Space Probes What is going on with the sun? NASA is sending a probe to the outer limits of the sun which is closer than any earth probe has ever gone before. The probe named the Parker Solar Probe, has been in the works for a while. Previously it was called Solar Probe, and Solar Probe Plus. It won’t actually touch the surface of the sun, but will go to the outer corona which is 3.85 million miles from the surface. The project was delayed from its original launch date, which was in 2015. The question is do we know the real reason for this probe? Is it just going near the sun for the sake of scientific research? There have been quite a few photos from government sources and private sources showing what look like spacecraft near the sun, and even going through the sun. Might the reason for sending this probe to the sun really be to investigate the area around the sun, and see if anything strange is in the area? There have even been stories about some sort of space fleet on the other side of the sun. Wouldn’t that be something if it was true and they were ours? Could the sun be different in some way which we don’t suspect? One might ask the question why are we so anxious to build space telescopes? Years ago, when the idea first came up and we launched the Hubble telescope, it gave us a great view of space after it was fixed. Yes, the mirror was defective and had to be replaced. The telescope was a lot smaller than many on earth, but it wasn’t hampered by a distorting atmosphere which made earth telescopes less efficient. Today we have electronics which correct for the atmospheric disturbance, and many claim we can build earth-based telescopes which give images as clear as space-based ones. I am only speaking about optical telescopes, and there are other types which might be better served by being in space. NASA has admitted it is sending probes into space looking for planets which are capable of supporting life. What this really means is they are looking for alien life. They claim they expect it to be microbial, but if that is the case why are they looking for exoplanets in other solar systems which we supposedly do not have the means of reaching and are so far away we couldn’t detect microbes on them anyway? We can’t even find microbes yet on Mars where we are digging for them according to NASA, how to we expect to find microbes looking at photos? There seems to be another reason for these searches, and it might be we are looking for signs of industrialization which would mean intelligent beings might live there. We might be able to spot smog, or other indications of artificially formed gases and such which might mean industry was taking place. There was a mystery connected with the Pioneer space probes. NASA couldn’t figure out why they traveled less miles in distance than they were supposed to. For years it was thought some sort of mysterious force existed in space which was holding them back. The scientists at NASA thought, what else could it be? There were a lot of things about space we didn’t know and this was being chalked up to some undiscovered force, but they kept looking. After all, if there was an undiscovered force we would want to know all about it and how it might affect future space probes. The scientists found the answer and it was certainly not an exotic one. It was the simplest of things causing the problem and it was not some cosmic force. It turned out heat from the spacecraft’s power system was pushing back on the probe. The Van Allan Belt is an area around the planet earth where radioactive charged particles are captured and held around the planet by the magnetic field of the earth. Many say they were created by nuclear testing, but all do not agree and others believe they were created by the solar wind from the sun. One of the arguments people use as proof we never went to the moon was the fact no one could survive a trip through the Van Allen Belt, because the radioactivity would kill them. NASA decided this was not true and sent the Apollo crews through the Van Allen Belt to get to the moon and back. A study has shown that the rate of cancer among Apollo astronauts is not any higher than the rate for the rest of us, but the rate of death from cardiovascular disease is higher among astronauts than the general public. This might have more to do with gravity or the lack thereof. Many feel they need more speed in space, not only for exploring other solar systems, but also for exploring our own. With this they also need faster communications. We are living in the Dark Ages of space travel, and we need to move on into the Enlightened Age. Let me give you an example. Voyager 2 took about 9.5 years to reach Uranus. It takes light 5.5 hours to reach Pluto from the sun. Radio signals travel at the speed of light so, if you wanted to communicate with a spacecraft at Pluto it would take 11 hours to send a message and receive an answer. If you were traveling at the speed of light it would take 5.5 hours to reach Pluto from the sun. To do this from earth subtract 8.3 minutes. As you can see these speeds are totally unacceptable. There have been plenty of secret space probes launched both by the United States, and the Soviet Union/Russia. The U.S. X-37B an unmanned space plane, or so we are told, stayed in space for almost two years and safely returned to earth. It looks like a miniature space shuttle. I say, so we are told, because you just never know what is going on. You might ask how could an astronaut stay in space that long and survive in this tiny plane? It probably was unmanned, but on the other hand it could have been a test of suspended animation for astronauts going on long space journeys and maybe one astronaut volunteered to go onboard and test such a system. More likely it had some other purpose. The U.S. Air Force has said the mission of the X-37B is to “perform risk reduction, experimentation and concept-of-operations development for reusable space vehicle technologies.” Could risk reduction translate to putting a drone in space? Secret projects have taken place in space ever since the first satellite was launched. I certainly don’t expect this to ever change and I believe if we truly knew what was up there we would be shocked.
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