Radioactive

MORNING MEANDER: Another lovely, sunny day in Seattle. I can't remember a nicer May in the 7-ish years we've lived here. This a.m. we took to the kayak canal, as I call it - the calm waters between the Ballard and Fremont bridges. 

The kids were on scooters, while I was being dragged by two Havanese. The path was busy, with locals out enjoying the weather and scenery. 

DEAD STARS: No, I'm not talking about Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain or even Elvis. I'm talking about you. You (and I) are dead stars, for real. 

Neil deGrasse Tyson has talked about it on Cosmos, and today we watched a short video featuring NASA astronomer Dr. Michelle Thaller explaining how the iron in our blood connects us all to a universal supernova explosion. A link to it is here: http://youtu.be/UUo-Q8hhvB0, or watch an embedded version here:
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The video is a collaboration between The Atlantic and SoundVision Productions' The Really Big Questions. You can hear TRBQ's one-hour radio special "What is a Good Death?" distributed by Public Radio International online at http://trbq.org/topics/death/. 

RESURRECTION?: An interesting experiment is underway right now. A small group is trying to bring a 1970s-era NASA satellite back to life in an effort called the ISEE-3 Reboot Project.

The International Sun-Earth Explorer 3 probe, or ISEE-3, was launched on August 12, 1978. Here it is in a clean room at the Goddard Space Flight Center, pre-launch.

Weighing 1,032 pounds (469 kg), the 16-sided polyhedron was initially used to study solar wind. Later, it was repurposed as a comet chaser, and its name changed to ICE (International Cometary Explorer). Check out its wild flight path!

The spacecraft ceased science operations in 1997, and engineers have lost the ability to command it to perform science. However, ISEE-3 Reboot Project members think they can bring it back to life. Right now, they're in Puerto Rico at the Aricebo telescope, and have picked up its signal. 

Why bother trying to reawaken a sleeping space probe? If the team can successfully return ISEE-3 to its original Earth/Sun Lagrange point L1 orbit, it will be used for STEM education, solar science, and more, according to Dennis Wingo of the reboot team. (Wingo has authored a great essay all about the project and it's posted here: 
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/25/the-international-sun-earth-explorer-isee-3-reboot-project-bringing-an-old-bird-back-to-the-earth-and-back-to-life/ )

The goal of the ISEE Reboot Project is to return ISEE-3 to its original Earth/Sun Lagrange point L1 orbit. Once safely back in orbit, it will be an open source, publicly accessible satellite data stream used for STEM education, amateur radio solar predictions, science about the sun and more.
The Reboot team has known for awhile now that the two transmitters aboard the craft are operational, but they're not sending telemetry. However, by poring over old ISEE-3 documentation, they've come up with a set of commands they hope will change that, and in Arecibo, they'll transmit those commands. (There is not a computer on board the craft, so they will be attempting to directly commanding its various subsystems.) They plan on having a ground transmission station at Morehead State University in Kentucky. The Reboot Project has raised over $135,000 in a crowdfunding campaign to finance their efforts.

We will follow their attempts on the project's blog: http://spacecollege.org/isee3/

MUSIC AND MAYHEM: Longtime readers already know that MPA has a thing for Pink Floyd music, so much so that we traveled to London last September to see Roger Waters and Co. perform "The Wall." 

Recently, Pink Floyd has dropped hints about something big happening today. They posted an absolutely haunting video of their song "Marooned" from their 1994 album "The Division Bell" with footage shot on and around the ISS, as well as abandoned buildings. 

As soon as I saw the shells of the buildings, I said to the kids, "That's Chernobyl." At that point, I realized (to my surprise) neither one of them had heard of Chernobyl before. And so, that immediately became topic du jour. One of the benefits of our educational model. :)

And so, they learned about how a bungled experiment created a sudden power surge, leading to a series of blasts which blew the 1,000-ton steel top off one of Chernobyl's four reactors. That allowed for a lethal cloud of radioactive material to spread, not just over the local area, but over large parts of Europe - with no warning, as officials tried to cover it up. The radiation that escaped into the atmosphere was equivalent to many times that produced by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Millions of acres of forest and farmland were compromised in the worst nuclear disaster in history.

We watched a slideshow on History.com, "Remembering Chernobyl" (http://www.history.com/news/slideshow-remembering-chernobyl).

We also watched a two minute travelogue about modern day Chernobly tours. http://www.travelchannel.com/video/chernobyl-tour. Afterward, we decided unanimously it would *NOT* be our next family vacation.
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TO DO LIST:  A fun build project popped up in my Facebook feed today. It was a video showing how to turn a smartphone with a camera into a digital microscope for about $10. It's pretty straightforward and would be fun to try. Definitely on our 'to do' list for this summer. 

Step-by-step instructions are available on the Instructables Web site: http://www.instructables.com/id/10-Smartphone-to-digital-microscope-conversion/, or you can watch the YouTube video: 
http://youtu.be/KpMTkr_aiYU
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LIFE COULD BE A DREAM: We finished up Week 1 of our . Lectures we listened today included the evolution of regional radio in the 1950s, the origins of Doo Wop, the Hokum Blues and gospel influences crossing over into secular music. Professor Covach also explained how Alan Freed's radio show was a barrier breaker. Although it was intended primarily for black, urban listeners, when the station would put an event, white teenagers, who were also listening (largely out of their parents' earshot!) would also show up. 

After the lectures we listened to The Chords sing "Sh 'Boom" (Doo Wop) and Ray Charles sing "I Got a Woman" (gospel). Great stuff!