Artemis Easter

It was the Easter weekend and the Orion Spaceship performed an escape burn to slingshot itself towards the moon. It crossed the Lagrange point and entered the moons hillsphere ( an area around the moon where the moon's gravity pulls more than the Earth's). 

The four astronauts on the spaceship are going to pass around the far side of the moon and then return to Earth.  At the time of writing this post, they were very close to the moon, just some hours away from a flyby. They won't land on this mission, it's just to test out the new hardware and make sure they can reach the moon safely. The last thing I saw on the live feed was the crew asking flight control if they could tilt the spaceship to get a better view of the moon's surface. 

We are going to see a close up shot of the moon with modern cameras, that will be interesting. I was wondering if they're getting flashing in their eyes from deep space radiation? Have they found a way to deal with deep space radiation yet? I don't know. 

Interesting times.

Solar Eclipse

There was a solar eclipse yesterday above USA and parts of Mexico, I didn't think much of it. The eclipse is just the shadow of the moon moving across the Earth's surface and happens quite often somewhere on Earth. I don't think it is sending a message from God or anything like that. 

When I think of the eclipse I think of Titan, the second Largest moon in the Solar system. It has a thick atmosphere and appears to be twice the size of the moon but it not quite twice the mass though.

It is quite interesting because it isn't the biggest moon in the solar system but it has an atmosphere that is thicker than earth's. It also has liquid methane oceans and coastlines and mountains. I often wonder why Ganymede is much bigger than Titan but it has a thin atmosphere. 

Wikipedia: Titan

  

I-hab Artemis

It's quite possible in the near future Artemis will become as familiar to households as the Apollo missions were in the '70s. I recently learned that part of the Artemis missions will involve building a moon space station that orbits the moon permanently. As far as I know the first habitation module will be sent by Artemis 4 and it will be called I-hab. Space X will be involved in the construction of the space station as well. 

The question I still have is how will they cope with deep space radiation? The moon is outside of the Earth's powerful magnetic field so it will have no protection from high speed particles shooting out of the sun and other stars. I was reading the NASA blogs and noticed they didn't mention much about it at all. A solar flare from the sun could cause the death of the whole crew in a matter of hours. The current space station is inside earth's powerful magnetic field so it is already shielded from deep space radiation. 

What will they do? I sense it won't end well. I hope I'm wrong. 

The Moon Again

I learnt just today that NASA and a private company had sent a probe to the south pole of the moon. The probe called Odysseus was carrying several instruments. 

I wonder if it can survive one moon night, 2 weeks of darkness and super frigid temperatures below -100 °c. I think the moon night often kills probes, some of them can't turn back on at sunrise. 

Every nation is obsessed with the moon now. It is like a stepping stone to deep space, or possible second home for people to live on. 

What January 2024 Means to Me

January seemed to pass by very fast and had the likeness of spring; there was even a spring time like storm called Isha that hit Britain in the last third of the month on the 21st. The only thing that was missing was daisies in the grass. There was frost at the beginning of the month in the mornings but the temperature increased later. 

The Japanese Space agency, Jaxa sent a probe to the moon. They're the 5th nation to land an object on the moon. One of the thrusters malfunctioned so the software flipped the probe upside down to regain control of it just before it landed to avoid a collision. The probe landed upside down and the solar panels were facing away from the sun so it had very limited power but it still carried out some experiments and released two small rovers. 

The King had surgery to fix an enlarged prostate gland. Men have prostate glands at the base of their bladder and if it gets swollen it can put pressure on the urine tract making it very hard to pass urine. The King wanted his surgery to be announced publicly to comfort other men with the condition and encourage them to get treatment. It was a big success, many men came forward seeking medical help for their enlarged prostate glands. 

Japan Lands a probe on the moon

I recently learned that Jaxa, the Japanese space agency had successfully landed a probe on the moon. The landing was on the 19th of January.

As far as I know, they have successfully released two rovers onto the surface. Japan is the 5th country to send objects to the moon. They claimed the landing had some issues. The main probe's solar panels were facing away from the sun, that might be an issue. It will be interesting to see what happens next. 

What August 2023 Means To Me

The whole month of August is School holiday period for Britain. I learned not long ago that is has to do with the harvest season, most produce in the UK is harvested in August so kids would be sent home help their parents harvest crops. My family went on a short break during August by the coast, the weather was very pleasant. 

During this month, wild fires were breaking out in the wilderness throughout the world. There was a dry spell everywhere, a small ignition was enough to cause an entire forest to burn up; I thought to myself that some of the fires were caused by human activity like arsonists and irresponsible campers. Perhaps a few greedy property developers as well. 

The former President of the United States of America was summoned to court and indicted of various crimes related  to vote tampering and insightment to overturn a democratic result. I wondered if the American high court would have taken Trump to court if he wasn't standing for elections in 2024. I think they're trying to stop him from standing as a candidate. 

During the second half of August, the Indian Space Research Organisation IRSO, send a robotic probe near to the moon's south pole. It was called Chandrayaan 3 ("charn dra Yarn"). India is the first nation to send a probe to moon's south pole. 

They used a rocket that works in a similar way to the space shuttle and Artemis systems. The rocket has two solid booster rockets that detach when they're empty and a lower section that also detaches. The probe itself has a spectrometer camera that looks at light transmitted from plasma and laser to zap rocks so they briefly turn to plasma. The thing can tell what the stuff on the moon's surface is made of. So far they have detected a lot of sulphur and silicone, chemicals that are found in common basalt type rocks. 

I think they're looking for ice and things like that. 

Let's see what they find... 

Back to Deep Space

NASA has created the most power vehicle ever made to bring astronauts back to the moon. 

Recently NASA has been sending the most powerful vehicle ever made into space without a crew to test the reliability and safety of the space ship. 

To me, the Artemis Space rocket resembles the Space shuttle system, it even uses RS-25 thrusters. It also has two solid rocket boosters on either side to bring the total thrust pressure up to 4,000 metric tonnes, the most powerful vehicle ever made by mankind. 

The Artemis Space launch system looks like the space shuttle launcher but without the space shuttle attached to it and a large nose cone instead. It has one extra RS-25 thruster, 4 in total.

The space shuttle had 3 RS-25 thrusters, the Artemis launcher has 4 and they're modified to produce more thrust I believe. They work by burning liquid hydrogen with liquid oxygen. A computer system can change the flow of the fuel and angle that the thrusters point at to control the stability of the space ship. 

It is a shame they barely mention this in the news. The news keeps going on about heat waves and political scandal and repeating things we already know; "yawn". 

I think they mentioned on the NASA site that the Artemis rocket system will be used indirectly to take astronauts to the planet Mars. I'm not sure what they mean by that. Perhaps it will carry space ship parts to deep space or something like that. 

Back to the Moon

Very soon astronauts will be trying to revisit the moon. There is more than one reason why they didn't  go there for 50 years. It is very costly and there is a radiation problem. During the Apollo missions they didn't know that a solar flare from the sun would kill all the astronauts. I'm not sure how they will manage the dangers of deep space radiation. Perhaps the Artamis spaceships will have a giant water tank to shield the astronauts. NASA is now inviting private companies to bid for a contract to make the vehicles they will use to drive around on the moon surface. They will be different to the lunar rovers because they will continue to work on their own as a rover probes after the astronauts have returned to earth. I thought to myself, why don't they use bikes? Has anyone ever tried to ride a bike on the moon before? I don't know. 

The moon rotates very slowly, the day and the night both last for 2 weeks each, perhaps they will land on the night side of the moon. The moon has no tilt to its axis so the day and night on the moon are exactly 2 weeks throughout the year. The moon orbits the earth in 4 weeks so it always has one side of itself facing away from the earth. They call that the far side of the moon. We never see that side of the moon because the rotation of the moon is in sync with its orbit, I think they call that Tidal Locking. 

Perhaps they could get machines to build moon base and bury it in gravel from the moon. Perhaps that would shield them from deep space radiation and solar flares. 

Artemis Era

The Apollo moon missions ended about 10 years before I was born. Soon there is going to be a new family of moon missions called Artemis. 

According to the NASA.gov website they're auctioning bids for private companies to build their LTVs (Luner Terrain Vehicles). They think a private technology company will produce their moon vehicles more cheaply and efficiently than they ever could. The vehicles will allow the astronauts to cover a lot of ground. 

According to the article I read this morning, they intend for their moon vehicles to continue working as automatic moon probes after the astronauts have left; they would be like the Mars rovers. The LTVs would be hybrid machines, vehicles and probes. 

This is the article I read ⬇️

NASA : Luna Terrain Vehicle

I was wondering how they're going to fix the radiation problem. Solar flares from the sun hit the moon surface as often as it rains here in England. It would kill all the astronauts within a few hours. Perhaps they will land on a part of the moon facing away from the sun; one day on the moon lasts for 4 weeks. They would get about 10 to 14 days to finish their mission if that was the case. I think they didn't know about the problem in the '70s and they were lucky. 

Sci-Fi moon thought

One thing I often think about is if we could terraform the moon, make it like the Earth. At first it sounds silly, the moon is small and has almost no atmosphere. But then there is Titan, the Largest Moon of Saturn. It is a bit bigger than our moon but it has a very thick atmosphere, thicker than the Earth's. 

Titan sits inside Saturn's magnetic field so it is protected from the Sun's solar wind; high speed particles that strip away gass molecules. If the Earth's magnetic field stopped, the Earth would resemble the moon because the Sun's solar wind particles would strip away the atmosphere, then the ocean would boil at low temperatures like 10°c and the water vapour would also be stripped away by the Sun's solar wind. All that would be left is dry rocks and sand. They would be bleached by all the radiation and turn a charcoal grey colour. 

I often wonder if there was a way to cause the solar wind particles to crash into the moon instead of shooting over the surface and knocking off gass molecules. Perhaps the solar wind could become part of the moon's atmosphere. If the moon had protection from the high speed particles, it would grow an atmosphere very quickly because the gravity is very weak so the atmosphere would spread out more. Here on earth most of the atmosphere is crushed down close to the surface. The atmosphere of the moon would cause more meteors to colide with it because the bloated atmosphere would reach out very far above the surface like a giant fishing net. I'm not saying my thought is right, but it is just a thought. 

Just a harmless thought to keep my mind in a happy place. 🙂

I wonder

I wonder if there is a planet like Earth that exists as a moon of a giant gas planet and has a moon like our own and the moon has its  own moon the size of Enceladus.

A small rock orbiting a moon sized planetoid which is orbiting an Earth sized planet that is orbiting a giant planet.