INTERESTING TIMES

I attended the May 12 meeting not really expecting much, but the program was excellent, both informative and amusing.  The speaker was Andrew Greenberg, and the subject was the Oregon Satellite Project and STEM Education.  Specifically he taught us a thing of two about space, orbits and nanosatellites.  I wanted to share just a few factoids that I got from him with you.

Andrew is adjunct faculty at PSU and helps students build rockets and satellites, in addition to his day job  He had recently done an OMSI science pub about the same subject, so he was well prepared and practiced. The OreSat mission is to use an actual satellite project to bring STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering and Math) to all Oregon high schools and to study cirrus clouds.

The Von Karman line is an arbitrary line dividing outer space from not space.  It is 100km above the surface of the earth.  Some balloons fly at 30km above the earth.  Cirrus clouds are the highest clouds and they are about 12km up.

There are three main layers of orbits, labelled LEO (low earth orbit), MEO (medium), and GEO (geostationary earth orbit).  Geostationary satellites have to be highest up and go the fastest to maintain their position relative to the surface of the planet.  Satellites cruise at around 200km from the earth, and they have to go really fast (8km/second or 17,500 miles per hour) to keep from falling back to the earth.  

NASA has a research satellite that was just launched May 5 this year.  It's the InSight mission and it intends to land on the surface of Mars.  The rocket that launched InSight also launched the first two CubeSats, which are small satellites that can be designed individually then connected together.  The high schoolers in Oregon are designing their own CubeSat, which NASA will launch!  They didn't expect to get awarded the opportunity to launch the satellite when they applied, but NASA called their bluff and now they're working on it.  All the software is open source.  The 2U (two unit) CubeSats from Oregon will get "hucked" from the space station into its orbit. It will stay aloft for 6-12 months, or maybe longer if they get lucky. 

The OreSat is scheduled to be deployed in fall 2019.  For the sake of the high schoolers, he's calling the OreSat a "400km selfie stick", because each time it flies over Oregon the high schoolers will be able to receive a packet of information from it, including a picture of their location.  

Then Andrew explained what he means when he says "Space Sucks".  Quite literally it sucks because it is a vacuum.  It speeds up the outgassing from any material that can, challenges welders to prevent leaks, and makes it tricky to keep anything at a reasonable temperature because it gets cold on the dark side and screaming hot in the sun.  The radiation from space does harm to transistors.  Solar cells are only ~30% efficient meaning it's not easy to power systems on satellites, and if they fail, they have to reboot without a mechanic coming to fix them.  "Watchdog systems" monitor the functions of the satellite and attempt to make things right before there is a system failure.

He also mentioned Planet Lab Doves, which are privately owned satellites that basically remap the earth's surface every day.  Exciting stuff.

Anyway, this talk was just a taste of what is happening.  Satellite technology is moving fast and the very first satellite put into orbit by anyone in the state of Oregon will be built by high school and college kids.  That's a fun way to approach STEM education.

I have often said "it's a free will universe" as a basis for extolling choice as a power, whether conscious or unconscious, for determining your experience. To "choice" I always connect the concept of responsibility. Responsibility always follows immediately upon choice. Those who tremble before this power of choice may even habitually refuse to make choices, unwilling to take on the responsibility that choice of necessity implies. This is a choice in itself, a pattern of omission and passivity with it's own distinct effects and power to manipulate. All this having been said, what if in fact it's not "a free will universe" after all? The concept of "predestination" also has a long history in philosophical and religious thought and stands as a counterpoint to "free will" with it's own ardent supporters. When I look at an average day, things happen and I respond. Needs arise and I must act. My breath and heartbeat and peristalsis are events occurring to me, gifts freely given from what great source I cannot truly fathom. I won't pretend to resolve here a millennia-long question. And in the face of it, perhaps, at the very least, we might choose with lighter hearts, and enjoy the uncertainty knowing that our every action is effected upon waves of permission from powers greater than our own.
--Gil Hedley, Integral Anatomy

It is far better to grasp the universe
as it really is
than to persist in delusion,
however satisfying
and reassuring.
-Carl Sagan

"Isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you
were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed,
eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be part
of it?" ~Richard Dawkins

"A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe
as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves
of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.
Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge."
~Carl Sagan

"Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger
than we can imagine."
~Sir Arthur Eddington (1882 - 1944)

"Not only are we in the universe, the universe is in us. I don't know of
any deeper spiritual feeling than what that brings upon me."
~Neil deGrasse Tyson
www.tinyurl.com/TysonSpirituality

“Spirituality is about being awake. It’s the attempt to transcend
the mundane, sleepwalking experience of life we all fall into, to
tap into the wonder of being a conscious and grateful thing in
the midst of an astonishing universe. It doesn’t require religion. ”
~Dale McGowan, author of "Atheism for Dummies"

‎The human race is so puny
compared to the universe
that being disabled
is not of much cosmic significance.
--Stephen Hawking

Here's a wonderful paragraph from this entry by typing_sound, describing what I interpret as a moment of pure awareness, a moment of what can be called enlightenment. I think that some of us have lots of them, and some have a few, and some haven't had one yet. I suppose, I imagine, that to be enlightened would be ease in staying in such a state of consciousness longterm. But anyway, here's what Robert wrote:

I think I dreamt that because I helped this drunk guy, earlier on that evening, and I guess I felt like an angel in a way. My mind was silent and had some kindness in it. You ever helped someone, or really listened to someone, and your own mind has gone silent? It's like you disappear and they become the centre of the universe instead. That's where peace is, when you really receive the universe, or whatever's happening in the present moment, you really receive it, let it in, really agreeing to this moment, feeling yes, okay, come on in, you can enter and share whatever I have, you can have my time and my attention, the door of my heart is open to you, come on in, this is fine, this is okay, I don't need to change this, this moment is the only moment, this is reality right now, I am actually alive right now, I am here, I exist in this very moment. You get the idea. ;D