NSRC-2011 Suborbital Meeting Online Registration Ends Friday Feb 18

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2011's Next-Generation Suborbital Conference (NSRC-2011), will be held in Orlando, Florida 28 February through 2 March. That's less than two weeks away!

If you or your colleagues and students have not registered on line yet, you still can, until Friday February 18th; just go to: http://nsrc.swri.org/

We can already see that NSRC-2011 promises to be a watershed gathering for researchers, educators, and industry/government. The meeting will provide a forum for the exchange of ideas about the application of these new vehicles to research and education objectives. The meeting will also provide important networking opportunities for researchers and educators to meet with colleagues, government officials, and representatives from the suborbital industry. This year's registrants include a significant number of internationals from Canada, Europe, and Asia, in addition to many, many from the United States.

Over 120 presenters--a 40% increase over 2010--will discuss everything from flight test progress to planned experiments in 7 different research fields to training and roles for research and educator payload specialists. In total, the meeting will feature 20 sessions, 4 discussion panels, a press conference, presentations or booths by 20 sponsors, and a public night presentation by Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides.

The meeting will also include invited talks by experts in diverse fields that include microgravity sciences, atmospheric science, space life sciences, planetary science, education, and crew training. NSRC-2011 is the place to be to learn how to marry your research, education, or business interests to next-generation suborbital spaceflight. For more information, and to register to reserve your seat, go to http://nsrc.swri.org/

See you there, soon--and don't forget to register before Friday when the website registration period ends! (After that you will have to register in person in Orlando, at a higher price).

Is Robonaut Going to Get a Japanese Tweetbot Girlfriend In Space?

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Japan may send chatty humanoid tweet-bot to space, AP

"Japan's space agency JAXA announced this week that it is looking at a plan to send a humanoid robot to the space station in 2013 that could communicate with the ground through Twitter -- primarily feeding photos, rather than original ideas -- and provide astronauts with "comfort and companionship." Following up on NASA's "Robonaut" R-2 program, which is set for launch on the Discovery shuttle next week, the Japanese android would be part of a larger effort to create and refine robots that can be used by the elderly, JAXA said in a statement."

- A Cylon Girlfriend for Robonaut2, earlier post
- KSC Wants To Buy A Cornish Robot To Greet U.S. Visitors, earlier post
- Dryden Seeks Ethnically Diverse Cylons, earlier post

Seven New Teams Added to Final Google Lunar X PRIZE Competition Roster

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Google Lunar X PRIZE Announces Official Roster of Teams Competing in the $30 Million Race to the Moon (With video), X Prize Foundation

"Today, the X PRIZE Foundation announced the official roster of 29 registered teams competing for the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE, an unprecedented competition to send a robot to the Moon that travels at least 500 meters and transmit video, images, and data back to the Earth. This group of teams signifies this new era of exploration's diverse and participatory nature as it includes a huge variety of groups ranging from non-profits to university consortia to billion dollar businesses representing 17 nations on four continents. The global competition, the largest in history, was announced in September 2007, with a winner projected by 2015."

Budget Battle Looming, Again

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NASA and CongressFormer NASA Advisor Says Fight Is Brewing Over 2012 Budget, WHNT News 19

"Huntsville attorney Mark McDaniel, who has advised presidents, NASA administrators and Congress on space policy, says a fight for NASA's future is about to lift off. "What's gearing up right now is a space policy fight again, just like we had last year," he predicted."

McDaniel says it's irritating for NASA employees to keep changing directions. "It can be frustrating when they have this policy, then you have another policy, and then you have another policy,"

Commercial Spaceflight Federation Applauds Boost to Innovative Technology Programs in New NASA Budget

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Space Technology Office to Support High-Payoff Programs Including Centennial Challenge Prizes, Commercial Suborbital Science, and Parabolic Flights

Washington, D.C., Tuesday, February 15, 2011 – The Commercial Spaceflight Federation today welcomed the strong support for space technology investments in the new NASA FY2012 proposed budget, including such high-profile programs as Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research, Centennial Challenges, and NASA’s commercial parabolic flight program.

CSF President Bretton Alexander stated, “Consistent with the NASA Authorization Act of 2010, these investments in space technology R&D represent a renewed focus by NASA on innovation, which is the seed corn of American economic competitiveness. Between 2005 and 2009, NASA’s technology programs were cut more than 50%, and we applaud NASA’s plan to reverse this decline.  Robust funding for technology R&D will help ensure that the United States remains a global leader in space.”

Specific technology programs that are part of the new NASA budget include:

-   NASA’s Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research (CRuSR) program, funded at $15 million per year, which will give scientists and students access to conduct research using low-cost commercial suborbital vehicles.

-   NASA’s Centennial Challenges Program, funded at $10 million per year, which offers incentive prizes in the mold of the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE to spur innovation in diverse areas of space technology.

-   NASA’s Facilitated Access to the Space Environment for Technology Development and Training (FAST), funded at $2 million per year, a commercial parabolic flight program to conduct research and technology development on “zero gravity” aircraft.

-   Other exciting NASA technology programs, including:  Cryogenic Propellant Transfer and Storage, In-Space Propulsion, Space Power Generation and Storage, Nuclear Systems, Lightweight Materials and Structures, Human-Robotic Systems, Autonomous Systems, Next-Generation Life Support, Adaptive Entry Systems, and In-Situ Resource Utilization.

CSF Executive Director John Gedmark stated, “These will be some of NASA’s most high-profile, exciting programs.  They are what the nation needs to generate new technology breakthroughs and precisely the kind of programs that will inspire the next generation to go into fields of science and engineering.”

NASA’s decision to increase technology funding follows a letter released last September by a group of 14 Nobel Laureates to Congress that emphasized the importance of technology investment, stating: “Innovative technology development must once again become a high priority at NASA….  We urge that NASA’s total technology investment be increased.”

CSF Executive Director John Gedmark concluded, “Yesterday’s technologies are not sufficient to keep America in first place in the global race for economic competitiveness.  Technology innovation is what got America to the moon in the 1960s, and we need a renewed focus on technology to drive NASA forward in the 21st century. NASA and private industry can work together to find innovative technological solutions to today’s spaceflight challenges.”

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation

The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry.  The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit http://www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John Gedmark at john@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.

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Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in Orlando Less Than 2 Weeks Away – Last Day to Register Online

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The 2011 Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference will be held in Orlando, Florida 28 February through 2 March. That’s less than two weeks away!

If you or your colleagues and students have not registered on line yet, you still can, until the end of Friday February 18th; just go to: http://nsrc.swri.org/. (After that, you can register in-person in Orlando at a higher price.)

Following on the success of the inaugural Next-Gen Suborbital Researchers Conference in February 2010, the Commercial Spaceflight Federation is proud to again co-sponsor the 2011 sequel conference.

We can already see that the 2011 Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference promises to be a watershed gathering for researchers, educators, and industry/government. The meeting will provide a forum for the exchange of ideas about the application of these new vehicles to research and education objectives. The meeting will also provide important networking opportunities for researchers and educators to meet with colleagues, government officials, and representatives from the suborbital industry. Vehicles are under development by companies including Armadillo Aerospace, Blue Origin, Masten Space Systems, Virgin Galactic, and XCOR Aerospace.

This year’s registrants include a significant number of international attendees from Canada, Europe, and Asia, in addition to many from the United States.

Over 120 presenters—a 40% increase over 2010—will discuss everything from flight test progress to planned experiments in 7 different research fields to training and roles for research and educator payload specialists. In total, the meeting will feature 20 sessions, 4 discussion panels, a press conference, presentations or booths by 20 sponsors, and a public night presentation by Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides.

The meeting will also include invited talks by experts in diverse fields that include microgravity sciences, atmospheric science, space life sciences, planetary science, education, and crew training.

The 2011 Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference is the place to be to learn how to marry your research, education, or business interests to next-generation suborbital spaceflight.

For more information, and to register to reserve your seat, go to http://nsrc.swri.org/

See you there, soon—and don’t forget to register before the end of Friday February 18th when the website registration period ends! (After that you will have to register in person in Orlando, at a higher price).

Image above: the opening session from last year’s inaugural Next-Gen Suborbital Researchers Conference in Colorado.

Google Lunar X PRIZE Announces Official Roster of 29 Competing Commercial Teams

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The X PRIZE Foundation, a member of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, announced this week “the official roster of 29 registered teams competing for the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE, an unprecedented competition to send a robot to the Moon that travels at least 500 meters and transmit video, images, and data back to the Earth.”

The X PRIZE Foundation noted that, “Recently, NASA, the U.S. civil space agency, announced that it will purchase data related to innovative lunar missions from six Google Lunar X PRIZE teams, with contracts worth as much as $10 million each.” This is a demonstration of the power of public-private partnerships in space exploration and discovery.

X PRIZE Foundation chairman and CEO Peter Diamandis noted the progress made in the competition to date, stating, “Teams have purchased launch vehicles, they are well into their design process, and we have even seen NASA recognize the value of this competition by purchasing data from several competitors. I want to congratulate the teams that have registered. We are excited to see what they will accomplish in the coming years.”

Tiffany V.C. Montague, Manager of Google Space Initiatives, stated, “From the Wright brothers’ first flight to the Lewis and Clark expedition, the most successful and revolutionary discoveries often come from small, entrepreneurial teams. At Google, we share with this global group of innovators a passion for tackling tough technological and scientific challenges, and we wish them the best of luck as they begin the mission phase.”

For more information, visit the Google Lunar X PRIZE website at: http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/.

Commercial Spaceflight Federation Welcomes Strong Support for Commercial Crew in New NASA Budget

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Commercial Crew Will Eliminate Reliance on Russia, Save Money for the US Taxpayer, and Tap Private-Sector Innovation to Create New Jobs

Washington, D.C., Monday, February 14, 2011 – The Commercial Spaceflight Federation today welcomed the strong support for commercial spaceflight in the new NASA FY2012 proposed budget.

CSF President Bretton Alexander stated, “In this constrained fiscal environment, commercial spaceflight is more important than ever. NASA’s Commercial Crew program will result in significant savings to the US taxpayer, and will cut the amount of money the nation has been sending to Russia every year. Leveraging private investment is the only way NASA can make its dollars go farther in these times of belt-tightening.”

Last year’s NASA Authorization Act identified commercial spaceflight as the primary means to access low Earth orbit and transport NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. The Commercial Crew program has been endorsed by a broad array of thought leaders, including over 25 former astronauts, members of the Columbia Accident Investigation board, over 14 Nobel Laureates, and leaders from across the political spectrum such as former Governor Bill Richardson and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

CSF Executive Director John Gedmark added, “NASA’s number one job is to safely keep America flying in space and eliminate our dependence on the Russians as quickly as possible. It’s because commercial spaceflight is the fastest way to end our reliance on Russia that robust funding for Commercial Crew is so critical. In addition, Commercial Crew will create thousands more private-sector jobs using a combination of government and private investment.”

Gedmark concluded, “It’s time to unleash the innovation of the American private sector in space, and NASA’s new budget does exactly that. It’s the only way to ensure America’s leadership in space.”

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation

The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit http://www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John Gedmark at john@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.

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PSA: Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference

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[A brief public service announcement about the upcoming Next Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in Orlando, February 28-March 2. I attended the inaugural conference last year in Boulder, Colorado, and found it very useful; this one promises to be just as good if not better. Advance registration for the conference closes today, although on-site registration will be available.]

The 2011 Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference will be held in Orlando, Florida 28 February through 2 March. That’s less than two weeks away!

If you or your colleagues and students have not registered on line yet, you still can, until the end of Friday February 18th; just go to: http://nsrc.swri.org/. (After that, you can register in-person in Orlando at a higher price.)

Following on the success of the inaugural Next-Gen Suborbital Researchers Conference in February 2010, the Commercial Spaceflight Federation is proud to again co-sponsor the 2011 sequel conference.

We can already see that the 2011 Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference promises to be a watershed gathering for researchers, educators, and industry/government. The meeting will provide a forum for the exchange of ideas about the application of these new vehicles to research and education objectives. The meeting will also provide important networking opportunities for researchers and educators to meet with colleagues, government officials, and representatives from the suborbital industry. Vehicles are under development by companies including Armadillo Aerospace, Blue Origin, Masten Space Systems, Virgin Galactic, and XCOR Aerospace.

This year’s registrants include a significant number of international attendees from Canada, Europe, and Asia, in addition to many from the United States.

Over 120 presenters—a 40% increase over 2010—will discuss everything from flight test progress to planned experiments in 7 different research fields to training and roles for research and educator payload specialists. In total, the meeting will feature 20 sessions, 4 discussion panels, a press conference, presentations or booths by 20 sponsors, and a public night presentation by Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides.

The meeting will also include invited talks by experts in diverse fields that include microgravity sciences, atmospheric science, space life sciences, planetary science, education, and crew training.

The 2011 Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference is the place to be to learn how to marry your research, education, or business interests to next-generation suborbital spaceflight.

For more information, and to register to reserve your seat, go to http://nsrc.swri.org/

See you there, soon—and don’t forget to register before the end of Friday February 18th when the website registration period ends! (After that you will have to register in person in Orlando, at a higher price).

Herschel Measures Dark Matter for Star-Forming Galaxies

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The Herschel Space Observatory has revealed how much dark matter it takes to form a new galaxy bursting with stars. Herschel is a European Space Agency cornerstone mission supported with important NASA contributions.

The findings are a key step in understanding how dark matter, an invisible substance permeating our universe, contributed to the birth of massive galaxies in the early universe.

"If you start with too little dark matter, then a developing galaxy would peter out," said astronomer Asantha Cooray of the University of California, Irvine. He is the principal investigator of new research appearing in the journal Nature, online on Feb. 16 and in the Feb. 24 print edition. "If you have too much, then gas doesn't cool efficiently to form one large galaxy, and you end up with lots of smaller galaxies. But if you have the just the right amount of dark matter, then a galaxy bursting with stars will pop out."

The right amount of dark matter turns out to be a mass equivalent to 300 billion of our suns.

Herschel launched into space in May 2009. The mission's large, 3.5-meter (11.5-foot) telescope detects longer-wavelength infrared light from a host of objects, ranging from asteroids and planets in our own solar system to faraway galaxies.

"This remarkable discovery shows that early galaxies go through periods of star formation much more vigorous than in our present-day Milky Way," said William Danchi, Herschel program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "It showcases the importance of infrared astronomy, enabling us to peer behind veils of interstellar dust to see stars in their infancy."

Cooray and colleagues used the telescope to measure infrared light from massive, star-forming galaxies located 10 to 11 billion light-years away. Astronomers think these and other galaxies formed inside clumps of dark matter, similar to chicks incubating in eggs.

Giant clumps of dark matter act like gravitational wells that collect the gas and dust needed for making galaxies. When a mixture of gas and dust falls into a well, it condenses and cools, allowing new stars to form. Eventually enough stars form, and a galaxy is born.

Herschel was able to uncover more about how this galaxy-making process works by mapping the infrared light from collections of very distant, massive star-forming galaxies. This pattern of light, called the cosmic infrared background, is like a web that spreads across the sky. Because Herschel can survey large areas quickly with high resolution, it was able to create the first detailed maps of the cosmic infrared background.

"It turns out that it's much more effective to look at these patterns rather than the individual galaxies," said Jamie Bock of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Bock is the U.S. principal investigator for Herschel's Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver instrument used to make the maps. "This is like looking at a picture in a magazine from a reading distance. You don't notice the individual dots, but you see the big picture. Herschel gives us the big picture of these distant galaxies, showing the influence of dark matter."

The maps showed the galaxies are more clustered into groups than previously believed. The amount of galaxy clustering depends on the amount of dark matter. After a series of complicated numerical simulations, the astronomers were able to determine exactly how much dark matter is needed to form a single star-forming galaxy.

"This measurement is important, because we are homing in on the very basic ingredients in galaxy formation," said Alexandre Amblard of UC Irvine, first author of the Nature paper. "In this case, the ingredient, dark matter, happens to be an exotic substance that we still have much to learn about."

NASA's Herschel Project Office is based at JPL, which contributed mission-enabling technology for two of Herschel's three science instruments. The NASA Herschel Science Center, part of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, supports the U.S. astronomical community. JPL is managed by Caltech.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/herschel/herschel20110216.html

Can WISE Find the Hypothetical ‘Tyche’?

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In November 2010, the scientific journal Icarus published a paper by astrophysicists John Matese and Daniel Whitmire, who proposed the existence of a binary companion to our sun, larger than Jupiter, in the long-hypothesized "Oort cloud" -- a faraway repository of small icy bodies at the edge of our solar system. The researchers use the name "Tyche" for the hypothetical planet. Their paper argues that evidence for the planet would have been recorded by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).

WISE is a NASA mission, launched in December 2009, which scanned the entire celestial sky at four infrared wavelengths about 1.5 times. It captured more than 2.7 million images of objects in space, ranging from faraway galaxies to asteroids and comets relatively close to Earth. Recently, WISE completed an extended mission, allowing it to finish a complete scan of the asteroid belt, and two complete scans of the more distant universe, in two infrared bands. So far, the mission's discoveries of previously unknown objects include an ultra-cold star or brown dwarf, 20 comets, 134 near-Earth objects (NEOs), and more than 33,000 asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Following its successful survey, WISE was put into hibernation in February 2011. Analysis of WISE data continues. A preliminary public release of the first 14 weeks of data is planned for April 2011, and the final release of the full survey is planned for March 2012.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: When could data from WISE confirm or rule out the existence of the hypothesized planet Tyche?

A: It is too early to know whether WISE data confirms or rules out a large object in the Oort cloud. Analysis over the next couple of years will be needed to determine if WISE has actually detected such a world or not. The first 14 weeks of data, being released in April 2011, are unlikely to be sufficient. The full survey, scheduled for release in March 2012, should provide greater insight. Once the WISE data are fully processed, released and analyzed, the Tyche hypothesis that Matese and Whitmire propose will be tested.

Q: Is it a certainty that WISE would have observed such a planet if it exists?

A: It is likely but not a foregone conclusion that WISE could confirm whether or not Tyche exists. Since WISE surveyed the whole sky once, then covered the entire sky again in two of its infrared bands six months later, WISE would see a change in the apparent position of a large planet body in the Oort cloud over the six-month period. The two bands used in the second sky coverage were designed to identify very small, cold stars (or brown dwarfs) -- which are much like planets larger than Jupiter, as Tyche is hypothesized to be.

Q: If Tyche does exist, why would it have taken so long to find another planet in our solar system?

A: Tyche would be too cold and faint for a visible light telescope to identify. Sensitive infrared telescopes could pick up the glow from such an object, if they looked in the right direction. WISE is a sensitive infrared telescope that looks in all directions.

Q: Why is the hypothesized object dubbed "Tyche," and why choose a Greek name when the names of other planets derive from Roman mythology?

A: In the 1980s, a different companion to the sun was hypothesized. That object, named for the Greek goddess "Nemesis," was proposed to explain periodic mass extinctions on the Earth. Nemesis would have followed a highly elliptical orbit, perturbing comets in the Oort Cloud roughly every 26 million years and sending a shower of comets toward the inner solar system. Some of these comets would have slammed into Earth, causing catastrophic results to life. Recent scientific analysis no longer supports the idea that extinctions on Earth happen at regular, repeating intervals. Thus, the Nemesis hypothesis is no longer needed. However, it is still possible that the sun could have a distant, unseen companion in a more circular orbit with a period of a few million years -- one that would not cause devastating effects to terrestrial life. To distinguish this object from the malevolent "Nemesis," astronomers chose the name of Nemesis's benevolent sister in Greek mythology, "Tyche."

JPL manages and operates the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The principal investigator, Edward Wright, is at UCLA. The mission was competitively selected under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory, Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/news/wise20110218.html

NASA Releases Images of Man-Made Crater on Comet

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NASA's Stardust spacecraft returned new images of a comet showing a scar resulting from the 2005 Deep Impact mission. The images also showed the comet has a fragile and weak nucleus.

The spacecraft made its closest approach to comet Tempel 1 on Monday, Feb. 14, at 8:40 p.m. PST (11:40 p.m. EST) at a distance of approximately 178 kilometers (111 miles). Stardust took 72 high-resolution images of the comet. It also accumulated 468 kilobytes of data about the dust in its coma, the cloud that is a comet's atmosphere. The craft is on its second mission of exploration called Stardust-NExT, having completed its prime mission collecting cometary particles and returning them to Earth in 2006.

The Stardust-NExT mission met its goals, which included observing surface features that changed in areas previously seen during the 2005 Deep Impact mission; imaging new terrain; and viewing the crater generated when the 2005 mission propelled an impactor at the comet.

"This mission is 100 percent successful," said Joe Veverka, Stardust-NExT principal investigator of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. "We saw a lot of new things that we didn't expect, and we'll be working hard to figure out what Tempel 1 is trying to tell us."

Several of the images provide tantalizing clues to the result of the Deep Impact mission's collision with Tempel 1. "We see a crater with a small mound in the center, and it appears that some of the ejecta went up and came right back down," said Pete Schultz of Brown University, Providence, R.I. "This tells us this cometary nucleus is fragile and weak based on how subdued the crater is we see today."

Engineering telemetry downlinked after closest approach indicates the spacecraft flew through waves of disintegrating cometary particles, including a dozen impacts that penetrated more than one layer of its protective shielding.

"The data indicate Stardust went through something similar to a B-17 bomber flying through flak in World War II," said Don Brownlee, Stardust-NExT co-investigator from the University of Washington in Seattle. "Instead of having a little stream of uniform particles coming out, they apparently came out in chunks and crumbled."

While the Valentine's Day night encounter of Tempel 1 is complete, the spacecraft will continue to look at its latest cometary obsession from afar.

"This spacecraft has logged over 3.5 billion miles since launch, and while its last close encounter is complete, its mission of discovery is not," said Tim Larson, Stardust-NExT project manager at JPL. "We'll continue imaging the comet as long as the science team can gain useful information, and then Stardust will get its well-deserved rest."

Stardust-NExT is a low-cost mission that is expanding the investigation of comet Tempel 1 initiated by the Deep Impact spacecraft. The mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft and manages day-to-day mission operations.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stardust/news/stardust20110215.html

SDO Sundog Mystery

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NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), best known for cutting-edge images of the sun, has made a discovery right here on Earth.

"It's a new form of ice halo," says atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley of England. "We saw it for the first time at the launch of SDO--and it is teaching us new things about how shock waves interact with clouds."

Ice halos are rings and arcs of light that appear in the sky when sunlight shines through ice crystals in the air. A familiar example is the sundog—a rainbow-colored splash often seen to the left or right of the morning sun. Sundogs are formed by plate-shaped ice crystals drifting down from the sky like leaves fluttering from trees.

Last year, SDO destroyed a sundog—and that's how the new halo was discovered.

SDO lifted off from Cape Canaveral on Feb. 11, 2010—one year ago today. It was a beautiful morning with only a handful of wispy cirrus clouds crisscrossing the wintry-blue sky. As the countdown timer ticked to zero, a sundog formed over the launch pad. Play the movie, below, to see what happened next—and don't forget to turn up the volume to hear the reaction of the crowd:

"When the rocket penetrated the cirrus, shock waves rippled through the cloud and destroyed the alignment of the ice crystals," explains Cowley. "This extinguished the sundog."

The sundog's destruction was understood. The events that followed, however, were not.

"A luminous column of white light appeared next to the Atlas V and followed the rocket up into the sky," says Cowley. "We'd never seen anything like it."

Cowley and colleague Robert Greenler set to work figuring out what the mystery-column was. Somehow, shock waves from the rocket must have scrambled the ice crystals to produce the 'rocket halo.' But how? Computer models of sunlight shining through ice crystals tilted in every possible direction failed to explain the SDO event.

Then came the epiphany: The crystals weren't randomly scrambled, Cowley and Greenler realized. On the contrary, the plate-shaped hexagons were organized by the shock waves as a dancing army of microscopic spinning tops.

Cowley explains their successful model: "The crystals are tilted between 8 and 12 degrees. Then they gyrate so that the main crystal axis describes a conical motion. Toy tops and gyroscopes do it. The earth does it once every 26000 years. The motion is ordered and precise."

Bottom line: Blasting a rocket through a cirrus cloud can produce a surprising degree of order. "This could be the start of a new research field—halo dynamics," he adds.

The simulations show that the white column beside SDO was only a fraction of a larger oval that would have appeared if the crystals and shock waves had been more wide-ranging. A picture of the hypothetical complete halo may be found here.

"We'd love to see it again and more completely," says Cowley.

"If you ever get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be at a rocket launch," he advises with a laugh, "forget about the rocket! Look out instead for halos."

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sdo/news/sundog-mystery.html

Wired: To Talk With Aliens, Learn to Speak With Dolphins

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Wired is reporting on an interesting paper about cutting edge dolphin communications studies and how this research may eventually assist in SETI endeavors.

This research is being done by Denise Herzing of the Wild Dolphin Project. Her paper is called "SETI meets a social intelligence: Dolphins as a model for real-time interaction and communication with a sentient species." Abstract:

In the past SETI has focused on the reception and deciphering of radio signals from potential remote civilizations. It is conceivable that real-time contact and interaction with a social intelligence may occur in the future. A serious look at the development of relationship, and deciphering of communication signals within and between a non-terrestrial, non-primate sentient species is relevant. Since 1985 a resident community of free-ranging Atlantic spotted dolphins has been observed regularly in the Bahamas. Life history, relationships, regular interspecific interactions with bottlenose dolphins, and multi-modal underwater communication signals have been documented. Dolphins display social communication signals modified for water, their body types, and sensory systems. Like anthropologists, human researchers engage in benign observation in the water and interact with these dolphins to develop rapport and trust. Many individual dolphins have been known for over 20 years. Learning the culturally appropriate etiquette has been important in the relationship with this alien society. To engage humans in interaction the dolphins often initiate spontaneous displays, mimicry, imitation, and synchrony. These elements may be emergent/universal features of one intelligent species contacting another for the intention of initiating interaction. This should be a consideration for real-time contact and interaction for future SETI work.


Anders Sandberg: Why we should fear the paperclipper

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Most people in the singularity community are familiar with the nightmarish "paperclip" scenario, but it's worth reviewing. Anders Sandberg summarizes the problem:

A programmer has constructed an artificial intelligence based on an architecture similar to Marcus Hutter's AIXI model...This AI will maximize the reward given by a utility function the programmer has given it. Just as a test, he connects it to a 3D printer and sets the utility function to give reward proportional to the number of manufactured paper-clips.

At first nothing seems to happen: the AI zooms through various possibilities. It notices that smarter systems generally can make more paper-clips, so making itself smarter will likely increase the number of paper-clips that will eventually be made. It does so. It considers how it can make paper-clips using the 3D printer, estimating the number of possible paper-clips. It notes that if it could get more raw materials it could make more paper-clips. It hence figures out a plan to manufacture devices that will make it much smarter, prevent interference with its plan, and will turn all of Earth (and later the universe) into paper-clips. It does so.

Only paper-clips remain.

In the article, Why we should fear the paperclipper, Sandberg goes on to address a number of objections, including:

  • Such systems cannot be built
  • Wouldn't the AI realize that this was not what the programmer meant?
  • Wouldn't the AI just modify itself to *think* it was maximizing paper-clips?
  • It is not really intelligent
  • Creative intelligences will always beat this kind of uncreative intelligence
  • Doesn't playing nice with other agents produce higher rewards?
  • Wouldn't the AI be vulnerable to internal hacking: some of the subprograms it runs to check for approaches will attempt to hack the system to fulfil their own (random) goals?
  • Nobody would be stupid enough to make such an AI

In each case, Sandberg offers a counterpoint to the objection. For example, in regards to the power of creative intelligences he writes,

The strength of the AIXI "simulate them all, make use of the best"-approach is that it includes all forms of intelligence, including creative ones. So the paper-clip AI will consider all sorts of creative solutions. Plus ways of thwarting creative ways of stopping it.

In practice it will be having an overhead since it is runs all of them, plus the uncreative (and downright stupid). A pure AIXI-like system will likely always have an enormous disadvantage. An architecture like a Gödel machine that improves its own function might however overcome this.

In the end, Sandberg concludes that we should still take this threat seriously:

This is a trivial, wizard's apprentice, case where powerful AI misbehaves. It is easy to analyse thanks to the well-defined structure of the system (AIXI plus utility function) and allows us to see why a super-intelligent system can be dangerous without having malicious intent. In reality I expect that if programming such a system did produce a harmful result it would not be through this kind of easily foreseen mistake. But I do expect that in that case the reason would likely be obvious in retrospect and not much more complex.


Social networking as a force for radical social change? Don’t believe the hype

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My aren't we all excited these days about the power of social networking, particularly in its apparent ability to literally topple governments. Recent events in Tunisia and Egypt have left a good number of people believing that Twitter and Facebook were the defining factors behind the fall of the despotic regimes.

Yeah, well, that's kinda not what happened.

Look, I'm not about to deny the power of these platforms to disseminate information. Clearly they had an impact on the public's ability to bond together and rally behind a worthwhile cause. But last time I checked, a good number of previous revolutions managed to happen without the internet.

Funny that. How'd they manage to pull that off without iPhones and TweetDeck?

Okay, here's the deal: The fall of any regime is contingent on a number of factors—but access to information is a relatively irrelevant variable. The 'rise up' meme can spread through a number of different channels and at varying rates, and given dire circumstances and a desperate populace, it most certainly will.

For revolutions to work, however, there has to be (1) a reason behind the uprising, (2) a population willing to go the distance, and (3) a government largely unable or unwilling to manage the situation.

In the case of Tunisia, for example, Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation was the immediate powder keg that set off a population largely stressed out by poor economic conditions, including rising food prices. That's it right there in a nutshell. 140 character limits had nothing to do with it. In turn, the success of the Tunisians was clearly an inspiration for the Egyptians who were suffering under similar circumstances.

As for the population's resolve, I'm certain that the solidarity and passion that was felt was accentuated by the social networking aspect. No doubt. But ultimately, for that resolve to flourish and strengthen over the long haul, there has to be underlying stress factors.

And with or without social networking, it's the response of the government that almost always determines the course of a popular uprising. In the case of Egypt, while it appeared that Hosni Mubarak had control of the military at all times, he willingly chose not to suppress the uprising with violent action. Ultimately, it was this restraint that led to his overthrow.

The same cannot be said for some other countries that have faced (or are currently facing) popular uprisings. Take China in 1989 for example. Does anyone seriously think that social networking would have prevented the Chinese military from unleashing machine gun fire on those students? Or that the protests would have continued afterwards?

Then there's Iran. Twenty months ago the country was littered with protesters who were in the possession of social networking tools. Yes, the sharing of information most certainly added fuel to the fire, but ultimately the uprising failed. Why? Because the Iranian government is more willing than others to brutalize its people. Moreover, the social networking aspect has unquestioningly backfired; it's almost certain that thousands of protesters who exposed themselves through these channels were later jailed and likely executed.

If the current protests in Iran or anywhere else are to succeed, it won't be on account of social networks. It will be because the populace simply refuses to tolerate their conditions, and that their resolve is stronger than the force it's up against.


When computers exceed our ability to understand how the hell they do the things they do

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Which would be pretty much now.

Great quote from David Ferrucci, the Lead Researcher of IBM's Watson Project:

"Watson absolutely surprises me. People say: 'Why did it get that one wrong?' I don't know. 'Why did it get that one right?' I don't know."

Essentially, the IBM team came up with a whole whack of fancy algorithms and shoved them into Watson. But they didn't know how these formulas would work in concert with each other and result in emergent effects (i.e. computational cognitive complexity). The result is the seemingly intangible, and not always coherent, way in which Watson gets questions right—and the ways in which it gets questions wrong.

As Watson has revealed, when it errs it errs really badly.

This kind of freaks me out a little. When asking computers questions that we don't know the answers to, we aren't going to know beyond a shadow of a doubt when a system like Watson is right or wrong. Because we don't know the answer ourselves, and because we don't necessarily know how the computer got the answer, we are going to have to take a tremendous leap of faith that it got it right when the answer seems even remotely plausible.

Looking even further ahead, it's becoming painfully obvious that any complex system that is even remotely superior (or simply different) relative to human cognition will be largely unpredictable. This doesn't bode well for our attempts to engineer safe, comprehensible and controllable super artificial intelligence.