Space/Planets

Here we are still searching for aliens. SETI has been at it quite a long time now, so I guess you might think that if we find aliens, or if they contact us, we are ready with a script of some sort? According to an article that appeared on the web, nothing could be further from the truth. The author claims that scientists are just now trying to figure out what to do if they are contacted. SETI, The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence is now accepting suggestions on what to say if alien contact is made. Someone suggested “HELP”. The project boss, Douglas Vakoch stated, "I think the greatest thing we have to offer is to be honest about our current level of development, to highlight that we're not sure that we're even going to survive the next century . . . but that we have enough faith that we will continue to exist that we are making an effort to reach out to other civilizations," I can't help but feel if we do make contact, we won't need anything to say, because the military will move it and doctors will be prepared to dissect our new friends.

Wernher Von Braun
Photo Source: Public Domain

Global warming has turned out to be a very strange thing. As the ice continues to melt at the North Pole, it is increasing at the Southern Pole. A few years ago NASA found out that their computer model was not operating correctly when it was predicting global warming, because it didn't account for increasing ice in other areas. “A new NASA-funded study finds that predicted increases in precipitation due to warmer air temperatures from greenhouse gas emissions may actually increase sea ice volume in the Antarctic’s Southern Ocean. This adds new evidence of potential asymmetry between the two poles, and may be an indication that climate change processes may have different impact on different areas of the globe.” When we hear all this talk about rising oceans, no one seems to mention the fact that more water is getting tied up in ice in the South Pole. It would be nice if we could get a clear forecast with this considered.

Operation Paperclip, NAZI Scientists
Photo Source: NASA

It is amazing to note that the first spacesuit designed for NASA was created by a former NAZI who had killed many people in experiments to see how high an altitude they could stand. He had a pressure chamber built in a hospital in Germany and would routinely put people into it, subjecting them to murderous changes in altitude by regulating the pressure. This fact does not seem to be readily available. I am talking about Dr. Hubertus Strughold. After World War II we rounded up as many NAZI scientists as we could find that had any connection with the NAZI space program and rocketry and brought them over to this country under Operation Paperclip. It is said that they even had parties and wore the swastika during Hitler's birthday and during other occasions. Even the famous Warner Von Braun was an officer in the NAZI SS and was said to have used slave labor. Von Braun claimed he had no choice but to join but was not political. Some had accused him of looking the other way while slaves were worked to death under his leadership.

Pavonis Mons, Mars
Photo Source: NASA

Why is it that the a high resolution photo of Pavonis Mons on Mars, a photo which NASA says is in focus, looks blurry? The photo was taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO on April 11, 2009. NASA states that the photo while perfectly in focus is taking a photo of the surface above the volcano that is actually blurry. NASA states that the reason that the photo is blurry is that sand covers the volcanoes and when the wind blows the atmosphere is so thin that the sand and dust is carried away and they are trying to photograph through it. So far it sounds good, but it does make one wonder how did they get such good photos of other areas on Mars?

A new technique has been proposed to divert the more than 1,000 dangerous near earth objects that could hit us. In a word, it is attaching a cable to them with a large weight. Okay, I know that you are wondering what good that would do aren't you? A doctoral candidate in aerospace engineering states that it would change the center of gravity of the object, changing its orbit and this would allow the object that was headed for earth to miss us. This idea was put before an Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and he studied it for awhile. His conclusion was that indeed this would work. The professor stated, "It’s hard to imagine the scale of both the problem and the potential solutions. The Earth has been hit by objects from space many times before, so we know how bad the effects could be. For example, about 65 million years ago, a very large asteroid is thought to have hit the Earth in the southern Gulf of Mexico, wiping out the dinosaurs, and, in 1907, a very small airburst of a comet over Siberia flattened a forest over an area equal in size to New York City. The scale of our solution is similarly hard to imagine.”

A debate took place on a recent radio show where the question was asked, “Is There Anything Else Out There?” One of the guests was a Nobel Prize Winner and the founding director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute and advisor to the President. Along with him were several respected scientists. They seem to think that microbes could exist in many different places. It was said that NASA realized that the model of life that we see on earth could be reject by what we find on other planets. One scientist said that if we don't find life elsewhere, that would even be more compelling than if we found it, because we would then be unique.

We have now heard several times over, that water has been discovered on Mars. On April 1, 2009, scientists announced that they have now found salt water on Mars. Before this discovery all the water that was found was presumed to be from ice and water vapor. Things have now changed. The discovery was made from images taken by NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander on May 25, 2008. The images were taken of the area under the lander where a mixture of soil and water splashed around the lander. Scientists stated, “It was a huge surprise. That was one of the great moments of the mission to find out the ice was completely exposed under the lander.” After analyzing the images from the lander, the scientists noticed that moving particles were on one of the legs of the lander.