President’s Column

Civil Action on the Outpost

In previous articles, I presented proposals for a criminal justice system for a large space habitat such as The Outpost. In this article, I will explore the civil rather than a criminal justice system.

Civil action is primarily about money, property, or actions. One party can sue another for financial compensation for wrongful action. They can sue for return of property. An example is a landlord suing to evict a tenant. A wrongful action suit could be a restraining order to prevent demolition of a historic building. There are many thousands of variations on these themes — far too many to go into here.

The main problem with civil actions is that cash is king. A standard joke among attorneys is “how much justice can the client afford?” There is unfortunately a lot of truth to this. Suppose, for example, a large corporation damages your house. You have the right to sue for damages. They have a large legal department to fight for them. You can represent yourself. That would not be to your advantage. The law is highly complex. Another attorney joke is “whoever acts as his own attorney has a fool for a client.” You are well advised to pay for an attorney. She will charge you for time spent preparing the case, time talking with you on the phone, filing fees, and additional charges for every court appearance. The corporation, knowing that your resources are limited, will seek to maximize your costs — for example, by constantly adjourning the case so that your lawyer has to show up each time and you get additional charges. Their strategy assumes that the expense will force you to terminate your suit or settle it. If you proceed and lose, the expenses can leave you destitute.

The ultimate result of this is that there are two standards of justice: one for the wealthy and another, far more limited, for the less affluent. How can this inherent injustice be eliminated?

The first step would be to have a system similar to Legal Aid that would provide legal services to litigants. This could be based on some form of financial means test to determine the degree to which the cost of proceeding with an action would harm the party involved.

Another serious question is how to prevent frivolous lawsuits. Actions can be started just to harass others. Therefore, before an attorney is assigned to a case, there could be an impartial committee that will review the allegations. The committee might also attempt to resolve the case with arbitration. If arbitration fails and the committee determines that the case has merit, an attorney could be assigned. If the committee decides that the case has no merit, the suing party has the right to proceed on their own.

It may happen if one party has a valid defense while the other does not. In this case, the fact that one party would have to incur the expense of a lawyer or proceed on their own will generate pressure to resolve the issue.

In courts in the United States, a justification for the lack of court-appointed attorneys in civil actions is based on the fact that anyone can represent themselves in court. Since a civil matter does not result in the loss of freedom, which a criminal matter would, there is no requirement for guaranteed representation. This is a false dichotomy. While a loss in a civil case will not result in the restriction of personal freedom, it can leave a person financially destitute. The consequences of this are that people of lower means are often reluctant to challenge unjust actions against a person or organization with far greater resources. This is a form of injustice that is inherent in the way courts are presently structured.

As we determine what form of social structure The Outpost needs to develop, it is imperative that we are guided by the principle of ensuring the greatest equality and freedom for all regardless of financial resources.

Barry Greene
President

Educational Space

Orbital Resonance and Mean-Motion Resonance
by Roxanne Lee

As we explore space and make plans for the far future when we may live there, we will need to understand gravity. By understanding it, we understand how we can live, where we can travel, and how we travel. It’s even important to study the parts of gravity that don’t seem immediately important. One such aspect of gravity in space we’ve been studying for hundreds of years, and still have much to learn about, is orbital resonance.

Orbital resonance is a phenomenon observed in satellites and other orbiting objects (Peale). Satellites are objects, whether naturally occurring or human-made, that orbit a planet or star. To learn more about satellites, you can check out the NASA link here, or the High Frontier Outpost article about satellites written for World Space Week here. Some objects in space have one satellite, while others have several. One place to see this difference is in moons. Earth has one moon that orbits on a path. Other planets have more moons – Jupiter has 79! The sun itself has multiple satellites, as all of our planets and their satellites orbit the sun. When objects have multiple satellites, sometimes the orbits those satellites take can form observable patterns.

Orbital resonance occurs when two or more orbiting satellites exert periodic gravitational pulls on each other (UCSB). This happens when the orbital period of two or more satellites has a ratio of small whole numbers, like 1:2 or 3:2. Let’s examine the 1:2 orbital ratio a little more in depth. Imagine a planet that has two moons, moons A and B. If the moons have a 1:2 orbital ratio, that means for every rotation moon A makes, moon B makes 2.

Because this is a ratio of two close whole integers, the moons will periodically align with the planet they rotate. When two orbiting bodies are simple integer ratios of each other, then a mean-motion orbital resonance is occurring. Resonance with small integer ratios also means that the periapsis are nearly the same (UCSB). Periapse is when the orbiting objects are closest to what they’re orbiting. When orbits have close integers, satellites will also have periodic gravitational effects on each other, often leading to more stable resonance structures (Jiang).

Pierre-Simon Laplace did much of the early research on orbital resonance. Laplace (1749-1827) was a notable French mathematician and scientist who spent the majority of his life making significant scientific advancements, not only in astronomy, but also in other fields like statistics and physics (Hankins). Laplace studied, amongst other things, the stability of orbits, and he published work about orbital resonances.

It’s okay if you’re still a bit confused – it’s a complicated topic! 

Orbital resonance is a concept that’s sometimes easier to see in action than explained. There is a brilliant example of orbital resonance in action on this page here, created by data scientist Matt Dzugan. His page shows several orbital resonance structures in motion. In addition to being educational, the examples are incredibly beautiful in their own right.

One example of orbital resonance is Laplace resonance. A Laplace resonance is when orbiting bodies exhibit two consecutive 2:1 mean motion resonances, creating a 4:2:1 ratio amongst three orbiting satellites. The most famous example of this is with the Galilean moons of Jupiter – Io (1:1), Europa (2:1), and Ganymede (4:1) (UCSB). As Laplace was the first one to point out this relationship, the resonance was named after him. 

To see a Laplace resonance in action, you can check out The Planetary Society’s page here. At the link, there’s a picture at the top of the page of Jupiter and its Galilean moons. You can watch them rotate, and see instances when they periodically align. 

Orbital resonance is common in our solar system, and may be just as common in others, considering the sheer number of planets and orbiting bodies out there. It is essential to know about other worlds and moons, and what they might be like; orbital resonance is the reason that the oceans and Europa are actually still liquid. We know a lot about it, far more than we once did, but there is still much farther to go before we fully understand it. The continued efforts of people from all walks of life, from NASA to small organizations like High Frontier Outpost, will be essential to learning more about this space that could one day be our home.

For More Information

Encyclopedia Britannica, inc. (n.d.). Orbital resonances. www.britannica.com.
https://www.britannica.com/science/celestial-mechanics-physics/Orbital-resonances

Hankins, T. L. (2006, September 1). Pierre Simon Laplace, 1749-1827: A Determined Scientist. Physics Today.
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.2364251

Peale, S. J. (1976, January 1). Orbital resonance in the solar system. NASA/ADS.
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1976ARA%26A..14..215P/abstract

Jiang, Y. (2007, December). Physics in Orbital Resonance. Professor Robert B. Laughlin, Department of
Physics, Stanford University.
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2007/ph210/jiang2/

Mean-Motion Resonances in the GJ 876 Extrasolar Planetary System and the Galilean Satellite System of
Jupiter. Department of Physics University of California, Santa Barbara.
http://web.physics.ucsb.edu/~mhlee/resonances.html

The European Southern Observatory. (n.d.). Orbital resonance. Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A).
https://www.aanda.org/glossary/175-orbital-resonance

Closing Words

A Proposal for Mars
by Barry Greene

Mars is a dangerous place. Living on Mars has been compared to living in the Arctic with the additional hazards of lower gravity, and unbreathable air, super fine dust, and radiation. Getting there is worse. Going to Mars, as presently imagined, would be a months-long trip at zero gravity with constant exposure to significant radiation.

We know the dangers of zero gravity. They include bone loss, a weakened immune system, changes in the heart and other organs, and numerous other physiological changes.

Beyond the shelter of Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere, an astronaut will be constantly exposed to cosmic and solar radiation. The level of cosmic radiation is relatively constant. The solar radiation is not. It tends to vary in an 11-year cycle. We are now just getting out of the solar minimum phase and will approach solar maximum later in this decade. This is extremely dangerous for our astronauts. A solar storm can disrupt communications, play havoc with sensitive equipment, and expose astronauts to intense ‒ possibly lethal ‒ levels of radiation. If we are going to establish a human colony on Mars, it is imperative that we have a way to deal with these conditions while traveling there.

I will assume that the flight to Mars we are considering will utilize the SpaceX Starship as the means of transportation.

The SpaceX proposal, as it now exists, would have a crewed vehicle rendezvous in orbit with a tanker in order to refuel. This would require two launches from Earth to orbit. The main cruise ship and the refueling tanker ship. I would add three more for a total of 5 launches. The additional three launches would be as follows.

First: a second vehicle. This would be primarily an unmanned Cargo Carrier. It would contain what could be described as a “safe room.” This would be a small room with life support. It would be surrounded on all sides by cargo and supplies. The mass of this material would provide a higher degree of radiation shielding than in the main spacecraft. Having a redundant spacecraft wouldn’t exactly hurt either.

Second: another tanker launch to refuel the cargo vehicle. This could be eliminated if the cargo craft was to remain on Mars.

Third: a cargo launch bringing to orbit the disassembled components of a long tubular truss. This would connect both spacecraft and allow the assembly to be rotated around its center of mass. The rate of rotation could be calculated to simulate Martian gravity, which is about one-third that of Earth.

The truss would be designed so that a spacesuited astronaut could safely move between vehicles. There could be a cable connecting the two craft inside the truss. A small motorized carrier on the cable would allow an astronaut to hook on to it and rapidly move between the two vehicles.

In the event of a solar storm with heavy radiation, the main craft could be rapidly evacuated to the safe room on the cargo ship. This would protect the astronauts until the radiation decreased.

Current proposals are to create a viable colony on Mars. In that case, there would be more than one such flight. This leads to a number of interesting possibilities.

As the ships disengage from the truss in order to land on the Martian surface, the truss could be inserted into orbit. It could become the foundation of an orbital station. Additional flights would add to the structure, which could expand into a large habitat over time.

As fuel is produced on the planet, one or more of the spacecraft could become ground to orbit shuttles with a space station acting as a transfer point.

I believe that the greatest threat to a human colony on Mars is the one that is rarely mentioned, probably because there is nothing we can possibly do to correct it. The problem is gravity. Martian gravity is 38% that of Earth. How will the human body respond to that over time? We don’t know. The first astronaut to go to Mars will be experiment number one.

A colony needs children to become self-sustaining. Can a healthy fetus develop in Martian gravity? We don’t know. If the fetus comes to term, will the child develop normally? Again, we don’t know. That child’s life, health, and development will also be an experiment.

We evolved in Earth’s gravity. A billion years of evolution shaped us for our world. Can we thrive on another world so different from ours? It may not be possible. This does not mean that we must give up our dreams of other worlds. A wise plan always contains contingencies.

If we cannot live on Mars, we can do what humanity has always done when facing hostile conditions. We have lived on boats in Asia, in igloos in the Arctic; we have made our homes of mud and sticks, of steel and stone. If we can’t live on the planet, we can use the planet for our industry, our resources, and we can live in space. In space, we can simulate Earth’s gravity with rotation.

An Outpost-type habitat constructed in Martian orbit would provide terrestrial conditions necessary to support human life. Mars itself would be the industrial base supporting the families in orbit.

Around the Cosmos

• NASA has missions ready to crack the Venus code.
• Listen to this podcast talk about what it means for Starship going to the moon.
• What is a Space Plane?

Space Activism

• Let Washington know space is important to you.
• Here’s a fun initiative to take part of. Mission 1.5 is compiling data on how citizens best want to tackle climate change and will be presented to governments.

Creative Space

Toby Ord digitally restores some of the most jaw dropping shots of Earth as seen by only 24 humans.

Show us your creativity of bringing science and art together! Submit your art to mail@highfrontieroutpost.org.

Space Holidays

• Space Day – June 17-18, 1928: Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic.

Quote of the Month

“Adventure is worthwhile in itself.”

– Amelia Earhart

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The post June 2021 Newsletter appeared first on High Frontier Outpost.

President’s Column

SpaceX, Mars, and Space Commerce

One of the major problems with space development for any corporation or government is that it is a huge money sink. Until the program is fully developed and operational, a process that may take years, there is no return on investment. For example, the Martian Rovers, highly complex semi-autonomous mobile robots, cost billions to develop. Is there a better way?

Elon Musk seems to be the only one who has come up with a practical solution. Spin-off is the term that NASA uses to describe commercial applications of technology that was originally developed for the Space Program. Musk has reversed that equation. His spin-off isn’t the commercial application of space technology. Space technology is the spin-off of his applications.

Of course, it required a certain amount of initial investment. However, as soon as SpaceX had functioning orbital rockets, they immediately began launching components of the Starlink Constellation (which, when fully operational, will cover much of the space development costs). He is also pushing tourist flights for similar reasons.

If we look at his various projects, it is interesting to observe that most of them will tie into the construction and support of a Martian colony.

The conditions on the Martian surface are inimical to life: a thin carbon dioxide atmosphere, extreme cold, and radiation due to a lack of a magnetic field and thick atmosphere. Any dwelling on Mars would need to be heavily shielded, ideally underground. Finding a large enough cave is highly problematic. Preferably, we would be able to create our own. By a remarkable coincidence, Elon Musk founded the Boring Company. This company is now focused on constructing transportation tunnels. When the need arrives on Mars, that company will have years of experience and the advanced equipment for excavating an underground environment. I can easily imagine future Martian settlements beneath the surface in huge tunnels drilled by Boring Company machines.

Any colony will require power generation and storage. Here, too, Musk is involved. His company, Solar City, is developing rugged solar power generators. Tesla, in addition to vehicles, produces advanced large-scale battery banks for power storage.

It is easy to envision autonomous vehicles crossing the Martian surface. Tesla is currently developing those. We can also imagine robots controlled by a direct human-machine interface  operated using Neuralink.

Musk is also invested in artificial intelligence. Though this might seem like a contradiction, considering his warnings, in fact, it is not. His warnings refer primarily to a general-purpose AI, essentially the computer equivalent of a human mind. There is a major difference between that and what I call a Focused AI, where the AI is designed to function only in a narrow area such as safely operating a spacecraft or locating and retrieving asteroidal materials. The company DeepMind was purchased by Musk. It developed Open AI, which was ultimately sold to Google. He still holds a seat on the board and is in a position to direct much of the research and development.

The remaining big three needs of space colony development are air, water, and food. I firmly believe that as time goes on, Musk or one of his corporations will acquire companies developing technologies in these sectors. This will most likely happen only when these companies have become profitable here on Earth so that their terrestrial income can drive the research necessary for Martian Colony development.

Barry Greene
President

Educational Space

First in Space
by Anyi Wen

All over the world, space enthusiasts gathered for World Space Parties this month in honor of Yuri Gagarin. Who is that and why is he being celebrated, you may ask? 60 years ago, 27-year-old cosmonaut (Russian astronomer) Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was the first human to travel to space and orbit the Earth! On April 12, 1961, he made a trip around the Earth in the spacecraft Vostok 1. In all, he spent one hour and 48 minutes in space that day. That may not sound like a lot, but at the time it certainly was! Listen to some short recordings of Gagarin’s messages from space in this video. You can read more about his childhood and career here.

Gagarin was highly respected and celebrated for this accomplishment. After he returned from the flight, Gagarin took another trip — a world tour this time. Many people were eager to meet the first man to travel to space. The Soviet Union (which included present-day Russia and 14 surrounding countries) even renamed streets after him and put up statues to show their appreciation. Gagarin was given the Order of Lenin and named a hero of the Soviet Union. This was a big win for the Soviet Union in the Space Race against the United States. They were in competition to see who would make the most progress, faster, in outer space technology and exploration. The United States was not far behind in sending the first person to space a month later, but it wasn’t until 1962 that the U.S. space program was able to send someone into orbit around Earth (History.com editors).

Behind the Scenes

Sergei Pavlovich Korolev was the Chief Designer who created and led the Soviet space program in this project and many other firsts during the 1950s and 60s: “first animal in orbit, first large scientific satellite, first man, first woman, first three men, first space walk, first spacecraft to impact the moon, first to orbit the moon, first to impact Venus, and first craft to soft-land on the moon” (History.com editors). Despite these important contributions, Korolev’s identity was hidden by the Soviet Union until his death because he had gotten in trouble with the government and was sent to a prison camp (where he was still told to continue with his scientific work). After he died in 1966, Chief Designer Korolev’s identity was finally revealed to the world, and he was buried as a Soviet Union hero.

Thank You

These are just a few examples of how young women have proven time and time again that they can shine just as brightly as anyone else, if they put their mind and heart to something. We would love to hear from you, too. What is your dream, and who/what inspires you? What did you learn from the young people featured in this article? Are there any other scientists or topics you’d like to see featured in a future HFO newsletter? Share all of your thoughts and more with us at mail@highfrontieroutpost.org. 

For More Information

BBC News. (2021, April 12). Yuri Gagarin: The first man in space – BBC News [Video].
YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KANuFlelQ5k

ESA. (n.d). Yuri Gagarin. The European Space Agency.
https://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESA_history/50_years_of_humans_in_space/Yuri_Gagarin

FRANCE 24 English. (2021, April 12). Yuri Gagarin became first man in space 60 years ago [Video].
YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKT8HyCQjAE

History.com Editors. (2010, February 9). Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man in space. History.com.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-man-in-space

What is Escape Velocity?
by Roxanne Lee

If you have the space, jump in place, or imagine jumping in place. How far up did you get? Now, try again, as hard as you can (again, if you have the room).

How far can you throw a ball into the air? Try it, if you have a small one (and you have space to do so safely). How high up did it get? Now, try again, as hard as you can (again, if you can do so safely). Did you throw it any higher?

Both times, now matter how far it went, the ball fell back down to Earth right? What if I told you there was a way to throw the ball hard enough that it never comes back down?

To get a baseball, or any object, to fly up and never come down, you have to make sure it reaches escape velocity. Escape velocity is the minimum velocity an object needs to reach to break free of a planet or moon’s gravity (NASA). (Velocity is the rate at which an object changes position, and is similar but not the same thing as speed. To learn more about the difference between velocity and speed, you can check out the link here).

If you know the right escape velocity, you know how fast a rocket will need to be to keep flying up until it reaches space. If you don’t know the correct escape velocity for a planet or moon, the rocket won’t travel fast enough, and it will fall back to Earth without reaching space, just like a thrown baseball.

Escape velocity can be calculated using the following equation: v_e= √(2GM/r)

V_e stands for escape velocity. G stands for Newton’s universal constant of gravity. M stands for the mass of the planet and moon being considered. r stands for the radius of the planet or moon. Mass is especially important to consider, because the more mass a planet or moon has, the more gravity it has, and the harder it is to reach escape velocity. On each planet or moon, the escape velocity of an object will be the same, regardless of the mass of the object (Let’s Talk Science).

The escape velocity of Earth is 7 miles per second, or 25,038 miles per hour (NASA). Other planets have different escape velocities based on their gravity. Let’s think about the planet Jupiter. Because Jupiter is such a large, dense planet, it has more gravity than Earth. Its escape velocity is much greater than Earth’s – to escape Jupiter’s gravity you’d have to travel 37 miles per second, or 133,018 miles per hour!

So, no matter if you’re launching a baseball or a space shuttle, an object will need to travel 25,038 mph, or 7 miles per second, to reach escape velocity and escape Earth’s gravity (NASA).

But how do you do that?

Gravity is a powerful force. Any time an object is launched or launches itself into the air, gravity pulls on it, eventually pulling it back to Earth. But the further you get from Earth’s surface, the weaker gravity becomes. Eventually, when you get far enough away, an object can break free of Earth’s gravity. If an object can go fast enough, it can rise and escape Earth’s gravity before it loses speed and gravity pulls it back down to the ground.

If you threw a baseball straight up, it would go a certain distance before falling back down. If you threw it as hard as you could, it would fly farther before eventually coming back down. The force you added with your arm made the ball go farther. The more force you put in, the more speed you get.

Now, imagine that the baseball was a bowling ball. You’d have to throw it much harder to get it to the same height as the baseball, right? How much more force would you have to use?

This is an example of the problem that scientists and engineers have to consider when launching rockets into space.

Rockets are powered by fuel. They need a lot of fuel to get the lift to let them reach escape velocity, since rockets are incredibly heavy. But, the fuel itself also adds weight, so more force is needed to launch the rocket, which means more fuel is needed, which increases weight, and so on and so forth (Canright). This is one reason early rockets were so large – they needed to hold a lot of fuel to reach escape velocity. Scientists today are looking to break the cycle by using more efficient fuels and lighter vehicles (NASA). Even magnets are being considered as a way to get shuttles into space!

If rockets go far enough to reach space but don’t reach escape velocity, they begin to orbit the Earth (Let’s Talk Science). Most rockets launched into space don’t actually reach escape velocity. They are often used to launch satellites into orbit, or deliver supplies and astronauts to the International Space Station, and more rarely have to leave Earth’s atmosphere entirely (Canright).

In conclusion – could you launch a baseball hard enough to reach escape velocity? Yes! As long as it reaches 25,038 miles per hour, it will be able to achieve escape velocity, breaking free of Earth’s gravity to reach the stars. Unfortunately, unless you have superpowers, you won’t be able to throw it that hard on your own.
 
How would you launch a baseball past orbit?

For More Information

Canright, S. (2009, April 10). Escape Velocity: Fun and Games.
https://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/k-4/features/F_Escape_Velocity.html

Let’s Talk Science. (2019, July 23). Escape Velocity.
https://letstalkscience.ca/educational-resources/stem-in-context/escape-velocity

Qualitative Reasoning Group, Northwestern University. (n.d.). What is Escape Velocity.
https://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/projects/vss/docs/space-environment/2-whats-escape-velocity.html

The Physics Classroom. (n.d.). Speed and Velocity.
https://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/1DKin/Lesson-1/Speed-and-Velocity

Closing Words

Speculation About Life on Europa
by Barry Greene

Several months ago, I presented some thoughts about what form intelligent life might take on one of the deep-ocean worlds such as Jupiter’s moon Europa. In this, the second part of the series, I will look more closely at some of the basic requirements necessary for a society to develop under Europan conditions.

Europa is covered, to the best of our current knowledge, by an ocean nearly a hundred miles deep, enclosed in a shell of ice almost 15 miles thick. The water below is kept liquid by heating from the gravitational stress induced by Jupiter and radioactives in the rocky core. Sunlight, already weak that far out in the solar system, would never penetrate the icy shell. It is possible that the gravitational heating of the core could give rise to formations similar to the Black Smokers found in Earth’s oceans. Given these conditions and assuming the evolution of the being described in my prior article, how could they develop a society?

Communication

The primary requirement for any social organization is communication. Communication requires some form of language. In its broadest sense, language is a means by which one being can transmit information to another being and have them understand what is being presented. Language in turn requires a vocabulary. A vocabulary is a symbolic way of expressing a thing or concept – in short, words. For humanity, words are the tools of the mind. Try to express an idea or think about something without using words. It is very difficult. There are other forms of communication that we use. Music, for example, is able to communicate on an emotional level. It too has its own language and vocabulary.

Underwater sound travels very well. The cetaceans, whales and dolphins, can communicate and locate themselves using sound. Many marine creatures are able to detect chemical cues in the water. This too is a potential form of communication. In Earth’s deep ocean, many animals produce their own light by chemical means. This can likewise become a form of communication. It is interesting that even in the eternal darkness of the depths of Earth’s oceans, there are creatures with some form of light-sensing organs, eyes of various sorts.

There is also touch. If a creature is able to feel texture this can be a basis for communication. Braille is, after all, used for that purpose by blind humans.

Given all these possibilities, I will assume that our aliens are able to communicate with each other and coordinate their activities. A basic level of communication would allow the formation of small social groups, the equivalent of a tribal culture. To advance beyond that point, the society must have some means of recording information beyond the lifetime and memory of an individual, some form of writing.

Humanity, the only example we have to examine, has used many means to record data. From knots in strings, Polynesian ocean maps of islands and currents made of sticks, pictographs as in Egyptian hieroglyphics, and marks in clay such as cuneiform. Our marine being would most likely have most of these available, and more, based on additional abilities such as a chemical sense. If they are able to overcome the challenge of recording information, they would be on their way to developing an advanced civilization.

Manipulating the Environment

Almost every creature that lives manipulates its environment in some way. From the worm that digs a burrow to humanity’s mightiest city.

Humanity’s technological development followed several stages. Initially, direct use of available materials with little modification such as a pile of rocks or branches to protect the cave entrance. Later, materials were modified somewhat such as a shack made from lashed poles covered with branches. This gave way to highly modified materials such as shaped stone blocks and carpentry.

Fire was a critical development. The use of fire gave us the metal technology on which our civilization is based. In fact, our entire civilization is based on fire. We burn fossil fuels for energy. We use heat to turn limestone into concrete for roads and buildings. While ores might be available in a deep ocean world, there is no possibility of producing fire.

Could a civilization develop without fire? I believe that an advanced society could be created based on a biological rather than a mechanistic technology. This is not as far-fetched as it seems. Even primitive human societies engaged in biological manipulation. Take, for example, the development of many cereal grains from their wild ancestors. The wild ancestor of corn is very different from the corn that we know today. 

Many of our food animals are so heavily modified that they would be incapable of surviving in the wild without human support.

For our alien society, the old saying would apply: “If life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” With multiple possible senses and means of communication, our creatures are well-equipped to become adept biologists.

Human technology developed for two primary reasons, food and shelter. The development of weaponry allowed the acquisition of expanded food sources. Larger and swifter animals could then be hunted. The development of agriculture allowed the replacement of a nomadic existence with permanent dwellings and ultimately contributed to the growth of cities.

Shelter is also a vital primary need. Shelter protects us from the extremes of the environment, heat, cold rain, and storms. A good shelter also protects against predation. In the early days of humanity, many predators were larger, stronger, and faster than man. Our technology helped us stay alive.

Mankind is not the only tool user. Chimps shape sticks to use in gathering termites that they eat. Even some birds use tools. Seagulls will drop a clamshell on a hard surface to crack it open. I once saw a seagull drop a shell on a sandy road. The shell didn’t crack. Instead of picking it up and trying again, it landed nearby and waited. A car came along and ran over the clam, cracking it. The gull then flew down to enjoy its meal. The bird had used a car to crack the shell. Certainly a demonstration of thought, planning, and tool use. One of the most intelligent non-mammalian creatures in the earth’s oceans is the octopus. In numerous experiments, an octopus has used reason to open a screw top jar to get to the prey inside.

We can therefore conclude, based on the fact that some form of intelligence has developed among so many diverse species, that intelligence is not just a fluke reserved for us humans, but is capable of appearing in many different species and environments.

If we assume some form of language and tool use for aliens, what sort of technology could they develop? What are the available resources on the ocean floor? It is hard to draw conclusions from a statistical sample of one, but the Earth is the only example we have, for now.

Conditions for Evolving Life

If we look at the greatest depths of terrestrial oceans, we find areas that are called the Abyssal Plains. They are relatively free of life, yet life is there, but the plains are not where most life thrives in the depths. The so-called black smokers are life’s deep water focus. This is where superheated water rises up from the sea floor. These hydrothermal solutions (hydrothermal means hot water) contain large amounts of minerals dissolved below the surface and heated by geothermal energy. They form the energy source for a diverse biosphere in the ocean’s greatest depths.

Could such formations exist on Europa? It is quite possible, even probable. The gravitational flexing of Europa’s core by Jupiter produces considerable internal heat that could power such formations and the life they might support.

What other conditions are probable? There are tides. The same force responsible for the gravitational flexing of the core affects the surrounding water so Europan oceans have powerful tides and currents. On Earth, the tides and currents are important for marine life. Many animals have adapted to accommodate them. Some release their eggs or larvae into the water knowing that the currents will distribute them far and wide. Many others have developed means of holding themselves against the force of moving water such as chitans, mussels, and oysters. Still others let water bring food and nutrients to their tendrils, such as filter feeders like corals.

The tides and currents even affect the shape of mollusks’ shells. The shells of oysters that live in calm water are thinner and have more complex surface structures than those found in rough seas.

Gravity is another issue. The gravity on Europa is only 13% that of Earth; therefore, things will sink more slowly than in terrestrial seas. If the tides and currents stir up sediment, the particles are more likely to remain suspended. This could potentially increase the availability of nutrients in the water and allow bottom feeders to be more mobile than on Earth.

In the third article of the series, I will attempt to imagine what a civilization could be like having evolved under these conditions. What form of technology might they develop, and what might their worldview be like? Let me know what thoughts you might have on the subject.

Around the Cosmos

• Be sure to catch the new High Frontier documentary featuring Gerard O’Neill!
• Listen to the Producers talk about the new High Frontier movie.
• NASA has chosen SpaceX to help with their Moon Landing. Read the story.

Space Activism

• Let Washington know space is important to you.
• Here’s a fun initiative to take part of. Mission 1.5 is compiling data on how citizens best want to tackle climate change and will be presented to governments.

Creative Space

“Landfall” is an acryclic piece of art depicting a colonization vessel dropping equipment and landers to the planet below.

Show us your creativity of bringing science and art together! Submit your art to mail@highfrontieroutpost.org.

Space Holidays

• Space Day – May 7, 2021: Quite literally, National Space Day is observed the first Friday of May each year. Read about the history of this day.

Share

If you know someone who would enjoy this newsletter please feel free to forward it to them! They can also subscribe by going to our home page and using the subscribe field at the bottom.

Quote of the Month

“Looking at the Earth from afar you realize it is too small for conflict and just big enough for cooperation.”

– Yuri Gagarin

Opportunities

Are you or someone you know interested in joining our team? Use our volunteer form to notify us!

The post May 2021 Newsletter appeared first on High Frontier Outpost.

President’s Column

Artificial Intelligence?

Because it will be a gigantic, highly complex, synthetic environment, The Outpost will require highly complex control systems with extensive and continual monitoring. The complexity and interactions of these systems will require more control than any person or group of people is capable of. As of today, such sophisticated systems do not exist. They will. We are on the verge of developing them.

These systems are referred to by the term Artificial Intelligence or AI. Already these systems are being used to design machines and solve complex problems. Sometimes the solution artificial intelligence arrives at is so novel that the programmers are unable to understand how the machine derived it. AI has been used to solve complex protein folding problems that would take scientists years to solve. Even these early systems are immensely powerful.

Elon Musk has said that artificial intelligence potentially poses an existential threat to humanity, and we must learn to control it before it controls us. I believe that, if anything, he is understating the case.

Humans are, for the most part, reactive rather than proactive. Take the internet as an example. At first it was called a wonderful thing. It would allow worldwide communications. It would unite us all, give everyone access to the world’s knowledge, and expand freedom and democracy throughout the world. Well, it did change the world. It can be useful. But it also gave us conspiracy theories, fake news, trolls, and a huge number of scams. It gave us a world where anybody can descend into a swamp of their own reality, no matter how warped that reality may be. It created multi-billionaires with an adolescent mentality who believe that whatever makes them money is good.

The frightening thing is that the artificial intelligence they use for this is very basic. The algorithm is simple. Send people what they are most likely to click on.

We can look around us and see the results. Someone says something that can be taken the wrong way and the trolls descend. People’s lives have been destroyed by angry individuals who claim they are”fighting for justice” but hide behind the anonymity of the internet to take their pleasure in the destruction of another human being.

What does all this have to do with Artificial Intelligence? AI is a tool, but even the safest tool can cut the user. This is the most powerful tool we can ever develop because it can out think us. What are the dangers? One danger is a simple programming error. A very simple example: Imagine a robotic factory that makes pencils. You give it piles of wood and graphite and instruct it to  “make as many pencils as possible.” It uses up the supplies and looks for more. A forest is wood. Leaves and plants contain carbon. Graphite is carbon. Left unchecked, you have a desolate planet and a lot of pencils.

Granted, that’s an extreme example. However as programmers say, “garbage in, garbage out.” As the programs get more complex, the result of an error becomes far more likely.

Another danger is that some form of Artificial Intelligence will learn to control our actions. This sounds like science fiction, except that it is happening now. This article briefly mentions that AI could be badly used. Then they give a bunch of positive examples to show that, of course we all know that nobody will use it to convince people to make unwise choices. Right.

Artificial intelligence combined with quantum computers will produce something that can calculate and act exponentially faster than any human brain. I am not talking about Consciousness. We still don’t know what Consciousness actually is. However, Artificial Intelligence is a dangerous tool. Any dangerous tool must have safeties built in. One possible safety is an ethics plan. The basic concept was devised years ago by Isaac Asimov. He called it the three laws of robotics. They are as follows.

1) A robot may not injure a human being or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm.

2) A robot must obey the orders given it by a human being except where such orders would conflict with the first law.

3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law.

Asimov later added what he called the zeroth law to the above.

A robot may not harm Humanity or by any action allow Humanity to come to harm.

These laws are obviously somewhat simplistic. They do, however, provide a basis for further development.

It is incredibly difficult to get the governments of all nations to cooperate on any undertaking. Yet it must be done. Artificial Intelligence is not like nuclear weapons that require large and complex plants to construct. Almost any secure structure will suffice. The nation that is first to develop a really powerful AI can leap far ahead of its rivals, compressing decades of development into weeks or months. It could unleash forces and technologies we may not be able to understand, let alone control.

Artificial Intelligence is a powerful tool. It can bring immeasurable benefits as well as untold dangers. As with any tool, it must be used wisely with a clear understanding of the dangers and risks. We need to learn what those dangers and risks are, and develop the means to control them before we employ the tool.

Barry Greene
President

Educational Space

Young Scientists and Space?
by Anyi Wen

Space may seem far away, but it’s not out of reach for scientists with big dreams! In honor of Women’s History Month, we will be focusing on some amazing young people who have made a difference for our futures as we know it. Distance doesn’t faze these amazing teens, who have made some awesome contributions to our study of space. 

3D Printing Parts for the Space Station

Have you ever thought about who makes the stuff that astronauts use in everyday life and in their missions? Would it surprise you to know that middle and high school students have helped produce them?

Meleah Smith and KK Castleberry, students at Georgia’s Dade Middle School, used 3-D printers to create parts for NASA aircrafts. Working with mentors and the technology available at their school through the HUNCH (High school students United with NASA to Create Hardware) program, this team turned the design of the parts into reality and unveiled the final products a few months ago (Listek). Their contributions, along with those of over 2,000 students across the country, have real and lasting application in our space industry. Not a bad resume builder, eh?

Keeping Space Safe

Litter is already a problem on Earth, but did you know that it can also be destructive out there in space? Space debris, which includes man-made “objects as small as paint flecks and as large as defunct [no longer working] satellites” has cost NASA billions of dollars in damages when it crashes at “up to 17,500 mph” into active satellites and spacecrafts (Mas and Thornell). There are over 500,000 pieces of space trash floating around, and counting. Sounds pretty terrible, right? What can we do about it?

Seven years ago, Amber Yang asked herself the same question after watching a movie called Gravity that showed what might happen if space trash destroyed the International Space Station. Only 15 at the time, Amber made it a personal project to find the solution to this. She spent hours every day reading research papers on her own and teaching herself computer programming. At school, some of her classmates and even a few teachers made rude comments when she showed interest in science-related topics or clubs. How do you think she felt when people told her she couldn’t be good at something just because she’s a girl? Has something like that ever happened to you? 

Luckily, Amber also had adults in her life who took her interest in science seriously and encouraged her! She shared in her TED Talk that one of her high school science teachers once said “Amber Yang can do whatever she wants if she puts her mind to it.” These words of support helped Amber build the motivation and confidence to keep working on her project (which she kept a secret until she was ready to present it at a science fair). Amber’s mom, the only female software engineer at her workplace at the time, also inspired and encouraged her passion for science and engineering (Flatow).

Only three years later, she was ready to show the world the results of her hard work. In a Science Friday audio podcast, Amber explained that “The current methods of tracking space debris rely on a statistical mathematical model that is constantly being manually updated whenever the space debris orbit changes. The really novel thing about applying artificial neural networks is that they can learn by themselves without a manual update about how much the debris positions have been changing for better predictions ultimately in the future” (Flatow). In other words, NASA’s program needs scientists to continuously add information to it, while Amber’s program is set up like a human brain that is able to search for new information about the location of space trash on its own. Just like a person would, Amber’s program also learns and grows from mistakes it makes with its predictions. Isn’t that cool? It works really well too, guessing the path of space trash correctly 98% of the time. That makes Amber’s program faster and more accurate than the program NASA uses!

Many small companies have expressed interest in working with her, but she is looking forward to when NASA and other government-based agencies will make an offer. Her program has amazing possibilities in helping keep space equipment and even lives safe, and keep future repair costs to a minimum. In the meantime, Amber made the smart decision to patent her idea, so that no one else can use it without her permission or try to earn money from it. Did you know that there’s no age requirement to get a patent for an invention? You just need to have proof that it’s your original idea and a solid plan for how to turn it into reality! Check out the links above for some great sites to learn more about patents.

During her TED Talk, Amber had this advice to share: “If any of you are interested in science, go out to the library and check out your own books on physics, chemistry, quantum mechanics, anything…go out and learn for yourself, and take on the challenge, because sometimes that’s the best way to get away from the people who call you weird, or tell you there’s no way you would be good at science.” She went on to study physics and computer science at Stanford University, started her own company called Seer Tracking, and won the 2017 Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award for her work. Go, Amber!

Looking Forward

These are just a few examples of how young women have proven time and time again that they can shine just as brightly as anyone else, if they put their mind and heart to something. We would love to hear from you, too. What is your dream, and who/what inspires you? What did you learn from the young people featured in this article? Are there any other scientists or topics you’d like to see featured in a future HFO newsletter? Share all of your thoughts and more with us at mail@highfrontieroutpost.org.

For More Information

Flatow, I. (Host). (2017, May 26). On Being A Scientist (And Patent Holder) At Any Age.
[Audio podcast episode]. In Science Friday. WNYCStudios.
https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/on-being-a-scientist-and-patent-holder-at-any-age/#segment-transcript

Kavanaugh, D. (n.d). The teenage scientist tracking a sea of space junk [Video]. BBC.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180226-the-teenage-scientist-tracking-a-sea-of-space-junk

Listek, V. (2021, January 21). Georgia Middle Schoolers 3D Print Parts for the Space 
Station.  3DPrint.com. https://3dprint.com/278009/georgia-middle-schoolers-3d-print-parts-for-the-space-station/

Mas, K & Thornell, C. (2018, April 25). This 19-year-old could keep astronauts safe from space trash. Vox.
https://www.vox.com/videos/2018/4/25/17279414/19-year-old-space-debris-ai-soution-seer tracking?fbclid=IwAR0WSAc_EzrOq-0iNmzrv2OJ1a4LuZuR0CzFxUQDgdbzbnIYZqStzp9NgUM

TEDx Talks. (2016, December 12). The Space Debris Apocalypse | Amber Yang |
TEDxJacksonville [Video]. YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQQk9XqTMAY

Weightlessness and Orbit
by Roxanne Lee

If you get a chance, go outside one night and watch the sky. Even near the city, despite the light pollution, you should be able to see a few stars, or some mechanical satellites. If you watch long enough, you can even see them move. The stars move slowly, but you can easily see mechanical satellites moving in steady straight lines across the darkness. If you’re in the right place and time, you can even see the International Space Station on its journey, flying weightlessly through the emptiness of space.

What are these objects doing, really? Why do they move like they do?

Orbit

To begin at the beginning, the International Space Station, as well other satellites, even stars, travel along orbits.

An orbit is simply the path an object in space takes around another object in space (NASA). Any object travelling an orbit is called a satellite (NASA). As NASA explains, satellites can be artificial, like the space station, or natural, like the moon. Even the Earth is technically a satellite, as it orbits the sun. Orbits are elliptical, meaning they’re shaped like ovals, and they are regular, predictable paths (Howell 2017). If you want to know more, NASA has an article about orbits and their shapes here.

Satellites like the International Space Station stay in orbit simply because there isn’t anything to stop them. According to Newton’s first law, an object in motion stays in motion unless something exerts force on it. Gravity exerts force on satellites, pulling them around in their orbits (Wild 2010).

Why doesn’t gravity just pull satellites straight down? I touched on this briefly in my article titled “What is Gravity Assist?” in our February 2021 newsletter, which you can read here. In short, this is the result of interaction between a satellite’s momentum and gravity (Howell 2017). When a satellite is slow enough to be caught in a planet’s gravity but still fast enough that they don’t get pulled down, they will orbit the planet, essentially constantly ‘falling’ around the object it’s orbiting. The speed necessary to achieve this balance is called orbital velocity (Wild 2010). The orbital velocity of the International Space Station is about 27,500 kilometers per hour, and it orbits the Earth completely every 90 minutes.

Weightlessness

Now – to weightlessness. (I bet you couldn’t weight to get to this part).

Weightlessness is the sensation we feel when we can’t feel gravity (Wild 2010). Gravity still exists, though, because the objects involved still have matter, and gravity is the attraction between matter.

To understand weightlessness, we have to understand two types of force – contact force and action-at-a-distance force. Contact force is force resulting from two interacting objects. When the contact force is the result of a stable, supportive object, this is called normal force (The Physics Classroom). One example of this is sitting in a chair. The chair is under you, supporting you, and this is a kind of force. This normal force creates the sensation of whatever your weight is (The Physics Classroom). Weight isn’t really a set value – weight is just the force of gravity exerted on an object. This is why your weight would be different on Earth vs. on Jupiter, because Jupiter has more mass than Earth.

The second type, action-at-a-distance force, is a force that acts on you without having to physically touch you. Gravity is one kind of action-at-a-distance force. It would exist even if you weren’t standing on Earth because it’s the result of two masses, you and the Earth, pulling on each other (The Physics Classroom).

Weightlessness happens when contact forces are absent. When there are no contact forces interacting with you, then you are in a state of free fall, with no force acting on you except gravity (The Physics Classroom).

The website Physics Classroom has a great write-up about weightlessness and gravity that you can read more about here.

You don’t have to go to space to be weightless. You can feel weightless if you go onto a malfunctioning elevator. If the elevator is ascending, and the cable suddenly breaks, sending the elevator plummeting down, you would feel weightless. The elevator, and you, would descend at the same time, meaning the elevator would not act as a supporting contact force. (Note: Please do not try to break an elevator to experience weightlessness. Just take our word for it).

Conclusion

Now, let’s bring this back a-round to the matter of orbit.
 
In space, satellites and other objects seem weightless because they do not have contact force acting on their bodies. Without that, the only force acting on them is gravity. The International Space Station orbits Earth because gravity pulls the station in, while the station’s tangential velocity keeps them in orbit without crashing. The station, as well as any other orbiting bodies, is in constant free fall, with their orbital velocities keeping them safe in their orbits.

Watch the night sky when you can. Take some time and watch the satellites, natural and artificial both, travelling their orbits, weightless in the dark. Can you explain this phenomenon to a friend or family member? Tell us about the satellites you find in the night sky at mail@highfrontieroutpost.org. 

For More Information

Howell, E. (2017, December 16). Weightlessness and its effect on astronauts.
https://www.space.com/23017-weightlessness.html#:~:text=The%20sensation%20of%20weightlessness%2C%20or,do%20not%20feel%20its%20effects
 
The Physics Classroom (1996-2021). Weightlessness In Orbit.
https://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/circles/Lesson-4/Weightlessness-in-Orbit
 
Wild, F. (2010, July 07). What is an Orbit?
https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/nasa-knows/what-is-orbit-58.html

Around the Cosmos

• 11 million names were on board Perseverance.
• Can this green fuel revolutionize spaceflight?
• Which of the astronaut candidates could be the first woman to walk on the moon? Read the story.

Space Activism

• Let Washington know space is important to you.
• Here’s a fun initiative to take part of. Mission 1.5 is compiling data on how citizens best want to tackle climate change and will be presented to governments.

Creative Space

Amanda Lee Falkenberg is a composer merging art and science into epic symphonic music. Listen to The Moons Symphony here. She also has a YouTube channel with more content.

Show us your creativity of bringing science and art together! Submit your art to mail@highfrontieroutpost.org.

Space Holidays

• Space Day – March 3, 1959: Pioneer 4 became the first American spacecraft to escape Earth’s gravitational pull and fly by the moon passing within 37,000 miles of the lunar surface.

Quote of the Month

“The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.”

– Robert Swan

Share

If you know someone who would enjoy this newsletter please feel free to forward it to them! They can also subscribe by going to our home page and using the subscribe field at the bottom.

Opportunities

Are you or someone you know interested in joining our team? Use our volunteer form to notify us!

The post March 2021 Newsletter appeared first on High Frontier Outpost.

President’s Column

Things are heating up in new space activity. A lot has happened in the last month. Here’s hoping that it is an indication of things to come. I will briefly summarize some of these events.

Artemis

The space launch system static test that was supposed to run for 8 minutes was shut down early because of an equipment failure. After testing, they believe that the problem has been corrected. A second test is scheduled for sometime this month. Eight minutes is critical as that is the amount of time that the SLS needs to fire prior to booster drop off in an actual launch. 

President Biden has yet to address his plans for the future of the Artemis program. One hopeful note: he requested a moon rock for display in the Oval Office.

Symbols are important and what a president chooses for the Oval Office Decor can be significant. Here’s hoping that this is an indication of his full support for the program. A question about Artemis at a White House Press Conference produced the answer that no decision has yet been made on the program.

Starship

The last two tests of the SpaceX Starship have been less than a complete success. Both SN8 and SN9 had successful flights but exploded on landing. This is disappointing, but if we look back the Falcon 9 also had problems in the beginning that were later resolved. 

The good thing is that Elon Musk is driven. He will not stop everything for months and his team works fast. I predict that SN10 will fly sometime this month and hopefully land successfully. 

Blue Origin

Jeff Bezos has resigned as CEO of Amazon. That decision is, he said, based on his desire to spend more time and effort on his other projects (among them Blue Origin). Here’s hoping that this is the harbinger of more activity from that company.

Space Force

At a recent press conference, the Biden Administration announced that they will keep the Space Force as a branch of the US Military.

Virgin Orbit

Virgin Orbit launched 10 satellites into orbit on January 17th of this year. Another space-capable company has entered the field. 

Rocket Lab

Rocket Lab launched a communications satellite on January 20th of this year, and on January 26th they launched another rocket to orbit and demonstrated that their Curie engine was able to deliver more than 1700 km (1056 mi) of change in distance from the Earth (perigee).

These are exciting times. It appears that commercial activity in space is finally starting to take off in a big way. Perhaps habitats like The Outpost are slowly becoming closer to reality…

Barry Greene
President

Educational Space

The Search for Martians?
by Anyi Wen

With its freezing cold (average temperature of negative 80 degrees Fahrenheit!) and dust storms, Mars is very inhospitable ‒ harsh or difficult to live in ‒ for us Earthlings. But who are we to say that there aren’t organisms who enjoy its extreme conditions? Even on Earth, there are tough organisms such as water bears and other extremophiles who have adaptations that help them survive in environments that would be dangerous for us and other living things: think extreme heat, cold, or acidic environments! 

Although many scientists are sure there aren’t any living things currently on Mars, there is hope that we might find evidence of past life on Mars back when it was a nicer place to live. Satellite photos of Mars and evidence of water have people questioning whether the “Red Planet” may have once been green and wet. One of the tasks of the upcoming NASA mission to Mars is to look for information about Mars’ past climate, or patterns of weather.

Perseverance’s History

Perseverance is the fifth and most advanced (so far) rover sent by NASA to explore Mars. Launched last year in 2020, Perseverance looks “similar to Curiosity – the NASA rover that’s been exploring Mars since 2012,” but the computers, cameras, and other technology it’s carrying are newer and more powerful (Segal). Did you know that Perseverance was named by a student, just like the other Mars rovers that came before it?

Perseverance’s Mission

What will Perseverance do when it gets to Mars? One major job for Perseverance will be looking for places that may have been able to support life in the past, starting with the Jezero Crater. NASA chose this crater as the landing site because scientists think that it used to be full of water. With the help of scientific tools, Perseverance will explore the Jezero Crater and look for signs of any life (past or present) and clues about what the environment used to be like long ago. After this, the rover will be investigating other sites on the planet in a similar way. Perseverance will also be collecting samples of rocks and soil for a future mission to bring back to Earth for study. These will help scientists learn more about the history of Mars and any “Martians” that might have existed on the planet once. 

The rover will also be helping scientists back home on Earth figure out how to make it safe for humans to visit Mars in the future. NASA says that Perseverance will collect information about the planet’s weather patterns and “[test] a technology for extracting oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, which is 96% carbon dioxide.” Knowing about what weather to expect and having a way to make oxygen with what can be found on Mars can help pave the way for people to visit there one day. Would you want to visit Mars? What would you like to do there, and why? Let us know at mail@highfrontieroutpost.org. 

Get Involved

NASA will be landing Perseverance on Mars on February 18. You’re invited to “design, build, and land [your] own spacecraft – just like NASA scientists and engineers do” (Segal). Get a taste of what it might be like to work for NASA, connect with experts, and get a chance at having your work featured. You can register here, and if you’re under 18 be sure to ask your grown-up for permission. These resources are great for learning about Mars and the mission whether you join the challenge or not. There are activities on that website for scientists of all ages to enjoy! Check out this short article, these activities by NASA, and these activities from Science Buddies for more ways you can have fun exploring Mars from the comfort of your home.

In addition, the Mars landing will be broadcast on NASA Television and streamed on their website. It will start on February 18 at 2:15 pm (EST), and the landing is scheduled to happen around 3:55 pm. You can sign up to have your name sent to Mars here. Join people around the world in watching history being made!

Glossary

Adaptation: special traits or behaviors living things have that allow them to survive in their home environment.
Climate: patterns of weather
Environment: everything around you, including living and non-living things.
Inhospitable: harsh or difficult to live in.
Organism: a living thing such as an animal, plant, or even a single cell.

For More Information

Cowen, A. (2021, February 3). Mars Rover Landing: Space Science & Mars STEM Lessons and Activities. Science Buddies.
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/blog/mars-science-lessons?from=newsletter

Hautaluoma, G., Johnson, A., & Agle, D. (2020, March 5). Virginia Middle School Student Earns Honor of Naming NASA’s Next Mars Rover. NASA.
https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8622/virginia-middle-school-student-earns-honor-of-naming-nasas-next-mars-rover/

Langley, L. (2013, August 2).  5 Extreme Life-Forms That Live on the Edge. National Geographic.
https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2013/08/02/5-extreme-life-forms-that-live-on-the-edge/

May, S. (2020, August 10). What is Mars? NASA.
https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/nasa-knows/what-is-mars-58.html

NASA. (n.d.). Connect Students to #CountdownToMars.
https://www.nasa.gov/stem/nextgenstem/moon_to_mars/mars2020stemtoolkit

NASA. (n.d.). Mars 2020 Mission Overview.
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/overview/

NASA. (n.d.) Mars for Kids.https://mars.nasa.gov/participate/funzone/

NASA. (n.d.). Perseverance Rover’s Landing Site: Jezero Crater.
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/science/landing-site/

NASA. (n.d.). Send Your Name to Mars.
https://mars.nasa.gov/participate/send-your-name/future

Segal, M. (2021, January 8). Celebrate the Perseverance Rover Landing With NASA’s Student Challenge. NASA.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/celebrate-the-perseverance-rover-landing-with-nasa-s-student-challenge

Tavernier, L. (2020, June 17). Meet NASA’s Next Mars Rover, Perseverance, Launching This Summer. NASA.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/news/2020/6/17/meet-nasas-next-mars-rover-perseverance-launching-this-summer/

Wall, M. Mars Rover Finds Ancient Streambed Where Water Once Flowed. Space.com.
https://www.space.com/17794-mars-rover-curiosity-water-ancient-streambed.html

What is Gravity Assist?
by Roxanne Lee

What’s the quickest way to get from one point to another?

If you’re thinking about two points on, say, a piece of paper, then “a straight line” would be the correct answer. However, if you’re thinking about space travel, then that may not apply. And, even if a straight line is the quickest way somewhere, that doesn’t mean it’s the easiest.

Space travel is a complicated endeavor. Moving from one point, like Earth, to another within the solar system, like the Sun, requires a lot of planning. This is what scientists must consider when launching satellites to monitor or take pictures of other moons or planets.

Space travel is complicated by several factors. Some of the major ones are the movement of planets, money, and gravity itself.

Nothing is ever really still in space – planets rotate on their axes, and the spinning planets rotate around the Sun, which also spins. This can make aiming a satellite at a planet difficult – if you just aim for where the planet is, it’ll be gone by the time the satellite arrives.

Another complicating factor is money. Rocket fuel is expensive, and to keep mission costs down rocket scientists want to use as little of it as possible. But if you have to get a satellite to faraway targets like Jupiter, or the Sun, what can you do?

Finally, maybe the greatest concern of all – gravity. Any rocket will have to have enough force to escape the Earth’s gravity, but the gravity concerns don’t stop there. Despite many thinking of space as a weightless place, gravity plays just as big a role out there as on Earth. Sending a satellite from Earth to Mars is relatively simple, because Mars is relatively close to us. But launching a satellite towards the Sun or Saturn is more difficult. Because all planets, including Earth, are moving and have their own gravity, aiming a satellite straight at a faraway planet may just end with the satellite going off course.

With gravity, money, and the planets itself working against you – how do you send a satellite far away? To understand, we’re going to have to delve a little bit into gravity itself.

Gravity is one of the four fundamental forces of the universe. It is an invisible attractive force that pulls objects with mass towards each other (Mann 2020). Gravity is what pulls us down to the Earth when we jump. The strength of gravity increases as objects get closer to each other. Gravity is also what keeps the Moon spinning around the Earth – objects with more mass have greater gravity than smaller objects, and pull smaller objects towards them. Because the Earth is bigger than the Moon, it changes the Moon’s direction rather than the other way around (to be fair though, the Moon’s gravity does affect Earth, but because Earth is 81 times larger, not to a degree that we would typically notice). To learn more about gravity and what it’s like in space, check out NASA’s article here.

Hang on – If the Moon is pulled towards the Earth, why doesn’t it crash into the Earth? Well, to be completely accurate, the force of gravity doesn’t necessarily pull objects to it, but instead changes the direction of the object and interferes with its velocity (Allain 2017). Velocity is the rate at which an object changes its position, and is calculated using rate, distance, and time (Zimmerman 2019).

As Allain Rhett describes in his article on Wired.com, force has different effects on the velocity of an object. When the force of gravity pushes in the same direction as the velocity of an object, the object speeds up. When gravity pushes in the opposite direction of an object’s velocity, the object slows down. Finally, when force pushes perpendicular to the velocity of an object, the object turns without losing or gaining speed. As the article notes, when force acts on an object in both a perpendicular direction and in the same direction as the object’s velocity, the object picks up speed and changes direction.

To bring this full circle, the gravitational force the Earth exerts on the Moon is both perpendicular and in the same direction that the Moon travels. The Moon moves sideways and speeds up as it travels further away from Earth. The farther from Earth it goes, the more it slows down, until gravitational force pulls the Moon back around the Earth, and the Moon orbits Earth once again (Allain, 2017).

Giant hassle, right? Well, we can actually use gravity to our advantage, turning a weakness in space travel into a strength.

One way spacecraft can get where they need to go is by a concept called gravity assist. Gravity assist involves sending a spacecraft close enough to a planet so that the planet’s gravity affects the spacecraft’s velocity (Allain 2017).

The same principle that pulls the Moon around the Earth is what makes gravity assist work. When aimed properly, a satellite can get caught in the gravity of a planet, gain a speed and trajectory change, and speed away to a new destination instead of being caught in the planet’s orbit like a moon (Shortt 2013). This way, a spacecraft like a satellite can change its speed and direction without using too much fuel.

On NASA’s website, they explain the concept with several helpful analogies, which you can check out here. In one scenario, they ask you to imagine a train, representing Jupiter, racing down a track. A child beside the track throws a baseball at the front of the train. The train hits the ball, giving it a huge burst of speed and sends it speeding off in a different direction (Barnett).

Many spacecraft used gravity assist to reach their destinations. One such spacecraft was the Cassini spacecraft. The Cassini-Huygens space missions (called Cassini for short) was a collaboration between NASA, the Italian Space Agency, and the European Space Agency, to send a probe to study Saturn from orbit (Cassini Timeline). Cassini was launched on October 15, 1997 from Cape Canaveral (Cassini Timeline). Cassini was not strong enough to get to Saturn using only its fuel, so the team planned several gravity assists to get Cassini to its destination.

On April 25, 1998, Cassini reached Venus, getting within 176 miles of its surface (NASA). A gravity assist increased Cassini’s velocity to 4 miles per second, sending it on a trajectory similar to the one it had started after leaving Earth. After its second trip around the Sun, Cassini swung by Venus again on June 24, 1999. A few months later, on August 17, it flew by Earth. It was now traveling much faster than it was when it first launched (Cassini Timeline). It passed through the asteroid belt, passed within 6.2 million miles of Jupiter, and finally reached Saturn on July 1, 2004. It was the first probe to orbit a planet beyond the asteroid belt.

It took Cassini nearly 7 years to finally reach Saturn. The probe stayed in orbit for 13 years, all the while greatly expanding our knowledge of the planet and its moons. Cassini found potential traces of water on some of Saturn’s moons and evidence of prebiotic chemistry on Titan. It also sent back countless stunning pictures of Saturn and its rings before the probe was destroyed, sent to burn up in Saturn’s orbit so it did not potentially damage any microscopic life on Saturn’s moons.

Gravity assists are an effective way to navigate the solar system while conserving fuel. Even if rocket fuel significantly improves in the future, gravity assist will still allow us to effectively explore every corner of our solar system.

For More Information

Allain, R. (2017, June 3). Why Doesn’t the Moon Crash Into the Earth? Wired.
https://www.wired.com/2012/11/why-doesnt-the-moon-crash-into-the-earth/

Barnett, A. A Gravity Assist Primer. NASA. 
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/basics/primer/

Jones, Andrew Zimmerman. (2020, August 26). What Is Velocity in Physics? Thoughtco.
https://www.thoughtco.com/velocity-definition-in-physics-2699021

Mann, A. (2020, May 13). What is gravity? NASA.
https://www.livescience.com/37115-what-is-gravity.html

NASA. (2018, September 25). Cassini Timeline. NASA.
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/cassini/the-journey/timeline/#first-close-encounter-with-titan

Shortt, D. (2013, September 27). Gravity assist. The Planetary Society.
https://www.planetary.org/articles/20130926-gravity-assist

Closing Words

A Booster Tug for Long-Haul Space Missions
by Barry Greene

Rockets are useful for lifting large weights out of a gravity well. They are not good for long trips. A rocket expends energy in the first few minutes of acceleration. The craft coasts the remainder of the distance. An ion drive can provide continuous, but very low, thrust. This means that it takes a long time to accelerate. If you were to graph delta-v (the change in velocity) and time, it would look like a long, shallow, upward slope. Therefore, an ion engine will take a very long time to reach the velocity that a rocket can achieve in a few minutes. It is only after it reaches that point that the ion engine’s advantage becomes evident.

The ion drive can operate continuously. This slow acceleration adds up. Over time, it can reach speeds far greater than any rocket.

If humans want to travel to other planets, transit times must be reduced dramatically. I believe that the simplest and most economical way to do this is with a booster tug.

The booster tug will be robotically operated. It will consist of a rocket engine, fuel tank, and robot brain that locks onto the craft to provide a powerful initial acceleration. It will then detach and return on a small ion engine to refuel for the next boost. Yes, it will take a while to negate its forward velocity in order to return. However, a robot doesn’t care about time.

In the meanwhile, the craft having eliminated months of tedious acceleration precedes on a much shorter trip.

If the destination has the facilities for producing fuel, another tug could match velocities with the arriving ship and decelerate it. Matching velocity at this stage of the trip is much more difficult and would require a greater expenditure of fuel.

The main difficulty with this procedure is the availability of fuel. If fuel has to come from Earth, it becomes far too expensive to be practical. Fortunately, there is another much cheaper alternative.

It turns out that water is relatively common in space. It has been discovered in lunar craters, asteroids, comets, the Martian moons, and of course Mars itself.

Using solar power, water can be broken down to its component atoms, hydrogen and oxygen. These gases can be burned as fuel.

The robotic technology necessary for the tug’s control is no more complex than what is available today. Advances in propulsion systems will make it possible to achieve ever higher velocities. Using a tug to remove the slow start of the time velocity curve will help to make deep penetration into the solar system ever more practical.

Around the Cosmos

• Happy Martian New Year!
• NASA has released more than 2000 images of Mars.
• What was the actual cost of Perseverance? Read the analysis.

Space Activism

• Email your US senators to support NASA funding.
• Take a moment to participate in this new survey about the Moon exploration that will be presented to the UN.
• Do you like games? Mission 1.5 is compiling data on how citizens best want to tackle climate change and will be presented to governments.

Creative Space

Students participate on the Mission to Mars Student Showcase by JPL. View the rest of the creative work from students all around the world.

Show us your creativity of bringing science and art together! Submit your art to mail@highfrontieroutpost.org.

Space Holidays

• Space Day – February 3, 1995: NASA launched STS-63 which was historic featuring the first woman shuttle pilot, Eileen M. Collins.

Quote of the Month

“Cultures cannot remain static; they evolve or decline. They explore or expire.”

– Buzz Aldrin

Opportunities

Are you or someone you know interested in joining our team? Use our volunteer form to notify us!

The post February 2021 Newsletter appeared first on High Frontier Outpost.

President’s Column

Some Thoughts About Economics for The Outpost

“The final and absolute test of good government is the well-being and contentment of the people – not the extent of Empire, or the abundance of the revenue and the trade.”
– Alfred Russel Wallace

Because of the size and large population of The Outpost, the economy is inextricably linked with the social structure. Despite its immense size, The Outpost can be compared to a ship at sea ‒ not a passenger ship, but a working ship where everyone on board is crew.

Once we make that determination, a number of conclusions must be drawn. Every crew member requires their own quarters, food, and medical care. Education is to be provided for all crew members and their families. This is not to say that The Outpost would be a welfare state. Everyone on The Outpost is crew, and each needs to contribute to the general society in some way.

This does not mean that everyone must be a scientist or engineer. In an isolated society of several million individuals, all aspects of civilization must be nurtured. Artists and musicians, for example, also contribute to the health of their society.

How will all these people be compensated for their work?

In every society throughout history, individuals have strived to gain benefit based on their skill or knowledge. Any society that refuses to recognize that striving is doomed to failure.

From Bartering to Consistent Currencies

Looking at the very beginning of mankind, the most skilled flintknapper would barter his stone arrowheads to a hunter for meat and furs. For most of human history, barter of item for item was the primary way of acquiring goods. Even today, bartering is still popular.

As society became more complex and crafts advanced, it became more difficult to barter for the great variety of available items. What if the person didn’t want what you had? A universal system of barter was needed ‒ one that was not product-specific.

Coinage was born. For centuries, the value of coins was based on the intrinsic value of gold and silver. Coins had the advantage that they could be exchanged for anything. No longer would a craftsman have to find someone who had what he wanted, he could be paid by anyone and purchase what he needed. A better craftsman could demand a higher price for his higher quality goods.

Capitalism was born, along with guilds that tried to ensure the quality of goods. Obviously, the master of a craft could demand higher compensation than an apprentice. In most societies, the market itself set the value of goods. An apprentice might be free to ask the same price as the master, but his lower quality goods would not sell. Some guilds still exist today. One example is the Knifemakers Guild in the United States, which ranks its members according to their demonstrable level of skill.

Money in modern society has become an abstract concept. Few people today are paid in cash, and in fact, cash does not represent a fixed value. A US dollar no longer represents a fixed amount of precious metal, such as the old silver certificate did, but instead is now a Federal Reserve Note. Though not noticed on a day-to-day basis, the value of a dollar changes with time as factors such as inflation affect it.

Most people today are paid by checks, a piece of paper that represents an amount of cash. A bank can convert the check to cash or deposit it into an account that can be drawn on. One can also take out temporary loans for future repayment as with credit cards. At this stage of our economy, computers are required to keep track of transactions and balances.

The value of the unit of currency ‒ whether you call it dollars, credits, or wingdings ‒ should be fixed within a society. This is to prevent inflation or speculation. A fixed monetary value might not work on a planet, but is a necessity within a self-supporting, isolated habitat.

How Much Will People Earn?

Payment for work should be on the basis of skill, not the nature of the job. In many cities in the U.S. today, a sanitation worker could be paid more than a teacher. This is absurd. Both jobs are necessary for a healthy society. Both are vital. The pay scale should reflect that.

In a society such as The Outpost where education, even advanced education, is free to all, the cost of education should not be a determinant of remuneration, although perhaps the number of years of study required might be.

It is also necessary to point out that most of the so-called blue-collar jobs would be performed by robots or computers on The Outpost.

Starting Out

Once the basic Factory Ship is established, The Outpost will be constructed by a self-replicating robotic system capable of acquiring asteroidal materials, and manufacturing and assembling the structure. The primary initial investment would cover the factory ship and its attendant support units.

Once the first few modules are constructed, a percentage of the space could be leased (not sold, because The Outpost’s governing body would retain ownership of the entire structure) to various entities such as research labs, industries, and tourist venues. This income could help finance the development and infrastructure of The Outpost.

The design, development, construction, and operation of The Outpost will be one of the greatest projects ever undertaken by Humanity. What steps can be taken to bring it from a fantastic dream to reality?

As pointed out in other articles, many of the developments necessary for The Outpost are already taking place. They are not, at this time, being developed specifically for The Outpost; however, they will be applicable to it. Progress in robotics, artificial intelligence, biology, rocketry, and dozens of other fields will combine in the construction and operation of The Outpost.

The biggest question is: How will such a massive project be financed? In addition, how can the financial development be structured so that The Outpost can be governed by its citizens free from external pressures?

I would suggest that the best way would be to establish a Development lnstitute to coordinate and direct the generation of technological, social and financial systems for The Outpost.

There could be different levels of membership, from corporate and government sponsors to individual supporters. Some of the advantages of membership would be the future possibility of participating in The Outpost’s development. Those who are early supporters would be eligible for additional benefits after The Outpost is constructed. The Institute itself would be nonprofit; however, any technology developed could be commercialized with profits being directed back into the Institute. After The Outpost is built, such funds could help support its mission.

While there would inevitably be social and economic differences between people, it is important to prevent the tremendous economic disparity that exists on Earth today with some individuals having more wealth and power than many countries, and millions who can barely survive. Perhaps a scaled tax on income could level the field somewhat.

The Outpost would be a new society functioning in a location and with a structure that is totally new to humanity. The old norms will not suffice in this new environment. We cannot just build The Outpost, bring in people, and let things develop. We have to have a plan, and the time to begin planning is now. We are looking for suggestions, which you can email to us at mail@highfrontieroutpost.org.

Barry Greene
President

Educational Space

What’s Going on with the Moon?
by Anyi Wen

Have you ever looked up into the night sky and wondered about the moon? You’re not alone. All around the world and throughout our history, many people have observed the various phases and appearances of the moon. This celestial object we know where to find, but most of us can’t touch, inspires beautiful works of art (see our Creative Space for one) and writing. A celestial object is something we can observe in our sky or outer space, through the use of tools such as telescopes. What are some questions you have about the moon?

We can think of endless questions about the moon, but how can we start to answer them? We can find out some answers from observing patterns in the moon’s appearance and behavior over time, with telescopes or even the naked eye. However, that still leaves many other questions unanswered. Another way scientists have looked for answers to some of our questions is by studying samples of material taken from the moon’s surface.

    Early Apollo Missions

Our first collection of lunar material came from an Apollo mission in 1969. Did you know that “between 1969 and 1972 six Apollo missions brought back 382 kilograms (842 pounds) of lunar rocks, core samples, pebbles, sand and dust from the lunar surface” (NASA)? When we describe something as lunar, it comes from or describes the moon. It’s hard to imagine the moon’s size based on what we can see of it from Earth, but there’s a lot more where that lunar material came from! The moon weighs around  7.35 x 1022 (73,500,000,000,000,000,000,000) kilograms, or  1.62 x 1023 (162,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) pounds. Our Earth weighs about 81 times more than that! Check out this article to read more about the size of the moon. See the Education Spaces on our July and November 2020 newsletters to learn more about the Apollo missions!

How Else Did We Get Moon Rocks?

After 1972, astronauts haven’t gone back to the moon to harvest more materials to bring back to Earth. Because of this limited supply, everyone who gets to study the lunar material in-person has to treat it very carefully. Ten years later, a geochemist (a scientist who studies the rocks, minerals, and chemicals that make up Earth) from New Zealand named Brian Mason got a special delivery: “When [NASA] sent him an unusual specimen from Antarctica, Mason quickly recognised its resemblance to material collected by astronauts. Its distinctive iron–manganese ratio later confirmed that it came from the moon – blasted free by some gigantic impact, and subsequently captured by the Earth’s gravity” (Sutton). This meteorite, a bundle of material that comes from space and lands on Earth, was the first of several that scientists identified as being from the moon. These have been kept for study as well, along with the lunar material collected on the Apollo missions.

What Did We Learn?

Over the years, scientists have examined and re-examined the samples of rock and soil from the moon. Using computer technology to study the moon material, they have been able to make educated guesses about how our moon was created. One highly supported theory is that “the Moon could have been formed from the debris resulting from the Earth being struck a glancing blow by a planetary body about the size of Mars” (NASA). In other words, maybe a planet-sized object crashed into Earth one day and the planetary material that got chipped off of Earth from that event became our moon. 

Scientists have been able to figure out the elements the moon is made up of (including iron, silicon, and oxygen), around when its crust was formed (around 4.5 BILLION year ago), and evidence that meteorites hit the moon, just from studying the moon material gathered from those early Apollo missions (Sutton and NASA)! Interestingly, lunar samples are made up of different materials based on what part of the moon they came from. Did you know that our moon also used to have active volcanoes on it (Redd)?

Recent Journeys to the Moon

We haven’t had astronauts land on the moon since the 1970s, but NASA is aiming to get funding so that humans can visit the moon again by 2024. Dozens of probes have been sent to orbit or land on the moon between the 1950s and the present, and have sent important information back to Earth to help us learn more about the moon’s history and what it’s made out of. Only a few have come back with samples of moon material. The most recent successful mission of this kind was when China National Space Administration (CNSA)’s spacecraft Chang’e 5 sent a return capsule containing around “4.4 lbs (2 kg) of lunar material” (Mann) back to Earth. This made China the third country to make a successful trip to and back from the moon with samples, after the USA and former Soviet Union.

These newest moon samples are thought to be much younger than the ones collected during the Apollo missions, based on the area of the moon they were collected from. The more recent samples are estimated to be about 1.2 billion years old, compared to the 3-billion-year-old ones from the Apollo missions. They all sound very old, don’t they? However, studying these younger samples can help us learn about another time in our moon’s history we don’t have information about yet. The success of this mission can also help other space organizations improve the planning of their own trips to the moon and elsewhere (Mann). Hopefully, NASA’s next trip to the moon will go just as smoothly!

For More Information

Mann, A. (2020, December). China’s Chang’e 5 mission: Sampling the lunar surface. Space.com.
https://www.space.com/change-5-mission.html

NASA. (n.d.). Lunar Rocks and Soils from Apollo Missions.
https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/index.cfm

Redd, N. T. (2017, September 28). What is the Moon Made Of? Space.com.
https://www.space.com/19582-moon-composition.html

Sharp, T. (2017, October 28). How Big is the Moon? Space.com.
https://www.space.com/18135-how-big-is-the-moon.html

Sutton, M. (2019, July 15). What is the moon made of? Chemistry World.
https://www.chemistryworld.com/features/what-is-the-moon-made-of/3010686.article

Arecibo Radio Telescope Collapses
by Roxanne Lee

When noteworthy or memorable people pass on, it’s common to mourn them with an obituary where we outline their life and accomplishments. If this tradition were commonly extended to objects, news outlets around the world would publish remembrances for the Arecibo radio telescope.
 
The Arecibo radio telescope was a massive telescope and centerpiece of the Arecibo Observatory, an astronomy facility in Puerto Rico. The observatory was initially the brainchild of Professor William E Gordon from Cornell University (National Science Foundation). In the 1950s, the professor wanted to study the Ionosphere, the collective name for the parts of Earth’s upper atmosphere where there are a particularly large number of electrically charged atoms and molecules (To learn more about Ionosphere, check out the link here). The U.S. Air Force, under the professor’s guidance, built the observatory in Puerto Rico, completing construction in 1963. The observatory was under the management of the American school Cornell University before the role was taken by the University of Central Florida. The school managed the observatory for the U.S. Air Force from 1963 to 1970, after which they managed it for the National Science Foundation (Cornell University 1997).
 
The Arecibo radio telescope is made of several parts. The two main parts most obvious to the eye are a 900-ton receiver that hangs suspended by massive cables 500 feet over a 1,000-foot-wide reflector dish. Attached to the platform is the Gregorian dome structure, a huge attachment as tall as a four-story house that holds secondary reflectors (Acevedo 2020). The Arecibo telescope was the largest in the world for 53 years, only surpassed in 2016 when China built the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST).

The Arecibo telescope has accomplished quite a lot in its life. To name just a few: In 1974, the telescope transmitted the first intentional message to extraterrestrials (National Science Foundation). This message carried basic information about Earth and humans to any extraterrestrials who might have an ear – or antennae – to the ground on the lookout for life. In 1981, the telescope made the first radar maps of Venus’ surface, and in 1992 it discovered the first exoplanet (National Science Foundation). To learn more about exoplanets, you can check out NASA’s page about them here.

In August and November of 2020, the telescope cables began to fail. On August 4th, a support cable on the suspended platform slipped from its socket (Bartels 2020). This put increased strain on the remaining cables supporting the platform. This was bad, but it could be repaired.

Any repair options the U.S. National Science Foundation was considering unfortunately became unviable after November 6th, when a second primary cable snapped (Bartels 2020). In addition to putting even more strain on the remaining cables, this made the telescope much more dangerous to repair, and the Observatory was then slated to be withdrawn from service. Finally, on December 1, the structure collapsed entirely. The remaining cables suspending the platform snapped, sending it crashing down into the 1,000-foot-wide receiver dish (Bartels 2020).

This is a devastating loss to astronomy. The Arecibo telescope was the largest radio telescope in the world, and another such telescope can’t be made just anywhere. In addition to its many discoveries and use in space research, the Arecibo telescope and observatory were incredibly valuable as a research facility, for experienced astronomers and those just entering the field alike. The telescope was also a notable tourist attraction for Puerto Rico, with 90,000 visitors and native islanders visiting the observatory every year (Acevedo 2020).

The Arecibo radio telescope had a relatively short life, but it was still a good one. While we had it, it helped us reach out to stars and lifted our voices up into the night. It educated us, providing knowledge we’ll use for years to come. Only time will tell if a similar telescope will be rebuilt in the observatory, but for now we can appreciate what we had. Goodbye, Arecibo radio telescope – you will be missed.

For More Information

Acevedo, N. (2020, December 02). Puerto Rican scientists, shattered by collapse of Arecibo Observatory, push to rebuild. NBC News.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/puerto-rican-scientists-shattered-collapse-arecibo-observatory-push-rebuild-n1249666

Bartels, M. (2020, December 03). Terrifying footage shows collapse of Arecibo Observatory’s massive radio telescope. Space.com.
https://www.space.com/arecibo-observatory-collapse-drone-video-nsf-evaluation

Cornell University. (1997, June 19). Some facts (and a little history) about Arecibo. Cornell Chronicle.
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/06/some-facts-and-little-history-about-arecibo

Hand, E. (2020, December 01). Arecibo telescope collapses, ending 57-year run. ScienceMag.org.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/12/arecibo-telescope-collapses-ending-57-year-run

National Science Foundation. (n.d.). History. Arecibo Observatory.
https://www.naic.edu/ao/history

Witze, A. (2020, November 19). Legendary Arecibo telescope will close forever – scientists are reeling. Nature, Vol. 587, 529-530.
https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-03270-9

Closing Words

Preserving Culture, Knowledge, and Diversity in The Outpost
by Barry Greene

The Outpost will be a society of several million people isolated from Earth. Despite that isolation, the citizens aboard would have access to all the cultural and educational advantages of any city on earth.

It has been estimated that using modern data storage, the sum total of human knowledge could be stored in the volume about equal to a city bus. In addition, artwork could be reproduced, and statuary and artifacts could be scanned and 3D printed.

Much of the information that will be available on The Outpost is being digitized today. Many museums and libraries are already taking these steps with their collections.

The Gutenberg project (named after Johannes Gutenberg, who developed the first practical printing press in 1440) is attempting to digitize and make available to everyone, for free, every book in the public domain. It is already a vast treasure trove of both popular and obscure books.

There are many ongoing projects such as Google Earth that can be included in The Outpost’s database.

With all these resources available, students could visit the great museums of the world, explore the oceans, forests and caves, hear talks by the best professors, learn from the finest artists, authors, and musicians, and more. The educational resources available to every student on The Outpost would exceed those that are now only available to the wealthiest on Earth.

As genetic manipulation advances, it will become possible to recreate animals and plants from a recording of their DNA. The Outpost would then be able to store the genetic diversity of the planet. DNA can be recovered from many museum specimens. No, not dinosaurs. Unfortunately, dinosaur DNA has completely degraded over many millions of years. However, the dodo and the Passenger Pigeon could live again.

Botanical diversity could be maintained and preserved on The Outpost. In many places on Earth, there are seed vaults where seeds are kept at low temperatures as insurance against extinction and loss of diversity. This is a sensible idea, but there are risks. Several years ago, the largest seed vault located in Spitsbergen, Norway came close to a catastrophe when climate change caused the permafrost in which it was located to partially melt, flooding the entrance. Fortunately, the staff was able to protect the stored seeds. A duplicate seed vault off-planet on The Outpost would be cheap insurance against such a disaster.

All the modules of The Outpost would have a high level of interconnectivity making all of this knowledge readily available to everyone aboard. Advances in artificial intelligence would make data searches simple and efficient.

There would be no students left behind because they couldn’t afford to enter the best schools. With education and educational resources free and available to all, learning could become a life-long pursuit. Every person could advance as far as their interests and curiosity would take them.

For More Information

Daher, N. (2020, March 2). You Can Now Download 1,700 Free 3-D Cultural Heritage Models. Smithsonian Magazine.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/you-can-now-download-1700-free-3-d-models-cultural-heritage-artifacts-180974308/

Svalbard Global Seed Vault. (2020, January 6). In Wikipedia.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault&oldid=998591102

https://www.gutenberg.org/

Movie Review: “Over the Moon”
by Roxanne Lee

Three of my most fervent interests are mythology, science, and animation. I love the three in any combination, and when all three are present in a piece of work, I have to check it out. If it’s a skillful combination, like the film Over the Moon most certainly is, then all the better.

Over the Moon is a 2020 animated musical movie currently streaming on Netflix. The film is a co-production, produced by Pearl Studio, a Chinese production company, and Netflix Animation, an American animation company. It stars Cathy Ang as Fei Fei, a young girl in China mourning the loss of her mother. When her father introduces her to the woman who will soon become her stepmother, Fei Fei devises a plan to keep the pair apart, travel to the moon and prove the existence of the moon goddess Chang’e to her father, to show him an example of true lasting devotion.

If you’re short on time, I’ll cut to the chase; Over The Moon is a delightful adventure about family and healing for all ages, and I highly recommend it for everyone, children and adults.

Admittedly, the movie is light on any hard science. Fei Fei is able to construct her own rocket and launch it using tracks for a maglev train, and her ship is also able to reach space (though I’m willing to give that some slack, since at this point moon-magic starts to get involved). The film is not concerned with lunar science, but it is still a valuable expression of cultural and personal relationships with the moon. In addition to being a heart-warming story, the film is an incredibly well structured retelling and exploration of Chang’e’s legend. The story is thousands of years old, with many variations, but I consider the film a good starting point for those still new to the story. It’s straightforward and explains the concept in the opening in a way anyone unfamiliar with the tale (like me) will be able to understand.

The legend of Chang’e is an old story, and many different versions of the story have been told. This is just one version; A long, long time ago, the Jade Emperor ruled the heavens, and he had ten grandsons. His grandsons took turns as the actual sun, warming the Earth and the people. One day, all ten lit the sky as suns at the same time, scorching the Earth and making it uninhabitable. To stop the damage, a legendary archer named Houyi offered his services to the Jade Emperor. With his bow, Houyi shot down nine of the ten suns, saving the Earth.

To reward him, the Jade Emperor gave him a pill of immortality that would turn him into a god. Houyi hesitated, because taking the medicine would separate him from his wife, Chang’e.

Here the story varies – in some versions, Houyi’s apprentice tried to steal the pill and to stop him, Chang’e eats it. In others, Chang’e takes the medicine to leave her husband. In yet another version I’ve heard, the couple received two pills, and Chang’e consumed both, sending her past the heavens and landing her on the moon.

The main commonality between all versions of the story, and one present in the Over The Moon version, is that Chang’e is stuck on the moon, separated from Houyi. Because Chang’e is immortal, she and Houyi can never be reunited, even after he dies. Chang’e is one of the elements celebrated in the Mid-Autumn festival, also called the moon festival, which is the event much of the animated movie centers around. (NOTE; I’m not 100% sure about this parts accuracy)

(Fun fact – This past November, China launched a venture called Chang’e-5 that successfully collected moon rocks and soil and brought them back to Earth in December. The Chinese Lunar Exploration Program is also called Chang’e Project).

I was especially impressed by the film’s ability to weave two different stories together and have them support each other. Fei Fei’s story intentionally parallels Chang’e’s in the film, as they both have to learn to deal with grief and being the person left behind when a loved one dies. That Fei Fei’s story mirrors a folktale reinforces why folktales, mythology, religion, and stories in general are so important to us in the first place – they reflect our pain and humanity, and offer guidance, even if only to say that we aren’t alone in our suffering.

If this still isn’t enough to recommend it, Over The Moon is just a great piece of art. It is co-directed by two former Disney animators, Glen Keane and John Kahrs. John Kahrs worked on a slew of classic animated movies like Ratatouille (2007), Tangled (2010), and Frozen (2013). Glen Keane is an animator who worked on, amongst other films, the Disney Renaissance films of the 1990s. He worked on such classics as Beauty and the Beast (1991) and Aladdin (1992) as a supervising animator.

In addition to the visuals, the music talent is also incredibly impressive. The songs and score come from composer Steven Price. In the English language version of the film, Chang’e is played by Philipa Soo, an actress and singer best known for playing Eliza Skyler in the hit Broadway musical Hamilton.

It’s a wonderful movie, and I highly recommend checking it out while it’s still on Netflix. (Though, be warned – it is a tear-jerker. Watching it again for this review seriously made my eyes water).

Around the Cosmos

• Check out some of the amazing wins science had in 2020.
• Have we found a way to harvest fuel and oxygen in Mars?
• Boston Dynamics has the latest in their robotic development.

Space Activism

• Email your US senators to support NASA funding.
• Take a moment to participate in this new survey about the Moon exploration that will be presented to the UN.
• Do you like games? Mission 1.5 is compiling data on how citizens best want to tackle climate change and will be presented to governments.

Creative Space

In spirit of the moon, reader Darleen Pfingsten shares her latest art with us.

Show us your creativity of bringing science and art together! Submit your art to mail@highfrontieroutpost.org.

Space Holidays

• Space Day – January 22, 1968: NASA launched Apollo 5 using a Saturn-1B rocket. It successfully performed the first Earth orbital test of Lunar Module ascent and descent propulsion systems.

Quote of the Month

“The bounds of human knowledge have been so far extended that new Vistas have opened to us in directions where it had been thought that we could never penetrate, and the more we learn the more we seem capable of learning in the ever-widening expanse of the universe. But the more we realize the vast possibilities of human welfare which science has given us, the more we must recognize our total failure to make any adequate use of them.

With ample power to supply to the fullest extent necessary, comforts, and even luxuries for all, and at the same time allow ample leisure for intellectual pleasure and aesthetic enjoyment, we have yet so sinfully mismanaged our social economy as to give unprecedented and injurious luxury to the few, while millions are compelled to suffer a lifelong deficiency of the barest necessities for a healthy existence. Instead of devoting the highest powers of our greatest men to remedy these evils, we see the governments of most advanced Nations arming their people to the teeth, and expending much of their wealth and all the resources of their science in preparation for the destruction of life, of property, and of happiness.”

– Alfred Russel Wallace

Opportunities

Are you or someone you know interested in joining our team? Use our volunteer form to notify us!

The post January 2021 Newsletter appeared first on High Frontier Outpost.

President’s Column

The Climate Crisis:

Have we reached the Tipping Point?

The Earth is in trouble. Wildfires rage through our forests. Unprecedented storms batter the land and rising oceans generate floods that displace millions. Coral reefs are dying. We are living in what may be the greatest extinction event since the Permian era 250 million years ago.

The Paris Accord aims to reduce carbon dioxide emission by 40% by 2030. Is that enough to save the planet? I believe that it is not.

The Earth is a complex environment with many interdependent factors, some of which we are only beginning to understand and some we may never know.

Let us perform a simple thought experiment.

Global warming is causing ice melt to accelerate worldwide. I will look specifically at the Antarctic. It is a vast continent, 5,483 million square miles, holding over 6.4 million cubic miles of ice.

The continents are large plates of bedrock floating on molten magma. In a sense, they are like ships floating on an ocean. When the cargo is removed from a ship, that ship floats higher in the water. This can also happen to the continental plates. These plates are not isolated; they rest against each other. When one moves, it jostles those that rest against it, and they in turn move others. Plate movement is responsible for earthquakes and volcanoes. Volcanoes produce vast amounts of carbon dioxide, further accelerating the melting of the ice.

The Paris Accord is primarily focused on carbon dioxide emission, but carbon dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas. There’s also methane. Methane is 28 times the greenhouse gas that carbon dioxide is. In pre-industrial times, the percentage of methane in the atmosphere was 722 parts per billion. Today, it is over 1,900 parts per billion and rapidly increasing.

Methane is primarily produced as a waste product from the digestion of vegetable matter by bacteria. This can take place on the forest floor and in the stomachs of herbivorous animals. Yes, that means farting cattle, horses, and camels that we breed in vast numbers.

Methane is also the main component of natural gas, and unseen gas leaks also contribute to global warming. Since they are not visible, there is very little complaint about them but they exist.

The Arctic contains immense amounts of permafrost, thick layers of organic material permanently frozen. As the world warms, this permafrost thaws and bacteria begin to feast, generating a constantly increasing flow of methane into the atmosphere.

That is scary enough, but it gets worse, far worse. Beneath the Arctic Ocean, there is an estimated 1400 billion tons of hydromethane and it is beginning to be released.

The ocean is the heat engine of the planet. It absorbs the largest amount of heat energy that reaches us. The rise in temperature is not spread evenly over the oceans. The Arctic Ocean is warming at a greater rate than other areas. This will cause an even greater release of methane into the atmosphere, increasing the greenhouse effect and leading to an even greater release of more methane.

Is this the tipping point that leads to runaway global warming threatening all life on the planet? Can we survive?

It is too late to say that the Earth is so large it will always recover. It may recover, but not on a human scale. After the great Permian Extinction, it took over 10 million years for diversity to begin to return to the planet. Should these conditions occur again, we will be long gone by the time the Earth recovers.

What are our options? Our population is increasing exponentially, and we do not have the resources to provide for everyone at the standard most people enjoy in the United States today. There are vast slums filled with the poor who lack the means to better their lives. There will be wars fought over the depleting resources, over scarce water and arable land.

As the population increases, the competition for ever scarcer resources will increase. Is it hopeless?

Mark Twain once said, “Land is the best investment there is, they’ve stopped making it.” That was true then, but it may not be true now. We can make more land and we can mine more resources than are found in our world.

Space travel today is at about the same stage of development as the aircraft industry was shortly after the Wright brothers’ flight. It took two world wars, when nations fought for survival, to advance the technology to where it is today.

We are now engaged in a war for survival, and every human being is on the front lines. We need to recognize this is a war against Extinction and mobilize all of our resources.

A colony on Mars may let some small fragment of humanity survive, but not many. Mars is too far, too difficult, to be our lifeboat for a sinking world.

The Outpost and habitats like it can offer that chance. Built near Earth or in lunar orbit from extraterrestrial materials, these huge habitats could provide sustenance and living space for millions.

Autonomous robots would mine the resources of the asteroids. We would tap the limitless energy of the sun.

By the time these habitats are built, space travel will have progressed to the point the aircraft industry is at today. In 2018, 4.3 billion passengers traveled by air. The habitats will be just a bit further up. With new technology, every habitat could be a paradise where even the poorest individuals would have comfortable housing, sufficient food, and quality education.

We could move heavy industry off the planet, giving our world a chance to heal. With the need to tear up the land for resources removed and population reduced, we can replant our forests. Vast stretches of land would be returned to Nature. The Earth would be a world of parks and history, our treasured home world where once our journey began.

Barry Greene
President

For More Information

James, R.H., Bousquet, P., Bussmann, I., Haeckel, M., Kipfer, R., Leifer, I., Niemann, H., Ostrovsky, I., Piskozub, J., Rehder, G., Treude, T., Vielstädte, L. & Greinert, J. (2016). Effects of climate change on methane emissions from seafloor sediments in the Arctic Ocean: A review. Limnology and Oceanography, 61: S283-S299.
https://doi.org/10.1002/lno.10307

Just Have a Think. (2020, November 15). Arctic Methane. Has 2020 triggered a tipping point? [Video]. Youtube.
https://youtu.be/A1ChxLmpbz4

OpenStax. (n.d). Human Population Growth. OER services.
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-biology2xmaster/chapter/human-population-growth/

Population Growth. (2020, December 4). In Wikipedia.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Population_growth&oldid=992217491

Science and more. (2017, March 22). About 7,000 methane bubbles can explode in Siberia [Video]. Youtube.
https://youtu.be/w2pD8WSih5U

United Nations. (n.d). Population.
https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/population/

Watts, J. (2020, October 27). Arctic methane deposits ‘starting to release’, scientists say. The Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/oct/27/sleeping-giant-arctic-methane-deposits-starting-to-release-scientists-find

Educational Space

What is the Scientific Method?
by Anyi Wen

Have you ever heard of the scientific method? Chances are, you might have come across it in a science class or while doing a science project. The Free School YouTube channel defines the scientific method as “a way to ask and answer scientific questions by making observations and doing experiments.” Click here for their video about the steps to the scientific method, which we will be going through in our article here as well.

1. Ask a Question
What questions about the world do you want to know the answers to? Is there a problem you want to find a solution to? Choose one that you would be able to find out the answers to through researching on your own, with some help from friends and family if needed. Examples of scientific questions include:

1. How much sunlight do plants need to grow?
2. How can you slow down or prevent something from rusting?
3. How can we keep food fresh for longer?

You might start with a broad question but make it more specific so that it’s easier to design an experiment based on it. 

2. Make Observations
In science, observations involve looking at something closely and taking notes about it. After you decide on your research question, start observing your subject. What do you notice about the natural behavior of what you are curious about? Good observations are made using as many of your five senses — taste, sight, hearing, smell, and touch — as possible. Obviously, you’d use your best judgement to decide which would make sense to use in each situation! Would you try to touch a flame or taste a caterpillar? I sure hope not! Make sure to be smart and stay safe at all times.

We should also try to be specific when we are describing our observations. Take note of the size and shape of your subject, using measurement tools like a ruler or a scale if they are available. If not, you may take your best educated guess or get creative and use something else for measurement such as yarn or paper clips.

3. Hypothesis
Using your observations and your scientific knowledge, it’s time to make a hypothesis, or an educated guess, about what may be an answer or solution to your question. Start off the sentence with “I think that…” or “I predict that…” If you can explain your thinking, that’s even better! Make sure that this hypothesis is something you can test, so you can find out whether it is true or not. Write your hypothesis down so that you can see if you were right later.

4. Design Your Experiment 
In many cases, you can find step-by-step guides written by other people who did science experiments based on the same or similar research questions as you have! The internet, your local public library, or a bookstore are great places to look for existing experiment designs you can try out at home. Note that if you use someone else’s experimental setup, you must give credit to them during your presentation or in your final report about your project. Ask your teacher about how they would like you to provide your sources, meaning the books or websites where you got your information and ideas from. 

If you don’t have access to a published experimental design, try making your own! Here are some of the parts that every good science experiment should include:

Variables: A variable is something that changes in a science experiment, and can be measured. An experiment about plant growth may include variables like temperature, amount of water, and how long you give the plant sunlight.

Independent variable: The independent variable is something you, the scientist, change in order to see the effect on what you are testing. For example, you might have a few plants and give them each a different amount of water. The amount of water you give would be an independent variable in this experiment.

Dependent variable: Dependent variables change in response to changes in the independent variable. If your independent variable is the amount of water a plant gets, the plant growth would be a dependent variable you can measure.

Constant, or controlled variable: These stay the same throughout the experiment and should not be changed so you can focus on studying the relationship between the independent variable and dependent variables in the experiment. In a plant experiment, the kind of plant you use might be your controlled variable. Different plants have different needs, so it’s important to choose one kind to work with in a science experiment so you can collect reliable data about how different factors influence their growth. 

Your science experiment should have all of these variables, and a clear set of steps and instructions on what to do with your materials. Keep in mind that science experiments need to be described specifically enough that someone else can try it out for themselves!

5. Collect Data
While you are doing your experiment, you should be keeping track of measurements at key points — at the beginning and end for sure, but usually it is also helpful to take a few data points in between! Data is information that you can collect to help you learn about something or find patterns. Usually, data involves numbers and measurements. If you are doing an experiment about how to help plants grow faster, you may want to measure and record the plants’ height once every few days. Before you start your experiment, plan out when you’ll be collecting data and stick to it! You might choose to display your data in a table or graph to make it easier to compare and see the progress made throughout the experiment.

6. Analyze/Draw a Conclusion
Remember that experimental results may not always be accurate. Scientists do multiple trials, or repeat experiments to make sure that they can get the same or similar results over time. Keep in mind that the scientific method is flexible; you can go back and forth between steps if you think there’s a way to make the experiment better. For example, you might want to edit the wording of your question to be more specific while you are designing your experiment. If you’re collecting data and realize there’s a better way to do something in your experiment, you can go back to the design stage and restart the process from there.  

After finishing your experiment, collect one last round of data and then write a summary of your findings. What were the patterns you noticed? Did the results match what you had guessed would happen? Whether your hypothesis was right or not, it’s okay! What matters is that you have learned something from doing the experiment. Check out Science Buddies’ guidelines on how to write a conclusion for your science experiment.

Are there ways you think your experiment’s design can be improved next time you or someone else tests it again? You may also want to do further research on the internet or with books, to explain the results of your experiment and learn about why it happened that way. Please share your experiences with science experiments or using the scientific method with us at mail@highfrontieroutpost.org! 

Science is always changing as we learn new things. What we thought was true one year may be proved to be wrong the next year as new knowledge is learned through the scientific method. We at High Frontier Outpost understand we must be flexible, open-minded, and eager to learn about how new technology and practices will best support a thriving future home in space. Thank you for joining us on this journey.

For More Information

Bradford, A. (2017, August 4). What is Science? Live Science. 
https://www.livescience.com/20896-science-scientific-method.html

Freeman, S., Hauze, D., Natole, V., Janakis, M., and Daniel. (n.d.). Scientific Observation — Definition & Examples. Expii.
https://www.expii.com/t/scientific-observation-definition-examples-10312

Free School. (2016, April 15). The Steps of the Scientific Method for Kids – Science for Children: FreeSchool [Video]. YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAJ8IF4HI20

Science Buddies. (n.d.). Conclusions. Science Buddies.
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/science-fair/writing-conclusions

Science Buddies. (n.d.) Science Projects. Science Buddies.
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/science-projects

Science Buddies. (n.d.). Variables in Your Science Fair Project. Science Buddies.
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/science-fair/variables

Teacher Created Resources. (n.d.). Scientific Method Chart [Online Image]. Pinterest. Retrieved December 5, 2020 from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/331225747564800458/

Trend Enterprises, Inc. (n.d.). Types of Graphs Learning Chart [Online Image]. DK Classroom Outlet. Retrieved December 5, 2020 from 
https://www.dkclassroomoutlet.com/types-of-graphs-learning-chart
http://tvtgrade5.weebly.com/math/types-of-graphs

Twinkl. (2017). Scientific Observations Worksheet [Online Image]. Retrieved December 5, 2020 from
https://www.twinkl.com/resource/nz-sc-1-scientific-observations-activity-sheet

Phosphine on Venus and the Scientific Method
by Roxanne Lee

The discovery of life signs on Venus this past September may not actually be the indicators we initially thought they were.

In September 2020, an international team of astronomers detected traces of phosphine in Venus’s upper atmosphere (Grossman 2020). They reached this conclusion using data from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii taken in 2017, and with data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile taken in 2019 (Voosen 2020). These telescopes are powerful radio telescopes, which are telescopes that collect weak radio signals from space, amplify them, and make them clear enough to study. To learn more about radio telescopes, you can check out the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s article about them here. The telescopes observed radiation from Venus and recorded the results in the form of a spectrum. The astronomers concluded that the chemical phosphine could be responsible for observed absorption lines in the recorded spectrum (Voosen 2020).

An absorption line is a line on a spectrum that appears if absorbing material crosses between the source – in this case Venus – and the observer – in this case the radio telescopes. Different materials absorb different kinds of radiation, so seeing what radiation gets absorbed can indicate what kind of compounds might be present on the planet being observed (Swinburne University of Technology, 2020).

Phosphine is a toxic, flammable gas that is usually a byproduct of high-energy reactions (Gough 2020). It is rare on Earth, and can appear as a result of industrial activity, natural reactions like lightning strikes, or as a waste product of microbes and bacteria that live in oxygen-free environments (Gough 2020). These kinds of life forms could be right at home in the thick carbon dioxide atmosphere of Venus. To learn more about the planet Venus, you can check out NASA’s article about it here.  

While this could have been a monumental discovery, further review of the results, both by the team of scientists that made the initial discovery and outside parties, have shown that the data may not indicate life on Venus after all. 

Doubt about the original announcement came in part from examination of the presented radio telescope data. The data from the ALMA telescope had an unusual amount of background noise (Voosen 2020).  Background noise can come from many different sources, like from Earth’s atmosphere or the observed planet’s atmosphere, but the noise in this case was substantial enough to warrant extra consideration. After ALMA scientists discovered a calibration error in the telescope, the corrected results showed much lower levels of phosphine than initially observed, casting doubt on the Venus phosphine being evidence of life processes (Grossman 2020). 

Other evidence and critiques have also made phosphine a less likely culprit for the observed absorption lines. The phosphine absorption line could have been created by other, similar molecules, like sulfur dioxide (Voosen 2020). Venus itself is an incredibly bright planet, which can complicate picking up individual wavelength signal differences (Voosen 2020). In 2015, a team of astronomers observed Venus with NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii, looked for signs of phosphine in thermal infrared observations of the planet Venus, and did not find it in significant amounts (Voosen 2020). 

It will take time for scientists to review the corrected data and reach any more definite conclusions, but at the moment, the phosphine being evidence of life on Venus seems unlikely. 

Though the news may be discouraging for those eager to find other life in the universe, this isn’t a bad thing. On the contrary, it’s incredibly encouraging, because it’s an example of the scientific process at work.

Science is the systematic, logical method used to discover how things work (Bradford 2017). In order to learn about things and study how they work, we must work with empirical evidence. Empirical evidence is evidence obtained through the senses, and especially through observation and experimentation (Bradford 2017). The scientific method is used during experimentation to guide the scientists conducting the research or experimentation, ensuring their methods use empirical evidence as possible. To learn more about the individual steps of the scientific method, check out Science Buddies’ article here. Not every branch of science uses the scientific method the same way, but one of the steps in virtually every branch of science is evaluating how replicable something is (Bradford 2017). In the scientific method, one of the final steps is the reproduction of methods and results. If an observation or experiment can’t be replicated, then the results and conclusion of the original experiment have to be reviewed.

The observation of Venus and the subsequent conclusion about phosphine on its surface wasn’t technically an experiment, but it did follow some steps of the scientific process. There was an observation – empirical evidence of phosphine on Venus – and a hypothesis – the phosphine potentially being indicative of life. And, just like in the scientific method, other parties tried to reproduce the results to confirm the claim. In this case, evidence like the ALMA telescope’s noise or previous observations of Venus disputed the initial hypothesis, leading to a new hypothesis – that any observed phosphine is probably not indicative of life.

Just because the initial discovery wasn’t what we thought it was doesn’t mean that it was misleading or wrong.

It’s tempting to sort things into definitive, opposing categories; ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, or ‘success’ or ‘failure’, but science doesn’t easily fit this mold. Science is largely a continuous process, a constant pattern of research, review, refinement, and repetition. Even things accepted as fact for decades are not immune to being reviewed and corrected at a later date. This is just one stage in the undertaking that is research on the planet Venus as a whole. Whether the phosphine indicates life or not, we’ve still discovered new things about our closest planetary neighbor, and this ongoing journey is more significant than any one result.

For More Information

Bradford, A. (2017, August 4). What Is Science? LiveScience.
https://www.livescience.com/20896-science-scientific-method.html

Grossman, L. (2020, October 28). Doubts over a ‘possible sign of life’ on Venus show how science works. ScienceNews.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/venus-phosphine-possible-sign-life-doubts-how-science-works

Swinburne University of Technology. (2020). Absorption Line. astronomy.swin.edu.au.
https://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/a/absorption+line

Voosen, P. (2020, November 17). Potential signs of life on Venus are fading as astronomers downgrade their original claims. Science.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/potential-signs-life-venus-are-fading-astronomers-downgrade-their-original-claims

Closing Words

Redundancy on The Outpost

One of the primary things that differentiates The Outpost from the original O’Neill Cylinder is its modular construction. This has many advantages: a far stronger shell, many times the usable space, and usability from the time of the first module’s completion. These are important advantages, but perhaps the most important one is the extraordinary level of redundancy that this system provides.

Space is a harsh environment and we are frail creatures. We require a very narrow range of temperature and a complex and very specific atmosphere at a limited range of pressures. If any of these conditions fail, we die.

No machine lasts forever, and even the best maintained device will fail. Not preparing for the inevitable failures can be fatal. The best way to prepare is to have backups ready to take over at a moment’s notice.

While all the modules will be interconnected, in an emergency each will be able to operate on its own. Every module would have its own solar power cells and large battery bank. The power storage bank would normally be charged from the main reactor on The Outpost and would be kept fully charged at all times. Each module would have its own air purification and storage tanks, food storage, water tanks and basic first aid and medical supplies. There would also be communication equipment, and one thruster as part of the distributed engine. Services within the module would be controlled by the module’s artificial intelligence with a backup computer ready to take over. There would also be a maintenance shop. Airlocks could seal off each module in an emergency.

This does not mean that a large volume of the habitat would be dedicated to items that would not be used until a crisis. Everything would be usable at all times. As an example, the water storage would also be used for the aquaculture of fish and algae. It would also be used for hydroponics. As the water tanks and aquaculture tanks would be near the outer shell, they would, in addition, contribute to the radiation shielding as would the battery banks and general storage.

Because of this degree of redundancy, the survivability of The Outpost in the face of a disaster would be far greater than in any modern city.

As an example, consider the pandemic that we are experiencing now. How much safer would we be if each block or building could physically isolate itself, producing its own food and water and sterilizing all its own air? The sick could be safely isolated and treated without endangering the rest of the population. Much of the work could be carried out by robots, both teleoperated and autonomous. Many of these robots already exist, and the pandemic has only pushed their development forward.

One of the most important redundant aspects of The Outpost is the distributed engine. This 20 miles long habitat can move! I cannot even begin to imagine the size of a single engine that could propel an object weighing gigatons such as The Outpost. Fortunately, we don’t need one. Every one of the thousands of modules will have a single steerable engine mounted on its exterior surface, all of them controlled by artificial intelligence. This will allow a precision of maneuvering that is unprecedented, and the many redundant engines would allow instant compensation for any failures.

Apollo had several redundant systems, as does the International Space Station. Even our bodies are redundant systems. Cells die all the time, but others are ready to take over their function. Redundancy is an old idea, as old as life itself. We will take it with us as we move outward into space.

Barry Greene
President

Around the Cosmos

• The Arecibo Observatory is no more. Watch the stunning footage.
• This company thinks we can grow meat in space.
• NASA has developed a new potty for space.

Space Activism

• Email your US senators to support NASA funding.
• Take a moment to participate in this new survey about the Moon exploration that will be presented to the UN.
• Do you like games? Mission 1.5 is compiling data on how citizens best want to tackle climate change and will be presented to governments.

Creative Space

The creative team at NASA and JPL has a new poster series to inspire imagination about humanity’s future in space. Check out the series and behind the scenes here.

Show us your creativity of bringing science and art together! Submit your art to mail@highfrontieroutpost.org.

We have also started a poster challenge project. For details please visit our HITRECORD challenge page.

Space Holidays

• Space Day – December 19, 1958: The Atlas Project Score satellite transmitted the first voice from space of President Eisenhower with a Christmas message for the world.

Quote of the Month

“I want everybody to be smart. As smart as they can be. A world of ignorant people is too dangerous to live in.” -Garson Kanin

Opportunities

Are you or someone you know interested in joining our team? Use our volunteer form to notify us!

The post December 2020 Newsletter appeared first on High Frontier Outpost.

President’s Column

Climate, the Space Program and The Outpost

We are destroying our planet. Thousands of species are becoming extinct. Coral reefs are dying. The diversity of life in the oceans is crashing. The polar ice caps are melting. Droughts dry up forests that then catch fire. These conflagrations release even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, exacerbating the situation.

Our population keeps growing, and the increased population density gives rise to a need for more resources, more exploitation of the land. The crush of people leads to the rapid spread of disease, such as the pandemic we are experiencing today.

Is there a solution? Are we doomed to continue unabated expansion until we render the Earth uninhabitable and doom ourselves to extinction?

A solution exists, if we have the foresight and determination to pursue it. We must recognize that the lifestyle we have now is unsustainable. We must recognize that we have a rapidly narrowing window of opportunity to correct our course. We must recognize that our world is incapable of providing the resources to support our ever-expanding population.

If our world cannot provide what we need, we must look elsewhere. Every element found on Earth can be found in space. It turns out that water is abundant, metals are plentiful, and solar energy is free for the taking.

We are on the cusp of a Great Leap Outward. The reusable rockets developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin will make access to space resources cheaper. A permanent colony on the moon will hasten development of space technology. Asteroid mining will provide resources for further expansion and support the development of large habitats such as The Outpost.

The growth of science and technology are not linear. They are exponential. From the Stone Age to the Bronze Age took thousands of years. To go from bronze to iron was much faster, and the rate is still accelerating.

When my grandmother was born, the main form of transportation was the horse. She lived to see men walk on the moon.The challenge of space exploration and development will expand our technology beyond anything we can now imagine.

We are in a race with our own growth. As our population expands, we require more and more resources. We create more and more pollution, and we destroy more and more of our home world. If we are to survive, we must change our course now. The transition from exploiting our world to developing extraterrestrial resources will take years, but we must begin now.

How can we begin? The first steps are already being taken: the Artemis program to return to the Moon and establish a permanent base there. Asteroid mining, with the OSIRIS-REx sampling of asteroid Bennu taking place as I write this. Later, the planned exploration and colonization of Mars.

Giant habitats such as The Outpost will not be the first step in this development. Initially, we need to develop the means to locate, recover, and process extraterrestrial resources. We need to develop the means to construct large structures in space. We need to develop advanced artificial intelligence and self-repairing robots for that construction. All of these are being worked on today.

To start, we need to move many of our heavy industries off the Earth’s surface. We can mine the asteroids instead of the continents and the seabed. We can power the space factories with the limitless energy of the Sun instead of oil and coal.

Once we have done this, we can build ever larger habitats where the workers and researchers can live. These habitats will become more Earth-like as our knowledge advances. As we learn what is necessary for a stable, enclosed habitat, that knowledge will also be applied to our primary habitat, the Earth.

As civilization expands outward, the pressures on our planet will decrease. The knowledge we gain will help us revive our world.

The transition will not be an easy one. It will take both years and significant advances in technology. There will be disruptions as our industries transition from being Earth-based to space-based.

If we are to survive as a species, we must stop the ongoing degradation of our environment. With our ever-growing population. any purely Earth-based solution is inevitably a temporary stopgap. The only possible long-term solution is to become a spacefaring civilization and utilize the infinite resources of the universe beyond our world.

Here’s a simple experiment. Take a jar. Put a piece of damp bread in the jar and seal it. In a few days, mold will appear on the bread. It will grow and flourish, expanding in a burst of exuberant growth. This will continue for a while. Eventually, all the nutrients will be consumed. The dieback will begin. Eventually, everything in the jar will die.

We are that experiment. The Earth is our sealed jar. We are still in the growth phase, and so long as the jar remains sealed, our fate is certain. Our only chance for long-term survival is to break through the lid and begin to move outward into the infinite reaches of space.

As we expand outward, we will learn that the lines drawn on a map have little meaning. In the infinite void, we will learn that the differences between us are so small as to be meaningless, and that in the final analysis there is just one race. Human.

Barry Greene
President

Educational Space

Celebrating Apollo 7
by Roxanne Lee

Happy Anniversary!
 
This past October marked the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 7 mission!
 
The Apollo program was an American space program run by NASA (National Air and Space Association) that ran from 1963 to 1972 (Williams 2013). It was a product of the Space Race between The United States and the Soviet Union in the 20th century, in which both countries competed to achieve space domination. The program’s goal was to successfully put Americans on the moon and return them safely to Earth. To learn more about the Apollo missions, you can check out NASA’s website here, or our space day article from our July 2020 issue here. 

The Apollo 7 mission launched on October 11, 1968. The mission was meant to demonstrate the capability of the Command and Service Module spacecraft to fly with a crew and run a live TV broadcast from space, amongst other things (Dunbar 2018). The ship, a model called the Command and Service module, went into space, orbited the Earth for 10 days and 20 hours, and finally returned to Earth on October 22 (Dunbar 2018). They stayed in space longer than any Soviet craft at the time (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum). The Command and Service Module was one of two parts of the Apollo spacecraft that would eventually take more astronauts into space and finally to the surface of the moon.

The Apollo 7 mission was the first crewed Apollo mission – that means it was the first to actually take a group of people up on the spacecraft. The three astronauts on the mission were Command Module pilot Don F. Eisele, Commander Walter M. Schirra Jr., and Lunar Module pilot Walter Cunningham. In addition to successfully transmitting a live TV broadcast, the mission also demonstrated that the Command and Service module could safely take a crew into space, ensuring the module’s use for future missions (Dunbar 2018).

Fun Fact: Though the mechanics of the flight operated smoothly, the relationships between the crew members was anything but. There were conflicts over authority, food, the broadcast, and how hard it was to go to the bathroom in the spacesuits, among other things (Dunbar 2018).

For More Information

Williams, D. R. (2013, September 16). The Apollo Program (1963 – 1972). Retrieved from https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo.html
 
Dunbar, B. (2018, January 09). About Apollo 7, the First Crewed Apollo Space Mission. Retrieved from https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo7.html

Deeper Observations
by Roxanne Lee

Astronomy is incredible.
 
Scientists have discovered an incredible amount about the physical composition of planets, comets, black holes, and other astronomical bodies, all while never leaving our atmosphere. We know what they look like, as well as their temperatures, movements and even chemical compositions!
 
But how? The planets and stars are extremely far away, to put it mildly.
 
Even Venus, the closest planet to Earth, is 24 million miles from us (Redd 2012)! How can telescopes see so far?
 
Well, how do you learn about the stars? One way to learn about them is to watch them with a telescope.
 
The telescopes you’d use to watch the stars work by using curved mirrors to bend visual light, making far away objects look closer than they are. Light is a kind of wave, and is part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The electromagnetic spectrum is the range of electromagnetic radiation, which is energy that spreads as it travels (Goddard Space Flight Center 2013).

Light waves we can see – colors like red and blue – are on the visible part of the spectrum. But the electromagnetic spectrum encompasses many more types of energy besides light. The spectrum also includes such things as radio waves, gamma rays, and infrared, all forms of energy you may not associate with light. Although we can’t see them, energy on the electromagnetic spectrum is made of waves, just like light is made of waves.

Specialized telescopes can be used to observe electromagnetic spectrum wavelengths in space, just like common telescopes use visible light wavelengths to show the stars. Radio telescopes can collect radio waves from all kinds of things in space, like stars and black holes, and give us information about them (National Radio Astronomy Observatory, 2019). One example of a radio telescope is the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope. This telescope, located in Green Bank West Virginia, is the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope.

One aspect of radio telescopes still very open to exploration is submillimeter wavelength astronomy. Submillimeter astronomy observes microwaves from space. These lay between the waves seen by radio telescopes and optical telescopes, making them tricky to observe (Arizona Radio Observatory, 2011). Submillimeter telescopes and arrays work together to capture incredibly weak waves from space and amplify them so we can properly interpret them. Part of the reason the field isn’t as explored as radio waves is because submillimeter astronomy is so delicate, very precise machinery is needed in very specific spots on Earth – you can’t set up a submillimeter array just anywhere.

An example of a submillimeter array is the submillimeter array (SMA) on the Big Island of Hawaii. The SMA is made up of eight large radio dishes that work together as a singular telescope. By observing the same object in space together, the radio dishes can pick up waves and make a more accurate image than any one telescope (Submillimeter Astrophysical Observatory).

There’s always more to learn about space, and by using and improving on the brilliant radio telescopes and submillimeter arrays on Earth, we’ll be able to learn more for years to come.

For More Information

Arizona Radio Observatory, What Is Submillimeter Astronomy? (2011, November 8).
Retrieved from http://aro.as.arizona.edu/docs/what_is_submillimeter.htm

Goddard. Electromagnetic Spectrum – Introduction. (2013).
Retrieved from https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/toolbox/emspectrum1.html

National Radio Astronomy Observatory. What are Radio Telescopes? (2019, November 27). Retrieved from https://public.nrao.edu/telescopes/radio-telescopes/

Redd, N. (2012, November 17). How Far Away is Venus?
Retrieved from https://www.space.com/18529-distance-to-venus.html

Submillimeter Astrophysical Observatory (2020). The Submillimeter Array.
Retrieved from https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/sma/About/

Closing Words

Power Supply for The Outpost

In a habitat as large as The Outpost, maintaining sufficient power for all operations is of primary importance. Power generation systems must be both robust and redundant because the results of a major power failure could well be catastrophic.

Because The Outpost is mobile and could be moved to any location in the solar system, it is necessary to have multiple sources of power. Based on currently available technology, those sources would need to be nuclear fission and solar photovoltaic. The bulk of the power supply would be from nuclear sources, with solar being a smaller maintenance source.

For safety reasons, the reactor would be mounted at the end of a long column that would extend longitudinally from The Outpost at the opposite end from the docking column.

Each module would have solar panels on its exterior surface, and a large bank of storage batteries for emergency power.

There is a potential for some major breakthroughs in battery technology in the next few years. There are a number of projects using such things as graphene in batteries in order to both increase the energy density and decrease the need for exotic materials such as lithium.

The Holy Grail of power sources is a fusion reactor. When ‒ or if ‒ one is developed, it will change everything, potentially providing virtually unlimited power to The Outpost. No matter how far from the Sun The Outpost ventured, it would carry its own internal sun.

Several countries are currently working to develop fusion power. So far, it is still an unrealized dream. However, research is moving incrementally closer towards the goal of being able to produce a demonstration fusion reactor capable of producing more energy than is required to maintain the reaction.

Stable Salt Reactors

These reactors are also still under development. They will have many advantages over today’s fission reactors. They do not use the high temperature and pressure of conventional reactors. They also do not contain the volatile compounds that can cause explosions, and therefore are incapable of a meltdown such as those which occurred in Fukushima and Chernobyl. As the temperature rises, the reactor will automatically shut down. This shutdown is based on the physics of the reactor and does not require an active system to control it. In other words, if the temperature starts to rise to a dangerous level, the nature of the reactor itself would cause the reaction to terminate, shutting down the reactor and thereby preventing a dangerous condition.

These reactors also do not require the dangerous radioactives, u-235 and plutonium; in fact, they can use the waste isotopes from conventional reactors as fuel.

Because of all the conditions that make the reactor safer and more stable, the mass of a large pressure vessel and massive containment and shielding that a conventional reactor requires will not be necessary. They can therefore be made much smaller. It has been estimated that a 1,200 megawatt reactor could be carried on a standard flatbed truck.  For a habitat like The Outpost, this means that it would be possible to have multiple redundant power sources.

There is a tremendous push going on right now to develop new power sources both for use in space and for use here on Earth. New research is developing more efficient ways of storing that power. The movement towards electric vehicles will only accelerate that progress. When the time comes to build The Outpost, I believe that these new power sources and the means of storing that power will be readily available.

Barry Greene
President

Around the Cosmos

• How does NASA benefit the economy? Read the latest report.
• Can we reach Mars in 3 months with this nuclear engine?
• The Right Stuff series is now streaming. Watch the trailer.

Space Activism

• Email your US senators to support NASA funding.
• Take a moment to participate in this new survey about the Moon exploration that will be presented to the UN.
• Do you like games? Mission 1.5 is compiling data on how citizens best want to tackle climate change and will be presented to governments.

Creative Space

Steve R. Dodd is a science fiction artist. While not much is known about him, there are archives of his work. Check out more here.

Show us your creativity of bringing science and art together! Submit your art to mail@highfrontieroutpost.org.

We have also started a poster challenge project. For details please visit our HITRECORD challenge page.

Space Holidays

• Space Day – November 3, 1973: NASA launched Mariner 10, becoming the first spacecraft to explore Mercury.

Opportunities

Are you or someone you know interested in joining our team? Use our volunteer form to notify us!

The post November 2020 Newsletter appeared first on High Frontier Outpost.

President’s Column

Some Thoughts on Alien Life

This column is going to be more speculative than usual. Rather than discussing The Outpost itself, I’m going to look at some of the places it could investigate and try to imagine what kind of life they could hold.

Considering the recent discoveries in Venus’ atmosphere, we can definitely conclude that “Life as We Know It” may not even be close to as we know it. If, in fact, the discoveries of phosgene gas prove to have a biological origin, it will indicate that life can exist under conditions that we would never have imagined.

Astronomers refer to the distance from the Sun where liquid water can exist as the so-called “Goldilocks zone”. The distance where it is not too hot, not too cold, but just right. However, the more we look, the more we find that the universe is far more complex than we ever imagined. While liquid water may not exist on the surface, many worlds have buried oceans. Who knows what they may hold?

Years ago, the belief was simple. All life needed the sun’s energy to survive, either directly as  green plants or indirectly by consuming the plants or consuming the animals that ate the plants. We know now that this is not always the case.

Deep in the ocean are hydrothermal (hot water) vents where boiling hot water laden with minerals comes up from the ocean floor. That discovery startled the scientific world. Even more startling was the fact that despite the extreme conditions, crushing pressure, boiling hot water, and eternal darkness, the vents teemed with life – life where the sun could never reach, life that thrived on the chemical output of the vents.

There are vast oceans on other worlds of our solar system, such as Enceladus, a moon of Saturn’s, and Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. There’s even a buried ocean on the dwarf planet Ceres in the asteroid belt. Do they hold life? We will not know for sure until we go there and look, and looking at an ocean protected by a miles-thick shell of ice is no trivial undertaking. It would take a long-term effort. It would take massive support, and to investigate it in detail, it would take the research facilities of The Outpost.

What might they find? Here is where we can let our imaginations run wild. What kind of creature would have evolved in these conditions of eternal darkness, deep below the ice shell?

We can start our journey by looking at evolution in our world. We know life began in the sea. Simple organisms evolved, became more complex, developed shells and spines, developed fins and gills. Life took to the land. Plants grew trunks, leaves, and later flowers. Animals evolved legs and lungs. Eventually, some of them even learned to question where they came from.

Those that lived in the sea evolved, too. Some evolved minds, minds that we still don’t understand. The cetaceans, whales and dolphins, were land animals that returned to the sea, so we will ignore them for this discussion. Let’s focus on trying to determine what kind of creature would evolve without being able to ever see the sun or the land.

Musings About Mollusks

There is another highly intelligent marine creature, the octopus.

This gives us a starting point for our attempt at imagining an intelligent marine being. We will go back to the beginning of life, the early Cambrian period. This was over 500 million years ago, before plants – before any life on land. We will start with the mollusks. In addition to shelled animals like snails and clams, mollusks also include octopi and squids. The phylum also includes nudibranchs and chitons. Those with shells make their shells primarily from calcium carbonate (CaCO3). Some non-mollusk animals like glass sponges and diatoms make their shells from silica (SiO2).

Most mollusks remain mobile, such as snails, octopi and squids, while others anchor themselves in adulthood. There are many shelled creatures that are free-swimming as juveniles but sessile (fixed) in adulthood.

Let’s look at some modifications that have evolved on Earth.

1. Eyes: Snails and slugs have eyes on stalks. Even clams have eyes. Those eyes do not have the resolving power of the human eye, but they are eyes. Squid and octopi (Octopi is the plural of octopus…Since a pizza is cut into 8 slices, does that make it an octopie?) have far more complex eyes and good vision. Why would eyes exist in the dark abyssal depths? While sunlight never reaches those depths, there is still light. Phosphorescent fish and algae abound. Eyes would have a purpose.
2. Mouths: Most mollusks are carnivorous. Some snails have developed radula, powerful grinding teeth that can grind into a hard shell to get at the soft flesh inside. If you have ever found a shell at the beach with a small hole that looks like it was drilled, you have found evidence of their predation. Squid and octopi have powerful beaks that resemble those of a hawk.
3. Manipulation: Lacking a skeleton, mollusks don’t have arms, legs, or even a spine or skull. In our bodies, the skeleton serves as an anchor for our muscles. Mollusks have evolved tentacles where a complex interplay of musculature allows movement. We’re familiar with the tentacles of the octopus and squid, but many other mollusks such as the nudibranch and scallops also have them.
4. Locomotion: A squid or octopus can propel itself with a powerful jet of water. Squid are also strong swimmers. Octopi can also use their tentacles to move themselves. Nudibranchs, slugs, snails and chitons move using a muscular foot.

Mollusks are one of the earliest manifestations of life on our planet. There is documentation for their appearance in the early Cambrian and possibly before. They’re one of the most successful classes of animals, appearing in every environment from the tropics to the Arctic, on land and in the sea. Many varieties of mollusks have been found in the hostile conditions of the so-called black smokers in the abyssal depths.

It seems a reasonable assumption that if life evolved in an extraterrestrial ocean, some form of mollusk would be present. We don’t know the conditions that would encourage their evolution, but we can make some guesses.

Predation seems to be a constant in nature. The pressure of predation causes the evolution of defenses such as shells or speed. This leads to more advanced predatory behavior, leading to more defensive prey.

Environmental change is another evolutionary pressure. Animals that are specialized die out while the generalist will survive. Disasters such as the meteorite that killed off the dinosaurs,  leaving the evolutionary field open to the mammals and leading eventually to us, can dramatically change the course of evolution.

I will assume that these pressures have taken place over millions of years in this hypothetical other world, and speculate about what kind of intelligent creature could evolve from a remote molluscan beginning.

Our intelligent mollusk needs several characteristics. It has to be mobile, able to explore its environment. It has to be a generalist able to exploit multiple food sources. It cannot be the apex predator based on physical attributes alone. It must have to use its intelligence to survive rather than physical prowess. It must be capable of social interaction and communication. It must be capable of manipulating its environment. It must be able to accurately sense its environment and the conditions around itself.

Taken as a group, mollusks have developed all of these attributes across multiple species. There’s no reason to believe that given the right environmental pressures, they couldn’t be combined into one creature.

Speculation: What Would an Extraterrestrial Mollusk Look Like?

For locomotion, let us assume a large muscular foot possessed by such creatures as snails, slugs and chitons. This foot could be adapted for simple manipulation and could have evolved tentacles such as those found in the squid or octopus.

The shell which almost all mollusks possess, some internally, could be vestigial, possibly reduced to a series of bony plates like a chiton. This would provide some protection and more importantly, it would provide an anchor point for some additional musculature allowing the creature to become larger and more mobile.

The eyes and other senses could be well-developed. Communication could be by photophores generating light patterns and some form of pheromone-type chemical signals. They might be able to change their skin color like some octopi can do.

For food consumption, it might have a squid-like beak, possibly with internal radula to grind food.

Fine manipulation could be by tentacles, like those many mollusks possess. The most obvious are the octopus and squid, of course, but many other species have some form of them. For example, a nudibranch has small feeder tentacles near its mouth.

Mollusks are about as alien as any creatures we encounter on Earth can be. It is interesting to observe that they have evolved many similar physical solutions to those evolved by mammals. For example, they have a circulatory system, but their blood is not like ours. We have iron-based hemoglobin as an oxygen carrier. This makes our blood red. Mollusks have hemocyanin, a copper-based oxygen carrier. Their blood is blue.

Eyes have also evolved in mollusks, but somewhat differently from those of the vertebrates. The most advanced molluscan eyes, those of the octopus and squid, rival those of the vertebrates in  their resolution and complexity. However, their structures are quite different.

Without a backbone or skeleton, mollusks have evolved their own solution to the problem of manipulating their environment. Most mollusks possess some form of tentacles, an evolutionary adaptation of their muscular foot.

These are all examples of what is called convergent evolution. This means that nature has evolved similar but not necessarily identical solutions to similar problems. A vertebrate example would be the development of wings in both birds and bats.

The depths of an enclosed ocean would be very different from the world we know, but evolutionary pressures will most likely act in similar ways no matter how alien the environment. The results of that evolution may be strange to us, but we can be certain that whatever creatures we encounter will have been shaped, over millions of years, by their environment, and the knowledge we gain from their study will help us to understand our own evolution.

How will we react to contact with alien intelligence? Perhaps we can learn something from our pets. When dogs first meet, there are a few brief sniffs as they get to know each other. Then, the usual reaction is “Let’s play”. Appearance doesn’t matter. A dog won’t say “I’m a cocker spaniel. I don’t associate with Collies!” or “I’m a purebred and you’re just a mutt.” It’s just “Let’s get to know each other. Let’s play.”

As we move outward from planet Earth we will, at some point, encounter alien life, perhaps intelligent life. It may be years from now, or decades, or centuries, or millennia ‒ but the deeper into the universe we explore, the more likely it will become.

It is my hope that when that day comes, we will have grown into wisdom. That we will have been able to divest ourselves of racism and xenophobia and greet any life-form that we meet, no matter how strange or exotic, and say to them “Let’s get to know each other. Let’s play.”

Barry Greene
President

Educational Space

Satellites in our Lives
by Anyi Wen

World Space Week* is coming up on October 4-10, and this year’s theme is “Satellites Improve Life.” In honor of that theme, let’s learn about the different ways that satellites help us in everyday life.

What is a Satellite?

Before we talk about how satellites help us, we need to know what a satellite is! NASA explains that a “satellite is a moon, planet or machine that orbits a planet or star.” To orbit something is to travel around it. For example, the planets in our solar system are natural satellites that orbit the Sun. We will be focusing on artificial, or man-made, satellites, which are “machines [that] are launched into space and orbit Earth or another body in space” (Stillman). Many man-made satellites are used by scientists to learn more about Earth, other planets, and beyond. The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit Earth, into space over 50 years ago on October 4, 1957. Sputnik 1 was about the size of a basketball — if a basketball weighed 184 pounds (83 kilograms) (Tobin)! You can read more fun facts about the first artificial satellite here. 

Satellites in Communication

We have satellites to thank for the phone service, internet, and TV we enjoy today. Before satellites were invented, long-distance calls were expensive and not widely available. TV signals used to be weak, so sometimes people couldn’t watch the channels they wanted to. With satellites, TV and phone signals are able to travel further to different places around the world. This also made live television possible, so we can watch news at the same time it is being recorded (Klein). Without satellites, we wouldn’t be able to easily call our friends and family members who live in other countries! Satellites make certain kinds of internet connections available, such as SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet project being “develop[ed] to provide low-cost internet to remote locations” (Mann). Read about how satellites are being used by astronauts to get online. Our outpost will most likely also use some form of satellite internet, unless other ways to get internet in space are fully developed in the future and proven to work better.

Satellites in Navigation

Have you ever used Google Maps or another app to guide you somewhere? These kinds of apps use GPS (Global Positioning System), which relies on a group of satellites working together with some other tools to tell your device where you are and suggest directions for where you want to go. More than 30 satellites are part of the GPS system! NASA explains more about how GPS works here. 

Satellites in Weather Forecasts

Have you ever checked the weather forecast before leaving your house? It’s useful to know what the weather will be like while you’re outside, so you can be prepared with an umbrella or extra layers of clothes if necessary. Meteorologists, scientists who study the weather, use many tools when predicting the weather. They use satellites to observe, or closely look at, cloud patterns. If you studied clouds in school, you may remember that you can see different kinds of clouds depending on the weather. So, meteorologists can use information they get from satellites to help them make more accurate predictions, or guesses, about the weather. 

Who Knew Satellites Were So Important?

Satellites are responsible for making a lot of our modern-day conveniences work! Which ones of these are you most grateful for? Do you know any other ways that satellites make our lives better? Let us know at mail@highfrontieroutpost.org!

*High Frontier Outpost is excited to participate in World Space Week for the first time, and we look forward to continuing to do so in years to come. It is a week people from all over the world come together to celebrate space and its wonders. Looking for other ways to join in the fun? Check out other interesting and educational events at this list, which includes in-person events as well as virtual events: https://www.worldspaceweek.org/events/event-list/

For More Information

Cloud Types (n.d.). National Center for Atmospheric Research.
https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/clouds/cloud-types

Highlights of World Space Week 2020 (n.d.) World Space Week.
https://www.worldspaceweek.org/world-space-week-highlights/

How Does GPS Work? (2019, June 27). NASA Space Place.
https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/gps/en/

Gunther, T. (n.d.). Triangulation. National Geographic. 
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/photo/triangulation-sized/

Klein, S. (2012, July 23). The Birth of Satellite TV, 50 Years Ago. History. 
https://www.history.com/news/the-birth-of-satellite-tv-50-years-ago

Kuksov, I. (2019, September 13). Internet in space: Is there Net on Mars? Kaspersky Daily.
https://usa.kaspersky.com/blog/internet-in-space/18618/

Mann, A. (2020, January 17). Starlink: SpaceX’s satellite internet project. Space.com. 
https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites.html

Stillman, D. (2014, February 8). What Is a Satellite? (Grades K-4) NASA. 
https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/what-is-a-satellite-k4.html

Stillman, D. (2014, February 12). What Is a Satellite? (Grades 5-8) NASA. 
https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/nasa-knows/what-is-a-satellite-58.html

Tobin, Declan. (n.d.). Fun Sputnik 1 Facts For Kids. Easy Science for Kids. 
https://easyscienceforkids.com/sputnik-1-facts/

Warrilow, C. (2012, February 15). Students Ask: How Do Meteorologists Predict The Weather? Georgia Public Broadcasting.
https://www.gpb.org/blogs/talking-storm/2012/02/15/students-ask-how-do-meteorologists-predict-the-weather

Closing Words

The Outpost Docking System

A habitat the size of the High Frontier Outpost will, of necessity, have considerable incoming and outgoing traffic. This will be true even in the outskirts of the solar system. There will be research vessels coming and going, supply craft bringing in materials gathered from moons and asteroids, even tourists from Earth or other colonies. How will the Outpost handle all this traffic?

While the rotation of The Outpost is a stately 2 minutes per revolution, due to its huge diameter the tangential velocity (the surface speed measured from a stationary point outside The Outpost) is several hundred miles per hour. Trying to land on a surface that is moving under you at that speed would be virtually impossible.

While landing on the exterior shell of The Outpost would not be practical, there is a workable solution. The docking assembly would be built along an extension of the longitudinal axis of The Outpost. Because the radius from the axis will be much shorter there, the tangential velocity is much less.

The docking column would have a series of rotatable docking collars. When a ship approaches the collar, it will be rotated anti-spinward so as to appear stationary to the approaching craft. The ship will dock with a collar and be locked on to it. The joined craft and collar would then slowly rotate in the spinward direction until the rotational velocity matches that of The Outpost. Passengers and cargo would then be offloaded into the collar, which would connect with a series of maglev (magnetic levitation) transports in the central column. The far end of the column would contain a large docking hub that could be used for massive or bulk cargo.

Naturally, there would be communication between the arriving craft and The Outpost. In addition, there would be landing lights to provide visual cues. Because of the rotation of The Outpost, a simple line of lights would not suffice. It would have to be a series of circumferential rings of lights, each lighting in sequence, to indicate the proper approach path.

The Outpost end terminus of the docking column would be an internal transportation hub linking the various transport systems within The Outpost.

From the time that the ship docks to The Outpost, the ship, its cargo, and the passengers will be in a microgravity environment. Because gravity on The Outpost is simulated by its rotation and not actual gravity caused by mass, the g-force will increase as you move outward radially from the center until it reaches 1G at the shell.

The microgravity along the longitudinal axis will facilitate transport of massive cargo within The Outpost.

After the ship docks with a collar, the collar would rotate to one of two transportation docks, one for passengers or one for cargo. The cargo transport system would extend to the far end of the column where the asteroid mining ships would discharge bulk materials.

The docking column would have airlocks at both the ship and the column positions. Likewise, there would be a series of airtight doors in the column that would automatically open and close after the carrier passes.

Because of the vast scale of The Outpost, the docking column must be designed to contend with a large amount of traffic. There will be numerous corporate, scientific, and educational craft, not to mention maintenance and passenger ships. Ideally, the design of The Outpost would take this need into consideration and also leave room for future expansion.

Barry Greene
President

Around the Cosmos

• More liquid water has been found on Mars. Read the details.
• New batteries have been created for easier exploration of other planets.
• Big story of the month – Biosignatures on Venus

Space Activism

We’re introducing a new section for you to take action for all things space! Here we will amplify the efforts other organizations are doing in relation to space policy.

• Email your US senators to support NASA funding.
• Take a moment to participate in this new survey about the Moon exploration that will be presented to the UN.
• Do you like games? Mission 1.5 is compiling data on how citizens best want to tackle climate change and will be presented to governments.

Creative Space

What would the inside of an Outpost module look like? Here is a cross-section model created by Barry Greene showing how a residential module would look like.

Show us your creativity of bringing science and art together! Submit your art to mail@highfrontieroutpost.org.

We have also started a poster challenge project. For details please visit our HITRECORD challenge page.

Space Holidays

• Space Day – October 4, 1957: Sputnik 1 becomes first artificial satellite to orbit Earth.

Opportunities

Are you or someone you know interested in joining our team? Use our volunteer form to notify us!

The post World Space Week 2020 (October Newsletter) appeared first on High Frontier Outpost.

President’s Column

The Question of Justice

The Outpost will be a unique environment, isolated but with a complex advanced technology. It will be dependent on that technology for its survival. The first Outpost will be primarily for research and exploration, possibly to initially support a human colony on Mars, later to explore the outer solar system. It must be self-supporting with the capability of resupplying itself from asteroids and other extraterrestrial sources.

The Outpost will be vast, with an ultimate population of several million people. With that large a population, there will be crime. Some of the crimes will be those we are familiar with today. Some unique to The Outpost we cannot even imagine today. I will leave those to the future. The question to consider today is justice.

Crimes today fall into two broad categories, criminal and civil. In general, criminal charges are brought by the state and penalties can range all the way from fines up to execution. Civil charges can be brought by individuals (corporations are legally considered individuals) or the state. Penalties can range from orders to cease and desist to fines and seizure of property.

As a starting point I will examine the legal system in the United States today. I will focus on what I perceive as flaws in an otherwise efficient system and look at how they might be altered to function in the unique environment of The Outpost.

It is said that Justice is blind. She may be blind, but she has her hand in your pocket. You get the Justice you can afford. I will give two cases as examples: the OJ Simpson murder trial and the Central Park Five assault and rape trial. Both of these cases received major publicity and the charged individuals were both vilified and supported by the press. OJ Simpson was a multi-millionaire able to mount a powerful defense with a “Dream Team” of top attorneys, private investigators, and even public relations experts. The Central Park Five were teenagers from poor families in East Harlem when it was still a poverty-stricken neighborhood. OJ walked, and the five boys? They spent many years of their life in prison. Later, the one who actually committed the brutal rape confessed while serving a life sentence for another crime. The boys were innocent! Public Assistance doesn’t pay for a Dream Team, nor any attorney, nor investigators, and certainly not for a public relations expert. The oldest of the boys, Khorey Wise, who was 16 at the time of his arrest, was tried as an adult. He spent 13 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

This brings up several disturbing factors that contribute to the suppression of Justice.

1) Pressure on the police for a quick result to an investigation.

2) Pressure on the district attorney for convictions.

3) Lack of an equal playing field between the State and the accused.

4) Lack of oversight over the entire process.

Discussion

1) There is considerable pressure put on police to catch the criminal; this leads to shortcuts and incredible pressure put on the accused to confess. This was done with the Central Park Five. They had no attorney at the time of their arrest and unsophisticated parents unfamiliar with the law.

2) The District Attorney is a political position, elected to office. So are many judges. An elected official is responsible to the electorate, and the electorate wants convictions. For example, before the boys’ trial a New York Real Estate Mogul (who is now our president) took out full-page ads in the local papers implying that they should be convicted and executed. That level of pressure is impossible to ignore.

3) Unless the accused is extremely wealthy, there is no way they can match the resources the State can bring to bear to achieve a conviction. For the Central Park Five, there were no witnesses nor DNA evidence presented, despite DNA evidence having been taken from the victim. One of the five, Khorey Wise, who ironically served the longest sentence, wasn’t even one of those originally accused. He went with his friend, Raymond Santana, to the police station to support him, because that is what friends do. He wound up being accused, tried and convicted along with the others.

Many innocent people are forced to confess to a crime they didn’t commit because of the risk of the trial, particularly if they don’t have sufficient resources to mount a positive defense. This is one of the reasons that most criminal cases are settled by a plea rather than a trial.

4) Many people believe that a conviction can be challenged by an appeal. This is incorrect. An appeal only looks at procedural flaws in the trial. For example, if the district attorney has exculpatory evidence (evidence that would help to prove the accused innocent), they must turn it over to the defense attorney. If this is not done, it is a violation of the proper legal procedure for the trial and grounds for an appeal. The district attorney is always reluctant to do this. Frequently, information is concealed and never disclosed. Often, it is turned over at the last minute before trial, leaving no time to investigate it and giving the accused no knowledge of the case against him.

From the Criminal Justice Standards 4th edition, published by the American Bar Association:

“The primary duty of the prosecutor is to seek justice within the bounds of the law, not merely to convict. The prosecutor serves the public interests and should act with integrity and balanced judgment to increase Public Safety by pursuing appropriate criminal charges of appropriate severity, and by exercising discretion not to pursue criminal charges in appropriate circumstances. The prosecutor should seek to protect the innocent and convict the guilty.”  (Emphasis mine)

Even if there is a blatant flaw in the trial, a convicted person is often on their own. An appeals attorney is another large expense impossible to raise for many people ‒ another contrast of the relative poverty of the defendant as opposed to the virtually unlimited resources of the State.

How can we create a legal system on The Outpost that does not incorporate these flaws?

1) The pressure on the police.

This is perhaps the most difficult problem to solve. When a crime is committed in a closed society like The Outpost, there will be considerable pressure for closure.

A large part of this pressure comes from publicity, and that publicity can strongly influence police action. A false accusation can ruin someone’s life. One example is the case of Richard Jewell, who discovered a bomb at the 1996 Olympics. He was first hailed as a hero, then later accused by the FBI of planting it himself. He was later cleared, but the attendant publicity destroyed his life.

Another example is the so-called “perp walk” where the alleged perpetrator of a crime is paraded before the Press.

What is needed is an Independent Evidence Review Office that would look at the evidence available and determine if there is sufficient grounds for arrest. In addition, since a person is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, the identity of the accused is to be kept confidential. No public accusations, no perp walk. The police can only announce that an arrest has been made.

2) The pressure on the district attorney.

The confidentiality of the accused will eliminate part of the pressure on the DA. Eliminating the election of the District Attorney will remove the need to pander to the electorate. If the DA is selected to serve for a long term, say 10 years, and the term is not renewable, there will be less pressure to get an unjust conviction.

The district attorney could be selected by a council of public defenders who would naturally want someone who would consider the rights of the accused.

3) Lack of an equal playing field.

The overwhelming power of the state for convictions has to be counted with an equal and opposite power for defense. The accused must have access to investigatory resources as well as competent defense attorneys that have the resources to put in the time and effort to defend the case. Today, Legal Aid lawyers may have hundreds of cases, and are unable to put in the time and effort to defend a case properly. Only the poorest of defendants are even eligible to be assisted by a legal aid attorney. The Public Defender must have far more resources, finances, and support than they do today.

4) Lack of oversight.

The Innocence Project estimates that in about 4% of capital crimes (such as murder), the convicted person is innocent. Keeping in mind that capital crimes are more strongly defended than lesser crimes, the general number may be much higher. With almost two and a half million prisoners in the US alone (more than any other country in the world, followed by China, Brazil and Russia, all dictatorships), that would mean well over a hundred thousand innocent people are in prison.

After conviction, there should be an automatic review of the entire case by an impartial board appointed for life, like the Supreme Court. They would review the evidence and the trial, and have subpoena power for any other records of the case. They could vacate the conviction in the case of a gross miscarriage of Justice, send it back for retrial, or choose to uphold the conviction.

I would rather see a guilty person go free due to an excess of caution than see an innocent person suffer for a crime they didn’t commit.

Barry Greene
President

Educational Space

Schools on the Outpost?
by Anyi Wen

Right now, students are experiencing a major change in how classes are held because of safety concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many schools have moved their classes partially or fully online, with mixed responses from students and school staff alike. Some people love this new way of going to school, while others miss learning with their classmates in-person. How do you feel about these changes to the classroom experience? Let us know at mail@highfrontieroutpost.org.

A lot of people wonder about when things will go back to “normal.” We have a good idea of what normal everyday life and school days look like from years of experience, but what about for people who are starting out in the High Frontier Outpost? What would normal education there look like?

We can’t know for sure until schools actually open up there, but we at HFO have some ideas for what we’d like to see in space-based schools.

1. Multi-grade classrooms: 

As a student at a High Frontier Outpost school, you may have classmates who are younger or older than you. Everyone learns at different paces and different ways, and in this setting you can easily find a peer mentor or be one. You would develop leadership skills and learn from great role models. Classes will generally be co-taught, which means there will usually be two teachers in each classroom. You would also have different teachers who specialize in the subjects they teach.

2. Study Buddies

You would be part of a study group that meets after school. You might end up in a group with your friends who live in the same neighborhood as you, and they could be from your class or a different one. Your group could meet to study together before tests, and maybe do homework together a few days a week. If you need extra help organizing or understanding some concepts, there would be a mentor or teacher your group could check in with. For the most part though, your group would be responsible enough to organize regular gatherings on your own, and you’ll support one another. There are sure to be many opportunities to celebrate your academic successes together!

3. Connections to Earth

By the time schools are ready to open on the Outpost, the rest of the Outpost has already been around for a few years. In school, you’d be learning about the short history of the High Frontier Outpost so far as well as key points from the history of Earth. Even though you may or may not be coming back to visit Earth after you start living in a space habitat, it’s important to continue to learn about our roots as humans who have lived on Earth for thousands of years. Life on Earth and the Outpost may be different, but we can learn from what has worked well and not so well back on Earth.

4. Student/Teacher Exchanges

Some high schools and colleges offer international student exchange programs, which can give you the opportunity to live and study in another country for a while.Well, what about a space-Earth exchange? As an HFO student, you’d have the chance to go back to school on Earth for a semester or year. This would be an even more valuable opportunity for people who are born on the Outpost and have never experienced life on Earth. Students back on Earth would also have a chance to experience school and life on the Outpost. 

The same opportunities would be open for teachers. Your teachers on HFO might return to Earth for additional training or experience with different types of schools, and from time to time you might have teachers new to the Outpost. 

5. Exploring Careers

Do you know what job you’d like to have? Some people figure out what they’d like to do when they are very young, while others only choose a path once they’re adults. HFO’s schools will expose students to different career paths and help them make connections to professionals early on. Since the High Frontier Outpost is at its heart a huge research facility, there will be many opportunities for students to see scientists at work. There will also be jobs that were available on Earth but have to be modified for a new environment in space. Your class would go on many field trips to see scientists working on breeding a new species of vegetable that can thrive on the Outpost, performances by zero-gravity ballet dancers, and more. If you become interested in a certain career, your school can help you find a mentor in the field who can give you the experience you need to decide on whether it’s the right fit for you.

6. Getting What You Need

In order for all of this great learning to happen, students need to have their basic needs met! As an Outpost student, you would enjoy free meals during your school day and free transportation to and from school. Physical and mental healthcare services would be available to everyone for no or low cost. Following Finland’s example, HFO schools may have a relatively late start to their school days at 9-9:45 AM, so that less of our scholars and teachers come to school sleep-deprived. Learning is done best with a full stomach, good health in general, and after a good night’s sleep.

Of course, none of this is set in stone. This is a plan that may end up being changed in time, just as education is always evolving on Earth. What we do know for sure is that we want schools in the High Frontier Outpost to be a place for life-long learners and leaders to grow. What do you think of these ideas? How similar or different are these practices to what your school does? Do you have any suggestions for what an Outpost school should offer? Please share your thoughts with us at mail@highfrontieroutpost.org.

For More Information

Alber, R. (2012, December 31). Deeper Learning: A Collaborative Classroom Is Key. Edutopia.
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/deeper-learning-collaboration-key-rebecca-alber

Colagrossi, M. (2018, September 10). 10 reasons why Finland’s education system is the best in the world. World Economic Forum.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/09/10-reasons-why-finlands-education-system-is-the-best-in-the-world

KidsHealth Medical Experts. (n.d). Six Steps to Smarter Studying. KidsHealth.
https://kidshealth.org/en/kids/studying.html

Mayhew, K. (31 July, 2017). The Argument for Multi-Grade Classrooms in Today’s Schools. The Educator’s Room.
https://theeducatorsroom.com/argument-multi-grade-classrooms-todays-schools/

The University of Utah. (2018, April 23). 5 Tips for an Effective Study Group. David Eccles School of Business.
https://eccles.utah.edu/news/5-tips-for-an-effective-study-group/

Transportation in Space Habitats
by Roxanne Lee

The year is 2199. Judith Jemison (Judy to her friends) lives in a space habitat, and today is her first day off in a long time. She sleeps late, drawing the curtains so the station’s interior lights don’t wake her up. Because the space habitat has gravity, she is in no danger of floating away in her sleep.

Once she wakes up, Judy makes food in her small but comfortable living quarters. If she were in, say, the International Space Station in 2020, she would eat dehydrated or thermostabilized food (May). The space habitat she lives in, however, has its own hydroponics growth labs. Hydroponics growth labs are labs that can grow plants not with soil, but by using water with lots of nutrient solutions (To learn more about hydroponics labs, check the article by HFO writer Anyi Wen here). Instead of freeze-dried tortillas or shrimp cocktails, Judith has hash browns made with fresh potatoes. Gravity also means that residents of the station can safely cook.

Once she’s eaten breakfast, Judith is ready to go. She leaves her small home, ready to enjoy the day. She wants to spend her day off visiting a friend. How will she get to them? Well, first of all, we should know where she is.

Judith lives inside High Frontier Outpost, a space habitat modeled in part after an O’Neill cylinder. An O’Neill cylinder is a kind of space habitat for people to live in, first envisioned by Princeton physicist Gerard K. O’Neil (O’Neill Cylinder Space Settlement). He first described its details and function in a Physics Today article published in 1974. The habitat is made of two cylinders rotating in opposite directions. Its proposed dimensions are 20 miles long, 5 miles in diameter, 6 stripes along its length to make 3 habitable spaces and 3 windows (Kanchwala). The size of O’Neill cylinders can vary, based on what they’re built for, but they can be very, very large. The inside of a cylinder could have as much space as the entire state of West Virginia! Or, if you wanted to measure the area in football fields, an O’Neill cylinder has as much space as 232,691 football fields! (If you want to learn more about O’Neill cylinders, check out the GeekWire article here.)

The High Frontier Outpost is an outgrowth of this original O’Neill cylinder concept. To increase space, the windows and solar panels were eliminated, and it no longer exists as a paired structure like the cylinders pictured above are. By getting rid of the windows, the interior surface area is doubled. In addition, the Outpost cylinder modules have close to 50 stories more space than the original O’Neill cylinder designs. Those could range in size from 5 miles (2,438 stories) to 20 miles (9,754 stories) long.

One of the most important things about an O’Neill cylinder is its gravity. The rotation of the cylinder every minute and a half would be enough to create a gravitational force that simulates Earth’s gravity (Hadhazy). Artificial gravity is a key part of the O’Neill cylinder’s effectiveness. Gravity is a very important part of life on Earth. It keeps us from flying away and makes sure that the things we put down stay down, but gravity also keeps us healthy. Gravity ensures that bodily systems like blood circulation and digestion work properly (To learn more about the effect of gravity on the human body check out NASA’s article here).

So, while gravity is key to living and making Judy feel at home, it also means Judy can’t just drift where she wants to go. Maybe she could drive there?

A private car would probably not be the best way to travel in the cylinder. Private cars, used by one person or a household, are already resource-heavy on Earth. Cars need gas, possibly from fossil fuels, as well as upkeep, and sometimes they need to be replaced entirely. They can also cause accidents. With space hard to come by in, well, space, a private car might consume too many resources for any one person to justify.

To go from one end of the cylinder to the other, Judy might be able to take a maglev train. Maglev is short for “magnetic levitation.”  Maglev trains travel on rails using powerful magnets, rather than wheels (Chandler). Maglev trains can travel without friction, so they can go incredibly fast. The fastest commercial maglev train on Earth, located in China,reaches speeds of 268 mph on one of its routes (Wakatsuki). In addition, because maglev trains don’t touch the tracks, they generate less noise and wear themselves down less (Chandler).  Maglev trains also don’t require fossil fuels like other kinds of train, making them a safer option for space habitat.

There are many short-term transportation possibilities. These cylinders will be quite large on the inside, and some could be as large as small states. In the initial Physics Today article promoting the cylinders, O’Neill himself recommends bicycles and low powered electric vehicles as adequate transportation (O’Neill). And, for short distances, they are. Bicycles can get someone around a neighborhood or between neighborhoods, as can small low-powered electric vehicles.

But what if someone needed to travel outside of the O’Neill cylinder? Travel between one cylinder and a neighboring one would be relatively easy. Much of the difficulty now in space travel is effectively and safely leaving earth’s gravity. To drift in space from one cylinder to the next would be simple, especially if it was close by. In his article, O’Neil envisioned these “recreational vehicles” to be “simple spacecraft, consisting of well furnished pressure shells with little complexity beyond an oxygen supply and with much the same arrangement of kitchen facilities and living space as are found today in our traveling homes.”

Even a horse could be a viable form of O’Neill cylinder transport! In a cylinder modeled after a city, it may not fit. But if there were a cylinder made to primarily house nature, like forests and mountains, a horse could be the most efficient way to safely cross the varied terrains.
Judy, our O’Neill cylinder resident, will not be traveling by horse. Her friend is a bit far away, but she’s going to use the opportunity to stretch her legs. She takes her bicycle, riding out of her neighborhood as the rest of the settlement wakes around her.

None of this is set in stone. By the time we are living in O’Neill cylinders, there could be transportation options vastly different from anything we have now. The only limit is our imaginations. How would you like to travel through an O’Neill cylinder?

For More Information

Boyle, Alan. “Where Does Jeff Bezos Foresee Putting Space Colonists? Inside O’Neill Cylinders.” GeekWire. Geek Wire. 29 Oct. 2016.
www.geekwire.com/2016/jeff-bezos-space-colonies-oneill/

Hadhazy, Adam. “How We Could Actually Build a Space Colony.” Popularmechanics.com. Popular Mechanics. 2 Oct. 2014.
www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a11351/how-we-could-actually-build-a-space-colony-17268252/

Kanchwala, Hussain. “What Is O’Neill Cylinder?” Scienceabc.com. Science ABC. 24 Feb. 2019.
www.scienceabc.com/nature/universe/what-is-oneill-cylinder.html

May, Kate Torgovnick. What Will We Eat on Mars? 21 Nov. 2014.
ideas.ted.com/comfort-food-in-space-the-final-frontier/

“O’Neill Cylinder Space Settlement.” Space.nss.org. National Space Society.
space.nss.org/o-neill-cylinder-space-settlement/

O’Neill, Gerard. “The Colonization Of Space.” Physics Today, vol. 27, no. 9, ser. 32, 1 Sept.
1974. 32, doi:10.2514/6.1975-2041.
https://space.nss.org/the-colonization-of-space-gerard-k-o-neill-physics-today-1974/

Wakatsuki, Yoko. “Japan’s Maglev Train Sets World Record.” CNN. Cable News Network. 19 Oct. 2016
www.cnn.com/2015/04/21/asia/japan-maglev-train-world-record/index.html

Closing Words

Building the Outpost
Structural Material

While most people believe a large habitat like The Outpost would be made of exotic materials, nothing could be further from the truth. The main construction materials would be steel and concrete. Not the steel and concrete we use here on Earth, however. On Earth, smelting iron from ore requires a large amount of energy, usually from coal or oil. In space, we will use mirrors to focus sunlight to reach the high temperatures necessary. In addition, vacuum-cast steel is of a higher quality than steel cast in air. Free oxygen weakens the molten steel (steel is iron with a higher carbon content. Other materials such as chrome and molybdenum are added to alter its properties).

Concrete is any aggregate with a binder. The common form that we are all familiar with contains sand and crushed rock as the aggregate and portland cement as the binder. Some playgrounds are covered with concrete made of ground-up rubber tires in a polyurethane binder. 

NASA’s Mars habitat contest was won by a company that 3D printed a shelter using simulated Martian soil and a plastic binder. For the habitat, there would be many things the aggregate could be made from, such as lunar regolith, slag from steel production, and asteroidal material.

The prototype Mars habitat was made from a polymer concrete formed from basalt fibers and polylactic acid (PLA) as the binder. Comparing this compound to standard structural concrete, the results showed that “this recyclable polymer composite outperformed concrete in NASA’s strength durability and crushing test. ASTM lab tested and certified it to be two to three times stronger than concrete in compression, our space-grade material is also five times more durable than concrete in freeze-thaw conditions.”

Basalt fibers are used today for many things. Commonly called Rockwool (a trade name), it is used for home insulation (the green stuff that looks like fiberglass Batts) and hydroponics.

In construction today, fiberglass fibers are commonly used as a reinforcing material with standard portland cement concrete.

The binder material, PLA, is produced from dextrose, a sugar produced from corn. The sugars dextrose and glucose are chemically identical, the only difference being how they are produced. Algae can make glucose from carbon dioxide (CO2) and water. This means that it can be produced in large tanks. This could be done in space.

Because of the size of The Outpost and the forces produced by its rotation (one gravity at the shell), the shell of the habitat would need to be strongly constructed. This would counter the rotational forces trying to pull the structure apart. The massive shell would also provide a significant amount of radiation shielding for the habitat’s interior.

Another advantage of this material is that it can be 3D printed. This has already been demonstrated in the construction of the 3D printed “MARSHA “habitat by AI Space Factory that won the NASA Mars habitat contest.

There is a considerable difference between building a habitat in space and one on a planetary surface. Some of the considerations are:

A) The production of the fiber from available materials.

B) The production of PLA from algae and growing the algae.

C) Production of the steel reinforcement.

D) Acquisition of materials.

E) 3D printing of the materials.

F) Development of space capable 3D printers.

These general criteria indicate areas where further research will be necessary. We hope to be able to contribute to the furthering of that research.

Barry Greene
President

Around the Cosmos

•  iFarm is changing how urban farming is done.
• Want to experience living in a futuristic habitat? TERA may be your next vacation.
• Can you boogy like this robot?

Creative Space

In this edition we are featuring work from reader Darleen Pfingsten. Creating space-based art is a huge hobby of hers. She shared a little of what inspired her:

“This painting was inspired by a crest from the Nintendo game “Fire Emblem: Three Houses” which you can spot on the top of the left side. Since the crest’s symbol resembles a moon I wanted to create a fantasy looking scenery which includes small galaxy elements like the planets or the shooting stars.”

Show us your creativity of bringing science and art together! Submit your art to mail@highfrontieroutpost.org.

We have also started a poster challenge project. For details please visit our HITRECORD challenge page.

Space Holidays

• Earth and Moon Together – September 18, 1977: Voyager 1 captures the first image of the Earth and Moon together in a single frame.

Opportunities

Are you or someone you know interested in joining our team? Use our volunteer form to notify us!

The post August 2020 Newsletter appeared first on High Frontier Outpost.

President’s Column

Why We Need Artemis

It is ironic that in the same month as the anniversary of Humanity’s first steps on another world, the Commerce, Justice and Science Subcommittee of the House of Representatives has proposed cutting NASA’s budget components directly related to the Artemis program, the scheduled 2024 return to the Moon.

Other aspects of the Space Program are important, but the return to the Moon is in a class by itself. Many people today only know about Apollo from recordings. I was one of the worldwide multitude that watched in awe as we heard the words ” the eagle has landed.”

It was not just an American triumph, it was a human one ‒ a triumph that inspired people all over the globe. Over 650 million people watched it live. 

What an exciting time to be alive. A billion years of evolution culminated in that moment. A step as great as that of the first fish that lay gasping on the shore of the primordial sea. Our first small step into the vastness of the Universe.

There are many reasons to return to the Moon: economic, industrial, and scientific. Those have been covered in detail at other times. The vital ones that have been mostly ignored are the social and emotional rewards. The US has always been a frontier country, founded by those who were willing to endure danger and hardship to challenge an unknown frontier. Exploration is certainly in our history and perhaps even in our genes. The question of what lies beyond the next hill has driven Humanity to every corner of our world, from the frozen tundra of the Arctic to the peaks of the highest mountains, from the deepest caves to the depths of the oceans and now to the Moon, and from the Moon to Mars, and from Mars…..

Artemis can inspire the world. Students will be able to dream of a future beyond the sky, a future they could actually be a part of. Robotic reconnaissance, important though it is, is primarily necessary as a precursor to human exploration.

If our country wants to remain as a beacon of hope for all the world, we must demonstrate that we have visions worthy of that goal. In the polarized political climate we now endure, it is necessary to step beyond the ideology of our parties and embrace the future for all of humankind.

Let your representative know. We need Artemis. We need the Moon. We need a future in space.

Barry Greene
President

Educational Space

Celebrating the Moon
by Anyi Wen

“That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”
-Neil Armstrong, 1969

This July 20th marked the 51st anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, the first time humans landed on the moon in 1969. Those living on the High Frontier Outpost would celebrate Apollo Day as a holiday that honors an important historical moment in space exploration, but did you know that the moon is also celebrated in other ways by people around the world?

The Moon and Symbolism

Humans have always been fascinated by the moon. Many ancient cultures worshipped the moon as a god or goddess, thought of it as another planet, or used it as a calendar. Even today, there are many beliefs and superstitions surrounding the moon, both positive and negative. Depending on who you ask, the moon may be described as constant —  always being there — or inconstant, due to how its appearance can change dramatically through its different phases and position in relation to the sun and Earth (ex. eclipses). These can be predicted based on the moon’s orbit, or the way it moves in a curved path, around our Earth. In Chinese culture, “the full moon is a symbol of peace, prosperity, and family reunion” (Museum of the Moon).

Lunar New Year

Many East Asian cultures have celebrations timed around the full moon to honor its significance to their people. Lunar calendars are based on the way that people who lived long ago used to keep track of time using the changing phases of the moon. The old Chinese lunar calendar was originally used to help plan for important events such as growing and harvesting crops, which are fruits, grains, and vegetables used for food. The Lunar New Year is celebrated by several Asian countries including China, Vietnam, and Korea starting on the first day of the lunar calendar year (which usually falls in January or February) and lasts for about 15 days, making it one of the longest holidays honored by these cultural groups (Columbia University).

Many of the foods thought to bring extra luck through Lunar New Year celebrations are round, symbolizing unity and prosperity. Perhaps it is no coincidence that this also looks like the shape of a full moon! Chinese families may serve round sticky rice cakes, small round dumplings called tang yuan, and round fruits such as oranges or tangerines during this time. Tet cake (or Bánh Tét) is a round sticky rice cake with various fillings enjoyed by many Vietnamese families during this holiday. Kagami mochi is a traditional Japanese decoration whose “shape resembles a bronze mirror which was considered a treasure by the ancient Japanese” (Mayeda). Can you think of any traditional dishes your family makes that is usually in a circular shape?

Mid-Autumn Festival

The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Harvest Moon Festival, is another major holiday that falls on the day of a full moon in September or October, depending on the lunar calendar for that year. Although the details differ in the traditional stories and activities surrounding this holiday based on each culture and family that celebrates it, most agree that the Mid-Autumn Festival is a time for “families [to get] together to express gratitude, and celebrate seasonal change” (Cheng). For Chinese-American families like mine, we may celebrate by simply enjoying good food together with friends and family,  including special traditional pastries called mooncakes. Mooncakes are round like the moon and come with many different flavored fillings, including red bean paste, nuts, and fruits! Some mooncake recipes include salted duck egg yolks in the middle as an extra symbol of the moon.

More traditional celebrations, such as those hosted in Asian countries, may be held in community spaces featuring games with prizes such as red packets of money and pastries such as mooncakes. Special thanks to my friends Nazeem and Lilly who shared stories with me about their personal experiences with celebrating Mid-autumn Festivals with their family and friends!

Under the Same Moon

Even though we may all have different opinions and ways of celebrating the moon, it’s good to remember that we all share the same sky and gaze upon the same beautiful moon. No matter where we are from, we have more in common than we think. We would love to learn about other holidays related to the moon that were not included in this article. Please email us at mail@highfrontieroutpost.org with your personal experiences and thoughts related to the topic of this article!

Discussion Questions

Feel free to discuss this with your class or friends, or email your responses to us at mail@highfrontieroutpost.org.

1. What is your favorite fun fact about the moon you learned from this article or elsewhere?
2. What words come to mind when you think of the moon? Are there any special stories about the moon passed down by your family?
3. Do you celebrate any holidays involving the moon? If not, what are some ideas you can think of for activities children and families may enjoy doing in honor of Apollo Day? (Check out this site for a variety of fun moon-themed activities and recipes to try out!)

For More Information

Chan, A. (2019, September 13). Mid Autumn Festival 2019 (Japan)
https://www.google.com/doodles/mid-autumn-festival-2019-japan
Cheng, C. Y. (2018, September 24). Mid-Autumn Festival 2018
https://www.google.com/doodles/mid-autumn-festival-2018
Columbia University. (n.d.) The Lunar New Year: Rituals and Legends.
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_general_lunar.htm
Gorden, B. (2020, January 27). 50 Moon Crafts and Activities for Kids.
https://www.123homeschool4me.com/24-moon-crafts-activities-for-kids_36/
Lui, J. (2019, February 4). 8 lucky foods to eat on Lunar New Year’s Eve.
https://supchina.com/2019/02/04/8-lucky-foods-to-eat-on-lunar-new-years-eve/
Mayeda, M. (2015, January 7). A Quick Guide to ‘Kagami Mochi’, the Japanese New Year Traditional Decorative Cake.
https://tadaimajp.com/2015/01/kagami-mochi/
Museum of the Moon. (n.d.) Research.
https://my-moon.org/research/
Siegel, E. (2014, September 8). The Inconstant Moon. 
https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/the-inconstant-moon-6df463a3b5f5
Stoss, M. (n.d.) A Cultural Roundup of the Moon. 
http://magazine.gwu.edu/a-cultural-roundup-of-the-moon
Tong, N. (n.d.) Essential Vietnamese New Year Foods – Southern Food.
https://www.citypassguide.com/travel/vietnam/food/blog/essential-vietnamese-new-year-foods-southern-food
Young, S. (2018, September 24). Mid-Autumn Festival: What is it and How is it Celebrated?
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/mid-autumn-festival-east-asia-harvest-moon-celebrate-when-is-it-mooncakes-lanterns-a8552276.html

What was the Space Race?
by Roxanne Lee

The 1969 moon landing was, in a word, amazing. Using less technology than someone today has on their smartphone, NASA launched the Apollo 11 spaceflight on July 16, 1969 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. They sent three astronauts – Commander Neil Armstrong, Lunar Module Pilot Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, and Command Module Pilot Michael Collins – into space, and safely landed two of them, Aldrin and Armstrong, on the moon while Collins remained in orbit (Loff). It was a huge scientific and cultural achievement – the mission garnered an estimated 650 million viewers as it was aired on television. It was an amazing feat, to be sure, but was also incredibly expensive, requiring massive technological innovations, and would not return a profit. So why go through all the trouble of putting someone on the moon?

Before the Space Race: 1945-1955

To understand what led to the moon landing, we have to go further back in history about 29 years to World War II. World War II lasted from 1939 to 1945, and was primarily fought between the Axis powers, consisting of Germany, Italy, and Japan, and the Allied powers, consisting of France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and China. When the war ended in 1945, political unease was rampant between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union, also called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a centralized nation made of 15 different socialist republics that spanned Eurasia. The Soviet Union and the United States held very different political beliefs, making cooperation unlikely, and both were incredibly powerful. Neither side wanted war at the moment, as the Second World War had been incredibly devastating, but they still wanted dominance over the other. Instead, each country began to act as if they were at war. They gathered allies and began an arms race, a competition between nations where each tries to acquire more and better weapons than the other side. The two countries also used smaller countries in proxy wars, conflicts where the countries involved are fighting for the interests of other stronger countries. All of this was done without the U.S. or USSR directly fighting each other. This was the Cold War, which lasted from 1955 to 1990 (To learn more about the Cold War, check out the link here).

A substantial part of the Cold War was the struggle for superior weaponry. At the end of World War II, the United States used a bomber to deliver a devastating nuclear bomb on Japan. Rockets became major features of the Cold War, as they could allow countries to attack from vast distances, potentially without warning (Smithsonian). Initially researching rockets as long-range weaponry, both sides gradually expanded their research to include rockets that could be used to reach space (Smithsonian). In their quest to out-perform each other, the United States and the Soviet Union made huge leaps in space flight and rocket technology, and what began as a military project expanded in a contest to achieve space dominance. This was the Space Race.

The Space Race: 1955-1970

The Space Race lasted about 20 years. It started on August 2nd, 1955, when, after the U.S. announced plans to launch a satellite, the USSR subsequently announced that they would also launch a satellite (Royal Museums Greenwich). They accomplished as much 2 years later, launching Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957. This was a major shock to America, both from a military standpoint and a point of pride. The USSR was a much younger nation, and for them to develop satellite technology so quickly was unexpected. On November 3, 1957, the USSR launched Sputnik 2, carrying Laika, a stray dog. Laika was the first organism sent into orbit (Royal Museums Greenwich). The United States finally entered the race with the launch of the satellite Explorer 1 in 1958. With the foundation of NASA that same year, the space race was off in earnest (To learn more about the early days of space exploration from NASA themselves, check out the link here).

The USSR had a promising lead for a long time. It was the first country to send an object in orbit around the moon, the first to send animals into space and return them to Earth safely, and was the first to send a man, Yuri Gagarin, safely into orbit and back to Earth. But the United States was always just behind them, perfecting their own space technology all the while. The Space Race reached a head in 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon. The race continued through the early 1970s with a renewed focus on building a space station. There was no set end to the race, since it wasn’t an officially sanctioned race in the first place, but it is generally agreed upon that the US/USSR Space Race ended in 1975. On July 15, a joint mission between the countries sent three U.S. astronauts on an Apollo spacecraft to dock on a Soviet vehicle. The two commanders shook hands, and many saw that as the official end of the race (Royal Museums Greenwich).

After the Space Race

The Space Race has a surprising legacy. Although it began as a by-product of escalating tensions between two countries, the results did not lead to war. The Space Race greatly advanced our understanding of space, and new satellite technology let us study it in ways we hadn’t before. In addition, the race to the moon led to creation of many different inventions that were later used in daily life. Items like scratch-resistant lenses, baby formula, foil blankets, and memory foam all came from efforts to get humans safely to the moon and back (California Institute of Technology). Despite the tensions it came from, the Space Race accomplished a lot of good.

For More Information

Loff, Sarah. “Apollo 11 Mission Overview.” N.p., 17 Apr. 2015. Web. 22 July 2020.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo11.html
“Military Origins of the Space Race.” Space Race. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, n.d. Web. 22 July 2020.
https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/space-race/online/sec200/sec200.htm
“Space Race Timeline.” Royal Museums Greenwich. N.p., 06 Apr. 2020. Web. 23 July 2020.
https://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/explore/space-race-timeline
“20 Inventions We Wouldn’t Have Without Space Travel.” Jet Propulsion Laboratory. California Institute of Technology, n.d. Web. 23 July 2020.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/infographics/infographic.view.php?id=11358

Cosmic Considerations
by Bill Isecke

The New York Times science section of June 16, 2020 contained an article about a mysterious object that came from interstellar space, passed through our solar system, and continued its travels past our solar system. We do not know what it is made of or where it is going. Researchers think that it might be a cosmic iceberg that was formed in a region of another galaxy that has dark bands of matter and no stars that could cause this iceberg to melt. So the interior of these dark bands of matter could be cold enough to freeze atomic hydrogen. That means that it must be as cold as 6 degrees above absolute zero. This visitor to our solar system might be frozen hydrogen.

If it is actually frozen hydrogen, then a lot of the hydrogen that composed it must have melted as it passed through our solar system. So this large chunk of frozen hydrogen that passed through our solar system must have melted quite a bit as it passed close enough to our sun to absorb heat from our sun. If we imagine that there are many people living in a huge habitat that orbits past Mars but not as far from our sun as Jupiter, then then we can imagine how the humans in that habitat might interact with this visitor from out of the solar system. Perhaps they might be equipped with sophisticated telescopes that could detect the approach of this visitor from out of our solar system before earth-bound astronomers could notice its approach. If this is the case, then would there be any action that would be advantageous for the human residents of the habitat to take as the interstellar visitor passed through our solar system?

Let’s assume that the humans in the habitat detected the approach of this object and were able to determine that it was in fact a huge chunk of frozen hydrogen. The first question would be whether the object might be a danger to the habitat. If we assume that the object would not collide with the habitat, then the next question might be whether the hydrogen that composed the object could be captured and used by the residents of the habitat. This would be a difficult project because the object was moving so fast (40 miles per second) that it would be nearly impossible to capture it. But it would be a good idea to keep watch for other similar objects just in case the next one might have a different trajectory and be a danger to the habitat or to a comet that would disintegrate and scatter debris that would endanger other satellites or even parts of the Earth.

Closing Words

HFO Development Projects

Throughout most of human history, a person’s life was set from the moment of birth. If your father was a farmer, you would be a farmer or a farmer’s wife. Society, too, was almost static. An ancient Roman transported to the 19th century might be amazed at some of the changes but they would be comprehensible to him. That is no longer the case. Society has changed beyond recognition, and the scope and scale of change is increasing exponentially. We are riding an ever accelerating toboggan into an incomprehensible future.

My grandmother was born when the main form of transportation was the horse. She lived to see men walk on the moon. What wonders will today’s children see? Those of us alive today are forging the foundations of their future.

At High Frontier Outpost, we hope to be a part of that future. Our goal is more than just advocacy. We want to build that future. Our education program is dedicated to inspiring students, to help them realize that they can create the future they imagine, that their dreams can take them far beyond the sky.

To support our goals we have a diversified series of projects that we are pursuing:

1. Education
The High Frontier Outpost Space Fair: We originally planned to have a space fair at Bushkill Park in Easton, Pennsylvania this October. Unfortunately, because of the coronavirus pandemic it appears probable that this will be postponed until next June. Instead we will have a smaller virtual space fair on our website in October.

We have constructed a demonstration ion thruster designed to show the principles of ion propulsion (See the article in our June newsletter).

Anyi Wen, our educational director, has been in contact with numerous schools and educational associations regarding the Space Fair. She has also compiled STEM-related educational materials designed to encourage student interest in habitat development. In addition, she writes an educational column for our newsletter that can be used by teachers in the classroom or online.

We have contributed content to Readorium, a popular educational program used in numerous schools. Readorium advances students both in reading ability and science literacy. An arrangement with the company gave us the opportunity to make the program available for free to students for the school year.

2. Space Rescue
We are currently developing an Astronaut Rescue System compact enough to be carried in a habitat or spacecraft. In the case of a catastrophic loss of pressure, it is designed to keep an astronaut alive for about an hour in full vacuum ‒ hopefully long enough to effect a rescue.

3. 3D Printing for Habitat Construction
The bulk of The Outpost would be built using 3D printing technology. In order to advance that goal, we are designing a robotic 3D printer that would be able to print in multiple materials simultaneously. This project is still in the early design phase.

Barry Greene
President

Around the Cosmos

• What is the trillion dollar space economy? Listen to this podcast to find out!
• Looking for a new perfume? Try this space-based smell.
• The new Mars Rover Perseverance just launched this week!

Creative Space

In this edition we are featuring work from artist Chesley Bonestell who was a pioneer of space art. Find the entire gallery here.

Show us your creativity of bringing science and art together! Submit your art to mail@highfrontieroutpost.org.

We have also started a poster challenge project. For details please visit our HITRECORD challenge page.

Space Holidays

• Apollo Day – July 20 1969: First human to set foot on another world.

Opportunities

Are you or someone you know interested in joining our team? Use our volunteer form to notify us!

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