Will Pioneer 10 Ever Phone Home or Return with Some Friends? June 13, 2010

The Close-Up Picture Taker of Jupiter Not Only Left the Building, it left the Solar System

Pioneer 10 Says Good-Bye To Earth With Nixon in the White House

On This Date in History:  When the space probe, Pioneer 10, was launched by NASA from Cape Canaveral on March 3, 1972 its primary mission was to encounter Jupiter in December 1973.  Pioneer 10 met the challenge of its mission as earthlings stood spellbound watching the images sent back from the tiny spacecraft.  For the first time, from up close, people were able to see the “Great Red Spot” that had fascinated and perplexed earthbound observers since it was first observed.    It was during the encounter between the mosquito Pioneer 10 and the Giant Jupiter that it was confirmed that the mammoth planet consisted of liquid hydrogen without a solid surface below the thick clouds that envelop it.

Pioneer 10 Kept Going and Going

In reaching Jupiter, Pioneer 10 also proved that it was possible for a spacecraft to navigate through the asteroid belt as on July 15, 1972 it was the first man-made satellite known to do so.  Pioneer 10 also answered the question as to whether a spacecraft could handle the powerful radiation belts of Jupiter.  Pioneer 10 truly lived up to its moniker as when it got done with its Jupiter observations, it just kept on going.  It became the first spacecraft to cross the orbits of Uranus, Pluto and Neptune.  On this date in 1983,  over 11 years since it first left the earth, Pioneer 10  left the solar system using a first ever used nuclear power plant.  

NOMAD Thought that Kirk was the Creator

Now, Pioneer 10 was not alone.   Its twin, Pioneer 11 was launched about a year after Pioneer 10 shoved off from earth.  Pioneer 11 got the first close up views of Saturn and its rings, unlocking more centuries old mysteries.    The two Pioneer spacecraft paved the way for the more sophisticated Voyager probes 4 years later.  The Voyager probe became the premise for the original Star Trek movie, but that too had been more or less an expansion of a story told during the original series.  (Remember the one with “NOMAD”  the wayward 20th century probe that was looking for the creator?) 

Pioneer 10 plaque designed by Frank Drake Carl Sagan and Jon Lomberg. I'm Not Sure How Any Alien Could Make Sense of It.

When men first landed on the moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left behind a plaque with a greeting from President Nixon in which he said “we came in peace for all mankind.”  I think that there were also some symbols or maps or something, just in case any aliens couldn’t read english.  Well, America felt like it had to say something in the event that their little probe might wander into the hands of someone else so on both Pioneers, there is a plaque. In fact, most human probes into space have plaques.   The two on the Pioneer spacecrafts are but 6 inches by 9 inches and each plaque is designed to show any intelligent life that may come upon them where they came from and who sent them.  There is a diagram of a man and woman along with some basic scientific symbols along with a  diagram of the solar system.  Never mind that the vast majority of the humans living on the earth could probably not recognize the solar system and certainly not the scientific symbols, any space men might think that we’re all that smart.  Scientists have noted that the plaques represent a “mark of humanity that might survive…the Solar System itself.”    One thing that they don’t say is that one of the Pioneers just might fall into the hands of someone who can decide that there is a pretty primitive civilization out there that is easily invaded and is so dumb that it provided an road map related to how to invade it.  If you look at the diagram, then you see how really far fetched it is because it seems pretty random to me, but then again, presumably, an alien would have a little more going on.  Either way anyone who finds Pioneer 10 would have a long way to come to bring it home.  The last signal received from Pioneer 10 was on January 22, 2003 or 30 years after it was launched. I think the American taxpayer got its money’s worth on a gizmo that was only supposed to last 21 months.  At last contact, Pioneer 10 was 7.6 billion miles from earth and it took over 11 hours for the faint radio signal traveling at the speed of light to reach the earthbound listeners. 

Who Knows Who May Bring Back Pioneer 10. They'd have to Be pretty advanced to figure out the schematic invented by Carl Sagan

Maybe far fetched but, how different is it really to the American Indians.  Here they were  minding their own business when from across the ocean comes some beings that look similar but different from them.  They have tools and machines that they did  not have and they just kept coming and coming from somewhere.  Would not natives of any particular region of the world look at exploring or invading Europeans much in the same way that we would view aliens from another world?  After all, even the Europeans called North America “the New World” even though it wasn’t new to the Indians.  In any event, wherever Pioneer 10 is today, 27 years after it left our Solar System, it is well beyond the imagination of those who struggled in covered wagons across the continent in the 19th century.  In fact, if you think about it, the frontier of the United States was considered closed in 1890 and  just 93 years later, man had left the Solar System.  Perhaps this is symbolic of a society whose technology is developing faster than its humanity.

NAM Called for Over 1.5" of rain from 8P to 2AM Saturday Night..It Was WRONG!!

Weather Bottom Line:  This weekend is a great example of why one should not get too married to a particular model or make grand pronouncements.  I had explained all of the caveats related to the forecast and the various solutions of the models.  I had said that there would be disturbances coming through the flow from time to time but that the timing and exact track of each would be tough.  I had guessed that late Saturday night and early Sunday morning was the best chance for heavy rain with a secondary chance early Saturday morning.  I left myself a lot of wiggle room.  Well, I saw on local TV the station that is supposedly “rated most accurate” on Friday.  The guy then had a grand pronouncement of “Local Flooding” for Saturday.   Not a percent chance or heavy rain but, “Local Flooding.”  I told Snow White that was not very wise as it was possible, but not necessarily probable and that was an awfully long limb to be on. If he was right, he’s a hero, if he’s wrong (which was the most likely scenario) then he’d look like a goat and people would definitely remember it.  In TV y0u’re usually doing well if your mistakes are not highlighted.  Even in my scenario of heavy rain on late Saturday night, the wettest models were only throwing out 1.5 to 2 inches of rain over 6 hours and I don’t think that would cause “local flooding.”  Beside that, it was possible that the main storm track would be to our North.  Some of the models did have that.  Another thing that bothered me about the forecast that I saw was the depiction of a low sitting right in the middle of a high pressure ridge.  Made no sense…but then again I had the sound turned down so maybe the error was pointed out or there was some other explanation…a supposed upper low, perhaps? I dunno.  Twas confusing to me.

SPC Severe Outllook Monday-It's obvious where the expected storm track resides

Anyway, on Friday night, the lead shortwave was mainly to our North with an appendage sticking down bringing some pretty decent rain across the area.  As I had suspected, when that guy got farther east, the sun was coming up and it got pretty rough in Eastern Kentucky and Western Virginia.  We were in the wake of that one which would provide subsidence or sinking air behind it and therefore it would  be tough for afternoon heating to overcome that resistance.  Nevertheless, Snow White was at a wedding and reported that they saw someone on in the afternoon saying that storms would be prevalent until 5 pm.  I told the brides father that if we got anything it would be well after 5 pm and to go ahead and take the photos out side. 

SPC Monday Severe Weather Probability

I believe what we have is a couple of folks looking at computers and not bothering to look and see what is really happening or not having the ability to know what is going on.  In this case, the computers were wrong.  It was not a bad forecast to call for a healthy chance for t’storms or rain Saturday evening or Saturday night.  It was wrong headed to call for “Local Flooding” 24 hours before anything ever happened.  That’s either sensationalism, ignorance or foolishness.  By Saturday afternoon, it was apparent that there was not going to be much in the way of storms in the region beyond isolated activity.  Again, its either foolish, ignorant or attempts to scare people to continue give a forecast based on what a computer said it was supposed to do instead of looking out the window and seeing what is really going on.  As it turns out, about 11pm on Saturday night…our big shortwave did come across the Ohio Valley…trouble was it was farther north, taking an Indy-Cincy route and any appendage sticking down faded out before it got to Louisville.  So, as I had feared, the models were right about the upper disturbance and even the timing, but the exact route was off by about 90 miles, which isn’t too bad given that the earth is 25000 miles around. 

Tuesday SPC Severe Outlook

So, what the hell does this have to do with anything?  We will stay in this pattern which is unsettled.  There will continue to be a trof out west that will be kicking out small pieces of energy from time to time and it will continue to be tough to know exactly where and when these guys will be tracking until they actually show themselves.  It will continue to be hot and humid.  Therefore, it will continue to be a situation in which we are just loaded with energy.  If we get a good spark in here under the right conditions, and we could see some rough weather.  But, with nothing real specific to hang your hat on, its pretty tough to give anything of reasonable certainty.  I can say that it will be unstable, hot and humid and each day there will be a risk of t’storms at least through Wednesday.  I would say that, if we do get storms in the afternoon or early evening, stay tuned to local tv or radio because there would be a fair chance of any afternoon/evening storms being trouble maker.

The Explosion That Brought Failure, Success and Fame April 13, 2010

The Result of the Explosion that Forced The World to Remember Apollo 13

President Kennedy Challenges Nation Before Congress May 25, 1961

On This Date in History:  The manned space program at NASA currently has an uncertain future as the Space Shuttle program winds down.  In sharp contrast, in the 1960′s the United States made manned space missions a national goal.  Just a few weeks after Alan B. Shepard, Jr.  became the first American in space, President Kennedy on May 25, 1961 set the bar high by saying that the United States would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade.   When I was a kid, I couldn’t get enough of the space program.  I sometimes wish that I had followed through on my boyhood dream of being an astronaut when I grew up.  In my college years, I won many a bar bet on any trivia question relating to space exploration.  When Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. (Buzz)  Aldrin, Jr.  set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969 the Guinness Book of World Records says that about a third of the global population watched in television.  That was Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 followed and by the time Apollo 13 lifted off on April 11, 1970 the American people, along with the rest of the world, seemed to give a collective yawn.

Picture Perfect Liftoff April 11, 1970

No one really noticed when the time of the launch on that day took place at 13:13 NASA time, or 1:13 pm CST.  More critically, no one at NASA had any concern over oxygen tank #2 in the service module.  According to NASA, “The No. 2 oxygen tank, serial number 10024X-TA0009 had been previously installed in the service module of Apollo 10, but was removed for modification (and was damaged in the process of removal). The tank was fixed, tested at the factory, installed in the Apollo 13 service module. and tested again during the Countdown Demonstration Test (CDT) at the Kennedy Space Center.beginning March 16, 1970. The tanks normally are emptied to about half full, and No. 1 behaved all right. But No. 2 dropped to only 92 percent of capacity. Gaseous oxygen at 80 psi was applied through the vent line to expel the liquid oxygen, but to no avail. An interim discrepancy report was written, and on March 27, two weeks before launch, detanking operations were resumed. No. 1 again emptied normally, but No. 2 did not. After a conference with contractor and NASA personnel, the test director decided to “boil off” the remaining oxygen in No. 2 by using the electrical heater within the tank. The technique worked, but it took eight hours of 65-volt DC power from the ground-support equipment to dissipate the oxygen. Due to an oversight in replacing an underrated component during a design modification, this turned out to severely damage the internal heating elements of the tank.”

"Houston, We've Had a Problem"

For years the main television networks in America had cut into regular programming to show broadcasts from space.  But, less than a year after Armstrong and Aldrin had put their footprints on the moon, network executives had determined that the public would rather watch their favorite tv show than watch the astronauts.  So, when the Apollo 13 crew broadcast live a few minutes short of 55 hours into their mission, no one saw the 49 minute broadcast from space which concluded with flight crew leader James A. Lovell, Jr say goodnight.  Within 15 minutes the networks scrambled to break into the programming as suddenly they thought the public would be interested. On this date in 1970,  nine minutes after Lovell bid farewell, that oxygen tank number 2 blew up and that caused oxygen tank number 1 to fail.  The goodship and crew was in peril as they were some 200,000 miles from earth.  Lovell called home, giving the infamous understatement of the century, “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”  

 Jerry Woodfill makes the case of Divine intervention regarding the timing of the explosion.   He was mission Warning System Engineer and suggests that the time of the explosion was about the only time it could have happened and still gave the opportunity to spare the crew.  Now that is an interesting take on the incident that deserves some consideration.  Perhaps worthy of less examination are what might be regarded as those interesting coincidences of history.  Over time people have made numerous assocations of the third Apollo mission to put men on the moon with the number 13, though some are a stretch.   It departed on April 11, 1970 at 1:13 pm Houston time.   Never mind they launched on east coast time.   Anyway, 1:13 pm is 13:13 in 24 hour clock time. April 11, 1970 can also be written as 4/11/70. Four plus One plus One plus Seven plus Zero equals 13.   Or you can say 4+11+70 = 85 and 8+5 =13. Their last television broadcast was on April 13. They entered the moon’s gravitational field on April 13 and were scheduled to land on the moon on April 13. The failure of the number 2 oxygen tank occurred on Apirl 13th at 3:08:53.555 UTC which in the eastern time zone would be 9:08:53:555. 9+8+53+555=625 and 6+2+5 =13.   If the explosion that caused the damage had occured on earth, it was supposedly estimated to cost $13 million to repair the damage.  Seems like someone had a lot of time on their hands to have discovered all of this.

Splashdown Was Welcome Sight to the World and Mrs. Staple

If you saw the Apollo 13 movie, then you know that the crew made it home safely.  Back in those days, it was unusual  to have a TV set in the classroom but they wheeled one in to ours.  I remember Mrs. Staple being all emotional when we saw the Command Module floating to the sea under the 3 large parachutes.  Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise was assigned to be the Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 18 but it was cancelled along with two other missions, leaving Apollo 17 as the last manned moon mission.  Command Module pilot  (John) Jack Swigert went on to be elected to Congress but died of cancer before he could take his seat.  Jim Lovell became one of America’s most experienced astronauts having logged over 715 hours in space during the Gemini and Apollo programs.  Lovell said in a 2009 published article that funding the space program would be a great part of the stimulus:  ”One part of the stimulus could be the space program,” he said.  “First of all it’s a creative program, it creates taxes individual and corporate taxes, all the money is spent here on Earth, not one cent up there in space.  It brings technology that spills over to the private sector.  That’s what happened all through Gemini and Apollo and the private sector now is affected by computer technology and electronic components that were speeded up by our being in space, and that could continue.”

Haise, Swigert and Lovell After Returning from Successful Failure made them more famous than if it ran smoothly

Now, Lovell is certainly qualified and worthwhile to get his opinion on all things space related.  But, the flight experience of John Young eclipses even that of Lovell.   And, of all the moon missions, aside from Apollo 11, no one remembers anything about Apollo 12-17 except 13.  Why? Because it was the successful failure.  It was dramatic.  It’s as if the 5 missions that put 10 additional men on the moon did not matter to the public.  Maybe the TV executives were right; the public had lost interest.  And with the cutbacks at NASA today, it would seem that the government is losing interest as well; that is a mistake.

Weather Bottom Line:  High pressure will drift to the east and temperatures will begin to warm slowly.  Friday evening a little front will come through that will bring a chance of rain or maybe some t’storms but nothing too earth shattering.  That will leave us with a great Thunder Over Louisville weekend though temperatures will be a bit cooler with highs in the mid to upper 60′s, which is closer to where they are supposed to be this time of year anyway.