On Friday, January 14, at 5:15am EST history was made: a man-made object landed on the farthest world ever explored. The European Space Agency’s Huygens probe was dispatched from the space craft Cassini, and descended onto Saturn’s moon, Titan. An impenetrable dense orange cloud of hydrocarbons covers Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, and until a few days ago blocked its features from our view. But Friday morning the Huygens probe transmitted 350 images of ravines and drainage channels on the surface of the moon, possibly carved by liquid ethane, that appear to funnel towards a shoreline.
It is crucial that such landmark accomplishments are shared with the public and that the implications are understood and appreciated. Space interest groups, from international organizations working with the United Nations, to local groups in your own backyard, unite to educate and promote awareness of astronomy and space exploration.
The greatest Canadian space champion is Bob Richards, who as a student in the early 1980s co-founded, with Todd Hawley and Peter Diamandis, the student-run space interest group “Students for the Exploration and Development of Space.” The trio would later create the International Space University (ISU) to educate the world’s future space leaders. Postgraduate education at the ISU, now a permanent campus in Strasbourg, France, combines technical science and engineering with studies in the humanities, law, and economics, for a unique challenge that over 2,200 students from 87 countries have already experienced.
Eight years ago Diamandis founded the Ansari X Prize, the $10-million (US) award meant to jump start space tourism. Last fall the X Prize opened space to the private sector when Burt Rutan’s privately funded SpaceShipOne crossed the 100-km boundary into space. Canadian aerospace teams provided two competing teams, the Canadian Arrow and the da Vinci Project, the latter based in Toronto and led by aerospace engineer Brian Feeney.
While the goal of the X Prize was to bring space access to the public, there are many grass roots organizations working to bring an understanding of space science to the general community. Canada’s largest star party, Starfest, held just two hours away from Toronto, is a good example. Hosted by the North York Astronomical Association, the annual summer observing convention and star party attracts over a thousand enthusiasts from Ontario and neighbouring provinces and states for observations, informal presentations, workshops, and exhibitions.
Among the prestigious speakers this past summer was deputy team chief of the Mars exploration mission Navin Cox, who gave a passionate insider account of NASA’s twin-rover mission to the red planet. After a full year on Mars, NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity rovers continue to beam to Earth breathtaking images, showing evidence for water at two separate locales on the Martian surface. Opportunity’s discovery of chemical and mineralogical evidence proved conclusively the existence of a deep, large, long-standing sea.
Ivan Semeniuk, well-known Canadian science journalist for Discovery Channel’s “Daily Planet,” gave a report on the Cassini mission. U of T Professor of Astronomy John Percy, past president of the Royal Astronomy Society of Canada, spoke on partnership possibilities between professional and amateur astronomers.
Just one month later the Canadian Space Society, Canada’s foremost space-development advocacy group, hosted its annual summit at the Ontario Science Centre. It was an opportunity for space enthusiasts to mingle with acclaimed space journalists, authors, aerospace engineers, and astronomers.
When Heraclitus said, “From all things the one, and from the one all things,” he had little idea that he would be starting a 2,500-year quest towards the coveted Theory of Everything. Physicists have been searching for decades for an “umbrella theory” to explain all the forces and facets of the universe. As Toronto-based science journalist and broadcaster Dan Falk explained in his book “Universe on a T-Shirt” and to the audience at the summit, modern research in string theory and quantum physics is the current path on what has already been a long road to understand the universe in a rational, logical manner, without invoking gods and superstition.
In-orbit results from Canada’s first and the world’s most advanced microsatellite, the highly successful MOST (Microvariability and Oscillations of Stars), were given by chief designer Dr. Kieran Carroll. Small as a suitcase and weighing only 132 pounds, MOST is affectionately referred to as the “Humble” space telescope, though its goals are colossal. The system is so precise that the telescope can study the atmospheres of planets beyond our solar system. It can also determine a star’s composition by observing oscillations in its brightness, accurately enough to determine its age and thereby help establish a lower limit on the age of the universe. Last summer, MOST made international headlines when it showed that the star Procyon lacked pulsations. This ran counter to the results of ground-based observations, so astronomers will have to revise their theories on the formation and aging of stars.
The U of T Institute for Aerospace Studies, which built the control system for MOST, is also involved in a student-led nanosatellite program called CanX. Its goal is to produce a satellite weighing no more than a few kilograms that can be launched to space for only $1 million.
The keynote speaker of the space summit was Canadian science-fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer, recipient of the 2003 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel of the year, Hominids. He spoke on the benefits obtained from physics and material-science research conducted on the International Space Station (ISS).
In the low gravity environment of space, in a lab whose surface area is the size of a Canadian football field, exceptional progress has been made in areas with direct application to our daily welfare. Experiments have shown that pharmaceuticals can be created in space without impurities, by mixing chemicals in midair. The strength of metal alloys can be greatly increased if formed under low gravity. Diseases such as AIDS, cancer, diabetes, and heart disease are being investigated by growing crystals of proteins and viruses and three-dimensional conglomerations of tissues and cells. Protein structure is much easier to analyze in an environment free from the effects of gravity.
Professor of Agriculture Mike Dixon leads, in collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency, a project called Tomatosphere where elementary school students participate in experiments on plant growth on the International Space Station (ISS) and help determine the requirements for long-term life support in space. Environmental studies on the ISS have looked at methods for reducing atmospheric pollution through analysis of soot formation in microgravity. Soil studies aid the design of more earthquake-resistant buildings.
“Everything we do in space ultimately benefits us down here on Earth,” says Sawyer. This sentiment was echoed at the Third United Nations Conference on the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.
“Basic space science is key to the prosperity of a nation, and it is almost impossible to expect a country to have significant economic and social development without a sound educational and research base in the field of basic space science.”
Finally we come to U of T’s own Astronomy and Space Exploration Society (ASX). The ASX hosts the “Faces of Space” lecture series where monthly talks from scientists, engineers, and those in the humanities illuminate the multidisciplinary nature of space science. Upcoming speakers includes leading atmospheric physicist James Drummond, U of T’s Chair of Geology Steve Scott, and SETI League Executive Director Paul Shuch.
The society is working on its second annual symposium at Convocation Hall, titled: “Expanding Canada’s Frontiers II.” On the evening of January 28 the ASX will host a tour of space success stories from this country and around the world. The imaging team leader of the Cassini mission to Saturn, Dr. Carolyn Porco, and Mars Rover project scientist Dr. James Rice will join heads of Canadian space projects including a speaker from Hubble Space Telescope saviour company, MD Robotics. The symposium will also serve as the opening of the Canadian Students’ Summit on Aerospace (CSSA 2005) to take place at U of T that weekend.
“More than anything else we do as human beings, science gives us perspective. It helps us understand our place and our stature,” states Sawyer. “The images taken by the crew of Apollo VIII showing our planet as a blue-and-white ball floating in space changed the consciousness of all humanity.” It gave us an understanding of our fragility, beauty, and connection to each other and the universe.
While space exploration sometimes leads to competition, its huge costs more often unite nations in international space missions. Canada, the epitome of multiculturalism, should be a model of peaceful collaboration and mutually beneficial long-term projects.
