Musings of a Babylon Lurker

Chandrayaan 1 enters orbit around the Moon

Sunday, November 9th, 2008 | science, space, technology | No Comments

First the Americans and the Russians, then the Japanese and Chinese. Now the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has aimed for the Moon. India is now the fifth country to reach the Moon. Yes, the European Space Agency has done it, too, but that is a consortium of 17 countries, though the size of the population is comparable to that of the USA.

The space craft is “Chandrayaan 1″. The name means “Moon Craft” in the ancient Sanskrit” language of India.

What I like is that the Indians, unlike the Chinese and Japanese, have invited other countries to contribute instruments to the probe. More than half of them are Indian, but NASA has two sensors, ESA has three sensors and Bulgaria has contributed a radiation sensor.

Chandrayaan 1 will help create a map of mineral concentrations all over the Moon, paving the way for the decisions on where to send (manned) expeditions to the Moon.

This and other collaborations is what I think has to be done. Space exploration is expensive, and a single country, however rich, cannot afford to go it alone.

More information :

Spaceflight Now

ISRO

Tags: moon, space probe

10th Anniversary of the International Space Station

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 | anniversary, science, space, technology | No Comments

If everything goes according to plan, the Space Shuttle Endeavour – STS-126 will be launced on 14 November with a comprehensive 15 day schedule to upgrade the International Space Station.

The station currently houses 3 crew members and that is all that is possible at the moment. The Endeavour crew will prepare the station for the 6 person crew it was meant to have from the outset. Also, a repair of the solar arrays is in the program.

The solar array on one side of the station is using more power than anticipated for rotating the array to maximise the efficiency. It turns out that two bearings lack lubrication, and this will be repaired during three space walks.

Back inside, the crew will spend a lot of time unpacking new crew quarters, a new toilet, a new kitchen, a new refrigerator and new exercise equipment, not to mention the science experiments.

In addition to this a new water recycling system will be added, in order to reduce the station’s dependency of Shuttle missions. After all the Shuttle fleet is planned to be retired in 2010.

On top of this, it is good to see the station becoming fully operational at its 10th anniversary. The first module was launched on November 20th 1998, beginning the construction of the station.

If I can find the time, I will listen for the shuttle just after the launch to see if I can catch a few seconds of radio communication, and I will listen for ISS communication during the whole mission – time permitting.

Also, when all this goes on, and if you have a clear sky I recommend all you scifi geeks to go out and see a *real life* space station. Info about visibility can be found at

Heavens-Above

Seeing a real life space station or space ship beats the fictional one, no matter how good the story is.

Tags: ISS, Space Shuttle

Free space images from the web

Monday, November 3rd, 2008 | astronomy, science, space | No Comments

I just looked at a few sites providing space related images for download. All images – except the logo’s from these three sites are freely useable for non-commercial purposes, including personal web sites – of course with a clear attribution of the source.

The three sites I looked up here are

NASA (of course)for general space travel and some astronomical images.

The Spitzer Space Telescope for images taken in infrared

and of course The Hubble Space Telescope with some of the most stunning astronomical images made

If you like images, maybe using them part of your web pages these are three very good sources.

Do not forget that many observatories and universities have images available. These include very old images from the classical telescopes in the world. I believe there is a project to scan all those ancient images before they are lost forever due to the deterioration pf the photographic material.

The old images *could* become important  for detecting transient events or variable phenomena, like recurring nova outbursts, so we can not afford to lose these images.

Tags: free downloads, images, space

Planets detected around Epsilon Eridani

Sunday, November 2nd, 2008 | Babylon 5, astronomy, science, scifi, space | No Comments

This is exciting for me as  a science fiction fan and as someone interested in space science in general.

Epsilon Eridani is a star a bit smaller than our own Sun – and quite young – only 800 million years old, located about 10.5 light years away.  Recently the Spitzer Telescope has detected a double asteroid belt around the star. The inner belt is located at a distance similar to the asteroid belt in our own solar system. Furthermore what looks like a cometary ring similar to the Kuyper Belt and indications of a planet at a distance similar to Jupiter’s. The Epsilon Eridani system looks more and more like our own solar system.

For more information take a look at these websites :

From the Spitzer Telescope site

From Discover Magazine

In the 1960′s I remember the scientific programs on the radio talking about SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) and mentioning this star as a likely candidate. At the time the young age of the system was not known, but it gave rise to the use of many science fiction writers using it as a home for intelligence.

In “Star Trek” the Mr. Spock’s home world Vulcan is located in the Epsilon Eridani system. and in “Babylon 5″ the space station is in orbit around a planet in the same system.

Of course the star is featured in many other science fiction stories, too many to mention here.

Interesting stuff…

Tags: seti

Space tourist heard on Earth

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 | space, technology | No Comments

This morning I heard Richard Garriot talking back to the Russian Ground station, in English.

I can now claim to have heard a space tourist talking back to Earth. He was using the standard frequency, 143.625 MHz, for communications between the International Space Station to the Russian ground station.

He was also active yesterday (I was at work so did not hear it) sending Slow Scan Television – still pictures – on the amateur radio frequency of 145.800 MHz. He was heard by several satellite listeners.

I will see if I can get more listening done today, there should be at least one more good pass of the ISS over here today.

If possible (connections) I wil make a recording.

It should be possible to hear the transmissions with a decent quality scanner receiver, so why not try for yourself ?

More space comms

Sunday, October 12th, 2008 | space, technology | No Comments

Today the Soyuz TMA 13 was launched from Baikonur. At the first two orbits signals were heard here in The Netherlands and in Germany on their downlink frequency 121.750 MHz. signals were quite strong for a while.

I did not understand much of it since the comms were in Russian. One word I did recognize the Russian word for “good” (or OK) was used frequently.

The communications can only be heard for about 5 minutes, because the spacecraft need to be “visible” for both my position and the ground station in Russia.

Nils in Germany made two mp3 recordings , with his permission I have uploaded them :

file1 and
file2

Tags: comms, space

The Chinese Launch of Shenzhou 7 with a Crew of 3.

Thursday, September 25th, 2008 | space | No Comments

The Chinese space agency has launced their 3rd manned spacecraft with 3 astronauts (“Taikonauts”) on board. see the article from SPACE.com

The plan is to have a Space Walk of about 40 minutes in order to test a newly made Chinese space suit, collect some scientific experiments from the outside of the craft and launch a small satellite sending images back to Earth. The Space Walk should happen on Friday or Saturday.

Exciting to see the Chinese emerge as a manned space faring nation. along with the US and Russia.

There are still not many nations/organisations capable of launching space craft into orbit. I count

- US
- Russia
- Europe (ESA)
- Japan
- India

did I forget anyone ?

I am curious to see when and if the Chinese will join the ISS. I think they belong there along with the others.

Tags: space, technology

Fantasticon2008, Copenhagen, 26 – 27 April

Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 | authors, cons, events, science, scifi, space, technology | No Comments

This is a small Danish convention with a few hundred people attending. Only foreign Guest was Norman Spinrad. The con was held in the “Vanloese Kulturhus” (cultural house) in nice large rooms and a terrace. Even the weather cooperated and we could sit outside chatting along between the programmed events. I arrived there after a long (12 hour) drive and a few hours of sleep.

On Saturday I went to the interview with Niels Brunse who has translated a large amount of English language books into Danish, and also written stories of his own. He was, among other subjects, talking about the difficulty of making a good translation, something I can relate to in a limited capacity, having attempted translation in both directions between Danish and English. Some elegant words or phrases in one language translate *very* poorly into the other.

Sunday had a surprise guest speaker, the Danish physicist Holger Bech Nielsen, giving a presentation of his version of the “theory of everything” : “Random Dynamics”. He is a *very* lively lecturer, and it is always fun to see him, his enthusiasm for the subject is just radiating from him. This was the first time I saw him “live”, the other times were just on television.

Arthur C. Clarke :

For me the best part of the programme on Sunday was the panel discussion about Arthur C. Clarke, the panel consisting of 3 Danish fans and the guest speaker Norman Spinrad. Spinrad had sopme cooperation with Clarke in the 1960′s and could tell us that the final scene of the movie “2001 – A Space Odyssey” was in fact not the one we saw in the movie. Clarke had envisioned a scene with very beautiful aliens, but it was not technically possible to do to his satisfaction – meaning the scene had to be rewritten.

Clarke’s relatively optimistic view of the future has by some been regarded as naive, but it most probably is an expression of his dream about the future.

Finally there was a discussion of Clarke’s unusual combination of hard science fiction and the “mystical” (for lack of a better word), something very prominent in “2001″, but it is in much of his other work.

Of course, you cannot mention Arthur C. Clarke without talking about his strong influence on science and technology (as well as science fiction), interesting to see how many of his early thoughts have come true already.

All in all a very nice week end , I will try to make it again next year.

Doctor Who 2008 has started

Saturday, April 12th, 2008 | Doctor Who, film and tv, scifi, space | No Comments

The 4th season of the “New Doctor Who” has started on the BBC.

BBC started last Saturday with the episode “Partners in Crime” , quite a fun story, where Donna Noble from the Christmas Special 2006 reappears searching for the Doctor, misses him several times , and we see them meet again in a very amusing scene – that could have been a little shorter, but nonetheless I enjoyed it. We also briefly meet an old friend under mysterious circumstances , I will say no more , you will have to enjoy the moment for yourself.

Second episode brings us back about 2000 years to “witness” the destruction of Pompei, for the first time the Doctor Who team has been filming outside the UK. Quite a spectacular illustration of the volcano blowing up and the city buried under the ashes. As usual , when the Doctor arrives , things go awry, and he has to correct the flow of history , being put into a bit of a dilemma.

I quite enjoyed both episodes, and I am looking forward to the next ones , and solving the mystery of the first episode.

More real life space communications (2)

Thursday, April 10th, 2008 | science, space, technology | No Comments

The Soyuz spacecraft has successfully docked to the ISS today.

Yesterday I listened for radio communications from the Soyuz, and was rewarded with hearing a few exchanges in Russian. They were likely talking to the ground station in Moscow. The frequency for Soyuz is 121.750 MHz, if any of you should have a scanner receiver. The signal was quite strong, even with a wrong sized antenna, so it should not be too difficult to hear.

Good hunting if you try – They will probably be radio-active for a day or two when they leave the ISS and return to Earth.

In the meantime , if you are in Europe, you can listen for the ISS , in the rare cases when they talk back to Moscow, on the frequency 143.625 MHz.