From The Earth To The Moon

From The Earth To The Moon

Let’s begin from the beginning:

This speech started the decade long race to the moon between the Americans and the Soviet Union. The series deals with the American program which started with the Mercury program, then Gemini and finally Apollo. This series was produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg after they made Apollo 13 which was about the failed mission to the moon but a successful return of three astronauts. They also did a similar thing after Saving Private Ryan came out with Band of Brothers, both really recommended. The set that I have is 5 DVD set, the first 4 have 3 episodes each and the final one is a special features DVD including a behind the scenes feature. In the feature there are interviews of the technical experts, Dave Scott, Gemini and Apollo astronaut, Jim Lovell Gemini and Apollo astronaut, been in space 4 times, twice to orbit the moon (I think there some frequent flyer programs that were glad they weren’t around then,) and Gunter Wendt Launch Pad leader during the Apollo program. Plus Tom Hanks is some what of an expert because he has built things like the back packs that the astronauts used. Also a lot of the props in the series were the actual things used during the space race. The simulators, control panels and manuals were the ones used by the astronauts. The detail in the modules were so exact that the astronauts remembered them in the same spot as when they were doing it 50 years ago. Also the actors contacted the astronauts they portrayed often and there was a story that one astronaut asked the actor over so dinner the first time that episode aired.

 

During the interviews you hear several stories about where some of the actors were during the landing like Bryan Cranston who was in store by a bank of TV’s at the time saw everyone stop everything thing they were doing at the time. Or Gunter saying he thought about being stow-away in one of the missions and saying, “What are they going to do when get back fire you.” Their are the actors telling of stories of how they tried to be astronauts, like Cranston saying he jump off the roof of his house with a parachute. Or another actor who as a kid built a cardboard rocketship and slide it down the staircase of his house (I would imagine a lot stuff like this going in the ’70’s). Dave Foley who plays Alan Bean, says he saw as not only just the Americans but humans as a species going to the moon.

 

The rest of disk 5 has the trailers for the TV series, the above speech and several things like a history of the moon, the astronauts and a few other features.

 

It has been 47 years since there has been a human on the moon but it looks like there a new race to the moon. The new race is between the Americans (with the Canadians and other partners), the Chinese, the Indians and maybe the forming space agency in Africa. Maybe this is what we need to drive interest in going to space is some competition. Hopefully this will be a friendly competition to the Moon and to the rest of space, there is plenty of it out there, I hear new space is being created each day.

 

Advertisements

The Elegant Universe

By Brian Greene

(This a partial write-up on the book so far hopefully have the full review by early next week. I’ve really better back on schedule. )

The book is about why and string theory came about. The why is there was a conflict between relativity and quantum mechanics, well the two theories of relativity special and general relativity. Special relativity deals with things as their velocity approaches the light. Imagine that in a totally dark region of space there is you and an object in the far distance, like a cube. Now one you is suddenly travelling toward each other at a constant velocity. Now since you don’t have any reference points to compare your motion to. As you pass each other you notice that the length of the cube has shrink and from the cube point of view you have shrink in direction of motion. Now to measure the amount of time has passed you make a simple clock. You have two mirrors with the reflecting surfaces facing each other and you drill a hole for a laser and a receiver. You shine the laser and one trip from the laser to the other mirror you make that equal to one unit of time. Now when are travelling near the speed of light with the clock travelling with you. You notice instead of going straight up and down the light beam is travelling at an angle and the distance it takes is longer so it each unit of time is longer so the amount of time that passes by is slower. Also as a consequence of this the amount of energy it takes to accelerate things closer to the speed of light gets exponentially higher to the point near the speed of light where there is not enough energy in universe to accelerate the object.

General relativity came about because Einstein who came up with special relativity realized that when an object came into the the influence of a larger objects gravitational field the force would have to travel faster than the speed of light. He realized the fabric of the universe was a four dimensional grid consisting of three spatial dimensions and time. A simplistic way to think about it is to stretch out a rubber sheet of garbage bag out. Now you place something like a bowling ball or a basketball in the center and then roll a smaller object onto the sheet and it will eventually follow a path into the larger object. Now in real life the shape that the objects make is much more complicated because it is in for dimensions and also the smaller object if it has enough velocity it will orbit around the larger object.

Quantum mechanics deals with things on the very small scales and the motions are more based on probability than how things work in macroscopic we are use to. Quantum mechanics actually describes 3 out 4 forces in nature these are electromagnetic, weak and strong force. These forces have particle that transmit the force between particles. The photon or light particle has no mass and transmits the electromagnetic force. The weak force and transmitted by the gauge bosons and they have a mass, this keeps the atoms together. Finally there is the strong force which keeps particles called quarks together using particles called gluons.

One thing that started the journey into the quantum world was black body radiation. A black body is a perfect absorber and emitter of radiation. One example I am very use to is an old fashioned wood fuelled kitchen stove. In the firebox portion of the stove you start and build a fire, the metal shell of the stove absorbs the radiation on the inside of the stove and emits the radiation in the form of heat into the room. In most of these stoves you have an oven which is an empty space that is closed off and if take out all the air in the oven the only way energy is transmitted is by radiative heating. When physicist originally did the calculation on the system there would be an infinite amount of energy in the system. They eventually found that no matter the wavelength they all had the same amount of energy. Max Planck made a guess that the energy came in clumps. If the wavelength of a wave had little energy in each wave then there were more waves then waves with more energy. If the wave had to much energy than that wave was not in the system. In space objects like asteroids, comets, planets and moons absorb radiation form the nearby star and emits it back into space.

Another experiment that led to the discovery of quantum mechanics was the photoelectric effect. If you set up an simple circuit with a lamp hooked to a battery and on one wire to the lamp you cut the circuit and attach part of the wire to each plate and place the plates facing each other. No you shine a light with a filter on it, so you only get on wavelength like red coming out, you notice the light bulb does not come on, you try different filters until you get the light bulb to shine. It did not matter how bright the light shinning on the plate it only depended on the wavelength. Why is it certain only wavelengths turned on the bulb. Einstein figured that you needed a certain amount of energy to allow an electron to leave the plate and it was dependent on the wavelength of the light.

A third experiment that started to shine a light on the quantum realm was Youngs double slit experiment. You just need a light source, a screen with at least two slots in it that you block the slots and a detector (a wall can be used). You set up the experiment with the light source one side of the screen and the detector on the other. First you open one slot and shine the light and you notice a band of light in front where the slot was on the screen. Then you close the slot and open the other and you notice something similar on the other side. Then you open both slots and notice there are more than two bands. What is interesting is if can just send pulses of light you notice spots on the detector than you see a pattern starting to appear, it is the same as you let in all the light in at once. So there was no way to predict exactly where each particle would fall at each moment.

The conflict arose you have quantum mechanics that seems to work on small particles with discrete amount of energy that you couldn’t really predict with certainly where they would go but you could predict within a certain probability of where they would land. On the other hand you had large objects that seem to attract each other depending how much they warped spacetime.

(sorry that is all for now.)

Big Announcement for Canadian Space Agency

 

This morning Justin Trudeau announced that the Canadian Space will receive at least 2 billion dollars over 24 years. This is mostly for helping to build the Lunar Gateway a new spaceship/ station that will orbit around the moon. Canada’s biggest contribution to the space station will building a robotic arm, Canada has built robotic arms for the space shuttle and the International Space Station, so building one for the Gateway seems logical. The main difference about this arm is that will be programmed to be more autonomous because at times the station will be on the other side of the moon and the station will not be manned full time but as as needed basis. The station will have labs, living quarters and act as an office for astronauts. It will be much smaller than the ISS, it will only take 5-6 missions starting in 2022 and hopefully be done by 2016, the ISS took over 30 missions to build. This will act as a base for exploring the moon and as jumping off point for missions to the moon.

To Be a SkyScholar or Not

This will probably be part of any review of Dr. R.M Robitaille but stop with the waving finger we are not pets that made a mess on the carpet or a little kid that has done something wrong. Plus this is not scientific argument it is just condescending to the viewers.

 

In this video he starts with a flask with a gas in it which is released into a locker, then into a room and so on. Then he jumps to gravitational collapse then to potential energy and kinetic energy, then to how this violates 0^th, 1^st and 2 ^nd laws of thermodynanics so this means that stars are made from condense matter.

 

Let us go back to the beginning just after the energy released from the big bang cools down enough for matter to form, Most of the matter was hydrogen, some helium and lithium. There are pockets of slightly higher density, more and more matter is attracted to these clumps. These particles have motion and depending on the sum of the motion of the particles will determine which way the cloud will stop spinning. Because there is a mass of objects there is gravity.. The density at the center of the cloud becomes more and more dense as more particles are drawn. Eventually there is pressure forcing particles in the center closer and closer together, then the hydrogen atoms fuse together and become helium. This goes on for millions of years depending on the mass until the hydrogen is used up then helium is consumed in the center until it runs out. Depending on the mass of the stars it will keep going until it hits iron then no matter how massive the star does not have enough energy to squeeze iron into anything else. The star will explode and in the explosion will create the heavier elements. Smaller stars like our own will just puff out there outer shells into space. These first stars are called Population II stars because they were found later than Population I stars.

 

The debris after the explosion is what is called a nebula, it is giant cloud of dust and gas that expands and expands outwards. By this time there are other stars and probably even galaxies which are collections of stars. The stars will be emit a steady stream of particles, form our sun it is called a solar wind. The expanding nebula keeps pushing outwards but will meet resistance when it encounters the stellar winds from other stars, also the light from the stars will push back the gas in the nebula. Either a blast from another star, collision of gas clouds or currents in the nebula, stars will start to form. These are what are called Population I stars(theses were found first because the stars around the Sun are of this type.) these stars have more metals in them (metals are elements heavier then hydrogen, helium and lithium in astronomy). These stars are were planets will form because the form planets you need the heavier elements.

 

One of Dr. Robitaille claims is that the 0^th , this law states if you have three systems A,B and C, and A=B and B=C so A=C, then goes off about intensive and extensive properties. Intensive properties are things like temperature, color and other properties that doe not change by how much stuff is in the system or if stuff is added to the system but if work is down to the system temperature can change to the the system, since there is work being done this is not violated. Extensive properties are like mass and volume and are change by adding more mass to the system. This will come up time and time again. Then he says the first law of thermodynamics is violated, the first law states energy cannot be created or destroyed but energy can be converted from one from to another or matter can be converted into energy. Since energy is converted form kinetic to potential energy then into nuclear and chemical energy this law is not violated. Then he goes the second law which states that entropy or disorder in a closed system must increase, since the universe started from a single point and eventually expand into infinity this law is not being violated, so all his claims of the laws of thermodynamics being violated are not valid. Also he claims that photons from a dust cloud collapsing can not be detected outside the cloud which is wrong. We detect these photons in the radio spectrum all the time in globules such as in the pillars of creation and other star forming regions

 

Cargo Cult Science vs. “Scientism”

 

 

 

In the epilogue of Richard Feynmans autobiography Classic Feynman he discusses what he calls Cargo Cult Science (CCS). Cargo Cults came about during and after WWII on islands in the Pacific Ocean. Americans would build landing strips on remote islands, drop cargo on islands or crash on some of these islands. On some islands the natives would build land strips and make mock ups of the other structures and stuff that they saw at these airstrips. They thought they could get more of the stuff the Americans were leaving behind by simulating what they Americans were doing. The problem was the radios didn’t send any messages or the air traffic controllers just looked the part but were just made out of scrap material found the island. Some pseudo-scientists are like this, they will use the words of science like quantum, have experiments that look legit or use equations that look on the up and up. The problem with their experiments is that are poorly done like sticking a cup of water in front of a window and saying the moon is cooling the water. Or they try to disprove a theory by saying on term is extensive vs intensive and not thinking both terms are potential energy and kinetic energy so the should be in the same equation.

 

 

Most pseudo-scientist will claim most scientist are practicing “Scientism”. They claim they are doing real science and actual science is just taking the word of the high priest of science who are using more and more complicated and more expensive equipment. The reason for the more and more complicated equipment is that the scientist are trying to find more and more detail or trying get to either smaller and smaller domains or to see further and further away. The LHC has to be as big as it is to get the particles really close to the speed of light to get enough energy on collision to get the high mass particles they are looking for. The reason why telescopes are getting bigger and bigger is to find dimmer and dimer objects such as planets or galaxies that formed just after the big bang. Often experiments are done over and over to confirm results. A classic example is Millikan oil drop experiment. This experiment was used to find the ration between mass and charge. It is done by placing charged oil drops and having to plates on the top and bottom. A charge is applied to the plates and when the drops stop moving the forces are balanced and the ration between mass and charge can be determined. This experiment had to be done several times to find the correct ratio. Most of pseudo-scientists will do an experiment once or show one photo to prove their point.

More Orphan Red

Yep, she’s back. Another rant that is full of stuff that is not true and does not make sense. The first part of the video show goes on what she says science promised us. Actually a lot of it is what politicians and companies promised us such cities on the moon and what was referred back then as space aged buildings. What we get now is over priced houses and apartments. This mostly has to do with economics, politics and praticality. We did not go back to the moon after the Apollo 17 because the US congress did not want to spend more money on the program because they got the moon before the Soviets and that was they main reason the US went to the moon. The economics of building stuff in space is still very, very costly for the simplest structures. Even on Earth it is very costly to build large buildings to house a lot of people. Also a lot of people do not want to live in large towers with people all around them. Some like living traditional house, some like row house and some people like living on larger pieces of land in a rural area. Plus if you live in a city where a lot people want to live your rent and mortgages will be larger. Then she goes and states that Canada is spending 379 million dollars this year on the international space station. That is false it is 379 million over 8 years which is 47.3 million a year out of a total federal budget of 558 billion dollars. Then there is we have all these experiments and quotes from the bible, they haven’t moved me or any many people yet just a few. At the end she says she wants to bring on astronomers, cosmologists and other scientist on to her channel to discuss the the problems they see in the globe model. No, no you don’t.

The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe

 

 

A few things first before the review of the book. I have listened to all episodes of the podcast that is over 700 episodes which is over 1000 hours of listening. Also I am least Facebook friends with a couple of the members of the SGU, Evan and Jay, I mostly just send happy birthday messages and are you alright messages if something is going on. I would like to meet them in person someday that is probably unlikely. Also For Perry DeAngelis the late Rogue, “Monkeys rule, birds drool.” Also in this review I will add my own personal experiences.

 

 

Steve lied to me, he said on the podcast that this was going to a graphic novel with pop-ups, just kidding. Steve’s point was that in the past he believed authority figures and what they said as fact but a lot of it was wrong. This an example of argument from authority which people use a title or position as a reason why people should take what they say as fact. Or people just take what some people say as the truth. This is wrong you should verify what they say and just not take their word for it. I have experienced this in my life either as a child when someone who was spreading rumours and gossip about me by saying they knew me better than I knew myself, this happened in college as well. Another time was when I was discussing evolution with a creationist, who happened to have gone to an university in a bigger city and thus he thought he knew better.

 

 

The book is divided up into different sections. The first section is about the tools needed to be skeptic. The second section is about the adventures members of The Skeptics Guide to the Universe had over the years. The third section is about problems with the media presenting science and skeptical issues. The fourth section is how some of the issues dealt with by skeptics can be fatal. And the final section is advice on how to deal with people in real life.

 

 

The first section starts with how the brain can fool you. Such as how people think that memory is a perfect replay of what happen in the past. Most of the time it is full of mistakes or omits details or loses details over time. There have been times when people tried to make think that the memories I had doing certain activities like walking home from school I made up or got it from the TV. The thing is I had many eye witnesses who say me walk home including one of the teachers at the school who was also my neighbour. Pareidolia or seeing patterns that are not there. Hypnagogia this is when you are half asleep and the brain is acceptable to seeing or experiencing things that are not there. An example is when people see aliens in their bedroom or in an alien spaceship. When I was small I thought Santa moved me from one room in my house to another, I probably did it myself while half awake on Christmas Eve.

 

 

There are three other subsections to this section. The second section is on some of faulty lines of thinking that people use to defend their ideas. These include motivated reasoning, logical fallacies,anomaly hunting and other a few others. One example from my own life is the first year at one college I was doing fairly well in the quizzes for the course but the night before the midterm my roommate bugged me to go out partying and the next morning I did poorly on it. The next year I tried to explain this to some people but one really didn’t think it was the case mostly because he liked drinking and partying. He was motivated to reason this way because if partying and bugging people was linked to bad grades, they would probably mean some changes.

 

 

The third subsection of this section deals with where does the line between science and pseudoscience lay and how pseudoscientists abuse the tools of science and use bad evidence to support their claims. In this section p-hacking is described, pseudoscientist will try to get the p-value to the value of 0.05 which is the lowest value to considered credible. Also in this section conspiracy theories are discussed, and witch hunts. Anecdote which is a persons story of what happen, this is often considered a low value form of evidence, it is good to start an investigation but proof that the belief is true. When I worked at a call center we would get prank and nuisance calls all the time, some of the other workers would say it was the full moon. Then I would go “ we get them all the time.” And the response would be well my relative worked at a hospital as a nurse and they get crazies only on the full moon. Probably some confirmation bias and postmodernism thrown in as well.

 

 

The last subsection deals with iconic tales from the past to demonstrate how people allowed themselves and others for various things. The Clever Hans effect came about because someone wanted to prove animals could be trained to demonstrate human like intelligence, but didn’t realize he was giving signals to the horse. Other examples that are giving are pyramid schemes, quantum woo and free energy which often are used to defraud people of their money. Another is cold reading and in this area I have a couple of examples. At one college I attended I spent most of the time in physics society room. This was a place to do work, spend time and some to wait for their ride home. Their was one engineering student who like tarot cards. She offered to do readings for a couple of us on a couple of afternoons. I agreed to do a reading and what I remembered is she dealt the cards. When the cards were down there would be something like death. Death in this context meant change and she would ask is there change coming up in your life. It was a tool to ask the questions for a cold reading. Also when working at the call center one of the co-workers went to psychic fair with a friend. She sat down at one of the booths and psychic asked is there someone in your life whose name starts with an “L”? She said,”Yes, Lance.” The psychic went on about Lance. Lance whole name is Lancealot a poodle.

 

 

The second major section is about each of the rogues individual tells of skepticism. The first story is about Steve’s investigation into GMO’s (Genetically Modified Organism ). These have been changed by modern science to increase crop yields, resistant to diseases or pests like insects. There is resistance to these crops because people think these crops will do damage to them. These crops have been tested over years and nothing has been found to do any harm to people. I would like to add, they anti-gmo crowd have fairly public spoke people like the TV show Bones will make the occasional comment about it. Here in Canada we have David Suzuki who has been a science communicator here who has voiced concerns over GMOs. The second tale is about a Free energy device and is Perry’s tale. These devices claim that you can get more energy out then you put in, which violates the second law of thermodynamics. These schemes come in many forms and still exists, the harm in most cases is the bank account. The third tale is Cara’s tale of all health woo being done in Hollywood from fad diets to the anti-vaxx movement. The next three come Bob, Evan and Jay.(You’ll read to hear those stories)

 

 

The third section deals with science and the media. One issue is false balance, if their is story about that deals with global warning reporters usually have a global warming denier with a climate scientist on giving there views. This makes it look like that both sides are equal while in reality 97 percent of climate scientist view global warming as fact. There is nowadays many sources of news and some are more trustworthy than others. Some go out and fact check while others just make facts up to support their views on what they are reporting on. In science journalism there has been an increase in sensationalism. One example in the book is when a ninth planet has been found in the out solar system, this was a mathematical model, no one has found this planet with a telescope yet. My favourite on is that a study said there is no life in the universe, again a mathematical study with no observational data. One I fall for was that they found the chemical precursors to life was found on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, which wasn’t the case.

 

 

The next to last section deals how pseudoscience can lead to death. Such as Naturopathy which is when people ignore modern medicine or with modern medicine use things like herbs and other natural substances to cure diseases. Or use rituals like exorcism to deal mental health issues, or deny certain diseases exists and most of this leads to death or suffering of some kind.

 

 

Is the book worth the purchase, oh yes. I personally had to travel about 220 kms and wait almost three months because of financial reasons. Steve’s style is informal and informative and also encourages the use of the internet to demonstrate some things. I think this is a good companion to Carl Sagan’s Demon Haunted World, written over 20 years ago. This book is more of how to deal with these situations day to day and Demon Haunted World was Sagan. When it was written there was probably only a few known skeptics. Now we have many more candles in dark such the SGU, mythbusters and other groups all over world. Since I listen the podcast I know they have tried to get a TV show but most of the time TV producers want them to be a token skeptic on a show. The only question I left to ask since this was a guide to the Universe, which way to Wolf 359?

 

Stargate

In a bout of insomnia I started to look thru some old movies to see which one I wanted to watch and found the original Stargate movie. This movie came out about 25 years ago, while I first saw it about then in my college dorms TV room on VHS, yes that dates me a bit. You will notice the old monitors on the computers but that is probably the main thing that dates this movie.

 

The main premise of the movie is based off of Erich Von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods, which came up with the idea that most ancient structures were built by aliens. The ancient aliens of modern times is based off of this as well. The underlying premise that the ancients outside of Europe could not figure things out is insulting to ancient peoples and is racists. The three TV series that spun-off from the movie that go into Atlantis and crystal skulls.

 

The main concept of the movie is that aliens built the pyramids were built by aliens to land there ships on and eventually brought a Stargate to Earth. A Stargate is a round stone and metal ring that creates a wormhole to another Stargate on another planet. This allows people just to walk to other planets. This allowed the aliens to transport humans to other planets for slave labor. The aliens themselves are worm like beings that take over humans. There are some humans that get used as incubators or as hosts for the aliens. The ancient Egyptians overthrow the aliens and buried the Stargate.

 

In 1928 American archaeologists uncover the cover stones and the underlying Stargate. In the 1990’s the American Air Force put the Stargate in the bottom of a missile tube. After a couple of years of study they find an archaeologists who thinks the pyramids were made by aliens. When a probe is travelling it is said it is going to the far side of the Universe were galaxy was probably meant. He is invited to the top secret location and within a couple of weeks he figures out the Stargate. Then they travel to the planet whose address is written on the cover stone. They find a tribe of humans there and free them also the archaeologist falls in love and stays on the planet.

 

As mentioned there were three TV series based off of the movie. The characters of O’Neill and Jackson are brought back, the first series. They fight the Goa’uld to free humans around the galaxy, on the way they make allies, enemies, some that don’t care and explore space and themselves. This series lasted for 10 years and have over 200 episodes. The two series takes part on a city in a far away galaxy on a mostly water planet in a city in an ocean called Atlantis. They other on takes part in the far reaches of the Universe. All are watching and probably one of the best science fiction franchises and that came out of the 90’s. It is probably the most relatable to people who don’t watch science fiction because it is based off of people and institutions of modern times. The most remarkable character in the series is probably Sam Carter, an astrophysicists, officer, pilot and a woman who had lines in the first episode like “just because my reproductive organs are on the inside” and “you wouldn’t believe what we had to Macgyver together..” while looking right Richard Dean Anderson. Generally if you find this on Netflis or similar outlets or on DVD it is worth watching.

‘Twas a night before Christmas (sort of)

 

 ‘Twas the night before Christmas
Dr. Gay was finished her podcast
hopefully getting the funds at last.
Out in Colorado Phil Plait.
was with goats really late.
Fraser was out in BC getting ready for some hangouts.
Then I spied a sleigh pulled by nine Honda fits.
There was Geo and Randi in the front seat.
“Take my seat I’ve gotta get back to the heat.”
Then we took off to the land of Oz.
Then I needed a pause.
We saw Richard and Maynard.
Sunning themselves in the yard.
Then we took off over Asia and the Europe’s other side.
Then we were in the land of Merseyside.
Then we met Alice, Mike and Marsh.
Whose talk on placebo was harsh.
There is also Singh and Cox
who I not going to rhyme.
Then over the Atlantic we could not find the guide
So we listened to some Skeptics guide. (lazy I know)
There was the brothers Novella and Cara talking about reason
while Evan was dreading the upcoming season.
Then over the radio we heard the local science talker.
Form the school I went to Dr. Thacker.
Then I got off near the border.
Because I am not a passport holder.
All I had to say was
“Merry Christmas and good night.”

Things that Don’t Make Sense

First thing to discuss is that mentions that the Thermosphere is 1500 C and she asks “Why don’t the satellites melt?”. The thing is that you need the air to make contact with rocket or satellite to heat up the metal to melt it, the atmosphere in this layer is sparse that there is not enough contact to effect the metal. Also the mesosphere is closer to the Earth than the thermosphere. Also she discusses the temperature of stuff in space by using the day side and night side temperature of the moon, I’ll let her have that but she didn’t do any research into satellites to find out that they have various controls on the temperature to make sure they do not get too hot or cold and generally called TCS or thermal control systems.

 

Then she tries to discuss how rockets are lunched, The first thing is she states the rocket since it is on the Earth has the same speed as the Earth of 1600 km/hr. The rocket relative to the Earth when it launches has zero speed. The reason of the rocket is accelerate the rocket to a speed so that either it orbits or the payload escapes the Earth’s gravity. She goes onto a analogy of a merry-go-around. She says that the rocket or satellite is like dropping a ball off of the merry-go-around. It is actually like throwing a ball while on a merry-go-around, if you throw the ball with enough speed for it to go straight this is like when a rocket has enough energy to keep going into interplanetary space this called the escape velocity. If the ball does not enough speed the ball will fall back to the Earth. If you throw Things Thathe ball with just enough energy and if you have a string tied to the ball it will stay up going around the merry-go-around this is when a satellite goes into orbit.

 

Satellites are used for GPS, communications, weather satellites and space observatories some pointing back to the Earth. Some people use them for the internet but this is done by radio waves. Lasers are used in the internet but this is done in fibre optics and are underground not in space.