Alan Stern Resignation > The aftermath posts - II

From the complete surprise to the utter sorrow, from the rejoicing to the understanding, from the caution facing the unknown ahead to the confidence in a new via, these have been the reactions that spacEurope received in its work of trying to understand better the reasons that lead to Alan Stern resignation and what changes may be on the way in NASA’s space exploration domains.

A hard task this roundup…a hard task to recover open reactions.
A roundup that confronts itself by one side with the lack of knowledge and startling reaction from the part of the individualities contacted by spacEurope and, on the other, with the refusal to debate such sensible question.
There are also cases where those invited to interlace some thoughts on the matter agree on doing so requiring anonymity, which is the case of today’s participation. An anonymity accepted by this blog editor due to the reliability our source deserves.

According to our guest there is really a big problem with the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory Mission, and it is not clear how this budget shortfall, which apparently ignited these events, will be resolved in a near future.In what directly concerns the resignation of the previous NASA Science Chief, the opinion expressed is that Alan Stern’s decision was involved with the decisions to implement cost controls on NASA programs that suffered from a major deficiency, these were not flexible enough to permit the required capability to handle with unexpected factors, but this is not, according to our guest, the unique reason, another thorn in Stern’s leadership was the fact of his plans were not in agreement with how Mike Griffin personally wants to see the NASA space program develop.

This was, in our source’s perspective, an issue that had surely more than the Mars program, that appeared in the last days as some kind of Trojan horse capable of bringing down Stern’s fortress.There has been, as pointed out by our contact, a great deal of turmoil about the Mars program since February 4, the date when the budget was released. This originated a lot of outcry that has been heard not only by the press and the public but also by the congress.
Our source believes that the resignation was an accumulation of all these, even going back to thedecision in the month of October to cease the funding on the ChemCam instrument on MSL.
This decision leaded to the fact of the found solution had a lot of European involvement and, in our guest view, was handled in a way that was not very well accepted by some sectors.

The most recent event, involving the Mars Exploration Rovers and Odyssey, with all the consequent turbulence, appears to have been the nail in coffin.And the future? What may change with the arrival of Ed Weiler, Stern’s successor?
spacEurope’s source believes that the Red Planet exploration will have more attention to a point, Weiler, as indicated, is warm to the Mars program, and he was the administrator in charge when the MER mission was selected.
But the new Science Chief is also someone who expects value for dollars, and science is, for Ed Weiler, the most important thing.

Phoenix Special > With Robert N. Shelton

We are now, 9 weeks left to go, completely immersed in that indescribable season that anticipates a landing on Mars.
Anxiety and joy are side by side, strange smiles are seen the faces of those who deposit in the Red Planet their hopes, dreams, questions and expectations that might.
With the arrival of the Phoenix a whole new Mars will unfold before our eyes and senses and we know it.

55 days to Mars and the palms of our hands are already getting sweaty and an acceleration of hour heart beat is experienced.

I am one of those hoping, dreaming, questioning, expecting…that is why I have been trying, at spacEurope, in its Phoenix Special, to follow this countdown not only by covering the technical and scientific aspects of the mission but also seeking a broader view of the mission, presenting different aspects and perspectives sometimes forgotten by the general public.
That was why I have contacted our today’s invited columnist to write about the importance and meaning of Phoenix, a mission that bears with it a special particularity…never before a public university leaded a mission to Mars, that is why I asked the president of that same institution, University of Arizona, to be with us, sharing the importance and unique character of this enterprise.

I would like to personally thank Robert Shelton for the sympathy, openness and great spirit of exploration revealed in the e-mails exchanged with spacEurope.
Accepted the challenge it is now time to share its result with the readers.

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On May 25, 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy gave a stirring speech to a joint session of Congress. As part of that speech, he set the United States on a course of space exploration that would change our nation, and humanity, forever. "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth," Kennedy said. In doing so, he launched a revolution of technology, engineering, innovation and inspiration – the impact of which we still feel today.

On May 25, 2008, one derivative of that call to action will be played out on a world stage, as the Phoenix Mars Mission touches down on the northern polar surface of Mars, in search of water ice and other secrets that may lie just beneath that planets surface. As President of The University of Arizona, I am tremendously proud that my university will lead the science operations in a control center on university property. We are the first public university to lead a science mission to Mars, and we bear that title with a great deal of pride.

The Phoenix Mission was the brainchild of Peter Smith, a researcher at the UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. When he competed for – and won – funding to carry out this mission, he took the entire university with him on his spectacular journey. In its 123-year history, The University of Arizona has never had such a big moment in science as it will have this summer when the Phoenix lander gets to work on Mars.

Pride of the UA
What makes it so special to have a university lead the science mission? One word: students. Our scientists could work for any number of non-educational organizations and be just as dedicated to this mission. But at the Phoenix Mission Science Operations Center in Tucson, the UA's distinct advantage is omnipresent in the ubiquitous presence of students. They are getting an education they could not get anywhere else by learning first-hand about the science and operations of one of the most important planetary missions in the history of space exploration. We are training the next generation of explorers, and they are bringing their youthful exuberance, resilience and curiosity to the mission.

For a university, nothing beats the sight of students watching scientific discovery as it happens, and using that experience as the cornerstone of their education.

More benefits for Tucson
The significance for our community is substantial. Tucson is situated in southern Arizona, in the Sonoran Desert. We are blessed with clear skies and a sunny climate, so it has always been a place where looking up to the heavens is second nature. As such, Tucson has been an international hub for astronomy, optics, and space sciences. It is, quite literally, surrounded by mountains that are topped with telescopes.

To the north is the Catalina Sky Survey; to the south, the Whipple Observatory on Mt. Hopkins; to the west is famed Kitt Peak National Observatory, and about 100 miles to the east is the world's most powerful telescope, the Large Binocular Telescope atop Mt. Graham.

To add planetary science to our list of international strengths, by hosting the science operations of a planetary mission right here in Tucson, will have a powerful short-term and long-term benefit to this community's efforts to make astronomy and space science a world-class industry sector here in Tucson.

Taking humanity to Mars with us
American and European space programs have probed our solar systems extensively over the last half century. But for all of Saturn's ringed majesty, for all of Jupiter's storm-tossed beauty, nothing beats the mystique of Mars. Nothing piques our curiosity like the notion that life could be a past or future phenomenon on this planet. So, when a gamma ray spectrometer orbiting Mars returned hard evidence of water ice beneath the polar regions of Mars, the urge to go there and dig for the water became irresistible.

We are going to learn a lot about Mars with the Phoenix mission, perhaps as much as from all prior missions combined. What we learn we will share with the world, with the hope of enhancing all of humanity's understanding of Mars. The more we know about our next door neighbor, the more we may come to understand about our own planet.

The Phoenix Mission will not be able to tell us if life exists on Mars. But it will be able to tell us if the building blocks of life are there. And, for us living on Earth, that changes everything.

For more information about Phoenix stay tuned to the mission through our Web site at http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/.

Alan Stern Resignation > The Aftermath > With Victoria Hamilton

After Alan Stern offered his resignation March 25, the contours to what lead to the confusing events from the last days are still not clear.

Where did all this started and does this issue ends with NASA’s Space Science Chief exiting of scene?
And what about the funding of MSL? The question that lead to the unexpected uprising of the general public?
Where will the money come from now?
Were these MER and Odyssey proposed budget cuts really the main issue?

These are interrogations in the head of many, including mine.

spacEurope is making several contacts, and will during the following days to, with the help of our guests, try to get some of the pieces of the jigsaw into place and to see what the future days might bring in what concerns the exploration of Mars.

One of the individualities who gave his opinion in this roundup was Victoria Hamilton, Associate Researcher, Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology and a MEPAG (Mars Exploration Planning and Analysis Group) Member.

Let us start with the $4million dollar question, what solution ahead?

According to spacEurope’s guest where the money will come from remains unknown, it's too soon to tell, but Vicky Hamilton adds that the problem it’s not only the $4M since this was only the amount by which the MER budget would have been reduced. The letter NASA sent out ordered reductions to the budgets of all currently operating missions in extended phases. For example Mars Odyssey also was supposed to be cut by $4M.

However, still under Hamilton’s perspective, even though these cuts would have a huge negative impact on those missions, they are a drop in the bucket relative to the amount that needs to be raised to cover the overruns in the MSL budget, which is now estimated at somewhere between $150 - 200M.

Regarding Stern's resignation, Hamilton stated that there are reports in the media that Dr. Stern told the staff at NASA Headquarters that he resigned because he did not see a way to accomplish the cost controls he wanted to, therefore our guest thinks that It would be inappropriate for her to speculate on whether or not there may be other reasons for his departure.

And what about the public opinion surprising reaction opposing, mainly, to the MER budget cuts?Did this reaction had a role in the step back taken by NASA, if there was truly a step back?
Victoria Hamilton believes that yes, there was a step back, in that NASA has rescinded the order to cut the budgets of the currently operating missions. Although the researcher indicate us that she can't really claim to represent the public, her belief is that this would not have happened if there had not been so much attention given by the media to the effect these cuts would have had on MER.

Hamilton gives us an example, by saying that she doubts many members of the public knew that Odyssey was also being cut, because all they heard about was MER.

And now...the future, what are the expectations regarding Ed Weiler work, Stern's successor, in the Mars exploration front?

SpacEurope’s guest prefers to reserve her judgement, because Dr. Weiler is, for the moment, as she points out in an interim position and because the news is just too fresh to know what the future holds. Hamilton remembers that even Dr. Weiler has said that he needs to get the lay of the land, so to speak, before he can decide how he wants to proceed. But it is our guest’s sincere hope that Dr. Weiler will communicate soon to the Mars community what his approach will be to solving the problem of the MSL overruns, which probably have to be dealt with before a permanent Associate Administrator for SMD can be named. It is also Hamilton’s hope that Dr. Stern's successor(s) will follow his lead and endeavor to control cost growth on future missions throughout the directorate and find better ways to predict costs and cost growth.

COLUMBUS SIGHTS THE OLD WORLD… > With Stuart Atkinson

My story with Stuart Atkinson comes from the days when the Mars Exploration Rovers reached “our” planet, when we both ended up landing in the anarchic Mark Carey’s Mars Forum, where, in science walked side by side with schizophrenia, where an extraordinary claim didn’t always require extraordinary evidence, where it was possible for an abyss chaser like me, to meet a poet like Stu and gather efforts aiming for martian dreams.

Stu is spacEurope’s newest Resident Columnist and there are reasons for that…

Space and Europe are, obviously, in the core of my decision of addressing him the invitation…why?
Because Atkinson is, in the literal sense of the expression, an European space enthusiast, in this condition he develops a passionate but also a critic position which permits him, as an author and as someone developing a truly priceless outreach efforts, to see things from a different angle when speaking about the steps being taken by the Old Continent towards the Human adventure beyond Earth.

Our new resident columnist, with his natural talent for the written word and his sharpened pen is someone able to bring to this blog a different perspective, built of art and acuity.

And, if none of the previous was enough, I am spacEurope’s host and here, at this house, I like to count with the presence and company of friends.

And Stu is one of those, a friend, an esteemed one.

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COLUMBUS SIGHTS THE OLD WORLD…

Legend, history, and Wikipedia all tell us that it was 2am on the morning of October 12th, 1492, when Rodrigo de Triana, a member of Christopher Columbus’ crew on the Pinta, first sighted land at the end of the epic voyage to “discover” the New World. Legend, history and Wikipedia also tell us that Columbus himself went on to claim having had the first glimpse of that New World, but that isn’t important; without a time travel machine there’s no way of verifying which weary, salt- and wind-blasted sailor on the Pinta was the first to see a hump of land on the horizon after all those days of staring out at wave after wave after wave. But one thing is certain: staring at the approaching shoreline all onboard the 3 ships must have felt elated, fascinated, and hypnotised in equal measure.

Of course, without that time machine – and a digital camera - we can’t see for ourselves what Rodrigo, Columbus and their crewmates saw, but in this modern age it is possible for us to travel the world, and its wonders, virtually, without leaving the comfort of our homes (or offices, if you’re a sneaky Work Surfer). Today we can go online and, with just a click of the mouse, connect to a network of webcams scattered all across the globe. We can stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon at sunrise, and delight in the rock walls and scarps burning marmalade orange in the light of another dawn. We can peer down from the top of the Eifel Tower, at the bustling streets and lanes of Paris far below. We can stand in the cool shadow of the Great Pyramid and stare up in genuine shock and awe at the incredible sight. And after touring the Wonders of Earth we can click-a-click our way around the rest of the solar system, and wander at our leisure through online galleries showcasing the Must See sights of Mars, Saturn, asteroids and moons through the camera eyes of the robotic spaceprobes despatched by NASA and other space agencies to explore them.

But one planet has been neglected so far, when it comes to such online exploring. Earth. Oh sure, if you do a bit of Googling you can find lots of sites online which show images taken by the astronauts on the space station, NASA satellites and various other pieces of hardware, but they’re all hard to navigate, dry and stuffy and cold, and, I’ve thought for a long time, offer no real connection with Earth for people who don’t want to study wave heights, cloud flow patterns or crop growth but, to be frank, just want to drool over pretty pictures of Earth for a few minutes.

Thankfully, that might be about to change. While many commentators and space enthusiasts have – rightly – celebrated the hi-tech scientific interior of the recently-launched COLUMBUS module, a small piece of hardware on the exterior of the multi-billion Euro facility has the potential, I think, to do more good for ESA’s public image and popularity than any of the computers, experiment racks or geek-hypnotising pieces of kit inside it.

The Earth Viewing Camera (EVC) is, essentially, a fixed-pointed Earth-observing camera. Part of the European Technology Exposure Facility (EuTEF) that was installed on the European Columbus laboratory’s external platform during a spacewalk on 15 February 2008 by NASA astronauts. EVC isn’t a whistles-and-bells piece of kit. Far from it. Nor is it intended to return zoggabytes of hard science data to keep boffins and beakers hunched at their keyboards for decades to come. In fact, look at its specs and biog on ESA’s website and it will tell you, with surprising frankness and honesty, that “the main goal of the system is to capture colour images of the Earth’s surface, to be used as a tool to increase general public awareness of the ISS and promote the use of the ISS to the potential user community for observation purposes.”

What?!?!?!

Yes, I had to read that line twice myself, too, because I was sure I’d misread it the first time. ESA doing something to deliberately increase public awareness? To actually get people more interested in what’s going on “up there”? Did I bang my head and have a concussed dream, or hallucination or something? No, no, it’s true! This is a camera that is intended to, basically, take pretty pictures of Earth and share them with – well, us, the people out here who are into this stuff, who like looking at pretty pictures. Whoever came up with this idea – and philosophy – consider yourself awarded a medal!

First image captured by the European Columbus laboratory's Earth Viewing Camera (EVC). The image was captured at 16:11 on 6 March 2008. EVC is part of the European Technology Exposure Facility (EuTEF) which was installed on the earth-facing side Columbus' external platform during the STS-122 mission. Credits: ESA/CGS

Of course, this isn’t a new idea. ESA has a popular “ESA Image Of The Week” page, where you can enjoy portraits of Earth. There are many high resolution images of Earth’s surface available online on other sites too, and if you know where to look you can find images with enough resolution to show individual buildings in towns and cities… cars on roads… ducks on ponds… okay, maybe not quite ducks on ponds, but you get the idea. Columbus’s EVC won’t be taking any images to compete with them, however. It’s only going to take “medium resolution colour images of the Earth surface both in daylight and at night-time.” In effect, this means EVC is basically an orbiting “Earth webcam”, a space version of those cameras overlooking the Grand Canyon, Eiffel Tower and Pyramids. It won’t be able to pick out your house, the clock face on Big Ben or the worried look on Gordon Brown’s face as his popularity ratings drop somewhere below the Earth’s mantle, but that doesn’t matter. Even a medium resolution instrument could be enough to give ESA a huge publicity and profile boost if it is used properly -

Wait a minute, it’s just a camera looking down at Earth. So what? I hear some of you asking. Well, in my admittedly-means-nothing opinion, EVC represents nothing less than a golden opportunity for ESA to finally embrace public outreach and education and create what would be possibly the first ever “Must Check Every Day” ESA website, up there with ASTRONOMY PICTURE OF THE DAY, Spaceweather.com and, of course, spacEurope! If EVC isn’t treated like a gimmick or a novelty, if it is supported properly by ESA, if its operators and image processors are given the opportunity to display and share their work properly – basically, if ESA handles this in the right way, then they could have a big hit on their hands.

And just what is “the right way”? Well, it’s not rocket science. It just means taking images regularly, and posting them online frequently, daily, if possible. Seriously, that’s all it takes - take lots of images, and let people see them. It’s not hard to imagine how useful a resource a daily-updated EVC Gallery would be for both professional educators and space enthusiasts. And it would be an invaluable showcase for ESA’s technology and efforts, too.

But hang on a minute! Before we start planning how an ESA EVC Gallery would conquer the hearts and minds of a space sceptical European public, what can EVC actually do? Well, you can see that for yourself because the first two pictures that have already been released, and although they’re not, to be honest, stunning, they do show the camera’s potential. The first one is a dim, moody image, showing what looks like a bank of cloud as seen in twilight; the clouds are purple-coloured, thick and fat. Earth as viewed through plum-coloured glasses, you might say. The second image is much brighter, more vividly-coloured. It is little motion-blurred, as the press release admits, but it is still a beautiful view of fluffy white clouds floating above an azure ocean, and looking at it is like gazing up into a summer sky on the first day of school holidays and seeing brilliant white clouds painted on the heavens as you blink in the blinding sunlight…

What science is there in those images? None I can see. What worth have they got for meteorologists or climatologists? None; they cover too small (200km x 200km) an area at too low a resolution to be “useful” in that way. And that’s my point. They are just, literally, pretty pictures, good for looking at and enjoying and nothing else. Perfect!

And you know what else is perfect about this? The timing. There’s a definite, yawning gap in the market for a no-nonsense, one stop “Cool pic of Earth!” site for space enthusiasts, young and old, to bookmark and visit daily, for while NASA’s eyes are focussed on Mars and the myriad worlds beyond, and China and Japan (and almost every other tech country) are drooling over the charcoal-coloured landscapes of the Moon, ESA can draw people’s gaze back to the Homeworld and show them new views of Terra’s – and not just Europe’s - beautiful countries, rivers, oceans and mountains.

So, come on ESA Powers That Be! Use that camera – I mean really use it. Set it taking as many pictures as it can, and share them with us as quickly as you can. You’ll make a lot of new friends, in school classrooms, offices, bedrooms, studies, cyber-cafes and train carriages all around the world, believe me…

Stuart Atkinson

COROT Update

Here’s a quick update, provided by Malcolm Fridlund, from the COROT front, the mission is making its way be the cover of the upcoming number of Astronomy & Astrophysics.
The reason are the three following papers, one related with CoRoT-Exo-1b and the other two with CoRoT-Exo-2b:

-Transiting exoplanets from the CoRoT space mission. I. CoRoT-exo-1b: a low-density short-period planet around a G0V star P. Barge, A. Baglin, and M. Auvergne, et al. Accepted: 11 March 2008 DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:200809353

Transiting exoplanets from the CoRoT space mission. II. CoRoT-Exo-2b: a transiting planet around an active G star R. Alonso, M. Auvergne, A. Baglin, M. Ollivier, C. Moutou, and D. Rouan, et al. Accepted: 27 February 2008 DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:200809431

- Transiting exoplanets from the CoRoT space mission. III. The spectroscopic transit of CoRoT-Exo-2b with SOPHIE and HARPS F. Bouchy, D. Queloz, M. Deleuil, B. Loeillet, and A. P. Hatzes, et al. Accepted: 06 March 2008 DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:200809433

Besides this, Malcolm Fridlund also informed spacEurope that the team is currently following up more than 100 candidates and from these some are already and papers regarding this specific exoplanets will start to be written soon.

Phoenix Special > With Nicholas Previsich

Looks like we we'll have Peter Smith live at spaceurope on the 14th...prepare your questions and stay alert!

65 days to Mars
Phoenix: Ashes and Futures
Again, we approach Mars with some trepidation, but so much anticipation. The "Death Planet" has claimed so many of our robotic emissaries before their times during these first decades of exploration, so there is no such thing as a 'routine' landing on this world, not yet. All we know for certain is that the potential

rewards are well worth the risks.

The former Soviet Union broke its heart on Mars, with all earnestness on its part. Although the political element was there, surely those who laboured to authorize, build and fly these missions at every level of involvement were far more interested in the outcome rather than the symbolism, and the only pain that could have been greater than failure would have been to never have tried at all. They desired, as do we all, to see the reality that would supersede all the myths, folklore, and outright superstitions, to DISCOVER, and to satisfy the eternal itch of curiosity that has propelled us from caves to interplanetary exploration.

Scientific truth is universal, transcendent; our only real illumination. Transforming a ruddy, enigmatic light in the sky into a real place that can be comprehended is a gift to all mankind for eternity. Who ever said that accomplishing such a lofty goal would be easy? Evolution requires both persistence and sacrifice.

The fossil record by its very nature is fragmentary, subject to an almost unlimited spectrum of random events, difficult to interpret in detail. We will probably never know of even a tenth of all the species that ever existed on this planet. They lived, they struggled to survive, and, ultimately, they all died. The most fortunate ones left descendants quite unlike themselves as the millennia and aeons passed.

We all think of the brave lungfish that claimed dry land for vertebrates on some forgotten shore of a supercontinent long since fragmented. This happened, undoubtedly; we are living proof. What we seem to forget is that there also must have been a great number of unknown corpses of other fish on these and many other ancient beaches that didn't make it for one reason or another due to circumstances or insufficient adaptation...we'll never know why, we'll never even know of them at all...but the lesson remains. They had no direct descendants that could decipher the story, but others of their kind do, and therefore they succeeded.

Phoenix is well named. Life rises from its own ashes, always. We humans have the exceptional gift--sometimes, the painful curse--of being able to remember and learn from past events. We can mitigate the effects of random factors and ex post facto erroneous assumptions to a far greater degree than any other form of life that has preceded us as we try and try again...account for those uncertainties that we know about...and the wisest among us know that we never know enough of these without even more intensive exploration efforts.The absolutely fundamental need for us to expand and to be something at least persistent, if not eternal, in a Universe of rapid change dictates that we explore and learn.

Phoenix will succeed, and return a bounty of information about a place we have never been to before. We will learn; we learn inevitably, sometimes painfully, always productively. The amazing thing is that humans can do so in relative picoseconds of geological time; evolution's new tool is the Scientific Method, the great step beyond trial and error, possibly our most fundamental contribution to the long-term survival of terrestrial life.
We will know yet another 'new Mars', which is slowly revealing itself as a world of tremendous diversity. We will see the North Polar plains of Mars from a familiar, human perspective at last, and then examine them microscopically, chemically, exhaustively. Perhaps they were once a primordial seabed, perhaps once another cradle of life, perhaps a haven for water still, and who knows what else? There will be surprises; there always are. Likewise, there will be the potential for setbacks and disappointments at every turn, but this is the nature of exploration, of existence itself.

Our extremely distant ancestors persevered and ultimately overcame their challenges, which is the only reason that we are here today. Tragedies and triumphs alike are mere twists in the road to a distant future that is guaranteed to be as unimaginable and as wonderful to us now living as the 21st Century would have been to a Neolithic...to say nothing of a lungfish. The road must be travelled in its entirety to reach our destination.
Godspeed and good luck, Phoenix.

You bear our dreams, and not only the best within us, but our very essence.

Open Letter

March, 19, 2008
Sintra, Portugal

On the 19th of March, 2008, Sir Arthur C. Clarke has left the world of the living, overcoming the hardest part of our journey as Human beings: To leave a legacy and to point a course for the future generations of our own species.

Arthur C. Clarke will not cease, with his death, to inspire and fuel the spirit of Mankind youth’s inquisitive minds, leading some of their representatives to pursue the quest for knowledge within or outside the cradle known as Terra and, ultimately, by dreaming, building and journeying, to create the conditions for our definitive assumption as Universal creatures, as the Homo Viator to come.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke was, is, and will resist as a beacon for those daring to build a transterran future for Humanity, our inevitable path to avoid extinction.

Clarke, and others like him, were, consciously or not, drawing our roadmap for enduring and succeeding in the challenge of superseding the fate of a multitude of other species: vanishing.
Clarke and others like him, have been, through the ages, gathering us around the bonfire, whispering tales of future before our eyes wide open with wonder.
In the past we observed the sparkles of that bonfire rising above in the dark of the night and dreamed where were they headed.
It is our turn, now, to become those sparkles, each and every of them.

Rephrasing the visionary, beyond, in the impossible, lays our possible Tomorrow, where Clarke will be a reference for the billions of humans to come, for the billions of transterran humans who will experience in their present reality a past dreamed by a remote ancestor.

This letter as a specific objective.
To present a proposition.

We are now building, brick by brick, the road leading us towards our greatest adventure, leaving the planet that witnessed our emergence as a species and, on a hard but unavoidable enterprise, with no defined term or horizon ahead, we must honor and remember, as a mnemonic, those who opened us the gates of space.

One of the future achievements of our New Era of Discoveries will be the landing of Phoenix on the martian arctic, coincidently, the mission is expected to touch the ground of the red planet 67 days after the announcement of the departure of Arthur C. Clarke.

The Phoenix mission carries, in its lander, the Planetary Society Visions of Mars DVD collection of literature and artwork about the Red Planet, where Clarke's creations , among other authors, marks its presence along with the names of thousands of humans who decided to be associated, in the possible way, with this quest, rising from the ashes of a failure, representing Mankind’s persistence facing the adversity.

By sending our names, the expression of our individuality, onboard the Phoenix, we are affirming, as a whole, our nature: To go where we are not, to go and learn, to go and evolve, to go Onward.

Arthur C. Clarke is part of that whole, one of those who, throughout the millennia, instilled in our minds the will to see what is beyond the forest, below the waters, above our heads.
This is why I, hereby, propose a tribute to this human being by naming the future landing site of the Phoenix Mars Mission as Sir Arthur Charles Clarke Memorial Station.

Rui Borges

spacEurope Editor

Portuguese Connection

Here I am, a Portuguese blogger talking about the existence of a new scientific magazine, Communicating Astronomy with the Public, or CAP if you prefer, edited by Pedro Russo, the coordinator for the International Year of Astronomy and let me see how I'll put this...he shares the same nationality as I...

CAP's second edition came out this month, which you can check here.

And inside you will find a very interesting article focusing on a theme of increasing interest: Astrobiology.

The name of the article is Astrobiology for the 21st Century and it was written by Carlos F. Oliveira, who was already a spacEurope guest and who is a...Portuguese (man! We're all over the place!...) PhD student at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. His PhD is in Science Education, with an emphasis on astronomy. Carlos created and periodically teaches a unique astrobiology course at the same university. He has an undergraduate degree in Astronomy, Astronomy Communication, and Science Fiction from the University of Glamorgan, United Kingdom.

Have a read, you won't regret it.

Phoenix Mission > Special Coverage > PIT update

PIT update

When the calendar marks 67 days to Mars, here we are, as promised,
dedicating our attention to what is related with the landing of Phoenix.

As the spacecraft diminishes the distance separating it from the red planet, here on Earth it is time to test everything in order to prevent any failure for the real stuff rising in the horizon of time.

And these last weeks prior to landing are very busy...

Preparation of surface ops is being done in a very conservative way. There is a strict rule that any command to be sent to the spacecraft, needs to be tested in a realistic, spacecraft-like software/hardware environment, being that the role of the Payload Interoperability Testbed (PIT). Since any command sequence must be validated by this process, the PIT is an incredibly busy interface for mission preparations with free floating schedules and overworked engineers.

As I write these words is under way the 9th Operational Readiness Test, or ORT9, so-called dry run, having started on the 16th, it will end on the 21st of March.
This particular ORT is dedicated to the Entry, Descent and Landing of the spacecraft followed by the first few sols of surface ops.

Then, in some weeks from now and by mid-May it will be time for ORT10.

More details soon.

Ten weeks to Mars…
It feels like it was yesterday when we witnessed the rising of the Phoenix towards its destiny and now…
Ten weeks to Mars…
ONLY Ten weeks to Mars.
Time will fly until that day when we, space exploration followers, will be standing, around the planet Earth, eagerly, nervously, anxiously, awaiting the key words:

The Phoenix has landed.

As I write this words I dream with the success of the mission, I anticipate the ground view from the north pole of another planet retrieved by a mission that has everything to become an icon for generations to come, because the Phoenix, as it name reveals, was possible by the effort and will of a family of women and men that don’t dare to relinquish their dreams and goals.

In a sense, we ALL are the Phoenix, we all are, now, as it approaches Mars, part of the journey.

And when, on the 25th of May, 588 years after Henry the Navigator was designated as master of the Order of Christ that was responsible for the Portuguese Discoveries, the arctic shores of another planet becomes the scenery of a daring landing by an emissary of the Planet Earth, we will rejoice along with those women and men, we will know that they were correct.

That it was worthy.

spacEurope starts today its countdown to that special day, with weekly posts dedicated to the Phoenix mission.

Ideas are floating around, invitations are on the way, so let us see who says “present!”
Until then it may be a good opportunity to read or reread spacEurope’s special Phoenix launch feature posts.

Mars…we are arriving!

Image of the Week > 14.03.08 > The Colours of Enceladus

spacEurope’s Image of the Week is back and the spotlight is focused on...not hard to guess...Enceladus.

I have seen this (and others...) colour composite at Doug Ellison’s UMSForum and couldn’t resist to contact its author to ask permission to post it here as the perfect way of ending such a marvelous week.

Have a great weekend enjoying the unique planet we have the privilege to inhabit, in the meawhile put your eyes on Jari Pappila’s icy Enceladus...in colour. (Click it to enlarge it)

Cassini > Enceladus Flyby > 12.03.08 > With William Kurth

Prior to the Enceladus flyby, I have asked Bill Kurth, of the University of Iowa, the deputy principal investigator for Cassini's Radio and Plasma Wave Instrument, could share with us the importance of the flyby dedicated observations, here are his words, as a teaser while we wait for the scientific results:

"Perhaps the best way to begin is to mention that the first hint that Enceladus was a source of material to the Saturnian system actually came from one of the MAPS instruments, the magnetometer (MAG).

After the first flyby the magnetometer team noticed a peculiar deflection in the magnetic field in the vicinity of Enceladus, even though this was a rather distant flyby, compared to the one this week. An explanation for the deflection offered by the MAG team was that perhaps Enceladus has an atmosphere. On the basis of this observation, the MAG Principal Investigator, Michele Dougherty, convinced the project to make the second flyby of Enceladus much closer than was planned.

If my memory serves me, this was near 75 km minimum altitude. During this flyby other MAPS instruments made measurements that directly bear on the existence of the geysers. Most prominently, the Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) directly measured the plume material and the Cosmic Dust Analyzer measured tiny grains of ice (also detected by the Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) instrument). The Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) instrument measured deflections in the normal flow of plasma in the magnetosphere, and the Magnetosphere Imaging Instrument (MIMI) found that energetic charged particles were lost due to impacts with Enceladus.

The RPWS instrument also identified a spectral peak in the plasma wave spectrum whose frequency is related to the number density of electrons in the plasma, hence, provided a measure of the plasma density in the vicinity of Enceladus.

So, for this week's very close flyby, which skirts the geyser plumes, we expect these instruments will make similar measurements of the ions and neutrals associated with the plume, including their composition, the flux of micron-sized ice grains, the deflection of the magnetic field and plasma flow, the plasma density, and the absorption of energetic particles by the moon."

Cassini > Enceladus Flyby > 12.03.08 > RADAR > with Steve Ostro

During Cassini’s flyby of Enceladus RADAR was also acquiring important data, Steve Ostro, Senior Research Scientist, JPL Member, Cassini Radar Science Team explains us the importance of the steps taken on yesterday’s flyby:

The primary RADAR observations during the Enceladus 61 flyby are scatterometric measurements that will give estimates of the radar albedo for previously unobserved orientations of the satellite.

Because radar scattering from the icy satellites involves multiple scattering from within the upper few decimeters to meters of the regolith, the radar albedo is dramatically affected by non-water-ice constituents, and the geographic distribution of albedo therefore constrains the surface composition in an indirect way.

Moreover, comparison of Cassini 2.2-cm albedos with Arecibo 13-cm albedos lets us infer something about the vertical distribution of ice purity and/or regolith maturity.

The RADAR measurements provide our only information about the satellite regoliths below the optically visible surfaces.

Cassini > Enceladus Flyby > 12.03.08 > CIRS > with John Spencer

John Spencer, Cassini Scientist on the Composite Infrared Spectrometer, who you might have been reading at the excellent blog NASA created for the following of the flyby, gives to spacEurope readers a better idea on what consisted CIRS observations during the close passage of Enceladus and what we can expect, in terms of work and results for the coming days:

"We are still waiting for our data to be calibrated - as soon as it's available, we'll be constructing temperature maps and spectra, and we hope to be able to release some data publicly sometime next week.

CIRS's main job on this flyby was to map the heat radiation coming out of the south polar tiger stripes, and to measure how the radiation varies with wavelength to get the tiger stripe temperatures.

Our best data, taken as soon as we turned back to Enceladus after the flyby, can resolve the heat radiation from regions as small as 4 kilometers. And we can measure the heat radiation over a large range of wavelengths, from about 10 microns (where we get the best view of the high-temperature material over the tiger stripes) to longer than 100 microns.

We hope to get better estimates of the temperature of the material on the surface near the tiger stripes, which will tell us something about how the plumes are generated and whether there is liquid water near the surface, and also to measure the total power coming out of Enceladus' interior,which will help us to understand the tidal heating mechanisms."

Cassini > Enceladus Flyby 12.03.08 > UPDATE

Although images are already arriving from yesterday’s Enceladus flyby, spacEurope just received the information that, unfortunately, not everything went as expected...

According to Sascha Kempf there are bad news from the CDA instrument.
The detector did not transmit the data recorded during the flyby to the spacecraft data recorder.

Resuming, the measurement failed due to a still unknown technical failure.

Right now the team is looking into this issue. However, the instrument is in good health and functional.

Although there will occur other Enceladus flybys this year this was only one of two useful for this kind of measurements (pointing constraints etc.).

One gone, only one flyby left...

EDITED AT MARCH 14 9:03UTC

Developed information: According to NASA's news release Cassini's Cosmic Dust Analyzer instrument suffered an unexplained software hiccup which prevented it from collecting any data during closest approach, although the instrument did get data before and after the approach. During the flyby, the instrument was switching between two versions of software programs. The new version was designed to increase the ability to count particle hits by several hundred hits per second. The other four fields and particles instruments on the spacecraft, in addition to the ion and neutral mass spectrometer, did capture all of their data, which will complement the overall composition studies and elucidate the unique plume environment of Enceladus.

ENCELADUS FLYBY 12.03.08 > With Sascha Kempf

Tic tac makes the clock and Cassini is at full speed ahead for today’s flyby of Enceladus.

One of the spacecraft’s instruments with a heavy workload during the event will be Cassini's Cosmic Dust Analyzer, spacEurope asked Sascha Kempf, deputy principal investigator for the CDA, at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany, if he could enlighten us about what where will the instrument be aiming at and what questions might be answered with the data acquired during the hair-raising closest approach of Saturn’s icy moon.

According to Sascha Kempf, his team analysed more more than 2000 mass spectra of E ring particles recorded by the CDA dust sensor during the last 3 years.
During those observations, the scientists reached the conclusion that that there are two different types of ring particles: if there are particles composed of pure water ice on the other hand there were found "dirty" water ice particles.
In Kempf’s words there is circumstantial evidence that this "dirty" grains have their origin from the plumes while the pure water ice particles are Enceladus surface ejecta generated by hyper-velocity impacts of either micrometeoroids (interplanetary and/or interstellar) and E ring particles.
The so-called impactor ejecta mechanism is, actually, quite common, as our guest tells us and exemplifies with the process known to feed Jupiter's gossamer ring with fresh particles.
Sascha Kempf added also that that, as recently demonstrated, this mechanism forms a dust cloud around the moon Rhea.

But, as the scientist states, we’re going for a unambiguously very difficult hard task when investigating the properties of Enceladus surface ejecta.
And what is the reason for this?

Kempf presents us two main reasons for the challenge, first we have to count with Saturn’s very strong E ring back ground and, second, with the very strong plume particle background in the vicinity of the moon.
Our guest goes on more details explaining that surface ejectas dominate the dust environment only at very small distances to the moon's surface outside the plumes.

This is why, according to Sascha Kempf, one of the items in scientists’ wishlist during this flyby will be to register a sufficient number of mass spectra of surface ejecta.
If their idea is correct then all of them are spectra of pure water ice particles, this assumption will also permit to reach a better understanding of the "dirty" ice particles that, this way, must originate from the plume region and the birthplace for the dirty inclusions within these grains might be the bottom of the tiger stripes.

EDITED AT 12:06UTC (7 hours to closest approach)

I asked Sascha Kempf for when it is expected to have the flyby data available, the scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics told spacEurope that the team actually do a double data playback. The first playback will be done tomorrow morning and then it will take the team a few days to do a quick and dirty analysis of the data, this leads us to next week's Monday as the day when scientists will have the rough picture from the flyby.

Cassini-Huygens > Enceladus flyby > March 12

There it is! Enceladus!

(image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)

This image was taken yesterday, March 10, 2008 and received on Earth today March 11, 2008. The camera was pointing toward the icy Enceladus at approximately 985,336 kilometers away while Cassini its on the way for the first 2008 flyby of Enceladus to take place tomorrow, March 12 and that will have its closest approach at an incredible distance of only 50 km over the equatorial region of the moon, approaching from the north and then departing towards the south, with passage through the edges of the moon's famous south polar plume.

This very low altitude is about one seventh (1/7) the distance that the International Space Station flies above the Earth and is, so far, the closest passage to any object in the Saturn system.

The goal of this flyby is to get a better idea of the composition of the plume, in particular, to achieve a better measure of the abundances of ammonia and some simple organic compounds, both of which are important to ascertaining the astrobiological potential of the source environment of the jets.

You can check more information here, in the meanwhile I leave you with the timeline of events:

Click to enlarge. Credits: NASA/JPL

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Waiting to Dock > With Nicholas Previsich

Like the early seaport colonies in the Americas and elsewhere, the ISS is facing a bit of a harbor traffic jam these days. As Jules Verne waits patiently in orbit for its turn to dock, the Shuttle Endeavour as lifted of from Kennedy early Tuesday morning with the first of three segments of Japan's Kibo laboratory.

Kibo will be an extraordinary addition to the ISS's capabilities. In addition to its numerous microgravity experimentation facilities, it will also provide a hard-vacuum exposure platform that can be handled and maintained via a versatile manipulator arm; no spacewalks needed, which will simplify the astronauts' workload and minimize risk. Yet another tentative dip into the new ocean, with new things always waiting to be found; welcome to this special place and this special time, Kibo!

Again, though, it is amazing to contemplate the fact that the Space Station already has a docking traffic backlog. Japan will enter the traffic flow directly in 2009 with the first launch of the HTV, another resupply vehicle with significant manned spaceflight potential...

How reminiscent this is in some ways of the early days of aviation. There was no need for air traffic control in the early decades of the 20th Century, when aircraft were so novel that the sight of one landing often drew crowds. Who then could have foreseen the controlled chaos that is a modern large international airport, much less the fantastic machines that hurl themselves into the air many times an hour with hundreds of people and tons of cargo bound for destinations that the ground-bound of earlier eras may have barely known from tales of adventure or historical lessons?

This particular transformation occurred within the span of a human lifetime. It seemed slow and impossible at first, but suddenly exploded in all directions.

Evolution is like that; perhaps some of us now living will be lucky enough to witness it happening in Earth orbit...and beyond.

Nicholas Previsich

Resident Columnist

HERSCHEL MISSION > Commander's Log Entry JD 2454531.47916

Leo Metcalfe, Herschel’s Science Operations Manager, shares with spacEurope's readers, in the second log entry (you may read the first one here) his impressions from the mission's latest developments now that seven months separate us from its launch to take place in October 2008.
Dear blogging commander, what's up?
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HSCOM Log Second entry JD 2454531.47916

In the period since my previous entry the Herschel Science Operations Team (HOT)(*) at ESAC has continued to grow towards its Operational strength (around 45 people), with four new engineers or scientists joining in the period and some others making the transfer from ESTEC in the Netherlands to ESAC here in Spain.

The team look like a fairly happy bunch in the attached photo taken at ESAC in front of a model of ESA's earlier Infrared Space Observatory mission (ISO).

(*) I was thinking we could call this Blog "HOT people on a Cold Mission" !! ;))

A major milestone has been the adding to the mission database of the observation details for the 21 successful Open Time Key observing Programmes, joining the observation details from the 21 Guaranteed Time Key observing Programmes.

Open Time programmes are those that have been awarded observing time through competitive peer review of a much larger number of proposals submitted by astronomers in the worldwide astronomical community. Guaranteed Time programmes are programmes defined by the consortiathat built the scientific instruments, and constitute their return on investment.

So by now we know the targets for about half of the Herschel observing time. The rest of the time will be distributed later through competitive open Calls-for-Proposals pitched to the astronomical community.Intensive effort continues to go into the testing of the spacecraft in the facilities at ESTEC in the Netherlands. Some members of the Operations Team, myself included, had the chance at a recent ESTEC meeting, to see the spacecraft and the telescope in the clean rooms, where they are under test and awaiting integration.

I can't help remarking that the telescope mirror looks like a giant automobile headlamp reflector!

I'd be suspicious except the World's biggest truck doesn't appear to have much in the way of headlamps!
I'm going to get myself into trouble :)

Right at the moment the spacecraft is reaching thermal equilibrium after the Helium cryostat has been filled with hundreds of litres of Liquid Helium at just a few degrees above the absolute zero oftemperature. The consequent cooling of the infrared detectors is essential to their ability to detect the far-infrared heat emission of the coldest sources in the Universe. We used to say that our earlier infrared mission, ISO, could detect an ice cube by its heat emission at a distance of 1000 km.

I haven't done the calculation yet for Herschel - I add it to the list of things to do, but it will be even more impressive!

The main focus now of the Operations Team is to arrive at launch fully adapted to working with the real spacecraft, and apart from the staff readiness, to have prepared and tested well in advance of launch a full representative set of Commissioning and Verification Phase calibration and test observations and measurements.

One crucial aspect of any operational mission is that great caution has to be exercised in making any changes to the system once it has entered Operations. To speak precisely, the system "configuration" has to be strictly controlled. So part of the preparations for Operations at this point is startup of the activities of the Operational Configuration Control Board or CCB.

This is a meticulous control process and system at the core of every mission's operational activity.

Leo Metcalfe
Herschel Science Operations Manager (HSCOM)

Latest news on the Herschel mission status can be found here.

SPECIAL FEATURE > JULES VERNE LAUNCH

Jules Verne ATV is in orbit!

Credits: ESA/CNES/ARIANESPACE - Activité Photo Optique Video CSG

"Communication between the spacecraft and the ATV Control Centre in Toulouse confirmed that the spacecraft was responding nominally.

All navigation systems onboard, the star-trackers, the GPS system are working nominally and the solar arrays, which deployed very smoothly, are delivering full power. However the spacecraft on board computers detected a slight difference in pressure between the oxidizer and the fuel that compose the propellant. This caused the ATV to immediately switch over to the second of four propulsion chains, as it is designed to do.
Engineers at the Control Centre in Toulouse and at the prime contractor premises EADS-Astrium in Les Mureaux are evaluating and analysing the data coming from the spacecraft and are assessing the consequences, if any, in the immediate planning."

More at ESA.int

SPECIAL FEATURE > JULES VERNE LAUNCH > WITH RUI BORGES

To Raquel and Diogo

The night has fallen over Europe but, following the Spirit of the last post, with the clock generating the future where Jules Verne aimed his imagination, here's where tomorrow might be lading us into.
May our descendents, a hundred years from now (not that long...) be contemplating the results of this present ideas. Onward!
May shivers be sent down their spines facing the next frontier.

We are on Our Way!

Image source: ESA ATV blog

In a question of hours, the Kourou Spaceport will witness the lift-off of the European Automated Transfer Vehicle, the largest orbiting space vehicle not counting with the Space Shuttle which is on its way to retirement in 2010.
The European ATV is, on its own, with a mass of approximately 21 tonnes at launch and up to 9 tonnes of onboard propellants and payload, one of a kind, in combining both the full automatic capabilities of an unmanned vehicle able to rendezvous and dock to the ISS on its own, and the human spacecraft safety requirements when it is docked to the ISS, this newcomer can permit us to dream about what its future evolution might bring us.
And the dream may not be that far…

As Jules Verne approaches its decisive moment, the launch, maybe it is now the time to talk about its future developments, which, due to its particular characteristics, can permit the appearance in the stage of space exploration by Mankind, of a variety of spacecrafts that will permit us to embark on a more ambitious journey, helping humans to go Onward.
By combining some of the studies being developed under the ATV evolution goal, when can establish different scenarios and, among these, the Moon and Mars might be the background for Jules Verne descendents.

The European Space Agency has already started those studies…
The most developed and detailed one began already four years ago, in the autumn of 2004 and it is known as the CARV, or Cargo Return Vehicle.
And what is the major difference of this to-be craft? To permit the docking to the American segment of the International Space Station and the ability to exchange standard racks of the Station.

A second study, started earlier, in the beginning of 2004, within ESA’s General Study Programme, seeks the feasibility of three different scenarios, one these, the Large Cargo Return Spacecraft, which would use the experience of the successful flight in 1998 of the Atmospheric Re-entry Demonstrator (ARD) concept. The LCR Spacecraft would have the actual pressurised Integrated Cargo Carrier replaced by a large cargo re-entry capsule which, with the inclusion of a thermo re-entry shield permit it to transport to Earth’s ground hundreds of kilograms of cargo and valuable experiments.

Another study would give to Europeans the skills to transport humans into low earth orbit and, safely, back. This will, obviously, mean more complex modifications to the current ATV, being the Integrated Cargo Carrier modified into a manned re-entry capsule for crew transportation, that can, in a first stage, work as a crew rescue vehicle (CRV) for the ISS.

A third scenario, the Unpressurised Logistics Carrier (UIC) would be able to transport to the ISS several tonnes of unpressurised equipment. These payloads will be transported on a dedicated carrier replacing the Integrated Cargo Carrier on Jules Verne. The unpressurised equipment would then be transferred to its final location with the ISS robotic arm or by spacewalk.

Other possible evolution scenarios under consideration would permit us to face future challenges with a higher ambition, among these studies are The safe-haven/free-flying lab where we would see the ATV evolving into an unmanned free-flying laboratory providing a better microgravity level than the ISS and also working as a safe haven for an entire station crew in the case of a serious emergency on-board.

It could also dock to the ISS for major servicing support.
Counting with the internal available volume, a small payload return alternative is possible, equipping the ATV’s core with a small ejectable capsule able to return a cargo payload of about 150 kg to Earth at the end of each mission. This concept can be seen as a trustful way of bringing back valuable scientific and technological experiment samples to Earth, a Mars Sample Return mission could be one of the future applications of such developed vehicle.

Mini Space Station (mss) is also being taken in consideration, and the solution to achieve it would be quite simple, by equipping the ATV spaceships with two docking mechanisms, one in front and one at the back, these could be mated like train carriages of a train.

The need to supply larges quantities of supplies for future Moon and Mars missions (not forgetting space telescopes and planetary spacecraft) will be a reality when Mankind takes the decisive step that will take us, definitely, on the Path beyond Earth, through the Solar System and Beyond it, until the start of that saga, the Exploration Transport Vehicle (ETV) may be just an idea being nurtured with care by people on Earth, people involved in the ATV development who are already foreseeing those days of amazement.

That is why what we will witness tomorrow is not an ordinary launch…it is the beginning of our most incredible Adventure. It is where the road begins.

May we be able to be deservers of Jules Verne dreams.

SPECIAL FEATURE > JULES VERNE LAUNCH > ONWARD!

Credits: ESA

"Forür"

"Onward" my uncle answered.

Voyage to the Center of the Earth. Page 136

This must become Mankind's future.

Jules Verne

March 4, 1881

Forür, En avant, Onward, Adiante, Ultreya...And a chill was sent down my spine.

A few hours left until this words, in a handwritted manuscript by Jules Verne will make their way into space onboard ESA's ATV towards the International Space Station.

Read the whole story here.

SPECIAL FEATURE > JULES VERNE LAUNCH > WITH NICHOLAS PREVISICH

Nicholas Previsich? Nick? I know Nick for an eternity…
Since the days Mankind was still exploring Mars with rovers, since the days Mankind delivered a probe into Titan’s surface, since the days we discovered the Universe was flat, since the days a certain ISS was gaining shape, since the days the whole Humanity started working together as a species, since the days Mankind was building the stairs leading towards its expansion and permanent presence outside the cradle, throughout space…
I know Nick for an eternity, from the days Mankind was evolving from Homo Sapiens into Homo Viator, from the Mankind who knew to the Mankind who Walked knowing the path.

I know Nicholas Previsich from the days an Automated Transfer Vehicle named Jules Verne was to be launched giving a decisive step towards a new class of manned spaceships able to cross the distance separating these earthly primates from other planets.

I know Nick, I like Nick’s Vision, I share Nick’s vision.
That is why, even with this ocean separating us physically, I, along with Nick don’t deny efforts on building the bridge uniting thoughts.
We, me, Nick, you in Europe, you in the Americas, you in Asia, Africa and Oceania, share a bond, we all are fruits generated by the same tree and our common goal is to succeed on releasing the seeds within us in order to generate new trees.

I know Nick, I like Nick’s Vision, I share Nick’s vision.
That is why, after some occasional participations in this blog, above everything a home for human thought, I have decided to invite him to become a resident columnist.
Making of this blogger a very happy man, Nick accepted.
From here on count with the presence of Nicholas Previsich, revealing space exploration and evolution as synonyms.
From here on…The Dream Unfolds.

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Mr. Verne's True Immortality

Sometimes it seems all too easy to grossly underestimate the power of human imagination. So many of us walk blithely through our time on the stage, unaware of the fact that nearly everything in our daily lives that we take for granted is the product of not only "routine" industrial effort, but almost invariably the hitherto-unprecedented vision of a single person. Sometimes, such people have visions that can only be described as profoundly transformational in terms of their impact.

We are the first species in the history of this planet whose evolution has been guided by ideas, our primary means of adaptation, and we owe those visionaries among us--those whose names are known--more than we can repay and more honor then we can bestow, for they are the engines of our future.

Nearly a century and a half ago, French writer Jules Verne was one such man. He magically transformed his primal drive to explore, to know what was once unknown into stirring stories of adventure that on two particularly prescient occasions planted the seeds of human advancement. Unfortunately, contrary to popular belief, one of the first nuclear-powered submarines, the USS Nautilus, was not named for Captain' Nemo's fantastic vessel in his novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which is an injustice to his vision. Likewise, although the Apollo 11 command module was named Columbia this was not necessarily a direct allusion to Verne's Columbiad (also launched from Florida in the novel From the Earth to the Moon).

Mr. Verne, however, has the last laugh, and finally the honor he deserves. He will not have a single vessel named after him, but an entire class of new spacecraft that will transform his home continent's ability to sail the new and boundless ocean above us.

When the first automated transfer vehicle Jules Verne lifts off, ESA will demonstrate an entire portfolio of highly sophisticated capabilities and a significant increase in payload capacity needed to offset the retirement of the Shuttle, thus becoming a vital part of the chain of logistics needed to sustain a permanent human presence in space. To my knowledge, this will be the first series of space ships ever named for a human being; and make no mistake: the ATV is a ship, with warmth and air and light; it's not difficult to imagine installing a few couches, a heatshield, some parachutes...

It's almost as if the knife, the wheel, the lever, and other fundamental inventions that have driven our evolution and survival were named after the person who first articulated them.

Godspeed, Jules Verne, and our profound thanks to your namesake.