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The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, was dealt a pretty significant blow in the last couple of months with the failure of a high-profile space probe called Phobos Grunt. The probe, which was launched on November 9th, was scheduled to travel to Phobos, one of the Martian moons, take surface samples, and return to Earth. It didn’t quite make it to Mars, getting stranded in earth’s upper orbit when a late-stage rocket failed to fire. The satellite is now stuck in low orbit over Earth, and is scheduled to return to earth in little tiny pieces somewhere over the Indian Ocean between today and Monday. Vladimir Popovkin, director of Roscosmos, is convinced the U.S. shot it down.
With characteristically Russian tactlessness, Popovkin attempted to redirect the blame for the mission’s failure, saying that the mission was sabotaged by an anti-satellite weapon. “We don’t want to accuse anybody,” he said accusingly, “but there are very powerful devices that can influence spacecraft now.” Of course, that’s a bit like saying, “I want to very diplomatically blame the U.S. for disrupting our space mission because they’re the only ones capable of doing it.”
It’s not entirely implausible that Russian spacecraft would run into problems over the western hemisphere. The United States employs the vast majority of low-orbit technology and it wouldn’t be the first time that some other country’s launch was interfered with by some our satellite detritus. Unfortunately for Russia, many of the spacecraft problems that occur for them, occur over the western hemisphere where they do not receive telemetric data and are unable to monitor their spacecraft’s progression. That leaves any perceived failures or hitches in their launch plans or craft open to all types of wild speculation, such as the U.S. using their space probes for target practice. Not only did Popovkin imply U.S. sabotage, but another Russian official previously in charge of the country’s early warning system, more specifically insinuated that the U.S. may have used high-powered electromagnetic beam to disrupt the probe. A non-existant but buzz-worthy piece of technology.
None of this really makes sense in the realistic way that Americans are no dependent upon the Russian space program for the bulk of their continued study and manned spaceflight while our own program has been shut down. President Obama ended the NASA manned spaceflight program this year, focusing instead on private investment and a more privat sector approach to space exploration. In the meantime, the U.S. is dependent upon any and all efforts to penetrate space by the Russians. Shooting down a Russian Mars space probe just doesn’t make sense. However, an honest inquiry was never in Popovkin’s agenda. Instead, it was attempting to deflect blame for a fairly high-profile national blunder.

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I continue with my talk about extraterrestrial life on this blog with this post. It was actually inspired by an article that I read in the Minneapolis StarTribune while eating breakfast this morning about astronomers discovering more signs that supports the idea of numerous planets in the Universe. It basically sheds light on the debate about life outside of our own and makes us realize that we have only just begun looking and just in our backyard.

Even with all the advances in technology that have been made in the last two decades, the contemporary tools that are used in space exploration are found wanting because they can only really spot large exo planets like Jupiter for example by observing the fluctuations in brightness of distant stars. But, NASA’s Kepler spacecraft mission is indeed a success and has changed astronomy completely with astronomers stating that stars in just our own galaxy, the Milky Way, could have 1.6 planets on average.
You might be wondering why I headlined this blog post as “Science fiction becoming a science fact again”. It’s because of this discovery that was reported on the Scientific American – a great magazine, by the way – about two planets, Kepler-34 b and Kepler-35 b, that orbit two stars. Sort of like the desert world in the Star Wars saga called Tatooine. Check out this image below of a very popular scene from the series in the ‘A New Hope’ episode.
 
This is pretty incredible to me and it makes me wonder as great as the human species is, is there are anything better out there.

According to the New York Times, Virgin Galactic is now selling tickets for space flights for $200K. The flights are scheduled to be this year and at this point just a little less than 500 people have booked seats on this momentous voyage to outer space.
“Hopefully by next Christmas, myself, my daughter and my son will be the first people to go up into space” on a commercial craft, Richard Branson, the owner of Virgin Galactic, said in a videotaped interview in November. $200K is definitely a bargain for such an amazing experience that should await a space tourist and Allianz has even lined up travel insurance for these wealthy space enthusiasts to purchase.

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The passengers will experience five minutes of weightlessness during their two and a half hour flight. These travelers must go through three days of training for their voyage in New Mexico at Virgin’s Spaceport America before embarking on what will go down in history as the inaugural suborbital space tourism expedition. I expect the whole thing to be as impressive as Sir Richard Branson himself who has made having fun a feature of anything Virgin. I hear that passengers are offered a refund of their deposit too, so they have nothing to lose if they decide against it.
This is definitely the stuff of fantasy right now, but I wonder whether in twenty years it would become like scheduling a flight to New York City. For now, you can go see for yourself right here.
 

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2011 was a good year for aliens…or at least for UFO sightings. According to the Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON, there was an increase of 67 percent of reported sightings of unidentified flying objects in 2011, as compared to 2008. That’s quite an increase.  Are more unusual occurrences, are people are paying more attention, or are they just not afraid to tell others what they’ve seen?
The Huffington Post has issued a list of the Top 11 UFO stories for 2011. The top 11 includes stories about previously confidential government papers, a petition sent to President Obama asking for all UFO information held by the White House to be released, and a road marker erected on the site of the most widely publicized alien abduction story in history which occurred 50 years ago.However, the story that made the number one spot on The Huffington Post list is the story about the New Orleans UFO. In October, during an NBC Sunday Night Football broadcast of the game between the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints, a cameraman caught what was widely considered to be a UFO.  In a live shot of the city outside the Superdome during the broadcast, an oblong object can be seen flying behind the famed St. Louis Cathedral towers.
When the video was slowed down and the oblong shape became more prominent, people speculated that the object was either bugs flying close to the camera, meteors, or a UFO. Since the video first prompted so much speculation, the NBC cameraman, R.D. Willis told the Huffington Post about the video. Willis said he took the footage with special time-lapse equipment, which gives the appearance of objects moving much faster than they really are. He said that the lights were nothing more than airplanes passing behind the cathedral tower. The long shutter exposure made them other-worldly.
Mystery solved.
 

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Imagine you’re driving along a country road one night when suddenly you see a bright light in the sky. You pull off to the side of the road, wondering what the light is. Possibly, it’s a UFO. What should I do now? You wonder to yourself. No one will believe me. Well, if you follow these easy steps, you’ll have a greater chance of having your friends and family believe that you may have witnessed a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.
First and foremost, remember that UFO stands for unidentified flying object. When someone sees a UFO, it does not necessarily mean that ET has come to visit. There could be a very logical explanation for the unidentified object. Nine out of ten of reported sightings are easily explained.
If you do see a UFO, document it. Take pictures or video. These days, almost everyone has a cell phone with a camera, so if you don’t have a true camera with you, use your phone’s camera. Many of the cell phones take videos as well. Don’t worry about the quality of the pictures. You just want a picture that shows what you’ve seen.
If you can record audio, describe what you have witnessed. If you can’t record audio, write down a description of what you’ve seen as soon as you can after the event. Be descriptive and as precise as you can. Estimate the distance you are away from the object; the date, time and location that you saw the object; whether it was moving or hovering. Observe as many details as possible. Get statements from witnesses in the area, if any.
Report the sighting to local law enforcement or a UFO research agency. Only one out of every ten sightings of a UFO is reported.  UFO research agencies are located throughout the United States and all over the world.  If you see a UFO, and are convinced that it’s a spaceship and not a weather balloon, let the authorities know what you’ve seen.

The introduction to this blog talks talks about how space is the final frontier. Personally, it is the topic that interests and excites me the most. So is investing in space technology and continuing to spend money on the discovery of new worlds and possibly even extraterrestrial life worth the investment. This is especially important right now amid all the economic problems and the debt crisis in the United States.
Let me start off by giving you my take on this whole issue. I know that most Americans are going to disagree with this, but I feel that private companies and NASA should step up their commitment towards learning about the universe. However, I think that private companies should lead the way and NASA should have less of a presence at this point in time. We have to get our priorities right and sort out the issues with healthcare costs, shelter and the people who have lost their standard of living due to this great recession.

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So getting back to my preference for the privatization of space-projects. I think this should work out just fine as there are plenty of individuals and companies out there that are as passionate about space as I am. Companies have profited in the past and will do so in the future through patents obtained and advances made in the biotech sector, robotics, satellite navigation, mining, energy production to name some of the fields. Companies like futuredex and Jeffries Quarterdeck Investment Partners come to mind here.
Forget the need for profit for a moment and think about the scarcity of resources facing this beautiful planet in the future. For that reason alone, it is vital that we establish a presence in space to make use of techniques like asteroid mining to bring materials and reserves that could greatly benefit the Earth and its inhabitants.

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We all know that past behavior is a good estimator of future success. If we look at history, any time human beings have looked to venture out and try new things they have not only learned many things but also made tremendous advancements by engaging new communities and discovering new and useful items.
Outside of just the knowledge obtained about us and the planet that we live in, the space program has given us a lot things like improved weather forecasting and also allowed us to learn more about our own world by looking at how certain elements behave in other planets or systems in the universe.
Probably, the single greatest benefit of expanding the space program is to get kids to start learning about our world and the universe through math and science education that this country really needs to stay on top in this dynamic global environment today. 

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Amid all of our news about celebrity breakdowns, market fluctuations, and apocalypse predictions, there is occasionally a moment in which the ultimate secrets of the universe grace a headline. Of course, those things are complicated, not nearly as digestible as Lindsey Lohan’s latest stint in rehab. However, these developments are the kind that change human understanding of the world. For that reason, and although I’m a shallow swimmer in the deep end of the intellectual pool, I’m going to attempt to explain why this Higgs Boson “God particle” is such a big deal.
On Tuesday, The European Organization for Nuclear Research hosted a conference in which two different teams of scientists announced they have reason to believe that the Higgs Boson particle may actually exist. The Higgs Boson is actually a theoretical particle, a kind of quantum Rosetta Stone that would allow scientists to definitively explain why anything actually has mass, and gravity, two essential aspects in the field of physics. It would also put to rest a theory 50 years in the making because the Higgs Boson was originally hypothesized by Peter Higgs, of the University of Edinburgh, in 1960.
The “God particle” is important because it is the essential mass-creating particle that supposedly existed immediately after the big bang, the theoretical “birth” of the universe. Michael Lemonick, of TIME magazine, explains it this way.
“Suffice it to say that there’s a sort of energy field that pervades the universe, and that when particles like protons, neutrons, quarks and the rest interact with the Higgs field, they’re rewarded with mass. The Higgs boson helps broker the transaction.”
The CERN conference, which took place in Geneva, was partly to reveal the results of recent experiments in the Large Hadron Collider, the massive particle collider built beneath Switzerland. The LHC was designed to smash particles together in a micro-recreation of the Big Bang. Within that collision there is immense power, and the Higgs Boson particle should be created. However, the nature of the particle’s existence means that it quickly is absorbed into other particles and so can not be directly observed. However, Higgs Boson is not unique in this respect, and separating the God particle from all of the other quickly decaying particles can be an immense job for such a split-second reaction.
However, CERN scientists assure that there is evidence from both of the experimental reactions that the Higgs Boson was present. Of course, both are also quick to point out that this is nothing conclusive, simply a step on the journey to unraveling one small aspect of our universe’s beginning that has huge implications.

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As Douglas Adams writes in his popularly hilarious sci-fi farce, The Hitchhikes Guide to the Galaxy, “Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is.” In fact, space is so big that astronomers are forced to use words like “supermassive”. That is exactly the word used to describe two recently discovered black holes so large that they shatter previously held records. Ready for the “mindboggling” part? The smaller of the two is roughly large enough to fit 9.7 billion suns inside.
Black holes are areas that were only postulated about in the days of Albert Einstein a half century ago. In the subsequent decades astronomers and astrophysicists have located hundreds of these gravitational abysses. Simply described, they’re pockets of gravity so intensely powerful that they even swallow light that comes within their area of effect, giving them their characteristically “black” appearance. However, the two newest black holes that have been discovered are so immensely large and destructive that they’ve been given the head-scratching title “super massive”.
The first black hole, the one roughly the size of 9.7 billion suns, was located in a galaxy called NG3842. The larger of the two, found in NGC 4889, has the solar mass of 21 billion suns and sits in the middle of a galaxy 300 million light-years away.  By comparison, the black hole in the middle of our own Milky Way galaxy has a solar mass of some 300 million suns. Harvard theorist Avi Loeb stated in Nature magazine that, “If we infer the existence of quasar black holes of ten billion solar masses at early cosmic times, we’d better find their counterparts in the present-day Universe.” In other words, scientists were expecting to eventually find these cosmic monsters.
Quasars are essentially black holes so large, and the amount of mass so that they’re “sucking” in so vast, that when it is suddenly crushed together in the black hole it sends out a massively bright burst of energetic light across the cosmos. Anything capable of doing this would have to be huge, or “super massive”. One could think of the recently discovered black holes as “Qasar-capable”. At the beginning of the universe there was plenty of gas and floating mass to power Qasar’s brilliant flashes of light. However, as the universe has expanded there is less to power them, but the black holes that create them should, theoretically still be floating out there somewhere. As it turns out, it isn’t theoretical anymore.

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Astronomers have spent a lifetime chasing the holy grail according to Michio Kaku, the author of the New York Times best-selling book Physics of the Future. On December 5, 2011, the Kepler space mission discovered an extrasolar planet that has been referred to as Earth’s twin in the media. This planet is also in the Goldilocks zone as it orbits its host star.

Kepler-22b is the name of the planet and it is yet to be determined whether it is a rocky planet or a water world. Moreover, it may be almost exactly like the Earth but there has to be some more estimations that have to be made regarding certain things like cloud cover before astronomers can arrive at this conclusion. NASA has already found that this planet is two and half times the size of the Earth and has an orbital period of about 290 days and is closer to its star than Earth is to our sun.
This finding is a breakthrough because it confirms the idea that there are extrasolar planets similar in size to the Earth that orbit their host stars in the habitable zone. This pretty much means that the chances of extraterrestrial life go up greatly. Another observation of the Kepler-22 system that is very interesting is the fact that the star is similar to our sun.
Since Kepler-22b is a shorter distance from its star and there is a lower stellar luminosity detected, the planet could have a moderate surface temperature. In the presence of an atmosphere and one that provides a greenhouse effect comparable to how it is on the Earth, scientists have estimated that the planet would have an average surface temperature of 72 °F which is actually very nice!
Sometimes I wish I was born a thousand years later or even ten thousand years later because I would love to see the advances made by mankind!

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A lot of UFO sightings and alien abductions happen in Arizona. Maybe it’s because the clear, unobstructed skies over Arizona make it easier to see UFO’s, or because of our close proximity to Area 51 and Roswell, New Mexico, or maybe it’s because the red rocks of Sedona and elsewhere in the state are said to have mystical powers. Whatever the reason, space aliens love Arizona and its inhabitants.

“Fire In The Sky” is a 1993 movie based on a true story by Travis Walton. On November 5, 1975 in the town of Snowflake, Arizona, Travis and several of his buddies were working to complete a government logging contract in the White Mountains near Snowflake. That night, as Travis and his buddies are heading home from work, they see the bright light of a UFO, which they first mistake as a fire. Travis gets out of their truck to investigate, and his friends watch in awe as he is taken aboard the alien craft.
Travis’ friends return to town and report what has happened. Of course, no one believes them, and accuses the group of murdering Travis. After five days, Travis is returned. He has no recollection at first of what has happened, but his memories of the abduction and what was done to him return to him over time.
While “Fire In The Sky” doesn’t have the glitz and glamor and special effects of the alien invasion movies of today, it is a surprisingly good, and scary, movie.
“Fire In The Sky” stars D.B. Sweeney as Travis, Robert Patrick as his best friend Mike Rogers, and James Garner as Frank Watters, the law enforcement official who is convinced that the loggers killed Travis and left his body in the woods. Another one of Travis friends, Greg Hayes, is played by Henry Thomas, who had his own encounter with an extra-terrestrial, albeit a fictional character, when he was a young boy, in the movie “E.T.”