Rumi Nations

It's quite incredible that NASA seems to just upload all the data they gather straight on to the Internet. Look at all the stuff here: https://an.rsl.wustl.edu/merb/merxbrowser/tab.aspx?t=MP I mean, this is just incredible. https://an.rsl.wustl.edu/msl/mslbrowser/tab.aspx?t=MS The whole fricking data and everything is here. One could spend a day or a year browsing. I guess this would be of maximum interest to geologists.

After the White House asked for $15 million in the FY 2015 budget request for Europa mission-related expenses, there's vigorous speculation about whether it's actually going to take off. Remember that this is going to be either a Flagship class mission costing $4 billion to $5 billion or a Frontier class mission in the $1 billion range. Here's a WaPo article that surveys the landscape. Related article about how the sudden cancellation of the Constellation program and Ares I rocket has affected the space coast in Florida and left behind a brand-new, unused $500 million launch tower. A quite exhaustive article on NASA and its cost constraints. A collection of articles by Joel Achenbach.

This question is being raised today and it was being raised 40 years back during the Apollo era. Dr. Neil Tyson answers that question beautifully in his various popular stage lectures and in a testimony to the U.S. Congress. In 1970, Dr. Enrst Stuhlinger answered this very same question in a powerful way. "How do you justfiy spending billions on research about sending missions to Mars when there are children starving here on Earth," asked a nun from Zambia. Dr. Stuhlinger, then the Associate Director of Science at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center wrote back: May 6, 1970 Dear Sister Mary Jucunda: Your letter was one of many which are reaching me every day, but it has touched me more deeply than all the others because it came so much from the depths of a searching mind and a compassionate heart. I will try to answer your question as best as I possibly can. First, however, I would like to express my great admiration for you, and for all your many brave sisters,...

On the same day that the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity landed on Mars after a nail-biting Entry, Descent, and Landing sequence, there are now reports of a shooting incident involving two rovers. The mission managers in JPL, CalTech issued a terse press release which simply said: "There has been a shooting incident involving our rovers on Mars." This has confounded the American public who did not even know that the rovers were equipped with guns in the first place. Sources inside JPL have given some hints as to how this might have happened. The sources say the rovers are equipped with guns which they are programmed to use for 'self defense' in case of appropriate emergencies. The software inside the 'brains' of the rovers has algorithms which try to identify any Little Green Men nearby and if any creatures resembling the LGM are detected by the rovers, they are authorized to shoot at the LGM in self-defense. The rovers are allowed to take this dec...

The Tevatron is going to close. The Superconducting Supercollider never came to fruition. Remember the scare when the LHC began running — all that talk about how black holes might get created at the LHC that might accidentally devour the planet. It’s commonplace to hear all and sundry pontificating about the benefits and harms of science to society. Religious people somehow feel automatically qualified to interpret god’s intentions and talk casually about the universe. Scientists however are a different species. They like to be humble and polite and mostly profess ignorance about much of the world and indeed, much of the broad tapestry of science. This is quite admirable of course and in tune with the spirit of science. But this creates a vacuum. And that vacuum is more often than not filled by opportunistic egomaniacs. It’s in this context that one must look at the lives of a few exceptional scientists. A few names stand out easily: Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Steven...

President Obama's administration is taking NASA in a different direction than has been the case so far. The history of NASA and its great achievements is curious. NASA facilities are spread all across the United States. Evidently, this was to successfully lobby Congress for the huge funds. The Apollo program had some connection or other to at least 48 of the 50 American states. That probably made it a lot easier to get Congressional approval for the huge budgets that Apollo required. So, the advanced projects that NASA has conducted — whether the Shuttles or the Voyagers or the Pathfinders — have been sort of like job programs for highly skilled professionals. This is now apparently going to change. Instead of next generation space exploration programs like Constellation, private companies will be awarded contracts for ferrying folks to space. This is a new direction. Although, even now, it's really private industry that executes most of NASA projects. The difference perhaps is...

What a movie! I had seen it twice before and so naturally I was thinking that it would not be such a thrilling experience to watch it for the third time or so ... And so I was ecstatically surprised as I enjoyed it so much watching it again ... So many touching moments ... A few random ones that come to mind ... how Ken Mattingly got pulled out at the last moment because he might have had measles ... I was thinking how if I put in say a couple of years of effort into something and the project got cancelled at the last moment, how I would feel .. So many cinematically brilliant moments that I find so emotionally touching ... the usual stuff associated with spece exploration which get me 'high' like some drugs ... How Americans had lost interest in 'going to the Moon' by the turn of Apollo 13 and how suddenly everyone was interested once the accident happened leading to all the drama and suspense ... How Jim Lovell tells the Congress members about imagining if Columbus ha...

One can't be completely dispondant about the human condition as long as there are organizations like NASA in this world. Take a random moment in time like today and let's see what NASA is upto right now. Of course, Ares 1X was launched successfully on its first flight yesterday ... hopefully heralding a new era of manned exploration exploration of space. Shuttle Atlantis will be launched in November ... as we approach the end of the Shuttle Era. NASA also does fundamental science ... with the Great Observatories such as Hubble and Chandra. The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has completed one year in space. It's doing spectacular science!

So, NASA was finally able to launch the first flight of Ares 1X today! Spectacular!!! And to think that this two and a half minute flight cost about half a billion dollars! Of course, it's future is still uncertain ... Primarily because of financial constraints ... Underscoring how challenging it is going to be for countries like India to launch manned missions to the Moon. Which explains why I take ISRO's confident predictions to that effect with a pinch of salt

Dr. Radhakrishanan. Let me put the cat out of the bag right away! I would have loved to have been the Chairman!!! Oh well ... may be, in my next incarnation ... ISRO is of course doing quite well ... achieving laurels for the country. One looks forward to a successful completion of the GSLV launch with an indigenously built cryogenic stage. That will eventually be used to power a true ICBM of course ... Next, one looks forward to a manned space program ... all our own. I don't know about sending Indians to the Moon though ... At the height of the Cold War, NASA was able to achieve that feat only because National Pride was at stake. Even the mighty Soviet Union has never managed to achieve that feat!!! Quite extraordinary when you come to think of that!!! Let's us see if China and India are able to overtake Russia in that regard ...

So, India found water on the Moon!!! That was the over-simplied headline in all the newspapers and on TV channels. However, the reality is, of course, as usual a little bit more complicated than that! The simple truth is that a NASA payload, the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) found spectroscopic evidence of trace quantities of water on the Moon. This is not really all that of a revolutionary finding. In fact, this was kind of a discovery waiting to happen or waiting for confirmation. It is of course not as if anyone has found great flowing rivers or oceans of water on the Lunar surface - that ain't gonna happen, ever!!! The fact is this: the Moon is not where the game is as of now in terms of space exploration! All the big boys of space (U.S., Russia) have explored Moon in the sixties. The game, if India wants to play, is on Mars right now. It really is a simple matter of how much resource(a.k.a. money) you are willing to put into it. Space science is pricey and nations have to decide...

People of India have decided to go with the status quo by opting for another five years of Congress rule — not that they had any alternatives that are much better. As noted in the last blog post, India is a conundrum ... People in the United States whose jobs have been Bangalored certainly love to hate India ... People in India meanwhile love to admire America ... I am confused about Indians admiring America though ... I am confused about this whole business of India being a 'young' country ... From what I have observed about young Indians, they seem a strange blend of tradition and modernity ... Youngsters don't see any dichotomy in aspiring to all the trappings of material success and yet at the same time they don't mind keeping alive their moribund traditions and rituals ... When it's time for some critical decisions in life — such as marriage — young Indians demonstrate a remarkable resemblance in their mindsets with their ancestors. I find it odd that educated ...