You are not logged in.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.htm … 7536]Click
*Speaking of weather, I'm currently under it (somewhat ill), so will just copy and paste some highlights:
Research published in the journal Space Weather warns that massive gaps in our understanding and monitoring of space weather will effectively block US plans for a manned Mars space mission.
Mentions major August 1972 solar storm which occurred between Apollo missions:
Simulations of the radiation levels an astronaut inside a spacecraft would have experienced during this event found that the astronaut would have absorbed lethal doses of radiation within just 10 hours. It was simply good luck that this happened between the missions.
understanding today still only relates to a tiny part of our Solar System - literally just the line between Earth and the Sun. A manned Mars mission will travel far beyond the boundaries of our current understanding and observation. While we have an increasing understanding the impact of SPEs in and around the Earth we have no idea if the same holds true for the geometry of space around the rest of the changing area between Earth, Mars and the Sun. Nor do we know if the current models of what happens in these events between the Sun and Earth can be accurately extrapolated to understand what happens over the greater distances between the Sun and Mars. Dr Foullon believes those knowledge gaps are currently simply too large and too dangerous to allow a manned Mars mission.
-also-
Secondly there must be considerable research to develop a lightweight mechanism to be installed on the manned mission to give some early warning of dangerous space weather. While we have some clues as to how that might be done the technology is not yet there to deliver a workable solution.
--Cindy
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
Offline
Like button can go here
Ummmm... the folks that wrote this do know that the Sun, uh, spins... right? You know? With the rotating? And junk?
"literally just the line between Earth and the Sun"
Ummmmmmmmm? If the sun spins, then we have a pretty good idea about how it works from all directions around the equitorial longetudes that the planets orbit.
This "Dr. Foulloun" is just making a "VSE needs us, please don't defund us Griffin!" pitch... to the ignorant media no less.
Edit: Taking a second skim through the link, note how the Doc wants probes. Lots of probes. Expensive, long-term project probes, which will of course need her services as principle investigator.
The assertions that "its too dangerous because we don't know!" is, being charitable by using the initials, B.S.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
Offline
Like button can go here
Ummmm... the folks that wrote this do know that the Sun, uh, spins... right? You know? With the rotating? And junk?
*Well of course. There's plenty of images from SOHO on CME's and solar flares erupting on the far-side of Sol, of which we are not in the "line of fire" but which of course travel out into other regions of the Solar System.
"literally just the line between Earth and the Sun"
Ummmmmmmmm? If the sun spins, then we have a pretty good idea about how it works from all directions around the equitorial longetudes that the planets orbit.
Not really. The quote refers to data we have at-hand, which is mostly (exclusively) focused on the solar weather in line between Earth and Sol. There has been data regarding the effects of solar storms upon Saturn, but that is relatively recent: When Cassini-Huygens was still en route and most of the information was gathered via ground-based telescope (Keck, IIRC).
Maybe the article is alarmist or the scientist has an agenda...but again, most of our current data about solar weather does (or has been) focused on Earth-Sol. That's based on articles and topics I've been keeping track of.
Just some thoughts.
--Cindy
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
Offline
Like button can go here
But thats my point, that the solar "weather" from other points of the Sun around the ecliptic has no special hazards that our narrow band here on Earth doesn't; we know this because the Sun spins and the Earth orbits too, so that we can get a pretty good feel of what happens all around the Solar equator. Dr. Foullons' statement that "its too dangerous!" outside our little slice is silly, and obviously since she is not stupid, she must therefore have an agenda for trying to perpetrate this fraud on NASA.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
Offline
Like button can go here
But thats my point, that the solar "weather" from other points of the Sun around the ecliptic has no special hazards that our narrow band here on Earth doesn't; we know this because the Sun spins and the Earth orbits too, so that we can get a pretty good feel of what happens all around the Solar equator. Dr. Foullons' statement that "its too dangerous!" outside our little slice is silly, and obviously since she is not stupid, she must therefore have an agenda for trying to perpetrate this fraud on NASA.
I know the sun spins but how fast. I am sure we understand the sun well but for weather forecasting we only see a small part of the sun. If the spins slowly (I need to look it up), perhaps we wouldn't see key signs of an increase in solar wind activity on the other side of the sun. Time for me to do some goggling if no one gives me the answer.
Dig into the [url=http://child-civilization.blogspot.com/2006/12/political-grab-bag.html]political grab bag[/url] at [url=http://child-civilization.blogspot.com/]Child Civilization[/url]
Offline
Like button can go here
But thats my point, that the solar "weather" from other points of the Sun around the ecliptic has no special hazards that our narrow band here on Earth doesn't; we know this because the Sun spins and the Earth orbits too, so that we can get a pretty good feel of what happens all around the Solar equator. Dr. Foullons' statement that "its too dangerous!" outside our little slice is silly, and obviously since she is not stupid, she must therefore have an agenda for trying to perpetrate this fraud on NASA.
*I see your points. Of course, I'm not a scientist. But perhaps the article's emphasis is wrong? I've been following Sun-related articles, data, etc. ("Heliopolis" threads in Science & Technology folder). If I may be so bold...it seems to me, based on what I've read, that the emphasis should be on the unpredictability of Sol's various behaviors. Sunspots can cycle up and down rather dramatically. CME's (even the more intense ones) can occasionally catch scientists off guard; like what happened about 1-1/2 years ago, when they predicted Sol's activity was dying down rapidly after a bit of energetic activity...they let down their guard and >boom!< -- a rather impressive CME the very next day. Scientists admitted it took them completely by surprise, and Dr. Tony Philips (who writes for spaceweather.com) has penned articles saying there is still much about Sol's behaviors which remain enigmatic.
Just some more thoughts. Again, I'm only an interested layperson.
--Cindy
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
Offline
Like button can go here
I know the sun spins but how fast. I am sure we understand the sun well but for weather forecasting we only see a small part of the sun. If the spins slowly (I need to look it up), perhaps we wouldn't see key signs of an increase in solar wind activity on the other side of the sun. Time for me to do some goggling if no one gives me the answer.
*Off the top of my head and to the best of my memory, roughly every 30 days. I Googled:
The outer layers of the Sun exhibit differential rotation: at the equator the surface rotates once every 25.4 days; near the poles it's as much as 36 days. This odd behavior is due to the fact that the Sun is not a solid body like the Earth. Similar effects are seen in the gas planets. The differential rotation extends considerably down into the interior of the Sun but the core of the Sun rotates as a solid body.
http://www.nineplanets.org/sol.html]Source
--Cindy
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
Offline
Like button can go here
Ummmm... the folks that wrote this do know that the Sun, uh, spins... right? You know? With the rotating? And junk?
"literally just the line between Earth and the Sun"
Ummmmmmmmm? If the sun spins, then we have a pretty good idea about how it works from all directions around the equitorial longetudes that the planets orbit.
This "Dr. Foulloun" is just making a "VSE needs us, please don't defund us Griffin!" pitch... to the ignorant media no less.
Edit: Taking a second skim through the link, note how the Doc wants probes. Lots of probes. Expensive, long-term project probes, which will of course need her services as principle investigator.
The assertions that "its too dangerous because we don't know!" is, being charitable by using the initials, B.S.
Yup. I concur. Not only does the Sun spin but we revolve around the Sun.
Maybe there is a "sunspot" on the opposite side which we never see which emits a nasty particle beam. :? Uh oh better fund some studies.
= = =
That said, a really good water shield and an emergency storm shelter remain good ideas.
Give someone a sufficient [b][i]why[/i][/b] and they can endure just about any [b][i]how[/i][/b]
Offline
Like button can go here
*Bill, did you read my 3rd post in this thread?
--Cindy
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
Offline
Like button can go here
Whatever Mars ship we send, it ought to have the ability to protect the crew from whatever the Sun can throw at it... As long as astronauts have a few minutes of warning, which can probobly be afforded by onboard sensors, then we don't need to go and spend a billion dollars on solar probes.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
Offline
Like button can go here
*For clarification: I'm not advocating the probes mentioned in the article.
And I'm certainly not advocating suspending/delaying manned Mars missions because of it.
But there is an issue here:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005 … .htm]Solar unpredictability
Check out references to January 10, 2005 and April 25, 2005.
I posted that article in Helipolis *2* on May 6.
--Cindy
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
Offline
Like button can go here
It may have to do with NASA's statement they will stop listening to Voyager, http://ulysses.jpl.nasa.gov/]Ulysses, http://pwg.gsfc.nasa.gov/polar/]Polar, http://pwg.gsfc.nasa.gov/wind.shtml]Wind, http://pwg.gsfc.nasa.gov/geotail.shtml]GeoTail, http://sunland.gsfc.nasa.gov/smex/fast/]FAST and http://sunland.gsfc.nasa.gov/smex/trace/]TRACE. They later said they would continue to listen to Voyager, but not the others. Termination is scheduled for October, NASA's fiscal year end.
The article does call for a couple new probes, but if NASA is cancelling 6 probes to study the sun, including one in solar polar orbit, why create new ones? Here I get prudent (miserly) again, why spend money on a new solar probe if you're going to stop listening to ones already there? Wouldn't it make more financial sense to continue TRACE and Ulysses than build new probes? And if the concern is radiation during transit, should we study a mini-magnetosphere for radiation deflection? The first step is to study how Earth's magnetosphere does it, that means continuing the other solar probes. Again, why stop listening to working probes?
Offline
Like button can go here
*Glad you mentioned the "old axe-eroo" issue, Robert. Wish I would have thought of it (am tired today -- a bit ill). Good questions and points. I wouldn't call you miserly; on the contrary, wise.
Why stop listening to working probes indeed. :?
::shakes head::
--Cindy
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
Offline
Like button can go here
*Bill, did you read my 3rd post in this thread?
--Cindy
Are you saying there is a side of the Sun we have not seen yet?
It seems to me that as the year elapses the line from Sun to Earth moves across the face of the Sun, and traces a great circle around the entire Sun. Therefore over time we experience the Sun's insolation from every point on the sun, at least along the plane of the Earth's orbit.
Unless the surface of the Sun moves at exactly the same rate as the Earth circles the Sun. Like those theories about planet X exactly behind the Sun.
Give someone a sufficient [b][i]why[/i][/b] and they can endure just about any [b][i]how[/i][/b]
Offline
Like button can go here
Then again the only justification for turning off a working probe is because the data is no longer of need. It does no benefit once collected to further the study to which it was designed. However a monitoring system never goes out of need.
Justification for new probes can only be if they give an answer to the latters study that can not be met by the older unit or if the older unit becomes inoperative.
Offline
Like button can go here
I think the point of the article is that when a storm erupts on the sun, it tends to spew out a storm in a specific direction, and if there is no probe at that location we don't know how serious the storm is. A Mars spacecraft could be so many degrees around the sun from Earth that the probe we have sitting at the Earth-sun L1 point won't provide good early warning. Maybe GCN is right and the Mars mission doesn't need much warning; if a storm hits without warning, assuming a shelter already exists and doesn't require moving stuff around to be set up, the astronauts could just go inside (a few minutes exposure is not serious). But if a probe were prepositioned in a solar orbit where it could give a warning, if it doesn't cost too much, the extra safety could be worth the expense.
-- RobS
Offline
Like button can go here
*Bill, did you read my 3rd post in this thread?
--Cindy
Are you saying there is a side of the Sun we have not seen yet?
*No, of course not. And don't insult my intelligence.
You missed my point. You also apparently missed the fact that I took the matter in a different direction:
***Sol's unpredictability as its behavior goes.***
...the original article's emphasis (pertaining to Dr. Foullon) is WRONG, in my opinion.
But if you know more about all this than Dr. Tony Phillips and the other scientists who've penned the articles I've been reading -- and quoting -- from spaceweather.com all these years (and unrelated to Dr. Foullon and 1st article I linked to), then more power to you.
--Cindy
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
Offline
Like button can go here