OF SPECIAL INTEREST
OF SPECIAL INTEREST NEWS
Attention!
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum offered several ongoing lecture series has for years, including my favorite, “Exploring Space.” Its next installment is “Our Future on Mars,” webcast live on June 3, 2026 at 8PM EDT. Celebrate the 50th anniversary of the successful landing of the Viking spacecraft in advance (and the 50th anniversary of the dedication of the National Air and Space Museum’s National Mall building, too, see below), with Kelly Weinersmith and Emily Lakdwalla. The webcast is free, but advanced on-line registration is required. For more info, see: https://airandspace.si.edu/whats-on/events/our-future-mars.
Return to Venus
Last month’s installment of NASM’s Exploring Space Series, “Return to Venus” is of particular interest, because understanding why Earth’s twin is so different from the only place humans can live is incredibly important. Venus is about the same size as Earth, and its mass is also comparable to Earth’s, which means that its density is similar, which implies its bulk composition is similar. Yet Venus’ atmosphere is mostly CO2 and is ~90x denser than ours, resulting in a runaway greenhouse effect that makes Venus’ surface temperature hot enough to melt lead. The amount of solar energy received be Venus is obviously higher than that reaching Earth, but it is very difficult to see how that relatively minor difference could produce such major differences.
One factor in the understanding of our climate system is the concept of “feedback.” In our person-to-person contact, positive feedback is a desirable thing. But in terms of system stability, positive feedback is terribly unstable. Some common examples demonstrate this. In an audio system, if a microphone gets too close to a speaker its linked to via an amplifier, any sound picked up by the mike gets amplified and put out the speaker. The resulting sound gets picked up and amplified again, resulting in a vicious cycle that produces an annoying screech.
Another example of a simple system with both positive and negative feedback is a home heating/air conditioning system. If it gets above the set temperature, the A/C acts against the temperature rise (negative feedback) and pushes the temperature back to the set level. If the temperature gets below that set, the furnace comes on to restore the temperature to that set. Now imagine if the system were cross-wired. If the temperature dropped below that set, the A/C would come on and make the situation even worse (positive feedback). Conversely, if the temperature rose above the set point, the furnace would come on and make the situation worse.
Another example: Imagine skateboarding on top of a large pipe. As long as you stayed above the centerline of the pipe, you’d be OK. But if you strayed from the centerline, even a little, gravity would cause you to fall off the pipe. On the other hand, if you were inside the pipe, you could travel safely; gravity would negate any deviation from the lowest point on the pipe.
The Earth’s climate system is complex, and contains a number of different feedback relationships. For example, if global temperatures rise a bit, ice near the poles melt back a bit, reducing the area of the highly-reflective ice cover allowing more heating of the surface, an example of positive feedback.
Here’s the troubling part. We have certain proof that human activity can cause local, regional, and even global change in the Earth’s climate parameters. The complex feedbacks mentioned previously are coming into play in ways we do not fully understand. Humankind is conducting an uncontrolled experiment in the only “test tube” in which we can live.
Here’s why Venus, so much like the Earth, yet with a surface environment so different, is so important. If all of the CO2 equivalent in Earth’s biosphere (our bodies, all plants, and all animals) could be liberated to our atmosphere, it would be 90X denser than it is today, and it would be almost all CO2. Just like Venus.
Last month’s Exploring Space program from NASM about “Return to Venus” is still available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olLaMz4lewE.
Many articles have been written about the dangers of a “runaway” greenhouse on Earth. One such is from EOS, a publication of the American Geophysical Union; see here.
NASA is “Cool Again”
A recent Aviation Week “Check 6” podcast was recorded at the 41st Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, delving into the latest developments in space exploration and defense.
“The hosts discuss the energy and excitement (at the Symposium), particularly following the Artemis II mission. Key topics include the Department of the Air Force's new contracts for space-based air moving target indication satellites, a significant step for the Space Force.
“The conversation also highlights NASA's efforts to capitalize on the Artemis mission's success to boost budgets across the space community. The hosts note the rapid pace of contracting and partnerships, such as NASA's collaboration with the Italian Space Agency for a moon habitation module.
“The symposium is described as a pivotal moment for both defense and commercial space sectors, with a notable international presence, though China was absent. The discussion touches on the competitive dynamics with China, particularly in the context of lunar exploration and military space capabilities.
“The episode concludes with reflections on the symposium's impact and the enthusiasm it generated among attendees.”
Speaking of Cool…
Remember Jethro Tull? Ian Anderson, the eccentric flutist and leader of the group, played a duet with Cady Coleman, while she was on the ISS, in the honor of Yuri Gagarin’s first flight. Check it out at: https://youtu.be/XeC4nqBB5BM?si=FhZ9Ha5F3ziy4CMk! Coleman flew twice on the Space Shuttle and served a stint on the ISS. Her second shuttle mission was STS-93 in 1999, the flight where Eileen Collins became the first female to command a Shuttle mission; Cady was the mission specialist responsible for the launch of the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
[Astronaut Collins was born in Elmira, New York, not far from where I grew up. She attended Corning Community College, which had an observatory I used in my formative years. Elmira is in New York’s Southern Tier, and it boasts of being the birthplace of two astronauts, Collins and Doug “Wheels” Wheeler, who was born in Binghamton.]
See more Cady and Tull here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=sIvC3fdzqsU&si=oRHQnXMM1qX7DDR9!
More music? Sure, check out my good friend Bert Lams of the California Guitar Trio on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1518354919936314/?fs=e&fs=e.
How NASM Will Celebrate America’s 250th
The National Mall Building of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM) was dedicated on July 1, 1976, part of our Nation’s Bicentennial celebration. The Viking 1 spacecraft, comprising both orbiter and lander components, was then in orbit around Mars.
NASM had a replica of the lander’s sampling arm, and a signal from Viking was used to cause it to cut the ribbon at the Dedication Ceremony. President Ford, Vice President Rockefeller, Chief Justice Warren Burger, Smithsonian Secretary S. Dillon Ripley, and First NASM Director, Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, were all in attendance.
The National Mall Building, after 42+ years and 360 million visitors, needed some major TLC, and has been undergoing an amazing transformation. The entire building has been affected; to date only seven galleries remain under construction.
Fifty year later, to the day, NASM will celebrate again! On July 1, 2026, five of the new galleries will be opened to the public: Flight and the Arts Center, Jay I. Kislak World War II in the Air, the U.S. National Science Foundation Discovering Our Universe, RTX Living in the Space Age, and Textron How Things Fly. The At Home in Space Gallery will open on October 30, and the Modern Military Aviation Gallery will open on Veterans’ Day (November 11).
For more on this exciting development, see: https://airandspace.si.edu/newsroom/press-releases/national-air-and-space-museum-announces-plans-celebrate-50-years!
Sad News
A very valuable education resource is going away! The Annenberg Learner website will sunset on July 1, 2026. AL has been providing all sorts of educational support books, multi-media resources and more. One of my favorite items was their 20-minute documentary, A Private Universe (https://www.learner.org/series/a-private-universe), about otherwise-outstanding Harvard students continued to hold confused ideas about basic science concepts, particularly in astronomy. You can still access APU from the Annenberg site, but that will be going away. There are copies available on-line if you search.
OF SPECIAL INTEREST FYI
China Expands Military Space Capabilities: Aviation Week’s Military Space Editor Vivienne Machi posted an article recently on this important topic, here: https://aviationweek.com/space/budget-policy-regulation/hide-seek-orbit-china-expands-military-space-capabilities. And although it isn’t a direct military threat, she notes that China plans to launch a constellation of over 200,000 satellites to LEO… And the FCC just authorized SpaceX to make an expansion of its Starlink system. [Why am I having an Olber’s Paradox flash-back?]
Hail Mary
By now, more than a few of you will have seen the movie, Hail Mary. It’s a science fiction story, of course, but one with more science than usual. It exposes the public to SETI, panspermia, time dilation, and other astrophysical concepts. What do astrophysicists think about it? See: https://phys.org/news/2026-03-hail-mary-hard-science-astrophysicist.html and https://phys.org/news/2026-03-hail-mary-wrong-astrophysics.html.
OF SPECIAL INTEREST LINKS AND OTHER INFORMATION
“How the U.S. Space Force Aims to Avoid a Second Sputnik Moment” is an interesting piece by Vivienne Machi, the Military Space Editor for Aviation Week. See it here: https://aviationweek.com/space/budget-policy-regulation/how-us-space-force-aims-avoid-second-sputnik-moment.
For Those of You in the Colorado Springs Area: The Space Foundation Discovery Center on Garden of the Gods Avenue has undergone a significant expansion and updating. Find out more about it at: https://discoverspace.org and more about the Space Foundation at: https://www.spacefoundation.org. In addition, the Planetarium at the U.S. Air Force Academy offers a variety of public programs; for more information, see: https://www.usafa.edu/facilities/planetarium. But be advised that the Academy has new stringent requirements to enter. The Academy also has great STEM outreach programming for students and teachers, see: https://www.usafa.edu/research/stem-outreach.
Jack Cross: I have met an interesting fellow on-line via one of NASM’s wonderful Docents. His name is Jack Cross, and he proudly served in the U.S. Navy from 1950 to 1954 as a Bosun’s Mate. He was on a series of warships at first, then he moved over to the USS Yellowstone, a tender that served the Navy’s Sixth Fleet. He joined the Navy and saw the world!
Now retired, Jack has put together a series of picture-rich PowerPoint presentations. He kindly gave me permission to post three of them already, one about D-Day, one about “A Day of Mercy in the Sky,” and one about his Navy career, which gives a real interesting look at what Navy life was like at the start of the Cold War. Check all three out on the Archive: Other Stuff page of the website! Thank you, Jack!
DOCENTS (and all others interested in Solar System exploration history): If you don’t have an on-line copy of Fordham University’s Asif A. Siddiqi’s fabulous book, Beyond Earth: A Chronicle of Deep Space Exploration, you should. You can find it at: https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/beyond_earth_detail.html.