Category: Essays And Commentaries

A very long (182 pages) and detailed preprint paper was published today on the Los Alamos astro-ph website, describing the completion of a survey of just about all the sunlike stars within approximately 82 light years of the Earth. I haven’t had time to read the whole thing, but the abstract made these notable points:

• The study found that more the fifty percent of all sunlike stars are single stars.
• Among double and triple systems, the bell curve for the orbital periods peaked at 300 years.
• The more heavy elements the star has (atoms more complex than hydrogen and helium), the more likely it will have planets.
• The very intriguing conclusion: “The fraction of planet hosts among single, binary, and multiple systems are statistically indistinguishable, suggesting that planets are as likely to form around single stars as they are around components of binary or multiple systems with sufficiently wide separations. This, along with the preference of long orbital periods among stellar systems, increases the space around stars conducive for planet formation, and perhaps life.” [You need to download the full pdf to see this quote in the unabridged abstract.]

In other words, the evidence continues to suggest that solar systems like ours are very common.

For those who fantasize that Mars might still have vast underground lakes with fish, the recent data is unfortunately not encouraging. A paper published today by the American Geophysical Union suggests that if groundwater exists on Mars, it is going to be increasingly difficult to find, possibly only in the low latitudes at low elevations. These paragraphs from the conclusion of the paper say it all:

Various lines of evidence suggest that at the time of the Late Hesperian, Mars possessed a planetary inventory of water equal to a global ocean ~0.5 km deep, much of which is believed to have been stored as ground ice and groundwater in the subsurface. The potential survival of groundwater to the present-day has important implications for understanding the geological, hydrological and mineralogical evolution of the planet, as well as the potential survival of native Martian life. The two most important factors affecting the persistence of groundwater on Mars are the depth and pore volume of the cryosphere.

To date, the orbital radar sounding data from MARSIS [an instrument on Mars Orbital Express] has provided little evidence of any deep reflectors potentially indicative of subpermafrost groundwater. Here we have examined two (of several) possible explanations for this lack of evidence: (1) that subpermafrost groundwater no longer survives on Mars or (2) that groundwater is present, but that a thicker than expected cryosphere has restricted its occurrence to depths that exceed the estimated ~3 km maximum sounding depth of MARSIS.

[snip]

Which one (or combination) of explanations discussed here is responsible for the lack of deep reflectors on Mars is unknown. But our revised estimates of cryosphere depth suggest that a successful detection of subpermafrost groundwater, outside of those areas on Mars that combine low latitude and low elevation, is unlikely. In an effort to better constrain this problem, a more comprehensive investigation of the MARSIS sounding data obtained over Athabasca Valles, and four other low-elevation, near-equatorial sites, is currently underway.

Tonight, from 9 pm to 1 am (EDT), I will be on the John Batchelor Show. John is off tonight, so the guest host is Simon Constable, with yours truly acting as his co-host. For my part, I’ve arranged four guests:

• Dr. Roy Spencer, climatogist and former NASA scientist, who will discuss the recently published global warming black list as well as other climate change issues.

Then I have brought in three guests to talk about the Obama administration’s new space policy and the space war developing between the administration and Congress over the administration’s effort to cancel the Constellation program:

• Scott “Doc” Horowitz, former astronaut and designer of the Ares rocket. He will offer his reasons for opposing the Obama space proposals.
• Dr. Charles Lurio, space analyst and publisher of the Lurio Report. He will outline reasons to support the Obama proposals.
• Dr. David Livingston, host of the Space Show. He will fill us in on the state of the aerospace community and what it thinks of the Obama proposals.

Each will have his own 15 minute segment to express his views. Should be a fun time tonight.

You can read it here, if you have a mind. It is filled with the typical go-gooder blather that you find in every policy statement produced by every politician and his or her policy wonks, from either party.

Nonetheless, the Obama policy is far different from the Bush policy. The Bush philosophy for NASA is probably best ipitomized by this speech by Mike Griffin, former NASA administrator during the Bush administration. The key quote:

I am convinced that leadership in the world of the 21st Century and beyond will go to the nation that seeks to fulfill the dreams of mankind. We know what motivates those dreams. Exploring new territory when it becomes possible to do so has defined human striving ever since our remote ancestors migrated out of the east African plains. The human imperative to explore new territories, and to exploit the resources of these territories, will surely be satisfied, by others if not by us. What the United States gains from a robust, focused program of human and robotic space exploration is the opportunity to define the course along which this human imperative will carry us.

In other words, the focus during the Bush years was to have the United States lead the way in exploring and colonizing the solar system, with NASA in charge.

The Obama philosophy in this new space policy is far less interested in exploration. Instead, the focus is on international cooperation and sharing the universe with everyone. Here is for me the key quote from the policy statement:

As established in international law, there shall be no national claims of sovereignty over outer space or any celestial bodies. The United States considers the space systems of all nations to have the rights of passage through, and conduct of operations in, space without interference. Purposeful interference with space systems, including supporting infrastruction, will be considered an infringement of a nation’s rights.

In other words, space is a communal farm, shared by everyone.

The sense I also get from reading the Obama policy is a focus not in pushing outward to explore the unknown, to go where no one has ever gone before, but on looking back at the Earth to make things on Earth better. Both the “Principles” and “Goals” as outlined in the Obama Policy (pages 2 and 3) say very little about exploration. Instead, the focus is on stimulating the world’s space industry in order to improve life on Earth. The proposal to send humans to an asteroid and eventually to Mars is listed near the end of the document, almost as an afterthought.

Some will like this new approach. Others will detest it. From my perspective, it is simply naive.

First of all, the fantasy that territory in space will remain communal property, unowned by any person or nation, is foolish. The space colonists who will go there to live are eventually going to tell us to go to hell, and will then set up their own nations — with property rights — if only to guarantee that they have the same rights that we here on Earth enjoy.

Second, the exploration of space is not being done to make life on Earth better. That is certainly a significant side benefit, but the people sweating to build new rockets and spaceships are not doing it for these reasons. They are doing it because they want to explore and colonize the solar system. And they are doing it because they want to make money at it.

In the end, the problem with establishing a policy that is not based on reality is that reality will eventually bite back. Just because the United States wants to play nice with everyone and share space with the rest of the world does not mean that the rest of the world will do the same. In fact, it almost guarantees that they won’t. Other nations are going to immediately try to fill the vacuum this Obama policy creates.

Unfortunately, for the near future things do not look good for the American effort in space.