What's New Robert L. Park 4 April 2012

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L Park   Tuesday, 10 Apr 2012   Washington, DC

1. THE LAST ASTRONAUT: FUNCTIONAL UNEMPLOYMENT IN SPACE. 
Retirement of the aging Space Shuttle fleet last summer (WN 8 Jul 2011) 
grounded the 62 remaining NASA astronauts. Although the US is one of the 16 
partner nations of the International Space Station, an American astronaut 
would need a ticket on a Russian Soyuz to get there.  The Bush plan was 
Constellation, a new program to deliver astronauts and supplies not only to 
the ISS, but also to the Moon, to Mars and "other destinations beyond."   
Constellation would have indulged all the space-colony fantasies at a cost 
that would retard genuine progress.  Worse yet, astronauts romping around 
Mars would almost guarantee contamination of Mars with terrestrial 
bacteria, ending any hope of answering the profound scientific questions 
about the origin of life that draw us to Mars.  In the end, common sense 
prevailed; Constellation was canceled.

2. THE FIRST ASTRONAUT: "INTRODUCTION TO OUTER SPACE."
On the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, barely a month after 
Sputnik 1,  a dog named Laika was launched on Sputnik 2.  Poor Laika 
survived a few hours at most.   President Eisenhower shared a remarkable 
report with the American people: "Introduction to Outer Space," prepared by 
his Science Advisory Committee under the direction of James R. Killian, 
President of MIT (http://www.fas.org/spp/guide/usa/intro1958.html).  "The 
cost of transporting men through space will be extremely high," it 
noted, "but the cost and difficulty of sending information through space 
will be comparatively low."  A year later, however, NASA chose seven 
military test pilots to be the first astronauts, romanticized by Tom Wolfe 
in "The Right Stuff." John Glenn was picked for the first orbital flight, 
but NASA first sent Ham, a chimpanzee, to test the water.  In spite of his 
lack of test pilot experience,  Ham did everything John Glenn would do.  
Both Ham and Glenn would end up in Washington: Glenn in the U.S. Senate, 
Ham in the National Zoo.

3. A MESSAGE FROM MARS: "THE RIGHT STUFF" IS PLUTONIUM-238.
The Mars Science Laboratory, including a new Mars rover, Curiosity, was 
launched 26 Nov 2011 from Cape Canaveral by an Atlas V rocket.  It's 
scheduled to land on Mars at Gale Crater near Mount Sharp on 6 Aug 2012.  
The primary objective is to determine whether Mars has ever supported life. 
Curiosity is about five times larger than the Mars rovers, Spirit and 
Opportunity, and uses far more sophisticated instrumentation.  It’s 
designed to explore for at least one Martian year (687 Earth days) over a 
range of 5-20 km.  Instead of solar panels, Curiosity relies on an RTG 
(Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator) for power, allowing it to operate 
at full power night and day, unaffected by dust collecting on its surfaces. 
The isotope of choice is Pu-238, an alpha emitter with an 87.7 year half-
life that generates about 0.5 watts/gram.  According to the March 23 issue 
of Aviation Week, U.S. production of Pu-238 was halted in 1988 and supplies 
are dwindling.  NASA and the Department of Energy expect to restart 
production of Pu-238 in six or seven years and for the first time use the 
isotope more efficiently in the Advanced Sterling Radioisotope Generator. 

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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