Voyager Turns 30

This fall is the 30th anniversary of the Voyager missions to the outer planets and beyond. The missions brought back the first close-up images of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune along with a plethora of new discoveries about the planets and their moons. Before these missions no one knew that there were volcanoes on any other celestial body other than Earth. Jupiter’s moon Io turned out to be THE place in the solar system for the ultimate in volcanism. From fire to ice, Neptune’s moon Triton, the coldest body in the solar system, was discovered to have geysers that spewed nitrogen gas and dust high into it’s atmosphere. I grew up in the Voyager age and can remember learning about the planets from the very pictures that the spacecraft sent back to Earth. We’ve learned so much since Voyager 1 and 2 passed through our outer Solar System, and we have such a better understanding of these planets and their moons because of these two missions. When Voyager 1 passed the orbits of Neptune and Pluto, NASA turned around the craft and took a picture of our tiny Earth, which looked like nothing more than a small blue speck against a black backdrop. NASA also took pictures of the rest of the planets and made a family portrait of our solar system family. Those spacecraft are still transmitting data, 30 years and about 9 billion miles later. Scientists think the craft are approaching the boundary of the heliopause, where the solar wind and interstellar wind meet. In about 80,000 years they will reach Alpha Centauri, our closest star at around 4 light years away. In billions of years when the Sun is nothing more than a cinder, these two spacecraft will still be on their journey through our galaxy, carrying with them a piece of humankind and human spirit.

Germs From Space

Does this sound familiar? Germs from space, more powerful than what we have here on Earth, come to earth and attack all of mankind. Sounds like your typical bad (or good, depending on your point of view) 1950’s sci-fi movie. I’ve seen my share of those in my time. The space shuttle mission STS-115 that launched back in September 2006 came back with their own mini bad B-movie. An experiment onboard provided evidence that germs really do get stronger outside of the Earth’s atmosphere. A package of Salmonella was taken onboard, carefully protected, to monitor the change in the germs in zero gravity. Turns out the little guys do alter their DNA to adapt to the change in environment so they can survive. The germs were fed to mice back home and the mice were more likely to get sick and died faster than the control set who were fed the germs that had stayed on the ground. This is a handy thing to know for the future of space travel since anywhere humans go, germs go. If humans are to spend a long time in zero gravity we must learn how our invisible little counterparts will react as well. It also will come in handy here on Earth to better understand how germs change, and how to treat the resulting infections. It’s interesting to note that despite all the accomplishments that humans have done and the distances we have traveled, it’s the littlest life forms that still have the biggest impact on us.

Space Hotel

Just read that there is a company that wants to build a space hotel by the year 2012. If I had a spare $4 million, I’d go. Click here for the NY Times story.