New Book by Mary Roach: Packing for Mars

Mary Roach has a new book coming out! If you don't read her, you really should, because she's only the funniest science writer ever. Yesterday I saw this facebook post of her new book cover, and this is what she had to say:

"It’s the usual Roach shenanigans, with all bodily fluids liberally represented. There’s even a cadaver chapter. (He’s wearing a space suit.) It’s about the bizarro astronaut life, but also about the surreal and geeky-cool world of simulated space travel. Because space is so hostile and weird and unpredictable and expensive, and because zero gravity turns everything on its head, every single object and undertaking that eventually happens in space gets rehearsed here on Earth. So you can sort of visit space without leaving Earth, which is more or less what I’ve been up to the past couple years."

Can't wait!

Asteroids Are Awesome!

1. There was a very interesting article in the journal Nature that talks about water and organic material being found on a asteroid. A research team at the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University found that the asteroid contains water ice and organic materials (in the form of hydrogen-carbon bonds).

This is a fantastic find and will help us better understand how life got its start. It also proves that not all asteroids are dry, rocky pieces from the early solar system. Some of the asteroids out there still contain ice and organic materials. It also blurs the lines between what is a comet and what is an asteroid. I love blurry science!

2. Remember the announcement that life had been found from Mars back in 1996? I remember it and how exciting it was to think that we had proof of life other than on earth. Well, the researchers kept studying the material and are sticking by their original findings all these years later.

The problem that I see with this is that the central problem in 1996 was that the researchers didn't prove that the fossilized bacteria was not a product of contamination from bacteria that was already on earth. The researchers say that they have found other Mars asteroids with the same bacterial fossils on them which supports their case. I think the key word there is “on”, not “in”. Since this was found on igneous rock instead of in sedimentary rock, the evidence would seem to point to a post-collision contamination scenario.

This is a genuine conflict that will be fun to watch over the next few years.

Screw The Moon, Let's Go To An Asteroid

Recently, President Obama has announced the cancellation of the Constellation Program at NASA. This program would have taken us back to the moon. However, the President has seen it fit to cancel the program. As for the moon, screw it.

Now, I understand that some believe that we should attempt a return to the surface of the Moon first, as previously planned. But I just have to say pretty bluntly here: We've been there before. Buzz has been there. There's a lot more of space to explore, and a lot more to learn when we do.

I have a problem with that. Just because we have been there already doesn't mean that we shouldn't go back. However, all in all, I agree with his sentiments and the mission that he has set NASA to perform.

One of the first things will be to land on an asteroid! How frakkin awesome is that! Landing on an asteroid would not only be sweet-ass-sweet, but it would also give us a great deal of data on asteroids, the formation of the solar system and possibly the universe, and will also teach us a lot about pushing an asteroid out of the way if one decided to aim for us, like Apophis.

Since I am more of a space fanboy than anything else, I must divert your attention to Dr. Phil Plait's blog on the new space program mission. I had the knee-jerk reaction of horror until i actually read what he was saying. He makes a good point for the new program and I must say, I agree with him.