Space Arts

“Debris” – an installation artwork by PLEX NOIR

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The PLEX NOIR artists collective in Germany has created an installation piece titled Debris, which is currently on exhibit at the Kunsthaus Troisdorf in Germany.

Debris is an installation to illustrate the emergence of space debris through decades of space exploration and commercial space use. The installation utilizes a laser to continuously visualize man-made objects orbiting the earth. The orbits of this debris are analysed and then exposed onto two thick paper sheets as a 2D projection of the northern and southern hemispheres.

From the press release:

DEBRIS – a thoughtful piece of laser art to celebrate Sputnik’s anniversary.

German based artist collective PLEX NOIR celebrates the 60th anniversary of the first satellite to reach earth orbit by picturing remains of space missions via ›laser engravings‹.

DEBRIS is an installation to illustrate the emergence of space debris through decades of space exploration and commercial space use.
The installation utilizes a laser to continuously visualize man-made objects orbiting the earth. The orbits of these debris are analyzed and exposed onto cardboard as a 2D projection.

On October 4th, 1957, Sputnik was the first man-made satellite to be launched into orbit. Since then, the empty space of our universe has become a dangerous place for manned space travel in the immediate vicinity of Earth. Almost all space flights leave parts behind, in different orbits and speed. The majority of them fall back to earth within short time to burn up in the atmosphere. However, especially faster parts remain in orbit for many decades. Scientists warn against cascading effects that will become more likely with each additional object and each collision between these objects.

DEBRIS manifests all catalogued pieces of debris in chronological order as tiny, burned-in marks on cardboard. The cardboard is exchanged when the visualisation of one decade of space debris is completed.

DEBRIS is currently on display at Kunsthaus Troisdorf, Germany. Over the course of the exhibition the laser continuously engraves space debris for each decade since the 1960s.

Living in Space, Space Systems, SpaceCasts

Videos: “Space to Ground” ISS report – Oct.6.2017

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The latest Space to Ground report from NASA on recent International Space Station (ISS) related activities:

Highlights of the career of Canadarm2. the Canadian-built robotic appendage used on the ISS for a wide variety of tasks:

 

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Education, History

60 years since Sputnik 1 reach orbit

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Sixty years ago today, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite. The news electrified the U.S. and set off a sequence of events that eventually led to the Apollo 11 landing of two astronauts on the Moon 12 years later.

Here are some details of the story of how the Soviet satellite came to be:

Here is a CBS TV news report from October 1957:

To get an idea of the impact that Sputnik had on American society, I recommend Homer Hickam’s autobiographical book Rocket Boys. He recounts how as a youngster in a remote coal mining town he was so inspired by Sputnik and the US efforts to get to space that he and his friends began building rockets of their own. They were soon demanding that their high school teach advanced physics and calculus. Hickam later became a rocket engineer at NASA. Homer is featured in this video about the “Sputnik Moment” and the huge influence it had on US education:

From 1957 till the mid-1960s, there was a wave of intense interest and support in technology and science across American society. College entrance exam scores reached record highs. Many young people growing up during that period went into scientific and engineering fields outside of space but they credit space with first inspiring them to study science and math.

There were, however, some drawbacks to the crash program mentality that was set off by Sputnik. Here is a commentary on how Sputnik and the Space Race that followed between the US and the Soviet Union created a false view of how space can and should be developed: Sputnik at 60: How Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos Started a New Space Age | Rand Simberg/The Weekly Standard.

Mars, Solar Sci-Fi

“Pioneer” – A space science-fiction novel from Robert Zimmerman

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Space historian and journalist Bob Zimmerman has released a science fiction book called Pioneer, which he actually wrote in 1982 but it portrays a future of space settlement very relevant to what is happening in the space world today: Pioneer | Behind The Black. Here is a press release about Pioneer:

Riveting First Alien Contact Novel By Award-winning Space Historian Portrays an Exciting Future
The body of a man who disappeared 46 years earlier on an asteroid near Jupiter is found on Mars,
with proof of alien life. How did he get there, and who were the aliens?
To find out will require a journey that skims the Sun and flies beyond Saturn.

TUCSON, Ariz. – Oct. 3, 2017 – PRLog — Before he became an award-winning space historian and science journalist, Robert Zimmerman wrote a riveting science fiction novel, PIONEER, about humanity’s first contact with aliens, set two hundred years in the future. Though it was written more than three decades ago, the book remains amazingly authentic in its portrayal of the future settlement of the solar system, based on what has happened the last decades of 20th century as well as the exciting emergence of a private commercial space industry now in the early 21st century.

That book has now at last been published.

The year is 2183. Fifty-six-year-old Saunders Maxwell is a stubborn old space-farer who has spent his entire life in space. He has commanded the Moon-Mars shuttle and led exploration missions beyond Mars. Later he turned to asteroid mining, captaining a small ship and crew on repeated trips to the asteroid belt, bringing back minerals or even small asteroids to sell so that the Mars colony could harvest them for the needed resources.

As he and his pilot Harry Nickerson fly over the vast slopes of the giant volcano Olympus Mons on their way home from one such mining mission, Maxwell spots a strange glint below, a glint that is not natural and should not be there.

When they land they discover something entirely unexpected and impossible, the body of man who had disappeared on a distant asteroid almost a half century before. Sanford Addiono had been on one of the first manned missions to the asteroid belt when he and a partner had vanished. Nothing was ever heard from them again. Even more baffling, two later missions to that asteroid found that it had disappeared as well, no longer in orbit where it was supposed to be.

Now, 46 years later, Maxwell finds Addiono’s body on the surface of Mars. How Addiono had gotten to Mars from a distant lost asteroid–without a spaceship–was baffling.

That riddle was magnified by what Addiono had brought back with him. Among his effects was a six-fingered robot hand that had clearly been made by some alien civilization, along with a recorder and memo book describing what Addiono had seen.

Here was a mystery that would rock humanity, the first alien contact. And at that moment Saunders Maxwell decides that he is going to be the person to solve that mystery, even if it takes him through hell and back.

Unfortunately, that is exactly where that journey takes him.

The vision that Zimmerman paints of vibrant human colonies on the Moon, Mars, the asteroids, and beyond, indomitably fighting the harsh lifeless environment of space to build new societies, captures perfectly the emerging space race we see today.

He also captures in Pioneer the heart of the human spirit, willing to push forward no matter the odds, no matter the cost. It is that spirit that will make the exploration of the heavens possible, forever, into the never-ending future.

About: Robert Zimmerman is an award-winning science journalist and historian who has written five books and innumerable articles on science, engineering, and the history of space exploration and technology for ASTRONOMY, AIR & SPACE, SCIENCE, NATURAL HISTORY, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, USA TODAY, WIRED, INVENTION & TECHNOLOGY and a host of other publications. He also reports on space and science news at his website, BehindtheBlack.com (http://behindtheblack.com). His classic book, GENESIS, THE STORY OF APOLLO 8 (Mountain Lake Press: http://behindtheblack.com/books/genesis-the-story-of-apollo-8/), describes the epic family and political tale behind the first manned mission to another world. It remains a steady bestseller twenty years after its first publication.

In addition to his writing, Mr. Zimmerman is also a cave explorer and cartographer, and has participated in numerous projects exploring and mapping previously unknown caves across the United States. It is this activity that has allowed him to actually “go where no one has gone before,” thus providing him a better understanding of the perspective of the future space explorers on Mars and beyond as they struggle to push the limits of human existence.

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