My family and I visited the Kennedy Space Center last week near the end of our Florida holiday vacation. While the visit and tours were interesting and comprehensive, the lasting impression it all made on me was one of nostalgia and honor of past accomplishment, with only a dimmest look to the future.

The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center is located on Cape Canaveral, Florida, a short drive from the beaches and hotels of Cocoa Beach. Driving into the parking lot, a full-size mock space shuttle and the Rocket Garden — a standing collection of early NASA rockets — beckons visitors young and old. After standing in line (the first of many) to buy a $38 ticket, you’re in and facing the decision of what to do first.

Aside from the mock space shuttle and the rocket garden, the main part of the visitor center is built out something like the theme parks central Florida is so famous for. There are theatre attractions and “rides”, a restaurant and a huge gift shop, and here and there a few informative exhibits about NASA’s plans for the future.

The centerpiece of a tour of Kennedy Space Center is a three-stop bus ride onto the real estate of the complex. But the line is long — for us, more than an hour after lunch on a day when the center wasn’t very busy.

The first stop of the bus tour is an observation tower located some distance from the distinctive vertical assembly building and the two launch pads used to launch space shuttles. From this three-story tower, using the pay-per-view binoculars, one can sort of see the launch pads and some of the launch complex. Best for us here was the wildlife: wild pigs, alligators, raccoons and an armadillo. A line awaits to get back on a bus to move on.

The second stop of the bus tour, and the gem of the Kennedy Space Center, is a newly created museum of the Apollo moon-landing era. Inside the building, in addition to several other exhibit rooms and a theater (and another gift shop — it’s hard to get a five-year-old boy through a gift shop), are an Apollo capsule, a lunar lander and rover, and a mighty Saturn V rocket laid out on its side.

What an impressive vehicle. More than twice as tall as the space shuttle, the Saturn V is one of the most powerful machines ever made. The rocket was designed and built in the early 1960s under the direction of the famed German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun. Thirteen Saturn Vs were launched from Nov. 9, 1967 to May 14, 1973, taking men to the moon and establishing the United States first space station Skylab. That was more than thirty-five years ago now.

Nearing the end of our day, it just seemed like thirty-five years in line to get on a bus to push on to the third and final stop of the tour, a mini museum devoted to the International Space Station. Here, one can walk through several mock ups of ISS modules and have a look inside the large clean room where materials destined for the ISS are prepared for launch, and learn how badly NASA wants to “complete the space station.”

Then, another line to catch a final, sunset bus ride back to the visitor center.

If you visit the Kennedy Space Center, however, be sure to hit the Astronaut Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame was established by astronauts and is located about six miles off the main complex. It is a wonderful museum with a great collection of space memorabilia and a variety hands-on exhibits for kids young and old.

This column originally appeared in the Grand Haven Tribune on 2 January 2009.

Look to the west after sunset tonight to see Venus, Jupiter and the moon converge on a tiny patch of sky. The three objects, now easily the brightest things in the sky (other than the sun, of course), will be closest together on the evening of Monday, Dec. 1.

November and December, West Michigan’s two cloudiest months, are not the best times for stargazing. You might have to steal a glance through gaps in the clouds. But you only need a partly clear sky to see part of the sky, so don’t give up hope.

Presently, the sun is setting in Grand Haven at 5:11 pm, according to data provided by the US Naval Observatory. On Monday, Venus, Jupiter and the thin, crescent moon will set at about 8:30 pm, giving a three-hour window to catch a glimpse of their alignment.

It is worthwhile to note at this time of year that while meteorologically, winter is just beginning, astronomically, we’ve just about reached winter’s greatest depth. The shortest day of the year is in just a few more weeks, on Dec. 21, the winter solstice. So if you’re a sun-loving person, you can look forward to longer days and more sun.

But we don’t even have to wait until the winter solstice to see more of the sun. In early December, about two weeks before the first day of winter, we reach the date of the earliest sunset. The earliest sunset in Grand Haven is shortly after 5:10 pm on or about Dec. 8. The sunset time will steadily march later and later, after that, reaching 5:20 pm by the end of December, almost 6 pm by the end of January, and about 6:30 pm by the end of February.

In case you’re wondering why the date of earliest sunset doesn’t coincide with the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, I can only point you to the best explanation I’ve found (from the US Naval Observatory FAQ): http://tinyurl.com/5q5odz. It’s pretty complicated, but interesting.

There is another thing you might want to keep an eye out for next week. Did you hear about the small tool kit that was dropped accidentally from the International Space Station? Observers from around the world are reporting seeing this tool kit from the ground with nothing more than a pair of binoculars.

The flyaway toolkit near ISS (image courtesy NASA).

You can read more about the flyaway tool kit, and get predictions concerning when and where to look to see it, and the ISS, at http://spaceweather.com.

The tool kit is spiraling downward into thicker and thicker atmosphere, and is expected to crash and burn in a year or so. The lower something orbits earth, the faster it moves, so for now, the tool kit is visible as a pinpoint of light flying a few minutes ahead of the ISS. The ISS and tool kit make several favorable passes over West Michigan beginning on Dec. 5. For ISS and the toolkit sighting opportunities from Grand Haven visit http://spaceweather.com/flybys/) and enter our zip code.

This column originally appeared in the Grand Haven Tribune on 28 November 2008.

Watching the latest space shuttle launch and reading the news about the astronauts space walking to repair the International Space Station (ISS), I was reminded of some of the oddities of low-earth orbit.

The ISS and space shuttle orbit earth little more than two hundred miles up. At this altitude, in what is called low-earth orbit, objects coast with little resistance just above the upper reaches of earth’s atmosphere.

Two hundred miles is not very high. Consider that the earth itself is about four thousand miles in radius. Two hundred miles on top of four thousand miles amounts to just five percent. The fuzz on a Michigan peach stands out in about the same relief as does the ISS orbit above earth.

It is a common misconception that there is no gravity in space. While this is true, to some extent, in the deepest reaches of outer space, it is decidedly not true just two hundred miles above earth’s surface. The force of gravity exerted by earth on an astronaut in low-earth orbit is about ninety percent as strong as it is when the astronaut is back home.

What explains all the floating around?

Spacewalking astronauts, and everything else in orbit around the earth, are “weightless” because they are freely falling toward the center of the earth. You can be weightless right now, for a brief period of time, in exactly the same way if you jump. The higher you jump, the longer you can be weightless.

Us earthbound folks, who experiment with weightlessness when we jump, have to face the abrupt end of our orbits when we hit the ground. As the saying goes: “it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end.”

Weightless astronauts don’t eminently face the sudden stop because they are zipping along in orbit around the round earth in just such a way that they can fall forever and never get any closer to earth’s center or surface. In orbit, astronauts move horizontally at a speed the matches the distance they fall in any interval of time to the distance earth’s surface curves away below.

At what horizontal speed does something need to move in order to stay in orbit two hundred miles above earth’s surface? Really fast. Relative to earth’s center, things in low-earth orbit have to move about eighteen thousand miles per hour! At that speed, they scoot around earth in just ninety minutes.

All the fire and fury of a space shuttle liftoff is aimed at one thing: to get the shuttle and everything inside moving at eighteen thousand miles per hour. The energy required to reach an altitude of two hundred miles is tiny compared to the energy required to accelerate to the proper orbital speed.

You may have heard that one of the astronauts let a tool kit slip from her hands on a recent ISS spacewalk. Ultimately, like everything else in low-earth orbit, the tool kit will come back down.

For something to return to earth gracefully, however, it must shed the tremendous amount of energy it gained during launch and slow back down to a stop. That little tool kit, for example, has now as much energy as the average US home uses in two days. Before too long, after maybe a couple of years, the air molecules in the upper atmosphere will begin to tear at the toolkit, sapping its energy ever faster. When the kit falls into the thicker parts of the atmosphere, in a brief flash, it will be vaporized.

Let’s wish the astronauts a safe return.

This column originally appeared in the Grand Haven Tribune on 21 November 2008.

It’s a beautiful summer day in the northern hemisphere on Mars. Temperatures will climb to a high near 30F below zero and snow is in the forecast, according the NASA’s Phoenix lander.

The Phoenix spacecraft has been conducting experiments on the Martian soil and atmosphere since it landed in Mars’ northern arctic region on May 25 of this year.

Phoenix carried to Mars a suite of scientific packages, including a meteorological station that was designed and built by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) with scientists at York University in Toronto and the University of Alberta, Dalhousie.

The CSA is reporting that for the past few days a weather instrument called the LIDAR has for the first time on Mars detected falling snow high in the Martian atmosphere.

“The irony of us, the Canadian team, finding the snow — it’s not lost,” says Cameron Dickinson, a research associate at York University associated with the Phoenix weather station, in an interview with a reporter for the Chronicle Herald in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

LIDAR stands for LIght Detection And Ranging instrument (a stretch for a catchy acronym). The LIDAR shoots a green laser beam up into the Martian atmosphere and with a small telescope analyzes the light that scatters off clouds back down to the ground. The LIDAR can partially determine the composition and distribution of material in the Martian atmosphere.

If you’ve ever played with one of these newer, green laser pointers you might have an idea how the LIDAR works. Point the laser up into the sky on the clearest of nights and you can see the beam head straight off into space. There is a considerable amount of dust even in the calmest air near earth’s surface, and the green laser scatters efficiently off this material. This experiment doesn’t work so well with the less expensive and more common red laser pointers.

The lead scientist for the CSA weather station on Phoenix is Dr. Jim Whiteway, of York University in Toronto. Dr. Whiteway says “We’ll be looking for signs that the snow may even reach the ground,” noting in a NASA press release that the snow detected by the LIDAR falls high in the Martian atmosphere. It is not uncommon for rain and snow to evaporate in the atmosphere before reaching the ground even here on earth.

While fall is settling in for us here in West MI, on Mars’ northern hemisphere it is still summer. But the days are getting shorter for Phoenix just as they do for us after the first day of summer. And since Mars does not have a thick atmosphere to act as a blanket, the planet cools down rapidly even in mid summer.

A Martian year is 684 earth days long. A Martian day — called a sol — is, however, only about half an hour longer than an earth day. There are 668 sols in a Martian year.

The first day of fall for Phoenix on Mars is Dec. 26, 2008. Winter will set in on May 22, 2009. But Phoenix’s productive time on Mars is rapidly coming to an end. As the sun sinks lower and lower toward the Martian horizon and the sols get shorter and shorter, the amount of electricity Phoenix’s solar panels can generate dwindles. Before too long, there won’t be enough power to keep Phoenix alive.

And in detecting the first flakes of snow falling high above it, Phoenix has seen the beginning of its end. It is expected that when the snow does start falling in earnest during the Martian northern hemisphere fall and winter, Phoenix will eventually be buried.

Late in March I wrote about the NASA spacecraft named Phoenix speeding toward a rendezvous with the planet Mars. Phoenix is a lander that was launched from Cape Canaveral in early August of 2007 and is now closing in on the red planet at the rate of about a million miles a day.

The news as of today is that with just two million miles to go, “All systems are nominal and stable,” says Ed Sedivy, Phoenix spacecraft program manager for Lockheed Martin Space Systems.

That’s right, two million miles to go at a million miles a day puts the Phoenix on target for a landing at just about 8 pm Eastern time Sunday evening. A safe landing will be big news; mankind’s success rate for landing spacecraft on Mars is 5 for 11, or just under 50%.

Why is it so tough to land on Mars? Mostly for the same reason that it is hard to skydive from an airplane without a functioning parachute. As the saying goes: “It’s not the fall that’s the problem, it’s the sudden stop at the end.”

To land safely, Phoenix will have to slow from about 13,000 mph to about 5 mph (relative to Mars), using aerobraking, a strong parachute and retrorockets in about the last 1,000 miles of its journey. This firey last seven minutes is the toughest part of the lander’s nearly ten-month trip to Mars.

If all goes well, Phoenix will be on the Martian surface beginning its science mission while we’re eating hotdogs and enjoying a cold drink Monday afternoon. To follow the Phoenix mission on the Web, visit www.nasa.gov/phoenix/.

If you’ve been watching Mars in the sky over the past few nights you’ve seen it slide into the Beehive! The Beehive is the familiar name for a cluster of stars called M44 in the constellation Cancer.

Mars is presently situated nicely for viewing; look for the red planet about half way up in the sky above the horizon to the southwest after the sky darkens after sunset. The Beehive is a nice target for a pair of binoculars, but you’ll need a telescope for a close-up view of Mars.

Regarding the telescope, I’ve got you covered. I planned to head to the city beach parking lot with my scope on Sat., May 10, which was National Astronomy Day. But it was not clear, so I’ll try again this weekend.

If you’d like to squeeze some astronomy into your Memorial Day weekend, come to the Grand Haven city beach parking lot between about 9:30 and 11:00 pm on Saturday — if it is more clear than cloudy. As of my deadline, the forecast looks promising.

Early in the evening, soon after sunset at about 9:15 pm, we may catch a glimpse of Mercury. A bit later, Mars and Saturn will be in our sights, along with whatever else we may discover.

If you have a pair of binoculars or a telescope of your own, bring them along. Hope to see you there.

If you look just about straight up at around 8 pm you will see the planet Mars shining bright red in the constellation Gemini. And if you looked real close you would see a tiny spacecraft speeding toward the red planet, closing in at over 14,000 mph.

Sky chart for midwest US at about 8 pm EDT, created at heavens-above.com.

The spacecraft is named Phoenix. It was launched atop a Boeing Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral on Aug. 4, 2007 and will arrive and land on Mars in just over two months, on May 25, 2008. I’ve taken some poetic license writing that you might be able to see Phoenix; the truth is you cannot, so when you look up at Mars, use your imagination to see Phoenix.

Phoenix launch, Aug. 5, 2007. Image credit: the Phoenix project website.

Phoenix closes in on Mars, as viewed from above the plane of the solar system. Click on image for a larger version. This image created using JPL’s Solar System Simulator.

Phoenix is a scout class mission, according to NASA and Phoenix mission managers. Phoenix is managed by scientists at the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Lockheed Martin Space Systems. Scout missions are intended to be innovative and relatively low-cost missions that support major NASA projects. Phoenix supports NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, a project with the main aim of answering the question: is there life on Mars?

Phoenix will land in a north polar region of Mars and, according to the project website, will conduct experiments and gather data to answer the following questions: “(1) can the Martian arctic support life, (2) what is the history of water at the landing site, and (3) how is the Martian climate affected by polar dynamics?”

Phoenix cost US taxpayers about $400 million. Is that a lot? There are several ways to look at this. The population of the US is about 300 million, so the phoenix project cost comes to about $1.30 per US resident. Or, consider that the craft will have traveled about 425 million miles by the time it reaches Mars. If the price of gas for our cars reaches $4 per gallon this summer, as most expect, the phoenix spacecraft gets the equivalent of about 4 miles per gallon. Not bad for a 772-pound craft that clips along at 74,000 mph (relative to the sun) and that might discover signs of life on a different planet.

The Phoenix lander will descend by parachute through Mars’ thin atmosphere and land on the Martian surface using rocket engines on May 25. The lander will join something of a fleet of robotic machines actively exploring Mars. NASA’s Mars Odyssey Orbiter, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the European Space Agency’s Mars Express Orbiter are all being reoriented to welcome the new kid on the block. On the surface, Phoenix will join both of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers, which remarkably have been roving for about four years now.

The Phoenix lander. Image credit: Phoenix project website.

Unlike the rovers, Phoenix doesn’t have wheels. After it lands on the Martian surface Phoenix will extend a robotic arm and dig into the soil to gather samples to be carefully analyzed by an onboard chemistry lab. The lander is also equipped with three sophisticated cameras and a weather station.

Phoenix’s entry, descent and landing will differ harshly from the 10-month, 400-million-mile cruise through interplanetary space it is now completing. The spacecraft must slow down by 14,000 mph in just 75 miles from the top of Mars’ thin atmosphere to the cold, hard surface. Phoenix will use a heat shield, a large parachute, and finally its rocket thrusters to make a safe landing.

You can keep an eye on Phoenix’s progress at the project’s website: http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu.

Look for a new post on or about March 29.