cable or some such thing.

Finally there is one other quite young guy with hair, glasses, and no headset. He's clearly a trainee who perhaps is on day release from the local college, and I'm surprised that I haven't seen him bringing anyone coffee yet.

So do head over to the website at about 8.30am GMT when I expect the room will be a lot fuller as they do the rather challenging task of landing a fridge probe onto a speeding chunk of ice by remote. Seriously though, all the best to the ESA with this incredible mission!