The man who walked two celestial bodies in his lifetime ...

“Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth,

and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings

sunwards I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth

of sun-split clouds—and done a thousand things

You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung

high in the sunlit silence. Hovering there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along and flung

my eager craft through footless halls of air,

Up, up, the long delirious burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,

where never lark, or even eagle, flew;

and, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod

the high untrespassed sanctity of space,

put out my hand, and touched the face of God.”

- John Gillespie Magee, Jr. (1922–1941)

August 25 2012 : the world grieved and American Flag was flown half mast over Mission Control at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston in honor of him, who had left behind footprints not only in the sands of time but also on the moon. Neil Alden Armstrong was an inspiration to a series of generations.

Back then in 1960s, when only a few flights had been made into space, Apollo 1’s tragic failure, Apollo 11’s only 50% chances to land on moon, and President Richard Nixon having already prepared a condolence speech for delivery on the event Armstrong and Aldrin became marooned on Moon’s surface and could not be rescued : Apollo 11’s success, Eagle’s landing on Sea of Tranquility and Armstrong’s first step on the moon was certainly, “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”. Landing on moon wasn’t all too smooth, it was Armstrong who had to take over manual control of the Lunar module else it would’ve crashed to an unsafe spot, the slight detour caused them with only 30 seconds worth of fuel left (a serious cause of worry since 20 seconds worth of fuel was required to be saved in the event of an abort), but Armstrong’s reassuring words after touchdown : “The eagle has landed” on July 20, 1969, at 20:17:39 UTC spread joy and relief across the globe, quite aptly expressed by Duke in reply to Armstrong, from Mission Control: "Roger, Twan-- Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot."

For all those who’ve known Neil or heard his speeches, his humility is the first quality that strikes you apart from his technical expertise and his ability to make you smile throughout his speech. It was because of him, that the mission insignia patch bore no names of the crew for he believed it was because of all 400,000 people who’d worked for the mission and not just three. He also disliked his celebrity status for he believed he didn’t deserve it and when told that out of 12 people he was chosen to be the first person to step on moon after all, he modestly replied that he was only chosen to command the flight and circumstances put him in that role, it wasn’t planned.

Born on August 5, 1930, it was only 6 years later when Armstrong took his first flight with his father in a Ford Trimotor. Taking flying lessons at the Aulgaize county airport he earned his flight certificate when he was only 15. He was also active in the Boy’s Scout, and earned the rank of Eagle Scout, and in later years was awarded the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award and Silver Buffalo Award. At 17, he began studying aeronautical engineering at Purdue University, under a scholarship that required one to serve in U.S Navy for 3 years. He started flight training at Naval Air Station, Pensacola when he was 18, and by 20 he was a fully qualified Naval Aviator. In his years of service he flew 78 missions over Korea, during the Korean War, 1952 for which he received Air Medal for 20 combat missions, a Gold Star for next 20, Korean Service Medal and Engagement Star. At 22, he became Lieutenant, Junior Grade, in the U.S. Naval Reserve, where he remained for next 8 years. At Purdue, he’d written and co-directed musical of Phi Delta Fraternity, and was also a baritone player in the Purdue All American Marching Band. He graduated from Purdue in 1955 and completed his Masters from University of South California. After his graduation, he became a research test pilot at NACA High Speed Fly Station at Edwards Air Force Base (now NASA). Over his career he flew more than 200 different models of aircraft ranging from F-100 Super Sabre, F-101 Voodoo, Lockheed F-104A Starfighter, F-106 Delta Dart, B-47 Startojet, Bell X-1B, Bell X-5, F-105 Thunderchief, F-106 Delta Dart to the very famous North American X-15. He was one of eight elite pilots involved in the Paraglider research program (Paresev). The one incident that most would recall is the “Nellis Affair” : On May 21,1962, Armstrong was sent in a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter to inspect Delamar Dry Lake in southern Nevada, for emergency landings. He misjudged his altitude, and also did not realize that the landing gear had not fully extended. As he touched down, the landing gear began to retract; Armstrong applied full power to abort the landing, but the ventral fin and landing gear door struck the ground, damaging the radio and releasing hydraulic fluid. Without radio communication, Armstrong flew south to Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas, past the control tower, and waggled his wings, the signal for a no-radio approach. The loss of hydraulic fluid caused the tail-hook to release, and upon landing, he caught the arresting wire attached to an anchor chain, and dragged the chain along the runway. It took thirty minutes to clear the runway and rig an arresting cable and Armstrong telephoned Edwards and asked for someone to collect him. Milt Thompson was sent in an F-104B, the only two-seater available, but a plane Thompson had never flown. With great difficulty, Thompson made it to Nellis, but a strong crosswind caused a hard landing and the left main tire suffered a blowout. The runway was again closed to clear it, and Bill Dana was sent to Nellis in a T-33 Shooting Star, but he almost landed long — and the Nellis base operations office decided that to avoid any further problems, it would be best to find the three NASA pilots ground transport back to Edwards. Selected in U.S Air Force's Man in Space Soonest Program in 1958, by March, 1962 he was chosen as one of seven pilot-engineers who would fly the space plane, X-20 Dyna Sonar. In September 1962, he was asked if he would like to join NASA Astronaut Corps, to which he readily agreed. For the next 8 years Armstrong served as Command Pilot of Gemini-8, back-up Command Pilot for Gemini-11, back up commander for Apollo 8 and finally commander of Apollo 11.

The man with wings, retired from NASA in 1971 and taught at University of Cincinnati for next eight years. He also served on the board of directors of several companies including Learjet, Cinergy, AIL Systems and Thiokol etc.

But his love for flight never died and even at 80, one could see him sporting in his glider sail plane. And when asked if would like to command Mission to Mars if any, he smiled and said “I don’t think I’d have a chance, but I don’t want to say I’m not available”.

He remained a keen observer of all space missions and delivered a speech on the 50^th Anniversary of NASA, where he said “Our highest and most important hope is that the human race will improve its intelligence, its character, and its wisdom, so that we’ll be able to properly evaluate and choose among those options, and the many others we will encounter in the years ahead. And I look forward to watching the progress and those exciting development and hearing the status report when we gather again for NASA’s 100th anniversary.”

GOD OF WAR ( OR ARE YOU, REALLY ? )

Gleaming red in the night sky, it caught eyes of many. Water ice polar caps, valleys, volcanoes, marks of tributaries, permafrost, hills, avalanches, alluvial fan regions, are synonymous to not just Earth but Mars too. Surprising at first glance, the God of War, seems most unlikely as a place where life could’ve existed : with exceedingly thin atmosphere, no net magnetic field that can protect it from solar winds, a desolate silicate, oxide filled land scattered with rocks and lifelessness, freezing cold temperature (-80 degrees F on an average and -184 degree F on the south polar ice cap) and frequent dust devils raging across the planet. 

But beyond these, lie similarities which are most striking. Water is quintessential for life as we know it on Earth. It facilitated conditions for life from early stromatolites which were the first to photosynthesize 3.4 billion years ago to ancient civilizations that developed near rivers. With evidence of water ice caps on Mars and permafrost region of about 5000km, signs of life hid in them (explorations in Antarctica and study of permafrost have proven that microbes can still be alive after 10 million years with temperature of -20 degree Celsius). Rocks scattered that spoke only of a desolated area, are actually signs of life for geologists like Jim Rice confirm its similarity to regions in Iceland. They are formed when volcanoes inside glaciers erupt, leading to floods and waters rise upto 10km, but leave behind these typical rocky terrains on their recession. Marks of canals and similarities to Grand Canyon on earth can only have been caused when water flowed through the Martian surface once. Also sediment mountains such as Mount Sharp on Mars hold explainations about different eras trapped in its various strata of rocks, examples of it on earth are Himalayas, Alps etc. 

Critical to the above ideas and basis of our study on Mars have been the various Mars missions since 1960s. Two third of the missions have failed : some lost contact, some had a launch vehicle failure, some had landing failure. No wonder why Mars is called the Bermuda triangle of Space. But successful missions such as Viking, Mars Global surveyor, Mars Pathfinder,  Mars Odyssey, Spirit and Opportunity, Reconnaissance Orbiter and Phoneix, have returned large amounts of data about elementary composition of soil and the atmosphere, mapping Mars to great detail. However, none can compare to the most audacious mission to Mars yet : The Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity). Being twice as long and five times heavier than Spirit and Opportunity, driven on energy via plutonium decay that’ll last one Martian year or 687 earth days compared to solar powered energy of past that only lasted months, its ChemCam laser eye, sophisticated robot arm which will collect samples, Cams that will provide multiple spectra imaging, ability to detect potential obstacles at a distance, terrain overview, Easter Eggs (wheels) that can easily roll over 26 inch high rocks and that which leaves a track behind with “JPL” written in Morse code ;) , an inbuilt laboratory (APXS, SAM, CheMin, SAM, RAD, DAN, REMS) that will conduct the analysis and also the intelligence to decide which places are worth digging in for more information about possible habitable grounds, designed and engineered for a decade, the billion dollar rover, Curiosity is certainly one of a kind. 

Apart from the ingenuity of the rover, how to get it to surface of mars, in this case inside gale crater (carefully chosen from 60 landing site possibilities because of presence of hydrated clay minerals and sulphate salts indicating substrates for possible preservation of fossils, also, it has the 6km high Mount Sharp,  what’ll contain most information being a sediment mountain) with zero margin error calls for an equally unconventional landing. The spacecraft needs to be slowed down from 13,000 miles per hour to zero with an atmosphere that is too thin for parachute and aerobraking alone to be effective while reaming thick enough to create impingement problems when decelerating rockets. Airbag landing of previous missions can’t work due to heavy weight of curiosity. So the novel EDL system (Entry, descent and landing) was devised as a result of reasoned engineering although the concept looked crazy : it’s guided entry into the Martian atmosphere while heatshield glows with a whooping 1600 degree Celcius due to aerodynamic drag, then the largest and strongest supersonic parachute built yet that would sustain 65000 tones of force when the parachute itself weighs only 100 pounds, then removal of heatshield because it blocks the view of the ground from the radar which will take just the right measurements of velocity and altitude at just the right time, now since the parachute reduces spacecraft only to 200 miles per hour, the spacecraft must be separated from the parachute, that’s when the spacecraft is maneuvered using rockets, but it needs to be diverged sideways instantly else it’ll bounce back to the parachute. Now, using the radar, spacecraft will place itself right above the landing spot, but it can’t hover all the way down to the surface as dust blown by it would enter the rover destroying the instruments within. This was solved using a bizarre concept : skycrane landing, wherein 20m above the surface the rover is tethered down 21 feet with help of  3 nylon tethers and one electrical cable. Now, as the rover is gently touched down on the surface, the cables must be cut instantly else  the crane will be on a collision course with the rover. The detachment of cables happens after 2 seconds of touchdown, in which confirmation of detection of weight on wheels will fire pyros activating cable cutters. And, ALL of this, from entering the atmosphere to touchdown happens in 7 minutes, which was quite rightly phrased as "7 minutes of terror" : that which requires perfect sequence, choreography and timing else its ALL GAME OVER. Since it takes 7 minutes for information to reach Earth via Mars orbiter Odyssey, its actually those 14 torturous minutes. 

But today, we can quite proudly and happily state that we were successful with the landing (Bradbury Landing) less than 2.4km away from centre of planned ellipse landing site (credits to NASA, JPL engineers). 

Since Curiosity’s launch on 26th November 2011, to final touch down on August 6th 2012 : it was more than a journey of just a few months, rather a work of a decade hanging on this one mission. It is a journey that’ll answer questions about life on another planet, that’ll travel back in time with its observations and one that’ll hold answers if earth’s fate is to be the same : one that’ll answer to our curiosity. 

Curiosity is our best shot in unveiling mysteries of the red globe, that, which has intrigued us for centuries. For more information log on to : www.mars.jpl.nasa.gov and follow Curiosity’s updates on twitter ;)

9th March '12: Diary entry...

The other day, I read about radiation pressure, and how there’s the formation of the comet’s tail, at first, I really hadn’t noticed it. Heh, like in dad’s words, I thought it was like a trail sorts, but true, there is no atmosphere there, so trail of what, also it doesn’t follow the comet’s orbit pattern, so what was it that was causing it to be the way it was. So its all about radiation pressure, the source of electromagnetic waves generating it. And in this case, it was the sun. So I did the calculations and finally figured out, why it is the way it is. Thanks to Resnick ;) I still don’t understand why we don’t have Resnick and Halliday in our course, as the main book of reference, it makes you see a lot deeper into the universe, and your concepts get cleared out perfectly. Like just yesterday, I found the real age of crab nebula is 5500 BC since it was recorded by the Chinese first seen in 1054 AD and it is 6500 light years distant, which was infact not so difficult to calculate at all, but at the same time you get the essence of it, you see. Also, physics I shall say has the easiest names to remember e.g. WIMPs or MACHOs, even the names of nebula are what they look like e.g. crab nebula etc. (unlike the way biologists' who give incomprehensible scientific names :P ) .

So the other day, I was washing my plate, there were a lot of things I noticed; the stream flow of water, reminding me Reynold’s constant. Then the mechanism of how soap works and detergent, the soap molecules attaching to oil part and the ionic part as the tail forming micelles, then watching bubbles and thinking about thin surface reflection and interference, watching the plate and seeing my reflection, reminded me of the blog I’d read about the uncertainty with which photons would reflect and which would get transmitted through, which was explained via chaos theory or non-linear dynamics. 

And just yesterday I read a note about the physiological aspect of the eye, written by Feynman, which got me so hooked, that I didn’t attend to calls for breakfast by dad, lol. But it was interesting to notice how brain works, and how eye is actually an extension of a of the brain : the optical nerve fiber connection, and how if you cut one of the many in the bundle, it finds it way to grow back again, they experimented with salamander, you see. Also, how we don’t start seeing by learning as we are born, but we actually know what is, cause of the way we see it. You see, the same salamander, its one optical nerve was cut and eye placed upside down, and it saw the world as upside down, the fly was “down there” instead of “up there” and it attacked in the wrong direction. Thus we don’t learn seeing, we are inherited with seeing. Oh, and how the binocular vision works, the left eye information is sent to right part of the brain while the right eye information is sent to left part of brain, and there’s a mid slit in the brain, which causes the object that are near apart to be farther apart. And also how signals are first sent to the mid-brain, which tells the iris how to focus, and how to change the radius to capture light of right amount. Also, how weird it is, that the contraction of the pupil is directly connected to the optical nerve system, while the expansion has a very weird long route through the spinal cord, to everywhere, and so on. Yes, really weird. But its magnificent, how the eye works. Really magnificent. One can appreciate the beauty only when one realizes its workings. Also, in Resnick I was reading about the diffraction patterns and spots that we see, it happens in the vitreous humour which has exactly the same refractive index as water, 1.33, and that’s why we can’t see too clearly in water. Heh, there was actually a question and an experiment to be done, to calculate the size of the spots. Yay ! Interesting XD

And well, yesterday only, had a long chat with a friend (Angel Starr) about the working of quantum field and how much is missed in the mathematical abstracts. Yes, I too am skeptical about the string theory, the last funny thing I heard was about blackholes being fuzz balls (extended strings, and mathematically proven, by some Indian in California or so). Here I am skeptical, cause I doubt the explanation of gravity, and very clearly we discussed about gravity arising from geometry. And yesterday we further discussed about neutrinos and its purpose, about its existence meaning a different force field that we’ve missed out somehow. 'Cause it just isn’t noticed. Or the explanation of dark matter and dark energy that accelerates the universe expansion. And oh the last I remember about the universe acceleration was, either all of it, goes into cold state and dies, or it leads to the big rip, where even the protons and neutrons disintegrate… speculations there are, and they shall persist throughout. 

Or maybe we are just fish in the fishbowl (in hawking’s word) ;) [what we see is only a distorted picture of the actual reality]

I deeply admire hawking especially after I watched the BBC horizon show on hawking’s paradox. And the information paradox. Hawking believes in parallel universe and without black hole all shall be well, while Susskind believes its all a projection and 3d is a projection of 2d surface, and information being coded on the surface of black holes, at the event horizon. But hawking’s equation, of s=c^3kA/4hG (for black hole) is the most beautiful and elegant I have known after e=mc^2. So that’s about a day’s diary. Cya next time, if I ever come up with more metaphors, curious questions after long chats with myself, or dad or Padma or angel starr, or get stimulated by another video or Resnick. I wish my diary entries to be frequent though. ;)

Unbounded Expressions

Art is an expression. An expression of what you see, of what you believe in… Art isn’t confined to boundaries of music, dance, literature or paint, its rather only one aspect of it’s multiple facets… 

Science, was never confined to mathematical abstracts, or incomprehensive syllables, it rather took birth from philosophy, of understanding the ‘being’ of things around us, whether it be light years afar or molecularly close that remained invisible to everyday workings. It was about questioning the existence the way it is, opening eyes to what is seen, but unnoticed…

The eureka moment : When pieces of jigsaw puzzle, start to fit in, when one starts to realize the art, the beauty behind the workings  of existence… 

Of unbounded expressions…

From the time when dawn glimpses sun’s first rays till night takes over, with moon glowing atop : there’s actually beautiful interplay of timings, birth, death, and life evolving. From the time when you open your eyes, and look at the radiant colours mix in the sky with the sun at horizon, its actually due to the rods and cons of the eye detecting it, and neurons connecting signals to brain, which interprets the colours at display. Our eyes then focus to birds that glide in colours of dawn, we can do so, only cause our eyes can focus from 25cm proximity to infinity, which also allow us, to design Dipper and Sagittarius in the night sky. 

And with every second that passes, there’ll be a billion questions we’d ask, to which answers lie in the working of the invisible. And that’s where magical art takes form.

Why do birds fly ? Why does the horizon look red at dusk and not purple or black ? Why do we see colors ? Why do stars twinkle ? Why do we breathe ? Why do we see, hear, feel ? What is the body made of ? Why are we the way we are ? How did we come into existence ? What are our roots ? How does switching on a little lamp actually contribute to global warming ? How can there be art in mathematics ? What beauty there is to rawness and mundane machinery ? How can science and art be interrelated at all ?

To begin with, let me clarify, science is not confined to textbooks or teachers who confine you to study equations that need to be solved to answer questions printed on a piece of paper in order to obtain a certain magnitude of score that shall grant you an admission or a stature in society. Sadly, our society is stuck up in totem pole placements which leaves most curious minds mortified and deranged, that science becomes something to be dreaded of. Alas, science is all too innocent, and only those who can see beyond these curtains of misunderstandings can actually realize the magnificence of it. 

Because when you do see beyond, you realize that your existence is not just your existence but an interplay of cells, molecules, endless networks of neurons, that work in a perfect symphony to keep you going through the day. And your being is not just confined to the stretch of your hand, but actually to the infinite, and the sun is not just a far away distant yellow blob during day, but actually a star breathing fire at you, and you are a part of it, (technically true, cause the sun’s reach is till the orbe i.e. till which the sun’s magnetic field lasts which is way beyond even the comets’ orbit). And the sun, is no different than the twinkling stars at night, and they only twinkle due to earth’s atmosphere, and our sun would twinkle, for another exoplanet in maybe Andromeda. A color exists only because the material that contains it reflects that particular wavelength of light and absorbs the rest. Birds fly cause they have hollow bones unlike ours, and they always reach their home and are never lost due to their inbuilt gps system (not literally) but they have magnetic sensors which direct them. And by switching on a little lamp, you are actually using electricity, which is generated mostly by thermal power generation, which uses coal to steam water, and its steam that drives the turbines. Thus in actual, its combustion of coal, that produces carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming. I know, there’ll be more questions now, like, how does carbon dioxide contribute to global warming or why should we even care about global warming or why materials only reflect a certain wavelength or how do birds have the inbuilt gps system or how do neurons connect , and how does the brain actually work ? Well, you know what, do not be surprised if I say, that there are answers to those too ! So, similarly, if you keep tracking down this path of answering your curious questions about everything and anything at all, I can assure you, the eureka moment won’t be too far : when you finally figure out, how everything is actually interrelated ! 

How atoms in the pen that you write with are the same as the atoms floating in interstellar space, or how ‘we’ are actually stardust, how evolution wasn’t just a mistake, but more of a planned manner of occurrences, how the existence of earth is too unique, and why aliens still are in fiction books (but a day won’t be too far, that we’d meet our relatives light years away), how there isn’t a static moment at all, and virtual particle vibrations make up reality, how the universe isn’t just existing but breathing in and out, with black holes that consume, but dark energy that overrules powers of contraction or of a steady state, how galaxies hurtle towards each other at 480,000 km/hr (like our Milky way and Andromeda currently are), how mathematical equations actually simplify the complex existence into quantified determinants, how electromagnetic waves actually dance in perfect sync to propagate light, how particle and wave are actually reflections of each other, and how dynamic the space-time coordinates are, how there can be more than just 3 dimensions that we see, how there are billions of radiations passing through us that we are unaware of, how the cells in our body die and are reborn. 

The dynamic nature of what is seen as constant, the subtle workings, that go unnoticed, that magic that sings and dances in and around us, that, what makes us who we are the way we are : is more than just an expression of what the mind can perceive in the magnificence of existence itself.

For there is magic entwined in every breath and glimpse of existence : an art, inexpressible in words…