In case you haven’t been keeping count, they’re up to Node 3 which should be set to attach sometime December 2009. Before casting you’re vote there’s a couple of things you should know. NASA wants to keep the name in the same spirit as the first two nodes, Unity and Harmony. Their poll has five selectable options; Earthrise, Legacy, Serenity, Venture, and a place where you can type in your own.

Photo – Front Of Node 3

In case you’re wondering what Node 3′s functions will be, it will serve a couple of purposes. First, it will have six windows, providing the astronauts with a wide view of Earth. The panoramic view being implemented has never been attempted like this before, and is one of the major feats of the node.

The Node 3 package will be carrying some major upgrades for the space station as well. It will come equipped with a robotics workstation, so they can use the giant robotic arm attached to the station. It will also be carrying many life support systems being transferred to the IST. Here are some of those components, and their general fuction:

– Oxygen Generation System (OGS), which takes the station’s water and splits it apart into hydrogen, which gets vented into space, and oxygen, which is returned into the cabin for the crew to breathe

– Atmosphere Revitalization System (ARS), which controls the station’s carbon dioxide levels and maintains the temperature and atmospheric pressure at comfortable level.

– Water Recovery System (WRS) and Urine Processor Assembly (UPA), which take waste water from the station and purify it, separating any contaminants and making it safe for the crew to drink

– Waste and hygiene compartment, which provides a place for the crew to use the bathroom in a way that allows the station to process the majority of the water used onboard so that it may be used again, greatly lessening the need for resupply flights from Earth.

Seeing as how the overall theme of the node seems to be the Earth, and providing life support systems I think I have an appropriate name: Genesis. Here’s the story, along with the poll if you wish to vote yourself.

What are some names you think should be given to Node 3? Leave your entries, or votes in the comments section below.

Wow, this is a great day for SpaceX and the culmination of an enormous amount of work by a great team. The data shows we achieved a super precise orbit insertion — middle of the bullseye — and then went on to coast and restart the second stage, which was icing on the cake.

I will have a more complete post launch statement tomorrow, as right now I’m in a bit of a daze and need to go celebrate

This is a pretty great day for any space enthusiast.  Another private company has gotten off of this planet.  I’m still of the opinion that while NASA’s research and their achievements shouldn’t be overlooked, what is going to get us off of this planet and into a permanent position in our solar system is going to be the private corporations.

This is great news!  If it weren’t for the past 4 days being completely cloudy, I’d be staring up at the skies right now.  Congratulations to those at SpaceX and all of the folks anywhere who labor and give towards the goal of getting up there.

Technorati Tags: spacex, falcon 1, orbit, space, successful launch, civilian space effort, blast off

Let’s hope for no explosions there either!  Way to go SpaceX!

Technorati Tags: spacex, space, civilian space flight, rockets, it really is rocket science

Click here for ultimate satellite tracking power!

This is not only fun for folks like me who could easily burn an hour or two finding out where sattelites are in real time but it’s also useful.  Planning on placing a bet on whether or not the Shuttle will collide with something on the way up?  Use this tool to calculate your odds before Vegas does it for you!  Want to create your own rocket/space program in your barn?  Well you’ll need to know what is up there so you can avoid it on the way up and down.

Once you launch the app, here are some useful shortcuts:

Shift+Click      Zoom In
Ctrl+Click     Zoom Out
Click on satellite     show trace
Click in list     show trace
Drag     rotate in 3d

While graphically this is no Crysis, the program is simple and easy to use.  You can track numerous sattlelites via a drop down menu or simply click on the dot in the app.

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: space, science, nasa, sattelites, DIY Space Program, science geeks

The new book by Nick Sagan (son of Carl Sagan), You Call This the Future?: The Greatest Inventions Sci-Fi Imagined and Science Promised, is characterized by explanations of some of the fascinating technologies envisioned in classic science fiction along with explorations of the progress modern science has made towards achieving those visions. Classic science fiction references appear side-by-side with summaries of state of the art scientific research.

The book is divided into 5 broad chapters, each covering 10 technologies that we have made progress towards realizing. The chapters are Travel and Transportation, Computers, Cyborgs, and Robots, Communications, Weapons and Security, and Life, Health, and Sex.

The Pros

This book is very well written. Each technology is described with multiple fictional appearances as well as detailed accounts of modern advances involving that technology. I was also surprised at how realistic many of the concepts once considered impossible have become. There were also detailed diagrams and high-quality images for all of the sections, which made the content much more engaging.

The Cons

Some of the technologies in the book were much less interesting than others. In a desire to have the same number of sections in each chapter, some sections were added that probably could have been left out – language translators, watch toys, and sex toys, for example.

I definitely recommend this book. It was a quick read, and each section was engaging and interesting. The price is very reasonable, as well.

The Stats

Title: You Call This the Future?: The Greatest Inventions Sci-Fi Imagined and Science Promised
Author(s): Nick Sagan, Mark Frary, and Andy Walker
ISBN10: 1556526857
ISBN13: 978-1556526855
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Cost: $11.21 (from Amazon)
Format: Paperback, 160 pages
Published: April 1, 2008

Technorati Tags: Carl Sagan, Nick Sagan, Mark Frary, Andy Walker, science fiction, technology, books, book reviews, You Call This the Future?: The Greatest Inventions Sci-Fi Imagined and Science Promised

We have no way of knowing what it is that the inhabitants of the Death Star want, or even if they are friendly. But one thing is for certain. On the fateful day when we must finally engage our enemy in combat, the greatest weapon available to us will be Jeff Goldblum and his Macintosh of Doom.

Technorati Tags: Jeff Goldblum, Star Wars, Independence Day, Macintosh, Death Star, San Francisco, video

THE Singularity, that’s what he’s talking about.  You know, the point where machine intelligence jogs past human intelligence and brings us to a new era where combined computer cognition is the equivalent of a minor deity.  Not only that, but it’s Kurzweil, without the T.  I don’t know if that’s Intel’s fault or Cnet’s on the transcription.

What is the Singularity really?  It’s where machine intelligence surpasses human intelligence – even by just a tiny bit.  At that point, the machines, which are now more knowing than we are, can recursively improve on themselves in a never ending and rapidly accelerating cycle of getting better and better.

Kurzweil tones it down a bit and simply says it’s going to be a time where machines can manifest their own rapidly advancing technology.  The implications of a meteoric rise in technology, self replicating smarter than human intelligences and you know, superbeings. . . it’s all still there though.  Perhaps in Intel’s mind, the Singularity involves computers designing processors for their next of kin to the point where we have the 1nm Intel processors featuring 10,000 cores.

Is this something we really want to work towards?  Is it inevitable?  And will these machines become self aware?  No one really knows but it’s certainly an interesting concept to think on.

For their part, I’ve awarded the first ever ArsGeek Overreaching Statement Award to Intel.  Congratulations Intel! Stating that they are actively working on the Singularity goes a bit beyond miniaturizing processors and coming up with interesting ways to optimize code for multiple cores.  It’s a bit like casually stating that your experiments on family dog have yeilded a doberman with the intelligence of your or I and the ability to speak several languages.

Technorati Tags: singularity, intel, ray kurzweil, ai, overraching statement award, computers, technology, other geeks, our future overlords

Technorati Tags: space, mars, web cams, 90s, science, technology

He was not forthcoming on probings.

Edgar Mitchell is not only an astronaut, but someone who’s interested in paranormal phenomena.  While on Apollo 14, in addition to doing cool back flips and science stuff, he conducted private ESP experiments with friends back on Earth.  He’s also a founding member of the Institute of Noetic Sciences.  Here’s a guy who’s been places and seems to think that there’s a connection between the spirit and all that provable science stuff.

The IONS is, in their own words:

A nonprofit membership organization located in Northern California that conducts and sponsors leading-edge research into the potentials and powers of consciousness—including perceptions, beliefs, attention, intention, and intuition. The Institute explores phenomena that do not necessarily fit conventional scientific models, while maintaining a commitment to scientific rigor.

In my words that translates out to “Crap we can’t prove“, but hey each to his own.  The guy’s ex-military and has been in space and that’s gotta be worth something.

The Daily Mail is reporting on Dr. Mitchell’s beliefs that aliens are here, have way better toys than us and do indeed have large eyes.

Aliens have contacted humans several times but governments have hidden the truth for 60 years, the sixth man to walk on the moon has claimed.

Apollo 14 astronaut Dr Edgar Mitchell, said he was aware of many UFO visits to Earth during his career with NASA but each one was covered up.

Dr Mitchell, 77, said during a radio interview that sources at the space agency who had had contact with aliens described the beings as ‘little people who look strange to us.’

He said supposedly real-life ET’s were similar to the traditional image of a small frame, large eyes and head.

Chillingly, he claimed our technology is ‘not nearly as sophisticated’ as theirs and “had they been hostile”, he warned ‘we would be been gone by now’.

Dr Mitchell, along with with Apollo 14 commander Alan Shepard, holds the record for the longest ever moon walk, at nine hours and 17 minutes following their 1971 mission.

‘I happen to have been privileged enough to be in on the fact that we’ve been visited on this planet and the UFO phenomena is real,’ Dr Mitchell said.

‘It’s been well covered up by all our governments for the last 60 years or so, but slowly it’s leaked out and some of us have been privileged to have been briefed on some of it.

‘I’ve been in military and intelligence circles, who know that beneath the surface of what has been public knowledge, yes – we have been visited. Reading the papers recently, it’s been happening quite a bit.’

Dr Mitchell, who has a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering and a Doctor of Science degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics claimed Roswell was real and similar alien visits continue to be investigated.

He told the astonished Kerrang! radio host Nick Margerrison: “This is really starting to open up. I think we’re headed for real disclosure and some serious organisations are moving in that direction.’

Mr Margerrison said: ‘I thought I’d stumbled on some sort of astronaut humour but he was absolutely serious that aliens are definitely out there and there’s no debating it.’

Officials from NASA, however, were quick to play the comments down.

In a statement, a spokesman said: “NASA does not track UFOs. NASA is not involved in any sort of cover up about alien life on this planet or anywhere in the universe.

‘Dr Mitchell is a great American, but we do not share his opinions on this issue.’

Technorati Tags: aliens, among us, astronauts, nasa, ions, space, technology, the final frontier, lgm

From the European Space Agency:

Echus Chasma is bounded to the west by the Echus Chasma plateau which lies about 4 km above the Echus Chasma floor. On the plateau are deeply incised valleys which connect to the Echus Chasma valley.

Technorati Tags: space, mars, echus chasma, mars express, picture

Arecibo Observatory, the world’s largest radio telescope and the source for
the SETI@home data that your computer analyzes, faces massive budget cuts that
will END its ability to continue the search for life beyond Earth. The decision
to ensure full funding currently rests upon votes in Congress on Senate Bill S.
2862 and House Resolution H.R. 3737. These bills desperately need more support.

Please take a moment to help us SAVE ARECIBO.

Clicking THIS LINK will direct you to a web page that allows you print
out letters prepared for your Senators and Congressional Representative urging
them to support Arecibo. Printing and mailing the letters is really easy, too!
You will also have the chance to add a few personal thoughts, if you wish, to
let your Senators and Representative know why this funding is important to you!
And if you’re really feeling passionate about saving Arecibo, please use these
letters as the basis for letters you write yourself, urging your congressmen
and women to vote to save Arecibo.

Because our representatives in Congress rarely give much attention to all the
email they receive, printing out and MAILING these letters via standard U.S.
Postal mail remains our best option for contacting them and our best hope for
saving Arecibo (The second best option is to call your representatives). Your
42 cent stamps on these letters could help us get the millions of dollars
needed to save Arecibo.

Our search cannot continue without the necessary support. Your work, as
SETI@home participants, represents an indispensable resource for conducting the
search. Now, we need your help to ensure that our other most valuable resource
- our eyes and ears to the cosmos – can continue to probe the universe as we
seek to answer the question: Is there anybody out there?
Photo courtesy of the NAIC – Arecibo Observatory, a facility of the NSF

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Pluto, demoted from planet status in 2006, got a consolation prize on Wednesday — it and other dwarf planets like it will be called plutoids.

The International Astronomical Union said in a statement that its executive committee meeting in Oslo, Norway, decided on the term.

Plutoids will be defined as celestial bodies in orbit around the Sun farther away than Neptune. They must have near-spherical shape, and must not have swept up other, smaller objects in their orbits, said the organization, which names newly discovered planets and other celestial bodies.

The two known and named plutoids are Pluto and Eris, but astronomers expect to find more.

Another dwarf planet, Ceres, does not merit the plutoid designation because it is in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

(Reporting by Maggie Fox)

Technorati Tags: Pluto, plutoids, Mickey Mouse

Technorati Tags: nasa, moon, name, yours, send, vroom, space, cool, technology

Okay, it’s really a cloud, but given our tendency to take abstract patterns and glom them into something relatively familiar – we get the Starship Enterprise. It’s nice to know that while we fumble about with space flight and much, much slower than light travel that the boys and girls from Starfleet are keeping Mars safe. (Click the picture for a larger version)

While I’ve never been a huge Star Trek fan myself, the show did do a lot for me in a round about way by getting lots of other folks thinking about spaceflight, science fiction and what have you. It certainly helped birth several generations of scientists, authors and creative media types. I think it’s only right to pay some respect to the old ship and somehow fitting that the MGS should have come up with this photo.

The photo was captured by Mars Global Surveyor on March 27, 2001 as it was performing a slewing maneuver (an “off-nadir spacecraft reorientation”). The camera captured both the surface of Mars (bottom part of the image) and black space at the top of the image; features appear distorted because of the motion of the spacecraft. During the maneuver Mars Global Surveyor happened to catch some high clouds silhouetted against space. Humans have a propensity to see faces and other meaningful shapes in randomly occuring natural patterns, a phenomenon known as pareidolia.

Thanks to the Planetary Society.

Technorati Tags: star trek, enterprise, mars, surveyor, klingons, spaceflight, boldly going

Has anyone called Mulder or Scully yet? You’d think that if something like this really was taped, we’d be watching this video on CNN, not on ArsGeek.

Technorati Tags: ufo, mulder, scully, the truth is through the window, et, extra terrestrials, aliens, airplane, hub caps

WARNING: Bird Armageddon contained in this video.

Technorati Tags: shuttle, nasa, ouch, bird, thwack, space, technology, video, carnage

Technorati Tags: shuttle, space, technology, nasa, flight, home

What the hell is that you might ask?  Why it’s instructions on how to get to London.  FROM SPACE!  Or er. . . maybe a moterbike course.

Anyway, here’s how it looks in Google Earth (red lines added by me):

See, located just North of the giant white beach balls and North East from the collection of random tents is the Alien Signpost.  This is actually a picture of the RAF Feltwell base as seen from satellite via Google Earth.  When interviewed by the Metro UK, Kate Hudson said RAF Feltwell was so secret ‘almost anything could go on’.  She added: ‘The 12,000 US troops based in Britain are involved in all sorts of surveillance operations.   But she isn’t just a movie star, she’s also the chairwoman of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the UK.

The RAF demurs shyly and says that what you’re seeing is really a motorbike course, where motorcycle safety is being taught.  TO ALIENS!

Technorati Tags: aliens, lgm, raf, super secret, space, technology, spacemen, shhhh

If an astronaut who is not consciously trying to be an artist takes a picture of the space shuttle, like the one below, is it art?  Can art be created accidentally or does there always need to be thought behind it?  This picture for instance, which to me is beautiful and I’d gladly frame and put on my wall, was taken for the purposes of inspection.  Any damage to the leading edge of that wing?

If it’s not art, what does it take to make it art?  If it is art, then can anyone armed with a relatively inexpensive digital camera start holding shows in New York?  Where does the line between a simple photograph, a picture of your Aunt Stelle or the Shuttle, turn into art?

Technorati Tags: shuttle, space, art, artists, what makes it, technology, beauty, accidental art

Promethei Planum, an area seasonally covered with layer of ice more than 3500 m thick layer of ice in the martian south polar region, was the subject of the High Resolution Stereo Camera’s focus on 22 September 2005 as Mars Express was in orbit above the Red Planet.

Check out this link for a ~2MB jpg, or if you’re a real detail enthusiast, you can head here and grab the 104MB .TIF image.

Promethei Planum lies at approximately 76° south and 105° east.

An approximately 100 km-large and 800 m-deep impact crater is visible in the northern part of the image. The crater’s interior is partly covered in ice.

In the centre of the image are structures that may have been created by basaltic lava flow from a volcano. This area is covered in ice. The dark dunes towards the bottom of the image are most likely made up of dust originating from this lava flow or volcanic ash.

A broad sheet of ice, which is an extension of the south polar ice cap is located south of the lava flow, to the left in the (nadir) image. The steep flanks clearly show white, clean ice. The thickness of the ice is between 900 and 1100 m.

Technorati Tags: mars, images, pictures, ice, ice, baby, Promethei Planum, ESA, space, science, technology

On Friday, March 7, Endeavour’s seven astronauts are scheduled to arrive at Kennedy at 9 p.m. EST NASA Television will provide live coverage as STS-123 Commander Dominic Gorie makes a brief statement to media. Credentialed journalists planning to cover the event must be at Kennedy’s News Center by 7:30 p.m. for transportation to the Shuttle Landing Facility.

The launch countdown begins at 3 a.m. EST on Saturday, March 8 at T-32 hours. The countdown includes 27 hours and 28 minutes of built-in hold time leading to a preferred launch time of 2:28 a.m. EDT on March 11. The launch window extends an additional five minutes.

If you’re so inclinded to be awake and at your computer at 2:28 AM on March 11, you can watch the launch live on NASA TV.

Technorati Tags: NASA, tv, shuttle endeavour, schedule, calendar, bottle rocket

Of particular interest to me is the Bigelow Aerospace launch to take place sometime in 2011. Bigelow Aerospace is that company that’s dreaming of getting an orbital hotel franchise up and running. The space hotels could be used pretty much for anything, not just rooms with views, but laboratories, launching points or what have you.

If you’re a space enthusiast, as I am, this is an exciting time to be watching developments unfold. I’m still very much of the opinion that the real breakthroughs in space exploration and working/living in a near vacuum will be brought about by private industry, not government sponsored agencies. I don’t have anything against NASA, the ESA or other government agencies it’s just a reality that profits drive innovation.

Here’s the SpaceX launch schedule:

Technorati Tags: space, spacex, exploration, science, technology, aerospace, falcon, launch, final countdown

We all know about Abell 1835 IR1916 (not pictured above). That galaxy that just happens to be the furthest and thus oldest galaxy ever seen by Hubble. It’s just about 13.25 million light years away – far even compared to driving through Texas, and this galaxy’s been around for about 97% of the time the Universe has existed.

What makes this galaxy so special is that it was built to order or at least modified to order. That’s what the India Daily would have us believe, anyway.

The galaxy Abell 1835 IR1916 is located about 13,230 million light-years away. Hence, it is seen at a time when the Universe was merely 470 million years young, that is, barely 3 percent of its current age.

Scientists are finding extraterrestrial influence in this galaxy. It seems the galaxy was engineered and fit into place by artificial forces. This is the furthest galaxy ever discovered. Therefore it is also the earliest galaxy that we can view through gravitational lenses.

Some 13.7 billion years ago, after the big bang, the Universe plunged into darkness. Neither stars nor quasars had yet been formed which could illuminate the vast space. The Universe was a cold and opaque place. Some thing went wrong, according to some scientists. Intervention was needed by the Type IV civilization that created the big bang in their massive inter-universe particle colliders. The big bang created a black hole in the hyperspace – our universe with three spatial dimensions and a forward moving single time dimension. According to scientists this was the start of ‘dark ages’ that was eventually corrected through the intervention of the Type IV civilization.

The galaxy Abell 1835 IR1916 is part of the “Cosmic Renaissance” that was artificially engineered by the Type IV civilization.

Technorati Tags: et, lgm, pan galactic gargleblaster, space, science, ish, technology, aliens, hubble, galaxy

Just what’s going to happen to all of that extra hardware? According to the draft the environmental impact should be fairly low – with much of the existing facilities and hardware being reused for the Constellation program.

If you’re interested in what’s coming next, check out NASA’s Constellation jumping off point.

If you’re the type who’s environmentally minded and interested in the space program as well, NASA is looking for comments from the public – the draft is open to comments through March 28th. Get the entire 24MB draft in PDF format right from here.

The briefing on the draft (itself a page long) can be found after the jump. To contact the folks at NASA with comments, either email nasa-sspeaATmail.nasaDOTgov or get them out the old fashioned way to:

AS10/Environmental NEP Coordinator
SSP Transition and Retirement Program
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
Building 4249/100C
MSFC, Alabama 35812

WASHINGTON – NASA has issued a draft programmatic environmental assessment on potential impacts resulting from the Space Shuttle Program’s move toward retirement in 2010 and the transition to the Constellation Program.

The assessment concludes that, because of the use of shuttle components and facilities by the Constellation Program, potential environmental impacts from disposing of the shuttle program’s real and personal property would be minimal to moderate, depending on the property disposition method. The study also assesses the social and economic influence of the shuttle program on the regions around NASA’s major centers. Analysis shows that the contribution of the shuttle program is relatively modest in proportion to the overall economic activity of the regions, less than one percent, except in the Kennedy Space Center, Fla., region, where it is less than three percent.

The National Environmental Policy Act requires federal agencies to consider the potential environmental consequences of their proposed actions before deciding whether and how to proceed. NASA developed this draft programmatic environmental assessment to help make informed decisions on the best options for disposing of shuttle assets.

The draft programmatic environmental assessment examines the effects of implementing a centralized process to dispose of shuttle program real and personal property. Real property includes items such as buildings, structures and land, while personal property includes items such as flight hardware, parts, and materials. While the shuttle program is scheduled for retirement in 2010, disposition activities for excess property are underway and may extend several years past the final flight in 2010.

Options for disposal of property include reuse by other NASA programs, storing for future NASA use, demolition, or release to the General Services Administration for disposition.

NASA will accept public comments on the draft programmatic environmental assessment through March 28, 2008. The final programmatic environmental assessment is expected to be complete in spring 2008. An appendix in the final programmatic environmental assessment will include public comments and NASA’s responses. NASA expects to provide a formal decision on the method of the shuttle program property disposition activities in early 2009.

Image courtesy of LaughingSquid on Flickr (CC).

Technorati Tags: shuttle, environment, space, technology, public comment, EPA, NASA, pdf, geek, up up and away

I was reading this morning an interesting article via Discover online about using gravity tractors to hurl dense objects through solar systems and cause their stars to shift.  Over the course of a few million years, you could use this technique to align several stars in such a way as to create a geometric pattern – thus signaling your intelligence and your amazing amount of patience to nearby stellar neighbors.

Should be be looking for largish 3D boxes out there?  Circles and squares?  It’s certainly an interesting idea and one that will get the point across several million light years – given several million years for that light to travel.   Catch the full article after the jump.

This month I seriously propose that we begin the process of repositioning the sun and other nearby stars in order to send signals to aliens, and that we begin the search for signs that aliens might have done the same for our benefit.

Perhaps I should preface this crazy-sounding idea with an explanation. Science is an emotional experience for me, sometimes even more emotional than art. The reason, I think, reflects both our current understanding of humanity’s place in the universe and the events of my childhood. Astronomy has taught us that Earth is a mere dot in an inaccessible vastness. Almost everything in the night sky is so far away that there’s little hope of our having contact with other life out there—if such life even exists. Worse than the possibility that we are alone is the feeling that it doesn’t matter even if we aren’t. My early life amplified this feeling of solitude: My mom died when I was a kid, and for a time the rest of the human species felt as distant from me as the deep universe does now.

I suspect a similar emotion is hidden in the pasts of many people who become interested in science, especially physics and astronomy. It’s the secret engine inside the archetype of the nerd, the kid who is disengaged from social games but is mesmerized by the bigger game of trying to engage reality in a fundamental way.

There is probably no more concrete, no greater contact-seeking attempt at engaging the universe than the search for alien life. The most prominent efforts, called SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), do that by listening for signals: We might get lucky and catch an alien radio transmission, for instance.

Luck is important to these efforts because we are confined to investigating such a tiny sector of space and time within an enormous universe. Suppose we set up a radio broadcast for aliens to hear, and suppose we could keep the transmitter going for 100,000 years—far longer than civilizations have existed, nearly as long as modern humans have. Even that duration would probably be too brief for the broadcast to be heard.

The reason is that the advent of humans easily could have been accelerated or delayed hundreds of millions of years by something as banal as an asteroid hit. If the asteroid that apparently led to the demise of the dinosaurs had missed Earth, maybe an intelligent dinosaur would have appeared 50 million years sooner than people did. Or maybe an intelligent mammal still would have appeared, but 200 million years later than we did. Since evolution on other worlds would presumably be just as sensitive to random events, it is incredibly unlikely that intelligent aliens would happen to be listening during a particular 100,000-year window when our radio broadcasts happened to be washing over their location.

So we search for better ways to make contact, some means by which to get around the tiny-time-aperture problem. One approach is to send out the equivalent of a message in a bottle, and indeed the two Voyager spacecraft are headed out to the stars carrying golden disks engraved with rudimentary information about humans and Earth. The spacecraft might last a very long time, but they have a handicap: They are physically small, so they’d probably have to pass quite close to an alien civilization to be detected.

Is there any method of reaching out to the rest of the universe that will cover a lot of time and space? The hint of a solution arises from current thinking about how to make sure we don’t go the way of the dinosaurs. If an asteroid were headed our way, we’d prefer to prevent it from hitting us. One promising way to do that is with a gravitational tractor, a spacecraft sent to fly alongside a dangerous asteroid. Over a sufficient period of time—several years, perhaps—the slight gravitational pull of the craft would divert the asteroid onto a new, safe course.

Suppose this principle of the gravitational tractor could be scaled up using what I’ll call a “gravitational hedge fund.” We send up a significant number of tractor spacecraft over many years. Eventually a fleet assembles in the outer solar system. The spacecraft are autonomous, able to operate even if the civilization that constructed them expires. They are programmed to operate for hundreds of thousands of years, like the outlandish radio transmitter I considered earlier, but they will generate a far more profound legacy than a radio signal.

The fleet assembles to adjust the trajectories of some of the larger Kuiper belt objects, cometlike bodies at the periphery of the solar system. (Moving those around won’t cause problems for inner planets like Earth.) Over a long period, the reconfigured Kuiper belt objects serve as a larger gravitational tractor to tilt the plane of the solar system and then to change the trajectory of the sun through the Milky Way. Meanwhile, we also will have sent clusters of spacecraft to 15 or so nearby stars. It could take many tens of thousands of years for the spacecraft to reach these stars and a much longer time to change their trajectories.

Why move stars around? Because then they could be guided into orbital formations that almost certainly would not have occurred naturally. An imaginable set-up period of tens of thousands of years could therefore be leveraged into a much longer period—billions of years, perhaps—during which aliens could observe the fruits of our efforts. A group of stars organized to present a sign in this way might be called a “graphstellation” (like a constellation, but also a form of writing).

To state the obvious, there are enormous challenges to doing this. The idea of a gravitational hedge fund is entirely speculative for now and might not be workable. Even if it can be done, our solar system is a poor candidate for manipulation. The mass of the entire Kuiper belt is perhaps one one-millionth the mass of the sun, so there isn’t much to work with. The coming decades will see a survey of the structures of nearby solar systems, however. Perhaps some nearby systems are better arranged for gravitational hedge fund action. An ideal solar system would have suitable gradations of adjacent orbital masses. Failing that, perhaps some other method of nudging a star’s path will come along.

The playfulness, open-mindedness, and intellectual generosity of the best scientists always amaze me, never more so than when I called Piet Hut at the Institute for Advanced Study to talk about the prospects for graphstellations. (He has, among many other things, been at the forefront of the study of strange but possible orbital structures.) The fact that we haven’t proved we can move asteroids, much less stars, doesn’t faze Piet at all. If the motivation for creating a graphstellation is valid and there is no proof that the idea is impossible, his view is that it is worth contemplating.

Piet immediately suggested a design for a multiply nested binary star graphstellation that would have the delightful technical designation “hyper-super-duper double-star system”: a pair of a pair of a pair of double stars, 16 total. This configuration would be stable and unlikely to interact with nearby stars. It also would do no harm to the solar system or life on Earth, should we end up as part of the formation. The set-up phase would coax pairs of stars into headings destined to bring them into mutual embrace in such a way that the pairings would eventually pair as well, and so on. Such a structure would be vanishingly unlikely to come about naturally, and it would be recognizable at a great distance. An alien observer wouldn’t have to be able to discern all the individual stars in order to notice that something funny was going on; the alien would only have to note subtle changes in the qualities of the light, wobbles in the position, and other clues.

Piet and I had an interesting exchange comparing graphstellations to the Egyptian pyramids. Is there something inherently macho about rearranging the stars, in the way the pyramids seem macho to us, or is it more like a lonely cry in the wilderness?

An interesting comparison can be made to the Dyson Sphere. In 1960 physicist Freeman Dyson suggested that an advanced civilization might want to capture all the solar energy from a star, and so might build a spherical structure all around it. He suggested looking around to see if there are any such spheres out there. None have been found thus far. A graphstellation would have far less utilitarian value to its creators, but it also would probably be far easier to build and detect than a Dyson Sphere.

The obvious next step is to look around and see if anyone out there has already created a graphstellation. This will not be a trivial exercise. There are a lot of stars, and we have to consider the potential range of graphstellation designs, not only the ones that have already occurred to us. But I am in the process of engaging my astronomer friends in the hunt. I have also been talking to people who plan space missions. Crazier things have happened.

Technorati Tags: space, stars, objects, aliens, lgm, scifi, sf, science, moving stars

Space shuttle Endeavour’s rollout to Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Fla., has been rescheduled for 12:01 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 18. Endeavour is targeted to lift off March 11 on the 16-day STS-123 mission to the International Space Station.

The first movement of the shuttle will be approximately seven hours earlier than previously scheduled. The fully assembled space shuttle, consisting of the orbiter, external fuel tank and twin solid rocket boosters, will be mounted on a Mobile Launcher Platform and delivered to the pad on top of a crawler transporter. The crawler will travel slower than 1 mph during the 3.4-mile journey. The process is expected to take approximately six hours.

NASA Television’s Media Channel will provide live coverage of Endeavour at the launch pad beginning at 6:30 a.m. Video highlights of the rollout will air during NASA TV Video File segments.

Media are invited to a photo opportunity of the shuttle at the pad and an interview availability with Endeavour Flow Director Ken Tenbusch at 8 a.m. Monday. Dates and times of this event are subject to change. Updates are available by calling 321-867-2525. Weather permitting, as part of NASA’s 50th anniversary activities, the Air Force Thunderbirds will fly over Endeavour at the launch pad at approximately 10:15 a.m.

Journalists must arrive at Kennedy’s news center by 6 a.m. for transportation to the viewing area. Foreign news media accreditation for this event is closed. Foreign media with credentials must arrive at the Pass and Identification Building on State Road 3 by 6 a.m. for transportation to the news center.

The STS-123 mission will deliver the first section of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Kibo laboratory and the Canadian Space Agency’s two-armed robotic system, Dextre. Five spacewalks will be conducted during the flight.

Endeavour will be commanded by Dominic Gorie. Gregory H. Johnson will be the pilot. Mission specialists will be Robert L. Behnken, Mike Foreman, Rick Linnehan, Garrett Reisman and Japanese astronaut Takao Doi. Reisman will remain on the station as a resident crew member, replacing station Flight Engineer Leopold Eyharts of the European Space Agency, who will return home on Endeavour.

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In the mean time, gaze with wonder at the Columbia lab being shuffled from shuttle to ISS.

Here’s the full sized picture.

Full sized space plane love here.

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Researchers will test a NASA-funded robotic probe under ice here on Earth to demonstrate whether the probe’s systems can operate in a similar environment on Jupiter’s moon Europa. Testing will take place Feb. 12-15 in Lake Mendota on the campus of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

The Environmentally Non-Disturbing Under-ice Robotic Antarctic Explorer is a $2.3 million project funded by NASA’s Astrobiology Science and Technology for Exploring Planets Program. The probe is an autonomous underwater vehicle designed to swim untethered under ice, creating three-dimensional maps of underwater environments. The probe also will collect data on conditions in those environments and take samples of microbial life. Researchers then plan to ship the probe to a permanently frozen lake in Antarctica for operations later this year.

Science teams are developing and testing the technology for a possible underwater exploration mission on Europa far in the future. The probe is a follow-up to the Deep Phreatic Thermal Explorer, a NASA-funded project that completed a series of underwater field tests in Mexico in 2007.

Technorati Tags: spaced, science, technology, ice ocean, europa, raman, pastafarian