Author’s Note: Please excuse the non-sciency (technical term) angle of this post. Just something I thought was worth noting here regardless. And Happy Halloween all…keep safe!

Eleven years ago today, exactly at this hour, I was biting my fingernails into non-existence. October 30, 1995 was the night Quebeckers (a largely French-speaking province within which I am considered a minority) were deciding whether we wanted to split from Canada and form our own nation. The ‘No’ side prevailed–fortunately, from my perspective–by a sliver tinier than the bits I’d just chewed off: 50.5% to 49.5%.

The point of this story, beyond the Coles Notes history lesson, is what I remember happening on October 31. Absolutely nothing. Despite the contentious vote, there were no riots. There was no violence. Quebeckers, English and French, got back to doing what we usually do that time of year: Trick or Treating, watching hockey and complaining about politics over beers at the pub.

I wonder sometimes what it would have been like if we’d lived somewhere else. Maybe you do too. What if, after the debacle that was the 2000 Presidential election (and, come to think of it, the one in 2004 too), people responded the way they have recently in Somalia or Nepal?

My point is: after these upcoming midterm elections, be grateful whether your candidate wins or loses. Two weeks later, your Thanksgiving turkey will taste the same, the football games will be played as scheduled and you’ll probably complain about politics over beers at the pub too (some things are universal).

The way history seems to work is that, ten or eleven years down the road, you won’t really remember who won or lost, just whether life went on the same.

On October 3, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the award of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics to John Mather and George Smoot, scientists who explored the background glow from the Big Bang with NASA’s COBE satellite.  Mather led the total COBE effort and his own instrument on the satellite measured the spectrum of the glow so precisely that when he first projected the results at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society, a large audience of academics interrupted the talk with a rare and sustained burst of heavy applause:  the measurements fit the theoretical curve so precisely that the errors in the data were smaller than the thickness of the line.  At a single glance, this conclusively ruled out prior data that suggested that part of the background glow came from cosmic events in eras long after the Big Bang.  Smoot’s findings, unveiled with great fanfare at a subsequent session of the American Physical Society, presented the first evidence of the earliest structures in the universe, regions that were hotter or cooler, denser or thinner than each other, long before a single star or galaxy had formed.

The media reports that I’ve seen told about these scientific discoveries that earned the Prize, but gave little hint of the scientific and engineering Odyssey that brought home the primeval bacon.

Did you know

That the COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer) project was born in a New York City building that is pictured in nearly every episode of the television comedy Seinfeld?

That COBE was built for launch on the Space Shuttle, and that after the Challenger catastrophe, the satellite had to be re-engineered and downsized, including the removal of  tons of hardware–  for launch on an unmanned Delta rocket?

That besides these two Prize-winners there were about 1500 people who helped design, manufacture, and operate COBE and analyze its findings, without whom the Prize-winning discoveries would not have been made?

That concerning this Nobel Prize, I was right for a change?

The Seinfeld Connection

In 1974, Mather was a young post-doc with Patrick Thaddeus, an expert on the interstellar molecules at a NASA facility in Manhattan who previously had studied the effects of the Big Bang glow –called the microwave background radiation- on molecules in the Milky Way.   When word came that NASA Headquarters would be issuing a call for proposals for new scientific satellites, with an emphasis on infrared astronomy, Thaddeus urged Mather to put a team together and propose a satellite.

The building where Mather and Thaddeus worked, and where six scientists from around the USA came together to make the first plan for COBE, is located at Broadway and West 112th Street. The Broadway side of the building is occupied at street level by Tom’s Restaurant, a curious New York institution whose cuisine may be an acquired taste.  Exterior shots of Tom’s are used on Seinfeld to introduce segments in which Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer huddle over coffee in what they call “Monk’s.”

Imagine if Larry David, the head writer for Seinfeld, had known what was going on upstairs from “Monk’s.”  We might have enjoyed a segment in which George posed as an experimental cosmologist for NASA just as in one episode, he pretended to be a marine biologist to impress a date.  Most likely, it would have ended with a rocket inadvertently launched toward the Bronx rather than to outer space.

COBE and the Space Shuttle -

While COBE was under construction at Goddard Space Flight Center, Mather published a 20-page, four-color brochure about the mission.  Unfortunately, his opening sentence proclaimed that COBE “will be launched from the Space Shuttle…” which turned out to be wrong.  After the Challenger disaster in 1986, NASA changed the rules for Shuttles in an attempt to cut risk.   In particular, the agency eliminated the option for launching Shuttles from the West Coast.  This had a huge impact on the COBE project:  COBE needed to be inserted in a carefully designed orbit at very high inclination to the Earth’s equator, so that it could steadily scan the universe while its deliberately cold detectors would never point near the Sun.  To reach the required orbit from a US launch site, COBE had to lift off from Vandenberg Air Force Base where “Space Launch Complex 6” had been modified to accommodate the Space Shuttle.  So there you are:  COBE was designed and built to launch on the Shuttle, COBE had to launch from Vandenberg to reach a suitable orbit, and now no Shuttle would ever go up from Vandenberg.  Mather and the team were in a heap of trouble.

To launch from Vandenberg without the aid of the Space Shuttle, COBE had to fit on an expendable rocket.  As Mather recalled in a 1994 talk to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, his team had to re-engineer the satellite to “cut the weight by half.”  A large, sunshade, mounted in a fixed position on the spacecraft, was replaced with one that folded to fit within the shroud of a Delta rocket, then deployed in space.  And, as a key COBE scientist recently reminded me, the redesigned, much smaller and lighter satellite had to be toughened as well.  The Space Shuttle gives you a softer ride than a Delta, because the Shuttle carries people – it’s man-rated.  COBE engineers had designed the satellite to the Shuttle launch environment; as first built, it was vulnerable –particularly in one of the delicate scientific instruments- to the harsher vibrations of an unmanned Delta.  And of course, while you made COBE smaller, lighter, and stronger, you also had to preserve the scientific performance specs of the three onboard instruments.  No use putting up a satellite that fit in the rocket , survived the launch, and reached the proper orbit if it would now be too small to detect much.  That would be like launching a six-inch telescope and calling it “Hubble.”  Easy, but not  too useful.

As the award of the Prize reminds us, all these modifications were made successfully – COBE worked like a charm, made measurements of exquisite precision, and led to Nobel-class discoveries.  In my view, the re-engineering of COBE and its successful operations represent NASA at its best (some would say, the “old NASA’).  The degree of difficulty wasn’t quite up to sending Man to the Moon and back, or the first focus-fixing repair of the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, but it was great work, done just right.

Critical COBE Scientists

Mather estimated that about 1500 people worked on COBE.  Most of them were engineers and technicians and managers and administrative personnel of all sorts.  But about 20 were science team members and I have had the opportunity at one time or another to meet them all.  I want to single out a few among many who deserve praise.  For years, I sat just three or four doors down the hall from John Mather at the Goddard Space Flight Center, and for much of that time, George Smoot, although employed at the University of California, Berkeley, had a long-term visitor’s office not much further away. Smoot’s instrument, like all of COBE, was built at Goddard.   Smoot had to pass my door to reach Mather’s office and he often stopped in to shoot the breeze.

My boss at the time was Michael Hauser, who was also the third of the three top scientists of COBE.  (COBE was loaded with Mather’s “Far Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer,” Smoot’s “Differential Microwave Radiometers,” and Hauser’s “Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment.”)  Mike Hauser’s instrument worked splendidly, and went on gathering data even after the other two instruments stopped when the onboard supply of liquid helium coolant ran out.  His instrument didn’t gather new facts on the Big Bang, but detected the infrared background radiation that was emitted over the whole subsequent history of the universe, originating in all the stars and galaxies that are or ever were.  This too was a fine accomplishment.

Charles “Chuck” Bennett, now a Johns Hopkins Professor, was a Goddard scientist who was Deputy Principal Investigator on Smoot’s experiment, and critical to the program.  David Wilkinson, a Princeton University physicist, was a COBE scientist from Day 1 – he participated in the original six-person meeting at 2880 Broadway, continued to contribute during the whole duration of the project, and went on to work with Bennett in developing NASA’s WMAP satellite, a follow-on to COBE that has earned equal acclaim from the scientific community.  WMAP stands for Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe because sadly, Wilkinson died in 2002 while that spacecraft was under development at Goddard.

Nancy Boggess, now retired, is an astronomer and manager with terrific instincts, rare social and political skills, and intense determination.  She kept the scientists working together at Goddard to meet project objectives and above all, thanks to her years of previous experience as the person who fostered the infrared astronomy program at NASA Headquarters, she had the street smarts to get COBE what it needed from NASA, while keeping Headquarters administrators, politicians, micro-managers and other well-meaning meddlers with every sort of policy agenda off the backs of the team.

What’s missing in the above  kudos is the list of engineers and other key personnel who helped build, calibrate, and test COBE. The two chief engineers were Roger Mattson and Dennis McCarthy.  I’m not sufficiently knowledgeable to name others, but I am reminded of how an elderly engineering professor verbally roughed me up at a meeting of the National Academy of Engineering.  At the meeting, I spoke about how astronomers have learned to publicize our discoveries to share them with the public and encourage continued support of space science.  In the question period, the old gentleman creaked to his feet and reminded me angrily that no astronomer ever built a space probe that went to Jupiter or a satellite that gathered great data like COBE or that made marvelous images like those from Hubble.  “Everything is built by the engineers,” he said, “but the astronomers get all the publicity.”

So let’s hear it for the COBE engineers!

How I was right for a change

When the discovery of the microwave background radiation was first announced and attributed to the Big Bang, I told friends and colleagues that I thought the work was wrong.  Of course, it was right, and was later recognized with one-half of the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1978, awarded to Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson of the Bell Telephone Laboratories (a Russian got the other half for low-temperature research).

When George Smoot announced his findings at an American Physical Society meeting on April 23, 1992, the Washington Post waxed rhapsodic, editorializing that “Science had one of its magical moments Friday, suddenly producing definitive evidence for the wacky, spooky, altogether hard-to-credit birth-of-the-universe scenario called the Big Bang Theory.”  The Post and other national newspapers also quoted me as saying that this work would earn a Nobel Prize. So as my wife says, I was right for once.  Just once.

Top NASA officials are meeting today to discuss the fate of the Hubble Space Telescope with an announcement slated for Oct. 31.

Shuttle officials and mission managers are meeting at the space agency’s Washington, D.C. headquarters and are expected to announce their final decision on Halloween from the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, NASA spokesperson Katherine Trinidad told me today.

“The meeting was definitely starting this morning,” Trinidad said. “Tuesday is still a good date for an announcement.”

NASA chief Michael Griffin has said repeatedly that he would support a final Hubble servicing mission so long as the spaceflight doesn’t carry unacceptable risk for its astronaut crew. The space agency has launched three shuttle flights since the tragic 2003 loss of the Columbia orbiter and its seven-astronaut crew, but each of those post-accident missions flew to the International Space Station (ISS) where astronauts could take refuge in the event their spacecraft is incapacitated.

A Hubble servicing mission would carry no such safe haven plan, prompting some concerns that NASA would have to all but have a second shuttle on the launch pad to serve as a rescue craft in the event of an emergency. The main concern in NASA’s post-Columbia environment has been the risk of fuel tank or orbital debris damaging the precious heat shield that protects shuttle astronauts from the inferno-like temperatures of atmospheric reentry during landing.

After extensive fuel tank modifications, NASA’s last two shuttle flights – STS-121 in July and STS-115 in September – showed that the agency has made great strides in its effort to reduce fuel tank debris at launch. Further shuttle fuel tank modifications are still in the works.

NASA has launched five Hubble missions, the first to deploy the space-based observatory and four follow-up service calls. The final flight, now slated for sometime in 2008, would call for some five spacewalks to rejuvenate the space telescope and repair some instruments that were never designed to be tampered with in orbit, Hubble officials have said.

In any event, keep an ear to the ground, because a Hubble-bound mission would be the only non-ISS construction flight for NASA’s shuttle program before the orbiter fleet is retired in September 2010.

If you’re a student chock full of ideas, NASA wants your suggestions to name its Node 2 module: a sort of orbital hub that will bridge new sections of the International Space Station (ISS).

Slated to launch in August 2007, Node 2 [image] is a habitable module to serve as an attachment point for Japan’s Kibo laboratory [image], Europe’s Columbus module and periodic cargo containers packed full of supplies. The module’s launch is vital to the space station’s future construction.

The “Name the ISS Node 2 Challenge” is open to students enrolled in Kindergarten through 12th Grade, and calls for entrants to build a model of the 23.6-foot (seven-meter) long orbital hub in their schools or classrooms. Node 2 is 14.5 feet (4.4 meters) wide if you’re wondering. You have to enter with your class or school. No individual submissions are allowed.

NASA currently has two habitable modules currently attached to the ISS – Unity (formerly Node 1) [image] and the Destiny laboratory – as well as the Quest airlock. Russia’s segments include the Zvezda service module, Zarya control module [image] and Pirs docking compartment, which doubles as an airlock for Russian spacewalks.

“This is the first time that we’ve held a public contest to name a part of the International Space Station,” NASA spokesperson Debbie Nguyen told me, adding that Unity and Destiny were internally named.

Node 2 naming contestants are required to register by Nov. 17, with all entries due by Dec. 1. NASA officials at the space agency’s Washington, D.C. headquarters will make the final selection in early 2007.
 
Rules for the naming contest are available at this NASA website, and are accompanied by a handy Node 2-naming guide.

On a related note, I do recall an earlier NASA spacecraft naming contest to give what would later become the space shuttle Endeavour its moniker in 1989. I think my class chose the name Half Moon after the ship sailed by Henry Hudson in 1609.

Russia may not have Bruce Willis or Sean Connery, but the nation’s Federal Space Agency says it could rise to the occasion should an asteroid threaten to impact Earth.
 
According to wire reports from the Interfax News Agency, ITAR-TASS and AFP, a high ranking Federal Space Agency official told reporters that Russia would step up to save the planet, but that the effort had to be an international endeavor.

“If necessary, Russia’s rocket-manufacturing complex can create the means in space to repulse asteroids threatening Earth,” Viktor Remishevksy, deputy head of the Federal Space Agency, told AFP, which cited the wire service ITAR-TASS.

Remishevsky told Interfax that defending the Earth from the asteroid menace does not rank high on the Federal Space Agency’s agenda, but could jump up a few notches if need be.

“But if a method of dealing with asteroid with space means is devised, we will create such means,” he told Interfax. “In any case, the rocket industry’s potential is adequate to the task.”

So we can all breathe a little bit easier, I think. Because in all honesty, I don’t think Bruce Willis (remember Armageddon?) or Sean Connery (how about Meteor) will be on the short list of who to call if and when that space rock comes calling.

Now if only we can get someone who can jumpstart the Earth’s core…

It’s an exciting day at the Space Elevator Games as the University of Saskatchewan Space Design Team (USST) has just posted a 58 second climb meaning that unless someone beats there time and the judges rule that all elements of the team are within the rules then we will have our first NASA Centenial Challenge winner and they will head home with $200k.

A shot at snagging $350,00 in NASA prize money failed today. The vehicle rose but sharply veered over crashing to the ground. The “Pixel” vehicle appeared damaged and unrecoverable for more flights.

It was not immediately clear what happened and why “Pixel” quickly veered off cource and hit the ground.

It was a disappointing outcome for the Armadillo Aerospace team who flew their vehicle successfully earlier today - the first leg of a needed two part flight to claim the NASA cash.

More information will be forthcoming according to Wirefly X Prize officials here in Las Cruces, New Mexico - site of the personal spaceflight expo.

Third time was the charm as a lunar lander craft built by Armadillo Aerospace flew again today - a second attempt for the day at snaring $350,000 in NASA prize money for an innovative vertical takeoff and landing craft.

The unofficial flight time of 1 minute 35 seconds was recorded…with the vehicle seemingly landing right on target on a landing pad.

Early looks at the craft seem to suggest it is okay and ready for refuel and reflight back to its original landing pad. That has to happen in order to grab the NASA cash prize.

The craft also flew on Friday, but sustained damage on touchdown, forcing the Armadillo team to do rapid, overnight repairs for the flights today.

Armadillo Aerospace is attempting another rocket run today at the Wirefly X Prize Cup. The team has checked over its “Pixel” Lunar Lander Challenge craft and judged it fit for reflight.

Early this morning, the craft missed its landing spot, tipping over in process.

The flights are being made by Armadillo Aerospace in a bid to win Level 1 prize money from NASA…a verticial takeoff and landing competition.

On the first half of the LLC Level One the Armadillo Lunar Lander didn’t land on the pad and tipped over to it’s side. It took some time for the Armadillo Team to realize what had happened due to the dust spewed up.