Final Launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis - 1:20PM CDT today

After 25 years, 31 missions, more than 282 days in space and 17 visits to two different space stations, the space shuttle Atlantis is on the pad for its final flight. NASA-TV and spaceflightnow.com are providing live coverage of Atlantis’ final launch, scheduled for 1:20 pm Central Daylight Time today (14 May 2010). Atlantis will launch on a 12-day mission to attach the Rassvet Russian research module to the International Space Station and swap out six massive batteries which have been on station for several years. After the flight, Atlantis will be prepared as the “rescue” shuttle for a contingency launch in case of a problem with future flights of the other two orbiters, Discovery and Endeavour. Assuming that’s not necessary, Atlantis will be retired, and museums across the United States are having gunfights over who will get her for display.

Atlantis has been the vehicle for some of the major milestones of the U.S., Canadian, and International space programs. Atlantis docked with the Russian space station Mir 7 tmies, building a base of experience that would result in today’s International Space Station. Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield was board the first flight (STS-74) to Mir in 1995, and colleague Steve Maclean also flew aboard Atlantis in 2006 on mission STS-115 to the International Space Station. Atlantis has also launched several significant satellites: the Galileo probe to Jupiter, the Magellan radar mapper to Venus, and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, a space telescope that observes very high-energy radiation from space.

Godspeed, Atlantis, and we thank you.

I’ve been listening to the soundtrack for our upcoming planetarium show, “Earth: An Oasis in Space”, and it’s gotten me thinking. The show is all about life in the universe, and how liquid water is a key ingredient for life as we know it. This is what makes Earth an oasis – we have buckets of the stuff. But if we find liquid water elsewhere in the solar system, what does that tell us about life elsewhere? “Necessary but not sufficient” is the way my science profs would have put it – but finding places with liquid water would certainly narrow the search for life. (This show opens at the end of June, by the way… you should come see it!)

So here’s the question: why are we so interested in finding life beyond Earth? From NASA scientists to the UFO “true believers” and everyone in between, the idea of finding life elsewhere seems to be almost universally popular. Is it a desire to not be alone in the vastness of space? Is it a hope that aliens will come and save us from all the problems we face on earth, essentially a big cry for Mommy? Is it pure curiosity, that driving force of humanity that has forged our civilization for millennia?

Of course, we’re not all looking for the same sorts of life. Most scientists in the field expect that the most common sort of life we might find out there will be non-technological: slime molds, bacteria, and other primitive forms of life. And ocean life tends to be non-technological, too: you don’t see dolphins or whales building space probes or sending radio signals into space like humans do, despite their obvious intelligence. Even if the universe is teeming with life, most of it will be totally invisible to us until that first astronaut steps off the ladder and pokes it with their finger – and that’s a *really* long way off technology-wise.

There are several places within our own solar system that may have once harbored primitive life: Mars, for example. There are even a couple, like Jupiter’s moon Europa, that may have life currently there right now, just waiting for us to find it. Until then, the search continues… sort of. Listening for aliens via radio will only detect the most advanced civilizations out there, while ignoring the much larger number of worlds with potential primitive life. Space telescopes can find planets with oxygen atmospheres and water vapour as likely candidates, but until we start sending robots or people out into space again, we’re not going to *know*.

This is why some of the long-ranged plans are pretty exciting. NASA and the European Space Agency are thinking about a big mission to the Jupiter system using two spacecraft sometime in the 2020’s. The Europa Jupiter System Mission would determine if any of Jupiter’s moons are habitable worlds – but it’s not funded yet and it’s a long way off. The Mars Science Laboratory will give Mars another once-over, and be able to do more on-site science than previous missions, including trying to figure out where all the carbon comes from – on Earth, it comes from the actions of life. There are lots of other ideas on the drawing boards for the late 2010’s and 2020’s. Until then, inquiring minds still want to know but are left to wonder.

This is why some of NASA’s upcoming missions are exciting.

OK, not really – it’s a zombie satellite, though, which is still a bit creepy. Seems a solar storm took out the Galaxy 15  satellite last month, and now it’s wandering around in orbit under no one’s control. The worry is that it’s actually more of a vampire than a zombie, since it may start to suck the signals out of other satellites it gets near… full story at Space.com.

Gunter Wendt, one of the driving forces of the American space program, passed away earlier this week at age 85. Wendt was the pad leader at Kennedy Space Centre throughout the Mercury and Gemini days, the last face that astronauts saw before heading into space. Always concerned with the safety of his astronauts, Wendt earned the nickname “pad fuhrer” due to his thick German accent and firm rules. He was one of most endearing characters in Tom Hanks’ HBO miniseries “From the Earth to the Moon”. Click here for more details.

As NASA winds its space shuttle program down, the US Air Force is poised to launch its first space shuttle tonight. The X-37B unmanned space shuttle will launch from Kennedy Space Centre at 6:52 pm Winnipeg time on a classified test flight. The Air Force isn’t saying much about the spacecraft or its possible uses, but it is a reusable shuttle which will land at a runway and could conceivably be used to carry military payloads to and from orbit, or stay in space for weeks at a time. Follow the launch at spaceflightnow.com.

Well, it’s Earth Day, a movement that started 40 years ago after the first colour pictures of Earth from space were returned by the Apollo astronauts. Astronauts had always said that seeing the planet from space was a life-changing experience, but when Apollo 8 sent back this picture of the Earth rising over the surface of the moon in 1968, everyone was able to see how fragile our planetary life support system was. In 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon, and in 1970 Apollo 13 went through its dramatic “successful failure”, turning attention again to how unforgiving and harsh space is. In April 1970, days after Apollo 13 splashed down, the first Earth Day was celebrated, and the Apollo images of the Earth became the icon of this new sense of environmental awareness.

Earth Day isn’t supposed to be like St. Patrick’s Day, where most people do stuff they would never do the rest of the year – it’s a yearly reminder of the importance of taking care of the planet every day. Despite recent findings of planets around other stars, there is no other known planet humans can move to even if we had the technology to get there. With the ongoing debate about climate change, a lot of people find themselves genuinely uncertain what to believe – alas, a victory for the climate change deniers, who spend big money to sow this sort of dissent. People love to believe the science that supports them not having to do anything different, so it’s an easier sell than the science that tells us we’re going downhill in a rocket-powered handcart. But this debate actually masks the broader point.

It doesn’t actually matter if climate change will cause a global temperature rise of only 1 degree or as much as 5 degrees, or whether it’s over the next 20 or 50 or 100 years; it doesn’t matter if the science is still uncertain, or that there are other effects like solar activity which are beyond our control. Whether climate change will affect this generation or the next, or whether it will be some other environmental issue like ozone depletion, or smog, or the cumulative garbage of an increasing population living in a disposable world – that doesn’t really matter either. The basic fact is this: The way we live our lives now will affect our children’s lives, and their children’s lives. They have no other place to go, and we’re leaving a big mess to be cleaned up.

I ask my two-year old to clean up her toys before bed, not because they will continue to pile up until they drive us out of our house, and not because they pose a hazard to our continued existence in the house, but because her mess affects other people and it’s just the right thing to do – and she gets that. I hope that humanity can find the wisdom of a two-year old in its Earth Day celebrations this year.

The space shuttle Discovery landed at Kennedy Space Centre this morning, ending mission STS-131 to the International Space Station. Under current plans, this means that the next three flights will each be the last flight of an orbiter before retirement. Atlantis launches May 14 on missions STS-132 and will be retired thereafter – this is the shuttle that Chris Hadfield flew on to the Russian space station Mir. Endeavour’s last flight is scheduled for a July 29th launch – this is the shuttle that has carried the most Canadian astronauts into orbit of all of the shuttles. The last shuttle flight ever is scheduled to be Discovery’s flight in September. If you’ve never seen a shuttle launch, these are your last chances ever! Definitely worth the trip, even if the launch is scrubbed or rescheduled – Kennedy Space Centre is a great place for space enthusiasts. Plan to spend two full days there if you want to take the (highly recommended) behind-the-scenes tours.

The Lyrid meteor shower peaks on the night of April 21-22 this year. The Lyrids aren’t a major meteor shower, but we haven’t had a good one since last December’s Geminids, so it’s worth taking a look for. The Lyrids can be a decent sight, but only if you’re willing to maximize your viewing circumstances.

There are two secrets to getting the best view. First, get out of town – leave the lights of the city behind you. Light pollution from the city will blind you from most of the meteors that occur – you’ll only see the very brightest ones.

Second, stay up late or get up early. All meteor showers are much better after midnight, since at that time our part of the earth is on the “bow” of the earth as it sails around the sun – we’re heading right into the cosmic dust that causes the shower.  You can expect about 10-20 meteors per hour during the peak viewing time before dawn on Thursday, April 22. Before and after that date, the rates drop considerably.

With all of this effort, is it worth going out to see? Well, maybe. Occasionally, the Lyrids surprise us with outbursts of several times the regular rate. In 1945 and again in 1982, rates jumped up to over 100 meteors an hour – that’s more than one a minute. This activity happens when the earth goes through a clump of dust in the comet’s tail – sort of an interplanetary dust bunny. Unpredictable, but pretty cool if you see it – like so many things in the sky.