Michael West’s Blog

That’s right! The ESA spacecraft, Mars Express, currently in orbit around Mars will be doing a series of close fly-bys of Mars’ moon Phobos. On July 23rd it will make its closest approach at an altitude above Phobos’ surface of only 97km. I can’t wait to see the close up shots with the High Resolution Stereo Camera and the results from the other instruments aboard Mars Express - these should give some insight into the mass, surface composition and geochemistry of this unusual solar system object.

The full press release from ESA’s website is below…

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That’s right! The Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex, just south of Canberra at Tidbinbilla, was the first of the three NASA Deep Space Network tracking stations to receive the first images from the Mars Phoenix Lander that arrived at Mars North Pole earlier today. You can read about it here on the ABC’s news site and hear an interview with Glen Nagle, a friend of mine, who is also the Public Relations manager at CDSCC here. Well done to everyone out at Tidbinbilla on another great job! If it wasn’t a working day I would have been out there watching it live in the Visitor’s Centre as I did a few years ago when the second of the Mars Exploration Rovers landed.

The Mars Phoenix Lander arrived safely at Mars’ North Pole earlier this morning and here are some of the first images it just sent back. WOW!! I can’t wait for the colour ones

A friend in the public service here in Canberra has informed me, and to quote the relevant announcement, that…

“On 19 March 2008, the Senate referred the following matter to the Senate Standing Committee on Economics for report no later than October 2008 with an interim report by 23 June 2008:

The current state of Australia’s space science and industry sector, examining options to strengthen and expand Australia’s position in fields that strongly align with space science and industry, giving consideration to any national strategic coordination requirements and taking into account findings and policy options of the National Innovation System Review, with particular reference to:

1. Australia’s capabilities in space science, industry and education, including:
   
   1. existing Australian activity of world-class standard, and
   2. areas in which there is currently little or no activity but that are within the technical and intellectual capacity of the country;
2. arguments for and against expanded Australian activity in space science and industry, including:
   
   1. an assessment of the risks to Australia’s national interest of Australia’s dependence on foreign-owned and operated satellites,
   2. the potential benefits that could accrue to Australia through further development of our space capability,
   3. economic, social, environmental, national security and other needs that are not being met or are in danger of not being met by Australia’s existing space resources or access to foreign resources,
   4. impediments to strengthening and expanding space science and industry in Australia, including limiting factors relating to spatial information and global positioning systems, including but not limited to ground infrastructures, intergovernmental arrangements, legislative arrangements and government/industry coordination, and
   5. the goals of any strengthening and expansion of Australia’s space capability both in the private sector and across government; and
3. realistic policy options that facilitate effective solutions to cross-sector technological and organisational challenges, opportunity capture and development imperatives that align with national need and in consideration of existing world-class capability.”

Although the new Federal Labor government is going a little review/inquiry crazy, this is a welcome development. Kudos to Democrat Senator Natasha Stott Despoja for initiating this inquiry and for Liberal Senator Grant Chapman and others for co-sponsoring it. It is also good to read here in The Australian that the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Kim Carr, is supportive as well, which is more than can be said about his predecessor. Hopefully those conducting the inquiry will have a keen sense of history and become familiar with the Madigan Report (1985), the ‘An Integrated National Space Program’ report (1992) and Space: ‘A Priority for Australia’ (2005) and other similar inquiries of the past. This inquiry will also complement the soon to be released Decadal Plan for Space Science by the Australia Academy of Sciences’ National Committee on Space Science. I’ve contributed a little bit to its preparation, mainly in the education and public outreach arena, but not much.

Details about how to make a submission can be found on the relevant Senate Economics Committee website.

I’ve been meaning to write this post for quite a while, but life is busy (as usual) so here it is now…

One of the real privileges that I have is to be an Australia Day Ambassador. This came about because back in 2006 I was a New South Wales Finalist in the Young Australian of the Year Awards - an enormous honour indeed. It was a privilege just to be nominated! There is a little more information about this here and you can find a list of the other finalists here.

Following this I was invited by the NSW Australia Day Council to participate in the Australia Day Ambassador Program. Thanks to the sponsorship of Woolworths, the Australia Day Ambassador Program sends about 400 high achieving Australians to community Australia Day celebrations all over NSW and Australia. Ambassadors are invited as guests of honour at celebrations around the country and are often part of the activities and events on the day. As part of the celebrations, Ambassadors are asked to deliver the keynote address which captures the true spirit of being Australian.

Its quite a big deal and something that I thoroughly enjoy as it has given me the opportunity to visit some fantastic places and meet some really interesting people. In 2006 I visited Tumut Shire Council and the towns of Tumut, Talbingo and Adelong and in 2007 I visited the Kyogle Shire Council in northern NSW and participated in Australia Day celebrations at a small town called Tabulam, west of the Border Ranges National Park. You can read a little more about my visit to Tabulam in an article that appeared in the ANU College of Science’s ScienceWise magazine by David Salt. See page 10 of the PDF or you can find the website for it here.

Each time I have had the opportunity to give an Australia Day Address and given my profession and my passion, I’ve spoken about Australia’s involvement in space exploration, past, present and future; and how Australian’s benefit from space derived services everyday. My speeches have usually been very well received - I guess mainly because its not the usual thing people would hear on Australia Day (most Ambassadors are sports people or media personalities - you can find a list here) - and has always resulted in some interesting conversations with people afterwards.

This past Australia Day I was the Ambassador to the Snowy River Shire Council and attended celebrations in Jindabyne, Berridale, Adaminaby and Dalgetty as well as a visit to the local elderly persons hostel. It was a jam packed day but one that I really enjoyed. The weather was divine and the region that we got to drive through were just stunning. In the lead up to and following Australia Day I got a little bit of publicity about my visit to the Snowy River region, including an interview on ABC Canberra Radio and a few other regional radio stations. I also got mentioned in Engineers Australia’s magazine and E-News and on Mars Society Australia’s website.

Being an Ambassador has been fantastic in the past. I hope I have the opportunity to participate again in the future.

One of the greatest science fiction writers and a true visionary for space exploration and utilisation, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, passed away today in Sri Lanka aged 90. A master populariser of science and prolific writer - he wrote over 100 books on space, science and the future - his insights, influence and vision will be greatly missed. Tributes are popping up already all over the web including at the New York Times, SMH, SpaceRef.com and at Crikey - this one quite clever tribute claims that the Space Age is now dead, or at least the first one! To my shame I haven’t read enough of his work, but I have always been inspired by his ideas and amazed at how much of his science fiction has become science fact. Clarke was a man well before his time and then again at exactly the right time too. His influence was immense. The Mars Institute, of which I am on the Board of Advisors, even named the automated Mars greenhouse it has in the Canadian Arctic after him!

Now this is cool! The HiRISE instrument on the Mars Reconnansiance Orbiter, which is currently exploring Mars from orbit, has snapped several avalanches in progress near the North Pole of Mars. They are some pretty amazing images and can be found here. It would be great to see them in person and up close, but not too close of course! More details can be found in the NASA press release and this SMH story. It’s good to see Glen Nagle, from Tidbinbilla in Canberra being interviewed about this as well.

Incidentally a friend of mine, Adrian Brown, works on the CRISM instrument which is also aboard MRO. He and his colleagues recently discovered substantial amounts of ephemeral water ice in the polar regions of Mars using CRISM. You can read about it here. Well done to Adrian and his co-workers! Its great to see more Australian’s in the thick of Mars research.

Apologies for not posting for ages - its been a busy time. One piece of news worth sharing is that my first paper in a peer-reviewed international journal was published a few weeks ago. It is entitled ‘Testing a Helicon Double Layer Thruster Immersed in a Space-Simulation Chamber’ and appears in Vol. 24, No. 1 of the Journal of Propulsion and Power on pages 134-141. If you are interested, you can find download the first page of it for free from here or if you’d like a copy of the whole paper just drop be an email.