First Year Seminar
sections 2 & 11
Our Future in Space?
Fall 2009
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First Year Seminar Our Future in Space? Fall 2009 |
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News ( 23-Nov-2009 2:45 PM ): Into meteor showers? The last potentially "good one" of the year is the Geminids, on the night of Dec 13/14. Same deal as the Leonids: 2 am +/- a couple hours is the peak time. I've seen predictions anywhere from 50-100 per hour. Not really our future in space, but fun: hedgehog launch, or on a more serious note - what about launching nuclear waste into space to get rid of it? Not enough profanity in your FYS reading? Here's the antidote. (And it's pretty interesting, actually. Monstrous cannons, nuclear bomb-propelled space ships, interstellar travel....) Someone asked about the fate of weather balloons: apparently they keep climbing and expanding until they pop/disintegrate. |
Course Resources |
Interesting and/or Relevant Links |
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Syllabus (PDF) |
short explanation of where gravity comes from (maybe). |
Scale of the universe cartoon |
Calendar (PDF) |
readable site on lunar mining possibilities, including tables & charts showing resources we could get from the moon. |
Maddening interactive orbit simulator: try to rendezvous! |
Kristin's office hours: This chart hangs on the bulletin board outside my office, where you can sign up for time. |
What will we eat in our space colony? Quorn? Sheet meat? |
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Voyager satellites: now leaving the solar system carrying our message |
Return to the Moon: telescope site, lava tube cave dwelling |
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historical highlights of stuff falling out of orbit |
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get help with your projects at the writing room |
Sippy cups in space |
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books you can borrow from me |
Ken's Lunar Library: an extensive reference list of all kinds of media with a connection to getting into space and/or onto the moon. | e-book: Lunar Bases & Space Activities of the 21st Century (NASA, 1984) |
| A compilation of documents available on the web on topics including lunar missions, skylab, space shuttle, ISS, soviet/russian missions, X-plane, unmanned missions & launch vehicles. | Is teleportation possible? DARPA investigates. |
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The Impact of Space on Society, L.A. Fisk U of MI, an invited review talk at the COSPAR General Assembly '08. Or Terraforming and the Coming Charm Industries, F. Turner @ UT - Austin. |
A timeline of W von Braun's life |
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An interesting artistic take on visions of the future based on detritus of the past. |
All about radiation in space:
An introductory article on radiation issues for Moon, Mars & ISS: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_dangers_040120.html Difference between "acute" and "chronic" radiation sickness, and dosages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_poisoning http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7142 : The most extreme solar flares are sufficient to cause severe radiation sickness/poisoning and potentially death to astronauts when shielded by "a few cm of aluminum." And here's one ( http://www.nsbri.org/Radiation/HumanAffects.html ) that starts by talking about humans, but concludes with a paragraph about radiation "sickness" in computers. Apparently the Space Shuttle "has 4 computers which vote on each action before making a decision" to deal with this! |
Can we survive on the Moon? article about the underappreciated hazard of lunar dust. |
article about solar sails, and links to lots of other interesting Project II-type articles |
Various Space Law sites: National Geographic: Who Owns the Moon? wikipedia entry for the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space The International Institute of Space Law 1967 Outer Space Treaty (U.N.) |
Motion sickness in space - how common & how severe? |
Want to see biodomes "in action"? Here are some in England. |
Want to know more about mining He-3 on the moon? Wikepedia to the rescue. It gets dense at times, but just skim through those bits - there's some good stuff in here! Or here's a more readable but less detailed web article specifically about the movie. And here's another article in the same vein. |
Will interstellar travel ever become a reality? Read the wiki, then see What other people think. (Read some of the comments, too.) |
Interested in the problem of closed, synthetic ecosystems? Get an overview, then read about Biosphere 2. Want more? The Melissa project is ongoing & specific to space travel. |
Paul Birch's ideas, including: radiation shields for ships & settlements, is FTL travel causally possible?, supramundane planets (gas giants encased in a hard candy shell), terraforming Venus & Mars, how to spin/move a planet, orbiting ring systems & jacob's ladders (similar to space elevators). | black holes as FTL transportation "not ruled out" |
