Mabfan's Musings

The Illinois State Legislature is taking on the cause of Pluto, according to an article in the Daily Herald:

Like some sort of rulers of the universe, state lawmakers are considering restoring little Pluto's planetary status, casting aside the scientific community's 2006 decision downgrading the distant ice ball.

An Illinois Senate committee on Thursday unanimously supported planet Pluto and declaring March 13 "Pluto Day." The idea now moves to the full Senate for a vote.

See Pluto Politics Hits Springfield for the full story.

(Thanks to fellow traveler ffoeg for the tip.)

Like many of you, I have a maelstrom of thoughts swirling through my mind about the results of the presidential election. I'm doing my best to figure out how to put it all into words.

In the meantime, I share with you this webpage from New Scientist: Obama on science, in his own words It's worth reading, especially for those of us who were distraught over how the current administration was treating science.

Folks who have read my blog over the past year may recall that I spent quite some time looking for information on how the candidates would approach the space program. Admittedly, Obama's words aren't as specific as I would like about a manned space program, but they are most hopeful and definitive:

"As president, I will establish a robust and balanced civilian space program. Under my administration, NASA not only will inspire the world with both human and robotic space exploration, but also will again lead in confronting the challenges we face here on Earth, including global climate change, energy independence, and aeronautics research. I believe that a revitalized NASA can help America maintain its innovation edge and contribute to American economic growth.

"I will re-establish the National Aeronautics and Space Council reporting to the president. It will work toward a 21st century vision of space that constantly pushes the envelope on new technologies as it pursues a balanced national portfolio that expands our reach into the heavens and improves life here on Earth."

If you're anything like me, you probably wake up in the middle of the night worried that an Earth-killer asteroid will be discovered that very morning, and that there'll be nothing the human race can do about it since we haven't bothered to prepare.

Fortunately, there are others like me out there. According to today's New Scientist article UN urged to coordinate killer asteroid defences, the Association of Space Explorers is concerned too. After two long years, during which an asteroid might have hit Earth on any day, they've released a report noting that we have the technology to save the world, we just don't have the agency set up to do so.

Yet.

They're asking the United Nations to form a new NEO Threat Oversight group, where NEO stands for Near-Earth Object, to advise the Security Council on the threat. Should the group find an asteroid impact is imminent, presumably steps could be taken to try to deflect the asteroid and to evacuate cities, just in case.

Don't forget that this year, we noted the 100th anniversary of the Tunguska Event, which thankfully took place in isolated Siberia. Had the Event occurred over a populated city, hundreds of thousands of people (possibly even millions) might have died.

I urge all of you to contact your elected representatives and let them know how seriously you do take this threat. Sure, there are many other crises that are occupying the national and world psyche at the moment, but as Rabbi Hillel said, "If not now, when?"

Like many of us, I wanted to catch as much of the Democratic National Convention on television as I could. Unfortunately, it's been a busy week; gnomi's left ankle has been in pain, making it hard for her to get around; and we've had a few visitors pop in during the evenings. (Not to mention that a friend of ours gave birth yesterday afternoon to an eleven pound three ounce baby boy, and Nomi's helping coordinate meals for their family.) So although the TiVo has been dutifully recording C-SPAN's coverage, I haven't really paid much attention. (Besides which, Monday night there was a new episode of The Middleman on. How can I possibly watch the convention if it's going up against The Middleman? But I digress.)

I also sometimes wonder how much I really need to watch the conventions on television. Although I do consider myself politically aware and engaged, and I understand the civic importance of the conventions, the simple fact is that my own vote is not going to change unless my candidate does something terribly egregious between now and election day. I'm not a swing voter, and even though in the past I've split my votes across various party lines, in this particular election I feel very strongly about how I need to vote.

(If you don't know by now my political leanings, it's probably not that hard to guess.)

Despite those thoughts above, I still wanted to watch the speeches. But for the most part, I missed them. I did get to see Bill Clinton and Joe Biden speak on Wednesday night, but our watching of those speeches was interrupted by various things. (I'm very glad for the TiVo pause button.) However, there was one speech that I did not want to miss, and that one, of course, was last night's speech from Barack Obama.

I'm a very big student of history, and I like to keep track of anniversary dates in my personal calendar. For quite a few years now, I've had a note in my calendar that August 28 was the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. So the fact that Obama's speech was happening on the 45th anniversary of King's speech was something I've kept in mind ever since they announced the dates of the convention.

Others have spoken about Obama's exact words, and what it means for the Democratic party. For me, the important aspect of Obama's acceptance of his nomination is the sheer historic value. We've come so far. Last night, as I watched his speech, it was a moment to bask in history. The fact that an African-American man is running as a major party candidate for president of these United States, and that for the most part his race is a non-issue...it's amazing. I'm told that it felt like a major step to Catholics when John F. Kennedy won in 1960, and I know how proud much of the Jewish community felt when Joe Lieberman won the majority vote in this country as the vice-presidential candidate eight years ago. (Let's ignore for the moment what Lieberman has done since then.) Barack Obama's candidacy is another huge step forward, something that should make all Americans proud.

Okay, now onto the space program.

Folks may recall that back in January, after my candidate had left the race (and let's not say more about him either), I found it very difficult to choose between Obama and Clinton. I decided to base my vote on their plans for the space program, and at the end of the month, I asked people for information on their respective space exploration platforms. Sadly, at the time there wasn't much either of them was saying on this issue.

But now that we're heading toward the general election, we have more comprehensive statements from both of the major party candidates. A friend of mine (hi, M.!) pointed me to Presidential Candidates Outline Space Policy at the Planetary Society website. Both candidates provided text on their space policy, and the Planetary Society is offering them sans comment. I encourage people to go read them, and as for myself, I will add only two notes displaying my personal bias. First of all, Barack Obama's statement includes a section titled "Embracing Human Space Exploration," in which he endorses the idea of a return to the moon by 2020, whereas McCain's seems less specific.

Secondly, Obama's statement on space policy is longer.

Go read them if you have time, and feel free to come back here and tell me what you think.

And if you haven't been watching it yet, check out The Middleman on the ABC Family Channel. They need all the viewers they can get.

As readers here know, despite my being very involved in local politics I don't often post about politics on my blog. The main reason I don't is that it can be far too easy for political discussion to cross the line from informative respectful disagreement to personal attacks.

However, as of yesterday I find myself in something of a bind. Next Tuesday I'm voting in the Massachusetts Democratic Primary, and the candidate I was planning to vote for, John Edwards, has dropped out of the race.

When people asked me why I was voting for Edwards, I usually responded with the following joke: it's about time a Christian white male had a chance at the presidency. The fact that a major party's presidential candidate is going to be either a woman or an African-American, and that most of the country casually accepts this achievement, is a wonderful thing. I haven't been this excited since the election of 1872. (What happened in 1872, you ask? Go look it up. I'll wait. If you can't find anything on your first search, try the name "Victoria Woodhull.")

Despite the obvious excitement and intensity Clinton's and Obama's supporters have for their chosen candidates, however, I was most interested in Edwards's populist, anti-poverty message. Yes, I know he's rich and has his flaws; so do all the candidates. But I was impressed with his stand on certain issues and the way he presented himself. In particular, I was pleased to hear about how he addressed the Writer's Guild of America in person during not just one, but two of their rallies. Union support runs deep in me ever since my father died while he was on strike and the union took care of us; it's an emotional connection that I will never shake.

So Edwards was the candidate I had chosen to support, and now he's gone. And I find myself with the dilemma of deciding who to vote for next week, Clinton or Obama. On most of the issues that I've been following, there's nothing to help me differentiate between the two of them. So I decided to do what any self-respecting science-fiction writer would do, and judge them based on their proposed plans for space exploration.

There doesn't seem to be much out there, but I have found two relevant documents so far. First, there is Barack Obama's Plan for American Leadership in Space, released three weeks ago. According to the document, Obama supports the development of the Orion CEV and completion of the International Space Station. He also supports more robotic missions and enhanced science and mathematics education here on Earth. But nowhere in this statement does he speak to the question of manned missions. I want to see humans return to the moon in my lifetime, and I want to see the beginnings of a mission to Mars. On both of those, Obama's statement is disturbingly silent.

Sadly, though, Hillary Clinton doesn't seem to be that interested in my core issues either. In her October press release, Ending the War on Science, Clinton does say that she'll take what I consider a better approach towards supporting science and scientific research than the current administration. But while she says she is committed to the same things Obama mentions (she just uses different language), and she refers to "future human exploration," again there is no specific mention of manned missions to either the moon or Mars.

So in the end, I'm still a newly-minted undecided voter. If anyone out there can give me good reasons to support either candidate over the other, based upon the core issues of manned space exploration, I'd like to know.

Per aspera ad astra.

Since I'll be offline starting tonight through Saturday night, I thought I'd take the time today to acknowledge tomorrow's fiftieth anniversary of Sputnik, which was launched into space on October 4, 1957.

For those of you who don't know much about Sputnik, I've listed a few references at the end of this post. I also found this fascinating page, The New York Times on AOL: Sputnik, which the Times apparently put together for the fortieth anniversary ten years ago. It includes links to some of their original news coverage and audio files of Sputnik's signals.

The image of the Times's front page of October 5, 1957 pretty much sums up the event in its three-line, full width headline:

SOVIET FIRES EARTH SATELLITE INTO SPACE;
IT IS CIRCLING THE GLOBE AT 18,000 M.P.H.;
SPHERE TRACKED IN 4 CROSSINGS OVER U.S.

I wasn't alive at the time of the Sputnik launch, but I have read about how much it frightened Americans at the time. The fact that the Soviet Union hit this milestone before the United States did spurred the country into action. Suddenly, more funding was found for science education and for our own fledgling space program, and of course, when Kennedy was elected president in 1960, he set the goal for a manned moon landing before the end of the decade. The space race was on.

There's a lot I could discuss here, such as the Cold War paranoia that I and others of my generation experienced in our own lifetime, or the sad state of our space program after the Apollo missions ended. But instead, I'll leave analysis to others, and just mark this milestone with that sense of wonder at human achievement.

Look what we've done. Look what we can do.

References:
Wikipedia: Sputnik Program
Wikipedia: Sputnik 1
NASA's Sputnik page

Exactly one year ago today, the International Astronomical Union, at their General Assembly in Prague, voted to demote Pluto from planet to dwarf planet.

(An excellent post about the public's reaction since can be found at The Enduring Power of Pluto.)

Yesterday, Science published a paper by Michael E. Brown and Emily Schaller, reporting that Eris is actually more massive than Pluto, which would imply that if Pluto were to be considered a planet, Eris would have to be one as well. Anne Minard wrote an article on this discovery for the National Geographic News, and as it so happens she called me to get my opinion as the president of the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet (SP3).

Minard's article can be found at Pluto Smaller Than Nearby Dwarf Planet Eris, Study Finds. I'm actually found on page 2, and the article pretty much sums up where I stand:

Michael A. Burstein is president of the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet, which goes by the acronym SP3. The group of astronomy buffs formed in the spring of 2006, when rumors first started circulating that Pluto was in trouble.

Burstein preferred the IAU's initial idea for a planet definition, which was never voted upon at their solar-system-shattering meeting last August.

By that definition—that a planet should directly orbit a star and be massive enough to be round—Pluto would still be a planet, as would dwarf planets Eris and Ceres, a large, round asteroid orbiting near Jupiter.

It's fine if we end up with 50 or even 100 planets as new objects are discovered, Burstein said. We could keep the math easy by calling the old guard, including Pluto, "classical planets," he added.

For now, Burstein's group is laying low to see what the pros do—under the guidance of New Horizons' Alan Stern. Stern is leading the charge of professional astronomers to dismiss the IAU's ruling.

"People just aren't using the IAU definition because it's so substantially flawed," he said. "Even their own members, and I'm one, aren't using the IAU definition."

The debate over a better definition was a hot topic at the April meeting of the European Geophysical Union. And it's already part of the agenda for the February 2008 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

A year ago today, NASA launched the New Horizons spacecraft to Pluto. Therefore, this is a good time to remind folks about The Great Pluto Debate coming up on February 4.

I know that sometimes this journal might seem like all Pluto, all the time, even though we have the savepluto LiveJournal for Pluto news. But I want to mention the Debate here, because the event will be of interest to anyone fascinated by astronomy and our solar system. It's not just for Pluto supporters, but for anyone interested in the question of how we should classify Pluto.

The flyer for the event is posted at http://savepluto.livejournal.com/10943.html. I have to say that I am very impressed by what the Clay Center Observatory managed to do. Panelists for the debate include Owen Gingerich, the chair of the IAU Planet Definition Committee, and Brian Marsden, the Director of the Minor Planets Center. Both of these gentleman have agreed to come over from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics to participate, which boggles my mind as much as it delights me.

I'm asking for your help in publicizing it, especially if you're local to Boston. If you're a teacher or a parent, please bring this event to the attention of your school. The Debate is appropriate for ages 8 and up, and schools may find it valuable to send their students.

And if you're interested in attending, please go to http://www.claycenter.org/astro and make sure to register for the event. Seating is limited, so register as early as you can.

I'm getting a birthday present from NASA!

On February 28th, the day after my birthday, the New Horizons probe will make its closest approach to Jupiter. If you've been reading my blog, you're probably aware that New Horizons is the spacecraft launched almost a year ago, bound for the planet (yes, I say planet) Pluto.

New Horizons started approaching Jupiter for its gravity assist a while back, and what's the point of passing by Jupiter without taking a few pictures? As Alan Stern, the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission, said, "We're the only train going to Jupiter between '03 and 2016." The Galileo probe finished its mission back in 2003, and the next mission to Jupiter isn't planned to reach the planet until 2016.

Of course, New Horizons will be taking lots of data before my birthday. In fact, NASA is planning its first press conference with new images of Jupiter for January 18th -- the day after Nomi's birthday.

Hmmm. I wonder if this has anything to do with our desire to keep Pluto a planet? Is it possible that Stern and NASA planned this as a secret thank-you? After all, they did first attempt to launch New Horizons on Nomi's birthday last year, and it was only bad weather that delayed the launch to January 19.

Then again, it's probably all just a huge coincidence.

(See the article "Pluto probe begins close-up study of Jupiter" by Kelly Young from the New Scientist Space website for more information.)