Bob Richards' PSERF, March 25, 2011

Bob Richards, a "Space Dragon" who wants to expand the reach of the human race... 

and make a profit doing so!

In his talk last Friday, Bob Richards, a silicon valley space entrepreneur referred to the folks that blog about him. By virtue of this entry in my PSERF handbook, I suppose that now includes me. I cannot admit that I know the man well*, but he is an interesting fellow and his heart seems to be in the right place. For this special speaker, we met in a special location; not in the Biological and Geological Sciences Building, but over in the Ivey school of business. This was an appropriate choice, as Bob's expertise is in the area of space business. His primary goal these days? Expanding the economic sphere of the Earth from Geosynchronous orbit out by a factor of ten to encompass the Moon.

The presentation was free-flowing and Bob stayed afterwards to chat with several of us at the University's Graduate Club. While he spoke without slides, his talk was not unusual fare for PSERF which has attracted interesting speakers of all types, from experts on Space Weaponry through discussions of early cartography and the "inside baseball" story of science-driven space missions. Largely, I'm getting the impression that PSERF exists mainly to expand our concept of what we can do with these planetary science degrees of ours. In that vein, Bob had a great deal to offer us by describing in detail his experience with the emerging field of private space exploration.

Ed Cloutis' PSERF: Feb 4, 2011

Plumes of methane on Mars as detected by Mike Mumma's group using the IRTF facility. Top concentrations are 45 ppb or so and are centered on the Nilli Fossae region of Mars.

Ed's talk was all about Methane on Mars, the discovery of which in the Martian atmosphere has, in his words, reinvigorated our exploration plans for the planet. Where in the past Martian Exploration was all about "Follow the Water" Ed contends that it is now "Follow the Methane." Certainly that makes sense from a Canadian Analogue Mission perspective with two separate groups (the other being led by Mike Daley of York University) running analogue missions to examine the problem of how rovers can help ferret out the sources of methane.

Raymond Francis' PSERF, January 28, 2011

Raymond Francis is a doctoral candidate at UWO and part of the CPSX family. While we both wear Iron Rings and he shares my Engineering/Science duality, he is definitely an Engineer at heart.
You can tell from the suit! 

To those of us who live in North America, we are understandably focused on NASA when it comes to the science and exploration of Space. It makes some sense - NASA was one of the first space agencies, it spends more money than any other (and five times more per capita than the next largest agency), and has a very slick marketing machine. Without a doubt, NASA generally sets the tone of the discourse and dominates when it comes to the more visible aspirational projects, such as planetary exploration and human space flight.

But there are other space agencies in the world and many countries that you might never have suspected of hosting a space agency do have one. The reason for this is simple: once you get beyond the aspirational side, exploitation of space makes direct economic sense for nearly every state actor. While the South Africans may not have a direct economic interest in putting a South African on Mars, they do have a deep and valuable interest in being able to predict the weather, create accurate topographic maps and do remote sensing that could allow resource exploitation and management. 

Dr. Paul Wiegert's PSURF, January 21, 2011

(Sorry for the delays! Fuller updates are on the way!)

Can life, or at least meteorites, travel between the stars? If so, how would we know where they had come from? Paul Wiegert addressed this question in his PSERF talk on the 21st of January, 2011

This week's PSURF Talk (a link will be posted here once it is online) dealt with a topic of eminent importance to us Astrobiologists - the concept of panspermia. What is panspermia, you might ask? Well, basically it describes a theory wherein life does not need to originate separately one each body where it is found. Life could originate at one place, at one time, in conditions that are truly extraordinary and then propagate to other worlds and other situations. If you believe the theory, then there is no need to be bounded by the conditions of the early Earth when considering life's abiotic origins. Instead, we can also consider whether life got an easier start on Mars, or inside a differentiated asteroid (this was discussed extensively at the York University Physics and Astronomy Journal Club last week; last week's CATP seminar, which I will post soon!) or even within Giant Molecular Clouds.

Of course, wherever life formed, it needs some way to get from there to here. This is where Paul Wiegert's research comes in. Paul is part of the meteor group at UWO in Physics and Astronomy. Together, this group operates a network of ground stations which examine a particular volume of sky in Southwestern Ontario for meteors. From the triangulation that the network makes possible, it is possible to back out the trajectory of the incoming particles, their speeds, and if they are big enough (fireballs) where any meteorites might land.

PSURF, January 14, 2011

This isn't a review since, well, PSURF #2 of 2011 was actually me! CPSX was kind enough to record the talk for me and you can watch it by downloading the avi from this page:

http://cpsx.uwo.ca/NewsAndEvents/recordings.html

(direct link to avi here)

The title was "The 2008 Phoenix Lander: A Scientist's Perspective on a Space Mission." My intent in the talk was to shed some light on what goes on inside of a space mission and how they are put together, rather than focusing on the science results or engineering design. 

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

A brief note on where and when and on what topics I will be speaking in the next little while:

1) Today, January 14, at 12:30PM in B&GS here at UWO I will be presenting today's PSURF. I'll be talking mainly about how Space Missions get put together and run - nuts and bolts sorts of things.

2) Next Friday, the 21st of January, I will be giving my "Worlds Enough and Time" talk at the University of Toronto at Mississauga for the RASC's Mississauga chapter. It will be at 8PM. The WEaT talk emphasizes all that we have learned in the last 50 years about planetary exploration and the slides from the last time I spoke on this topic are available here.

3) I've just this week been confirmed as one of the three keynote speakers at the Star Symposium which will take place at Vari Hall on March 18 at 7PM. Not sure exactly what I will talk about, but it should be fun. The Planetary Decadal Survey is getting released and discussed at this year's LPSC which runs from the 4th to the 11th of March, so there will be some exciting new stuff to talk about when I get back.

With a little luck, I'll be given talks at some upcoming conferences. If that happens I'll let you know here.

2011 PSURF #1: Dr. Phil Stooke

Giovanni Schiaparelli's map of Mars showing the imaginary canals (image from wikipedia)

Maps, Maps, Everywhere! That was the theme at this year's inaugural PSERF meeting at UWO given by Phil Stooke. By the way, PSERF stands for Planetary Science & Exploration Research Forum, and truth be told, I'm writing that down here not only for your benefit, but also so I can refer back later and remember what it stands for. To say that the discussions are eclectic is a bit of an understatement. This was my third meeting and so far we've had a presentation on Space Weapons, a report by CPSX's own Bhairavi Shankar on an impact cratering short course, and now a discussion of early terrestrial cartography.

Still for those of us interested in space exploration, maps provide a useful example. In its purest sense, exploration is about "filling in the gaps." Maps also give us a good way to examine the state of knowledge at any one time. For instance, if you look between the "Cantino Planisphere" (a world map from around 1500) and compare it to "The New and Correct Map of The World" from 1700 (you can find both in the slides linked to this article) you'll see how the age of maritime exploration managed to give us a better picture of our own planet.