It is with great sadness that we have to say goodbye to our Online Learning Community called NASA INSPIRE. We had high hopes that we might avoid the axe that has fallen on many NASA education programs, and were working diligently behind the scenes to secure funding. But with the lack of a continuing resolution from congress we are facing what NASA calls the 'sunsetting' of our program. The OLC server will close on September 30.
We have had a tremendous success in the five years that INSPIRE has been available. For many students it was just a way to connect with NASA. But for some it was a vital part of their growth into a STEM based career. I am as proud of you all as any teacher could be of their students. I will miss our weekly chats, and the chance to meet you all during the summer experiences.
I want to encourage you to continue your STEM education. You can obtain excellent resources from the Technology Student Association (http://www.tsaweb.org) and may already have a club in your area.
Jim Gerard
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Monday, September 9, 2013
NASA Catches Bright Fireballs Over the Southeast
By William Cooke, Marshall Space Flight Center, AL
Early Wednesday morning ( September 4), at 3:27:20 AM Eastern Time, a piece of an asteroid, about 2 feet in diameter and weighing over 100 pounds, entered Earth’s atmosphere above the Georgia/Tennessee border, just south of Cleveland. The meteor was moving northeast at 56,000 miles per hour, and began to break apart north east of Ocoee, at an altitude of 33 miles. A second, fragmentation occurred less than half a second later, at an altitude of 29 miles. NASA cameras lost track of the fireball pieces at an altitude of 21 miles, by which time they had slowed to a speed of 19,400 mph. Sensors on the ground recorded sound waves (“sonic booms”) from this event, and there are indications on Doppler weather radar of a rain of small meteoritic particles falling to the ground east of Cleveland, Tennessee.
Recorded by all six NASA cameras in the Southeast, this fireball was one of the brightest observed by the network in 5 years of operations. From Chickamauga, Georgia, the meteor was 20 times brighter than the Full Moon; shadows were cast on the ground as far south as Cartersville.
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire13
Early Wednesday morning ( September 4), at 3:27:20 AM Eastern Time, a piece of an asteroid, about 2 feet in diameter and weighing over 100 pounds, entered Earth’s atmosphere above the Georgia/Tennessee border, just south of Cleveland. The meteor was moving northeast at 56,000 miles per hour, and began to break apart north east of Ocoee, at an altitude of 33 miles. A second, fragmentation occurred less than half a second later, at an altitude of 29 miles. NASA cameras lost track of the fireball pieces at an altitude of 21 miles, by which time they had slowed to a speed of 19,400 mph. Sensors on the ground recorded sound waves (“sonic booms”) from this event, and there are indications on Doppler weather radar of a rain of small meteoritic particles falling to the ground east of Cleveland, Tennessee.
Recorded by all six NASA cameras in the Southeast, this fireball was one of the brightest observed by the network in 5 years of operations. From Chickamauga, Georgia, the meteor was 20 times brighter than the Full Moon; shadows were cast on the ground as far south as Cartersville.
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire13
Monday, August 26, 2013
Contest: What Would you Send to the ISS?
By John Entwistle, NASA Education Specialist
The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the nonprofit organization managing research onboard the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory, today announced a four-week contest titled “What Would You Send to the ISS?”, which is open to the general public for submissions. Unlike Requests for Proposals CASIS has previously released, submissions for this contest can simply be ideas or concepts, not precise proposals for research. The contest runs through September 16, 2013, just in time to get your students’ creative juices flowing.
To learn more about this contest and how to submit an idea, visit http://www.iss-casis.org/Opportunities/Solicitations/RFIYourIdeaInSpace.aspx
Be sure to check out all of the ISS-related NASA Now classroom videos and featured lessons on the NES Virtual Campus. Just log into the Virtual Campus and search for “ISS” to see the list of 16 classroom-ready resources to inspire you and your students.
The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the nonprofit organization managing research onboard the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory, today announced a four-week contest titled “What Would You Send to the ISS?”, which is open to the general public for submissions. Unlike Requests for Proposals CASIS has previously released, submissions for this contest can simply be ideas or concepts, not precise proposals for research. The contest runs through September 16, 2013, just in time to get your students’ creative juices flowing.
To learn more about this contest and how to submit an idea, visit http://www.iss-casis.org/Opportunities/Solicitations/RFIYourIdeaInSpace.aspx
Be sure to check out all of the ISS-related NASA Now classroom videos and featured lessons on the NES Virtual Campus. Just log into the Virtual Campus and search for “ISS” to see the list of 16 classroom-ready resources to inspire you and your students.
Monday, July 29, 2013
See You Next Year!
By Jim Gerard, INSPIRE Education Specialist, KSC,FL
Just getting ready to welcome many of our OLC members to the KSC INSPIRE Student Unconference! But I wanted to take a moment and thank you for your participation during this 2012-2013 OLC year. We had a wonderful time working with you, and are ecstatic with the progress you have made! Here is a graphic from our last LiveChat with some cool facts:
We'll be spending August getting ready for our next year of the INSPIRE OLC, so watch for an email that will tell you how you can participate. Until then, Ad Astra!
Just getting ready to welcome many of our OLC members to the KSC INSPIRE Student Unconference! But I wanted to take a moment and thank you for your participation during this 2012-2013 OLC year. We had a wonderful time working with you, and are ecstatic with the progress you have made! Here is a graphic from our last LiveChat with some cool facts:
We'll be spending August getting ready for our next year of the INSPIRE OLC, so watch for an email that will tell you how you can participate. Until then, Ad Astra!
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Pluto, "King of the Kuiper Belt, Prince of the Plutinos”
By Kimberly Ennico, Research Scientist, NASA Ames Research Center, CA
After the New Horizons’ instrument overviews on the first day at the Pluto Science Conference (Jul 22, 2013, we jumped right into Pluto in the Kuiper Belt Context.
Brett Gladman (University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada) started the conversation by addressing “How does Pluto fit in our understanding of the Kuiper Belt?”
But before we get into that, discussing the Kuiper belt today can be pretty complex. It was only discovered in 1992, but in the years since, over 130,000 bodies with sizes 100 km and larger have been identified (Petit et al 2011), with Pluto being the largest member.
So when we start looking at large numbers of objects, it’s time to classify. So a typical plot to describe these “populations” is shown below, where semi-major axis (distance of body from the Sun) is plotted (horizontal axis, labeled ‘a’ in units AU, where 1 AU is the distance of the Earth from the Sun, Jupiter is ~5 AU, Saturn ~10AU) versus eccentricity (value between 0 and 1 that describes how circular an orbit it, e=0 is circle, e=1 is parabola, 0
And then you have your Classical, your Cold Classical, Hot Classical, Detached, Resonant, and SDO (aka Scattered Disk Objects), etc. Sometimes they group together, others are more uniform across the parameter space.
Kuiper Belt in a/e space.” Cold classical (black open triangles). Resonant Kuiper (open red square). Detached (blue triangles). Pluto is indicated with the yellow-box, it’s a Resonant, as it is in 3:2 Resonance with Neptune. This group of objects, all in 3:2 Resonance with Neptune are the “Plutinos.” (that clumping around 40 AU, red triangles, spanning over a range of e). Resonance numbers are shown at the top of the graph.
Plutinos are also a family of TNOs, Trans-Neptunian Objects, characterized by being in 3:2 mean-motion resonance with Neptune (i.e., every time Neptune makes 3 trips about the Sun, the Plutinos make 2 trips). Plutinos are the most dominant of the TNOs. Less numerous are the 1:1 objects, objects known as Trojans.
Definitely KBO soup!
For more information about TNOs and their period relationships with Neptune https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resonant_trans-Neptunian_object
After getting down those nomenclature basics, Brett Gladman (who is also lead for a huge ground-based survey of KBOs called the Canada-France Ecliptic Plane Survey/CFEPS) discussed the strengths and pitfalls of the theories put forward to explain the formation and structure of this complex KBO menagerie.
For more information about CFEPS check out http://www.cfeps.net/
How did Pluto get to where it is today? Two leading theories (1) Resonant sweeping of objects formed in TNO regions and (2) resonant trapping explain many things, but no published models explain those resonant structures of the Kuiper belt. And any of these models have issues with the classical and scattering disk populations as well. Theorists, better sharpen your pencils.
So he left us with questions to ponder. Is there a cold primordial Kuiper Belt with edge at 45 AU? Did Pluto likely form as one of hundreds to thousands of >1000km embryos? Did some of these been implanted into the nearby non-scattering belt? Are there others out beyond 100 AU (considered likely, but to discover them, you need to get down to 23-24th mag which is beyond the current survey capabilities until new telescopes and.or techniques come available)?
No doubt, searchers for more TNOs will continue, the classification of the KB will undergo evolution, and theorists will refine their models. And New Horizons will provide a unique data set of an up-close-and-person visit to Pluto and its companions to help constrain those models.
Putting Centaurs and TNOs in Context. This time plotting inclination (the degrees from the ecliptic plane) vs. semi-major axis in AU. Object sizes are reflected in the symbol sizes. Location of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are shown. Just another way to look at that awesome & diverse Outer Solar System. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Neptunian_object
Next, Cesar Fuentes (Arizona State) phoned in about his work on the “Size Distribution (SD) of the Kuiper Belt.” Size distribution is basically counting the number of objects as a function of size. Coagulation (of small particles) and gravitation instability (of larger particles) shape the size distribution. Size distribution is expected to change due to collisions. Different distances from the sun also appear to have different size distributions.
He stepped us through recent size distribution models from Schlichting, Fuentes & Trilling (2013) and Kenyon & Bromley (2013) where they even have some including the “collisional factor” influence on the size distribution over time periods.
All the Size Distributions show a “rollover” around H~9, D=70km. Nesvorny et al. 2013 investigates this further. Is the break due to collisional and therefore separate the primordial from the evolved KBO populations?
Even more questions to ponder: Can we use size distributions to evaluate primordial from the evolved KBO populations?
And then he left us with a tantalizing experiment with the New Horizons mission: If New Horizons can provide data sets enabling “crater counting,” we will be able to measure the impactors on Pluto. This can aid in understanding KBO populations, addressing specifically, formation time, timescales for surface activity, and origins of bodies like Nix & Hydra. What would a 0.1-100km impactor size distribution look like?
Pluto, be it Prince of the Plutinos or King of the Kuiper Belt, will always remain a key part to these questions above. And data sets from New Horizons will provide many new angles to answering questions about “Where did Pluto form and why did it wind up where it is now.”
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
After the New Horizons’ instrument overviews on the first day at the Pluto Science Conference (Jul 22, 2013, we jumped right into Pluto in the Kuiper Belt Context.
Brett Gladman (University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada) started the conversation by addressing “How does Pluto fit in our understanding of the Kuiper Belt?”
But before we get into that, discussing the Kuiper belt today can be pretty complex. It was only discovered in 1992, but in the years since, over 130,000 bodies with sizes 100 km and larger have been identified (Petit et al 2011), with Pluto being the largest member.
So when we start looking at large numbers of objects, it’s time to classify. So a typical plot to describe these “populations” is shown below, where semi-major axis (distance of body from the Sun) is plotted (horizontal axis, labeled ‘a’ in units AU, where 1 AU is the distance of the Earth from the Sun, Jupiter is ~5 AU, Saturn ~10AU) versus eccentricity (value between 0 and 1 that describes how circular an orbit it, e=0 is circle, e=1 is parabola, 0
And then you have your Classical, your Cold Classical, Hot Classical, Detached, Resonant, and SDO (aka Scattered Disk Objects), etc. Sometimes they group together, others are more uniform across the parameter space.
Kuiper Belt in a/e space.” Cold classical (black open triangles). Resonant Kuiper (open red square). Detached (blue triangles). Pluto is indicated with the yellow-box, it’s a Resonant, as it is in 3:2 Resonance with Neptune. This group of objects, all in 3:2 Resonance with Neptune are the “Plutinos.” (that clumping around 40 AU, red triangles, spanning over a range of e). Resonance numbers are shown at the top of the graph.
Plutinos are also a family of TNOs, Trans-Neptunian Objects, characterized by being in 3:2 mean-motion resonance with Neptune (i.e., every time Neptune makes 3 trips about the Sun, the Plutinos make 2 trips). Plutinos are the most dominant of the TNOs. Less numerous are the 1:1 objects, objects known as Trojans.
Definitely KBO soup!
For more information about TNOs and their period relationships with Neptune https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resonant_trans-Neptunian_object
After getting down those nomenclature basics, Brett Gladman (who is also lead for a huge ground-based survey of KBOs called the Canada-France Ecliptic Plane Survey/CFEPS) discussed the strengths and pitfalls of the theories put forward to explain the formation and structure of this complex KBO menagerie.
For more information about CFEPS check out http://www.cfeps.net/
How did Pluto get to where it is today? Two leading theories (1) Resonant sweeping of objects formed in TNO regions and (2) resonant trapping explain many things, but no published models explain those resonant structures of the Kuiper belt. And any of these models have issues with the classical and scattering disk populations as well. Theorists, better sharpen your pencils.
So he left us with questions to ponder. Is there a cold primordial Kuiper Belt with edge at 45 AU? Did Pluto likely form as one of hundreds to thousands of >1000km embryos? Did some of these been implanted into the nearby non-scattering belt? Are there others out beyond 100 AU (considered likely, but to discover them, you need to get down to 23-24th mag which is beyond the current survey capabilities until new telescopes and.or techniques come available)?
No doubt, searchers for more TNOs will continue, the classification of the KB will undergo evolution, and theorists will refine their models. And New Horizons will provide a unique data set of an up-close-and-person visit to Pluto and its companions to help constrain those models.
Putting Centaurs and TNOs in Context. This time plotting inclination (the degrees from the ecliptic plane) vs. semi-major axis in AU. Object sizes are reflected in the symbol sizes. Location of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are shown. Just another way to look at that awesome & diverse Outer Solar System. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Neptunian_object
Next, Cesar Fuentes (Arizona State) phoned in about his work on the “Size Distribution (SD) of the Kuiper Belt.” Size distribution is basically counting the number of objects as a function of size. Coagulation (of small particles) and gravitation instability (of larger particles) shape the size distribution. Size distribution is expected to change due to collisions. Different distances from the sun also appear to have different size distributions.
He stepped us through recent size distribution models from Schlichting, Fuentes & Trilling (2013) and Kenyon & Bromley (2013) where they even have some including the “collisional factor” influence on the size distribution over time periods.
All the Size Distributions show a “rollover” around H~9, D=70km. Nesvorny et al. 2013 investigates this further. Is the break due to collisional and therefore separate the primordial from the evolved KBO populations?
Even more questions to ponder: Can we use size distributions to evaluate primordial from the evolved KBO populations?
And then he left us with a tantalizing experiment with the New Horizons mission: If New Horizons can provide data sets enabling “crater counting,” we will be able to measure the impactors on Pluto. This can aid in understanding KBO populations, addressing specifically, formation time, timescales for surface activity, and origins of bodies like Nix & Hydra. What would a 0.1-100km impactor size distribution look like?
Pluto, be it Prince of the Plutinos or King of the Kuiper Belt, will always remain a key part to these questions above. And data sets from New Horizons will provide many new angles to answering questions about “Where did Pluto form and why did it wind up where it is now.”
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
Monday, July 22, 2013
Introducing the Pluto Science Conference Jul 22-26, 2013
By Kimberly Ennico, Research Scientis, NASA Ames Research Center, CA
The mind of a scientist understands, embraces, and executes the scientific method, the process by which an idea is created, then tested by experiment or model, validated or refuted, and then, when validated, culminates in the description of the results to the larger community through a publication. The cycle begins again, sometimes building on previously published work, or in some cases, the birth of new ideas to the scene, most likely inspired by previous knowledge.
A key component to a scientist’s work is the attendance and interaction with colleagues at scientific conferences. At such gatherings we can see examples of the scientific method in a multitude of stages: the birth of a new idea, the suggestion of methods to carry-out the experiment or computation, a presentation that disproves an approach requiring the scientist to start anew, through the description of the results of the recent experiment or computation.
~150 people are to gather this week at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, MD to share ideas, debate hypothesis, and explain experiments related to the emissary from our Solar System’s Third Zone, the dwarf planet Pluto and its moons. The timing is crucial to have these conversations because in two years from now, in July 2015, NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft will do close fly-by of the Pluto system, a system never before visited by another spacecraft. The forum provides an update of the mission and its measurement capabilities and encourages healthy dialog among theorists who have predictions, laboratory spectroscopists who can build examples of chemistry happening on these icy bodies, and observers who have been monitoring and documenting the changing nature of Pluto and its environment.
Details about the Pluto Science Conference can be found here:
https://dnnpro.outer.jhuapl.edu/plutoscience/Home.aspx
I’ll be providing summaries of the meeting content and discussions through a series of blog posts this week.
What do we know about Pluto so far?
Image: (left) Charon Discovery Image July 1978; (right) New Horizons’ LORRI instrument spots Charon July 2013 from 6AU away
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
A key component to a scientist’s work is the attendance and interaction with colleagues at scientific conferences. At such gatherings we can see examples of the scientific method in a multitude of stages: the birth of a new idea, the suggestion of methods to carry-out the experiment or computation, a presentation that disproves an approach requiring the scientist to start anew, through the description of the results of the recent experiment or computation.
~150 people are to gather this week at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, MD to share ideas, debate hypothesis, and explain experiments related to the emissary from our Solar System’s Third Zone, the dwarf planet Pluto and its moons. The timing is crucial to have these conversations because in two years from now, in July 2015, NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft will do close fly-by of the Pluto system, a system never before visited by another spacecraft. The forum provides an update of the mission and its measurement capabilities and encourages healthy dialog among theorists who have predictions, laboratory spectroscopists who can build examples of chemistry happening on these icy bodies, and observers who have been monitoring and documenting the changing nature of Pluto and its environment.
Details about the Pluto Science Conference can be found here:
https://dnnpro.outer.jhuapl.edu/plutoscience/Home.aspx
I’ll be providing summaries of the meeting content and discussions through a series of blog posts this week.
 |
| The diameters of Pluto and Charon shown with respect to the USA for scale. |
- Highly elliptical (e = 0.25), Highly inclined (i = 17 deg), 248 year orbit
- Rotational period of 6.387230 days
- Small (diameter = 2328 ± 42 km), Rock/Ice object (“Icy Dwarf”)
- Density is 2.03 ± 0.06 g cm-3, Mass = 0.0022 MEarth
- Bright surface frosts of N2, CH4, CO, and C2H6 produce albedo of ~55%
- Highly variegated surface (bright and dark regions)
- Reddish in color, probably due to surface organics
- Tenuous, variable atmosphere (mostly N2; 2-10 µbars at the surface & going up)
- Discovered, by accident, in July 1978 by James Christy (USNO)
- In circular orbit ~19,573 km from Pluto, with a 6.3872273 day period
- Tidally-locked spin period (i.e., spin-orbit synchronous)
- Diameter is 1212 ± 3 km (about half of Pluto’s Diameter: “Binary Planet”)
- Density is 1.66 ± 0.06 g cm-3 (vs 2.03 ± 0.06 g cm-3 for Pluto)
- Surface has crystalline H2O-ice and NH3-hydrate (recent?)
- Average albedo ~35%, neutral color (variegation change over time?)
- Average T ~ 50 K, low thermal inertia (high porosity)
- No atmosphere detected yet (~10-300x lower pressure than Pluto’s)
Image: (left) Charon Discovery Image July 1978; (right) New Horizons’ LORRI instrument spots Charon July 2013 from 6AU away
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
Friday, July 19, 2013
LiveChat Round Up 7/18/2013
By Jim Gerard, INSPIRE Education Specialist, KSC, FL
I hope you all enjoyed my LiveChat last night on Spacecraft Preservation and Display. It was to highlight a website that I created 16 years ago called A Field Guide to American Spacecraft. The Field Guide tells you were all the historic spacecraft are located, along with boilerplates, models, and mockups (don't know what they are? Watch the archive!). I have been collecting information and photographs of these relics, and now can include the space shuttle orbiters as well.
Check out the archived chat if you missed it, and don't forget to take the quiz to earn points. Yep, points still count! On Monday we will make a final tally and then invite our Level 10 leaders to a special Tuesday chat with astronaut Dr. Larry DeLucas. Keep working!
Next weeks chat will be the final for the summer, and there will be no quiz, but come and support your fellow OLC members who will be sharing their 3-D models they constructed for the Designing Future Space VSE this past week. And who knows, we may even play another round of Space Bingo!
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
I hope you all enjoyed my LiveChat last night on Spacecraft Preservation and Display. It was to highlight a website that I created 16 years ago called A Field Guide to American Spacecraft. The Field Guide tells you were all the historic spacecraft are located, along with boilerplates, models, and mockups (don't know what they are? Watch the archive!). I have been collecting information and photographs of these relics, and now can include the space shuttle orbiters as well.
 |
| New Atlantis display at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex |
Next weeks chat will be the final for the summer, and there will be no quiz, but come and support your fellow OLC members who will be sharing their 3-D models they constructed for the Designing Future Space VSE this past week. And who knows, we may even play another round of Space Bingo!
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
Monday, July 15, 2013
Citizen Science Projects
Olivia
Humes, Rising Senior, Imagineers
Whether
you’re looking for something fun to do or want to continue learning about
science this summer, citizen science projects are a great way to get involved
with scientific research while still having fun. There are countless citizen
science opportunities available through websites, apps, and more. But just what
is citizen science, and how can you get involved in these projects?
Have you
ever participated in Globe at Night, featured as a short activity in the
springtime on the OLC? If so, then you’ve participated in citizen science!
Citizen science is a method of performing research that involves the public at
large, usually by using data collected or analyzed by ordinary people. Globe at
Night falls into the first category--participants gather data about the
darkness of the night sky in their area. Additionally, many citizen science
projects have the goal of increasing awareness and participation in science as
a whole. For example, the Globe at Night project teaches participants about the
effects of light pollution and the techniques of naked-eye observation in
astronomy.
A great
place to get started with citizen science is the Zooniverse group of projects.
Originally started with the Galaxy Zoo project, where users classified
galaxies, the “Zooniverse” expanded to include other areas of astronomy, and
eventually biology, anthropology, and climate science. Participants can look
for planets in other solar systems, watch out for solar storms, analyze weather
data from old ships’ logs, or look for wild animals on the Serengeti. Already,
citizen scientists have discovered new planets, unknown features on the moon,
and mysterious clumps of gas in interstellar space. And when a discovery is made,
your name can be cited on a scientific research paper!
NASA also
supports citizen science projects. Two examples are Stardust@Home and Be A
Martian. In Stardust@Home, participants analyze pictures of the aerogel carried
by the Stardust space probe in order to find particles from interstellar space
captured by the mission. Be A Martian allows participants to explore the
surface of Mars from images taken by Spirit, Opportunity, and Mars Odyssey, and
take part in a community dedicated to learning more about Mars.
The Great
Worldwide Star Count, scheduled for late October and early November will be
familiar to anyone who has participated in Globe at Night. This project asks
participants to report the darkness of their skies in order to study light
pollution, and though it takes place later on in the year, it is a great reason
to go outside and look up at the sky while contributing to scientific
discovery.
Finally,
for a citizen science project focused on biology, check out Phylo, a citizen
science project designed like a puzzle game. This project attempts to align DNA
sequences of related animals in order to better understand the common ancestry
of different animals, and the way that diseases have evolved over time. This
project, like many of the others mentioned, uses human brainpower as a more
effective alternative to complicated computer algorithms. In many citizen
science projects, from classifying galaxies to tracking evolution, the human
brain is better at analyzing the data than any computer program.
Links to
the projects mentioned can be found below. Remember, this is only a small
sample of the citizen science projects available, so look around for a project
that interests you!
The
Zooniverse projects: https://www.zooniverse.org/
Stardust@Home:
http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/
Be A
Martian: http://beamartian.jpl.nasa.gov/welcome
The Great
Worldwide Star Count: http://www.windows2universe.org/citizen_science/starcount/
Phylo: http://phylo.cs.mcgill.ca/beta
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Aviation Camp
By Haley Stumvoll, Rising 11, Alchemists
Every child has fantastic
dreams like mine of flying. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be able to fly to the
jungle to explore or have an adventure in the Alps? Last week I brought those dreams to fruition
when I went to a weeklong Aviation camp at the University of Southern Illinois-
Carbondale. Before I go into details about my adventures in illustrious
Illinois, I’ll explain why I became interested in aviation in the first place.
I have hopes of
becoming an engineer one day. I have
been investigating several areas including electrical, mechanical and materials
engineering. Since I’m interested in aviation, I’ve decided that I want to work
to become an aerospace engineer. So I
decided that being able to fly an airplane would give me an insight into what aerospace
engineering is all about. INSPIRE was
the catalyst for me to start looking into learning how to fly like Orville and
Wilbur Wright, who I really hope to “meet” someday, and have been wanting to
meet since the LiveChat with “Wilbur” last year.
I could go on for several
pages about my experience, but I doubt anyone would be able to hang with me to
the end so I will shorten it to my four top favorite things about Aviation Camp
in the US heartland town of Carbondale, Illinois.
First, the flight simulators
are a good way to practice piloting a plane, without actually being 1,500 or
more feet in the air. It helps ease anxiety when you are actually 1,500 feet in
the air because you’ve already seen the controls and flight instruments before,
so you know how to control the machine that is keeping you from falling 1,500
feet. I successfully landed a Cessna 172 Skyhawk for the first time in a
simulator and my partner would have been scared out of my mind if we had
actually been in a plane.
Secondly, most
mornings before going out to fly, we had ground school, which covered topics
like basic aerodynamics, radio procedures and how to plan cross-country
flights. The teacher also talked about basic flight maneuvers which was not
only fun to learn about but also enormously helpful when it came time to
actually try them out.
Thirdly, it was great
getting to know others who had the same interests I did, especially since I have
not really met other people who aspire to be a pilot. Similar to the field of
engineering, aviation is largely a male dominated interest, which I hope can
change. This was made abundantly clear when I found out that I was to spend six
days with nine high school guys and zero girls.
Finally, my absolute
favorite part of the camp was flying to dinner. I’ve had some fun times going
to dinner before, but nothing beats flying down to Sikeston, Missouri for
dinner at Lambert’s. About Lambert’s: the food is great, and the only way you
get bread is if you can catch it.
I really recommend
taking a flight lesson at some point because it is a fabulous experience.
Flying in a small propeller driven plane has a completely different feel than
flying in a commercial airliner. Before we recess for summer, I want to thank
everyone in the OLC because I have had a great time this year, and really hope
to be able to come back next year. Have a great summer everyone!!!
Monday, July 8, 2013
Space Habitat Innovation Challenge - Our trip to Huntsville
By Aswini Krishnan and Amelia Rolf
INSPIRE is an amazing program. The opportunities are endless. The skies keep widening, keep expanding, keep opening up new possiblities...
It was about two months ago, and our Space Habitat Innovation Team Members – Emily Beckman, Aswini Krishnan, Amelia Rolf, Netdao Yutakom, and Katie Britt – were up to our ears in school work. Yes, that last minute studying for those APs, immersed in our chemistry, calculus, and physics textbooks...
And then we received the news. We had won 1st place in the Space Habitat Innovation Challenge and were invited to visit the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama for a tour!
Our team had begun working on the Space Habitat Innovation Challenge in December. Our project was basically to design a future generation deep space habitat that could be used to house astronauts for extended periods of time, with a focus on interior design.
Because our other teammates had prior commitments, sadly only we two (Aswini and Amelia) were able to attend the MSFC tour. We would like to share our wonderful experience with you and hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it.
========================================================================
Our Space Habitat Trip to Huntsville: June 10 - 12, 2013
On June 10, we landed in Huntsville Airport and were ecstatic to see the smiling faces of Ms. Ingrum and Dr. Marks waiting for us right outside security. We got into the big silver limousine van (which Dr. Marks drove all the way to Alabama - thanks so much, Dr. Marks!) and after dropping off our bags at the hotel, went to eat a delicious dinner at Red Robin and later took a stroll in an open mall, admiring the beauty of the city.
June 11- the big day. After a light breakfast, we met Dr. Jamey Jacobs (the OSU professor who coordinated the Space Habitat Challenge) and we got into the van to go to MSFC!
First, we visted the MSFC rocket park, which had an assortment of models of past missions – like Saturn V.
Next we went to a building where interns were working on engineering projects and allowed us to take a look. One group of interns was working on controlling a device that slightly hovers above the ground to simulate the no-friction space environment. We then went to see the other group, which was working on improving the controlling mechanism for a robotic arm! The interns even let us try to control the robotic arm, and it was absolutely thrilling!
Next, we got see a replica of the ISS and see the internal structure. An intern guided us through and explained the functions of its various parts. We then got to go and see the control room, from where they directly give commands to the ISS.
Then - what we had been waiting for - we toured the deep space facility! We had a great time seeing how the existing models of deep space habitat compared to our design and talking to our tour guide, Mr. Dischinger, about it. We then took a look at an experiment going on where a man wearing a suit with infrared light detectors emitting signals to cameras was able to make a computerized person move the same way he did.
After a filling lunch at the NASA cafeteria, we went to view rocket test sites. We saw the historic test site for the Mercury capsule and greatly enjoyed Mr. Dischinger's stories about the history behind the creation of the first space capsules.
After leaving the Marshall Space Flight Facilities, we went to the Space and Rocket Center, a museum designed for tourists. Before going into the main building though, we visited Mr. Scott Anderson and his NASA Digital Network facilities, and we explained our Space Habitat Innovation Challenge design to him, showing him our powerpoint. Before we left, he announced that he had a surprise for us and gave us both pictures of astronaut Bill McArthur, autographed by him! After profusely thanking him, we headed for the US Space and Rocket Center's main building. The museum was fantastic. We spent a lot of time in a black hole simulation game where we had to rescue ourselves from falling into a black hole by answering some questions about black holes through interactive activities. In another part of the museum, we found a robot that prepared frozen yogurt with toppings. And yes, each of us paid six dollars, not for the frozen yogurt, but to watch the robot make it. Entering a different section, we saw many replicas of space capsules and even saw some moon rocks, enclosed in a glass case, of course. And lastly, of course, we went to the gift shop and treated ourselves to t-shirts (which ever-so-cutely said "It's not rocket science ... oh wait yes it is!).
Back at the hotel and on the morning of June 12, all we could say was one thing: we didn't want to go home.
We would sincerely like to thank all the NASA INSPIRE, OSU, and MSFC staff for coordinating this amazing experience and making it possible for us to participate in the Space Habitat Challenge and visit the center. We learned so much over the course of the visit - not just about STEM but also about all the opportunities that are out there in NASA for us to look at now and in the future, and we surely will remember this experience for the rest of our lives. Our thanks for everything, once again.
Aswini & Amelia
INSPIRE is an amazing program. The opportunities are endless. The skies keep widening, keep expanding, keep opening up new possiblities...
It was about two months ago, and our Space Habitat Innovation Team Members – Emily Beckman, Aswini Krishnan, Amelia Rolf, Netdao Yutakom, and Katie Britt – were up to our ears in school work. Yes, that last minute studying for those APs, immersed in our chemistry, calculus, and physics textbooks...
And then we received the news. We had won 1st place in the Space Habitat Innovation Challenge and were invited to visit the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama for a tour!
Our team had begun working on the Space Habitat Innovation Challenge in December. Our project was basically to design a future generation deep space habitat that could be used to house astronauts for extended periods of time, with a focus on interior design.
Because our other teammates had prior commitments, sadly only we two (Aswini and Amelia) were able to attend the MSFC tour. We would like to share our wonderful experience with you and hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it.
========================================================================
Our Space Habitat Trip to Huntsville: June 10 - 12, 2013
On June 10, we landed in Huntsville Airport and were ecstatic to see the smiling faces of Ms. Ingrum and Dr. Marks waiting for us right outside security. We got into the big silver limousine van (which Dr. Marks drove all the way to Alabama - thanks so much, Dr. Marks!) and after dropping off our bags at the hotel, went to eat a delicious dinner at Red Robin and later took a stroll in an open mall, admiring the beauty of the city.June 11- the big day. After a light breakfast, we met Dr. Jamey Jacobs (the OSU professor who coordinated the Space Habitat Challenge) and we got into the van to go to MSFC!
First, we visted the MSFC rocket park, which had an assortment of models of past missions – like Saturn V.
Next we went to a building where interns were working on engineering projects and allowed us to take a look. One group of interns was working on controlling a device that slightly hovers above the ground to simulate the no-friction space environment. We then went to see the other group, which was working on improving the controlling mechanism for a robotic arm! The interns even let us try to control the robotic arm, and it was absolutely thrilling!
Picture: The interns and us. The girl on the left is Murphy, who was an INSPIRE student herself before she graduated from high school! She said that INSPIRE was the program that gave her the contacts and motivated her get into this prestigious college internship – Go INSPIRE!
Next, we got see a replica of the ISS and see the internal structure. An intern guided us through and explained the functions of its various parts. We then got to go and see the control room, from where they directly give commands to the ISS.
Then - what we had been waiting for - we toured the deep space facility! We had a great time seeing how the existing models of deep space habitat compared to our design and talking to our tour guide, Mr. Dischinger, about it. We then took a look at an experiment going on where a man wearing a suit with infrared light detectors emitting signals to cameras was able to make a computerized person move the same way he did.
After a filling lunch at the NASA cafeteria, we went to view rocket test sites. We saw the historic test site for the Mercury capsule and greatly enjoyed Mr. Dischinger's stories about the history behind the creation of the first space capsules.
After leaving the Marshall Space Flight Facilities, we went to the Space and Rocket Center, a museum designed for tourists. Before going into the main building though, we visited Mr. Scott Anderson and his NASA Digital Network facilities, and we explained our Space Habitat Innovation Challenge design to him, showing him our powerpoint. Before we left, he announced that he had a surprise for us and gave us both pictures of astronaut Bill McArthur, autographed by him! After profusely thanking him, we headed for the US Space and Rocket Center's main building. The museum was fantastic. We spent a lot of time in a black hole simulation game where we had to rescue ourselves from falling into a black hole by answering some questions about black holes through interactive activities. In another part of the museum, we found a robot that prepared frozen yogurt with toppings. And yes, each of us paid six dollars, not for the frozen yogurt, but to watch the robot make it. Entering a different section, we saw many replicas of space capsules and even saw some moon rocks, enclosed in a glass case, of course. And lastly, of course, we went to the gift shop and treated ourselves to t-shirts (which ever-so-cutely said "It's not rocket science ... oh wait yes it is!).
Back at the hotel and on the morning of June 12, all we could say was one thing: we didn't want to go home.
We would sincerely like to thank all the NASA INSPIRE, OSU, and MSFC staff for coordinating this amazing experience and making it possible for us to participate in the Space Habitat Challenge and visit the center. We learned so much over the course of the visit - not just about STEM but also about all the opportunities that are out there in NASA for us to look at now and in the future, and we surely will remember this experience for the rest of our lives. Our thanks for everything, once again.
Aswini & Amelia
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
INSPIRE Summer OLC
By Jim Gerard, NASA INSPIRE, KSC, Fla.
Happy summertime on the OLC!
July will be a busy month as we complete the 2012-2013 year of the
INSPIRE OLC. We hoped by this time we would have news about next year but there
is no news yet. The OLC is scheduled to close as usual for the month of August
to provide time to prepare for next year. But we are filling July with great
opportunities to keep you busy during the long summer days! Below are some of
the exciting things that await you in the month of July.
▪
Level 10 LiveChat - By special invitation only LiveChat with
astronaut Dr. Larry DeLucas on Tuesday, July 23. How do you get invited? Get to
Level 10 on the Leaderboard! Cutoff for points will be Monday, July 22, at 12 noon
CT.
▪
High Point Team Party - The team with the highest cumulative points
will be invited to a special on-line party during the INSPIRE Cafe on Thursday,
July 18. Team point cutoff will be Monday, July 15, at 12 noon CT.
▪
July Points Blast - To help you get as many points as possible for
the above events, we are posting ALL short activities this week! Also remember
you can still complete past activities and view LiveChats in the archives!
▪
Designing Future Space VSE - This Virtual STEM Experience will take
place July 16 – 18. The objective of this Virtual STEM Experience is to provide
insight in the art of industrial design. Featuring spacecraft design from the
past to the future, participants will be given a chance to have a design
realized on a 3-D printer!
▪
2013 KSC Student Unconference - This student planned conference
commences on July 30 to provide 3 days of tours and activities at America's
Spaceport. Watch the special LiveChat Thursday August 1 to hear from
participants.
What does the future hold? Be certain as soon as we know we will
tell you. Whatever happens, we want to encourage you to continue your pursuit
of STEM related careers in every way possible. Currently INSPIRE alumni are
pursuing degrees at prestigious institutions such as MIT, CalTech and Georgia
Tech, as well as numerous state colleges and universities. As Doc Brown said in
Back to the Future III, "Your future
hasn't been written yet. It is whatever you make it. So make it a good
one!"
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
Monday, July 1, 2013
Protecting Planet Earth
By NASA Administrator Charles Bolden
Having looked back at Earth from outer space, I have seen just how fragile our home planet is – and I’m committed to doing everything I can to help protect it.
Yesterday, President Obama announced an ambitious Climate Action Plan to cut carbon pollution and put us on a more environmentally sustainable course. At NASA, where one of our primary goals is to improve life for everyone on the planet, I'm pleased to say that we have a number of missions already supporting this important work through our robust Earth Science program.
Scientific data and insights are essential to help government officials, communities, and businesses better understand and manage the risks associated with climate change. NASA will continue to work with the Administration as we continue to lead in advancing the science of climate measurement and adaptation and the development of tools for climate-relevant decision-making by focusing on increasing the availability, accessibility, and utility of relevant scientific tools and information.
Earth observation and the science associated with it have been central to NASA's mission for decades. Missions such as the Landsat series of satellites have been helping us establish a baseline of understanding and demonstrating the planet's changes over the past 40 years. Recently launched missions such as Suomi/NPP will enhance and continue our long tradition of climate observation.
Earth Science is a strong priority of the President's fiscal year 2014 budget request for NASA. The budget supports 7 new Earth Science missions on course to launch through 2020 after the launch of 4 new Earth science missions in 2014 -- the Global Precipitation Mission (GPM), Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2), Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), and the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III (SAGE III) instrument to be launched to the International Space Station.
These cover a wide spectrum of Earth observations and join NASA's 17 Earth science missions in space observing our planet's atmosphere and oceans, its climate, weather patterns, and much more. The data we collect helps us understand our planet as a dynamic, unified system. It helps us predict natural and manmade disasters such as hurricanes and wildfires and recover from them. Our satellites will play a critical role in helping us assess the carbon emissions problem, its history, current status, and possible future so decision makers can make informed policy decisions.
NASA's Earth Science program was established to use the advanced technology of our space program to understand and protect our home planet by using the view from space to study the Earth system and improve predictions of its changes. To meet this challenge, NASA promotes the full and open sharing of all data with the research and applications communities, private industry, academia, and the general public.
NASA was the first agency in the US, and the first space agency in the world, to provide full and open access in a timely manner, with no period of exclusive access to mission scientists, and at no cost.
NASA made this decision after listening to the user community, and with the background of the newly-formed U.S. Global Change Research Program, and the International Earth Observing System partnerships. Other U.S. agencies and international space agencies have since adopted similar open-access policies and practices.
In line with agencies across the government working on climate change issues, NASA will help disseminate scientific information and translate scientific insights into practical, useable knowledge that can help decision-makers anticipate and prepare for specific climate-change impacts.
All of our work in exploration has benefits here on Earth, by helping us understand and protect our natural resources, improve lives, and strengthen the economy. The President's climate initiative provides one more opportunity for our missions in space to bring science and technology home to the American people in a meaningful way.
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
Having looked back at Earth from outer space, I have seen just how fragile our home planet is – and I’m committed to doing everything I can to help protect it.
Yesterday, President Obama announced an ambitious Climate Action Plan to cut carbon pollution and put us on a more environmentally sustainable course. At NASA, where one of our primary goals is to improve life for everyone on the planet, I'm pleased to say that we have a number of missions already supporting this important work through our robust Earth Science program.
Scientific data and insights are essential to help government officials, communities, and businesses better understand and manage the risks associated with climate change. NASA will continue to work with the Administration as we continue to lead in advancing the science of climate measurement and adaptation and the development of tools for climate-relevant decision-making by focusing on increasing the availability, accessibility, and utility of relevant scientific tools and information.
Earth observation and the science associated with it have been central to NASA's mission for decades. Missions such as the Landsat series of satellites have been helping us establish a baseline of understanding and demonstrating the planet's changes over the past 40 years. Recently launched missions such as Suomi/NPP will enhance and continue our long tradition of climate observation.
Earth Science is a strong priority of the President's fiscal year 2014 budget request for NASA. The budget supports 7 new Earth Science missions on course to launch through 2020 after the launch of 4 new Earth science missions in 2014 -- the Global Precipitation Mission (GPM), Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2), Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), and the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III (SAGE III) instrument to be launched to the International Space Station.
These cover a wide spectrum of Earth observations and join NASA's 17 Earth science missions in space observing our planet's atmosphere and oceans, its climate, weather patterns, and much more. The data we collect helps us understand our planet as a dynamic, unified system. It helps us predict natural and manmade disasters such as hurricanes and wildfires and recover from them. Our satellites will play a critical role in helping us assess the carbon emissions problem, its history, current status, and possible future so decision makers can make informed policy decisions.
NASA's Earth Science program was established to use the advanced technology of our space program to understand and protect our home planet by using the view from space to study the Earth system and improve predictions of its changes. To meet this challenge, NASA promotes the full and open sharing of all data with the research and applications communities, private industry, academia, and the general public.
NASA was the first agency in the US, and the first space agency in the world, to provide full and open access in a timely manner, with no period of exclusive access to mission scientists, and at no cost.
NASA made this decision after listening to the user community, and with the background of the newly-formed U.S. Global Change Research Program, and the International Earth Observing System partnerships. Other U.S. agencies and international space agencies have since adopted similar open-access policies and practices.
In line with agencies across the government working on climate change issues, NASA will help disseminate scientific information and translate scientific insights into practical, useable knowledge that can help decision-makers anticipate and prepare for specific climate-change impacts.
All of our work in exploration has benefits here on Earth, by helping us understand and protect our natural resources, improve lives, and strengthen the economy. The President's climate initiative provides one more opportunity for our missions in space to bring science and technology home to the American people in a meaningful way.
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
New Home for Atlantis
By Jim Gerard, INSPIRE Education Specialist, KSC, FL
The Space Shuttle program is over, and the hardware it utilized has been transferred to museums across the country. You can visit flown orbiters in Los Angelos, California (Endeavour), and Dulles airport in Virginia (Discovery), but the first dedicated facility to the program is the new home for Atlantis at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. "Space Shuttle Atlantis," which debuts on Saturday (June 29), showcases the retired winged spacecraft as part of a $100 million exhibit that has been more than a year in the making. It succeeds in bringing the public nose-to-nose — and nose-to-wing and nose-to-tail — with Atlantis in a way that is unique to every other museum display of a shuttle orbiter.
With a reveal worthy of the 'magical' theme park in nearby Orlando, visitors will experience an encounter with the mighty spacecraft similar to an astronaut walking in space. Seemingly within touching distance, with its payload bay open and a replica of its Canadarm robotic arm extended, Atlantis looks less like a museum's static display than it does a still active vehicle, somehow frozen in place, as if it could soar back into orbit at any time. What's more, thanks to theatrical lighting and a 40-foot-long (12-meter) animated digital backdrop, the orbiter comes alive as the changing hues and resulting shadows stretch across its surface.
INSPIRE Students attending the upcoming Student Unconference will get to witness this new display during their stay, while others vacationing near KSC will see it as part of their Visitor Complex experience.
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
The Space Shuttle program is over, and the hardware it utilized has been transferred to museums across the country. You can visit flown orbiters in Los Angelos, California (Endeavour), and Dulles airport in Virginia (Discovery), but the first dedicated facility to the program is the new home for Atlantis at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. "Space Shuttle Atlantis," which debuts on Saturday (June 29), showcases the retired winged spacecraft as part of a $100 million exhibit that has been more than a year in the making. It succeeds in bringing the public nose-to-nose — and nose-to-wing and nose-to-tail — with Atlantis in a way that is unique to every other museum display of a shuttle orbiter.
With a reveal worthy of the 'magical' theme park in nearby Orlando, visitors will experience an encounter with the mighty spacecraft similar to an astronaut walking in space. Seemingly within touching distance, with its payload bay open and a replica of its Canadarm robotic arm extended, Atlantis looks less like a museum's static display than it does a still active vehicle, somehow frozen in place, as if it could soar back into orbit at any time. What's more, thanks to theatrical lighting and a 40-foot-long (12-meter) animated digital backdrop, the orbiter comes alive as the changing hues and resulting shadows stretch across its surface.
INSPIRE Students attending the upcoming Student Unconference will get to witness this new display during their stay, while others vacationing near KSC will see it as part of their Visitor Complex experience.
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
First Day of Summer
By Jim Gerard, INSPIRE, KSC
This Friday, June 21, is the first day of summer. The Summer Solstice, when the earth's tilt is most directly pointed at the sun, occurs at 1:04am EDT. This has created some confusion in our western states as it would still technically be Thursday, June 20.
But two points to consider:
1) The sun, as does most of the world, does not follow Daylight Saving Time so it would be 12:04am EST which would make the Solstice in all the country on Thursday except the east coast by 4 minutes. 2) When do we celebrate day at night? It would always be the next dawning which is Friday for everyone.
So if you west coasters start your summer celebrations on Thursday, remember it is still spring until almost midnight and you are being a little premature. But then it is never to early to party.
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
This Friday, June 21, is the first day of summer. The Summer Solstice, when the earth's tilt is most directly pointed at the sun, occurs at 1:04am EDT. This has created some confusion in our western states as it would still technically be Thursday, June 20.
But two points to consider:
1) The sun, as does most of the world, does not follow Daylight Saving Time so it would be 12:04am EST which would make the Solstice in all the country on Thursday except the east coast by 4 minutes. 2) When do we celebrate day at night? It would always be the next dawning which is Friday for everyone.
So if you west coasters start your summer celebrations on Thursday, remember it is still spring until almost midnight and you are being a little premature. But then it is never to early to party.
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Why Should I Participate in NASA Challenges?
By Abigail Radford,
Rising Senior,
Alchemists
One reason why we love the OLC so much is because of the numerous opportunities it offers each one of us. Scholarly programs, internships, competitions—anything that we can utilize to our benefit is just a click away on the Equip page. From my personal experiences, I have concluded that the best and most rewarding opportunities lie in the various Challenges offered throughout the year. From lunar science, to product innovation, to robotics, to spacecraft engineering, there is bound to be a Challenge meant for your interests and passions.
This year I competed in the RealWorld-InWorld Engineering Design Challenge. A team of myself, Jonathan Hernandez, Kate Denner, and Joshua Dijamco worked together to design a sunshield that would protect the James Webb Space Telescope from cosmic radiation to allow it to detect infrared light from far away galaxies. Sounds simple, right? It certainly wasn’t. We had to incorporate many factors into its design like minimizing cost, maximizing the telescope’s pointing angle, unfolding the shield in space, and more.
We became engineers as we brainstormed possible design solutions, criticized each other’s work, and implemented the best attributes of each into our final design. We outlined our progress in an extensive 28-page paper. We advanced to the next round of the challenge and had to transfer the same information in the paper into a 3-D world called NIA Universe, an impressive computer program that took weeks to learn how to navigate in and use. After weeks of working during many late, coffee-filled nights, we finally finished our “world”. We anxiously awaited the final results from the judges, and finally, the announcement was made: Team Metropolitan (that’s us) won first place!
I cannot explain to you the overwhelming triumph and happiness I felt after receiving such good news. Our hard work had paid off and our ideas had been acknowledged and approved. There was even a cash prize of $833 for each of us that could be used to help with the costs of traveling up to the Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, MD. There, we were all reunited after months of collaboratively working on a huge project through virtual tools like Google Docs and Skype hundreds and thousands of miles away. We were treated like royalty upon our arrival. We even met the Director of GSC Christopher Scolese, who awarded each of us our very own flag that had been flown aboard the final flight of the Space Shuttle Atlantis. For the next few hours we were given a VIP tour of GSC and saw a Hyperwall demonstration, as well as the behind-the-scenes of NASA TV. Later we met with the 2006 Nobel Prize winner Dr. John Mather, who gave a presentation on some of his work.
We ended this amazing day with a bang: a viewing of the James Webb Space Telescope clean room. This telescope means so much to us. For months we slaved over every one of its details: its mission goals, size, orbit, and more. Before, we had imagined the JWST as something that seemed so intangible, unreal and far away. But finally, the awesome piece of technology we had been studying for so long was sitting right in front of us. It was surrounded by people who care about it just as much as we do. That moment was huge for me because I realized that I was on the right path: I want to grow up to become a part of a large NASA team that works together to produce an extraordinary work of art like the James Webb Space Telescope. Whether it will go to the Moon, Mars, or a near-Earth asteroid, I want to contribute to its success.
So why should you participate in one or more of the NASA Challenges next year? There are many reasons why, ranging from the people you will meet to the experience you will gain. Completing a group challenge will bring all of your teammates closer together, helping you discover a teammate that you work extremely well with. You will also learn effective means of communication, time management, and how to distribute tasks to achieve the highest level of efficiency. You will also learn a great deal about the topic you chose to do your Challenge on, helping you gain experience in that field which will put you at an advantage among your peers in the future. If your team works hard and functions smoothly, you could be next year’s first place winner. Who knows what exciting prizes and opportunities could come your way.
If you find yourself struggling while completing a Challenge, just remember to keep a positive attitude and that patience pays off in the long run.
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
One reason why we love the OLC so much is because of the numerous opportunities it offers each one of us. Scholarly programs, internships, competitions—anything that we can utilize to our benefit is just a click away on the Equip page. From my personal experiences, I have concluded that the best and most rewarding opportunities lie in the various Challenges offered throughout the year. From lunar science, to product innovation, to robotics, to spacecraft engineering, there is bound to be a Challenge meant for your interests and passions.
This year I competed in the RealWorld-InWorld Engineering Design Challenge. A team of myself, Jonathan Hernandez, Kate Denner, and Joshua Dijamco worked together to design a sunshield that would protect the James Webb Space Telescope from cosmic radiation to allow it to detect infrared light from far away galaxies. Sounds simple, right? It certainly wasn’t. We had to incorporate many factors into its design like minimizing cost, maximizing the telescope’s pointing angle, unfolding the shield in space, and more.
We became engineers as we brainstormed possible design solutions, criticized each other’s work, and implemented the best attributes of each into our final design. We outlined our progress in an extensive 28-page paper. We advanced to the next round of the challenge and had to transfer the same information in the paper into a 3-D world called NIA Universe, an impressive computer program that took weeks to learn how to navigate in and use. After weeks of working during many late, coffee-filled nights, we finally finished our “world”. We anxiously awaited the final results from the judges, and finally, the announcement was made: Team Metropolitan (that’s us) won first place!
I cannot explain to you the overwhelming triumph and happiness I felt after receiving such good news. Our hard work had paid off and our ideas had been acknowledged and approved. There was even a cash prize of $833 for each of us that could be used to help with the costs of traveling up to the Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, MD. There, we were all reunited after months of collaboratively working on a huge project through virtual tools like Google Docs and Skype hundreds and thousands of miles away. We were treated like royalty upon our arrival. We even met the Director of GSC Christopher Scolese, who awarded each of us our very own flag that had been flown aboard the final flight of the Space Shuttle Atlantis. For the next few hours we were given a VIP tour of GSC and saw a Hyperwall demonstration, as well as the behind-the-scenes of NASA TV. Later we met with the 2006 Nobel Prize winner Dr. John Mather, who gave a presentation on some of his work.
We ended this amazing day with a bang: a viewing of the James Webb Space Telescope clean room. This telescope means so much to us. For months we slaved over every one of its details: its mission goals, size, orbit, and more. Before, we had imagined the JWST as something that seemed so intangible, unreal and far away. But finally, the awesome piece of technology we had been studying for so long was sitting right in front of us. It was surrounded by people who care about it just as much as we do. That moment was huge for me because I realized that I was on the right path: I want to grow up to become a part of a large NASA team that works together to produce an extraordinary work of art like the James Webb Space Telescope. Whether it will go to the Moon, Mars, or a near-Earth asteroid, I want to contribute to its success.
So why should you participate in one or more of the NASA Challenges next year? There are many reasons why, ranging from the people you will meet to the experience you will gain. Completing a group challenge will bring all of your teammates closer together, helping you discover a teammate that you work extremely well with. You will also learn effective means of communication, time management, and how to distribute tasks to achieve the highest level of efficiency. You will also learn a great deal about the topic you chose to do your Challenge on, helping you gain experience in that field which will put you at an advantage among your peers in the future. If your team works hard and functions smoothly, you could be next year’s first place winner. Who knows what exciting prizes and opportunities could come your way.
If you find yourself struggling while completing a Challenge, just remember to keep a positive attitude and that patience pays off in the long run.
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
Friday, June 14, 2013
LiveChat Round Up 6/13/2013
By Jim Gerard, NASA INSPIRE Education Specialist, KSC, FL
Summer is upon us, and next week begins our first Virtual STEM Experience (VSE). We wanted to provide more in-depth classes for the OLC, and the VSE was created to give you deeper understanding of a STEM related field. Thus includes content from experts in the field, similar to what we try to do every Thursday night. In order to spend more time during the VSE withinstruction, we decided to move the subject matter expert (SME) to our regular Thursday night chat and open it for everyone in the community. This is what we did last night, when Dr. Shawn Donnegal-Goldman from Goddard Space Flight Center talked about his job of searching for evidence of life on other planets.
Dr Shawn talked first about finding other planets (around other stars), a task that the space probe Kepler does very well. (You can build a model of the Kepler spacecraft by clicking here.) With Kepler we have found hundreds of planet candidates, but even then our ability to directly observe them is very slight. A planet like the earth would be orbiting too close and be too dim to distinguish from the central star's light. Future projects like the star-shade could help us in observing these faint objects.
The following animation illustrate every star to date that Kepler has detected as having planets and the relative size and orbits of those planets.
Summer is upon us, and next week begins our first Virtual STEM Experience (VSE). We wanted to provide more in-depth classes for the OLC, and the VSE was created to give you deeper understanding of a STEM related field. Thus includes content from experts in the field, similar to what we try to do every Thursday night. In order to spend more time during the VSE withinstruction, we decided to move the subject matter expert (SME) to our regular Thursday night chat and open it for everyone in the community. This is what we did last night, when Dr. Shawn Donnegal-Goldman from Goddard Space Flight Center talked about his job of searching for evidence of life on other planets.
Dr Shawn talked first about finding other planets (around other stars), a task that the space probe Kepler does very well. (You can build a model of the Kepler spacecraft by clicking here.) With Kepler we have found hundreds of planet candidates, but even then our ability to directly observe them is very slight. A planet like the earth would be orbiting too close and be too dim to distinguish from the central star's light. Future projects like the star-shade could help us in observing these faint objects.
The following animation illustrate every star to date that Kepler has detected as having planets and the relative size and orbits of those planets.
To learn more about Dr. Shawn's work, you can follow his blog at http://paleblueblog.org.
Next week, more on the search for extraterrestrial life, but this time on Icy Worlds!
P.S. If you are in the Life on Other Planets VSE and were not able to attend the LiveChat, make sure to view it in the archives!
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Summer Stargazing: What’s Up Tonight?
By Olivia Humes, Grade 11, Imagineers
Astronomically speaking, the beginning of summer brings long days and short nights. Here on Earth, summer tends to bring fantastic weather and clear skies. Though you’ll have to stay up late in order to see them, summer constellations offer a rich number of targets for naked-eye, binocular, or telescopic viewing.
The Summer Triangle is an easy to find group of bright stars that can help point you to interesting
observing targets. Facing south, the Summer Triangle will appear as a large, nearly right triangle defined by the three brightest stars in view. The Summer Triangle contains the alpha stars of three different constellations: Vega in Lyra, Deneb in Cygnus, and Altair in Aquila. This area of the sky is particularly rich since it lies in the plane of the Milky Way. A quick glance through a telescope will uncover dense star fields and gas clouds, such as the Ring Nebula in Lyra. The Summer Triangle also marks the location of the Kepler target stars between Vega and Deneb.
Deneb is the faintest of the trio and is the tail of Cygnus, which is a cross-shaped constellation representing a swan flying roughly to the south. At the head of the swan, nearly halfway between Vega and Altair is a binary star called Alberio. With a telescope, the two stars making up the system can be easily resolved. Albireo is a particularly special binary system because the two stars that make it up are two different colors!
Later in the night, the constellations Pegasus and Andromeda rise in the east. Pegasus contains the “great square” located just east of Cygnus’s wingtip. The constellation Andromeda shares a star with the northernmost corner of the great square. The nearest large galaxy, the Andromeda galaxy is located in this constellation. In especially dark conditions, it can be seen with the naked eye as a fuzzy blob, but in cities and suburbs, it is accessible with binoculars or a small telescope.
Circumpolar constellations are visible throughout the year, but the clear skies of summer can give an observer a great chance to view them as well. Depending on your latitude, the number of circumpolar constellations vary. The closer you are to the poles, the more you will see. However, for the United States and Europe, both the Big and Little Dippers can be seen all night and all year long.
The brighter, Big Dipper can also be used as a guide to find other interesting observing targets. Within the Big Dipper itself, another multiple star system can be seen. With good eyes and a dark sky, the second star in the “handle” of the Big Dipper reveals itself as two stars, called Alcor and Mizar! The system is actually composed of six different stars. Mizar, the brighter, is a quadruple binary system, and Alcor is itself a two-star system. Though a small telescope and binoculars won’t reveal all six stars, they will help you get a better view of the double.
The last two stars of the Big Dipper’s “scoop” point towards the North Star, Polaris, in the Little Dipper. This constellation is fainter, but it is important for navigation. Not only does the star indicate the direction of north, but its elevation from the horizon indicates your latitude. If you travel further north, the Polaris will rise higher and higher in the sky. In the early summer, following the arc of the handle of the Big Dipper allows you to “arc to Arcturus” and find a red giant star in the constellation Bootes. After that, continue to follow the arc and “speed on to Spica,” a blue giant star in Virgo. Other circumpolar constellations visible near the Dippers include Cassiopea, the M or W, and Draco, a faint constellation that snakes its way between the two Dippers and ends near the familiar bright summer star Vega.
As summer comes, take the opportunity provided by clear nights and the end of school to learn some new constellations or telescopic targets. Besides the objects mentioned here, other great telescope and binocular targets are the Messier Objects, a catalogue of galaxies, nebulae, and clusters; or any planets that are visible. Be sure to find a star chart to help you get an accurate picture of what the skies look like at your latitude. Using a red flashlight will help you while working in the dark, but won’t ruin your night vision. Most of all, have fun exploring the night sky!
Printable star charts can be found here: http://www.skymaps.com/downloads.html
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
Astronomically speaking, the beginning of summer brings long days and short nights. Here on Earth, summer tends to bring fantastic weather and clear skies. Though you’ll have to stay up late in order to see them, summer constellations offer a rich number of targets for naked-eye, binocular, or telescopic viewing.
observing targets. Facing south, the Summer Triangle will appear as a large, nearly right triangle defined by the three brightest stars in view. The Summer Triangle contains the alpha stars of three different constellations: Vega in Lyra, Deneb in Cygnus, and Altair in Aquila. This area of the sky is particularly rich since it lies in the plane of the Milky Way. A quick glance through a telescope will uncover dense star fields and gas clouds, such as the Ring Nebula in Lyra. The Summer Triangle also marks the location of the Kepler target stars between Vega and Deneb.
Deneb is the faintest of the trio and is the tail of Cygnus, which is a cross-shaped constellation representing a swan flying roughly to the south. At the head of the swan, nearly halfway between Vega and Altair is a binary star called Alberio. With a telescope, the two stars making up the system can be easily resolved. Albireo is a particularly special binary system because the two stars that make it up are two different colors!
Later in the night, the constellations Pegasus and Andromeda rise in the east. Pegasus contains the “great square” located just east of Cygnus’s wingtip. The constellation Andromeda shares a star with the northernmost corner of the great square. The nearest large galaxy, the Andromeda galaxy is located in this constellation. In especially dark conditions, it can be seen with the naked eye as a fuzzy blob, but in cities and suburbs, it is accessible with binoculars or a small telescope.
Circumpolar constellations are visible throughout the year, but the clear skies of summer can give an observer a great chance to view them as well. Depending on your latitude, the number of circumpolar constellations vary. The closer you are to the poles, the more you will see. However, for the United States and Europe, both the Big and Little Dippers can be seen all night and all year long.
The brighter, Big Dipper can also be used as a guide to find other interesting observing targets. Within the Big Dipper itself, another multiple star system can be seen. With good eyes and a dark sky, the second star in the “handle” of the Big Dipper reveals itself as two stars, called Alcor and Mizar! The system is actually composed of six different stars. Mizar, the brighter, is a quadruple binary system, and Alcor is itself a two-star system. Though a small telescope and binoculars won’t reveal all six stars, they will help you get a better view of the double.
The last two stars of the Big Dipper’s “scoop” point towards the North Star, Polaris, in the Little Dipper. This constellation is fainter, but it is important for navigation. Not only does the star indicate the direction of north, but its elevation from the horizon indicates your latitude. If you travel further north, the Polaris will rise higher and higher in the sky. In the early summer, following the arc of the handle of the Big Dipper allows you to “arc to Arcturus” and find a red giant star in the constellation Bootes. After that, continue to follow the arc and “speed on to Spica,” a blue giant star in Virgo. Other circumpolar constellations visible near the Dippers include Cassiopea, the M or W, and Draco, a faint constellation that snakes its way between the two Dippers and ends near the familiar bright summer star Vega.
As summer comes, take the opportunity provided by clear nights and the end of school to learn some new constellations or telescopic targets. Besides the objects mentioned here, other great telescope and binocular targets are the Messier Objects, a catalogue of galaxies, nebulae, and clusters; or any planets that are visible. Be sure to find a star chart to help you get an accurate picture of what the skies look like at your latitude. Using a red flashlight will help you while working in the dark, but won’t ruin your night vision. Most of all, have fun exploring the night sky!
Printable star charts can be found here: http://www.skymaps.com/downloads.html
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
Friday, June 7, 2013
LiveChat Round Up 6/6/2013
By Jim Gerard, NASA INSPIRE Education Specialist, KSC, FL
Last night's chat with Paulo Younce, a robotics engineer at the Jet Propulsion laboratory in California, gave great insight in to new typrs of robots being planned for future missions. Highlighting Curiosity, Paulo gave a good rundown of the science that has been accomplished in the short time since landing on Mars. He also gave some great tips on how to prepare for a career in robotics.
Because of bandwidth limitations during our chat, we were unable to present the three video clips that went along with the presentation. I've posted these below. If you were not at the chat, look it up in the chat archive to learn more about these robots.
First is the Lemur robot, which can climb a wall or cliff.
Next, is a spider type that may oneday maintain a space telescope mirror.
And finally, a jumping robot. Wait for it....
Next week we hear about Life on Exo-Planets, a prerequisite chat if you are taking the Life On Other Planets VSE. But it is open for everyone one who is interested, whether you are in the VSE or not! So come and have a great time in the INSPIRE Cafe, open at 6pm and then stay for the chat at 8pm (all Central Time).
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
Last night's chat with Paulo Younce, a robotics engineer at the Jet Propulsion laboratory in California, gave great insight in to new typrs of robots being planned for future missions. Highlighting Curiosity, Paulo gave a good rundown of the science that has been accomplished in the short time since landing on Mars. He also gave some great tips on how to prepare for a career in robotics.
Because of bandwidth limitations during our chat, we were unable to present the three video clips that went along with the presentation. I've posted these below. If you were not at the chat, look it up in the chat archive to learn more about these robots.
First is the Lemur robot, which can climb a wall or cliff.
Next, is a spider type that may oneday maintain a space telescope mirror.
And finally, a jumping robot. Wait for it....
Next week we hear about Life on Exo-Planets, a prerequisite chat if you are taking the Life On Other Planets VSE. But it is open for everyone one who is interested, whether you are in the VSE or not! So come and have a great time in the INSPIRE Cafe, open at 6pm and then stay for the chat at 8pm (all Central Time).
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
Monday, June 3, 2013
LEO Progress: RS-25 Adaptation
By William Greene, MSFC, AL
I love dictionaries (yes, I know, you're shocked; shocked!). I have several at home and at work including a two-volume abridged Oxford English Dictionary (OED) that was a wonderful gift from my mother several years ago.
The definitions and word origin above comes from the OED on-line site. Embedded within our language is so much condensed history and accumulated knowledge that it's amazing. While I have no doubt that this is true of every language, I only know my own to any significant degree. Indeed, I've been babbling my own language for a long time now -- forty-some years -- but I can always pick up a dictionary and learn something new with just the flick of a page or two. You really can't say that about too many other things.
As the title for the article and the definitions above suggest, for this article we're going to talk about "adaptation," specifically about adaptation of the RS-25 engine. As part of the Space Launch System Program, we are undertaking something a bit unusual for the world of rocket engines. We are taking engines designed for one vehicle and finding a way to use them on another vehicle. Now, this is not a completely unique circumstance. The Soviets/Russians really were/are masters of this kind of thing. But for us, it is not something that we do very often. In terms of the big NASA program rocket engines, I can only think of the RL10 that was originally part of the Saturn I vehicle as an engine design that has had a long second and even third career on other vehicle systems. The truth is that engines and vehicles are, for us, generally a matched set and the reason is that we just don't frequently enough build that many of either. Note that, technically speaking, we are also adapting the J-2X from a previous program, Constellation/Ares, but that's obviously a bit different in scope and scale given where we are in the development cycle.
The name "RS-25" is, as I've mentioned in past articles, the generic name for the engine that everyone has known for years as the "SSME," i.e., the Space Shuttle Main Engine. There is much to talk about the RS-25. Lots and lots of stuff. More stuff that I could possibly fit into a single article. Here are just some of the RS-25 topics that we'll have to defer to future articles:
• History and evolution
• A tour of the schematic
• Engine control, performance, and capabilities
For this article, I want to just talk about the scope of work that will be necessary to adapt RS-25 to suit the Space Launch System Program.
Clear Communication
The most significant thing that has to be done to the RS-25 to make suitable for the new program is that it has to be able to respond to and talk to vehicle. Remember, the Space Shuttle was developed in the 1970s and first flown in the 1980s. Yes, many things were updated over the years, but given the lightning-fast speed of computer evolution and development, it is not surprising that what RS-25 is carrying around a controller basically can't communicate with the system being developed today for the SLS vehicle. The SLS vehicle would say, "Commence purge sequence three," and the engine would respond, "Like, hey dude, no duh, take a chill pill" and then do nothing (my lame imitation of 1980s slang as best I remember it).
But here are the neato things that we'll be able to do: We can use almost all of the work now completed on the J-2X engine controller hardware to inform the new RS-25 controller and we can use the exact same basic software algorithms from the SSME. Because the RS-25 has a different control scheme from the J-2X, we cannot use the exact controller unit design from J-2X, but we can use a lot of what we've learned over the past few years. And, because we can directly port over the basic control algorithms, we don't have to re-validate these vital pieces from the ground up. We just have to validate their operation within the new controller. That's a huge savings.
This is work that is happening right now, as I'm typing. Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, the RS-25 developer and manufacturer, is working together with Honeywell International, the electronic controller developer, on this activity. Within the next couple of months, they will have progressed beyond the point of the critical design review for both the hardware and software.
In the long term, it is our hope that we will evolve to the utopian plain of having one universal engine controller, a "common engine controller," that can be easily fitted to any engine, past, present, or future. Such a vision has in mind a standardization of methods and architecture such that we could largely minimize controller development efforts in the future to the accommodation of obsolescence issues. The simple truth is that development work is always expensive. It would be nice to avoid as much as that cost as possible. With the new RS-25 controller, we're getting pretty close to that kind of situation.
Under Pressure
Have you ever spent much time thinking about water towers? As in, for instance, why are they
towers in the first place? As you might have guessed, this is something that I wondered about many years ago as a pre-engineering spud. They seemed to be an awfully silly thing to build when you could just turn on the faucet and have water spurt out whenever you want. Ah, the wonderful simplicity of childhood logic: Things work just because they do and every day is Saturday.
The reason that you go to the trouble of sticking water way up in a tower is so that you have a reliable source of water pressure that can absorb the varying demands on the overall system. In the background, you can have a little pump going "chug, chug, chug" twenty-four hours per day pushing water all of the way up there, but by having this large, reserve quantity always in the tower, the system can respond with sufficient pressure when, at six in the morning, everyone in town happens to turn on the shower at the same time to start their day. The pressure comes from the elevation of tower, the height of the column of water from top to bottom.
On the Space Launch System vehicle we have something of a water tower situation except that, in this case, we're dealing with liquid oxygen. In the picture below, you can see roughly scaled images of the Space Shuttle and the Block 2 Space Launch System vehicle. On both of these vehicles, the liquid oxygen tank is above the liquid hydrogen tank. This means that for the very tall SLS vehicle, the top of oxygen tank is approximately fifty feet higher relative to the inlet to the engines (as illustrated). This additional fifty feet of elevation translates to more pressure at the bottom just as if it were a taller water tower. However, in this case liquid oxygen is heavier than water (meaning more pressure) and the SLS vehicle will be flying, sometimes, at accelerations much higher than a water tower sitting still in the Earth's gravitational field. Greater acceleration also amplifies the pressure seen by the engines at the bottom of the rocket.
"So what?" you're saying to yourself as you read this. After all, higher pressure is a good thing, right? If you have more pressure at the inlet to the engine, then you don't need as much pumping power. So, life should be easier for the engines with this longer, taller configuration. There are two reasons why this is not quite the case.
First, think about when the vehicle is sitting on the pad at the point of engine start. The pumps aren't spinning so all the pressure you're dealing with is coming from the propellant feed system. And now, simply, for the SLS vehicle it will be different than before. One of the tricky things about a staged-combustion engine, in general, is that the start sequence (i.e., the sequence of opening valves, igniting combustion, getting turbopumps spun up) is touchy. Given that the RS-25 has two separate pre-burners -- and therefore three separate combustion zones -- and four separate turbopumps, the RS-25 start sequence especially touchy. You have to maintain a very careful balance of combustion mixture ratios that allow things to light robustly, but not too hot, and a careful balance of pressures throughout the system so as to keep the flow headed in the right direction and keep the slow build to full power level as smooth as possible. We have an RS-25 start sequence that works for Space Shuttle. Now, for the SLS vehicle, we will have to modify it to adapt to these new conditions.
The second issue to overcome with regards to the longer vehicle configuration and the liquid oxygen inlet conditions is due total range of pressures that the engines have to accommodate. When sitting on the launch pad, you have the pressure generated by the acceleration of gravity. During flight, as you're burning up and expelling propellants, the vehicle is getting lighter and lighter and you're accelerating faster and faster, you can reach the equivalent of three or four times the acceleration of gravity. So that's the top end pressure.
On the low end, you have the effect of when the boosters burn out and are ejected at approximately two minutes into flight. When this happens, the acceleration of the vehicle usually becomes less than the acceleration of gravity meaning that the propellant pressure at the bottom of the column of liquid oxygen can get pretty low. Momentarily, the vehicle seems to hang, almost seemingly falling, despite the fact that the RS-25 engines continue to fire. Pretty quickly, however, the process of picking up acceleration begins again. (In the movie Apollo 13, they illustrated a similar effect with the separation of the first and second stages of Saturn V. The astronauts are pushed back in their seats by the acceleration until, boom, first stage shutdown and separation happens and they're effectively thrown forward. With the Space Shuttle and the SLS vehicle, however, the return to acceleration is not as abrupt as it was on Saturn V where they show the astronauts slammed back into their seats with the lighting of the second stage.) The point is that the RS-25 has to accommodate a very wide range of inlet pressures while maintaining a set thrust level and engine mixture ratio. While this has always been the case for the SSME/RS-25, the longer SLS vehicle configuration simply exacerbates the situation.
You'll note that I've not talked about the liquid hydrogen here. That's because, as I've mentioned in the past, liquid hydrogen is very, very light. Think of fat-free, artificial whipped cream. Yes, the top of the hydrogen tank is much higher, but due to the lightness of the liquid, it doesn't make much difference at the engine inlet even when the vehicle is accelerating at several times the acceleration of gravity.
Some Like it...Insulated
Look again at the pictorial comparison of the Space Shuttle and the Space Launch System vehicles shown above. Do you see where the SSME/RS-25 engines are relative to the big boosters on the sides of the vehicles? On the Space Shuttle, the engines were on the Orbiter and they were forward of the booster nozzles. On the SLS vehicle, there is no Orbiter so the engines are right on the bottom of the tanks and their exit planes line up with the booster nozzle exit planes. In short, the engines are now closer to those great big, loud, powerful, and HOT boosters. We are in the process now of determining whether this poses any thermal environments issues for the RS-25. Thus far, based upon analyses to date, there do not appear to be any thermal issues that cannot be obviated through the judicious use of insulation.
Other environments also have to be checked such as the dynamic loads transmitted to the engine through the vehicle or the acoustic loads or whatever else is different for this vehicle. The point is not that all of these environments are necessarily worse than what they were on the Space Shuttle. It is only that they all need to be checked to make sure that our previous certification of the engine is still valid for all of these considerations.
The Tropic of Exploration
So those are the three most obvious and primary pieces of the RS-25 adaptation puzzle: a new engine controller, dealing with different propellant inlet conditions, and understanding the new vehicle and mission environments. Each of these pieces carries with it analysis and testing and the appropriate documentation so there is plenty of work scope to accomplish. We are extremely lucky to be starting with an engine of such extraordinary pedigree, performance, and flexibility.
Henry Miller once said, "Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring." It is our intent to prove Mr. Miller wrong in this case. We will make progress by using the adaptation of RS-25 to enable the daring of our exploration mission.
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
I love dictionaries (yes, I know, you're shocked; shocked!). I have several at home and at work including a two-volume abridged Oxford English Dictionary (OED) that was a wonderful gift from my mother several years ago.
The definitions and word origin above comes from the OED on-line site. Embedded within our language is so much condensed history and accumulated knowledge that it's amazing. While I have no doubt that this is true of every language, I only know my own to any significant degree. Indeed, I've been babbling my own language for a long time now -- forty-some years -- but I can always pick up a dictionary and learn something new with just the flick of a page or two. You really can't say that about too many other things.
As the title for the article and the definitions above suggest, for this article we're going to talk about "adaptation," specifically about adaptation of the RS-25 engine. As part of the Space Launch System Program, we are undertaking something a bit unusual for the world of rocket engines. We are taking engines designed for one vehicle and finding a way to use them on another vehicle. Now, this is not a completely unique circumstance. The Soviets/Russians really were/are masters of this kind of thing. But for us, it is not something that we do very often. In terms of the big NASA program rocket engines, I can only think of the RL10 that was originally part of the Saturn I vehicle as an engine design that has had a long second and even third career on other vehicle systems. The truth is that engines and vehicles are, for us, generally a matched set and the reason is that we just don't frequently enough build that many of either. Note that, technically speaking, we are also adapting the J-2X from a previous program, Constellation/Ares, but that's obviously a bit different in scope and scale given where we are in the development cycle.
• History and evolution
• A tour of the schematic
• Engine control, performance, and capabilities
For this article, I want to just talk about the scope of work that will be necessary to adapt RS-25 to suit the Space Launch System Program.
Clear Communication
The most significant thing that has to be done to the RS-25 to make suitable for the new program is that it has to be able to respond to and talk to vehicle. Remember, the Space Shuttle was developed in the 1970s and first flown in the 1980s. Yes, many things were updated over the years, but given the lightning-fast speed of computer evolution and development, it is not surprising that what RS-25 is carrying around a controller basically can't communicate with the system being developed today for the SLS vehicle. The SLS vehicle would say, "Commence purge sequence three," and the engine would respond, "Like, hey dude, no duh, take a chill pill" and then do nothing (my lame imitation of 1980s slang as best I remember it).
This is work that is happening right now, as I'm typing. Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, the RS-25 developer and manufacturer, is working together with Honeywell International, the electronic controller developer, on this activity. Within the next couple of months, they will have progressed beyond the point of the critical design review for both the hardware and software.
In the long term, it is our hope that we will evolve to the utopian plain of having one universal engine controller, a "common engine controller," that can be easily fitted to any engine, past, present, or future. Such a vision has in mind a standardization of methods and architecture such that we could largely minimize controller development efforts in the future to the accommodation of obsolescence issues. The simple truth is that development work is always expensive. It would be nice to avoid as much as that cost as possible. With the new RS-25 controller, we're getting pretty close to that kind of situation.
Under Pressure
Have you ever spent much time thinking about water towers? As in, for instance, why are they
The reason that you go to the trouble of sticking water way up in a tower is so that you have a reliable source of water pressure that can absorb the varying demands on the overall system. In the background, you can have a little pump going "chug, chug, chug" twenty-four hours per day pushing water all of the way up there, but by having this large, reserve quantity always in the tower, the system can respond with sufficient pressure when, at six in the morning, everyone in town happens to turn on the shower at the same time to start their day. The pressure comes from the elevation of tower, the height of the column of water from top to bottom.
On the Space Launch System vehicle we have something of a water tower situation except that, in this case, we're dealing with liquid oxygen. In the picture below, you can see roughly scaled images of the Space Shuttle and the Block 2 Space Launch System vehicle. On both of these vehicles, the liquid oxygen tank is above the liquid hydrogen tank. This means that for the very tall SLS vehicle, the top of oxygen tank is approximately fifty feet higher relative to the inlet to the engines (as illustrated). This additional fifty feet of elevation translates to more pressure at the bottom just as if it were a taller water tower. However, in this case liquid oxygen is heavier than water (meaning more pressure) and the SLS vehicle will be flying, sometimes, at accelerations much higher than a water tower sitting still in the Earth's gravitational field. Greater acceleration also amplifies the pressure seen by the engines at the bottom of the rocket.
"So what?" you're saying to yourself as you read this. After all, higher pressure is a good thing, right? If you have more pressure at the inlet to the engine, then you don't need as much pumping power. So, life should be easier for the engines with this longer, taller configuration. There are two reasons why this is not quite the case.
First, think about when the vehicle is sitting on the pad at the point of engine start. The pumps aren't spinning so all the pressure you're dealing with is coming from the propellant feed system. And now, simply, for the SLS vehicle it will be different than before. One of the tricky things about a staged-combustion engine, in general, is that the start sequence (i.e., the sequence of opening valves, igniting combustion, getting turbopumps spun up) is touchy. Given that the RS-25 has two separate pre-burners -- and therefore three separate combustion zones -- and four separate turbopumps, the RS-25 start sequence especially touchy. You have to maintain a very careful balance of combustion mixture ratios that allow things to light robustly, but not too hot, and a careful balance of pressures throughout the system so as to keep the flow headed in the right direction and keep the slow build to full power level as smooth as possible. We have an RS-25 start sequence that works for Space Shuttle. Now, for the SLS vehicle, we will have to modify it to adapt to these new conditions.
The second issue to overcome with regards to the longer vehicle configuration and the liquid oxygen inlet conditions is due total range of pressures that the engines have to accommodate. When sitting on the launch pad, you have the pressure generated by the acceleration of gravity. During flight, as you're burning up and expelling propellants, the vehicle is getting lighter and lighter and you're accelerating faster and faster, you can reach the equivalent of three or four times the acceleration of gravity. So that's the top end pressure.
On the low end, you have the effect of when the boosters burn out and are ejected at approximately two minutes into flight. When this happens, the acceleration of the vehicle usually becomes less than the acceleration of gravity meaning that the propellant pressure at the bottom of the column of liquid oxygen can get pretty low. Momentarily, the vehicle seems to hang, almost seemingly falling, despite the fact that the RS-25 engines continue to fire. Pretty quickly, however, the process of picking up acceleration begins again. (In the movie Apollo 13, they illustrated a similar effect with the separation of the first and second stages of Saturn V. The astronauts are pushed back in their seats by the acceleration until, boom, first stage shutdown and separation happens and they're effectively thrown forward. With the Space Shuttle and the SLS vehicle, however, the return to acceleration is not as abrupt as it was on Saturn V where they show the astronauts slammed back into their seats with the lighting of the second stage.) The point is that the RS-25 has to accommodate a very wide range of inlet pressures while maintaining a set thrust level and engine mixture ratio. While this has always been the case for the SSME/RS-25, the longer SLS vehicle configuration simply exacerbates the situation.
You'll note that I've not talked about the liquid hydrogen here. That's because, as I've mentioned in the past, liquid hydrogen is very, very light. Think of fat-free, artificial whipped cream. Yes, the top of the hydrogen tank is much higher, but due to the lightness of the liquid, it doesn't make much difference at the engine inlet even when the vehicle is accelerating at several times the acceleration of gravity.
Some Like it...Insulated
Look again at the pictorial comparison of the Space Shuttle and the Space Launch System vehicles shown above. Do you see where the SSME/RS-25 engines are relative to the big boosters on the sides of the vehicles? On the Space Shuttle, the engines were on the Orbiter and they were forward of the booster nozzles. On the SLS vehicle, there is no Orbiter so the engines are right on the bottom of the tanks and their exit planes line up with the booster nozzle exit planes. In short, the engines are now closer to those great big, loud, powerful, and HOT boosters. We are in the process now of determining whether this poses any thermal environments issues for the RS-25. Thus far, based upon analyses to date, there do not appear to be any thermal issues that cannot be obviated through the judicious use of insulation.
The Tropic of Exploration
So those are the three most obvious and primary pieces of the RS-25 adaptation puzzle: a new engine controller, dealing with different propellant inlet conditions, and understanding the new vehicle and mission environments. Each of these pieces carries with it analysis and testing and the appropriate documentation so there is plenty of work scope to accomplish. We are extremely lucky to be starting with an engine of such extraordinary pedigree, performance, and flexibility.
Henry Miller once said, "Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring." It is our intent to prove Mr. Miller wrong in this case. We will make progress by using the adaptation of RS-25 to enable the daring of our exploration mission.
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