Our Terraqueous globe

Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot is a resonating vision of human's future in space. Sagan combined elements of  science, philosophy, and sincere humanity in his public works that has made him a cosmic ambassador. His words seem timeless and in combination with music and visuals his message is even more powerful. Most humans who have ever looked up will enjoy these two videos created by NASA fan Reid Gower, and Sagan fan Michael Marantz.

I was struck by the strange wording that Sagan chooses at the beginning here.

We were hunters and foragers.

The frontier was everywhere.

We were bounded only by the Earth, and the ocean, and the sky. The open road still softly calls.

Our little terraquious globe as the madhouse of those hundred thousand millions of worlds.

Little terraquious globe sounds a little bit like an archaic way of saying pale blue dot. Indeed, I think it is. And the phrase  'the madhouse of those hundred thousand millions of worlds' seems rather forced compared to Sagan's usual poetic ease. I did some searching and found a usage of this term in François-Marie Arouet's (better known by his pen name Voltaire) short story Memnon, the Philosopher of Human Wisdom. The story tells of Memnon who decides to become a philosopher one day and upon that same day he loses his eye, his health, his fortune, and his reason. He passes into sleep in despair at the end of the day and is visited by a celestial spirit in a dream. The spirit says that things could be worse, in fact the spirit states that there are a hundred thousand million worlds and in each world there are degrees of philosophy and enjoyment, but each world has less than the next; there is a world of perfect philosophy and enjoyment somewhere the spirit implies. Memnon is afraid that the Earth must be on the low end of the list and replies, “that our little terraqueous globe here is the madhouse of those hundred thousand millions of worlds”. It is clear to me that Sagan had read this; Sagan's entire attitude to humanity's existence is identical to the thesis of Memnon, the Philosopher of Human Wisdom. Sagan (as does Voltaire in this story) holds that

For All Our Failings, Despite Our Limitations And Fallibilities, We Humans Are Capable Of Greatness.

Thus the great 18th century philosopher Voltaire has profoundly influenced one of the most popular 20th century scientists. Finally, Sagan's work may influence the direction that humanity takes in exploring outer space in the 21st century. I will end this strange tale with the tale itself, Voltaire's short story Memnon, the Philosopher of Human Wisdom.

Memnon one day took it into his head to become a great philosopher. There are few men who have not, at some time or other, conceived the same wild project. Says Memnon to himself, To be a perfect philosopher, and of course to be perfectly happy, I have nothing to do but to divest myself entirely of passions; and nothing is more easy, as everybody knows. In the first place, I will never be in love; for, when I see a beautiful woman, I will say to myself, These cheeks will one day grow wrinkled, these eyes be encircled with vermilion, that bosom become flabby and pendant, that head bald and palsied. Now I have only to consider her at present in imagination, as she will afterwards appear; and certainly a fair face will never turn my head. 

In the second place, I will be always temperate. It will be in vain to tempt me with good cheer, with delicious wines, or the charms of society. I will have only to figure to myself the consequences of excess, an aching head, a loathing stomach, the loss of reason, of health, and of time. I will then only eat to supply the waste of nature; my health will be always equal, my ideas pure and luminous. All this is so easy that there is no merit in accomplishing it. 

But, says Memnon, I must think a little of how I am to regulate my fortune; why, my desires are moderate, my wealth is securely placed with the Receiver General of the finances of Nineveh: I have where-withal to live independent; and that is the greatest of blessings. I shall never be under the cruel necessity of dancing attendance at court: I will never envy anyone, and nobody will envy me; still, all this is easy. I have friends, continued he, and I will preserve them, for we shall never have any difference; I will never take amiss anything they may say or do; and they will behave in the same way to me. There is no difficulty in all this. 

Having thus laid his little plan of philosophy in his closet, Memnon put his head out of the window. He saw two women walking under the plane trees near his house. The one was old, and appeared quite at her ease. The other was young, handsome, and seemingly much agitated: she sighed, she wept, and seemed on that account still more beautiful. Our philosopher was touched, not, to be sure, with the beauty of the lady (he was too much determined not to feel any uneasiness of that kind) but with the distress which he saw her in. He came downstairs and accosted the young Ninevite in the design of consoling her with philosophy. That lovely person related to him, with an air of great simplicity, and in the most affecting manner, the injuries she sustained from an imaginary uncle; with what art he had deprived her of some imaginary property, and of the violence which she pretended to dread from him. “You appear to me,” said she, “a man of such wisdom that if you will condescend to come to my house and examine into my affairs, I am persuaded you will be able to draw me from the cruel embarrassment I am at present involved in.” Memnon did not hesitate to follow her, to examine her affairs philosophically and to give her sound counsel. 

The afflicted lady led him into a perfumed chamber, and politely made him sit down with her on a large sofa, where they both placed themselves opposite to each other in the attitude of conversation, their legs crossed; the one eager in telling her story, the other listening with devout attention. The lady spoke with downcast eyes, whence there sometimes fell a tear, and which, as she now and then ventured to raise them, always met those of the sage Memnon. Their discourse was full of tenderness, which redoubled as often as their eyes met. Memnon took her affairs exceedingly to heart, and felt himself every instant more and more inclined to oblige a person so virtuous and so unhappy. By degrees, in the warmth of conversation, they ceased to sit opposite; they drew nearer; their legs were no longer crossed. Memnon counseled her so closely and gave her such tender advices that neither of them could talk any longer of business nor well knew what they were about. 

At this interesting moment, as may easily be imagined, who should come in but the uncle; he was armed from head to foot, and the first thing he said was, that he would immediately sacrifice, as was just, the sage Memnon and his niece; the latter, who made her escape, knew that he was well enough disposed to pardon, provided a good round sum were offered to him. Memnon was obliged to purchase his safety with all he had about him. In those days people were happy in getting so easily quit. America was not then discovered, and distressed ladies were not nearly as dangerous as they are now. 

Memnon, covered with shame and confusion, got home to his own house; there he found a card inviting him to dinner with some of his intimate friends. If I remain at home alone, said he, I shall have my mind so occupied with this vexatious adventure that I shall not be able to eat a bit, and I shall bring upon myself some disease. It will therefore be prudent in me to go to my intimate friends, and partake with them of a frugal repast. I shall forget in the sweets of their society that folly I have this morning been guilty of. Accordingly, he attends the meeting; he is discovered to be uneasy at something, and he is urged to drink and banish care. A little wine, drunk in moderation, comforts the heart of god and man: so reasons Memnon the philosopher, and he becomes intoxicated. After the repast, play is proposed. A little play with one’s intimate friends is a harmless pastime. He plays and loses all that is in his purse, and four times as much on his word. A dispute arises on some circumstances in the game, and the disputants grow warm: one of his intimate friends throws a dice box at his head, and strikes out one of his eyes. The philosopher Memnon is carried home to his house, drunk and penniless, with the loss of an eye. 

He sleeps out his debauch, and when his head has got a little clear, he sends his servant to the Receiver General of the finances of Nineveh to draw a little money to pay his debts of honor to his intimate friends. The servant returns and informs him that the Receiver General had that morning been declared a fraudulent bankrupt and that by this means an hundred families are reduced to poverty and despair. Memnon, almost beside himself, puts a plaster on his eye and a petition in his pocket, and goes to court to solicit justice from the king against the bankrupt. In the saloon he meets a number of ladies all in the highest spirits, and sailing along with hoops four-and-twenty feet in circumference. One of them, who knew him a little, eyed him askance, and cried aloud, “Ah! What a horrid monster!” Another, who was better acquainted with him, thus accosts him, “Good-morrow, Mr. Memnon. I hope you are very well, Mr. Memnon. La, Mr. Memnon, how did you lose your eye?” And, turning upon her heel, she tripped away without waiting an answer. Memnon hid himself in a corner and waited for the moment when he could throw himself at the feet of the monarch. That moment at last arrived. Three times he kissed the earth, and presented his petition. His gracious majesty received him very favorably, and referred the paper to one of his satraps, that he might give him an account of it. The satrap takes Memnon aside and says to him with a haughty air and satirical grin, “Hark ye, you fellow with the one eye, you must be a comical dog indeed, to address yourself to the king rather than to me; and still more so, to dare to demand justice against an honest bankrupt, whom I honor with my protection, and who is nephew to the waiting-maid of my mistress. Proceed no further in this business, my good friend, if you wish to preserve the eye you have left.” 

Memnon, having thus in his closet resolved to renounce women, the excesses of the table, play and quarreling, but especially having determined never to go to court, had been in the short space of four- and-twenty hours, duped and robbed by a gentle dame, had got drunk, had gamed, had been engaged in a quarrel, had got his eye knocked out, and had been at court where he was sneered at and insulted. 

Petrified with astonishment, and his heart broken with grief, Memnon returns homeward in despair. As he was about to enter his house, he is repulsed by a number of officers who are carrying off his furniture for the benefit of his creditors: he falls down almost lifeless under a plane tree. There he finds the fair dame, of the morning, who was walking with her dear uncle; and both set up a loud laugh on seeing Memnon with his plaster. The night approached, and Memnon made his bed on some straw near the walls of his house. Here the ague seized him, and he fell asleep in one of the fits, when a celestial spirit appeared to him in a dream. 

It was all resplendent with light: it had six beautiful wings, but neither feet nor head nor tail, and could be likened to nothing.
“What art thou?” said Memnon.
“Thy good genius,” replied the spirit.
“Restore to me then my eye, my health, my fortune, my reason,” said Memnon; and he related how he had lost them all in one day. “These are adventures which never happen to us in the world we inhabit,” said the spirit.
“And what world do you inhabit?” said the man of affliction.
“My native country,” replied the other, “is five hundred millions of leagues distant from the sun, in a little star near Sirius, which you see from hence.”
“Charming country!” said Memnon. “And are there indeed no jades to dupe a poor devil, no intimate friends that win his money, and knock out an eye for him, no fraudulent bankrupts, no satraps that make a jest of you while they refuse you justice?”
“No,” said the inhabitant of the star, “we have nothing of what you talk of; we are never duped by women, because we have none among us; we never commit excesses at table, because we neither eat nor drink; we have no bankrupts, because with us there is neither silver nor gold; our eyes cannot be knocked out because we have not bodies in the form of yours; and satraps never do us injustice because in our world we are all equal.”
“Pray, my lord,” then said Memnon, “without women and without eating how do you spend your time?”
“In watching,” said the genius, “over the other worlds that are entrusted to us; and I am now come to give you consolation.”
“Alas!” replied Memnon, “why did you not come yesterday to hinder me from committing so many indiscreations?”
“I was with your elder brother Hassan,” said the celestial being. “He is still more to be pitied than you are. His Most Gracious Majesty the Sultan of the Indies, in whose court he has the honor to serve, has caused both his eyes to be put out for some small indiscretion; and he is now in a dungeon, his hands and feet loaded with chains.”
“’Tis a happy thing truly,” said Memnon, “to have a good genius in one’s family, when out of two brothers one is blind of an eye, the other blind of both: one stretched upon straw, the other in a dungeon.”
“Your fate will soon change,” said the animal of the star. “It is true, you will never recover your eye, but, except that, you may be sufficiently happy if you never again take it into your head to be a perfect philosopher.”
“It is then impossible?” said Memnon.
“As impossible as to be perfectly wise, perfectly strong, perfectly powerful, perfectly happy. We ourselves are very far from it. There is a world indeed where all this is possible; but, in the hundred thousand millions of worlds dispersed over the regions of space, everything goes on by degrees. There is less philosophy, and less enjoyment on the second than in the first, less in the third than in the second, and so forth till the last in the scale, where all are completely fools.”
“I am afraid,” said Memnon, “that our little terraqueous globe here is the madhouse of those hundred thousand millions of worlds of which Your Lordship does me the honor to speak.”
“Not quite,” said the spirit, “but very nearly; everything must be in its proper place.”
“But are those poets and philosophers wrong, then, who tell us that everything is for the best?”
“No, they are right, when we consider things in relation to the gradation to the whole universe.”
“Oh! I shall never believe it till I recover my eye again,” said poor Memnon.

Reaching the stars is easy

Sun Dog

The Solar Dynamics Observatory just launched on February 11 on at Atlas V rocket. It is going to do great science. The launch was fantastic because the rocket's supersonic shock wave was visible in a sun dog!

The Moon, where the Helium-3 from the Sun is

Moon is a 2009 science fiction film about astronaut Sam Bell who is the solitary worker on the moon. Sam is at the end of a three-year stint on the Moon so the film begins as if it was the denouement of another quieter story. When an accident occurs Sam suddenly meets himself for the first time.

I am adept at finding flaws in science fiction films, but Moon nails a lot of science as well as could be expected. The most incredulous point about the film for me was the lack of a radio array on the far side of the moon, I mean why else would we go to the moon? There is a very good and scientifically feasible answer for this. The movie begins, as you can see above with the first seven minutes of the film, with a commercial by Lunar Industries:

There was a time when energy was dirty word, when turning on your light was a hard choice. Cities in brown out, food shortages, cars burning fuel to run, but that was the past, where are we now? How did we make the world so much better? Make deserts bloom? Right now we're the largest producer of fusion energy in the world. The energy of the sun trapped in rock harvested by machine from the far side of the moon. Today we deliever enough clean burning helium-3 to supply the energy needs of nearly 70% of the planet. Who would have thought all the energy we ever needed, right above our heads? The power of the moon, the power of our future.

When I saw this at the beginning of the film I was delighted that they had based the story on a kernel of truthful science. The energy source they are gathering from the moon is Helium-3 (³He), but they aren't exactly burning it for fuel as they say. Helium-3 is a light isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron which is suitable as a fusion fuel. I have done some research into the literature to determine just how feasible this ³He mining on the moon is with two specific questions in mind. Why use ³He? Why go to the moon?

An advanced fusion reactor would combine ³He and deuterium (²H) in a fusion reaction to produce a helium-4 nucleus (⁴He) and a high-energy proton. Energy is released as charged particles and that is what powers the world in this science fiction vision of the future. ³He fuel offers some advantages over other types of fusion fuel because it is efficient and because less radioactive byproducts are produced (it is often stated or assumed that fusion power does not create any dangerous materials, but in reality the reactor housing can become radioactively activated and remain so for a number of years. However, the time scale on which it remains active is comparable to human lifetimes and is overall not as dangerous as the byproducts of fission reactors). ³He is very scarce on earth. It is possible to manufacture ³He on earth though the neutron bombardment of certain elemental targets which results in tritium, which then decays to ³He with a half-life of 12 years. This is a complicated, dangerous and inefficient process so other sources would be required to make ³He a viable fusion fuel.

The cosmological abundance of ³He is paltry, but its abundance and chemical evolution is of interest to astronomers because it can be a tracer of various stellar phenomena so it has been studied for many years. The primordial cosmological ratio of ³He to ⁴He is ~1.4 × 10 ^-6, however this abundance can be thousands of times greater in the solar wind. The solar wind is primarily protium traveling at a velocity of ~450 km/s with a flux of ~6 × 10 ¹⁰  ions/(m² s). Of this flux there is ~4% He which has an unusually high ratio of ³He to ⁴He of ~480 atomic parts per million (Heber V. 2003). ³He should be abundant on the moon's surface of regolith where it has been deposited by solar wind over billions of years.  Hence, we could go to the moon and mine it. However, to gather enough fuel to power the earth at current energy consumption rates more than one Space Shuttle load and the processing of 4 million tons of regolith per week, on the lunar surface, would be necessary. Further, to really nail the science here I cite Fa and Jin who state:

The [lunar] inventory of ³He is estimated as 6.50×10⁸ kg, where 3.72×10⁸ kg is for the lunar nearside and 2.78×10⁸ kg is for the lunar far side.

There is a bounty of lunar fuel available, but I wouldn't place my base on 'the far side of the moon' as Lunar Industries states they have done because it would be cold, there is less ³He, and it would be, well, lonely. In conclusion I have found the academic literature validates the idea that Helium from the moon could power terrestrial fusion reactors one day.

Apparently Sam Bell is working alone on the moon to cut costs for the company. In order to mine the necessary amounts of ³He with minimal overhead costs Lunar Industries has chosen a one man job; and based on the size of the lunar regolith harvesters seen in the movie 4 million tons processed per week would not be unfeasible. As the movie continues themes of alienation and societal deception emerge. I have discussed some science that the film never divulges, but in fact, the film never even mentions anything about ³He or the reasons why any of this is going on again. This is a strong point for the film which actually raises deep philosophical questions, which I could dive into, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone. It is a great film and not the craziest science, really:

Online resources:
Mining the Moon from Popular Mechanics
Lunar ³He and Fusion power by J. Santarius
Non-Lunar  ³He Resources by L. Wittenberg
Moon for Sale from the BBC

References:

FA, W., & JIN, Y. (2007). Quantitative estimation of helium-3 spatial distribution in the lunar regolith layer Icarus, 190 (1), 15-23 DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2007.03.014

Heber, V., Baur, H., & Wieler, R. (2003). Helium in Lunar Samples Analyzed by High‐Resolution Stepwise Etching: Implications for the Temporal Constancy of Solar Wind Isotopic Composition The Astrophysical Journal, 597 (1), 602-614 DOI: 10.1086/378402

Landing on Titan

This strange movie is a visual aggregation of the data which the Huygens lander gathered when landing on Saturn's moon Titan on January 14th 2005. Huygens is part of the wildly succsesful Cassini-Huygens mission. Cassini is still taking fantastic pictures of Saturn and its moons while Huygens ended its journey on a methane riverbed and claims honors as the most distant touch-down ever made by a human built spacecraft. To the right here you can see the orange image that Huygens had as it came to rest stranded on the cold world; the rocks in the image are actually water ice. And further to the right is the grey image of a similary scaled image for comparison to the Moon's surface. I was struck by the flashing lights and strange sounds in the video. Every detail of the video expresses some aspect of the spacecrafts data aquisition. For a complete description of the data try this and here is an explanation for the sounds.

Sounds from a left speaker trace Huygens' motion, with tones changing with rotational speed and the tilt of the parachute. There are also clicks that clock the rotational counter, as well as sounds for the probe's heat shield hitting Titan's atmosphere, parachute deployments, heat shield release, jettison of the DISR cover and touch-down.

 Sounds from a right speaker go with DISR activity. There's a continuous tone that represents the strength of Huygens' signal to Cassini. Then there are 13 different chimes - one for each of DISR's 13 different science parts - that keep time with flashing-white-dot exposure counters.

Space Exploration Missions

The image above is a link to a huge diagram showing space exploration missions. I have no idea how comprehensive of missions it is. I think the original source was National Geographic so it must be rather complete. Regardless the image is stunning in a visual design sense and it makes a good desktop background. Enjoy.

Apollo Landing Sites

As I promised a few weeks ago here are the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's images of the Apollo moon landing sites, here on the NASA mission page. In the future there will be more images with much higher resolution so stay tuned.

These images of relics on the moon remind of us the past history that we have had there (yes, we were really there), but the purpose of the current missions is to scout landing areas looking forward to future missions. However, there are some troubling aspects to the moon endeavor. Michio Kaku points out in this article in Forbes that the economic cost of space exploration has historically been prohibitive. I believe this cost argument is particularly poignant in light of other basic research that is underfunded when space missions indulge in such large portions of research budgets. Yet, there is also the possibility that space/lunar operations could be a multi billion dollar industry, a private industry. The Lunar X Prize will be the first incentive for private companies, but a mere drop in the bucket compared to the flood of investments a successful company could take in. In the future there are several key points to keep in mind that will make space exploration a lasting destination and not a fleeting race.

• Robots: Robots are cheaper, hardier, and more reliable than humans. Any mission that involves humans faces skyrocketing costs and redundant backup life support systems increasing complexity and timescales for viable missions.
  
• Economics: A good program for space must be a profitable program. The government should fund high risk scientific projects and let private industry lead the way in other areas.
  
• Science: Many of NASA's missions don't have clear scientific goals, nor do they objectively analyze their missions in retrospect to determine what scientific goals they have achieved. NASA should examine the work it does on a scientific basis and not merely from their engineering perspective which they have historically done (and historically they have been great engineers). If the space station is a "station to nowhere", will a lunar station be a station nowhere?