Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the fourth and final episode of the highly acclaimed PBS documentary series "Origins" hosted and presented by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
The final installment of this series is entitled “Back to the Beginning” explores how the colossal, mind-boggling forces of the early universe made it possible for habitable worlds to emerge.
The clues begin with a race among scientists to capture lingering echoes of the big bang’s ferocious energy in a microwave “whisper” from deep space. The race pits underdog astronomer Tony Readhead and his improvised detector in the high Andes against NASA scientists and their state-of-the-art satellite probe. Tyson shares his excitement with viewers as computer animation of the big bang’s echo emerges on the screen. It’s as close as we can get to a “photograph” of the primordial universe.
Here we glimpse the seeds from which all the galaxies, stars, and planets eventually grew.
I have previously discussed the need for planetary defense and the required ability to send astronauts beyond Earth orbit. So how far off are we from being able to send people to the near Earth asteroids? Well, Lockheed Martin have just release a study of such a mission. They looked at a minimal two person mission using two Orion spacecrafts. From the executive summary:
In the last decade, the search for hazardous asteroids which might impact Earth has yielded an unexpected benefit. Astronomers have discovered a few dozen very small asteroids whose orbits around the Sun are similar to Earth’s. Round trip missions to these asteroids are therefore much easier than to previously known Near Earth Asteroids, and roughly as easy as landing on the Moon. These asteroids represent a new potential destination for near-term human space exploration. Since favorable mission opportunities occur only a few times per decade, it probably would not be prudent to focus the human spaceflight program exclusively on asteroid exploration and develop new spacecraft customized for asteroid missions. Instead, asteroid exploration should be conducted in parallel with other missions such as Lagrange point visits or lunar landings, using common spacecraft designed for multiple types of missions. The authors have investigated the feasibility of conducting an asteroid mission that would complement NASA’s lunar exploration architecture, using the launch vehicles and Orion spacecraft which would be used for lunar exploration. The proposed mission concept, called Plymouth Rock, combines a pair of Orion spacecraft with only modest modifications to provide the necessary propulsion, living space, and life support capability for two astronauts. Human asteroid missions have many of the same functional requirements as lunar landings, so that complementary asteroid and lunar missions may be feasible even if the lunar exploration architecture changes from the current plan. We have concluded that the dual-Orion configuration can probably support deep space mission durations of five to six months. Longer missions are constrained by radiation exposure, volumetric packaging limits for life support consumables, and the small habitable volume available. There are at least three opportunities between 2015 and 2030 when such a mission could be performed. These occur in 2019-2020, 2028, and 2029. All of the asteroids in question are small, between 5 m and 50 m in diameter. The number of opportunities is increasing as more asteroids are discovered. A dual-Orion configuration probably represents the minimum capability necessary to perform an asteroid mission. Several additional mission opportunities to larger asteroids would be feasible for an upgraded spacecraft with a larger propulsion system. Desire for enhanced capabilities, such as a larger crew size and improved extravehicular activity (EVA) support may drive the need for a larger spacecraft. One of the two Orion spacecraft could be modified into an Orion Deep Space Vehicle with a larger habitat module suited for deep space operations rather than reentry. By sending astronauts to explore these asteroids and bring back samples for study on Earth, we can learn about the formation and evolution of our solar system. We can improve our understanding of the threat to our planet from asteroid impacts, develop the practical knowledge needed to protect ourselves if necessary and even test this capability. We could also assess the feasibility of harnessing asteroid resources for a growing human civilization. If performed prior to the next lunar landing, a mission like Plymouth Rock can support lunar exploration plans by proving out the launch vehicles, spacecraft, and many of the operations for a lunar mission before the lunar lander is ready, much as the Apollo 8 mission did in 1968. A mission to an asteroid would also be valuable practice for a trip to Mars. Progressively more challenging asteroid missions provide an opportunity to incrementally develop expertise needed for long missions in deep space, without the leap in cost, complexity, duration, distance, and radiation exposure required for a Mars mission.
Of course theres a bit of a problem with all this, the Orion spacecraft does not exist and is no longer supported by the Obama administration.; Note: Trent Waddington blogs regularly on asteroid missions and is worth following.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the third episode of the highly acclaimed PBS documentary series "Origins" hosted and presented by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
The third installment of this series is entitled “Where are all the Aliens?” and focuses on the possibility of life elsewhere in the Universe.
Is the Earth unique and the only world in this vast Cosmos where matter has evolved into life and self awareness?
Origins is a spectacular four-part miniseries, first presented on PBS’s Nova, about the beginnings of the universe, our solar system, life on Earth, and the possibility of extraterrestrial life on other planets.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the second episode of the highly acclaimed PBS documentary series "Origins" hosted and presented by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Origins is a spectacular four-part miniseries, first presented on PBS’s Nova, about the beginnings of the universe, our solar system, life on Earth, and the possibility of extraterrestrial life on other planets.
The second installment of this series is entitled “How Life Began” and focuses on the mystery of how life came into being.
In today’s episode we join the hunt for hardy microbes that flourish in the most unlikely places in the quest to unravel the mystery of life’s origins.
Inside rocks in a mine shaft two miles down, inside a cave dripping with acid as strong as a car battery’s, and in noxious gas bubbles erupting from the Pacific ocean floor. The survival of these tough microorganisms suggests they may be related to the planet’s first primitive life forms. Tyson deepens the search by investigating tantalizing and controversial chemical “signatures” of life inside three-billion-year-old rocks and meteorites found around the world.
Origins is a spectacular four-part miniseries, first presented on PBS’s Nova, about the beginnings of the universe, our solar system, life on Earth, and the possibility of extraterrestrial life on other planets. It is not a stretch to say that Origins, among all television documentaries about the evolving cosmos, offers the most breathtaking dramatic visual representation of Earth’s tumultuous history, and the clearest, step-by-step explanation of the formation of planets, the development of water and living organisms, and the forces that shape other parts of our galaxy and beyond.
Have a look at this video. It shows all the new asteroids discovered since 1980.
From Youtube:View of the solar system showing the locations of all the asteroids starting in 1980, as asteroids are discovered they are added to the map and highlighted white so you can pick out the new ones.
The final colour of an asteroids indicates how closely it comes to the inner solar system.
Earth Crossers are Red
Earth Approachers (Perihelion less than 1.3AU) are Yellow
All Others are Green
Notice now the pattern of discovery follows the Earth around its orbit, most discoveries are made in the region directly opposite the Sun. You'll also notice some clusters of discoveries on the line between Earth and Jupiter, these are the result of surveys looking for Jovian moons. Similar clusters of discoveries can be tied to the other outer planets, but those are not visible in this video.
As the video moves into the mid 1990's we see much higher discovery rates as automated sky scanning systems come online. Most of the surveys are imaging the sky directly opposite the sun and you'll see a region of high discovery rates aligned in this manner.
At the beginning of 2010 a new discovery pattern becomes evident, with discovery zones in a line perpendicular to the Sun-Earth vector. These new observations are the result of the WISE (Widefield Infrared Survey Explorer) which is a space mission that's tasked with imaging the entire sky in infrared wavelengths.
Currently we have observed over half a million minor planets, and the discovery rates snow no sign that we're running out of undiscovered objects.
Orbital elements were taken from the 'astorb.dat' data created by Ted Bowell and associates at http://www.naic.edu/~nolan/astorb.html
Today on Discovery Enterprise we take an astounding look at the red planet in this interplanetary adventure that picks up where the acclaimed NOVA documentary MARS Dead or Alive left off.
On behalf of Nova and all of us at Discovery Enterprise, dear readers, we welcome all of you to join us on a mission of discovery to the planet Mars.
I always knew it had to happen. Sooner or latter someone was going to build a home made rocket and try to ride it into space. Years ago Robert Truax tried it with the Volksrocket
but failed to find the 1 million dollars needed to complete the project. Now a Dane, Peter Madsen is having a go:
A group of engineers in Denmark are preparing to do just that - launch a home-built rocket, along with a human passenger, more than 100km into the sky.
Dubbed HEAT1X, the rocket will be launched from a floating barge in the sea just outside the Danish border, 12 nautical miles from shore.
And it will be towed out there by a submarine built by one of the men behind the rocket project.
Eccentric engineering genius Peter Madsen lives onboard that homemade submarine, a project that gained him internet fame last year and a Discovery Channel documentary.
Looking to go one up in 2010, Madsen founded Copenhagen Suborbitals with Kristian von Bengston with the aim of building the world's largest amateur space rocket.
Over the last year-and-a-half they have led a team of volunteers to create the HEAT1X rocket and the micro spacecraft it will launch, called Tycho Brahe-1.
Tycho Brahe-1 will carry one human passenger, in a half-seated position, into space and back down again.
The seat is designed to minimise the gravitational pull on the passenger's spine.
Whoever is on board will also have to wear a pressure suit, like those worn by fighter pilots, to make sure they don't pass out.
At the top of the module is a see-through polymer plexiglass dome, giving the astronaut a once-in-a-lifetime view of their journey.
It's planned that the spacecraft will travel in an arc, jettisoning the rocket about halfway up and eventually peaking more than 100km above the Earth before coming down.
After it re-enters the atmosphere, parachutes will be deployed to slow it before it hits the water.
The newspaper article is a bit misleading, the first launch, due this weekend, is a test flight ands will only have a dummy, not a human passanger. Its not expected to reach space. However if successful, human flights will eventually follow making Denmark only the fourth nation to put a human into Space. But lets just stop and thing about it for a minute. Peter Madsen is a man who lives in a submarine!
Heres a video of Mr Madsen and his subs and rockets (thanks Alex for the link)
Today on Discovery Enterprise we take a vicarious field trip across the red plains of Mars in the company of two intrepid robotic rovers named Spirit and Opportunity to answer the one question that has intrigued us for over four hundred years - is Mars dead or alive?
We take an inside look into NASA's risky field trip to the red planet in this tense and dramatic behind-the-scenes chronicle of the $820 million Mars Exploration Rover (MER) project.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present episode two from the first season of the highly acclaimed documentary series “The Universe” which has been airing on the History Channel for the past five seasons.
The focus of this documentary is the fourth planet in distance from the Sun, the Red Planet - Mars.
Humanity has had an enduring love affair with this planet for the past one hundred and fifty years ever since the Italian Astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli set into motion a series of events which galvanised people’s attention on that distant world.
In 1877, during the “Great Opposition”, when Mars was closest to Earth, he announced that he observed a dense network of linear structures on the surface of Mars which he called "canali" which in Italian, means "channels" but which was mistranslated into "canals" in the English language.
While the latter term indicates an artificial construction, the former has the connotation that it can also be a natural configuration of the land. From this incorrect translation, various assumptions about life on Mars erupted like mushrooms overnight, as the "canals" of Mars soon became famous and gripped the popular imagination, giving rise to waves of speculation and folklore about the possibility of life and sentience on the distant red planet.
Among the most fervent supporters of the artificial canals was the famous American astronomer Percival Lowell who spent much of his life trying to prove the existence of intelligent life on the red planet.
Lowell theorized that an advanced but desperate civilization had built the canals to tap Mars' polar ice caps, in a frantic bid to save their inexorably drying planet.
This was to was to bring forth the romanticised vision of Mars of as revealed by the pens of H.G. Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury and Robert Heinlein which culminated with humanity’s exploration of space and a vigorous program of robotic exploration of the planet Mars in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
This enduring love affair continues unabated. It has been fifty years since humanity first took its first tentative steps out into the cosmic ocean of space, but Mars’ greatest secrets have yet to be revealed. In fact it is one of the stated goals of the current administration in Washington and within NASA to by pass any attempt to return humans to the Moon and venture headlong towards the red planet.
This may indeed prove to be a fool hardy policy. Yet, Mars does have its enticing allure.
Mars is indeed the one world in our solar system most similar to Earth. Mars is currently a world griped in a perpetual ice age, but this was not always the case. The surface of Mars as revealed by our orbital reconnaissance spacecraft shows us that Mars was once a warm, wet world flushed with the promise of life.
Yet, if Mars was once a potential abode of life in the past, what major calamity so drastically transformed its environment into the dry and fridge world we see today?
Rumours of existent and past life on Mars have yet to be substantiated as NASA’s orbiters and rovers discover new evidence of frozen water just beneath the rust red soil. Did alien life exist there in the past? Does it exist there today?
These are just a few of the questions we hope to answer during the course of our explorations of that world.
Now, as our world and civilization struggles with the effects of global warming and environmental degradation, we look forward to the possibility that Mars may one day become a second home for humanity.
Can humankind one day take life to Mars and bring Mars to life? In other words can Mars be terraformed?
Perhaps with some ingenuity humankind can take what it learned from its current and inadvertent geochemical experiment, that is steadily and adversely altering our planet’s climate, and use these same lessons in a deliberate attempt to transform the red planet into a green and blue orb that may one day become an abode for terrestrial life and consciousness.
The Universe is available on DVD from Amazon.com and the History Channel’s
online store.
Time travel has been the staple of science fiction novels, television programs and major motion ever since H.G. Wells first penned his classic prototypical scientific romance "The Time Machine" in 1895.
However, when time travel appears in Sci-Fi there is usually very little description of how the time machine actually works or the science underlying the principles of its operation. In reality there is a scientific basis to the notion of voyaging through time and it is firmly rooted in the physics of both special and general relativity as revealed by Albert Einstein in the miracle year of 1905 and during the war torn year of 1915.
In previouspostings in Discovery Enterprise we have presented the work of American physicist Ron Mallet and others who have been inspired by Einstein's work to look at the possibility of time travel as a serious proposition.
Einstein revealed to us that the space-time continuum, in which our universe is embedded, is malleable and that both space and time may be interchangeable physical structures.
In today’s instalment of the acclaimed documentary series “Sci Fi Science” host Dr. Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist by profession and Sci Fi fan at heart, looks at the possibility of taking the seemingly impossible physics of time travel out of the realm of science fiction and into dominion of scientific and technological reality.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the fourth episode of the fifth season of the highly acclaimed documentary series “The Universe” currently airing on the History Channel.
The latest instalment of the series looks at the possibility of time travel and how it could one day become a reality.
Einstein's theories of special and general relativity both allow for the possibility of travelling through time. Travelling into the far distant future is a definite certainty within special relativity. All you need to do is travel very fast at speeds that are a significant fraction of light speed and time slows down for you. This relativistic effect is known as time dilation.
One only has to look at the behaviour of a short lived subatomic particle known the muon. A muon only has a lifetime measured in microseconds (μs).
If one comparers the lifetimes of two muons at different speeds we see some very surprising results. In the laboratory, slow muons are produced, and in the atmosphere very fast moving muons are made when cosmic rays bombard atoms in the tenuous upper atmosphere that exists on the very fridges of outer space above the Earth’s surface.
A muon’s lifetime at rest in the laboratory is 2.22 μs, the lifetime of a cosmic ray produced muon travelling at ninety-eight percent of the speed of light is about five times longer, in perfect agreement with calculations made using the theory of special relativity.
In this experiment the "clock" is the time taken by processes leading to muon decay, and these processes take place in the moving muon at its own "clock rate", which is much slower than the laboratory clock.
Time dilation would make it possible for passengers in a fast moving space vehicle to travel further into the future while aging very little; since their great speed slows down the rate of passage of on-board their spaceship.
Thus the very first astronauts who venture forth to the stars will also be the first bona fide time travellers.
Yet, even more bizarre would be the mind-boggling paradoxes that would arise if travelling to the past ever became possible.
The Universe is available on DVD from Amazon.com and the History Channel’s
online store.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the highly acclaimed PBS documentary series "Origins" hosted and presented by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Origins is a spectacular four-part miniseries, first presented on PBS’s Nova, about the beginnings of the universe, our solar system, life on Earth, and the possibility of extraterrestrial life on other planets.
Dr. deGrasse Tyson hosted the four-part miniseries of PBS's Nova, which made its debut in the autumn of 2004, and co-authored with Donald Goldsmith the companion volume for this series, "Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution". He again collaborated with Dr. Goldsmith as the narrator on the documentary 400 Years of the Telescope which premiered on PBS in April 2009.
In the series’ first episode, the Earth is Born, we are given a spectacular glimpse of the tumultuous first billion years of Earth history which was a time of continuous asteroidal and volcanic calamity.
Bombarded by asteroids and comets, rocked by massive volcanic eruptions, and scoured by hot acid rain, the early Earth seems a highly improbable place for life to have taken root. Despite such violent beginnings, scientists have found new clues that life-giving water and oxygen appeared on our planet much earlier than previously thought.
It is not a stretch to say that Origins, amongst all other television documentaries about the evolving cosmos, offers the most breathtaking dramatic visual representation of Earth’s tumultuous history, and the clearest, step-by-step explanation of the formation of planets, the development of water and living organisms, and the forces that shape other parts of our galaxy and beyond.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we will take another odyssey in search of that earthly paradise immune to the squalid wickedness of the world and the ravages of time known as - Shangri-La.
In the novel “Lost Horizon” published in 1933, James Hilton takes us on an odyssey to the earthly paradise Shangri-La hidden in a valley somewhere in the Himalayas between Tibet and India. Of all of James Hilton’s works this was always my most favourite.
But, is the legend of Shangri-La rooted in some, very real, earthly reality? Did such a place really exist?
For years, adventurers from all over the world have searched for the mythic paradise of Shangri-La and have found little...until now.
Carved into sheer cliffs over the Kali Gandaki River watershed, the remote Mustang caves contain Buddhist wall paintings, such as those seen above.
Today the ancient kingdom of Mustang is depicted as "the end of the world" and is culturally isolated from Chinese-occupied Tibet, said Mark Turin of the Digital Himalaya Project at the University of Cambridge in the U.K. But the new discoveries show that Mustang was "for many, many hundreds of years absolutely central—a vibrant, dynamic, culturally rich, and religiously diverse settlement."
Today we are going on a voyage to explore these sacred Buddhist caves and look back into time as centuries-old manuscripts and stunning wall paintings that have remained undisturbed for years are uncover.
Has the real Shangri-La finally been discovered? Will it survive the erosion and visitors that the future is bound to bring? National Geographic journeys deep into Nepal in search of the real Shangri-La.
Secrets of Shangri La - Quest For Sacred Caves
You can by this exciting documentary from AMAZON.COM.
Author’s note: Dear Readers, Please allow me to direct your attention to a previous posting of mine concerning the search for the real Shangri La as revealed through the power of cinematic magic and the vision of legendary film director Frank Capra in his motion picture masterpiece “Lost Horizon”. You can also follow the exploits of the intrepid world trekking journalist Michael Wood in his highly acclaimed documentary series “In Search of Myths and Heroes,” as he goes on his own quest in search for the real Shangri-La.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the tenth episode of Carl Sagan’s highly acclaimed PBS documentary series – Cosmos: The Edge of Forever.
In this instalment of Cosmos Dr. Sagan leads us on some awe inspiring journeys taking us to a time when galaxies were beginning to form, to India to explore the infinite cycles of Hindu cosmology, and then explains how humanity discovered its true place in the universe in the twentieth century with the discovery of other galaxies and the expanding universe and its possible origin in the big bang.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present a recent episode from the highly acclaimed series “The Universe” that highlights much of what was mentioned in a recent article by my good friend and co-blogger Ralph Buttigieg concerning the need for Planetary Defense.
One threat in particular he mentions warrants our immediate attention – Solar Magnetic Storms. To quote Ralph:
“Our Sun is a seething ball of gas that can send huge eruptions of plasma towards Earth. The resulting solar wind shock wave can completely disturbs Earth's magnetic field. Such storms effect our communications and electricity generation. In 1989 a solar storm caused black outs throughout Quebec. But that was nothing compared to the solar storm of 1859. That was so severe that telegraph operators received electric shocks and fires were ignited. If the Earth was hit by a similar storm today without warning it could cause a world wide catastrophe. Power station transformers would be destroyed, communications systems would be useless. It would be an major threat to our civilization”.
While humankind and the rest of the biosphere may not suffer any immediate threat as a direct consequence of a solar magnetic storm its effects on our civilisation’s technological infrastructure could be devastating and this may very well result in the death of over one billion people who rely heavily on that technological infrastructure for their everyday existence.
A magnetic storm from the sun could wipe out electrical power, television, radio, military communication, and nearly every piece of electronics in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s a “Solar Katrina” – a planet-wide “hurricane” of magnetic forces that scramble all twenty-first century technologies, possibly for good.
With the power of ten thousand nuclear weapons, a magnetic storm could create the largest disaster in recorded history.
What causes this magnetic superstorm? Why is magnetism so powerful – and yet so poorly understood? And, is there anything we can do to prevent and protect our civilization from the devastating effects of a Solar Magnetic Storm?
Project Orion represents one of the grandest and most audacious “might have beens” ever conceived in the fifty year history of space exploration. With the aid of the Orbiter Spaceflight Simulator designed by Dr. Martin Schweiger of UCL and its associated Project Orion add on, today’s video feature illustrates one possible mission profile that would take a crew to the planet Mars.
According to science fiction author Jerry Pournelle, who is acquainted with the project and its ex-team leader Freeman Dyson, a single mission could have provided us with a large permanent moon base. Alternatively, an Orion could reach Pluto and return to Earth in a year.
Project Orion could have potentially given us the means to explore and colonize the entire solar system in the second half of the twentieth century. But, the nature of its propulsion system was it major draw back.
The idea was to use thousands of miniature nuclear bombs to lift a space craft the size of an aircraft carrier from the Earth’s surface and send it on an orbital trajectory that would take it to Mars and beyond.
The environmental hazard of the nuclear fallout generated by its propulsion system was one major undoing of the entire project.
According to George Dyson (the son of Freeman Dyson), the author of “Project Orion: The Atomic Spaceship 1957-1965”, President Kennedy initiated the Apollo program to buy off the technical enthusiasts backing the Orion program. One design proposal presented to Kennedy was a space-going nuclear battleship, which so offended him that he decided to end the program.
Project Orion was the first serious attempt to design a nuclear pulse rocket. The design effort was carried out at General Atomics in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The idea of Orion was to react small directional nuclear explosives against a large steel pusher plate attached to the spacecraft with shock absorbers. Efficient directional explosives maximized the momentum transfer, leading to specific impulses in the range of 6,000 seconds. With refinements a theoretical maximum of 100,000 seconds (1 MN•s/kg) might be possible. Thrusts were in the millions of short tonnes, allowing spacecraft larger than eight million tonnes to be built with 1958 materials.
The reference design was to be constructed of steel using submarine-style construction with a crew of more than 200 and a vehicle takeoff weight of several thousand tonnes. This low-tech single-stage reference design would reach Mars and back in four weeks from the Earth's surface (compare to 12 months for NASA's current chemically-powered reference mission). The same craft could visit Saturn's moons in a seven-month mission (compare to chemically-powered missions of about nine years).
A number of engineering problems were found and solved over the course of the project, notably related to crew shielding and pusher-plate lifetime. The system appeared to be entirely workable when the project was shut down in 1965, the main reason being given that the Partial Test Ban Treaty made it illegal. There were also ethical issues with launching such a vehicle within the Earth's magnetosphere. Calculations showed that the fallout from each takeoff would kill between 1 and 10 people.
Orion's technology is also one of very few known interstellar space drives that could be constructed with known technology.
In this mission profile Orion is launch by Nova rocket MM S010E-1 using 8 UA1207 120 inch solid motors as first stage, 24 high pressure LH2/Lox engines in the second stage in a plug nozzle arrangement. Total Mass 10,328,000 kg without UA1207, with UA1207 12,882,640 kg.
1 x Nova MMS010E-1 10,328,000 kg
8 x UA1207 319,330 kg
Payload: Orion Spaceship 992,721 kg
Mission to Mars: Orion nuclear propulsion - Orbiter Space Flight Simulator
Author’s Note: For a more in-depth history behind Project Orion, please refer to an earlier posting of mine entitled “To Mars and Beyond by A-Bomb”.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the ninth episode of Carl Sagan’s highly acclaimed PBS documentary series – Cosmos: The Lives of the Stars.
Using computer animation and amazing astronomical art, Dr. Carl Sagan shows we following the amazing story of how stars are born, live and die. Then we follow the “life after death of a star” after its collapse to form either a neutron star or black hole.
We then journey into the far distant future to witness “the last perfect day on Earth,” five billion years hence, after which the sun will engulf our planet in the fires of its death throes.
Will such futuristic technologies as depicted in our favourite science fiction television shows ever become a real possibility?
Today on Discovery Enterprise we join physicist Michio Kaku as he designs and unveils his plan for a way to explore the universe in style.
The key to its design is that staple of any great space adventure series - the warp drive. As any Star Trek fan knows the warp drive is the common name for various types of faster-than-light spacecraft propulsion systems, both fictional and hypothetical.
Will true Sci Fi fans be pleased with what Dr. Michio Kaku comes up with?
The first and second seasons of Sci Fi Science, hosted
by Dr. Michio Kaku is a available on DVD from the Discovery Channel’s online store.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the final episode of the highly acclaimed documentary series “That’s Impossible” narrated by veteran actor Jonathan Frakes, best known for his portrayal of Commander William T. Riker in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation.
This final instalment of the series takes an in-depth look into the possibilities of mind reading and control. We will investigate almost miraculous technologies that may soon allow people to transmit their brainwaves and speak to each other mind to mind, computers that could find terrorists by reading their thoughts, and machines that scan our minds like thumb prints. But could all of this not-so-impossible technology turn against us as thought theft becomes the crime of the future?
Today on Discover Enterprise we take a voyage through the universe of complexity as revealed by Chaos theory.
Chaos theory has a bad name, conjuring up images of unpredictable weather, economic crashes and science gone wrong. But there is a fascinating and hidden side to Chaos, one that scientists are only now beginning to understand. It turns out that chaos theory answers a question that mankind has asked for millennia – how did we get here?
In this documentary, Professor Jim Al-Khalili sets out to uncover one of the great mysteries of science – how does a universe that starts off as dust end up with intelligent life? How does order emerge from disorder?
It’s a mind-bending, counterintuitive and for many people a deeply troubling idea. But Professor Al-Khalili reveals the science behind much of beauty and structure in the natural world and discovers that far from it being magic or an act of God, it is in fact an intrinsic part of the laws of physics. Amazingly, it turns out that the mathematics of chaos can explain how and why the universe creates exquisite order and pattern. And the best thing is that one doesn’t need to be a scientist to understand it. The natural world is full of awe-inspiring examples of the way nature transforms simplicity into complexity.
From trees to clouds to humans – after watching this film you’ll never be able to look at the world in the same way again. Find out more about the secret life of chaos.
This and other BBC documentaries can be purchased from the BBC’s online shop. The Secret Life of Chaos, with Prof. Jim Al-Khalili
Our sophisticated and advanced civilization is vulnerable to natural threats that would have had little or no impact in the past. A volcano goes off in Iceland and international travel is in chaos. Had that volcano gone of a century ago it would have only been a concern to the people of Iceland. The Space environment presents us with new threats that can damage or even destroy civilization.
One is the threat of solar storms. Our Sun is a seething ball of gas that can send huge eruptions of plasma towards Earth. The resulting solar wind shock wave can completely disturbs Earth's magnetic field. Such storms effect our communications and electricity generation. In 1989 a solar storm caused black outs throughout Quebec. But that was nothing compared to the solar storm of 1859. That was so severe that telegraph operators received electric shocks and fires were ignited. If the Earth was hit by a similar storm today without warning it could cause a world wide catastrophe. Power station transformers would be destroyed, communications systems would be useless. It would be an major threat to our civilisation.
Impact events are another threat. The threat of the Earth impacting with an asteroid, comet or meteorite is real and has happened in the past. There are craters like Barringer and Henbury to prove it. Although the larger impacts are more rare the smaller ones are more common. The Tunguska event in 1908 had a explosive force between 5-30 megaton. That impact occurred over Sibera. It couldn't do much damage to civilization in 1908, but a 5 megaton blast over Russia today could have serious international consequences.
As well as natural threats there is the man made danger of space debris. Our spent rockets, dead satellites, etc are polluting Earths orbit putting multi million satellites and the essential services they provide at risk. Although efforts are being made to mitigate the problem space junk is still accumulating and colliding satellites only increase the amount of debris. In fact there’s a possibility a chain reaction of collision, the “Kessler Syndrome” could ground all manned flight.
Good sense tells us we need Planetary Defense. Thats usually defined as “ that activity concerned with protecting the Earth and its inhabitants from destruction due to impact by a large piece of space debris such as an asteroid or a comet” I have a broader definition “protecting Earth from man made and natural threats from Space”.
Whats needed is to put the Solar System under perpetual, high level surveillance so that the earliest warning can be given. We can start with Earth orbit. Tracking debris smaller then 10 cm is difficult and most debris is unobserved. Earth and Space based systems need to be put into place to provide adequate situational awareness. There has been much discussion as to how to clean up space but action needs to be taken to develop proper strategies and to implement them.
To detect interplanetary dangers large observatories can be placed in two of the best places for astronomy , the Sun-Earth L1 and L2 Lagrange points. L1 permanently faces the Sun and would be an excellent spot for a solar observatory. L2 is in the opposite direction and would be the spot to place an observatory looking at the rest of the solar system. There are already astronomical satellites at these positions but if high level permanent surveillance is required we need better. I'm proposing Hubble class telescopes or better. The great thing about Hubble was that astronauts could service the telescope allowing it to be repaired and upgraded. Thats why its been in use for over 20 years.
Of course you need to get there. The Sun-Earth L1 L2 points are 1.5 million kilometers from Earth so a human beyond Earth orbit capability should be a high priority. That capability, interplanetary cruise, will also be need to protect us from asteroids. Its not much use simply to know an asteroid is going to hit you need to be able to divert it . Despite much study no one is sure how to do so but one thing is known, changing the orbit of an asteroid enough to miss the Earth requires far less energy when the asteroid is a long way away then when its close. So action needs to be taken when the asteroid is several million kilometers away. Now, if a solar sail has to be attached or an nuclear device positioned on a rotating asteroid you going to need someone there to make on the spot decisions not rely on robots who will suffer a radio time lag.
In my view planetary defense is one of the best reasons for having a human space program and frankly more urgently needed then Moon bases or Mars missions. An interplanetary cruise system does not require landers, planetary bases etc so would be much cheaper but could still be expanded to interplanetary missions if there was the need and funds.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the eighth episode of Carl Sagan’s highly acclaimed PBS documentary series – Cosmos: Travels in Space and Time. In this instalment of Cosmos we follow Dr. Sagan on an odyssey through time and space and witness how star patterns change over millions of years followed by a journey to the planets of other stars, and a look at the possibility of time travel.
This takes us to Italy, where a young Albert Einstein first wondered what it would be like to ride on a beam of light.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the penultimate episode of the highly acclaimed documentary series “That’s Impossible” narrated by veteran actor Jonathan Frakes, best known for his portrayal of Commander William T. Riker in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. The spotlight of this instalment shines on the actual development of death rays and energy weapons reminiscent of those depicted in science fiction.
Cutting edge breakthroughs are bringing this science fiction technology to the battlefield. We will explore reports of high-powered lasers that can shoot down enemy planes and vaporize armies from space, bombs that release bursts of energy more powerful than nuclear warheads. But could this death-at-the-speed-of- light weapons be defeated by another science fiction technology in the works.... force fields?
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