Michael West’s Blog

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!

Has the real Jesus been so buried by tradition and legend that he is now lost to people living in the 21st century?

That is the question that is examined by a four part historical documentary called ‘The Christ Files’ that is airing on Channel 7 at noon on Good Friday, 21st March. Here is the blurb from its website…

“Historian Dr John Dickson sets out to discover what we can know for certain about the life of one of history’s best known and most influential figures. In a captivating journey across the globe, Dr Dickson examines ancient documents and consults the world’s most respected historians and scholars. Beginning with the Gnostic Gospels, he criss-crosses continents on a search back through time for the historical sources that reveal the real Jesus— a search for The Christ Files.”

I would be interested to hear what people think. Feel free to post a comment. More details about the documentary and a selection of interviews from it can be found at www.thechristfiles.com.au

(Thanks to Vella, Matt & Tiger for making me aware of this).

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.

In the end I did get quoted in the New Scientist article, which is pretty cool. The article can be found here: Mars’s tiny moons - one small step for mankind? The conference also got a mention in a few blogs here and here as well as in a piece by NASA’s Chief Historian, Steven Dick, entitled: Under the Moons of Mars. Bruce Betts, from the Planetary Society, also wrote a report about the conference for the Planetary Society Weblog. It is quite an interesting read and can be found here.
Also, one can find the extended abstract from my conference presentation here, if you are interested.

Today’s session was on the human exploration of Phobos and Deimos and included my presentation the engineering challenges and unique opportunities associated with such an endeavour. I will put up a PDF of my presentation later if you are interested. My presentation was well received and provoked some good questions and discussion, particularly about whether robotic precursor missions would be required before sending humans or if we know enough already to safely operate on their surface. From an engineering stand point, my big concerns are with the long term effects of the moons’ regolith on mechanical systems such as spacesuits and the challenges associated with affixing oneself to the surface and getting around on the moons. Since the gravity on Phobos, as an example, is 0.001G and varies as a result of its irregular shape conducting spacewalks and the like will require some careful consideration. Given the extensive experience gained from the Mir, Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs, in which spacewalks are conducted in near-zero G conditions, there is a legacy to build upon.

Other presentations during the day discussed the radiation environment in Mars orbit and the use of Phobos as a location for a cache of Martian material collected by sample return missions. Rob Landis from NASA Johnson Space Center gave a very interesting presentation about his study of a crewed mission to a Near Earth Object, such as an asteroid, using the crew exploration vehicle mission architecture as a prelude to human exploration of Phobos and Deimos. Following lunch was the poster session of which I have included some photos of below.

Later in the afternoon Pascal was interviewed by Michael Reilly from New Scientist magazine for an article that will hopefully come out online tomorrow about the conference. He also asked me a few questions about my presentation etc. Who knows, I might even get a mention

Pascal pointed out something quite humorous in his opening remarks at the conference today. Keraunothnetophobia is the fear of falling satellites and it is quite apt given that Phobos’ orbit around Mars is decaying. Don’t worry though, it will take at least another 3-4 million years until it crashes into the surface of Mars and that is provided that the increasing tidal forces don’t rip the moon apart first into small pieces that will burn up as they reach Mars’ atmosphere.

The conference got underway proper today. After some introductory remarks from Pascal Lee, Steven Dick, NASA’s Chief Historian, kicked off proceedings with a presentation about the discovery of Phobos and Deimos. It was really interesting and provided a good introduction and set the scene well for the rest of the conference. The rest of the morning consisted of several science presentations that discussed things such as the conundrums about the surfaces of the moons, what is known about their composition, their origin and evolution and Phobos and Deimos’ interactions with the solar wind. After these talks I got a real sense of how little we know about these two objects and the need for more data and more spacecraft exploring them.

Over lunch the Director of NASA Ames, Pete Worden, gave a keynote address about how human exploration of Phobos and Deimos could fit into NASA’s Vision for Space Exploration. He suggested that sending a manned mission to Phobos or Deimos may be possible, post the return to the Moon. This suggestion, which he clarified was far from NASA policy, was based on a recent study into using the Crew Exploration Vehicle mission architecture for a human mission to a Near Earth Object, such as an asteroid and the similarities between these type of missions.

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