PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet 57/2002 - 7 May 2002
--------------------------
"Australia is a member of the Organisation for Economic
Cooperation
and Development's (OECD) Global Science Forum which agreed at its
meeting in January 2002 to establish a Working Group to examine
the issues
related to Near Earth Asteroids. Australia supported the
establishment of
the Working Group and will participate in its activities. The aim
of the
Working Group is to review the current state of scientific
understanding of
the impact hazard, in order to reach an international consensus
of the
level of the potential risk. It will also review current
international work on detection to consider where stronger
international interactions are needed. The Government will
consider the
report of the Working Group when it is delivered in early 2003
and will
assess the potential for further Australian involvement at that
time."
--Peter McGauran, (Australian) Minister for Science, 30
April 2002
(1) AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT TO CONSIDER OECD RECOMMENDATIONS ON
IMPACT HAZARD
Michael Paine <mpaine@tpgi.com.au>
(2) NOW ANYONE CAN DISCOVER A COMET
Wired.com, 6 May 2002
(3) THE SOHO-500 COMET CONTEST
Ron Baalke <baalke@jpl.nasa.gov>
(4) "SPACE POLICY" ESSAY COMPETITION
Roger Launius <rlaunius@hq.nasa.gov>
(5) GEOMAGNETIC STORMS - REDUCING THE THREAT TO CRITICAL
INFRASTRUCTURE
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
(6) BRUNEL HOLOCENE CONFERENCE ABSTRACT: QUAKE AD 365
Hermann Burchard <burchar@mail.math.okstate.edu>
(7) JOURNAL ABSTRACTS
Michael Paine <mpaine@tpgi.com.au>
(8) REPORT ON THE SPACE LAUNCH INITIATIVE (SLI) AND NEO NEWS FROM
NASA
E.P. Grondine <epgrondine@hotmail.com>
==============
(1) AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT TO CONSIDER OECD RECOMMENDATIONS ON
IMPACT HAZARD
>From Michael Paine <mpaine@tpgi.com.au>
Dear Benny, Duncan and Jay
I have just received the following from Peter McGauran, oddly via
the office
of fellow minsiter, Brendan Nelson. The Australian government is
attempting
to side-step the issue by saying it will wait for the report of
an OECD
working group - not due until 2003!
It is therefore very important that the OECD working group is
properly
informed about Spaceguard. However, I won't let up on the
Australian
government's irresponsible approach to this issue. I expect that
Jay will
receive a similar reply to the letter signed by 91 scientists in
January.
Mike
------------------------------------
THE HON PETER McGAURAN MP
Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 1
MINISTER FOR SCIENCE, DEPUTY LEADER OF THE HOUSE
30 APR 2002
Mr Michael Paine
Email: mpaine@tpgi.com.au
Dear Mr Paine
Thank you for your emails of 31 January, 19 March and 5 and 8
Apri12002
regarding government funding for Australian involvement in
international
efforts to detect approaching asteroids.
At present the Federal Government provides considerable funding
for
astronomy research, guided by input from the astronomy community.
Government funding for Near Earth Asteroid detection was ceased
in 1996
after a review of astronomy research in 1995 established other
areas of
higher priority. The review entitled 'Australian Astronomy:
Beyond 2000' was
conducted by the National Committee for Astronomy of the
Australian Academy
of Science. The Government responded to the top priority that had
been
identified by providing funding of some $13M in 1996 for
membership to the
major international Gemini telescope project. In 2001 $23.5M was
provided
through the Major National Research Facility Program for
increasing
membership in the International Gemini project from 5% to 10% and
for
participation in the early stage of international work towards
the
development of a major new radio-telescope -the Square Kilometre
Array
(SKA). Further funding is being provided to astronomy
projects from the Australian Research Council' s (ARC) highly
competitive
grants programs and from the Federal Government's ongoing support
of the
Anglo Australian Observatory .
By way of background the SKA telescope will be a centimetre-wave
radio
telescope with loo times the sensitivity of existing radio
telescopes that
will cost about US$l billion spread over a 16 year period to
2015. An
international scientific consortium, including representatives
from
Australia's science community, has been established with the
objective of
collaborating to design and build the SKA telescope. The draft
timetable
prepared by the consortium indicates that decisions on design and
the
geographic location of the telescope will be made in 2005,
construction
would begin in 2010 and the telescope would be completed in 2015.
Returning to your specific concerns in regard to Near Earth
Asteroids I wish
to outline the current situation.
Australia is a member of the Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and
Development's (OECD) Global Science Forum which agreed at its
meeting in
January 2002 to establish a Working Group to examine the issues
related to
Near Earth Asteroids. Australia supported the establishment of
the
Working Group and will participate in its activities.
The aim of the Working Group is to review the current state of
scientific
understanding of the impact hazard, in order to reach an
international
consensus of the level of the potential risk. It will also review
current
international work on detection to consider where stronger
international
interactions are needed.
The Government will consider the report of the Working Group when
it is
delivered in early 2003 and will assess the potential for further
Australian
involvement at that time.
I will contact you once the Government has decided upon its
response to this
report.
Thank you for writing with your concerns in this area.
Yours sincerely
Peter McGauran
=============
(2) NOW ANYONE CAN DISCOVER A COMET
>From Wired.com, 6 May 2002
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,52233,00.html
By Jeffrey Benner
Warning: This website can trigger an obsessive search for comets.
In offices, dens and dorm rooms around the world, a geeky band of
hunters
are desperately scouring the site for comets. A German student
likened his
interest to addiction. A father of three in Britain, who has
found 132
comets, is reluctant to admit just how much time he spends on his
quest.
The unknown comets are turning up in the background of photos of
the sun
taken from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO, a
satellite in
orbit around the sun. Dozens of amateur astronomers from around
the world
scour the images for the wispy tail of a comet, racing to be the
first human
to ever lay eyes on a particular glowing ball of ice hurtling
toward the
sun.
Sebastian Hoenig constantly pores over the SOHO images, sometimes
for 16
hours a day. Since he started visiting the SOHO website in
December 2000, he
has found 18 comets and he's gunning for more.
"Searching for comets has become like addiction," said
Hoenig, who studies
astronomy and physics at Ruprecht-Karls University in Heidelberg,
Germany. A
competitive speed skater, he compared discovering a comet to
victory in
sports. "When you realize that no one else has ever seen it
before, it's
like winning the gold medal: great feeling."
Launched in 1995, the SOHO observatory is a joint project of NASA
and the
European Space Agency. The primary purpose of the mission is to
study solar
activity. The discovery of hundreds of new comets -- more than
400 have been
found so far -- has been an unexpected perk.
The undisputed champion among amateur SOHO comet hunters is Mike
Oates, 45,
a father of three from Manchester, Great Britain, where he runs
an
electroplating business. With 132 comet discoveries to his name,
his tally
is nearly triple that of second-ranked Xavier Leprette of France,
who has
found 50 comets.
Oates, possessed with the same compulsive thirst for discovery
that drives
Hoenig, has spent more hours looking for comets than he cares to
admit.
"I would not like to give any exact figures," he said.
"But at my peak, I
have my computer downloading images for at least 12 hours a day,
with about
half that spent directly image processing and searching."
When Oates started plowing through the SOHO archives to find
images taken
before the website went live -- a clever tactic his rivals hadn't
thought of
-- he really started to pile on the comet credits. He considers
these
archival finds particularly satisfying. "There is just that
little extra
thrill of discovering comets that have been missed by the
professionals," he
said.
Doug Biesecker, a scientist who works on the SOHO project, said
his team
didn't plan on amateur astronomers playing such a huge role in
picking
comets out from the chronograph images. But when they started
posting the
images on the Web in 1999, the e-mails started to roll in.
Nearly all the messages came from people who had mistaken a star,
or planet,
or imperfections in the photos for comets. But a few people were
really onto
something. "They started to find objects we were
missing," Biesecker said.
"We realized (help from amateurs) was an important tool we
could use."
Biesecker set up a special website and reporting log for the
comet spotters.
Once Biesecker verifies a discovery, he reports the new comet and
its
discoverer to the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams at
Harvard, the
world's official recorder of celestial discoveries.
Amateurs looking at the SOHO images on the Web have found 76
percent of the
428 new comets that have turned up in SOHO images. Of the 31
people who have
discovered comets, 21 of them are amateurs. They come from 10
different
countries, including Australia, Great Britain, Germany and China.
The comet hunters agree that the spirit of competition is a big
part of the
allure. Nearly all the comets they find are tiny shards of rock
and ice,
doomed to evaporate in the sun's atmosphere days after they are
spotted.
"There's not great science coming out of us discovering
these comets," said
Rob Matson, a systems engineer from Newport Beach, California.
"But there's
a thrill of the hunt." Matson has yet to bag his first
comet, but he spends
about ten hours a week trying.
But the competition is friendly. Hoenig has built a website to
help newbies
get the hang of comet spotting and comet-master Oates has one
too.
Copyright 2002, Wired
===========
(3) THE SOHO-500 COMET CONTEST
>From Ron Baalke <baalke@jpl.nasa.gov>
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/comet.html
The SOHO-500 Comet Contest
Contest Objective
Predict the perihelion date and time of
SOHO-500.
Rules
1. The contest is open to anyone, anywhere, except to Doug
Biesecker and
Derek Hammer.
2. Entries must be e-mailed to Doug Biesecker (
doug@sungrazer.nascom.nasa.gov)
no later than the end of the day May
31st, 2002 EDT (0400 UT, June 1).
Valid entries must include your name,
your e-mail address, and the date
and time, including year, month, day and
time of day in UT. Only one
entry per person will be accepted.
3. In the case of the 500th comet being an archive
discovery, then the
discoverer is also not eligible, but the
closest guess still wins.
4. Guesses will not be revealed publicly until the entry
period has
closed. However names of those who have
submitted guesses will be
posted to verify that an entry has been
received on your behalf.
See the web site
sungrazer.nascom.nasa.gov/soho500/
Note: The web site will be updated as
often as possible, but due to
travel engagements, in the next few
weeks, there will be delays.
Prize
Win a DVD or VHS copy of the SOLAR MAX
movie (www.solarmovie.com).
Solar Max is a movie about the Sun. It
also shows, very briefly, the
Twin sungrazers (C/1998 K10 and K11). It
is definitely very cool,
featuring images not only from various
satellites, but also of sites of
international interest, such as Machu
Picchu in Peru, Newgrange in
Ireland, Lake Titicaca in Bolivia and
Tromso in Norway. It is available
commercially in a variety of video
formats, including DVD and VHS (NTSC
and PAL). Find out more...
Other Notes & Disclaimers
Determination of the SOHO comet numbers
is entirely at the discretion
of Douglas Biesecker. He assigns the
numbers in order of discovery.
These numbers are not an official
product of any recognized
astronomical body. However, they are a
very convenient way to refer to
the various comets and to keep track of
the total number.
Definition of an archive discovery: This
is also at the discretion of
Douglas Biesecker. If a comet is
reported more than 36 hours after it
is first visible in the data (and there
are no large gaps in the data),
then the comet will be designated as an
archive claim. In cases of
ambiguity, the 36 hour rule will begin
at the time when an average
observer might be expected to have been
able to find the comet.
* Neither ESA, NASA, or any other institution
associated with SOHO is
involved with the adjudication of claims
or providing the prize. The
contest is designed to increase the
public's awareness of SOHO's
discoveries and demonstrate the ease of
accesibility of scientific data
sets by the general public.
Links & Tips
Links
o As of May 2, 2001,
the count is up to SOHO-435. Keep track of
discoveries at sungrazer.nascom.nasa.gov/recent.html.
o The SOHO Homepage,
LASCO Homepage
Tips: Possible Strategies
1. Estimate the number of
comets per year and extrapolate.
2. Refine your estimate by
looking at the monthly variation in the
rate of
discoveries.
3. Consider the chance that
the discovery will be an archive claim.
4. Guess.
===========
(4) "SPACE POLICY" ESSAY COMPETITION
>From Roger Launius <rlaunius@hq.nasa.gov>
Greetings:
The Journal, Space Policy, has created a new award for essays in
space
policy open to graduate students. The information on this award
follows.
Sincerely,
Roger D. Launius
NASA Chief Historian
-----
The Maxim Tarasenko Award
Maxim Tarasenko, a leading Russian space history scholar and a
member of
Space Policy's editorial board, who contributed greatly to the
elucidation
of the Russian space programme in the journal and elsewhere, died
in 1999.
In order to commemorate his pioneering work in space policy,
Elsevier
Science has decided to hold an annual competition, open to all
law school
students and graduate students of space policy, to find the best
essay. The
competition will be announced in each February issue of Space
Policy. The
closing date will be 1 September of the same year and the winning
entry will
be published the following year. This year's competition is thus
now open,
with a closing date of 1 September 2002; the winner to be
announced and
published in February 2003.
Rules
1. The competition is open to all law school students and
graduate students
of space policy.
2. The essay may be written on any topic of current debate in
space law or
policy, should be typewritten in English and should be between 10
and 20
pages (or 2500 and 5000 words) in length.
3. Essays should be submitted by 1 September 2002 to Frances
Brown, Editor,
Space Policy. Where possible they should be submitted
electronically (in
Word) to fbrown.seabank@virgin.net.
Students without access to the Internet
may post their essays (preferably including a disk version) to
Seabank,
Turnberry Road, Maidens, Ayrshire KA26 9NN, Scotland.
4. The judges will be the Editor of Space Policy and two other
judges
appointed by Elsevier.
5. The judges' decision will be final; the editors cannot enter
into any
correspondence about the competition.
The Award
In addition to publication in the journal, the winner will
receive 100
pounds, a certificate, and a year's subscription to Space Policy.
=======
(5) GEOMAGNETIC STORMS - REDUCING THE THREAT TO CRITICAL
INFRASTRUCTURE
>From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
Communication Division
Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and
Emergency Preparedness
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Date: 30 April 2002
Threat Analysis Number: TA02-001
Geomagnetic Storms -- Reducing the Threat to Critical
Infrastructure in
Canada
This report has been compiled to assist Canadian critical
infrastructure
(CI) owners and operators with their emergency management
planning by
discussing how geomagnetic storms can impact CI and by addressing
ways in
which industry can mitigate the impacts of these potentially
dangerous storms. This report also illustrated some of the
proactive
practices that Canadian industry has implemented to avoid
prolonged negative
effects from geomagnetic storms. This document was derived
primarily from
open sources and draws on a variety of public and private
information
current to 29 April 2002.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
* Geomagnetic storms have the potential to severely impair
critical
infrastructure.
* Consequences of geomagnetic storm activity can include
widespread power
failures, pipeline corrosion, the shutdown of cable systems, an
increased
drag on satellites, inaccurate navigational sensors and the loss
of millions
of dollars in revenue.
* In Canada, it has been demonstrated that power systems,
pipelines and
communications are at risk from the damaging effects of coronal
mass
ejections (CME) and geomagnetically induced currents (GIC).
* Canadian infrastructure owners and operators have developed
effective
operating procedures to deal with the threat of geomagnetic
storms. Advance
warning systems provide infrastructure owners and operators with
the necessary
information to prevent the negative consequences of GICs through
the implementation
of proactive conservative operating procedures.
BACKGROUND
The phenomenon of geomagnetic currents was first noticed in 1847.
In this
year, the telegraph was the primary method of communication and
relied on
batteries for power. Once, however, while an Aurora Borealis was
occurring,
telegraph operators observed a disruption in the transmission of
communications. When the power was switched off, the
geomagnetically induced
currents (GIC)[1] or "celestial power" allowed
transmissions to be conducted
at a better quality than with the use of batteries.
GICs are a result of erupting sunspots. Sunspots are massive dark
areas on
the surface of the sun that lie on top of hurricanes of
electrified gas.
When sunspots erupt, they release a coronal mass ejection
(CME)[2] at
approximately 2 million miles per hour. Geomagnetic storms occur
when the
CME impacts the Earth's magnetosphere, thereby disturbing the
solar wind and
reducing the global magnetic field. While these powerful storms
usually trigger auroras,
they can also damage energy and communication systems.
[1] According to Faraday's law of induction, a temporal change of
a magnetic
field is always accompanied by an electric field. Therefore, an
electric
field is associated with geomagnetic activity. The geomagnetic
variation and
the geoelectric field observed at the earth's surface depend
primarily on
ionospheric-magnetospheric currents and secondarily on currents
and charges
induced in earth. A part of the earth currents can flow into
man-made
conductors, like power transmission systems, pipelines,
telecommunication cables and
railroads. Such currents are called geomagnetically induced
currents (GIC).
[2] An observable change in coronal structure that occurs on a
time scale
between a few minutes and several hours, and involves the
appearance of a
new, discrete, bright white-light feature in the coronograph
field of view.
They are associated with the large-scale, closed magnetic
structures in the
corona. When a coronal mass ejection occurs, a large quantity of
material
(10^15 - 10^16 g) is sporadically ejected from the Sun into
interplanetary
space. The speed of the leading edge of the coronal mass ejection
may vary
from 50 km/s to 1200 km/s. Average speed is about 400 km/s. The
average
heliocentric width is about 45 degrees. Large geomagnetic storms
are caused
by coronal mass ejections.
Full analysis is available at
http://www.epc-pcc.gc.ca/emergencies/other/TA02-001_E.html
============================
* LETTERS TO THE MODERATOR *
============================
(6) BRUNEL HOLOCENE CONFERENCE ABSTRACT: QUAKE AD 365
>From Hermann Burchard <burchar@mail.math.okstate.edu>
Dear Benny,
the workshop on HOLOCENE EXTRATERRESTRIAL IMPACTS AND THEIR
EFFECTS, August
29 2002, that you are organizing as part of the conference on
HOLOCENE
CATASTROPHES AND RECOVERY IN THE HOLOCENE, Brunel University,
London, should
be helpful in elucidating the importance of impacts in our
immediate history and prehistory. As you write in your abstract:
"The fact
that no large impact crater dating to this crucial period has
been detected,
has led to the belief that no large scale impact disaster can
possibly have
happened. However, this is a widespread delusion..." As has
been noted on CCNet before, the public view of impact risk is
slanted toward
neglect as a result of such misperceptions.
Here, data that you and others are going to present at Brunel on
actual
occurrences in the Holocene could tip the scale. One conference
abstract,
"Seismicity of Sicily before 1000AD," by Carla
Bottari mentions the AD 365
quake. This affected not only Sicily. Her abstract states
magnitude 8.5 for
Crete. Magnitude 8.5 may be close to a maximum magnitude of
quakes (I seem
to recall magnitude 9 being mentioned) due to the limited
strength of
Earth's crustal rocks. Edward Gibbon "History of the Decline
and Fall of the
Roman Empire", Chapter 26,
http://www.ccel.org/g/gibbon/decline/volume1/chap26.htm
and Saint Jerome "Chronicle" describe effects on the
entire Mediterranean
basin including mega-tsunami in Egypt and elsewhere. Gibbon and
other
historians cite details of an environmental catastrophe in
ensuing years.
While Gibbon apparently did not make a connection, when in AD 379
the
Visigoths defeated the Roman Army at Adrianople (now Edirne,
Western Turkey)
killing Emperor Valens, there can be little doubt of such a link,
as the
Goths were driven to despair by starvation. For Saint Jerome this
date
signified the end of the Roman Empire. He mentions Sicily
for heavy
devastations from the 365 quake.
The extent and magnitude would seem to exclude local faults as
the source
(Amos Nur, Stanford) of the 365 quake. A suspicion of cosmic
impact arises,
but is there any direct evidence of comets or meteors for this
year? Perhaps
readers who know the astronomical records for the period would
like to
comment.
The entire picture of what exactly happened is clouded by the
fact that
numerous quakes and other, similar disasters that occurred during
an
interval including the 4th to the 6th centuries appear to have
hastened the
downfall of civilization, and not just in the West. In the East,
the
Jin or Tsin dynasty (AD 265-420) retreated to Southern China and
then
collapsed.
Upon re-reading Duncan Steel's "Rogue Asteroids..." I
do get the impression
that our planet Earth was close to a branch of the Taurid meteor
stream in
those times. The (Julian) date of July 21st AD 365 (morning
hours) needs to
be adjusted for orbital precession. See "Exodus to
Arthur" by Mike Bailley
concerning the 6th century and cometary links, where there seems
little
doubt at least for that age.
Regards,
Hermann
=========
(7) JOURNAL ABSTRACTS
>From Michael Paine <mpaine@tpgi.com.au>
Dear Benny
Here are some interesting abstracts. They each suggest a series
of climate
upheavals around the KT boundary.
Mike
Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, Vol. 178 (1-2)
(2002) pp.
1-17
© 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
A possible causal relationship between extinction of dinosaurs
and K/T
iridium enrichment in the Nanxiong Basin, South China: evidence
from
dinosaur eggshells
http://www.elsevier.com/gej-ng/10/35/43/142/27/27/abstract.html
Zi-kui Zhao a * zikuizhao@yeah.net
, Xue-ying Mao b, Zhi-fang Chai b,
Gao-chuang Yang b, Ping Kong c, Mitsuru Ebihara c and Zhen-hua
Zhao d
Abstract
Multiple distinct iridium anomalies have been observed in
dinosaur eggshells
in the K/T boundary sections of the Nanxiong Basin, Guangdong
Province,
South China. The eggshells collected at and
near the fossil-pollen-defined K/T boundary interval show iridium
increases
of about 19 and 28 times, respectively, above the background
level. The
enrichment of other trace elements in the eggshells occurs mostly
at and
near the interval. The distribution of Ir-bearing levels proves
the
existence of at least six Ir-delivering events from the latest
Cretaceous
into the earliest Paleocene. The enrichment of Ir and other trace
elements
in eggshells may have been caused by the assimilation of these
elements into
the dinosaur body through food, and then into the eggs laid by
them. Two
types of pathological development, i.e. variation in eggshell
thickness and
eggshell microstructure, have been observed from the basin. It
seems that
they occur frequently during the K/T transition. The
physiological
mechanisms producing pathologic dinosaur eggshells are evaluated
in the
light of homologous phenomena occurring in living birds. On this
basis, it is
concluded that the formation of pathologic dinosaur eggshells was
caused by
anomalous trace element concentrations. The extinction of the
dinosaurs in
the Nanxiong Basin did not occur instantaneously, but spread out
within 250
ka with major extinction beginning at the boundary interval. The
cause may
have been environmental poisoning and adverse changes in climatic
conditions
as indicated by the geochemical analyses of the dinosaur
eggshells. A
repeating short- and long-term geochemically induced
environmental stress
adversely affected the reproductive process and contributed to
the
extinction of the dinosaurs.
Volume 178, Issues 3-4
28 February 2002
Pages 145-164
Copyright © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
High stress late Maastrichtian paleoenvironment: inference from
planktonic
foraminifera in Tunisia
Sigal Abramovich, and Gerta Keller
Abstract
High resolution (~5¯10 kyr) planktonic foraminiferal analysis at
Elles,
Tunisia, reveals major changes in the structure of the Tethyan
marine
ecosystem during the upper Maastrichtian. During the first 1.5
Myr of the
late Maastrichtian (68.3¯66.8 Ma) relatively stable
environmental conditions
and cool temperatures are indicated by diverse planktonic
foraminiferal populations
with abundant intermediate and surface dwellers. A progressive
cooling trend
between ~66.8¯65.45 Ma resulted in the decline of globotruncanid
species
(intermediate dwellers). This group experienced a further decline
at the climax of a rapid
warm event about 300 kyr before the K¯T boundary. At the same
time relative abundances
of long ranging dominant species fluctuated considerably
reflecting the high stress
environmental conditions. Times of critical high stress
environments during
the late Maastrichtian, and particularly at the K¯T boundary,
are indicated
by low species diversity and blooms of the opportunistic genus
Guembelitria
at warm¯cool transition intervals. During the last 100 kyr of
the
Maastrichtian rapid cooling is associated with accelerated
species
extinctions followed by the extinction of all tropical and
subtropical
species at the K¯T boundary.
=============
(8) REPORT ON THE SPACE LAUNCH INITIATIVE (SLI) AND NEO NEWS FROM
NASA
>From E.P. Grondine <epgrondine@hotmail.com>
Hello Benny -
Last Tuesday I drove into Wahington to attend the NASA briefing
on the Space
Launch Initiative (SLI) downselect. On the way into the briefing
I ran into
Ed Weiler, and I used the opportunity to ask him a few questions
about
progress in the NASA NEO programs, in particular about his Office
of Space
Science's negotiations with the National Science Foundation
(NSF). Following
Ed's suggestion I also did follow up interviews with several of
his staffers
on these matters. While the Space Launch Initiative decisions are
more
likely to ultimately have a greater impact on US NEO programs
than anything
Weiler and his staff are doing, my assumption is that these
activities are
of more immediate interest to Conference particpants, and so I
will cover
them first.
JUST A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS...
The first thing that I asked Ed was how the negotiations with the
NSF were
going. He told me they were hitting problems. He also pointed out
that
nobody said that NASA was not the only agency to save the Earth.
In looking
at this one must understand that Weiler did not run the Office of
Space
Science when it was last called before Congress on the NEO
problem; Carl
Pilcher did, so it is understandable that Ed might not know that
the House
Space Sub-Committee had said exactly that several years earlier.
While I can
sympathize with Ed on his desire to seek more funding for the NEO
search
from other pockets, I think that ultimately dealing with the
impact hazard
is going to require the use of space based assets. Since this is
an area
with which NASA has specific experitse, I think that the
Sub-Committee
members were correct in their initial assessment.
(Dealing with the impact hazard has been studied in depth by
specialists at
NASA's Langley Research Center, and their conclusions may be
found here:
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/lunar_caps_011212-1.html)
Ed suggested that I contact his deputy Colleen Hartman for
further details
on the NSF negotiations, of which, more, shortly.
I asked Ed about the final budget for the NEO office, and he did
not know
it, but did point out that he personally had signed off on
$500,000 for a
pencil-beam search by the Spacewatch group Arizona at
the Kitt Peak
Observatory. (Thank you very much!, Ed) This pencil beam search
will provide
population information not only for the asteroids, but also for
Kuiper Belt
Objects, and Tom Gehrels should be able to provide Conference
participants
with detailed information on the progress of this effort.
That afternoon I contacted Colleen Hartman, who brought up
Areceible again,
and had no idea that Weiler intended for the NSF co-operation to
include the
optical bands. I don't know why, but I am not too shocked by
this. I guess
it's simply that I've seen too much of how NASA has dealt with
the quite
real and immediate NEO hazard to expect anything better.
Colleen initially agreed to a follow up telephone intereview 2
days later,
but in the event she passed me on to Jay Bergstrahl and Tom
Morgan. CCNet
readers will remember my interview with Tom earlier this year
while trying
to find the NASA NEO budget. The new numbers I obtained this time
are
$4,430,000 this year, including the $500,000 for the Spacewatch
pencil beam
search, leaving $3,930,000 for other items. The initial budget
estimate for
next year is at a similar level, $3,900,000.
Actual negotiations with the NSF were now be conducted by John
Hillman from
planetary sciences. So a curious situation presents itself.
Hillman was/is
at Goddard Spacefight Center concentrating on planetary
atmospheres, not
their surfaces where impact craters are found. Hartman worked
with Hillman
on TOMS, the ozone mapper, and AQUA, which studies water cycles
and
planetary atmosphers. Her most recent focus for the last
year or so has
been on what NASA is calling "In-Space Propulsion", in
other words the
nuclear engines for deep space, which have among other uses
exploration of
the large outer gas planets. Bergstrahl's interests lie with the
detection
of large planets around stars other than our Sun, and these
planets are
large gas giants. Morgan's original major focus was on
planetary
atmospheres, with a later minor focus on impact craters and
planetary
regoliths. Morgan came to NASA from the Southwest Research
Institute, an
organization which recieves funding from both NASA and the NSF.
Hmmmmm....
Ah yes, well, where was I? Oh, that's right, my focus is on
preventing
extremely large numbers of people from being killed by the next
"small"
impactor. They told me that NASA was now awaiting a reply from
Wayne van
Citters over at the NSF, but if I were any of them I would not be
holding my
breath waiting for his call...
In discussing the pencil beam search, Morgan once again
emphasized that
money would be spent for upgrading equipment, and I asked him
about this in
detail. In addition to the money spent on CCDs, money was being
spent on
telescope control programs, sufficiently powerful computers for
image
processing, and writing the code that those computer's needed to
do this
image processing.
I asked about searching for comets, and was told that they
expected that
those would be picked up during the asteroid search, in
particular by
LINEAR. I asked about searching for objects less than 1 kilometer
in
diameter, and they told me that this would not be done unless a
new
directive was established, and that this would require a national
consensus
on the new goal. In other words, they won't do it unless the
Congress makes
them, and I think one can safely assert tha further, they have no
interest
in asking the Congress make them.
They told me again that they expected to meet the current goal of
finding
90% of NEOs 1 kilometer in diamter and larger by 2008.
Later I asked
Bergstrahl and Morgan about NASA's true NEO expert Don Yeoman's
estimate in
the Decadal Study that NASA would not in fact meet that goal
without a
significant increase in funds, and both said that they were not
aware of
that, and in any case they would have to wait until the final
report was
delivered to them from the National Research Council.
HOUSE SPACE SUB-COMMITTEE HEARINGS ON NASA AND NEOS SOON?
At least the House Space Sub-Committee is aware that NASA is
underfunding
the NEO detection program, and they have been aware of this for
several
years:
http://marple.as.utexas.edu/~hillstar/hsci00/markupremarks.html
There's nothing like a Congressional Hearing to focus
management's attention
on a problem. Will we see one soon? I don't know. Reps.
Boehlert, Hall,
Walker-Jones, and Rohrabacher are certainly aware of the problem.
Chairman
Boehlert has recently been focusing, very correctly in my
opinion, on the
very immediate potential terrorist threat to US infrastructure,
covering
water supply security, cyber security, first responders, building
design,
and also the fuel efficiency of US vehicles and alternatives to
oil for
portable liquid fuels.
Boehlert's long term concerns are with the lack of rigor in the
education US
children are recieving, and the shortage of scientists and
engineers that
this is causing. Rohrabacher's recent introduction of
a bill setting up
NEO prizes for amateur (young) astronomers can be read as a
request by him
for Boehlert to give more attention to the NEO hazard in general,
as it
touches on Boehlert's concerns about education in general.
What will happen? I suspect that other members of the House Space
Sub-Committee besides those mentioned above have an interest in
how NASA is
dealing, or failing to deal, with the NEO hazard. It must
be remembered
that the last time the House Space Sub-Committee looked at the
problem,
George Brown was still alive and there were 2 major Hollywood
movies dealing
with the NEO hazard that were just about to be released. What may
precipitate another hearing? We are not simply observers here,
and perhaps
we can try to better document both the large as well as the small
impacts.
The Rio Cuarto Impact may be a key here, but perhaps increased
NEO funding
may follow simply as a consequence of the increase in funding for
environmental research, and the inevitable discovery by these new
researchers of the signs of impact events in the tree rings and
ice cores.
As for the ultimate benefits of Rohrabacher's bill, I wouldn't
mind if young
astronomers were given money, if only the professional
astronomers were
funded first. It also might be nice if at least a few of these
young
astronomers could reasonably expect that someday they might
actually be
hired to look for NEOs, and to recieve reasonable pay for doing
so.
In his comments to the bill Rohrabacher also expressed his
concern about the
amount of time young people in the US are wasting in front of
video games;
my thinking is that porting the planetary data sets to the game
consoles and
personal computers may be a better way of getting to these young
people than
astronomy prizes, as who could resist virtually
"flying" over the surface of
Mars or Io?
NEOS AND SLI: $3,900,000 is 1/256 of $1,000,000,000
Whatever their level of awareness of the NEO hazard, the members
of the
House Space Sub-Committee are definitely more worried about US
launch
systems and NASA policy decisions concerning US lauch
systems than they are
about NEOs, for these have a far greater immediate economic
impact on their
home districts.
Some approximate numbers can give an idea of the current relative
importance
which is assigned to various items. NASA's total budget for
1998-2007, the
time in which it intends to meet the goal of finding 90% of 1
kilometer
diameter and larger Near Earth Asteroids, is around
$163,083,700,000. When
one considers that the direct costs of the World Trade Center
attack alone
are around $100,000,000, not including indirect costs, Chairman
Boehlert's
current focuses are very understandable.
A key committee focus is on the International Space
Station. Direct and
indirect costs for the International Space Station during this
time period
may be estimated at around $75,471,300,000, give or take several
$100,000,000's or so, or a little more or less than 1/2 of the
total NASA
budget.
As the next largest single item in its total yearly budget, NASA
has spent
or intends to spend about $1,000,000,000 per year on the
development of
advanced launch systems, in other words about $10,000,000,000
over the 10
years, or about 1/16 of its total budget. This will also
affect long term
operating costs for the ISS in fairly fundamental ways.
Where exactly do we currently stand in the grand order of
things? NASA has
been and intends to spend around $3,900,000 per year on reaching
the 90% of
1 kilometer or greater diameter near Earth asteroid detection
goal, or
approximately $39,000,000 for the 10 years between 1998 and 2008.
In other
words NASA plans to devote around 1/4182 of its budget to
preventing us
going the way of the dinosaurs, so we're approximately two orders
of
magnitude less important than SLI.
But $3,900,000 per year is known to be inadequate for reaching
the dinosaur
killer goal, and the best estiamtes are that it will take
around
$10,000,000 per year to reach even the dinosaur killer goal. So
in order to
find the next dinosaur killer, NASA will have to spend about
$100,000,000
over this 10 year period, in other words spend some 1/1631 of its
budget on
the task. Delivery of the final NRC report may trigger
hearings, but I
don't know...
As NASA does like to buy and launch rockets, the probes to the
asteroids and
comets come out better than the observatories. DAWN will
cost $271,000,000;
DEEP IMPACT $279,000,000; CONTOUR $154,000,000; DEEP SPACE 1
$149,700,000;
NEAR $224,000,000; and STARDUST $208,000,000; for a total of
$1,285,700,000,
or about 1/127 of the total NASA budget for this period. Clearly
these folks
came out far ahead of the NEO astronomers, as this represents
only a one
order of magnitude difference from SLI.
Given current funding levels, at least this way we'll know what
hit us. Of
the total budget for the 10 year period NASA will spend $0.00 on
the
reliable detection of "mid-sized" impactors, such as
the one which pretty
much destroyed all of South America a "short" while
ago. A very small
percentage of these asteroids will be detected reaching the 1
kilometer or
greater goal, but that percentage is so small that it is very
close to 0.
There is a possibility that the Large-aperture Synoptic Survey
Telescope or
LSST will be funded at some $170,000,000, and it is currently
estimated that
this telescope would be able to find about 90% of all the
continent killers.
But this move would increase the total amount spent by NASA on
NEO detection
to $270,000,000, and would represent a staggering 1/604 of the
NASA budget,
or the approximately the cost of one probe to an asteroid or
comet. One can
understand why Weiler is so insistant that the NSF pick up part
of the cost
of the LSST, especially given the other astronomical research
which that
telescope would accomplish.
While $270,000,000 is a fairly large amount of money, in relation
to the
annual impact hazard it is fairly small. The Gross Domestic
Product of the
US is around $10,000,000,000,000 per year; and for the sake of
comparison,
let's attribute 10% of that, or $1,000,000,000,000, to the South
East United
States. Given a 5% return on capital, we could then value that
area of the
US at some $20,000,000,000,000. Accepting that the historical
data seems to
point to 2 catastrophic impacts which devastated this area in the
last
10,000 years, (the Holocene Start Impact and the Late Archaic End
Impact),
this translates into 1 impact per 5,000 years. On a
historical basis the
annual risk would therefore seem to be some $20,000,000,000,000 *
1/5,000,
or very, very roughly some $4,000,000,000 PER YEAR for just that
region
alone. When viewed in the terms of the annual risk, a total
one time
premium payment of $270,000,000 is very small potatoes indeed.
Perhaps the LSST will cause hearings to be held. One must
remember that it
took nearly 20 years for knowledge of even the largest extinction
level
event impacts to spread and for these impact events to be widely
accepted as
a real hazard. While we may hope that knowledge of smaller impact
events,
the continent killers and city killers, might spread more
rapidly, this
spread may take a similar period of time as well, say 20 years.
On the other
hand, there's about a 1 in 5 chance that a city killer will hit
sometime in
any 20 year period and change everything, so who knows? For that
matter,
since the process appears to be chaotic to some degree, the next
small one
could arrive unannounced in the next 20 seconds...
THE NEED FOR THE SPACE LAUNCH INITIATIVE
For us, the bottom line is that dealing with the even smaller
sized city
killer NEOS is going to require the use of space based systems,
both for
detection as well as for interception. Assuming no immediate
impact, the
policy decisions on the SLI are going to determine which tools to
deal with
this hazard are going to be available to us or our immediate
descendants in
the near future, whether that future is near or slightly further
off. In the
short term, these decisions are also going to be key in
determining the
total NASA budget, and that in turn will be one key to
determining the total
NEO detection budget for the next few years.
The immediate motivation for start of the Space Launch Initiative
was the
failure of the composite cryogenic fuel tanks for the X-33, which
was the
test bed for the Venture Star Re-usable Launch Vehicle (RLV). One
of the
most startling things which I learned after the briefing was from
Northrop
Grumman's Doug Young: his estimate was that with the new
composite
manufacturing techniques which had been developed, along with a
belt and
suspenders support system, the composite cryogenic fuel tanks
could probably
(let me emphasize the "PROBABLY" here) be made to work.
Now in the days of Apollo, when problems were hit with developing
hydrogen/oxygen engines, they were simply engineered away. This
did not
happen with the Venture Star, and several reasons for this
failure of "will"
lie easily at hand. First off, former NASA Administrator
Dan Goldin had
been under pretty continuous attack by US Mars
"enthusiasts", who believed
that a manned Mars mission could be developed for some
$8,000,000,000, a
small fraction of the cost of the International Space Station.
However
reliable this cost estimate is, it was and is held with an almost
religious
fervor by most of these Mars "enthusiasts", and they
were quite vocal in
their objections to the International Space Station. A
second factor in
stopping work on the Venture Star was that many of these same
Mars
"enthusiasts" favored the development of the McDonell
Douglas design for the
re-usbale vehicle, the DC-X, which they thought could be more
easily used
than the Venture Star design for manned flight to Mars. A
third factor in
the ending of work on the Venture Star was that Goldin had come
under attack
for Russia's (specifically NPO Energia's Yuri Pavlovich
Semenov's) failure
to deliver components for the International Space Station. The
cumulative
effect of all of this was that Goldin had no political capital
left with
which to fight for continued work on the composite cryogenic tank
for the
Venture Star.
But the most significant fact in stopping work on the Venture
Star lay
elsewhere. Finally, and most importantly, ground based
alternatives for
space based communication systems had emerged by the time of the
composite
cryongenic tank failure. Fiber optic cables have replaced
geo-synchronous
satellites for some uses, while advancing cell phone technologies
have
satsfied needs which low-Earth orbit satellites were expected to
fulfill.
Bluntly, market demand in some segments of the communication
satellite
market has fallen significantly, and with the reduced demand for
launch
services, there is a reduced demand for launchers. Venture
Star could not
have been funded with private capital under these conditions, adn
Lockheed
Martin wanted out.
WORK BEGINS ON THE MINI-SHUTTLE
As I reported in February, work on the Crew Return Vehicle was
stopped so
that work could begin on the Mini-Shuttle, and NASA formally
announced this
on 2 May.
There are currently 2 designs under consideration for the
Mini-Shuttle, one
using a lifting body, the other using razor edge wings. Which
design will be
optimal, and who will build it, are questions far from being
decided.
LAUNCHING THE MINI-SHUTTLE
A number of concepts were shown at the SLI briefing for the
launch of the
Mini-Shuttle, and these may be seen at: http://www.slinews.com/concepts.html
The concept which seems nearest to use is the use of "heavy
stacks" of the
Exhanced Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELVs), the Atlas 5 and
Delta 4, for
launch of the Mini-Shuttles. Both of these launch vehicles are
scheduled to
begin operation this year, and improving them to the point at
which they
could be man rated would significantly lower the insurance
premium which
must be paid for the launch of communication satellites. Kevin
Neifert from
Boeing told me after the briefing that initial aerodynamic
studies had
indicated no obstacles to front mounting the Mini-Shuttle on a
heavy EELV
stack of 3 cores.
The Mini-Shuttle could reduce the cost of delivering men to the
International Space Station, and to replace the Shuttle for
unmanned payload
delivery to the Station an autonomous docking system is currently
under
development by the SLI team for use with unmanned modules
launched by the
Atlas 5 and Delta 4 launchers.
THE FUTURE OF THE SHUTTLE
One of the most interesting concepts under study by the SLI group
is the use
of liquid fueled fly-back boosters with a shuttle derivative.
When the EELVs
were first set under development it was anticipated that the
Venture Star
RLV would be operational by 2005. Thus no consideration was given
to
developing either the Atlas 5 or the Delta 4 as a re-usable
liquid fueled
booster for use with the shuttle, and no consideration was given
to equiping
either of them with drogue parachutes and folding wings for their
own
individual re-use in commercial settings.
NASA's earlier indications that it intended to end Shuttle
operations by
2012 met with fierce Congressional "scepticism", and it
is currently being
anticipated that the Shuttle will now remain operational until
the year
2020. Given the current political state, the development of a
liquid
fly-back booster for use with either the Shuttle or Mini-Shuttle,
as well as
with commercial payloads, presents itself as a viable alternative
for NASA's
future course of action. I don't know if drogue
chute/folding wing
technologies can be adopted for use with the Atlas 5 or Delta 4;
my guess is
that if NASA chooses to go this route, a separate stage would be
developed
by a joint industry team.
Well, Benny, That's it for now -
Ed
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