Michael West’s Blog

Today my main job has been to unpack the numerous boxes containing artwork for the ‘Destination: Mars’ Exhibition we have received, catalogue it and set it up in the conference centre. I have been ably assisted by Camille Desportes and Julie Jones. Camilee is an intern with the Mars Institute and also a graduate student in Space Management at the International Space University in Strasbourg, France. Julie is an artist based in Nevada who is representing the International Association of Astronomical Artists, who are presenting the exhibition. Her website is here - she does some truly amazing astronomical and space related art. You can check it out here.

I’ve also assisted NASA’s Chief Historian, Steven Dick, with preparation of a display of historical documents related to Phobos and Deimos and in particular their discovery by astronomer Asaph Hall at the US Naval Observatory in 1877. There are some really interesting documents in the collection including a facsimile of the Presidential Commission, signed by Abraham Lincoln, that Hall received upon taking up the Professorship of Mathematics at the UNO.

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So why am I here in California for two weeks? Well I am helping out with the 1st International Conference on the Exploration of Phobos and Deimos which is being run by the Mars Institute and held at NASA Ames Research Center. I’m involved because back in 2005 I worked as an intern for the Mars Institute with Dr. Pascal Lee for two months. During that time I did a review of all the literature regarding the exploration of Mars’ two moons, Phobos and Deimos, in order to support future proposals for robotic missions to these unusual objects. Since then I have continued to work with the Mars Institute (I’m on the Board of Advisors) and helped out with the PRIME mission study (see my earlier post here). As such I am giving a presentation at this conference (the PDF of the abstract is here) and assisting with various logistical things, including managing the ‘Destination: Mars’ space art exhibit.

I hope to provide some photos and reports of the happenings throughout the conference. Stay tuned!

I flew to San Francisco today to attend a conference on the exploration of Mars’ moons, Phobos and Deimos that is being held at NASA Ames Research Centre in Silicon Valley. I will be here for a bit less than two weeks, but more on what I will be doing later. On the flight over I was lucky enough to get a seat at the front of economy class which has extra leg room and because the flight was half empty the seat beside me was empty as well. It was great and I even managed to get about 7 hours sleep!

Anyway, of all the people who could have occupied the other seat in my row, there was a ancient history lecturer heading to a conference at Stanford University. We got talking and discovered that he was from Sydney University, specialises in Greek history and teachers many of the Honours students at USyd. As is often the case it didn’t take long to realise that he knows someone I know - in this case Victor Shaw, a old friend from Sydney Uni who started out doing Engineering and saw the light and switched over the Ancient History. Proof once again it is a small small world.

As I reported here back in March, a film crew from ABC’s Catalyst program visited my lab to do a story on the Helicon Double Layer Thruster. The story will be going to air tomorrow (Thursday) evening at 8pm on ABC TV. It will include interviews with my two supervisors, Professor Rod Boswell and Dr Christine Charles, and show footage of the HDLT prototype operating inside its new space simulation vacuum chamber. I doubt I will actually feature in the segment, but when the HDLT is running and you see the purple glow of the plasma, I am the one working the controls

This past week was a sombre reminder that the development, testing and use of space technology can be a very dangerous business. Sadly, 3 people were killed and 3 others critically injured after a blast at a Scaled Composites test site in the Mojave Desert, California. Scaled Composites are one of the new breed of private space launch/tourism companies and won the X-Prize a few years back with the SpaceShipOne craft. The follow on vehicle, SpaceShipTwo, is to form the basis of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galatic space tourism business. More info on the accident can be found on the SMH’s site here.

Although this is the first major accident involving these new space enterprises, it will by no means be the last. Why? Simply because the physics and chemistry involved in rocket science is extreme and pushes the limits of man and machine. Furthermore, spacecraft systems are often incredibly complex, for example the Saturn V had over a million individual systems that had to all work together for the first and only time when on the launch pad. As complexity increases, so do the risks. Everyone in the business knows and accepts these risks, unfortunately sometimes we take our eyes off the ball and it has awful consequences as evidenced by these tragic events.

CNN reports this mildly bizzare episode in Palatine, Illinois….
“An elementary school science teacher in this Chicago suburb doesn’t have to turn on the news for an update on NASA’s space mission. She just turns on her video baby monitor.

Since Sunday, one of the two channels on Natalie Meilinger’s baby monitor has been picking up black-and-white video from inside the space shuttle Atlantis. The other still lets her keep an eye on her baby.

“Whoever has a baby monitor knows what you’ll usually see,” Meilinger said. “No one would ever expect this.”

Live video of the mission is available on NASA’s Web site, so it’s possible the monitor is picking up a signal from somewhere.

“It’s not coming straight from the shuttle,” NASA spokeswoman Brandi Dean said. “People here think this is very interesting and you don’t hear of it often — if at all.”

Meilinger silenced disbelieving co-workers by bringing in a video of the monitor to show her class on Tuesday, her students’ last day of school. At home, 3-month-old Jack and 2-year-old Rachel don’t quite understand what their parents are watching.

“I’ve been addicted to it and keep waiting to see what’s next,” Meilinger said.

Summer Infant, the monitor’s manufacturer, is investigating what could be causing the transmission, communications director Cindy Barlow said. She said she’s never heard of anything similar happening.

“Not even close,” she said. “Gotta love technology.”