From Creation to Destruction

(I've started writing this blog two weeks ago and got sucked into the madness of the team project. Another blog will continue where this one ends)

Almost two weeks have past since my last blog. It has been harder to find the time to write these things due to the different obligations I have to the team project (TP) and mostly due to the activities I do to run away from the work like a camping weekend, sci-fi movie watching, and now, finally, bloging.

In the last two weeks we finished the departmental portion of the program and started head-on with only TP work. The last day of department activity included participant presentations on various Space Sciences, from solar activity and planetary research to black holes. My presentation asked if supernovae are randomly distributed in the night's sky, the big answer I found was YES! However, due to observer biases we don't have enough data to present a truly random sequence. The majority of supernovae observed are not from our galaxy, but from far away galaxies, that is because this most valiant of celestial events happens only once in a few tens to hundreds of years in the Milky Way. Thus, observer biases are created because our own galaxy block the view for a portion of the sky where we would find other galaxies at. Another reason for biases is "man made", different researchers choose to survey different portions of the sky (there's a lot of sky and a limited number of observers), and thus we can get a nicely populated area in the sky because of researcher interests. In my process I looked at about 6000 supernova sightings recorded by man-kind (the earliest of which is from 1006), I plotted on the sky map and then allocated numbers by order of appearance. I then checked a selected area's number sequence using a very basic statistical test and found that the numbers are random, which means the appearance of supernovae is random for an Earthling.

Supernovae distribution in the sky, the V shape in the center of this inverted globe is the Milky Way blocking our view 

Another department event we had was a presentation and discussion on exponential technologies with a visiting lecturer from Singularity University, ISU's sister university. The lecture discussed the exponential rate of technological advancement in the past one hundred years, especially in the fields like computing power and robotics. One of these disruptive technologies is 3D printing, a manufacturing method that basically makes any home user a world class producer of cretin goods (like household tools and personalized accessories). This technology can, and probably will, revolutionise space exploration by allowing for the production of items in space. The same can be said for medicine but also warfare. One of the projects presented to us as an exponential technology product which was led by a Singularity graduate was a 3D printed rocket engine, this automatically sounded an alarm in my head, regrading the distribution of Duel-Use tech to the general population. I asked the lecturer, Emeline Paat Dahlstrom, about it, and she said that they discuss the ethics around technologies at Singularity and try to make sure they "Do no evil" as their Silicon valley neighbours say, but I guess this process is inevitable and a part of a world where technological advances often (more like always) proceed the discussion on their social implications.

We also had an Air Space Safety panel during this period. In it, each of the three panellists presented a different catastrophes in air and space travel, the Challenger disaster, the Columbia disaster and the disappearance of the Malaysian flight 370 in March 2014. It was a long panel, with a lot of details and information (and not enough breaks). The conclusion for both Space Shuttle incidents is that several things went wrong and they happened due to a false confidence within NASA and their contractors. That together with (at least for Challenger) a need to provide that winning picture of the a successful flight for supervising levels.
Now, as I write these words on the Challenger and Columbia, I can't stop myself from thinking about another big organization, much closer to me, that from time to time falls to the over-confidence trap and together with pressure felt from the political level declares the win and is quickly shown that that might not be all correct. Now, I don't really want to get into political issues, but I would like to say that sometimes politicians and the organizations influenced by them would rather get this winning picture then resolve a problem properly, quietly but without as much political gain as they believe they deserve. 

One of the participant talked that we had during this period was about the Mars One initiative, a privately sponsored and owned one-way mission to Mars. This initiative called for candidates from all around the world, and received around 200,000 applications. After a selection process there are currently 700 global candidates waiting to be further screened in order of finding the 40 astronauts planned to fly off. One of these people is a participant of SSP14 and it was his talk about the mission. My first understanding from the talk (and it's important to mention the he is not an official speaker for the program) is that this mission will not be operational in the planned schedule (first crew on Mars in 2022). And that's just because hardly any engineering work has been done to date in order of building the facilities to support this crew. It seems to me more like a nice gimmick, meant to make its creator rich and famous. When we discussed the "one way" issue it was important for the Mars One candidate/SSP14 participant to mention that it's not "a going to die on Mars mission" as it's being called, but rather a "going to live a full life on a Mars colony, and at some point die mission". I agree with him that there is a difference between the two, and that it's his right to do so, just like the example he give - smoking. But what I disagree with is a little sentence he said in the end regarding what if things go wrong during the mission and the crew needs to be rescued, he made it sound like he would expect the world to come and rescue them, even if the original Mars One company is unable to. This means that a bunch of people are planing on having a very high risk adventure and expecting the world to provide billion dollar insurance in case of accident, somewhat like smoking. Billions that would probably have to be provided by governments with no relation to their planned budgets, money that could be used for other purposes, spaceborne or terrestrial. I'm not saying that money shouldn't be spent to advance space exploration and especially a Mars colony but if a certain institution wants to do so it should provide or at least find all the funds necessary to complete the mission and all probable issues that might arise during it. What Mars One are saying is that they'll complete only half a mission and save a lot of money and research needed to make sure it's done properly and then let the astronauts and the rest of the world deal with the consequences.  

In one of my getaways I was watching the NASA panel on "Life in the Universe". It is an interesting discussion about the future NASA galactic observation missions like the James Webb Space Telescope and the WFIRST mission. The panel had a lot to do with the field of exoplanet research, which is understandable due to the exo-hype both in the scientific world and with the general public. One of the panellists was Prof Sara Seager, an exoplanet researcher from MIT that actually talked  the following week to my EXO TP about the work she's doing. When watching the broadcast it was clear (after hearing a lot about the political and financial state of NASA) that it was intended on getting public support for the next big space observatory. Support that will, in time, turn to the funds needed to build this future space researcher. While I was watching the panel I kept on viewing the news from Israel, it was the peak of "Operation Strong Cliff" with many casualties on both sides. It felt surreal to listen about what bright future mankind could have while reading the stories of young man that died after being called to protect their country in the present.

I had two more insights from this panel, the first regards the existence of alien life here on Earth and the second is about how scientists and engineers sometime present their work to the general public. Regarding the first one, one of the NASA officials joked that there's no little green man hidden in some secret warehouse somewhere. It was the second time I've heard a high exec from NASA say that this summer. Before hearing these statements I hadn't much thought on the matter (at least not since I was ten) and would probably agree with it. But now, after hearing these denials, I might be more inclined to think otherwise. Or not, just kidding (or am I?).
The second insight was one I have discussed with Dan Cohen in some way. Sometimes when scientists and engineers discuss their work they emphasise how elaborate, accurate and sophisticated it is. When doing so they sometimes make it sound like an impossible task that only geniuses can do. This then creates a deterrence, especially for teens, from getting involved with these fields. Basically, by saying how hard these things are they mean to pat themselves on the shoulder and present how amazing the worlds of science and engineering are. But they're actually scaring kids away and keeping these fields open only to the ones that have already realized that yes these things are difficult, but they are done mostly by regular people that worked hard to reach their position. What I think is always important to say when presenting the great technological and scientific advances of our days is that they are being done by human beings and that everyone can help this work if they work hard enough to get there.      

One last event we had in this period was the traditional SSP rocket launching competition. The rockets were designed and built by the SSP participants during their work in the engineering department (happened in parallel to my space sciences department). It was a nice sunny day with a great atmosphere that showed the use of rockets for fun and learning (unlike others, these rockets parachute their way down).

  

The two weeks that followed after the rocket launch were all TP (and the end of the SSP), they'll be discussed in another blog entry.