America in Space-September 2008

PHOTO (courtesy NASA)-The crew of the International Space Station made this shot of Hurricane Ike on Sept. 10. The impact of technology, partly due to America's space program, can be seen in the far less loss of life in this strike on Galveston, Texas than the hurricane of 1900, also in Galveston. At 6-8 thousand deaths, it was the worst disaster in American history.

The current space probes in our Solar System include: Messenger is on its way to orbit the first planet from the Sun, Mercury, in July 2009. In orbit around the second planet is the European Space Agency's Venus Express, recently releasing a profile of the sizzling hot planet's wind profile vs. altitude and latitude. Although the winds are slow to calm at the surface, they are equivalent to a tornado at a higher altitude, particularly near the equator.

At Earth, several hundred unmanned probes are in orbit. October 10 (or late night October 9, central time) is the target date for STS-125, the Atlantis Space Shuttle. This craft, currently at pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, will travel to the Hubble Space Telescope to make repairs and upgrades, giving it a 5-year extension on its lifetime. Soon after the Columbia shuttle disaster in 2003, another trip to the Hubble was cancelled, due to its possible danger, at a much higher altitude than the usual trips to the International Space Station. However, popular and scientific support overruled this decision by a former NASA administrator, and Hubble should have at least 5 more years of cutting-edge astronomical research before being deorbited to fall in the ocean. For a safety precaution, another shuttle, Endeavour, is at pad 39B in the unlikely event a rescue trip is necessary. When STS-125 is complete, Endeavour will be moved to pad 39A for a November 12 launch (STS-126) to the space station.

At Mars is the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter circling the red planet. On the surface are the highly successful Spirit and Opportunity rovers, exceeding their planned 90-day mission time over 1200%, near the equator on opposite sides of the planet, and the Mars Phoenix lander, scooping up soil near the north pole. The Phoenix has confirmed the presence of water ice about 3 inches under the surface, but, despite predictions, has found no microscopic traces of liquid water on the soil at the surface, despite the lower ice layer and water vapor in the atmosphere. As always, reality leaves many scientists scratching their heads.

At Saturn, the Cassini spacecraft is on its 85th orbit (as of Sept. 20, 2008) around the ringed planet. It has completed its primary 4-year mission, and is in an extended 2-year mission, focusing on the moons Enceladus and Titan, and the planet.

Slightly beyond Saturn's orbit is the New Horizons spacecraft scheduled to fly by Pluto in 2015, and later fly by one or more other Kuiper Belt Objects. Pluto being "demoted" to a plutoid dwarf planet is still being hotly debated by the public and scientists alike, with at least one petition floating around the internet.

Speaking of the Kuiper (pronounced Ki-purr) Belt, Dr. Mike Brown discovered the only (so-far) Kuiper Belt object known to be larger than Pluto, Eris. When it was discovered a few years ago, it prompted the International Astronomical Union to come up with a definition of a planet, as the number of these distant objects would soon have the number of "official" planets getting out of hand. This meeting resulted in the planet Pluto being "demoted" to a dwarf planet, and the asteroid Ceres being promoted to a dwarf planet. I recently spoke to Dr. Brown by phone, and he told me that, since, by definition, a planet has to clear the nearby objects, an "official" planet will never be discovered in the Kuiper Belt, but possibly beyond it. The Kuiper belt cuts off sharply at 48-50 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun (48-50 AU). Dr. Brown told me that Eris, an object brighter than Pluto, is currently at 90 AU, but moves into the Kuiper Belt at its closest approach to the Sun, at 35-36 AU.

If you are a teacher or an organization interested in a presentation on space and astronomy by a NASA Solar System Ambassador, at no charge, go to http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/ambassador/inde.... My webpage is http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/ambassador/prof....