Milky J is back

In the next installment, Milky J, the Hubble-obsessed rapper from the Jimmy Fallon show, learns about the James Webb Space Telescope and what it can do that Hubble can't, by visiting the cleanrooms at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.  NASA was tickled to have him.  Two behind the scenes rundowns, the former with links to Milky J's other Hubble episodes.

I like the Milky J saga in part because it wasn't NASA's idea.  G(enerally anything with "NASA" and "rap" in the title will be a cringe-worthy attempt by a mission's PR department.)  But this emerged organically, and NASA is embracing it after the fact by letting them film on location.

Also, I was pleased to see two women among the NASA engineers whom Milky J meets.  It's not commented on in the piece -- they're just astrogeeks doing their job, trying to convince Milky J that JWST beats HST by spouting sensitivity limits and science cases.  But I noticed it for the following reason.

Last month, two of my colleagues visited an inner-city summer program for African-American elementary school kids.  As you would expect, the kids drowned these "real live astronomers" in questions about black holes, planets, aliens, the works.  Several of the kids were truly incredulous that women can be scientists, and blown away to meet a real-life woman scientist.  So for the sequel (they have so many more questions!) we're sending two women astronomers, one of them me. I can't wait -- I love that kind of spontaneous Q&A with kids.  (Last week at friends' house, their older kid asked me, "So, what is space inside of?"  I mean, that's GR right there.)

I would have thought that pathologists-in-labcoats TV shows would have gotten kids used to women as scientists.  But then I go to classrooms, and one of the many things that the kids are blown away by is that I'm a woman.  There's a standard classroom activity for young kids, where you ask them to draw a scientist.  Without any prompting they draw a bearded white man in a labcoat.  Which is a jumping-off point to talk about what scientists do, what clothing they wear to do science, famous women and minority scientists, etc.

Is Space Boring?

This talk from the SpaceUp Ignite series argues that Space is Boring -- or at least, manned spaceflight as presented to the public by NASA.  Discuss.

Strangely, the speaker hardly discusses Mars rovers, other robotic planetary exploration, or space telescopes.  Given that the shuttle program is almost finished, with no replacement in sight, that seems strange.

Free, You Haul: Shuttle Main Engines

Need to spice up your local museum, town square, or megamall? NASA has slashed prices on the soon-to-be-retired space shuttles Atlantis and Endeavor. $29 million apiece, folks!

AND, even better, they'll give away spare space shuttle main engines (you haul, some assembly required).

There's a tantalizing reference to "potential artifacts that include the space shuttle, Hubble space telescope, Apollo, Mercury, and Gemini."

If anyone can wade through the goobledgook to find out how an institution (mine?) can grab a Hubble artifact, that would be swell.

Lots of space telescope news!

Lots of space telescope news this week:

The Shuttle launched safely on Monday, captured the Hubble Space Telescope on Tuesday, and now astronauts are repairing Hubble. John Grunsfeld and Drew Feustel have already removed WFPC2 and installed WFC3 - YAY! They are currently removing the faulty Data Handling Unit.

You can watch the repairs on NASA TV.



Also, Herschel and Planck launched successfully on Thurdsay morning. Herschel is an infrared/submillimeter space telescope, and Planck is a cosmic microwave background experiment.

Finally, No word yet on whether the Spitzer Space Telescope has run out of cryogenic coolant yet -- an event predicted for this week.. Thank, you Spitzer, for 5 years of wonderful science.

Satellite debris could cancel Hubble repair mission

Nature.com is reporting that debris from a recent satellite-satellite collision may prevent the upcoming (desperately needed) shuttle mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.

"Kaputnik chaos could kill Hubble", from nature.com
"Satellite collision puts Hubble at risk", from abcnews.com

On Hubble and late-season baseball trades

Astronauts are scheduled to visit the Hubble Space Telescope in October 2008 to perform "Servicing Mission 4" (SM4). They'll replace the gyroscopes and batteries, swap out the fine guidance sensor, install the WFC3 camera and the COS spectrograph, and try to fix the broken instruments ACS and STIS.

Since this is All-Star game week, let's rephrase in terms of baseball:

At the moment, Hubble is a pro baseball team whose two star pitchers (ACS and STIS) have been on the disabled list for years -- they may never play again. The Hubble All-Stars still shows up for games, but rely on just two aging nuckleball pitchers (WFPC2 and NICMOS). The team has announced a huge trade for two brilliant prospects, WFC3 and COS, who throw pitches nobody's ever seen. (WPC3 even pitches ambidexterously!*) At the same time, the team has scheduled risky surgeries to bring its two disabled pitchers, ACS and STIS, back to work.

So, Hubble fans around the world are waiting for the big trade (Servicing Mission 4), scheduled for October. If it happens, for the next several years the team will be the best in history. If it fails, the team will fall apart. Tense.


* ambidexterious: uses both UV/blue and IR/red detectors. Kinda like throwing with either arm.

Go see Wall-E

Saw Pixar's new movie Wall-E over the weekend. No kidding, it's the best movie I've seen on the big screen since "Life is Beautiful" and "American Beauty". The first hour is a Chaplin-style silent movie.

Go see it this week, while it's on the biggest screen at your local multiplex.

Women run the Mars rovers

Cool news story: on Friday Feb 22, the on-duty tactical operations team for the Mars Rovers was an all-women group. It's almost happened accidentally before, as people rotated on and off duty. So with a bit of planning, they decided to swap a few people's schedules to make a 100% women team for a day.

Article courtesy the Planetary Society.

Learnin' stuff: our solar system.

First pictures & science results from the new "Messenger" probe to the planet Mercury are coming in. Pretty cool that we're still learning so much about our own solar system.

What a Wonderful World

Courtesy Kaguya, a Japanese lunar orbiter, here's a family portrait. My family, yours, everybody. The Full Earth.
Click on the image for a higher-res version. Images courtesy Universe Today.