Quips & Quotes V

"When I was growing up it was really cool to be a scientist or engineer. We need to make science cool again." ~ Sally Ride

"When you advance frontiers, heroes are made." ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson

"It matters to me. People don't get in line to get autographs of the land rover." ~ Congressman Frank Wolf, in response to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden's statement that it "didn't matter" if America or China got a manned mission to the moon.

"All civilizations become either spacefaring or extinct." ~ Carl Sagan


"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." ~ Author Douglas Adams

"Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another." ~ Plato

"Our two greatest problems are gravity and paperwork. We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming." ~ Werner von Braun

"It's human nature to stretch, to go, to see, to understand. Exploration is not a choice really: it's an imperative." ~ Astronaut Michael Collins


"We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the universe. That makes us something very special." ~ Stephen Hawking

"Every so often, I like to stick my head out the window, look up, and smile for a satellite picture." ~ Comedian Steven Wright

"The Mars research has advanced my life in no capacity. How has it helped your life? Looks like Arizona, tastes like chicken. Billions of dollars. I think we should just blow it up and sniff it as it drifts past." ~ Actor Charlie Sheen

Galileo Figaro Magnifico

On January 7, 1610, Italian astronomer Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei discovered Jupiter's satellites Callisto, Io and Europa. He was on a roll with his new-fangled telescopio, as only a week later on January 13th, he also spied Ganymede, later confirmed to be the largest moon in our Solar System.
These four Jovian moons, initially titled "Medician stars", are now referred to as "the Galilean satellites", and Galileo's observations of their orbits would be instrumental in over-turning the belief [cough*wishful-thinking*cough*cough] that ALL objects in the universe revolved around Earth, including our Sun.

Galileo, Figaro, Magnifico, oh oh oh...

This particular Copernican concept was a hard-sell during the time of the Roman Inquisition. Various clerics – up to and including the Pope – denounced him as sacrilegious, censored his books, attempted to bar him from teaching or publishing, and ordered him to undergo a trial before the Holy Office of Rome.

At his sentencing in June of 1633, ten Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, as commissioned by the Apostolic See as 'Inquisitors-General against heretical depravity in Christendom', read the following statement in court:

"We pronounce, sentence, and declare that you, Galileo, because of the things deduced in the trial and confessed by you, have rendered yourself according to this Holy Office vehemently suspected of heresy, namely of having held and believed a false doctrine: that the sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west, and the earth moves and is not the center of the world, and that one may hold and defend as probable an opinion after it has been declared and defined contrary to Holy Scripture."

Galileo was placed under house arrest until his death at age 77 in 1642.

Me with the Galileo craft model at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

A few centuries later, the joke was on them, since Galileo got a NASA spacecraft named after him to study those very moons; and to date, we have no spacecraft named after anyone in the Inquisition. So there.

Jupiter has 63 confirmed satellites, and one floating trouble-maker being argued over by chaps who are much smarter than I, so I'll not venture an opinion. Time will tell if #64 nails the audition, but in the meantime, the Voyager, Hubble, and Galileo craft offered interesting portraits of the fantastic four:


Ganymede is larger in diameter than Mercury, with ice and silicate crust covering underground ocean in some areas. Abundant craters and mountains surrounded by lava flow indicate ancient origin.

The next largest, Callisto, is considered a likely spot for a human base when we reach Jupiter, as study indicates the presence of water ice, ocean, carbon dioxide and possible organics.

Io is the most geologically active object in the Solar System with over 400 volcanoes, many higher than Earth’s Everest. Lava flows often invade the frosty sulfur dioxide surface, creating yellow, red, green and black compounds, creating a "pizza planet" exterior.

Europa, smallest but perhaps best-known, is about the size of Earth's moon and has an oxygen atmosphere. Its bright, smooth [well, un-cratered] crust led to the hypotheses that it is quite young, and may also have oceans beneath its surface.

Lunar Ponderings

A stunning anniversary just passed: 50 years since Apollo 11. We have 6 more Apollo lunar anniversaries to go, (7 overall in this program if one counts the non-lunar Apollo-Soyuz Test Project). For years, I've tracked statistics of Apollo missions and astronauts as they aged. And each time I have to update my records, the solemnity of the loss halts all activity in my brain.

On December 19, 1972, upon the splashdown return of Apollo 17, there were 12 men on planet Earth who knew what it was like to walk on the surface of our Moon. This fact remained true for true for 18 years and 7 months.

Then, in August 1991, James Irwin (Apollo 15) died of a heart attack at age 61.

In 1998, Alan Shepard (Apollo 14) died of leukemia at age 74.

In 1999, Pete Conrad (Apollo 12) was killed in a motorcycle crash at age 69.

In 2012, Neil Armstrong (Apollo 11) died of heart failure at age 82.

In 2016, Ed Mitchell (Apollo 14) died in his sleep at age 85.

In 2017, Gene Cernan (Apollo 10 and 17) died of long-term illness at age 82 and Dick Gordon (Apollo 12) died of cancer at age 88.

In 2018, John Young (Apollo 10 and 16) died of pneumonia at age 978, and Alan Bean (Apollo 12) died of sudden illness at age 86.

Today, as we approach more 50th anniversaries of lunar landings, there are just 4 men left who remember traveling to and working on the Moon.

• Buzz Aldrin turns 90 years old in January 2020.
• David Scott is 87. 
• Jack Schmitt and Charles Duke are both 84.

Among the other Apollo (orbiting or CSM pilot) astronauts, all are now octogenerians, with youngest Ken Mattingly reaching the age of 84.

Even if the youngest of them make it in to their 90s or to 100, will they see another Moon mission? Will they watch astronauts who are American or Chinese? Male or female?  Will it be just as inspiring to the world?

L to R: Charlie Duke (Apollo 16), Buzz Aldrin (11), Walter Cunningham (7), Alfred Worden (15), Rusty Schweickart (9), [Harrison] Jack Schmitt (17), Michael Collins (11), and Fred Haise (13).
PHOTO CREDIT: Felix Kunze/The Explorers Club

Some think we could pull off a Moon mission by 2024, though with how administrations roll (I've seriously been watching various plans and cancellations across my entire lifespan now), it will be more like 2027.

• At that point, Buzz Aldrin will be 97. 
• David Scott will be 94. 
• Jack Schmitt and Charles Duke will be 91. 
• Every living Apollo astronaut will be a nonagenarian. 

I wonder, will they make it? Statistically, the deaths in this tiny club are accelerating, and we can expect to lose a few more before we see a return to the lunar surface, given that even the best technological developments never seem to last past early stages. Anything could suffer cancellation again, in favor of Mars, Asteroids, or on the altar of war, economic depression, or unforseen disaster.

So, when we return to the Moon, if we return to the Moon, will anyone alive personally remember what it was like to visit the Moon?

Something to ponder.

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? ;)