Space exploration key to mankind's survival: NASA chief
Sep 25 08:30 AM US/Eastern
Mankind's very survival depends on the future exploration of space, said NASA chief Michael Griffin in an interview with AFP marking the 50th anniversary of the US space agency.
This journey, said the veteran physicist and aerospace engineer, is full of unknowns and has only just begun.
"Does the survival of human kind depend upon it? I think so," he said.
Griffin compared the first walk on the Moon with Christopher Columbus's first voyage to the Americas.
"He travelled for months and spent a few weeks in the Americas and returned home. He could hardly have said to have explored the New World.
"So we have just begun to touch other worlds," said Griffin.
"I think we must return to the Moon because it's the next step. It's a few days from home," he said, adding Mars was also "only a few months" from Earth.
But Griffin acknowledged that like the 15th century explorers who embarked on their adventures without knowing what they would find, a leap of faith is required for space travel.
"As we move out in our solar system, expanding human presence, we can't prove what we will find will be useful.
"It was understood in Columbus's time that if voyagers discovered new lands they would find valuable things. We can't prove today that we can exploit what we find to the benefit of humankind."
However, in the long run, Griffin believes "human populations must diversify if it wishes to survive."
In explaining his goals for NASA in testimony to Congress in 2004, Griffin said: "The single overarching goal of human space flight is the human settlement of the solar system, and eventually beyond.
"I can think of no lesser purpose sufficient to justify the difficulty of the enterprise, and no greater purpose is possible."
In this effort, Griffin told AFP that cooperation between nations is key if mankind's calling to the final frontier is to be realized.
"The space station is much bigger and better and more impressive and more productive as a result of the partnership with Canada, Russia, Europe, and Japan, than it would have been if we had done it ourselves," he said.
However, the NASA head lamented the end of the space shuttle program in 2010, concerned that in the interim period at least the United States will be reliant on other nations to reach the heavens.
"There will be a gap. I don't like it but there it is. For the US to lose even for a period of time independent access to space, I don't think it's a good thing."
In the time between the shuttle retires and the new generation of US spacecraft -- Orion -- gets off the ground, US astronauts will have to rely on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to reach the International Space Station.
"I think that is a dangerous position to be in," said Griffin. "If anything at all in that five-year period goes wrong with the Russian Soyuz ... that is a great concern."
The rise of China as an emerging power in space may also give Griffin cause for concern, but he also sees it as an opportunity.
Beijing's ambitious space program takes a giant leap forward on Thursday when three astronauts blast off on a mission to undertake the country's first space walk.
"I certainly do not see China as a threat," Griffin said. "I have no doubt that links with China and the Western world will become stronger."
To the question of whether China could be a partner with NASA in a future Moon mission, Griffin remained upbeat: "Yes it's absolutely possible to see China as part of a return to the Moon, a collaboration to return to the moon."
"There must be transparency and openness if we fly humans into space," Griffin added, noting that to achieve the highest potential, cooperation is key.
"I am confident that some day China will be transparent ... not today, not tomorrow, but I believe in a not so distant future, China can be a partner."
Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium
Friday, September 26, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Atom Smasher - Large Hadron Collider
Sep 10, 5:59 AM (ET)
By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS
GENEVA (AP) - The world's largest particle collider successfully completed its first major test by firing a beam of protons all the way around a 17-mile (27-kilometer) tunnel Wednesday in what scientists hope is the next great step to understanding the makeup of the universe.
After a series of trial runs, two white dots flashed on a computer screen at 10:36 a.m. (0836 GMT) indicating that the protons had traveled the full length of the US$3.8 billion Large Hadron Collider.
"There it is," project leader Lyn Evans said when the beam completed its lap.
Champagne corks popped in labs as far away as Chicago, where contributing scientists watched the proceedings by satellite. Physicists around the world now have much greater power than ever before to smash the components of atoms together in attempts to see how they are made.
"Well done everybody," said Robert Aymar, director-general of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, to cheers from the assembled scientists in the collider's control room at the Swiss-French border.
The organization, known by its French acronym CERN, began firing the protons - a type of subatomic particle - around the tunnel in stages less than an hour earlier.
Now that the beam has been successfully tested in clockwise direction, CERN plans to send it counterclockwise. Eventually two beams will be fired in opposite directions with the aim of recreating conditions a split second after the big bang, which scientists theorize was the massive explosion that created the universe.
The start of the collider - described as the biggest physics experiment in history - comes over the objections of some skeptics who fear the collision of protons could eventually imperil the earth.
The skeptics theorized that a byproduct of the collisions could be micro black holes, subatomic versions of collapsed stars whose gravity is so strong they can suck in planets and other stars.
"It's nonsense," said James Gillies, chief spokesman for CERN, before Wednesday's start.
CERN is backed by leading scientists like Britain's Stephen Hawking in dismissing the fears and declaring the experiments to be absolutely safe.
Gillies told the AP that the most dangerous thing that could happen would be if a beam at full power were to go out of control, and that would only damage the accelerator itself and burrow into the rock around the tunnel.
Nothing of the sort occurred Wednesday, though accelerator is still probably a year away from full power.
"On Wednesday we start small," said Gillies. "A really good result would be to have the other beam going around, too, because once you've got a beam around once in both directions you know that there is no show-stopper."
The project organized by the 20 European member nations of CERN has attracted researchers from 80 nations. Some 1,200 are from the United States, an observer country which contributed US$531 million. Japan, another observer, also is a major contributor.
The collider is designed to push the proton beam close to the speed of light, whizzing 11,000 times a second around the tunnel.
Smaller colliders have been used for decades to study the makeup of the atom. Less than 100 years ago scientists thought protons and neutrons were the smallest components of an atom's nucleus, but in stages since then experiments have shown they were made of still smaller quarks and gluons and that there were other forces and particles.
The CERN experiments could reveal more about "dark matter," antimatter and possibly hidden dimensions of space and time. It could also find evidence of the hypothetical particle - the Higgs boson - believed to give mass to all other particles, and thus to matter that makes up the universe.
Some scientists have been waiting for 20 years to use the LHC.
By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS
GENEVA (AP) - The world's largest particle collider successfully completed its first major test by firing a beam of protons all the way around a 17-mile (27-kilometer) tunnel Wednesday in what scientists hope is the next great step to understanding the makeup of the universe.
After a series of trial runs, two white dots flashed on a computer screen at 10:36 a.m. (0836 GMT) indicating that the protons had traveled the full length of the US$3.8 billion Large Hadron Collider.
"There it is," project leader Lyn Evans said when the beam completed its lap.
Champagne corks popped in labs as far away as Chicago, where contributing scientists watched the proceedings by satellite. Physicists around the world now have much greater power than ever before to smash the components of atoms together in attempts to see how they are made.
"Well done everybody," said Robert Aymar, director-general of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, to cheers from the assembled scientists in the collider's control room at the Swiss-French border.
The organization, known by its French acronym CERN, began firing the protons - a type of subatomic particle - around the tunnel in stages less than an hour earlier.
Now that the beam has been successfully tested in clockwise direction, CERN plans to send it counterclockwise. Eventually two beams will be fired in opposite directions with the aim of recreating conditions a split second after the big bang, which scientists theorize was the massive explosion that created the universe.
The start of the collider - described as the biggest physics experiment in history - comes over the objections of some skeptics who fear the collision of protons could eventually imperil the earth.
The skeptics theorized that a byproduct of the collisions could be micro black holes, subatomic versions of collapsed stars whose gravity is so strong they can suck in planets and other stars.
"It's nonsense," said James Gillies, chief spokesman for CERN, before Wednesday's start.
CERN is backed by leading scientists like Britain's Stephen Hawking in dismissing the fears and declaring the experiments to be absolutely safe.
Gillies told the AP that the most dangerous thing that could happen would be if a beam at full power were to go out of control, and that would only damage the accelerator itself and burrow into the rock around the tunnel.
Nothing of the sort occurred Wednesday, though accelerator is still probably a year away from full power.
"On Wednesday we start small," said Gillies. "A really good result would be to have the other beam going around, too, because once you've got a beam around once in both directions you know that there is no show-stopper."
The project organized by the 20 European member nations of CERN has attracted researchers from 80 nations. Some 1,200 are from the United States, an observer country which contributed US$531 million. Japan, another observer, also is a major contributor.
The collider is designed to push the proton beam close to the speed of light, whizzing 11,000 times a second around the tunnel.
Smaller colliders have been used for decades to study the makeup of the atom. Less than 100 years ago scientists thought protons and neutrons were the smallest components of an atom's nucleus, but in stages since then experiments have shown they were made of still smaller quarks and gluons and that there were other forces and particles.
The CERN experiments could reveal more about "dark matter," antimatter and possibly hidden dimensions of space and time. It could also find evidence of the hypothetical particle - the Higgs boson - believed to give mass to all other particles, and thus to matter that makes up the universe.
Some scientists have been waiting for 20 years to use the LHC.
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