Mars Spectacular

It has been quite awhile since a posting, and I have much I am going to post, but I'll just start with this one simple Public Service Announcement!


So, I received an email from my mother a few days ago, with the subject "Mars". It seems she received it from a cousin, who from a co-worker, and so on and so forth. A chain message. Well, with the title "Mars", how could I not check it out. It simply contained a Powerpoint presentation and many replies of "Is this true?" and "Neat if true!" from many of the people responding. Here is the presentation, in its multicolored glory:

Check it out, guess no one will get much sleep in August.
Mars The Red Planet is about to be spectacular!

-This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars in an  encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in recorded  history.

-The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287.

-Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs its orbit, astronomers can only be certain that Mars has not come this close to Earth in the Last 5,000 years, but it may be as long as 60,000 years before it happens again. 

-The encounter will culminate on August 27th whenMars comes to within 34,649,589 miles of Earth and will be (next to the moon) the brightest object in the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -2.9 and will appear 25.11 arc seconds wide.

-At a modest 75-power magnification

Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye.

Mars will be easy to spot. At the
beginning of August it will rise in the east at 10p.m.
              and reach its azimuth at about 3 a.m.

    By the end of August when the two planets are
    closest, Mars will rise at nightfall and reach its
  highest point in the sky at 12:30a.m. That's pretty
convenient to see something that no human being has
  seen in recorded history. So, mark your calendar at
           the beginning of August to see Mars grow
     progressively brighter and brighter throughout the
                                  month. 

Share this with your Children and Grandchildren!


No one alive today will ever see this again


Wow! So Mars will be so close to the Earth that it will be as big as the moon in the sky?! Amazing! Well, it would be quite a sight...if only it were true.

Alas, this is a very popular myth that has been around since 2001, and resurfaces around this time every year. It's hard to blame people for getting sucked in by this. I would say a large majority of people in this country do not understand actual gravitation physics, much less orbital mechanics. Without these, the idea of seeing Mars the size of the Moon might not seem like a big stretch of the imagination. I mean, who's to say that just for a short time, Mars can come close enough to provide such a sight? I plan to be the naysayer here.

Mars, like the Earth, is in an orbit around the sun. Although it is usually thought that planets orbit in circular orbits, this is not exactly true. They actually orbit in elliptical paths around the sun, a bit egg shaped, but much more subtle. Because of such orbits, there are times when the planet is close to the sun and times when it is then farther away. As seen in the picture of the inner planets, the left side of the orbits are closer to the sun (and each other) than the right side. This is one reason for seasons, along with the tilt of the Earth.




What does this have to do with Mars being the size of the Moon? It's all about distances. When Mars is a the smallest part of its orbit (far left on the picture) and the Earth is at the most distant (far right), the two planets are close to 400 Million miles away; but when they are both at the smallest parts of their orbits and lined up, they can be as close as 59 million miles away. Much closer, but still quite the distance. This is also the closest the two planets can get. Period. And what does Mars look like to the naked eye at it's closest distance? A small, red-ish dot.

Here you can see the Moon, Venus, and Mars.

Mars is the smallest dot in the top right.

So, what would it take to get Mars the size of our Moon in the night sky? Well, Mars is roughly twice the size of the Moon, so it would need to be roughly twice as far away from Earth as the Moon. Our Moon is 240,000 miles away, so that would mean Mars would need to be 476,000 miles away...MUCH closer than its closest 59 Million miles mark. This would obviously mean either Mars, or the Earth and the Moon are out of their orbits around the sun. That simple fact alone would spell doom for the runaway planet, especially Earth, but assuming it is only Mars out of orbit, the gravitational effects alone between the two planets would cause chaos on Earth. Things that I believe a new Steven Spielberg movie will be looking into. Boom. Product placement.


So, in the end, we'll just have to leave it to the movie to see a planet the size of our Moon in the night sky. Hope I enlightened someone with this.

Declarative Statement

Yes, I am still alive, and yes, I intend to blog. Going weeks at a time without a computer...well, I can say I don't have an addiction, as I get through just fine. BUT, there us so much more I could do with it. Such as blog. Or respond to emails. Or catch up on my web-comics. How did I live without it? Well, its easy to, but I don't want to! Now that I will be near one for awhile, I can spam the internet with my blogs! Starting with this post. No, it doesn't really meet my minimal requirements for something worthy of posting, but hey, have to start somewhere!

I shall return!

End of Constellation?

Recent events at NASA show just what the new management team will do to try to shut down the Constellation Program. The Constellation program's funding is embedded into the 2010 national budget, which is technically still in effect until the new Fiscal Year 2011 Budget is passed by congress. Constellation can not be cancelled without approval from congress, as per a clause inserted into an emergency war fund for Afghanistan. So, for all intents and purposes, the Ares rocket is still in full development.

Obviously, Constellation is not part of President Obama's new space plan. It is now a kind of thorn in the side of his plan that just will not go away. While the plan will probably not be "cancelled" any time soon, top NASA administrators have been working their magic doing what they can legally to end the program.

One of their biggest moves was reassigning the program chief Jeff Hanley. Hanley was a major supporter for the Constellation program and one of the ones keeping it "full speed ahead" even after the new space plan was laid out. He was reassigned to a deputy position at Johnson Space Center. This news sparked some fires in congress who cried foul, calling it a deliberate attempt to end the Constellation program. However, there is nothing illegal about the reassignment, as any government job as that potential.

Most recently, NASA administrators decided to fight legality with legality. Although the program cannot be cancelled yet and must remain funded by law, NASA cited the Anti-Deficiency Act. This Act requires all federal contractors to set aside a portion of their payments to cover costs in case the project is ever cancelled. Basiclly, the contractor must set aside enough money from the payment they are getting from NASA for the contract to cover all the costs associated with being cancelled. By NASA's estimates, there is a $991 million shortfall because of this, and NASA as issued stop work orders to all the Constellation contractors until this deficit is fixed. Legally speaking, this all sounds fair, and when the money is paid off, then work can resume again. Realistically, it is not that simple.

The contractor hit the hardest by this is Alliant Techsystems Inc (ATK), a Utah based group. They have an estimated shortfall of $500 million. NASA has ordered them to come up with this money before they are allowed any more of their contract payments and before they can resume work. ATK was apparently shocked by this, showing evidence that since their first contract in 1976, NASA has repeatedly told them to NOT withhold money, as they do not observe the Anti-Deficiency Act. However, ATK has not been told this since 2007, which is when the new administration took over, so NASA is still legally safe with this order.

Overall, since these contractors have been receiving their payments from NASA as spending them on the contract, the money is not there so set aside to make up for these new "shortfalls", effectively ending contract work on the Constellation program. The primary down side to this instant stop work notice is the layoffs that will have to happen for these companies to now save the money that they were instructed to by NASA. Around 5,000 people are expected to loose their jobs.

Although technically Constellation is in the works, in actuality, it is not. With manager reassigned and stop work orders sent to contractors, the program is dead in the water. This is the first real sense that the Constellation program could be over. While it is possible to get the contractors back to work, it is highly unrealistic, and for the first time, pro-Constellation members of Congress might have to look into a new agreement that does not deal with Constellation as the future of America's space program.