Oklahoma storm of May 20, 2013, as viewed by NASA Goddard’s Aqua satellite.
Residents of Moore got several minutes of warning before the tornado struck, saving perhaps hundreds of lives.
Can the U.S. afford to keep cutting resources from NASA and NOAA? Seriously?
Leave a Comment » | 
Government, History, NASA, NOAA, Science, Space exploration | Tagged: Government, NASA, NOAA, Science, Space exploration | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Wow.
Saturn, ready for its close up: Eclipse of the Sun by Saturn. NASA photo at Wikipedia
Sander van den Berg downloaded publicly-available images of Saturn and its moons and rings, and patched them together in make time-lapse movies.
This short feature will stun you; these are real images, not altered, only patched together to pixillate motion.
“Outer Space,” by Sander van den Berg:
van den Berg said the music is from the Cinematic Orchestra, “That Home (Instrumental).” Details on how he made the film at Vimeo.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Steve @vanesch, https://twitter.com/vanesch
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Leave a Comment » | Astronomy, NASA, Time-lapse photography | Tagged: Astronomy, Cassini, Cassini–Huygens, NASA, Sander van den Berg, Saturn, Science, Time-lapse, Voyager | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
From NASA: Of the 10 million square miles (26 million square kilometers) of northern vegetated lands, 34 to 41 percent showed increases in plant growth (green and blue), 3 to 5 percent showed decreases in plant growth (orange and red), and 51 to 62 percent showed no changes (yellow) over the past 30 years. Satellite data in this visualization are from the AVHRR and MODIS instruments, which contribute to a vegetation index that allows researchers to track changes in plant growth over large areas. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio; click image for original view; click here for greater detail
Press release from NASA, March 10, 2013 (links in text added here):
Amplified Greenhouse Effect Shifts North’s Growing Seasons
WASHINGTON — Vegetation growth at Earth’s northern latitudes increasingly resembles lusher latitudes to the south, according to a NASA-funded study based on a 30-year record of land surface and newly improved satellite data sets.
An international team of university and NASA scientists examined the relationship between changes in surface temperature and vegetation growth from 45 degrees north latitude to the Arctic Ocean. Results show temperature and vegetation growth at northern latitudes now resemble those found 4 degrees to 6 degrees of latitude farther south as recently as 1982.
“Higher northern latitudes are getting warmer, Arctic sea ice and the duration of snow cover are diminishing, the growing season is getting longer and plants are growing more,” said Ranga Myneni of Boston University’s Department of Earth and Environment. “In the north’s Arctic and boreal areas, the characteristics of the seasons are changing, leading to great disruptions for plants and related ecosystems.”
The study was published Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Myneni and colleagues used satellite data to quantify vegetation changes at different latitudes from 1982 to 2011. Data used in this study came from NOAA’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometers (AVHRR) onboard a series of polar-orbiting satellites and NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments on the Terra and Aqua satellites.
As a result of enhanced warming and a longer growing season, large patches of vigorously productive vegetation now span a third of the northern landscape, or more than 3.5 million square miles (9 million square kilometers). That is an area about equal to the contiguous United States. This landscape resembles what was found 250 to 430 miles (400 to 700 kilometers) to the south in 1982.
“It’s like Winnipeg, Manitoba, moving to Minneapolis-Saint Paul in only 30 years,” said co-author Compton Tucker of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
The Arctic’s greenness is visible on the ground as an increasing abundance of tall shrubs and trees in locations all over the circumpolar Arctic. Greening in the adjacent boreal areas is more pronounced in Eurasia than in North America.
An amplified greenhouse effect is driving the changes, according to Myneni. Increased concentrations of heat-trapping gasses, such as water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane, cause Earth’s surface, ocean and lower atmosphere to warm. Warming reduces the extent of polar sea ice and snow cover, and, in turn, the darker ocean and land surfaces absorb more solar energy, thus further heating the air above them.
“This sets in motion a cycle of positive reinforcement between warming and loss of sea ice and snow cover, which we call the amplified greenhouse effect,” Myneni said. “The greenhouse effect could be further amplified in the future as soils in the north thaw, releasing potentially significant amounts of carbon dioxide and methane.”
To find out what is in store for future decades, the team analyzed 17 climate models. These models show that increased temperatures in Arctic and boreal regions would be the equivalent of a 20-degree latitude shift by the end of this century relative to a period of comparison from 1951-1980.
However, researchers say plant growth in the north may not continue on its current trajectory. The ramifications of an amplified greenhouse effect, such as frequent forest fires, outbreak of pest infestations and summertime droughts, may slow plant growth.
Also, warmer temperatures alone in the boreal zone do not guarantee more plant growth, which also depends on the availability of water and sunlight.
“Satellite data identify areas in the boreal zone that are warmer and dryer and ¬¬other areas that are warmer and wetter,” said co-author Ramakrishna Nemani of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. “Only the warmer and wetter areas support more growth.”
Researchers did find found more plant growth in the boreal zone from 1982 to 1992 than from 1992 to 2011, because water limitations were encountered in the latter two decades.
Data, results and computer codes from this study will be made available on NASA Earth Exchange (NEX), a collaborative supercomputing facility at Ames. NEX is designed to bring scientists together with data, models and computing resources to accelerate research and innovation and provide transparency.
For more information and images associated with this release, visit:
– end –
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2 Comments | Botany, Climate change, climate_change, CO2, Global warming, Greenhouse Gases, History, NASA, Science | Tagged: Botany, Climate change, Global warming, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenhouse Effect, History, NASA, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Here’s a guy who Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor and other “deficit hawks” refuse to debate. Grover Norquist blanches when you mention his name, and hopes and prays you won’t listen to him: Neil de Grasse Tyson.
The film was put together from several statements by Tyson, by Evan Schurr.
WRITE TO CONGRESS:
http://www.penny4nasa.org/take-action/The intention of this project is to stress the importance of advancing the space frontier and is focused on igniting scientific curiosity in the general public.
Facebook cover: (not sure who made this but thank you!)
http://i.imgur.com/yqAGm.png*FOR THOSE SAYING THE MUSIC IS TOO LOUD* This is the adjusted one http://youtu.be/Fl07UfRkPas
I give immense credit to The Sagan Series for providing the inspiration for this video.
http://www.youtube.com/user/damewse?f…Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. All copyrighted materials contained herein belong to their respective copyright holders, I do not claim ownership over any of these materials. In no way do I benefit either financially or otherwise from this video.
MUSIC:
Arrival of the Birds and Transformation by The Cinematic Orchestra http://www.amazon.com/The-Crimson-Win……Credits
When We Left Earth http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/nasa/nasa…
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart http://www.thedailyshow.com/
HUBBLE 3D http://www.imax.com/hubble/
NASA TV http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv…
The Amazing Meeting http://www.amazingmeeting.com/TAM2011/
“US Mint” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZzKDL…
“New $100 Note” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgaytK…
Real Time with Bill Maher http://www.hbo.com/real-time-with-bil…
Pale Blue Dot – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blu…
STS-135 Ascent Imagery Highlights http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikzxtw…
CSPAN State of the Union Address http://www.c-span.org/
The Sagan Series http://www.facebook.com/thesaganseries
The Asteroid that Flattened Mars http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgMXPX…
University of Buffalo Communications http://www.communication.buffalo.edu/
Mars Curiosity Rover http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnlvvu…
Red Aurora Australis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC7Qro…Thank you to user florentgermain for the French subtitles
Hey, this is a year old. Why are you sitting on your hands? Our future, our children’s future, our great-great-grandchildren’s futures, are on the line.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Robert Krulwich at NPR, who pulled this out and started discussing it again.
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1 Comment | Economics, History, NASA, Politics, Science, Space exploration, Space Race | Tagged: Economics, Educaiton, Government, History, NASA, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Politics, Science, Space exploration, The Future | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
What’s it like to be an astronaut?
You gotta learn how to cook and eat snake.
A discovery engine for meaningful knowledge, fueled by cross-disciplinary curiosity.
Edited by Maria Popova for Lore.
Twitter: @explorerArt & Design Science & Technology Culture & Society History & Literature Creativity & Innovation Media & Communication Thought & Opinion About
Science & TechnologyHistory & Literature
What’s it like to be an astronaut? An animated first-hand account by NASA’s Jerry Carr, who tells his fascinating life story.Complement with Sally Ride’s first-hand account of what it’s like to take off on a Space Shuttle, and this illustrated chronology of the Space Age.
Do kids dream of being an astronaut any more? It’s a great, character-building dream.
Tip of the old scrub brush to BrainPicker, at Explore.
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Leave a Comment » | NASA, Science, Space exploration | Tagged: Astronaut, Brainpicker, Exploration, Jerry Carr, NASA, Science, Space Age, Space exploration | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
This is a press release from NASA, presented here for the record, text unedited except for formatting where necessary, and the deletion of the press office phone numbers (I hope that’s not necessary, but earnest information seekers have links to get the information they seek). Images are inserted from other, related NASA sites.
Steve Cole
Headquarters, Washington
stephen.e.cole@nasa.govLeslie McCarthy
Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York
leslie.m.mccarthy@nasa.govJan. 15, 2013
RELEASE : 13-021
NASA Finds 2012 Sustained Long-Term Climate Warming Trend
WASHINGTON — NASA scientists say 2012 was the ninth warmest of any year since 1880, continuing a long-term trend of rising global temperatures. With the exception of 1998, the nine warmest years in the 132-year record all have occurred since 2000, with 2010 and 2005 ranking as the hottest years on record.
NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, which monitors global surface temperatures on an ongoing basis, released an updated analysis Tuesday that compares temperatures around the globe in 2012 to the average global temperature from the mid-20th century. The comparison shows how Earth continues to experience warmer temperatures than several decades ago.
[Caption to video] NASA’s analysis of Earth’s surface temperature found that 2012 ranked as the ninth-warmest year since 1880. NASA scientists at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) compare the average global temperature each year to the average from 1951 to 1980. This 30-year period provides a baseline from which to measure the warming Earth has experienced due to increasing atmospheric levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. While 2012 was the ninth-warmest year on record, all 10 of the warmest years in the GISS analysis have occurred since 1998, continuing a trend of temperatures well above the mid-20th century average. The record dates back to 1880 because that is when there were enough meteorological stations around the world to provide global temperature data.
Data source: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Visualization credit: NASA Goddard’s Scientific Visualization Studio› Download this video and related materials in HD formats
The average temperature in 2012 was about 58.3 degrees Fahrenheit (14.6 Celsius), which is 1.0 F (0.6 C) warmer than the mid-20th century baseline. The average global temperature has risen about 1.4 degrees F (0.8 C) since 1880, according to the new analysis.
Scientists emphasize that weather patterns always will cause fluctuations in average temperature from year to year, but the continued increase in greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere assures a long-term rise in global temperatures. Each successive year will not necessarily be warmer than the year before, but on the current course of greenhouse gas increases, scientists expect each successive decade to be warmer than the previous decade.
“One more year of numbers isn’t in itself significant,” GISS climatologist Gavin Schmidt said. “What matters is this decade is warmer than the last decade, and that decade was warmer than the decade before. The planet is warming. The reason it’s warming is because we are pumping increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.”
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps heat and largely controls Earth’s climate. It occurs naturally and also is emitted by the burning of fossil fuels for energy. Driven by increasing man-made emissions, the level of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere has been rising consistently for decades.
The carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere was about 285 parts per million in 1880, the first year in the GISS temperature record. By 1960, the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, measured at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory, was about 315 parts per million. Today, that measurement exceeds 390 parts per million.
This map represents global temperature anomalies averaged from 2008 through 2012. Data source: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies Visualization credit: NASA Goddard’s Scientific Visualization Studio
› Larger image
› Larger image (tif)
› Color bar scale (png)While the globe experienced relatively warm temperatures in 2012, the continental U.S. endured its warmest year on record by far, according to NOAA, the official keeper of U.S. weather records.
“The U.S. temperatures in the summer of 2012 are an example of a new trend of outlying seasonal extremes that are warmer than the hottest seasonal temperatures of the mid-20th century,” GISS director James E. Hansen said. “The climate dice are now loaded. Some seasons still will be cooler than the long-term average, but the perceptive person should notice that the frequency of unusually warm extremes is increasing. It is the extremes that have the most impact on people and other life on the planet.”
The temperature analysis produced at GISS is compiled from weather data from more than 1,000 meteorological stations around the world, satellite observations of sea-surface temperature, and Antarctic research station measurements. A publicly available computer program is used to calculate the difference between surface temperature in a given month and the average temperature for the same place during 1951 to 1980. This three-decade period functions as a baseline for the analysis. The last year that experienced cooler temperatures than the 1951 to 1980 average was 1976.
The GISS temperature record is one of several global temperature analyses, along with those produced by the Met Office Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. These three primary records use slightly different methods, but overall, their trends show close agreement.
For images related to the data, visit:
– end –
Related Links [from NASA]
› Goddard Institute for Space Studies GISTEMP Analysis
› Science Summary of NASA’s 2012 Temperature Analysis (pdf)
› NOAA State of the Climate Global Analysis: 2012
› Slides for Jan. 15 media teleconference (pdf)
› Download related multimedia in broadcast-suitable HD formats
More, and resources:
1 Comment | Carbon Dioxide, Climate change, climate_change, CO2, Global warming, History, NASA, NOAA, Science | Tagged: Carbon Dioxide, Climate change, CO2, Global warming, Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, History, NASA, National Climatic Data Center, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
December 27 is one of those days — many of us are off work, but it’s after Boxing Day, and it’s not yet on to New Year’s Eve or Day. We should have celebrated, maybe.
We should celebrate December 27 as a day of portent: A good embarkation, and a good, safe end to a nation-encouraging trip to almost touch the Moon.
HMS Beagle, on a voyage of discovery
On December 27, 1831, Charles Darwin and H.M.S. Beagle set sail on an around-the-world voyage of discovery that would change all of science, and especially biology, forever.
December 27 1831
After a few delays, H.M.S. Beagle headed out from Plymouth with a crew of 73 under clear skies and a good wind. Darwin became sea-sick almost immediately.
Darwin never fully overcame his seasickness, but he fought it well enough to become the single greatest collector of specimens in history for the British Museum and British science, a distinction that won him election to science societies even before his return from the trip — and cemented his life in science, instead of in the church. Darwin’s discoveries would have revolutionized biology in any case. In analyzing what he had found, a few years later and with the aid of experts at the British Museum, Darwin realized he had disproved much of William Paley’s hypotheses about life and its diversity, and that another, more basic explanation was possible. This led to his discovery of evolution by natural and sexual selection.
Mini-sheet from the Royal Mail in 2009 honoring Darwin’s discoveries in the Galapagos Islands
On December 27, 1968, Apollo 8 splashed down after a successful and heartening trip to orbit the Moon. The three crewmen, Commander Frank Borman, James A. Lovell, Jr., and William A. Anders, had orbited the Moon, a very important milestone in the methodological race to put humans on the Moon (which would be accomplished seven months later). 1968 was a terrible year for the U.S., with the North Korean capture of the U.S.S. Pueblo, assassinations of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy during the presidential campaign, riots in dozens of American cities, nasty political conventions with riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, a contentious and bitter election making sore the nation’s divide over Vietnam policy, and other problems. On Christmas Eve, Borman, Lovell and Anders broadcast from orbit around the Moon, a triumphant and touching moment for the Apollo Program and Americans around the world. Their safe return on December 27 raised hopes for a better year in 1969.
Motherboard.tv has a great write up from Alex Pasternack:
In 1968, NASA engineers were scrambling to meet President Kennedy’s challenge to land a man on the moon by decade’s end. Because delays with the lunar module were threatening to slow the Apollo program, NASA chose to change mission plans and send the crew of Apollo 8 all the way to the moon without a lunar module.
Exactly 43 years ago, the three astronauts of Apollo 8 became the first humans to orbit another celestial object. As they came around the dark side of the Moon for the third time, Frank Borman, the commander, finally turned their capsule around. And then they saw the Earth.
Borman: Oh my God! Look at that picture over there! Here’s the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty.
Anders: Hey, don’t take that, it’s not scheduled.
Borman: (laughing) You got a color film, Jim?
Anders: Hand me that roll of color quick, will you…One of the resulting photos taken by Anders on a Hasselblad camera became one of the world’s most iconic images.
As Bill Anders recalls it:
I just happened to have one with color film in it and a long lens. All I did was to keep snapping… It’s not a very good photo as photos go, but it’s a special one. It was the first statement of our planet Earth and it was particularly impressive because it’s contrasted against this startling horizon… After all the training and studying we’d done as pilots and engineers to get to the moon safely and get back, [and] as human beings to explore moon orbit, what we really discovered was the planet Earth.
Plan to raise a glass today, December 27, 2012, to Great Beginnings Day for the human race. December 27 is a day we should remember, for these achievements.
Also on December 27:
Adapted from a post from 2010.
More:
5 Comments | Apollo Project, Charles Darwin, Darwin, Evolution, History, NASA, Science, Space exploration, Space Race | Tagged: Apollo 8, Charles Darwin, December 27, Evolution, History, NASA, Space Exploration Science, The Beagle | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Real science often is more fantastic that the stuff people make up. Haldane was right.
Not the Sun you’re used to seeing.
In a century our studies of the Sun progressed from the deep calculations based on erroneous assumptions of what our star is make of (Lord Kelvin‘s calculations on how long the iron in the Sun would take to cool to its present color), to today’s solar studies, in which nearly every moment of the Sun’s life is recorded through a half dozen different sensors, by satellites and telescopes and whatever other means we have to capture data from the Sun’s burning.
It’s hard science — but it borders on art, too, doesn’t it? Watch this:
Gradient Sun [HD Video], originally uploaded by NASA Goddard Photo and Video.
What’s going on here?
Via Flickr:
Watching a particularly beautiful movie of the sun helps show how the lines between science and art can sometimes blur. But there is more to the connection between the two disciplines: science and art techniques are often quite similar, indeed one may inform the other or be improved based on lessons from the other arena. One such case is a technique known as a “gradient filter” – recognizable to many people as an option available on a photo-editing program. Gradients are, in fact, a mathematical description that highlights the places of greatest physical change in space. A gradient filter, in turn, enhances places of contrast, making them all the more obviously different, a useful tool when adjusting photos. Scientists, too, use gradient filters to enhance contrast, using them to accentuate fine structures that might otherwise be lost in the background noise. On the sun, for example, scientists wish to study a phenomenon known as coronal loops, which are giant arcs of solar material constrained to travel along that particular path by the magnetic fields in the sun’s atmosphere. Observations of the loops, which can be more or less tangled and complex during different phases of the sun’s 11-year activity cycle, can help researchers understand what’s happening with the sun’s complex magnetic fields, fields that can also power great eruptions on the sun such as solar flares or coronal mass ejections.
The images here show an unfiltered image from the sun next to one that has been processed using a gradient filter. Note how the coronal loops are sharp and defined, making them all the more easy to study. On the other hand, gradients also make great art. Watch the movie to see how the sharp loops on the sun next to the more fuzzy areas in the lower solar atmosphere provide a dazzling show.
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
To download this video go to: svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?11112
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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Teachers ought to figure out how to use this in classrooms — and I don’t mean astronomy, physics and chemistry only. Can you find a use for this film in geography? History? English and literature?
Sometime shortly after World War II scientists captured film of a mass coronal ejection from the Sun. You probably can imagine the film I’m remembering. That snippet found its way into films students saw in science, geography, chemistry, biology (“this is our Sun, from which all living things get energy, through photosynthesis”), and probably a half dozen other subjects. It was spectacular, and it was just about all that was available for classroom use, then. Students now probably have never seen it. Worse, my experience is that students in high school generally have very little familiarity with the science projects carried out by agencies like NASA and the National Science Foundation, and they know very little about the Sun, or the Moon and other planets.
Teachers, the state isn’t going to help you put this into your classrooms. Can you figure out some way to get it in?
More:
Leave a Comment » | Astronomy, Education, History, NASA, Nature, Physics, Science | Tagged: classroom video, Coronal loop, Education, Goddard Space Flight Center, Heliophysics, History, NASA, Science, Sun | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
A more melodic take on Neil de Grasse Tyson‘s “we stopped dreaming” statement:
“We went to the Moon, and we discovered Earth.”
Description from the YouTube site, by Evan Schuur:
The intention of this project is to stress the importance of advancing the space frontier and is focused on igniting scientific curiosity in the general public.
Sign the petition!: http://www.penny4nasa.org/petition
Follow @Penny4NASA1 and like on Facebook!Episode 1:
http://youtu.be/CbIZU8cQWXc
Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. All copyrighted materials contained herein belong to their respective copyright holders, I do not claim ownership over any of these materials. In no way do I benefit either financially or otherwise from this video.MUSIC: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/samskeyti-acoustic/id452812943?i=452813003
Credits
The Space Foundation http://www.spacefoundation.org/
NASA TV http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
HDNET http://www.hd.net/
SpaceX http://www.spacex.com/
When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/nasa/nasa.html
Disneynature: Earth http://disney.go.com/disneynature/earth/
Planet Earth http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/planet-earth/
HOME Project http://www.youtube.com/user/homeproject
User WolfEchoes http://www.youtube.com/user/WolfEchoes?ob=0
European Southern Observatory http://www.eso.org
Is NASA a handout, or an investment? What do you think?
If a politician tells you that he or she thinks we cannot afford NASA, doesn’t it strike you that the person does not really understand what the United States is all about? Doesn’t it make you wonder how they ever got to Congress, or why they should stay there?
More:
Dr. Neil de Grasse Tyson at the November 29, 2005 meeting of the NASA Advisory Council, in Washington, D.C. (Wikipedia photo)
Leave a Comment » | Education, Leadership, Moon, NASA, Science, Space exploration, Space Race | Tagged: Apollo Project, Business, Education, Federal Budget, Leadership, NASA, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Politics, Space exploration | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Statement this morning from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden:
50th Anniversary of President Kennedy’s Speech at Rice University
Posted on Sep 12, 2012 09:47:27 AM | Administrator Charles Bolden
NASA Administrator, Major General Charles F. Bolden, Jr (Wikipedia image, probably from official photo; photo added here)
Today marks the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s “Address at Rice University on the Nation’s Space Effort,” when the young president shifted our efforts in space from low to high gear. In proclaiming, “We choose to go to the moon,” Kennedy propelled our space program to the forefront of American culture and consciousness, galvanizing an historic effort on which we continue to build today.
Accomplishing Kennedy’s goals, both tangible and intangible, we have taken on his vision to create new challenges and now reach toward new capabilities and destinations. Neil Armstrong first left humanity’s footprint on the moon, and more importantly helped raise the “banner of freedom and peace,” fulfilling Kennedy’s vow to “not see [space] governed by a hostile flag of conquest.”
And we now stand on Armstrong’s shoulders to create a sustainable vision for the future exploration of space. Much like those aboard the Apollo 7, 8, 9, and 10 missions cleared the path for Apollo 11 and Armstrong to land on the moon, our Curiosity rover on Mars is clearing the path for humans – Americans – to land on Mars. Our space program has developed new technologies that made human expansion into the solar system a reality. It created a global enterprise, now spinning off into the private sector, which continues to advance our nation and our world.
We realize now as we did then that we are not just on a mission to discover the universe; we are on a mission to discover ourselves. As astronaut Bill Anders, one of the first three humans to see the far side of the moon, put it, “We came all this way to explore the moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth.” We cannot forget that the purpose of space exploration is to make life on Earth better, even as we “increase our knowledge and unfold our ignorance,” as Kennedy said, and as we continuously raise the bar of human achievement.
As Kennedy hoped for greater achievements in science and education, in culture, and for peace, he could not have foreseen the degree to which we have unfolded our ignorance. He envisioned “new techniques of learning and mapping and observation, by new tools and computers for industry, medicine, the home as well as the school.”
There are literally thousands of examples of exploration technology being adapted for life on Earth, and a few areas where we have surpassed Kennedy’s greatest dreams: artificial hearts; retrofit systems that convert gas-powered vehicles into gas-electric hybrids, used in such trucks as mail delivery trucks for the U.S. Postal Service; health and fitness monitoring technology capable of measuring and recording vital signs of soldiers, first responders, professional athletes, and consumers seeking to get in shape; and parachutes capable of rescuing entire planes.
Our fleet of Earth observation satellites track hurricanes and wildfires and are able to analyze landslide motion and keep watch on agricultural fields. They provide continuity of data over the long term to help us see how our planet continues to change as a unified system. Our research on the International Space Station has helped us understand processes such as bone and muscle loss especially applicable to our senior citizens.
All this innovation has saved countless lives and billions of dollars, all the while creating thousands of jobs.
And we continue to reach higher. We have opened a new door to commercial space, for instance, helping facilitate a new space transportation industry to low Earth orbit.
Today, to “organize and measure the best of our energies and skills,” as Kennedy charged us, we’re doing things like landing that small SUV-size rover on Mars, now transmitting high definition images and information, which will lead to a better understanding of the Martian environment and the different ways Mars and Earth evolved. By 2018 we will launch our new James Webb Space Telescope, which will serve as our eye in the sky, peering deeper into the universe than ever before.
We’re building our Space Launch System, the most powerful rocket in history, and Orion, the new multi-purpose vehicle crew capsule, which will lead to the first-ever crewed missions beyond the low Earth orbit and the Moon into deep space. President Obama charged us with increasingly difficult challenges, beginning with sending astronauts to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars by the mid-2030s. The journey there will be full of discoveries and new technological breakthroughs.
So while President Kennedy christened our sails on the new sea of space exploration, our work is far from done. Thanks to President Obama, this generation’s young president, we are witnessing a christening of a rejuvenated space program, where we will traverse previously untouched terrain, learning from our past and building on it to forge a bright future.
To watch President Kennedy’s historic speech, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=151776051
Also, see the next post at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub.
3 Comments | Apollo Project, Cold War, History, John F. Kennedy, NASA, Neil Armstrong, Science, Space exploration, Space Race | Tagged: Apollo 11, Apollo Project, Charles Bolden, Cold War, History, John F. Kennedy, NASA, Neil Armstrong, Rice University, Science, Space exploration, Space Race | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Two thoughts:
Pat Oliphant cartoon, upon the death of Neil Armstrong, the first human to set foot on the Moon.
And this one, with Neil de Grasse Tyson, “We stopped dreaming”:
Oliphant’s cartoon shows a future under Mitt Romney and continued GOP domination of the House and Senate — no more Neil Armstrongs doing peaceful work for NASA, like going to the Moon. Tyson expresses hope for something different.
No, it’s not “time to come inside, Grampaw.” It’s time to vote. Vote for the guys whose budget doesn’t say “America cannot afford to be great anymore, American cannot afford to dream.”
Ha! A third thought:
Cover of Goodnight, Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown, with illustrations by Clement Hurd
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7 Comments | History, Mitt Romney, Moon, NASA, Science, Space exploration | Tagged: Cartoons, History, Moon, NASA, Neil Armstrong, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Pat Olphant, Political cartoons, Science, Space exploration | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Curiosity is on the ground.
What were the odds? What did NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL) need to overcome? Watch this:
Did that astonshingly Rube Goldberg-looking set of devices work?
Here’s the news, from NBC’s science editor Alan Boyle:
PASADENA, Calif. — After eight years of planning and eight months of interplanetary travel, NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory pulled off a touchdown of Super Bowl proportions, all by itself. It even sent pictures from the goal line.
The spacecraft plunged through Mars’ atmosphere, fired up a rocket-powered platform and lowered the car-sized, 1-ton Curiosity rover to its landing spot in 96-mile-wide (154-kilometer-wide) Gale Crater. Then the platform flew off to its own crash landing, while Curiosity sent out a text message basically saying, “I made it!”
That message was relayed by the orbiting Mars Odyssey satellite back to Earth. A radio telescope in Australia picked up the message and sent it here to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. When the blips of data appeared on the screens at JPL’s mission control, the room erupted in cheers and hugs.
Congratulations! We need good news, and this is great news.
So far as I can tell, no U.S. television network covered the event live in Pasadena. What a shame.
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2 Comments | History, NASA, Science, Space exploration | Tagged: Cool Stuff, History, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Mars, Mars Science Laboratory, NASA, rube goldberg, Science, Space exploration | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Kenny’s right — this is a pretty good debunking of the Moon landing hoax hoax. Good old XKCD:
With debunking this clever, don’t you think this strip is one you should read every day?
Grateful tip of the old scrub brush, to Kenny Darrell in the wilds of darkest Connecticut.
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Buzz Aldrin on the Moon (Cropped from Image:AldrinFlag2.jpeg (now called Image:NASA AS-11-40-5875.jpg) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
4 Comments | Apollo Project, History, Hoaxes, Moon, NASA, Science | Tagged: Apollo 11, History, Hoaxes, Moon, Moon Landing, Science, XKCD | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
If global warming is not reality, if the anti-warmists are to be found correct, we’re going to need some great cooling to start happening, very, very quickly!
NASA Finds 2011 Ninth Warmest Year on Record
RELEASE : 12-020, January 19, 2012
WASHINGTON — The global average surface temperature in 2011 was the ninth warmest since 1880, according to NASA scientists. The finding continues a trend in which nine of the 10 warmest years in the modern meteorological record have occurred since the year 2000.
NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, which monitors global surface temperatures on an ongoing basis, released an updated analysis that shows temperatures around the globe in 2011 compared to the average global temperature from the mid-20th century. The comparison shows how Earth continues to experience warmer temperatures than several decades ago. The average temperature around the globe in 2011 was 0.92 degrees F (0.51 C) warmer than the mid-20th century baseline.
“We know the planet is absorbing more energy than it is emitting,” said GISS director James E. Hansen. “So we are continuing to see a trend toward higher temperatures. Even with the cooling effects of a strong La Nina influence and low solar activity for the past several years, 2011 was one of the 10 warmest years on record.”
The difference between 2011 and the warmest year in the GISS record (2010) is 0.22 degrees F (0.12 C). This underscores the emphasis scientists put on the long-term trend of global temperature rise. Because of the large natural variability of climate, scientists do not expect temperatures to rise consistently year after year. However, they do expect a continuing temperature rise over decades.
The first 11 years of the 21st century experienced notably higher temperatures compared to the middle and late 20th century, Hansen said. The only year from the 20th century in the top 10 warmest years on record is 1998.
Higher temperatures today are largely sustained by increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide. These gases absorb infrared radiation emitted by Earth and release that energy into the atmosphere rather than allowing it to escape to space. As their atmospheric concentration has increased, the amount of energy “trapped” by these gases has led to higher temperatures.
The carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere was about 285 parts per million in 1880, when the GISS global temperature record begins. By 1960, the average concentration had risen to about 315 parts per million. Today it exceeds 390 parts per million and continues to rise at an accelerating pace.
The temperature analysis produced at GISS is compiled from weather data from more than 1,000 meteorological stations around the world, satellite observations of sea surface temperature and Antarctic research station measurements. A publicly available computer program is used to calculate the difference between surface temperature in a given month and the average temperature for the same place during 1951 to 1980. This three-decade period functions as a baseline for the analysis.
The resulting temperature record is very close to analyses by the Met Office Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.
Hansen said he expects record-breaking global average temperature in the next two to three years because solar activity is on the upswing and the next El Nino will increase tropical Pacific temperatures. The warmest years on record were 2005 and 2010, in a virtual tie.
“It’s always dangerous to make predictions about El Nino, but it’s safe to say we’ll see one in the next three years,” Hansen said. “It won’t take a very strong El Nino to push temperatures above 2010.”
For more information on the GISS temperature analysis, visit:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp
– end –
Tip of the old scrub brush to Rashid’s Blog.
1 Comment | Climate change, climate_change, CO2, Global warming, NASA, Science | Tagged: Climate change, Global warming, NASA | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Certain things need to be on the record, in the annals. Last January I failed to post this press release from NASA, issued January 11, 2011:
WASHINGTON — Global surface temperatures in 2010 tied 2005 as the warmest on record, according to an analysis released Wednesday by researchers at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.The two years differed by less than 0.018 degrees Fahrenheit. The difference is smaller than the uncertainty in comparing the temperatures of recent years, putting them into a statistical tie. In the new analysis, the next warmest years are 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007 and 2009, which are statistically tied for third warmest year. The GISS records begin in 1880.
The analysis found 2010 approximately 1.13 F warmer than the average global surface temperature from 1951 to 1980. To measure climate change, scientists look at long-term trends. The temperature trend, including data from 2010, shows the climate has warmed by approximately 0.36 F per decade since the late 1970s.
“If the warming trend continues, as is expected, if greenhouse gases continue to increase, the 2010 record will not stand for long,” said James Hansen, the director of GISS.
The analysis produced at GISS is compiled from weather data from more than 1000 meteorological stations around the world, satellite observations of sea surface temperature and Antarctic research station measurements. A computer program uses the data to calculate temperature anomalies — the difference between surface temperature in a given month and the average temperature for the same period during 1951 to 1980. This three-decade period acts as a baseline for the analysis.
The resulting temperature record closely matches others independently produced by the Met Office Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center.
The record temperature in 2010 is particularly noteworthy, because the last half of the year was marked by a transition to strong La Niña conditions, which bring cool sea surface temperatures to the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.
“Global temperature is rising as fast in the past decade as in the prior two decades, despite year-to-year fluctuations associated with the El Niño-La Niña cycle of tropical ocean temperature,” Hansen and colleagues reported in the Dec. 14, 2010, issue of Reviews of Geophysics.
A chilly spell also struck this winter across northern Europe. The event may have been influenced by the decline of Arctic sea ice and could be linked to warming temperatures at more northern latitudes.
Arctic sea ice acts like a blanket, insulating the atmosphere from the ocean’s heat. Take away that blanket, and the heat can escape into the atmosphere, increasing local surface temperatures. Regions in northeast Canada were more than 18 degrees warmer than normal in December.
The loss of sea ice may also be driving Arctic air into the middle latitudes. Winter weather patterns are notoriously chaotic, and the GISS analysis finds seven of the last 10 European winters warmer than the average from 1951 to 1980. The unusual cold in the past two winters has caused scientists to begin to speculate about a potential connection to sea ice changes.
“One possibility is that the heat source due to open water in Hudson Bay affected Arctic wind patterns, with a seesaw pattern that has Arctic air downstream pouring into Europe,” Hansen said.
For more information about GISS’s surface temperature record, visit:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/A Warming World
http://climate.nasa.gov/warmingworld/Global Temperatures Animation
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003600/a003674/index.html
1 Comment | Climate change, climate_change, CO2, Global warming, Greenhouse Gases, History, NASA | Tagged: Climate change, CO2, Global warming, History, NASA, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
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Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
