Wednesday, September 30, 2015

UNDER THE SUN

Over the years my mom would save items that her little darling would do. :-)
As time passed they moved to a retirement home and when dad passed away she started cleaning out boxes and giving things to my brother, sister and me.

The other day Sangad (wife) was checking some old stacks of papers and pulled out a large manila envelope that had some graduation papers and this little story I must have written for the one year of college I attended right out of high school. 
(This was before the 26 years of active duty Navy that interrupted getting back to going to night school to finish up a college degree in computer science.)

All that sun out there and what to do with it?
- LRK -

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UNDER THE SUN
by
Larry R. Kellogg

May 4, 1957

B+


The scene is the living room of a ranch type house.
Two young men stand looking out a large picture window.
The desert sun beats down on the dry land that spreads out as far as the eye can see.
Tom is rather tall with dark brown hair and a lively air about him.
Jack is dark featured and a little shorter than Tom.
He is quiet and definitely bored with the surroundings.

Tom:  Look out there. What do you see?

Jack: Oh, just a lot of dried up sage brush.

Tom:  No! No! Look again. What do you see?

Jack: What do I see?  Nothing but desert, just desert for miles. Not a single thing.

Tom:  Look again.  Don't you see anything else?

Jack: Look again! Man that is all I have done since we got here.
         Looking out on all that barren land with the hot sun burning down.

Tom:  That's it. That's it.

Jack: What's it  You mean the hot sun burning down?  What about it?

         There is a pause as Tom thinks through what he is going to say.
          When he speaks it is in a little quieter tone.

Tom:  Do you know why we are here?

Jack: Sure, to work on some fool experiment for the government.
         Hijacked right out of my air-conditioned office to work on some crazy idea for Uncle Sam.

Tom:  Yes, but what was it that we are supposed to accomplish?

Jack:  Perfect some crazy gadget that is supposed to be able to change energy into any of its forms.

Tom:  Right!  Think of all the energy out there. Just burning down.

Jack: Do I have to?  I would much rather think of a little food.

Tom: Food!  Don't you see that if this gadget, as you call it, works we will be able to make anything, just from the energy out there.  
        Think man!

Jack: Do you mean I could just sit here and let that hot old sun make, prepare, and serve my dinner?  
         Then when I am through, clean up the whole works.

Tom:  Right!

Jack: Well what are we waiting for?  The sooner we get that thing working, the sooner it can feed me.

Tom:  I'm with you.

           As Tom and Jack exit, the sun seems to shine a little brighter.

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Well we have solar conversion for power and folks knocking on my door to use my roof for their solar cells but not quite what I had in mind.
- LRK -

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Riverside County, California, USA

The 550 megawatt (MW) Desert Sunlight Solar Farm is co-owned by NextEra Energy Resources, GE Energy Financial Services, and Sumitomo Corporation of America. The project is located on land managed by the Federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM), about six miles north of the community of Desert Center. Desert Sunlight provides enough energy to serve the needs of about 160,000 average California homes, displacing approximately 300,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year—the equivalent of taking about 60,000 cars off the road.
 
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This is more like it.  Something impossible to make and yet....
Now don't tell that bright kid you CAN'T MAKE A REPLICATOR.
Hmmm, unless maybe you want one of them to work on doing so.
- LRK -

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In Star Trek a replicator is a machine capable of creating (and recycling) objects. Replicators were originally seen used to synthesize meals on demand, but in later series they took on many other uses.

Although previous sci-fi writers had speculated about the development of "replicating" or "duplicating" technology,[1] the term "replicator" was not itself used untilStar Trek: The Next Generation. In simple terms, it was described as a 24th century advancement from the 23rd century "food synthesizer" seen in Star Trek: The Original Series. The mechanics of these devices were never clearly explained on that show. The subsequent prequel series, Star Trek: Enterprise, set in the 22nd century, featured a "protein resequencer" that could only "replicate certain foods," so an actual chef served on board who used "a hydroponic greenhouse" where fruits and vegetables were grown. Additionally, that ship had a "bio-matter resequencer" which was used to recycle waste product into usable material.[2]
According to an academic thesis: "The so-called 'replicators' can reconstitute matter and produce everything that is needed out of pure energy, no matter whether food, medicaments, or spare parts are required."[3] A replicator can create any inanimate matter, as long as the desired molecular structure is on file, but it cannot create antimatter, dilithium, latinum, or a living organism of any kind; in the case of living organisms, non-canon works such as the Star Trek: the Next Generation Technical Manual state that, though the replicators use a form of transporter technology, it's at such a low resolution that creating living tissue is a physical impossibility.
In its theory it seems to work similarly to a universal assembler.[citation needed]
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Not exactly energy directly to food, still ....
NASA and a Texas company are exploring the possibility of using a "3D printer" on deep space missions in a way where the "D" would stand for dining.

NASA has awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I contract to Systems and Materials Research Consultancy of Austin, Texas to study the feasibility of using additive manufacturing, better known as 3D printing, for making food in space. Systems and Materials Research Consultancy will conduct a study for the development of a 3D printed food system for long duration space missions. Phase I SBIR proposals are very early stage concepts that may or may not mature into actual systems. This food printing technology may result in a phase II study, which still will be several years from being tested on an actual space flight.
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Thanks for looking up with me.
- LRK -
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Planetary protection

So we think there is/can be liquid water on Mars.  
What next?  Drill! Drill! Drill!

And what should we be looking for?
Possible life forms?
Quantity, for use by future humans on Mars?

How sure would we be that what we might find is Martian and not from Earth?
And IF, IF there is life, do we invade and posses or leave alone forever?

Many questions to answer and often impatience. 

You can bake a spacecraft and feel that you have made it germ free.
Try that with a flaky, germ ridden human and we might send a mummy. :-)

Not easy questions to answer.

Will be interesting to see if planting a flag wins over concern about what we take to Mars.
Even if the microbe story about the camera that Apollo 12 brought back can be dismissed, it still makes for sound bytes.

Mars has an atmosphere that is more dense than the tenuous exosphere of the Moon and humans are dirty, dirty, dirty.
We best know what we are doing when we send the first astronauts to Mars.
Then again, we killed a lot of buffalo just because they held up the trains as the West was opened.

Food for thought.
- LRK -

PS: My mom wouldn't put in new wall to wall carpeting until we could eat a meal without dropping food on the floor.
She waited until my brother, sister, and myself grew up and left home. :-)
(then she put plastic runners everywhere)

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Planetary protection

History
The potential problem of lunar and planetary contamination was first raised at the International Astronautical Federation VIIth Congress in Rome in 1956.[4]
In 1958[5] the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) passed a resolution stating, “The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America urges that scientists plan lunar and planetary studies with great care and deep concern so that initial operations do not compromise and make impossible forever after critical scientific experiments.” This led to creation of the ad hoc Committee on Contamination by Extraterrestrial Exploration (CETEX), which met for a year and recommended that interplanetary spacecraft be sterilized, and stated, “The need for sterilization is only temporary. Mars and possibly Venus need to remain uncontaminated only until study by manned ships becomes possible”[6]
In 1959 planetary protection was transferred to the newly formed Committee on Space Research (COSPAR). COSPAR in 1964 issued Resolution 26
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affirms that the search for extraterrestrial life is an important objective of space research, that the planet of Mars may offer the only feasible opportunity to conduct this search during the foreseeable future, that contamination of this planet would make such a search far more difficult and possibly even prevent for all time an unequivocal result, that all practical steps should be taken to ensure that Mars be not biologically contaminated until such time as this search can have been satisfactorily carried out, and that cooperation in proper scheduling of experiments and use of adequate spacecraft sterilization techniques is required on the part of all deep space probe launching authorities to avoid such contamination.[7]
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Next Mars Rover's High-Tech Landing May Raise Contamination Risks
Jeremy Hsu, Astrobiology Magazine Contributor   |   September 05, 2011 08:00am ET

Earth microbes trying to make it to the planet Mars must survive sterilization in NASA's clean rooms, harsh cosmic rays during months of space travel and the Red Planet's unforgiving surface environment.
But any bacteria that successfully hitchhike aboard the wheels of NASA'sMars rover Curiosity in 2012 might manage to scratch out a brief existence on the Martian surface.
That finding comes from a study that examined how the new high-tech landing technique of Curiosity, the centerpiece of NASA's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission, may affect the risk of contaminating Mars.
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NASA's Mars Rover Curiosity Had Planetary Protection Slip-Up
by Leonard David, Space.com's Space Insider Columnist   |   November 30, 2011 05:26pm ET

All NASA spacecraft sent to other planets must undergo meticulous procedures to make sure they don't carry biological contamination from Earth to their destinations.
However, a step in these planetary protection measures wasn't adhered to for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity, now en route to the Red Planet, SPACE.com has learned.
The incident has become a lessons-learned example of miscommunication in assuring that planetary protection procedures are strictly adhered to.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty
Outer Space Treaty

The Outer Space Treaty, formally the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, is atreaty that forms the basis of international space law. The treaty was opened for signature in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union on 27 January 1967, and entered into force on 10 October 1967. As of May 2013, 103 countries are parties to the treaty, while another 26 have signed the treaty but have not completed ratification.[1] In addition, the Republic of China (Taiwan), which is currently only recognized by 21 UN member states, ratified the treaty prior to the United Nations General Assembly's vote to transfer China's seat to the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1971.[2]
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Thanks for looking up with me.
- LRK -
============================================
WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -
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Monday, September 28, 2015

NASA Confirms Evidence That Liquid Water Flows on Today’s Mars

MRO has been going around Mars for a number of years and sending back a lot of data.  
Then the fun comes and the data gets analyzed.
The result is seen on the 6 o'clock news, there seems to be water on Mars.

FOLLOW THE WATER 
http://marsmobile.jpl.nasa.gov/programmissions/overview/
Next -- knock knock, who's there?
- LRK -
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https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-confirms-evidence-that-liquid-water-flows-on-today-s-mars
NASA Confirms Evidence That Liquid Water Flows on Today’s Mars
Sept 28, 2015  
Release 15-195

recurring slope lineae
These dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks called recurring slope lineae flowing downhill on Mars are inferred to have been formed by contemporary flowing water. Recently, planetary scientists detected hydrated salts on these slopes at Hale crater, corroborating their original hypothesis that the streaks are indeed formed by liquid water. The blue color seen upslope of the dark streaks are thought not to be related to their formation, but instead are from the presence of the mineral pyroxene. The image is produced by draping an orthorectified (Infrared-Red-Blue/Green(IRB)) false color image (ESP_030570_1440) on a Digital Terrain Model (DTM) of the same site produced by High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (University of Arizona). Vertical exaggeration is 1.5.
Credits: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
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As posted on JPL website.
Some YouTube videos
- LRK -

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http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4722
NASA Confirms Evidence That Liquid Water Flows on Today's Mars
NEWS | SEPTEMBER 28, 2015

New findings from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) provide the strongest evidence yet that liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars.

Using an imaging spectrometer on MRO, researchers detected signatures of hydrated minerals on slopes where mysterious streaks are seen on the Red Planet. These darkish streaks appear to ebb and flow over time. They darken and appear to flow down steep slopes during warm seasons, and then fade in cooler seasons. They appear in several locations on Mars when temperatures are above minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23 Celsius), and disappear at colder times.
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The MRO website with more about the orbiter and instruments.
- LRK -

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http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/main/index.html
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Images and links to more information. - LRK -
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/mission/index.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/news/mro-20081211.html
http://mars.nasa.gov/mro/
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Thanks for looking up with me.
- LRK -
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -
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Saturday, September 26, 2015

The Golden Apples of the Sun by Ray Bradbury

In an earlier post I mentioned, "In thinking back to my watching 2001: A Space Odyssey and then later watching the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon, I am amazed at the amount of science fiction that has become science fact."

If you add Fantasy Science Fiction you can reach past the near future and stretch your imagination even further.  
It is some of the "impossible" inventions that may well come from the minds of those that are inspired by what they have read and seen.

Christian in Norway sent a note about how Ray Bradbury in the stories found in "The Golden Apples of the Sun" had made a huge impression.

Of course he would have to name a book I haven't read and will now have to see if I can find.

Coming up is a new movie, "The Martian" and some are questioning the science but not to worry.

If it does a good job of pricking the imagination, then good, more folks will look up and wonder.

It is the wonder and the emotion, that feeling in the gut, that gives us the motivation to get up and invent the impossible.

You connect the wires to the lemon and the needle on the meter moves.  It works, the rush of success.

You touch the frog leg and it twitches.

The rest is history. :-)

- LRK -

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The Golden Apples of the Sun
by Ray Bradbury

The Golden Apples of the Sun is an anthology of 22 short stories (32 in the 1997 edition) by Ray Bradbury; it was first published in 1953.
The book's namesake is one of the short stories in the collection. Bradbury drew the title for the story from the last line of the final stanza to W. B. Yeats' poem "The Song of Wandering Aengus" (1899):
“Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
”
— W. B. Yeats, The Wind Among the Reeds
The last three lines of the poem are included in the beginning of the book as well.
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Raymond Douglas "Ray" Bradbury[2] (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012) was an American fantasy, science fiction,horror and mystery fiction author. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and for the science fiction and horror stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles (1950) and The Illustrated Man (1951), Bradbury was one of the most celebrated 20th- and 21st-century American genre writers. He wrote and consulted on many screenplays and television scripts, including Moby Dick[3] and It Came from Outer Space. Many of his works have been adapted into comic books, television shows, and films.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_Chronicles
The Martian Chronicles is a 1950 science fiction short story collection by Ray Bradbury that chronicles the colonization of Mars by humans fleeing from a troubled and eventually atomically devastated Earth, and the conflict between aboriginal Martians and the new colonists. The book lies somewhere in between a short story collection and an episodic novel, containing stories Bradbury originally published in the late 1940s in science fiction magazines. The stories were loosely woven together with a series of short, interstitial vignettes for publication.
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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3659388/
The Martian (2015)  October 2

The Martian (2015)

PG-13  |  141 min  |  Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi  |  2 October 2015 (USA)

During a manned mission to Mars, Astronaut Mark Watney is presumed dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. But Watney has survived and finds himself stranded and alone on the hostile planet. With only meager supplies, he must draw upon his ingenuity, wit and spirit to subsist and find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive.

Director:
 Ridley Scott

Writers:
 Drew Goddard (screenplay), Andy Weir (book)

Stars:
 Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig |See full cast and crew »
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Watch Trailer
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Thanks for looking up with me.
- LRK -
=============================================
WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -
=============================================
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Friday, September 25, 2015

Kipp Teague's Uploaded Raw Apollo Scans

Ron Wells asked that I let you know about Kipp Teague's recent postings of the Apollo Scans and I am most happy to do so.
- LRK -
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Subject: Fwd: Re: Kipp Teague's Uploaded Raw Apollo Scans

ListServ Members:

Many (most, all?) of you are familiar with Eric Jones's Apollo Lunar Surface Journal (http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/) and the Apollo lunar surface images for each of the missions. Those high quality images have served us well since 2004. They were provided to Eric by Kipp Teague who obtained them from JSC on DVD-R discs. He also maintains them on his Apollo Image Gallery (http://www.apolloarchive.com/apollo_gallery.html). These images were processed by contrast enhancement, and trimming of the side stripes before uploading to the ALSJ. They had a resolution of 7.8" x 7.88" @ 300 dpi.

Kipp has created a new website on FLICKR which contains all of these images in raw, unprocessed form at the full resolution of 54 mm x 54 mm @ 1800 dpi (4175 x 4174 pixels). These dimensions will probably show up as the equivalent 13.91667" x 13.91667" @ 300 dpi in Photoshop or Corel PhotoPaint. They are in high quality JPG format, each being 8-9 MB depending on scene. The URL is given in Kipp's note below.

These will be the highest resolution Apollo images of the prime film until projected scans from ASU have been initiated at JSC sometime in the future (and those according to the table on "About the Scans" on the ASU website ( http://apollo.sese.asu.edu/) will be 6400 x 6400 pixels), not quite twice the resolution.

One caveat: you have to have a YAHOO account in order to be able to download the images from FLICKR. But just click on the magazine you want, select the image, then click on the download arrow at the right and select which resolution you want, including the original (4175 x 4175 px).

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Subject: Re: Kipp Teague's Uploaded Raw Scans
From: Kipp Teague
To:   Ronald Wells
        
Ron,

I have completed uploads of all available full magazine scans...over 8,400 images. All of the surface imagery is included, but note that AS15-85 contains a small percentage of lower (1000 dpi) resolution, pre-2004 scans by JSC.   Even those scans are still quite good, however, and they are still presented in uncropped, unprocessed versions in the new gallery.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/projectapolloarchive/albums

Kipp

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Thanks for looking up with me.
- LRK -
WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -
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