Now that the MarCOs — a pair of briefcase-sized
interplanetary CubeSats — seem to have reached their limit far beyond
Mars, we’re looking forward to an expanding era of small, versatile and
powerful space-based science machines.
Here are ten ways we’re pushing the limits of miniaturized
technology to see just how far it can take us.
1. MarCO: The Farthest (So Far)
MarCO, short for Mars Cube One, was the first interplanetary mission to use a class of mini-spacecraft called CubeSats.
The MarCOs — nicknamed EVE and WALL-E, after characters from a Pixar
film — served as communications relays during InSight’s November 2018
Mars landing, beaming back data at each stage of its descent to the
Martian surface in near-real time, along with InSight’s first image.
WALL-E sent back stunning images of Mars as well, while EVE performed some simple radio science.
All of this was achieved with experimental technology that cost a
fraction of what most space missions do: $18.5 million provided by
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, which built
the CubeSats.
WALL-E was last heard from on Dec. 29; EVE, on Jan. 4. Based on
trajectory calculations, WALL-E is currently more than 1 million miles
(1.6 million kilometers) past Mars; EVE is farther, almost 2 million
miles (3.2 million kilometers) past Mars.
MarCO-B took these images as it approached Mars in November 2018. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
2. What Are CubeSats?
CubeSats were pioneered by California Polytechnic State
University in 1999 and quickly became popular tools for students seeking
to learn all aspects of spacecraft design and development.
Today, they are opening up space research to public and
private entities like never before. With off-the-shelf parts and a
compact size that allows them to hitch a ride with other missions — they
can, for example, be ejected from the International Space Station,
up to six at a time — CubeSats have slashed the cost of satellite
development, opening up doors to test new instruments as well as to
create constellations of satellites working together.
CubeSats can be flown in swarms, capturing simultaneous,
multipoint measurements with identical instruments across a large area.
Sampling entire physical systems in this way would drive forward our
ability to understand the space environment around us, in the same way
multiple weather sensors help us understand global weather systems.
Engineer Joel Steinkraus uses sunlight to test the solar arrays on one
of the Mars Cube One (MarCO) spacecraft at NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
3. Measuring Up
The size and cost of spacecraft vary depending on the
application; some are the size of a pint of ice cream while others, like
the Hubble Space Telescope, are as big as a school bus.
Small spacecraft (SmallSats) generally have a mass less than 400 pounds (180 kilograms) and are about the size of a large kitchen fridge.
CubeSats are a class of nanosatellites that use a
standard size and form factor. The standard CubeSat size uses a “one
unit” or “1U” measuring 10x10x10 centimeters (or about 4x4x4 inches) and is extendable to larger sizes: 1.5, 2, 3, 6, and even 12U.
The Sojourner rover (seen here on Mars in 1997) is an example of small
technology that pioneered bigger things. Generations of larger rovers
are being built on its success.
4. A Legacy of Small Pathfinders
Not unlike a CubeSat, NASA’s first spacecraft — Explorer 1 — was
a small, rudimentary machine. It launched in 1958 and made the first
discovery in outer space, the Van Allen radiation belts that surround
Earth. It was the birth of the U.S. space program.
In 1997, a mini-rover named Sojourner rolled onto Mars, a
trial run for more advanced rovers such as NASA’s Spirit, Opportunity
and Curiosity.
Innovation often begins with pathfinder technology, said
Jakob Van Zyl, director of the Solar System Exploration Directorate at
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Once engineers prove something can be
done, science missions follow.
5. Testing in Space
NASA is continually developing new technologies —
technologies that are smaller than ever before, components that could
improve our measurements, on-board data processing systems that
streamline data retrievals, or new methods for gathering observations.
Each new technology is thoroughly tested in a lab, sometimes on
aircraft, or even at remote sites across the world. But the space
environment is different than Earth. To know how something is going to
operate in space, testing in space is the best option.
Sending something unproven to orbit has traditionally
been a risky endeavor, but CubeSats have helped to change that. The
diminutive satellites typically take less than two years to build. CubeSats are often a secondary payload on many rocket launches, greatly reducing cost. These hitchhikers can be deployed from a rocket or sent to the International Space Station and deployed from orbit.
Because of their quick development time and easy access
to space, CubeSats have become the perfect platform for demonstrating
how a new technological advancement will perform in orbit.
RainCube is a mini weather satellite, no bigger than a shoebox, that
will measure storms. It’s part of several new NASA experiments to track
storms from space with many small satellites, instead of individual,
large ones. Credit: UCAR
6. At Work in Earth Orbit
A few recent examples from our home world:
RainCube,
a satellite no bigger than a suitcase, is a prototype for a possible
fleet of similar CubeSats that could one day help monitor severe
storms, lead to improving the accuracy of weather forecasts and track
climate change over time.
IceCube
tested instruments for their ability to make space-based measurements
of the small, frozen crystals that make up ice clouds. Like other
clouds, ice clouds affect Earth’s energy budget by either reflecting or
absorbing the Sun’s energy and by affecting the emission of heat from
Earth into space. Thus, ice clouds are key variables in weather and
climate models.
Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket lifts off from Launch Complex 1 for the NASA ELaNa19 mission. Credit: Trevor Mahlmann/Rocket Lab
7. First Dedicated CubeSat Launch
A series of new CubeSats is now in space, conducting a
variety of scientific investigations and technology demonstrations
following a Dec. 17, 2018 launch from New Zealand — the first time
CubeSats have launched for NASA on a rocket designed specifically for small payloads.
This mission included 10 Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa)-19 payloads, selected by NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative:
DaVinci — High School to Grade School STEM education
8. The Little CubeSat That Could
CubeSat technology is still in its infancy, with mission
success rates hovering near 50 percent. So, a team of scientists and
engineers set out on a quest. Their goal? To build a more resilient
CubeSat — one that could handle the inevitable mishaps that bedevil any
spacecraft, without going kaput.
They wanted a little CubeSat that could.
They got to work in 2014 and, after three years of development, Dellingr was ready to take flight.
Artist’s concept of Lunar Flashlight. Credit: NASA
9. Going Farther
There are a handful of proposed NASA missions could take CubeSat technology farther:
CUVE
would travel to Venus to investigate a longstanding mystery about the
planet’s atmosphere using ultraviolet-sensitive instruments and a novel,
carbon-nanotube light-gathering mirror.
Lunar Flashlight would use a laser to search for water ice in permanently shadowed craters on the south pole of Earth’s Moon.
All three spacecraft would hitch rides to space with other missions, a key advantage of these compact science machines.
Expedition 56 Flight Engineer Serena Auñón-Chancellor installs the
NanoRacks Cubesat Deployer-14 (NRCSD-14) on the Multipurpose Experiment
Platform inside the Japanese Kibo laboratory module. The NRCSD-14 was
then placed in the Kibo airlock and moved outside of the space station
to deploy a variety of CubeSats into Earth orbit. Credit: NASA
10. And We’re Just Getting Started
Even if they’re never revived, the team considers MarCO a spectacular success.
A number of the critical spare parts for each MarCO will be used in
other CubeSat missions. That includes their experimental radios,
antennas and propulsion systems. Several of these systems were provided
by commercial vendors, making it easier for other CubeSats to use them
as well.
More small spacecraft are on the way. NASA is set to launch a variety of new CubeSats in coming years.
“There’s big potential in these small packages,” said John Baker, the
MarCO program manager at JPL. “CubeSats — part of a larger group of
spacecraft called SmallSats — are a new platform for space exploration
affordable to more than just government agencies.”
gallusrostromegalus asked: You might know- is there a small fruit tree I can kinda... Macro-Bonsai? I got some 20-gallon tubs and no yard and was wondering if I could put a small apple or pear tree in them to have a fruit tree on my porch? Would they eventually get root-bound and stay small like Bonsai cuttings or just die on me?
I’ve never tried growing them myself, given that my parents who live a block away have like six full size apple and pear and peach trees, but heck, worth a go.
They get about 8 feet tall and 2 feet wide naturally, but can be kept smaller via pruning.
…Well how about that. That seller is out until next year but If those can manage it I’ll take my chances with the smallest breed of apple I can find. The worst that could happen is I’d have Apple wand-wood.
For those of you who follow the Stuart Semple and Anish Kapoor feud, (which you can read about here) Semple recently had his kickstarter for Black 3.0 100% funded!
Black 3.0 is an updated version to his very popular Black 2.0 which was invented as a way to give the public access to a cheap and effective black that rivals Vantablack, a pigment monoplozied by Anish Kapoor.
(*and no kapoor can’t buy this one either)
Friday, December 21, 2018
If we’re gonna talk about animals evolving to do things they weren’t meant to we’ve gotta talk about Thylacoleo
Thylacoleo, for the uninitiated, was Australia’s equivalent of the sabre-tooth cat. It was the size of a leopard, murdered rhino-sized marsupials with sharp teeth and huge claws, and looked like this:
Its closest living relative is this:
Yes, the most vicious mammalian carnivore Australia has ever produced is most closely related to a herbivorous furry cube.
What the fuck.
It’s obvious when you check out Thylacoleo’s teeth. Most mammalian carnivores have a similar setup: incisors, canines, premolars and molars. Dogs have it, cats have it, we have it. Thylacoleo’s teeth look like this:
You’ve got pincer-like incisors in the front, giant sharp-edged molars in the back, and no canines to speak of.
That last bit’s the important part. Canines are most useful for holding meat, so herbivores tend to shrink them down to nothing. Thylacoleo’s lack of proper canines show its ancestors were originally herbivores. But because you can’t just re-evolve features once they’re gone, it had to make do with what it had. Hence those ridiculous fucking teeth, which were nevertheless perfect for grabbing and chopping meat just like every other carnivore’s teeth do.
tl;dr: at some point in time a bunch of vegans decided to weaponise their limitations to kill everything and by god did they do it
I love thylacoleo’s bizarre dentition.
Sunday, December 16, 2018
notsomeoneyouknow asked: Hi Mr. Gaiman. My personal library that I cultivated since college years was just got destroyed by some sudden attack of termites (it's sudden! believe me!), and obviously (and regretfully) there were a lot of your works there. Now after the mourning period is over, I'm thinking of rebuilding it, but I wonder that if it happens to you would you rather try to find those books back (which are personal all-time favourites) or you'd rather move on and just get new books you've never read before?
I’d do both. Replace books I wanted to revisit, and get new books I’ve never read before. That’s the joy of books and libraries, isn’t it? You get familiar places to revisit and new places to visit for the first time…
just two days ago, i was thinking, “you know what i haven’t done in a while? write a story about some stupid and embarrassing thing i’ve done. i wonder if this is because i’m twenty-seven and no longer a bumbling idiot who can’t make it through her day without bringing shame on her family?”
haha! said the universe. this bitch really thinks!!!!!
so this morning i was riding the bus to work, because i’m a grown up, who has a job, and i must take not one but two busses to get there. and i get off the first bus feeling a lot of hope for not just the day but the whole week. last week was cloudy and overcast, but this week! this week is going to be different. it’s sunny. i’m going to be productive. i’m going to be focused. i’m going to get things done.
spoiler: i’m going to abandon all these plans immediately.
i reach into my pocket to retrieve my wallet, which has my transit pass in it, and realize: it’s not there. it is also not in my other pocket. it is also not in my gym bag.
it is still on the bus.
you know that feeling when you’ve lost something where like, just before you go to see if you lost it you already know that you lost it?
it’s like how neo slows down time to dodge bullets in the matrix except instead of being that, it’s me realizing i have already done something incredibly stupid.
the problem with my wallet still being on the bus is that i myself am not still on the bus, which means that with every second, my wallet is getting farther away from me. this is distressing for many reasons but primarily i’d say that i don’t like it when my money and i are parted. i don’t have a lot of money, but what i do have i like to keep a very close eye on, because i need it to live, you see. still, there are lots of other things in that wallet that i don’t want to be parted from:
my drivers’ license, which i don’t use to drive anymore but is a nice picture of me and is also the world’s most ANNOYING thing to replace,
my work credit card and ID to get into the building,
my ventra transit card,
a wine punchcard on which i am only THREE WINES away from a $1 bottle of wine, and
a little post-it with the combination to my gym lock, which i am too dumb to remember but which i desperately need if i ever want to retrieve my running shoes from my gym locker.
i mean … y’all know that the only thing to do is chase that bus down. i’m not gonna cross my fingers and hope my wallet makes it to the lost and found. i don’t have that kind of luck.
my outfit for today was very, “90s straight girl meets her boyfriend’s sister and IMMEDIATELY becomes a lesbian,” so i was wearing 5-inch heels that weren’t conducive to running, which means i did the only sensible thing there was to do and kicked them off so that i could chase the bus in my bareass feet down the streets of chicago.
was this “safe”????? no.
but was it liberating???? also no.
did my foot my foot bleed and did it probably contract the black plague????? FOLKS IT DID!!!
anyway, there i went, sprinting down the sidewalk in my yellow floral romper and white jacket, heels in my hand, gym bag swinging behind me like a cartoonish ball & chain, and of course, because of who i am as a person, i almost immediately took a bad step.
friends, to say that i fell is to miss what happened, which is that i took an eight-foot vertical leap and did not land on my feet.
you know those cartoons where a cat gets scared and it jumps so far into the sky it touches the moon?
you know those videos of people with those water jetpacks where they can’t control them and they go rocketing through walls like the kool-aid man?
you know when a basketball player does that thing where they’re gonna dunk but they just absolutely whiff and end up lying dazed on the basketball court while whole stadiums of people laugh at them?
“oh my god,” someone yelled, maybe from their car, maybe from the bus stop, maybe literally god himself.
i looked up, dazed. there was a crowd of at least five people around me, all of them helping me to my feet, gathering my things. one very kind and very brave man ran out into traffic to retrieve my travel coffee mug, which – shoutout to my hometown’s endodontics practice, spilled not one single drop.
“are you all right?” one of the good samaritans asked. “holy shit you were – you were airborne for so long.”
you know when your brain has been scrambled and you know there’s some way you need to be reacting but you can’t make your body react that way?
i was like: “i have to catch that bus.”
“there are other buses coming,” Coffee Savior said. “like – in just a couple minutes.”
“no, i need that one,” i said, for some reason not realizing that i ought to clarify that my wallet was on that bus. one of the women, very kindly and warmly, stepped in close to me and put her arm around my shoulders and said, “between us girls, your boob is out.”
i looked down. the strap of my jumpsuit had popped off my shoulder, and indeed, my boob was out. i zipped up my white (WHITE. IT WAS WHITE. WHY DID I WEAR WHITE TODAY? YOU NEVER WEAR WHITE AFTER LABOR DAY!!!) jacket to hide this problem, which feels like a problem for Later Molly to deal with.
i took my things back from them, put my heels in my hand, and inexplicably left them with a cry of, “thanks, i love you,” before sprinting off again.
“THANKS, I LOVE YOU,” Shouts Bloodied Area Woman To Crowd Of Strangers While Running Barefoot Through Urban Center
i thought i’d become A Runner in the past few years by some weird fluky accident, but it turns out that i’d done it specifically so that i could chase this bus through not one but TWO intersections, because just as i reached it both times the light turned green. but when you’re already bleeding for a cause, giving up just feels like a waste.
this is called the fallacy of sunk cost, and it’s a stupid things human do that we shouldn’t.
i know this but i chased a bus for three blocks anyway and that just goes to show that the human mind is an enigma.
eventually, while turning a corner, the bus driver noticed me. he slowed down, looking perturbed by how far my fortunes had fallen since the last time we saw each other – which was less than five minutes ago – when i was, a) not bleeding, and b) not yelling at him.
he opened the door.
“i left my wallet,” i explained.
he blinked at me, but before i could get on, a man from the back row came running up to the front, holding my wallet in his hand. “you left your wallet,” he said, as if this would be news to me.
“you left your wallet?” asked the bus driver, in a tone that indicated what he meant was, why are you bleeding??????????
i took my wallet very gratefully from the other passenger.
i said, “thanks. i love you,” and the doors of the bus closed.
“The DNA in a human egg or sperm contains about three billion base pairs of nitrogenous bases. However, much of the information coded in this sequence seems to be redundant or is inactive. So the total amount of useful information in our genes is probably something like a hundred million bits. One bit of information is the answer to a yes/no question. By contrast, a paperback novel might contain two million bits of information. Therefore, a human is equivalent to about fifty Harry Potter books.”
— Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions
These were designed in conjunction with Apple to compliment the translucency of Apple’s products at the time, but especially fits the Power Mac G4 Cube.
