Space Coffee

It's amazing how much physics and engineering go into just getting the ISS occupants to have their cup of Joe while on board the space station.



They should just open a Starbucks franchise up there. It would have been easier!

Zz.

"The Milky Way is Not Just a Refrigerator Magnet"

This is a nice video from NASA on the mapping of the magnetic fields of our galaxy. So not only do we have our Earth's own magnetic field, but there are larger scale magnetic fields generated by the sun and the galaxy.



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Starting Fire In Water

The ISS might be useful after all, in addition to having the AMS. From this video, you get to at least learn about some of the properties of supercritical water.



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Genius Materials on the ISS

Advances in material science on the International Space Station.



Pay attention, kids. These are physics applications that have direct impacts on your lives. You are using, at this very moment, things that were first studied as part of physics/material science.

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Mission Seeks Lunar Air

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The Sun's Magnetic Field is About to Flip

Our sun's magnetic field is about to flip. But don't panic, this happens pretty often, roughly once every 11 years or so.



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Zero Gravity Coffee Cup

This video is more about fluid mechanics in microgravity, but hey, coffee is important too, even in space! :)



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Opportunity's Improbable Anniversary

Happy 10th Anniversary, Opportunity! This is am amazing rover that could!



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Flames In Microgravity

This is actually an interesting video on the physics of flames, and the physics of flames in microgravity. It shows a flame experiment on the International Space Station.



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Angry Birds At The Kennedy Space Center

You know it was bound to happen. When Angry Birds went into space, all the signs pointed to it partnering with NASA to come up with some educational tie-in. So now it has happened.

At NASA's invitation, the online game birds are roosting at Kennedy Space Center for the next 1 1/2 years in an effort to lure youngsters to the cosmic wonders of math and science.

The huge interactive exhibit opened March 22 and immediately packed in the kids, including this reporter's 7-year-old son, who couldn't get enough of the mirrored maze and design-your-own Angry Bird and play-the-game stations.

Too bad they didn't have this when I was there last December. Maybe I'll make it back there some time soon before the exhibit goes away.

Zz.

RToBad

Too eTooad 

Tooor

e here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/03/27/4733211/space-centers-angry-birds-exhibit.html#storylink=cpy

Video of the Launch Control Center

A while back I posted photos of my visit to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. I mentioned in that trip report of the rare visit to the Launch Control Center (or Firing Room), which is normally not opened to most people, much less, the public.

I've put raw video footage of that visit to the LCC on YouTube in case anyone wants to take a look at it. I've done no editing of any kind to it (thus the "raw" description). You'll get to hear a little bit from the tour guide in the background in some shots, but other than that, there's no narration.



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Is There Poop On The Moon?

I swear, those people at Minute Physics must have heard that I visited the Kennedy Space Center last week! How else do you explain this uncanny timing of them producing this video? :)



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NASA T-Shirt

Yesterday, I posted my trip report to NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Of course, as a tourist, I had to buy something. While there were a few things I would like to get, this one t-shirt caught my eye, and it will probably confirmed to everyone what I nerd I am. Still, at least it is not one of those t-shirts that had Maxwell Equations on it that I have seen way too many times.

This is the front of the shirt.

Here's a closer look at the equations if it isn't clear from that picture:

It's too bad that they had to put all those "x" to indicate a product, which isn't what we normally do when writing such equations, and it also creates a bit of a mess.

Still, I found the t-shirt a bit amusing and had to buy it. I haven't worn it yet (it is winter up here in Chicagoland). The question is, can you identify what each of these equations mean or are supposed to represent?

The back of the shirt has a print of the answer, but I'll hold off in showing that till you had your fun! :)

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Kennedy Space Center

If you've followed this blog recently, you'll noticed that I missed a stretch of about 10 days with no posting. I was on vacation.

Still, my vacation had a "physics" component to it. As one of my stops, I visited the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. I've never been to this place before, even though I've always wanted to go there especially during the Shuttle era. However, I never made it there till now, which I later found out, has its advantages. I will explain why that is so when we get to that point.

So this is the entrance to the visitor center. As you can see, there are constructions on new facilities that they are building to expand and enhance the visitor center.

We made it to what I jokingly called the rocket graveyard. These cover the history of rocket propulsion that led to NASA sending satellites and manned space craft into space.

They had the bridge that used to connect the launch structure to the space module. So this is what the Apollo astronauts saw when they are walking into the capsule right before launch.

Here's what one of the capsules looks like. Man, was it tight!

I spent a bit of time looking around more of the visit center, but then took a tour that I signed up months ago. This is not your ordinary tour that they have running almost all day at the Space Center. This was a tour of the Launch Control Center. It appears that they started giving this tour about 2 months ago, and supposedly, they have not received any indication right now if it will go on after the New Year. This tour is only done once a day, and limited to less than 25 persons per tour. We were also not permitted to bring anything that we could not carry all the time, i.e. we were not allowed to put things down on the floor and walk away. This was beside the fact that we will be having 2 security escorts while in the building.

Now this is where coming here after the Shuttles had been retired was a plus. It turns out that they had never given the public access to the Launch Control Center (or what they refer to as the Firing Room) till now. In fact, most people working at the Kennedy Space Center have never been allowed to be in such a room. The reason why they are doing it now is because there are no more Shuttle launches. However, the room is still "operational", and it will be modified for NASA next program. That was the reason for all the restrictions and security.

Well, enough of that. Here are pictures that I took of the LCC. We arrived at the building and this was the lobby.

They have a few things on display in the lobby, including a very old console that, I think, was used during the Apollo program.

But what drew my eyes more was this wall of plaques of all the space launches that were done out of this building.

This includes the Apollo 11 mission,

and the first mission of the Space Shuttle

Each of the plaque had a launch date and the date it landed. However, two of the shuttle mission didn't have a "Landed" date, and those of course corresponded to the two tragic shuttle accidents.

If you look closely at where the "Landed" tag should have been, you'll notice that the wall showed a bit more wear than usual. It turns out that NASA employees rub their fingers at these locations when they walked pass them as a sign that these astronauts are always in their thoughts.

We were then taken into an elevator up to the LCC. I don't quite remember seeing the firing room on TV (I'm more familiar with the Command Center in Houston). But it was still an impressive room, and we got to see it from various locations.

This was the view out of the window from the LCC. You can see the shuttle launch pad in the distance, and also the 2-lane gravel path that the crawler took from the shuttle assembly building to the launch pad.

After a long visit to the LCC building, we then got back on our bus and got a tour of the grounds. First off is the shuttle launch pad. I can only imagine what it would look like if the shuttle is all set and primed to go. Of course, I've seen it on TV, but I'm sure it would have been significantly more impressive in person. I would love to know more about their cryogenic systems to produce all those liquid hydrogen and oxygen.

We were then driven around a new launch pad that they are building for the Orion program (did they get full funding for this? I must have missed it). Our tour guide was continually gushing over this to emphasize that NASA is not dead, and that the space program is back in operation and "we are back in business".

We also drove by the crawler, which is now sitting outdoors. If you don't know this, the crawler was the vehicle that brought the upright Space Shuttle (i.e. the orbiter, the external rocket, and the solid rocket boosters) from the assembly building to the launch pad. It literally crawled at about 1 mile per hour. While this may not have been that different than watching grass grows, I wouldn't have minded to see that either!

Our last stop was the Apollo experience. We were dropped off at a building and entered a room that simulated the firing of an Apollo rocket. The equipment in the room was authentic, and the audio and simulate was incredible because one could hear the windows rattled during take off.

After that bone-jarring presentation, we were led into a huge building that housed the Apollo/Saturn V rocket. This was quite impressive. The Saturn V booster rocket alone is HUGE. Look at the 2nd picture that has human scale for you to compare.

We walked along the length of the rocket and saw various stages that separated at different times during launch.

A closer look at the Service Module and the Capsule.

This is the lunar lander, which was the only part of the vehicle that landed on the moon, and which a big part of it gets left behind.

This is the buggy that they used on the moon.

At the end of our visit, on the way out, we saw the construction of a building to house one of the Space Shuttle orbiter. This new attraction will open some time next year. So maybe this is a good reason to come back for another visit.

It was a wonderful experience. But being a physicist, I just wish that we had a tour guide familiar with the scientific/technical aspect of the program. As someone who is used to giving tours at our facilities, I'm always prepared to answer such questions, because you just never know if you get scientists in your audience. And I've had that a few times where physicists or engineers in the tour group started asking more "difficult" or more detailed questions. I supposed one has to know someone working there to be able to get a more personalized tour that will answer a more technical question.

So now you know a little bit of what I did on my last vacation! :)

Zz.

NASA Uses "Angry Birds - Space" To Teacy Microgravity

Hey, why not?

NASA is making use of the crazy popularity of Angry Birds - Space to teach about microgravity.

Angry Birds Space has provided NASA an opportunity to share a core concept of space exploration: gravity. Not only does gravity play a vital role in the game but, in general, gravity is a force that governs motion throughout the universe. It holds us to the ground, and it keeps the moon in orbit around Earth and Earth around the sun. The nature of gravity was first described by Sir Isaac Newton more than 300 years ago. Now three centuries later and more than 200 miles above our home planet on the International Space Station, astronaut Don Pettit shares the thrill of concepts like gravity and trajectories with some help from Red Bird.

 You may view the video of Don Pettit at the link above or directly below.



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Results From Gravity Probe B

I mentioned earlier about the recent report out of Gravity Probe B that confirms one of the predictions of Einstein's General Relativity. In fact, a commenter questioned the validity of the result when it was announced to the public, rather than "waiting" for the publication of the work. Whatever, considering that the news reports were based on a manuscript that had already been accepted for publication.

Well, here is the paper in full glory, published in Phys. Rev. Lett., no less! A commentary by Clifford Will includes a link for a FREE DOWNLOAD of the paper.

Enjoy!

BTW, especially to those who often thinks that physicists only tries to stick to upholding current understandings, read the last paragraph of Will's article:

Even though it is popular lore that Einstein was right (I even wrote a book on the subject), no such book is ever completely closed in science. As we have seen with the 1998 discovery that the universe is accelerating, measuring an effect contrary to established dogma can open the door to a whole new world of understanding, as well as of mystery. The precession of a gyroscope in the gravitation field of a rotating body had never been measured before GP-B. While the results support Einstein, this didn’t have to be the case. Physicists will never cease testing their basic theories, out of curiosity that new physics could exist beyond the “accepted” picture.

This is very much in-line with what I said earlier. It is also the reason why, for many physicists, not finding the Higgs would be even more exciting than finding it.

So there!

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Goodnight, Goodbye, And Thank You, Spirit

NASA has terminated all attempts at contacting the Spirit Rover on Mars after the latest unsuccessful attempts.

This is not like calling off the search for a missing human explorer. And yet it feels similar, even though Spirit is a six-wheeled robotic vehicle, not even remotely human in appearance, even by Wall-E standards. Still, it is strangely easy to personify Spirit. Over the years, it has seemed intrepid, valiant, determined. It has no consciousness, but there has been something self-knowing in the photographs it has taken of itself, with Mars in the background. In its plight — stuck on the edge of a small crater tens of millions of miles from Earth — we feel a celestial solitude, as if we were marooned there ourselves.

Check out the Spirit coming strip on the PhysicsWorld blog.

It was a rover that could, and performed way beyond all expectations. It is a testament to the ingenuity of those who designed, built, and operated it.

Zz.

AMS Attached To Space Station

Finally, after such a long wait, the ISS is now actually a useful scientific laboratory! The AMS has been successfully installed to the International Space Station.

The task was done over several hours in the middle of the night as astronauts used robotic arms from both the shuttle and the space station to lift the AMS out of the shuttle’s cargo bay then maneuver it into place and install it on the station. They were finished by 5:46 a.m. Eastern time.

The report also stated that it has already been "turned on", whatever that means. I'm sure there's a lot of diagnostic checks and calibration being done before actual data-taking.

Check out the AMS on-orbit images at the AMS homepage.

Zz.

Gravity Probe B Confirms Einstein's General Relativity

There are many news article on the latest report from Gravity Probe B stating how the results are consistent with predictions from Einstein's General Relativity (see here, here, and here). But the one I will highlight here is from Jennifer Ouellette who started out her article with ...

It's a sad day for physics crackpots bent on disproving relativity, because once again, it turns out that Einstein was right.

I love it!

Obviously, she had encountered, as I have, all of these sad creatures who continue to want to bash Einstein's Special and General Relativity.

Zz.

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer Is About To Fly

With a few days left before takeoff, space shuttle Endeavour's last flight will carry with it the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer that will, finally, turn the International Space Station into a scientifically-significant facility, rather than a glorious piece of orbiting "motel".

This news article highlights this upcoming event, but it started out all wrong.

Scientists believe anti-matter exists, and they said the alpha magnetic spectrometerhas been packed away in the space shuttle Endeavour in search for it.

Er... hello? We don't just believe that anti-matter exists. We KNOW they do, or else the Tevatron has been colliding imaginary particles, and PET scans is based on hypothetical ideas.

Providing evidence for the existence of antimatter is NOT what the AMS is for. It is a lot more subtle than that. The AMS webpage (link given earlier in this blog entry) should tell you what it is for. News article like this does a disservice because it makes it sound as if antimatter is still something unverified, and that "scientists" merely "believe" in its existence.

Zz.