Astronauts Share Details From Era-Ending Shuttle Mission with Museum Visitors

Wednesday, August 17 12:42 pm

Hundreds of visitors gathered in the Museum’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Hall of the Universe on Tuesday morning to meet the four astronauts from NASA’s final shuttle mission, Atlantis’s STS-135. Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley, and Mission Specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim made their first New York appearance at the Museum since their return from space on July 21.

After discussing the mission, the astronauts also answered questions from children in the audience, whose inquiries ranged from whether the crew exercised in space to what meals the astronauts most enjoyed while aboard the Atlantis. Nearly 1,200 remote viewers tuned into the live stream of the event on amnh.org and many joined the conversation by tweeting questions, some of which were asked at the event.

With NASA’s 30-year-long shuttle program ending, the discussion, moderated by Museum Curator Michael Shara, soon turned to the future of space exploration. “We’re ready to go beyond,” said Magnus, who explained NASA’s plan to move beyond low Earth orbit. “Whether it’s the moon, an asteroid, Mars, we’re ready to push those boundaries even further.”

The Museum will explore just how humans may push the boundaries of space travel in the major new exhibition Beyond Planet Earth: The Future of Space Exploration, which opens on November 19 and is curated by Shara, curator in the Museum’s Department of Astrophysics. Meanwhile, Museum visitors offered their own ideas about where humans should go next.

“I would visit Neptune, since it would rain diamonds because it’s so cold,” said 8-year-old Caroline Filorimo, who hopes to make a space trip of her own some day.

As their final send-off, the astronauts presented the Museum with an American flag that flew on NASA’s final mission and a patch from a crew member’s suit. Ferguson said he hopes the gift will “remind all the youngsters of the possibilities that they have if they study hard and stay in school.”

Museum Scientist Will Oversee Sample Analysis For 2016 Mission to Asteroid

Monday, June 27 9:50 am

OSIRIS-REx will use a robotic arm to pluck samples from a near-Earth asteroid. The mission, called Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx), will be the first U.S. mission to carry samples from an asteroid back to Earth. Image: © NASA.

Geologist Harold C. Connolly, a research associate in the Museum’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, will oversee sample analysis on the first U.S. mission to collect material from an asteroid and bring it to Earth for study.

NASA announced the new mission-which is called Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx-in late May as the third mission in its New Frontiers Program. An unmanned spacecraft will be launched in 2016 to the near-Earth asteroid 1999 RQ36 and will travel for four years to its destination. After OSIRIS-REx performs surface mapping of the asteroid—a process that may take up to 505 days—Connolly will be responsible for recommending locations most suitable for sampling.

“We will narrow it down to several choices to select the best location based on low risk to the spacecraft and on chemical signatures” found during surface mapping, says Connolly, who is also professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the City University of New York.

The spacecraft will use a robotic arm to collect at least 60 grams of material, which will be brought to Earth in 2023 for worldwide distribution for study. As mission sample scientist, Connolly will prepare the plan that specifies which researchers will receive material for analysis. In advance of the launch, Connolly will be helping to coordinate and integrate studies of the asteroid’s spectroscopy andgeology, which will draw on data from ground-based observations of RQ36 and reference meteorites, including specimens in the Museum’s collection. Read more »

NASA’s Kepler Astronomer Geoff Marcy Discusses Latest Exoplanet Discoveries

Wednesday, February 02 12:24 pm

Astronomers associated with NASA’s Kepler observatory have announced the discovery of more than 1,200 new candidate exoplanets. Michael Shara, a curator in the Museum’s Department of Astrophysics, writes about the significance of the findings below.

Does life exist anywhere in the universe except on Earth?  “Star Trek” may have convinced much of the public that the universe is teeming with technological civilizations, but the correct answer is: We don’t know for certain if life–even bacterial life — exists anywhere except on Earth.  A critical challenge in answering this question is determining whether planets — especially Earth-like planets — orbit other stars.

The search for Earth-like planets has just taken a giant leap forward, thanks in part to the tireless work of the dozens of astronomers associated with NASA’s Kepler observatory.  Their quest to find exoplanets — planets orbiting stars other than our Sun — has been a stunning success.  It is now certain that planets are as common stars.

Fifteen years ago the University of California, Berkeley’s Geoff Marcy and a handful of colleagues began an almost quixotic quest for exoplanets.  Dozens, and then hundreds of astronomers joined the quest after Geneva’s Michel Mayor, Marcy, and their colleagues began reporting the first discoveries.  Herculean efforts led to the cataloguing of 500 exoplanets by the end of 2010.  Now the Kepler team has announced the discovery of more than 1,200 new candidate exoplanets, and enough details about each of these new worlds to begin to draw far-reaching conclusions about abodes for life in the universe.

Even more remarkable is that 58 planetary candidates were found to be approximately Earth-sized and falling in a temperature range where water can be liquid on a planet’s surface.

“In one dramatic announcement, astronomers have just tripled the number of known planets in the universe,” Marcy said.  “More impressive is that over half of them, 663, are smaller than four times the diameter of Earth.  These numerous worlds of nearly- Earth size bode well for the prospects of finding habitable, Earth-like planets some day.

Only two million years ago, we Homo sapiens climbed down from the trees to traipse across the East African Savannah.  Only about 100,000 years ago we ventured out of Africa, destined to explore the entire globe.  Now we are reaching out to new worlds, actual new worlds, where we hope to learn if our home Earth is common or rare in the universe.  Every child within us would love to know how commonly other planets spawn life, and how often that life evolves toward intelligent, communicative critters with the dexterity to build their own vessels of exploration.  With Kepler’s discovery of hundreds of nearly Earth-sized worlds, we humans are taking our first steps toward finding our kindred spirits among the stars.”

Read the complete Kepler Mission findings by clicking here.

We recently sat down with Geoff Marcy at the 217th American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle, Washington, and discussed exoplanets, their host stars and how the Kepler Mission is searching for Earth-like planets and signs of life in the universe.  Watch below:

Charles T. Bourland Discusses Space Food

Wednesday, October 20 3:51 pm

Authors Charles T. Bourland and Gregory L. Vogt will lead October’s Global Kitchen: The Astronaut’s Cookbook at the Museum on Wednesday, October 27. Bourland recently answered some questions about the upcoming discussion.

An astronaut enjoys a meal in space.

How has astronaut food evolved since the Apollo missions?

Astronaut food has evolved from the cubes and tubes of the Apollo days to almost normal food eaten with normal utensils. The food is “almost” normal because the packaging required for storage and consumption of food in microgravity is different than what we normally use on Earth. It was discovered during late Apollo that food can be eaten with normal utensils from open containers as long as the food is wet and thus has surface tension properties. Today’s Shuttle and International Space Station astronauts have a much greater variety of foods to choose from than the Apollo astronauts did.

What are the biggest challenges in preparing food for space?

The biggest challenges are to make palatable food that the astronauts will eat while complying with the rigorous spacecraft requirements. The closed environment of the spacecraft demands special safety precautions and limits the type of food and packaging that can be used.

How do you create a menu for a space mission? What goes into determining each meal?

Each individual astronaut now chooses his or her own menu, compared to the older missions where NASA planned the menu. NASA maintains an inventory of approved foods from which the astronauts make their choices. The astronauts sample all of the available foods and make their choices six months to a year before the mission launch date. After their choices are made, the NASA dietitian analyzes the menu to ensure it meets the NASA nutritional guidelines.

What’s a sample menu for a day in space?

Here are Days 2, 8, and 13 for Ken Ham, commander of STS-132, launched May 14, 2010. NASA uses Meal A, B, C instead of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Read more »

Mike Shara Discusses Next 50 Years of Space Flight

Thursday, September 30 12:05 pm

Museum Curator Mike Shara of the Department of Astrophysics will lead SciCafe: The Next 50 Years of Space Flight at the Museum on Wednesday, October 6.  He recently answered some questions about his upcoming discussion.

Where do you see our space program in 10, 20, and 50 years into the future?

Suborbital space tourism will almost certainly be a reality in 10 years, and orbiting hotels are quite possible in 20 years. The Chinese are likely to have a lunar base in 20 years. Humans will have landed on Mars, and perhaps set up a science base in 50 years. We will know with certainty, by then, if there is microbial life on Mars and Europa.

Where would you like to see NASA send a manned mission next: the Moon, Mars, or an asteroid?

All three. There is much valuable science to be done at each.

What do you see in the future for suborbital tourism?

Falling costs and rising numbers of tourists. Dozens the first year, hundreds the third year, then tens of thousands of people annually. I can hardly wait.

You’ve undertaken a survey to inventory all 10,000 presupernova stars in the Milky Way. Why?

This is a test of stellar evolution theory, something as basic to astrophysics as Darwinian evolution is to biology.  This theory predicts that “Wolf-Rayet” stars, which are so luminous that they are evaporating themselves, must give rise to supernova explosions. By finding every one of these stars in the Milky Way — and in nearby galaxies, too — and by getting a spectrum of every one of them (i.e., their “DNA”), we will know, when the next supernova explodes, if our evolution theory has predictive power or if it must be modified.

What have you learned from this?

That searching for a needle in a field full of haystacks is hard. There are 100,000,000,000 stars in the Milky Way. Only one in 10 million is a presupernova star. But we’ve got a list of 400 confirmed stars and thousands more candidates.

What is a stellar collision and what have you learned about them?

Stars actually crash into other stars in the centers of the densest star clusters. These collisions can be destructive or amalgamative and make some of the rarest stars in the universe.