Author Archives: Gray Rinehart

Pegasus Carries Student Satellite to Orbit

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Fifteen years ago today — February 25, 1998 — a Pegasus XL rocket launched a student-built satellite to track variations in nitric oxide pollutants in the atmosphere.


(Student Nitric Oxide Explorer integrated on the Pegasus launch vehicle. University of Colorado LASP image.)

The Student Nitric Oxide Explorer (SNOE) was built by University of Colorado students, under a program managed by the Universities Space Research Association.

Flying out of Vandenberg AFB, the Pegasus XL was dropped from its L-1011 carrier aircraft and propelled SNOE and the Broadband Advanced Technology Satellite (also known as BATSAT and later as Teledesic 1) into orbit.

The SNOE mission lasted nearly 6 years; the satellite de-orbited in December 2003. You can learn more about SNOE at this University of Colorado Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics page .

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Japanese X-Ray Telescope, and a Satellite’s Destruction

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Twenty years ago today — February 20, 1993 — Japan launched the Asuka x-ray observatory from Uchinoura Space Center atop an M-3SII rocket.


(Representation of Asuka satellite. JAXA image.)

Asuka, also known as ASTRO-D before launch and ASCA afterward, was a joint mission in which NASA and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology both provided spacecraft components in exchange for observation time with the orbiting telescope. The spacecraft operated normally for over seven years; however,

A solar flare on 14 July 2000 caused heating and expansion of the upper atmosphere, which increased the drag and external torque on ASCA. The attitude was perturbed, so the solar panels lost lock on the Sun, resulting in discharge of the batteries. ASCA reentered the atmosphere on March 2, 2001.

This date in space history is also marked by another satellite’s destruction, but this time it was deliberate: 5 years ago today, the guided-missile-cruiser USS Lake Erie launched a missile to intercept a disabled reconnaissance satellite. You can read contemporary news reports at Spy Satellite’s Downing Shows a New U.S. Weapon Capability and Navy says missile smashed wayward satellite.

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Are We Missing the Point on Artificial Intelligence?

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Read an interesting article yesterday about Duke University neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis, who takes issue with science fiction author Vernor Vinge and futurist Ray Kurzweil’s famous Singularity: that point at which computer intelligence emerges and outstrips human intelligence, which has been a staple of science fiction for years.

Robot
(“Robot,” by ewen and donabel, from Flickr under Creative Commons.)

The viewpoint article, “The Brain is Not Computable”, introduces Nicolelis and his new book on the brain and human thought. As opposed to Kurzweil, et al, who foresee artificial intelligence being developed in the next few decades as computers grow ever more powerful, Nicolelis posits that the functions of the human brain — including random and unpredictable interactions among its myriad neurons — will not be replicated inside a machine.

That reminded me of a conversation I had during a panel discussion at a science fiction and fantasy convention many years ago,* in which I expressed my own doubts about artificial intelligence. I’m dubious of its appearance any time soon, not from the perspective of computer science but from that of Theory of Knowledge.

Specifically, the emergence of true AI would seem to require the computer (or network of computers) to transcend its own programming. We have seen tremendous performances by machines as repositories of quickly-accessible data — the “Watson” computer that competed so well at Jeopardy! was such a machine, capable of parsing the answer and finding the components of the most likely question. But as I understand it, Watson was still following instructions: still performing tasks it had been programmed to perform.

I contend that machines such as Watson are at the lowest end of what I think of as the chain of intelligence: Data are interpreted into Knowledge, and Knowledge is applied and refined into Wisdom.

A true AI — or, if you will, an intelligent artifice — will have to be much more than a sophisticated data-mining tool. For it to adhere to Theory of Knowledge, it will have to be able to form concepts based on the data presented to it; to convey knowledge those concepts will have to be predictive in nature, and the artifice will have to test those predictions against reality and, if needed, modify and continue to test them. Once it can rely on the accuracy of its predictions enough to carry out independent,** routine tasks without recourse to intervention by its programmers, we might consider it intelligent — but as its intelligence is tried in the fire of reality, will that artifice develop anything approaching wisdom?

Will such a device — artificial, independent, and intelligent — be developed in our lifetimes, and will it approach (let alone surpass) the functions of the human brain? I’m aware of the danger of saying anything will never happen, so I won’t say no … but I doubt it.

The cyberneticists are welcome to prove me wrong.

___
*TriNoCon, perhaps? NASFiC? I don’t remember … and that bothers me.
**Which brings up another thorny issue with respect to any artifice: from whence shall it develop the will to act independently?

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Galleys for Asimov’s, Nebula Nominations, and MystiCon Schedule

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Nothing like news of a meteor strike to put the day in perspective, eh? No matter how busy you are today, or what you happen to be going through, I hope you can take some time to enjoy yourself … but keep watching the skies!

As for me, today I need to review the galleys for my novelette, “What is a Warrior Without His Wounds?” and send any changes back to the good folks at Asimov’s Science Fiction. The story is scheduled to appear in their July issue. (As an aside, I’m thinking of donating my payment for the story to the Wounded Warrior Project. Do you think that would be appropriate?)

Asimov's Science Fiction

 

Today is also the LAST DAY to nominate for the Nebula Awards, so I need to do that, too. Over the past few weeks I’ve read a LOT of terrific short fiction, which makes it hard to decide what to nominate. Guess I’d better get to it.

Nebula Award Logo

 

Finally, in the “upcoming events” category, next week I’ll be at MystiCon in Roanoke, Virginia, where I will play a concert (yes, really), moderate some panels, and generally make a nuisance of myself. My schedule looks like this:

Friday, 22 February

  • 5 p.m., A Musical Hour with Gray Rinehart
  • 6 p.m., Writing Space Battles (I’m moderating this panel)
  • 10 p.m., Koffee Klatch … Reading with Peter Prellwitz

Saturday, 23 February

  • 1 p.m., Grasping for the Stars (moderator)
  • 2 p.m., How Military Technology is Catching Up with Military SF Tech (again, moderator)
  • 4 p.m., The Baen Traveling Road Show
  • 8 p.m., Remembering Uncle Orson’s Literary Boot Camp

Sunday, 24 February

  • 9 a.m., Worship Service
  • 12 p.m., No Shirt, No Shoes, No Entry — Business Etiquette

So, as long as we don’t get smashed by rocks falling from space, it should be a good time!

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Testing Arthur C. Clarke’s Satellite Idea: Syncom 1

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The blessing of Saint Valentine be upon you and yours! Now, on to space history …

Fifty years ago today — February 14, 1963 — a Thor Delta rocket out of Cape Canaveral launched Syncom 1, the first attempt to test Arthur C. Clarke’s idea about global communications from synchronous orbit.

Syncom 1. NASA image.

(Syncom 1. NASA image.)

 

Syncom 1 (short for “synchronous communications”) was intended to go into the 24-hour orbit proposed by Clarke to be used for relay satellites. It was expected to have an approximately 30-degree orbital inclination, and initial contact with the satellite was made while it was in its initial elliptical orbit; however,

About 5 hours after launch the apogee motor was commanded to fire to place the satellite into a near-synchronous orbit. At about the time the motor completed its 20 second burn all contact was lost. NASA officials assumed that “the satellite’s spin axis was misaligned at the time of the apogee motor firing. Because of this they have been unable to determine whether the satellite is damaged.” Attempts were made to communicate with the spacecraft but contact was never re-established.

The first truly geosynchronous communications tests would have to wait a few more months.

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This is My New Blog …

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Sort of the same as my old blog: Same name, same posts (transferred from the old one), but new software.

The main reason for the switch is the demise of the Space Warfare Forum; without that, there’s no reason to keep forum software running and to use its somewhat clunky blog interface. I suppose I could keep both going, but I can’t think of a good reason. (Anybody got one?) My hope is that keeping this new blog up and working will be a little less labor-intensive than the other.

Still working some of the kinks out — cleaning up the old posts that didn’t transfer quite right, figuring out what features to include and how to get all the little things to work — but even slow progress is progress. Not sure when re-directs will be in place.

So, for now, here it is.

Your thoughts?

GR-closeup-08

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Naval Communications and Surveillance

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Two separate launches on this date in space history, five years apart. First, 35 years ago today — February 9, 1978 — an Atlas-Centaur launched from Cape Canaveral carrying FLTSATCOM 1 (Fleet Satellite Communications One).

FLTSATCOM satellite. USAF image from Wikimedia Commons.
(FLTSATCOM satellite. USAF image from Wikimedia Commons.)

The FLTSATCOM system provided world-wide UHF communications for aircraft, ships, and submarines, with shore-to-fleet broadcast and beyond-line-of-sight capability. A few of its channels were used for emergency action messages and other communications with Strategic Air Command aircraft, the E-3A airborne warning and control (AWACS) aircraft, and so forth.

Five years later, on this date in 1983, an Atlas F launch vehicle out of Vandenberg AFB carried the latest Navy Ocean Surveillance Satellite (NOSS) to orbit. According to the National Space Science Data Center page,

It placed a cluster of one primary satellite and three smaller sub-satellites (that trailed along at distances of several hundred kilometers) into low polar orbit. This satellite array determined the location of radio and radars transmitters, using triangulation, and the identity of naval units, by analysis of the operating frequencies and transmission patterns.

The Space Review published an overview of the NOSS system in 2009, and this 2004 article notes that the formation-flying system may have been responsible for a number of UFO sightings. According to this recent Florida Today article, “None of the U.S. NOSS triplets remain in formation,” and the similar Chinese Yaogan 9A, 9B and 9C satellites “are the only intact example in orbit today.”

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Columbus Rides Atlantis to Orbit

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Five years ago today — February 7, 2008 — the Space Shuttle Atlantis launched from the Kennedy Space Center on a mission to the International Space Station.

A view of the Columbus laboratory (top right) from STS 122, after the shuttle undocked from the ISS. NASA image.

STS 122  astronauts Stanley G. Love, Stephen N. Frick, Alan G. Poindexter, Leland D. Melvin, and Rex J. Walheim, with European Space Agency astronauts Hans Schlegel and Leopold Eyharts, spent almost two weeks in space. They installed the ESA’s Columbus laboratory on the ISS, along with several other pieces of equipment.

When they departed the space station, Eyharts stayed behind as the Flight Engineer while US astronaut Daniel Tani returned to Earth on the shuttle.

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The First U.S. Satellite: Explorer 1

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Fifty-five years ago today — January 31, 1958 — a Jupiter C launch vehicle carried the first successful U.S. satellite into orbit from Cape Canaveral.


(Explorer 1. NASA image.)

Explorer 1 launched late in the day — at 10:48 p.m. EST, or 03:48 Universal Time on February 1st — and was actually the Jupiter C rocket’s fourth stage. The rocket itself was a combination of a Redstone rocket that was the Jupiter’s first stage, and three sets of Sergeant solid rocket motors: eleven in the Jupiter’s second stage, three in the third, and one that drove the fourth stage satellite.

Explorer 1 carried a Geiger-Mueller detector to sense cosmic rays, and

was the first spacecraft to successfully detect the durably trapped radiation in the Earth’s magnetosphere, dubbed the Van Allen Radiation Belt (after the principal investigator of the cosmic ray experiment on Explorer 1, James A. Van Allen). Later missions (in both the Explorer and Pioneer series) were to expand on the knowledge and extent of these zones of radiation and were the foundation of modern magnetospheric studies.

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Two Launches, for Ultraviolet and Infrared Astronomy

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Two satellite observatories launched on this date in space history, both boosted by Delta rockets, both international in scope, to look at opposite ends of the spectrum.

First, 35 years ago today — January 26, 1978 — Explorer 57, also known as the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE), was launched out of Cape Canaveral. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center built the satellite and its optical instrumentation, Britain’s Science Engineering Research Council provided television cameras, and the European Space Agency provided the solar panel paddles as well as a European control center.


(IRAS. NASA image.)

Five years later, on January 26, 1983, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) (pictured above) launched from Vandenberg AFB. A joint mission between the US, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, this mission completed a full-sky survey that detected nearly 350,000 infrared sources and revealed the core of our Milky Way galaxy.

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