Mountain Views News          Saturday, June 16, 2012

9

THE WORLD AROUND US

 Mountain Views News Saturday June 16, 2012 


A NEW WAY INTO ORBIT

There’s a new way to get a spacecraft 
into orbit, and it’s a lot cheaper than the 
old. You just attach it to the bottom of 
an airplane, fly up to 39,000 feet, drop it, 
turn on its rocket engine, and it’s off!

That’s exactly what NASA did on June 
13. when an orbiting X-ray observatory 
named NuSTAR was boosted into orbit 
from the skies above Kwajalein Atoll in 
the central Pacific Ocean, launched from 
a rocket carried by an Orbital Science 
Corporation L-1011 “Stargazer” plane.

When the L-1011 released its payload—a 
Pegasus XL rocket, also from Orbital 
Science—it was allowed to free-fall 
for about 5 seconds, then ignited, 
and propelled NuSTAR into space. A 
video showing a previous Pegasus 
launch is online at: http://www.nasa.
gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.
html?collection_id=80521

About 13 minutes after the initial release 
from the Stargazer, NuSTAR separated 
from the Pegasus rocket’s third stage. At 
this point, NuSTAR was in its final orbit—a 
low-Earth equatorial orbit at an altitude of approximately 
340 miles and an inclination of six degrees. When NuSTAR 
separated from the Pegasus, the satellite’s system that controls 
its orientation in space, or “attitude,” began to stabilize it, and 
the spacecraft solar arrays were deployed.

Roughly one week after launch, engineers will command 
NuSTAR to deploy its lengthy 33-foot (10-meter) boom, 
allowing the telescope to focus X-ray light into crisp images. 
Unlike visible-light telescopes, X-ray telescopes require a 
long distance between the mirrors and detectors to focus the 
light. Science operations are expected to begin about 30 days 
after launch.

Why launch from the air? Airplane-assisted launches are 
significantly less expensive than those that take place from 
the ground. Less fuel is needed to boost cargo away from 
the pull of Earth’s gravity. NuSTAR is part of NASA’s Small 
Explorer program, which builds focused science missions at 
relatively low costs.

A DAY TO REMEMBER (see 
related photos/caption below)

I hope many of you were able to 
personally watch the passage of 
Planet Venus across the face of 
the Sun on Tuesday, June 5. It 
was a memorable afternoon, and 
although I didn’t have a telescope 
available, I was able to glimpse the 
transit through a piece of welder’s 
glass. Even without magnification, 
it was a thrill to see the tiny black 
silhouette of Venus against the 
bright Sun.

High above the Los Angeles Basin, 
some 25 amateur telescopes were 
set up in the parking lot of Mount 
Wilson Observatory that day, for 
the pleasure of the visiting public, 
and the entire Venus transit—
from 3:06 p.m. until sunset—
was webcast around the world 
from Mount Wilson, thanks to 
the international organization 
Astronomers Without Borders and 
the sponsorship of 20th Century 
Fox and the movie “Prometheus.” You can check out the 
archived webcast yourself at:

www.astronomerswithoutborders.org.

And if you missed this Venus transit, the planet’s orbit will 
eventually carry it across the face of the Sun again—but you 
will have to wait 105 years! Perhaps your grandchildren 
will see that event…and Mount Wilson Observatory will no 
doubt still be there to welcome them!

You can contact Bob Eklund at: b.eklund@MtnViewsNews.com.


NASA's NuSTAR and its rocket drop from the carrier "Stargazer" plane. 

Image Credit: Orbital Sciences Corporation.

SIERRA MADRE TEEN HOSTS VENUS TRANSIT VIEWING AND CAPTURES A MOMENT IN 
TIME WITH HIS TELESCOPES AND SPECIAL CAMERA All Photos by Sean Nesler


Sean Nesler, far left, with the help of his father, Bob, was 
prepared to witness and capture the once of a lifetime transit 
of Venus and the Sun on June 5th. With specially crafted 
telescopes and equipment set up in his backyard, he invited 
friends and family over to share in the moment. 

 Above right, Mountain 
Views Editor and neighbor 
Susan Henderson 
takes a peek at the sun 
and was impressed with 
the clarity of the images 
through the telescope.

 In a graphic courtesy of 
the Griffith Park Observatory, 
(left) one can see the 
orbit of Venus around the 
sun and the time frame in 
which the event occurred. 

The planet was first visible 
in California at 3:00 p.m. 
and that visibility lasted 
until sunset.

 

 Both photos of the transit 
were taken by Sean.

 Sean Nesler is an 18 year 
old Eagle Scout who currently 
attends Pasadena 
City College. He is also 
certificated special effects 
graduate and hopes to 
pursue a career in the entertainment 
industry.

 


 The signs of end-user outrage are most often found in 
the news and on the web whenever one of the Big Data 
behemoths (read: FaceBook, Google, etc) does something 
with the service that they offer the public and it trips the ever-
so sensitive “Privacy” alarm that the general public seems to 
be attuned to. 

 This most frequently occurs whenever there’s a change 
in the TOS (Terms of Service) that has to do with what the 
service provider will be doing with user data stored on their 
servers. We get free services in exchange for our personal 
information. That’s the privacy bargain users all over the 

Internet agree to every single day and it could possibly 
be the worst deal ever. The terms of this agreement 
are subject to change at any time, with or without the 
user’s consent. 

 Why do we seem to value privacy so little? In 
part, it’s because we are told to. Facebook has more 
than once overridden its users’ privacy preferences, 
replacing them with new default settings. Facebook 
then responds to the inevitable public outcry by 
restoring something that’s like the old system, except 
slightly less private. And then they cover their tracks 
by adding a few more lines to their already inscrutable 
privacy policy but it doesn’t really matter all that much 
since all users seem to want to do is get back to the way 
things were before the latest privacy dust-up. Even if one 
does read the fine print, we human beings seem to be 
awful at pricing out the net present value of a decision 
whose consequences are far in the future. 

 No one would take up smoking if the tumors sprouted 
with the first puff. Most privacy disclosures don’t put 
us in immediate physical or emotional distress either. But 
given a large population making a large 

number of disclosures, harm is inevitable. We’ve all heard the 
stories about people who’ve been fired because they set the 
wrong privacy flag on that post where they blew off on-the-
job steam. The risks increase as we disclose more, something 
that the design of our social media conditions us to do. 

 When you start out your life in a new social network, 
you are rewarded with social reinforcement as your old 
friends pop up and congratulate you on arriving at the party. 
Subsequent disclosures generate further rewards, but not 
always. Some disclosures seem like bombshells to you (“I’m 
getting a divorce”) but produce only virtual cricket chirps 
from your social network. And yet seemingly insignificant 
communications (“Does my butt look big in these jeans?”) 
can produce a torrent of responses. 

 Behavioral scientists have a name for this dynamic: 
“intermittent reinforcement.” It’s one of the most powerful 
behavioral training techniques we know about. Give a lab rat 
a lever that produces a food pellet on demand and he’ll only 
press it when he’s hungry. Give him a lever that produces food 
pellets at random intervals, and he’ll keep pressing it forever. 


GIVING IT AWAY