Carnival of Space: Week #68 …star-travel won’t be easy

Welcome to the Carnival of Space, brought to you this week by Crowlspace and the never-tiring efforts of Fraser Cain and Universe Today. First cab off the rank is musings by Paul Gilster (Centauri Dreams) who ponders the difficulty of interstellar travel as depicted by Robert Frisbee who brings us the 160 million ton antimatter powered starship (see this old “Discover” magazine piece Star Trek for more details.) “Crowlspace” also covers Frisbee’s rather gloomy prognostications here… Antimatter Ain’t What it Used to Be

Also on theme Brian Wang’s Next Big Future gives another viewpoint on the difficulty of antimatter rocketry and the relative ease of leaving the engines at home and riding a beam… Interstellar Prospects

Next Nancy Houser of A Mars Odyssey ponders the dangerously variable magnetic field of the Earth… A Newly Found Dent in Earth’s Protective Bubble…. Dr.Ian O’Neill puzzles over the folly of media hyping of a radio detection of the Galactic Core… No, An Alien Radio Signal Has Not Been Detected.

The Bad Astronomer blogs at “Discover” magazine on why telescopes haven’t been used to disprove the “Moon Hoax” claims… Moon hoax: why not use telescopes to look at the landers? (as if astronomers don’t have better things to look at anyway!)

Dr. Bruce Cordell of 21st Century Waves draws on the the Lewis and Clark expedition (almost as arduous as a trip to Mars) to get perspective on current space exploration hopes… 10 Lessons Lewis & Clark Teach Us About the Human Future in Space.

From Out of the Cradle just in time for back to school (in the Northern Hemisphere that is), Ken Murphy reviews the new ‘Kids to Space Mission Plans’ designed for teachers and homeschoolers who want to add some space-themed activities to their classrooms… Take an Educational Field Trip to the Solar System. Wish I’d had that 6 months ago 😉

Darnell Clayton’s Colony Worlds poses a pungent conundrum for interplanetary colonisation… Living Off World May Stink … our dreams of humanity expanding throughout our native star system may ultimately come to naught, due to the simple fact that living off world may irritate one of our key bodily members, also known as the nose.

This week David Portree’s Altair VI promotes a new facility for public and professional researchers he’s just opened at the US Geological Survey Flagstaff Science Center:

We Have Liftoff

He also looks at a novel approach to Mars sample collection put forward by Alan Stern in 1989.

Mars Tethered Sample Return (1989)

Ray Villard’s Cosmic Ray asks if arguing over Pluto’s status as a “real” planet is worth the hype… Spirited Pluto Battle, But a Great Debate? Once upon a time there were only 7, including the Sun and Moon. How things change!

OTOH Emily Lakdawalla argues maybe anything studied by “Planetary Scientists” should be called a “planet”… Things that probably won’t ever be called planets, but maybe they should

Simostronomy (Mike Simonsen) looks closer at the good news and the bad news out of a recent cosmogony simulation… Planets – Good News, Bad News …which found only 1 solar system like ours out of 100 simulations. Terrestrial planets form easily it seems, but not in solar systems like our Solar System.

New & Noteworthy at the LPI Library gives us an update on recently available Astrophysics related resources, including the new Portal to the Universe.

The Phoenix Mars Polar Lander spied frost for the first time this week… Phoenix Sees First Frost …courtesy of The Meridiani Journal.

Ian Musgrave, the Astroblogger says Kopf Hoch! Raise your heads people and Look! I did and I saw Venus and Mercury together at sunset yesterday.

Stuart Atkinson, of Cumbrian Sky gives us… Narnia Mars

Bruce Irving’s Music of the Spheres looks back on the Earth from deep space… Distant Mirrors (and Cribsheets)

Aloha Carnival! Says A Babe in the Universe, Louise Riofrio. Last week the Cassini spacecraft made a close flyby of Saturn’s mysterious moon Enceladus: Enceladus Flyby …Cassini was able to localise sources of the water geysers erupting from the South Pole. More heat comes from this little moon than can be produced by tidal
forces or radioactive decay. Louise speculates about other causes, even a Black Hole.

And that’s it for this week! Enjoy, be enlightened and (if you’re in the USA) vote for the right person to lead the Spacewards Vanguard… whoever that might be 😉

Author: Adam

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