Activism

Surveying futures for space

Sociologist William S. Bainbridge, author of The Spaceflight Revolution and Goals in Space), needs input from space enthusiasts for his latest study. He is asking space blogs to post the following announcement about two apps available at Surveyor II (Android Apps).

Surveyor II: Space Futures:

We invite you to have a voice in defining the future of space exploration! Can you predict the future of space exploration, fifty years in the future? Our other online questionnaire, Space Opinions, asks people what the space program means to them today. This one, Space Futures, asks you to imagine the possibilities for tomorrow!

100 predictions about the future were drawn from earlier open-ended online surveys and NASA reports. Think forward FIFTY YEARS and decide how likely it is each one will actually happen during that period (on a scale of 1=very unlikely to 8=very likely), and how good it would be if it did (on a scale from 1=very bad to 8=very good). Send your judgments to us, and we will send you confidential feedback on how your own views compare with others. The combined results of this Space Futures survey and the Space Opinions survey will be published online very quickly to help guide leaders of the world’s space programs, governments, aerospace industries, and young people studying related areas of science and engineering.

This is not a random-sample public opinion survey, but a scientific questionnaire study designed to understand how a range of possibilities fit together in the minds of a variety of people. For example, statistical analysis can identify underlying values reflected in different future possibilities, and tell us how optimists and pessimists conceptualize the issues differently. It was designed by Dr. William Sims Bainbridge, a prominent social scientist who pioneered this approach in his book, Goals in Space, and in his textbook, Survey Research: A Computer-Assisted Introduction.

We invite you to think forward FIFTY YEARS, and have a voice in defining the future direction of space exploration.

Activism, Astronomy

Ed Lu: Using the Sentinel B612 telescope to find asteroids before they find us

In this SETI Institute lecture, former astronaut Ed Lu of the B612 Foundation talks about the Sentinel Mission, which aims to launch a privately financed space telescope to survey near earth asteroids:

Space participation

Citizen scientists to analyze the surface of Mars

Planet Four is a citizen science project from Zooniverse, which is accumulating a plethoria of projects for public participation:  Scientists need you to analyze unseen images of Mars – Gizmag (via Behind The Black).

Planet Four invites you

to help planetary scientists identify and measure features on the surface of Mars . . . the likes of which don’t exist on Earth. All of the images on this site depict the southern polar region, an area of Mars that we know little about, and the majority of which have never been seen by human eyes before!

The goal is

to find and mark ‘fans’ and ‘blotches’ on the Martian surface. Scientists believe that these features indicate wind direction and speed. By tracking ‘fans’ and ‘blotches’ over the course of several Martian years to see how they form, evolve, disappear and reform, we can help planetary scientists better understand Mars’ climate. We also hope to find out if these features form in the same spot each year and also learn how they change.

The images come from the NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, which has been circling the Red Planet since 2006 and sending back a continuous stream of images of the surface with its high resolution camera.

time-lapse[1]These timelapse images show a sequence of views of a spider terrain feature that’s
initially covered with about a meter ice (upper left) until it is ice-free (lower right).

 

Space Policy

Space policy in US and Russia

A couple of space policy items from Jeff Foust:

And some Russian space policy items:

 

History

The Fisher Space Pen story

Every so often there is another article on the history of the Fisher Space Pen and the myth that NASA paid big bucks for it instead of having the astronauts use pencils in space: The Fisher Space Pen Boldly Writes Where No Man Has Written Before – Design Decoded/Smithsonian – Jan.11.13.

See other articles on the pen here.

Everyone can participate in space