On The Moon in 1902

Thanks to the joy that is YouTube, I've been watching the very first science fiction film ever created in 1902. In fact, it was released TODAY, 117 years ago!  

Le Voyage dans la Lune or A Trip to the Moon was a produced and directed by Georges Méliès, and loosely based on stories in Jules Verne and H.G. Wells novels ("Earth to the Moon" and "First Men in the Moon" respectively). 

 The budget? 10,000 Francs or about $1800, which wasn't chump-change at the turn of the 20th century! (That would now be in the range of $50,000 dollars.) The silent film, originally narrated in French with a running time of 14 minutes, was extremely popular upon release, and is now public domain because its copyright expired after 100 years. 

The leader of an astronomical society proposes a trip to the moon, whereby most astronomers say the trip cannot be accomplished, but six agree to try. A hilarious scene building a "spacecraft" ensues, inexplicably showing men banging hammers onto what looks like a giant metal bullet! A pack of dancing girls push the bullet into a cannon, then "break the fourth wall" by waving to the audience! Makes me wonder if NASA ever considered hiring cheerleaders. 

The moon is characterized as a large face, and the space craft crashes into his eye – but then the view switches to a flat terrain. The astronomers fling open the hatch, disembark in their street clothes... and I guess "realism" in sci-fi mattered as much then as it does now – since they had no pesky problems with the atmosphere being breathable nitrogen and oxygen... too funny! 

 The astronomers watch Earth rise over the horizon, another understandable error of the time -- since to a person viewing Earth from the tidally-locked lunar surface, one side of the Moon always faces toward Earth and any such "rise" would only move slowly in a horizontal direction, taking many days to complete.  

You can tell I'm a barrel of laughs in movie theatres.

 

After the astronomers set up camp to sleep, a comet passes, and they are watched by human-faced stars in the shape of the Big Dipper. Saturn makes an interesting surprise appearance, but don't get me started on the snow flakes, the gigantic mushroom or the jumpy little Selenite acrobats exploding into smithereens. (???) 

Eventually, they are taken to a palace, where they kill the Moon King (we really can't be trusted to play well with others) and rush back to their big bullet. After toppling off a moon cliff and landing in Earth's ocean (I thought the jellyfish were nice touches), they are towed ashore where they are greeted by a parade. Hmm... wonder what Neil & Buzz thought of this masterpiece? ;) 

Moving To Planet Mercury

For any international readers, you may have noticed American social media buzz yesterday about a curious little holiday we call "Thanksgiving", which we pretend is about Pilgrims and Natives preparing meals together at the dawn of our colonial period. It's kinda not, but as with most holidays, we like myths more than we like historical facts.

This excuse to over-eat  is held each year on the third Thursday of November. Then, on the third FRIDAY of each November, we celebrate an even more curious custom known as... Wishing We Could Move To Planet Mercury.



There is a great contraption at the San Francisco Exploratorium, where you can step on a large scale and see what you weigh on all the planets. I've been on it, and it's quite a fun experience. They also have their calculator on a web page, so you can see Your Weight On Other Worlds.

(I think it goes without saying, there will never be a book fad known as "The Jupiter Diet".)

Why the discrepancies? In simple terms, gravity is the force of attraction between objects. Gravitational pull is what makes the Earth orbit the sun, or the moon orbit the Earth. Suns, moons and planets are all surrounded by fields of gravity. These fields will be different, depending on things like planet size, mass, speed, its location in any solar system, and any other objects around it in space.

If Earth's force of gravity is measured at 1.00, force on other planets would be:


We'll include Pluto for the purists. And so I don't have to listen to any arguments.

More complex components of gravity come into play, but in general: the larger the object, the greater the gravity. However, the further away you travel from an object, the less you are affected by its gravitational field. Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system, so it has the strongest field (except for our Sun, which is over 27+!). You cannot stand on Jupiter, because it's mostly gas. However, if it had a surface, the force holding your body on the planet would be much greater. This increases your weight, even though your mass remains the same.

At any rate, multiply your weight by any of these numbers, and you will see what you weigh on that planet.  Oh goody, math homework!

Scale of the Universe

THIS. IS. AWESOME.

Truly one of the most amazing pieces of visual art I have ever encountered in my life, and if you do nothing else on the internet today in your spare browsing time, visit this site to see The Scale of the Universe!


Cary and Michael Huang of HTWINS.NET released "The Scale of the Universe" in 2010, but recently updated their interactive visualization to include handy clickable descriptions... in twenty different languages!


Using objects varying in size from elementary particles up through the enormity of the entire universe, the scrolling "tunnels" help viewers grasp relative sizes in relation to creatures, known architecture, states and continents and finally planets and galaxies.


Ever wanted to know the difference between a Charm Quark or a Top Quark? Want to see the Cat's Eye Nebula? The Oort Cloud? Distance to the Hubble Deep Field?

Just click on the icons as you travel between Planck Lengths and Gigaparsecs.


Use the scroll bar along the bottom of the screen to move in and out of size comparisons, or simply flick the wheel of the mouse... if there is, in fact, a wheel on your mouse.

Don't go play The Scale of the Universe until you have some time on your hands, because you may get stuck there for hours!

Pillownaut Muse

After my follow-up DEXA Bone Scan last winter, and the nice article NASA's Human Research Program published about me and other past pillownauts in preparation for the new simulation protocols, I didn't expect much more to happen. It's been many years since my studies, and my blog is now only rarely updated.

I pondered perhaps "over-hauling" this site to be a #SciComm hub -- but honestly, I think there are so many great existing Science Communication sites, and I will work to amplify those. I figured I'd had my 15 minutes of fame, and decided to leave my old blog "as-is" as a historical record of how I lived through the unique experiences of Space Flight Simulations projects at NASA.

But. Every time I think I'll never hear about it again, another author or press outlet comes knocking. Last time it was Charles Wohlforth, and you should definitely still read his great book, "Beyond Earth: Our Path To a New Home in the Planet." My father was very impressed they devoted more space to me than to Neil Armstrong, so we may have to put that on my tombstone.

Along came Minute Number 16...

Muse Magazine asked to feature my studies and chose the same title, just spelled a bit differently! In "Beyawned Earth," writer Jen Mason compiled many of my past blog excerpts, a few older press turns, and many of my personal photographs from quarantine into an exceptional article designed to teach students about space flight and how it affects the "biological packages" that travel in spacecrafts.

Reading the finished product, I was definitely the happiest I've ever been with an interview. I've had TV and radio stations ask me exhaustingly inappropriate questions; sometimes even reputable outlets go for the sensationalist spin by giving the study clever little [incorrect] nicknames or dwelling on incidental details, like how we manage to shower during simulations, or that we cannot have sugar or caffeine or salt in quarantine. Sure, those things are challenging, but not life-threatening. They pale in the quest for good data.

However, MUSE Magazine hired a skilled and serious writer who truly nailed the science. After literally a decade of interviews in varied formats, and even being featured on the NASA website itself, this was really the first full-length article that revolved around MY OWN WORDS REGARDING MY OWN EXPERIENCES. This is the closest article to what I would have written myself. Maybe someday, some outlet will invite me to do so. Hope springs eternal.

I was gratified that this particular entity put the science in detailed and accurate terms, because it's directed at students and young adults potentially getting started in scholastic concentrations, and beginning to think about choosing majors.

Issue came out in March, and I was thrilled to receive copies by May, after I returned from my 6-week trek in Europe. You can order back issues of Muse Magazine yourself, or subscribe your teens, at Cricket Media.

My entire list of articles has been updated to include the last 2 years.