The shrinkage in electronics is having positive results in the space race. As components get lighter their packages get lighter meaning it takes less energy to launch each individual package. There is another advantage and it is the fact more complex components can be put into a package which will do a lot more than previous packages and yet weigh the same as older ones or even much less. Cubesats are a great example of this. A cube sat is a tiny satellite which measures only 10x10x10 cm unit and weighs only 1.33 kilograms a unit which is less than 2 pounds and yet some of these satellites can do amazing things. There have been communication cubesats launched, radiation detectors, testers for satellite positioning and much more. In the beginning these tiny devices were used as a learning tool then it was decided to begin to launch some and NASA gave permission to some schools to let their students design cubesats and if they qualified they would be included on a rocket launch.
It looks like scientists have underestimated the number of stars in the universe. A new study found a lot more massive stars than was believed to have existed. Four distant galaxies were used in the study. The study was conducted with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile which is known as ALMA. What they found surprised them. New stars were forming over 100 times faster in these galaxies than in our own. One of the things this indicates to me is not all galaxies have the same qualities. Could this mean the law of physics might not be quite the same in some of the other galaxies? While the speedy star formation doesn’t indicate this, it does show galaxies can be different in some ways from each other. It shows the large massive stars in these galaxies are pumping a lot of stellar material into space from supernova explosions, far more than the Milky Way does. This is probably a good thing for us since we wouldn’t want any more supernova explosions because one which was too near could spell the end of the earth. Scientists are now questioning what they believed was the history of the universe since this oddity was discovered.
It has finally happened; some of the many boxes of tapes from the Apollo moon missions which were lost by NASA have been recovered. If my memory serves me correctly there were over 80 boxes lost. NASA was not able to figure out why there was a temperature spike on the moon during some of the Apollo missions. There were tapes which had recorded data about this temperature increase but that had been lost. When they were found NASA analyzed them and came to a surprising conclusion. The reason for the spike in temperature on the moon did not come from the moon directly. It was caused by the astronauts. As they walked and drove over the moon, the moon reflected less light back into space and this slightly increased the temperature. It was even thought installing temperature measuring instruments disturbed the area where they were installed also causing a rise in temperature.
NASA is claiming they are going to launch a commercial delivery system to the moon. They want to get what they need to create a base on the moon waiting for the astronauts when they land there. NASA is telling us one of the main reasons they want to create a base on the moon is to be able to manufacture rocket fuel for other missions, such as a trip to Mars. They claim water ice on the moon is an important resource for this fuel. It is being claimed the first trips to take supplies to the moon will begin in 2019. The moon is being billed as a place where the first off world mining will take place. There are quite a few people who believe we have a military base on the moon already and they claim they have the photos to prove it.
One of the interesting things which will probably happen on the moon first is the fact robots will be building the structures. They may not look like the traditional conception of a robot which is a machine which has a somewhat human shape, that is two arms, two legs and maybe a head, but that doesn’t change the fact they will be robots. This should not be so surprising since we have been using robots on assembly lines for generations and they look nothing like what I described. Many believe it will be a lot more efficient for robots to do the job since they will not be hampered by having to wear spacesuits and such. I imagine they will be pared with 3D printers and between the two will make short work of the construction.
One of the least things of importance of construction on the moon will be interesting never the less. As nations build bases what will they name the? If the United States is the first will we name our base Glenn moon base using the name of a famous astronaut or some other astronaut such as Alan Shepard the first U.S. astronaut in space or maybe Neil Armstrong the first man to walk on the moon? Maybe it will be the name of a former president or one of our states or cities. Could you see New New York or New Washington? It might even be some other name like Tranquility base or some other lunar name. I guess we will just have to wait and see.
