Science Fun

On this day in 1971, Apollo 14, piloted by astronauts Alan B. Shepard, Edgard D. Mitchell, and Stuart Roosa, is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.    In 1961, Shepard was the first American in space.  He became the fifth man to walk on the moon and celebrated by hitting golf balls from the lunar surface.

Apollo 14 had a few technical issues in its flight, the first being the command module not being able to dock with the lunar module after separation from the third stage.   Another technical issue was on the decent to the moon, following separation from the command module, the lunar module computer kept getting an erroneous ABORT message from a faulty switch; if this error continued after the descent engine was fired, then the computer would override and would separate the lunar module from the descent stage and would fire the ascent engine, sending the lunar module back to orbit.  NASA and the MIT programming team came up with the solution and that was to reprogram the computer.  The new instructions were sent by voice and keyed into the computer by hand. 

Apollo 14 landed in the area on the moon that was supposed to be the area for Apollo 13.  The crew took two moon walks, rounded up 100 pounds of lunar samples, tried out the Mobile Equipment Transporter.  The crew also spent the longest time on the moon - 33 hours with 9 hours and 17 minutes of the time being spent outside on the surface of the moon.

In today’s modern era, many of us have digital cameras and we love to shoot events, scenes, and anything we might think would make an interesting photo.  However, you must use caution when you attempt to photograph a weather event.

On this day in 1997, some individuals in HI did not use caution as they tried to photograph a tsunami from a beach.  Surfs were to 12 feet with sometimes a 15 foot swash.  This surf raked N/W shores of HI.  A wave carried 8 people into the ocean ag Keane Point, Maui.  Four of these individuals were saved by local residents, 4 tourists (3 from GA and 1 from UT) drowned.

Lightning and tornado events are the biggest draw to the photographer.  Maintain safe distances and be alert to your surroundings.  In the Midwest, there are Tornado Chaser events where you can sign up to spend a day with them chasing the big tornado - this is the safest way to capture these beasts on film.

Remember the days as a kid when you would do fun chemistry experiments in school.  One of my favorites was playing with baking soda and vinegar – watching the reaction as the baking soda mixed with the vinegar, creating carbon dioxide gas and then as it would spew its slime all over the place.  We used to make rockets that were propelled by the baking soda and vinegar mix – sometimes there would be good flights and others, we would experience a malfunction on the launch pad and the rocket would ‘pop its cork’.  Another fun project is the volcano – take a pie pan, stand a small plastic coke bottle in the center of it, make up a paper Mache’ mix – form this around the bottle to make your volcano – when it is dry, you can paint your volcano and add any details that you wish.  Add baking soda and vinegar to the bottle and watch the volcano erupt! Here is another variation on ‘fun’ with carbon dioxide gas.  This does not involve baking soda and vinegar; rather it uses an Alka-Seltzer tablet and water.  The reaction of the tablet when it comes in contact with water produces a gas.  For this fun experiment you will need a pill bottle with a snap-on lid (not the child safety caps), an Alka-Seltzer tablet, water, and shaving cream.  Be sure the shaving cream is the ‘white’ cream and not the gel type.  Take your pill bottle and fill the bottom ¼ with water, squirt shaving cream on top of the water and fill almost to the top.  Place the Alka-Seltzer tablet on top of the shaving cream, snap the lid on and set it down.  The tablet will slowly sink through the shaving cream, and then when it reaches the water – it reacts, the gas builds up pressure inside the pill bottle, eventually the pressure is enough that the lid is forced off and the shaving cream comes charging out.  This fun experiment should be done outside!  Enjoy and have fun – and be safe in your experiments.

On this day in 1997, a micro-burst wind of up to 90 mph hit a hardware store in Easley, FL.  The micro-burst peeled most of the roof from the building, then entered the building and bowed three outside walls outward.  Debris from the store was scattered over 200 yards in a fan-like pattern to the S-W-NW direction.  No other damage occurred in the area from this freak micro-burst.

Here in New England, as this post goes live, we are in the midst of - you guessed - SNOW!  Forecast amounts range from 6 - over 10 inches based on your location.  This past weekend started out mild on Saturday morning and early afternoon, by night fall, the temperature had plummeted.  Saturday/Sunday morning, I had 8 for the low and the high reached 15.  Sunday night into Monday morning, the low reached -3 and the high was 21 for the day.  Tuesday started out sunny and then the clouds thickened as the snow storm was heading our way.

Two events occurred on this day in the history of America’s Space Flight Program.  On January 27, 1959, the candidates for the first space flight are selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.  Among the 110 candidates chosen is John Glenn, who became the first American to orbit the Earth.  John Glenn was a pilot in the Project Mercury program and flew aboard Friendship 7 as the first astronaut to orbit Earth on February 20, 1962. On this day in 1967, NASA suffered a setback in the Apollo program when a launch pad fire took the lives of astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White II, and Roger B. Chafee.  During a test of Apollo 1, an apparent short in electrical wiring caused a small fire, which spread very quickly as the result of the oxygen environment in the spacecraft, flammable components used in the spacecraft interior, and a burst plumbing line carrying a flammable coolant.

This past Friday evening, I went to the Christa McAullife Planetarium to see a program on the Hubble Space Telescope.  I knew the spacecraft was having some issues and I wanted to learn more about the telescope and what it was doing.  The Hubble Space Telescope was deployed in 1990 and after a few corrections to its mirrors and some additional hardware fixes, it has continued to produce high quality images and data for observational study.

The Hubble Space Telescope was named after Edwin P. Hubble, astronomer.  It is a space-based orbiting observatory that has produced outstanding deep space images of our solar system and beyond.  Image quality is greater than our Earth based observatories as Hubble does not have to contend with atmospheric conditions.

The shuttle has performed three maintenance missions to the telescope and a fourth mission is planned for May 2009.  This will be final servicng mission for the telescope and planned updates include the addition and update of some of the instrumentation, and a fix for the platform’s electrical generating system (the primary system has failed, and they are operating on the back up system).  For continued updates on the Hubble mission, visit http://hubble.nasa.gov.