Astronaut for Hire

Originally posted on 6/28/2013 Permafrost is frozen ground that forms where the subsurface mean annual temperature is colder than the freezing point of water. It should come as no surprise that permafrost underlies most of the Arctic and Antarctic regions on Earth. However, even close to the Equator, if you climb high enough in elevation, it will get cold enough for permafrost to form. The peaks of several mountains in tropical regions around the globe have permafrost, and one of them is in my backyard atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii. I went there last week to help conduct a geophysical field survey to study Hawaii's frozen feature and gain some insights about low latitude permafrost on Mars . University of Hawaii meteorologist Dr. Alfred Woodcock first discovered permafrost on the north-facing slope of the Mauna Kea summit crater Pu'u Wekiu in 1969 (elevation 4,200 meters) and returned several times to study it throughout the early 1970's. He found that even though t...

What would you do in your last week on Earth before embarking on an extended voyage to Mars? You would probably spend it taking care of last minute packing, studying up on your destination, eating good meals, and enjoying your remaining time with family and friends. That’s exactly what the crew of the 2013 HI-SEAS mission did during the past week, which I had privilege of sharing with them. Today they locked themselves away in a remote habitat on Mauna Loa to simulate a four-month stay on Mars. As I’ve mentioned before , HI-SEAS stands for Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation . That mouthful just means that Hawaii offers an environment analogous to that found on Mars or the Moon. HI-SEAS is the brainchild of fellow Hawaii resident and FMARS + MDRS alumnus, Dr. Kim Binsted . On her 2007 FMARS mission in the Arctic, she became interested in questions surrounding the culinary and psychological aspects of locking a crew away for months at a time. Teaming up with Cor...

As the SpaceX Dragon soared over the Earth again this week, I found myself pondering what its future human passengers will experience when they view our planet from such a vantage point. It is well-known that the Overview Effect profoundly affects many astronauts. Seeing the Earth from space tends to engender a deep sense of interconnectedness and purposefulness that transforms astronauts in fundamental ways. To date, only 534 people in the sum of human history have had this sobering psychosocial privilege, but that figure is poised to change dramatically in the coming years as commercial space companies take off. Once thousands of people have experienced the Overview Effect, what will the ripple effect be in society? A video called " OVERVIEW " has been making waves on the internet for the past three months to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the famous "Blue Marble" photo . I was overcome with emotion the first time I saw the film, which I appreciate m...

I had the distinct privilege of participating in the 2012 PISCES Forum  last week on the Island of Hawaii.  Like the  2011 and 2010 meetings that I attended, this year's gathering focused on developing a research park in Hawaii devoted to planetary analog research in the context of sustainable space exploration . Dr. Buzz Aldrin was among the delegates participating in this year's PISCES conference, where he gave a keynote presentation on colonizing Mars through a sustainable strategy based upon Aldrin cyclers . With only about 50 people at the conference, there were many opportunities to interact with him closely. We spoke about how his father contributed to the early days of rocketry, what architecture is best suited for establishing a permanent Mars settlement, and what it takes to be an astronaut. He encouraged me to keep pursuing my goal of being an astronaut. Having met Neil Armstrong earlier this year, I am profoundly humbled to have met both Ap...

We are moving from an era of limited government-controlled space access using very expensive vehicles to more affordable systems developed by the private sector that can provide frequent trips to space for a variety of purposes.  Multiple companies are rushing to be the first to market, including Virgin Galactic , XCOR Aerospace , Armadillo Aerospace , Blue Origin , and Masten Space Systems . Their varied technological approaches and flight plans offer researchers a great deal of options for studying the suborbital realm.  The sky is not the limit! Last month I attended the 2012 Next Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC) in Palo Alto, California.  The purpose of the conference was to kickstart the imaginations of scientists who may utilize suborbital platforms for research.  Whereas tourism has driven much of the initial investment in the burgeoning new paradigm for space access, it is the research market that stands poised to provide the long-standi...

Last year the American Geophysical Union ( AGU ) put out an open call for entries to its "Younger Scientists Video Profiles" project, so I applied. The main purpose of the project was to attract kids to geoscience careers and to give the public a better understanding of what AGU member scientists do.  My tsunami work and astronaut ambitions gained their attention, so AGU representatives interviewed me on camera at the Exploratorium in San Francisco during last December's AGU Fall Meeting . Later, they featured me in a blog post about the Chile tsunami too.  At long last, now my video profile has been posted on the AGUvideos YouTube channel . It features footage taken both in San Francisco and on my FMARS mission . Check it out: You can see still photos from all of the Younger Scientists who participated in this project on the AGU Facebook page and Flickr Photostream . Special thanks to MJ for making this happen.

What is gravity like on the Mars compared to the Moon or an asteroid? See for yourself in this really cool video made by Astronaut Chris Hadfield and crewmates on the NEEMO-14 mission at the NOAA Aquarius Reef Base . If you're curious to learn more about the underwater habitat, check out the NEEMO-14 overview video and video tour of Aquarius too. For more great information on the NEEMO-14 mission, check out their Flickr photos , YouTube videos , Twitter profile , Facebook page , and mission support blog . Stay turned for a future post with more on aquanaut opportunities!

While the devastating Haiti earthquake was happening, I was on top of Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano at the NOAA Mauna Loa Observatory (MLO) .  Mauna Loa is the world's largest volcano , and if you measure it from its base on the seafloor, it's the world's tallest mountain too at 17,170 m (56,000 ft).  The massive mountain comprises half the Big Island of Hawaiʻi and amounts to about 85% of all other Hawaiian Islands combined. Below is a picture of colleague Roger Gernold and me at the MLO with Mauna Kea in the background.  If you squint, you can see the Mauna Kea Observatories on the top of that mountain.  We went to the MLO to scout for a location to install a new seismic station to record ground shaking from earthquakes.  This will help us better characterize earthquakes and to issue faster and more accurate tsunami warnings in Hawaiʻi.

Five years ago a tremendous tragedy fell upon people in countries bordering the Indian Ocean. I'm referring of course to the 26 December 2004 earthquake and tsunami that claimed over 230,000 lives. Today I will reflect upon the event and how far we've advanced since then with an emphasis on how space technologies can aid in tsunami warning.  Currently, tsunami warning systems do not rely heavily upon space technologies other than for communications, but there are several promising new techniques that could dramatically improve our tsunami detection capabilities in the future. The massive 2004 earthquake occurred at the Sunda Trench , which is a subduction zone about 300 kilometers west of the Sumatra, Indonesia where the Indo-Australian Plate slides beneath the Burma Plate in the eastern Indian Ocean.  The shaking from the huge earthquake lasted nearly 10 minutes (the longest ever observed), and the fault ruptured along an area spanning almost 1600 kilometers (also the l...

I've had a busy AGU Meeting . The week has passed as a blur of meandering through the maze of posters, dropping into and out of oral presentation sessions, and plenty of bumping into people whom I've known over the years. In this post I'll highlight some of the things I found interesting. Day 1    |  Day 2    |  Day 3    |  Day 4  |  Day 5 Day 1: Monday, December 14 As I reported last time , I presented a poster about FMARS on Monday. I'm happy to report that it went very well, and I struck up some good conversations with people about the analog Mars research project.  The question I got asked the most was how we tracked traffic on our website or followers in social media.  My answer was that we didn't but will next time.  My poster was next to one from the Exploratorium on their Ice Stories project, which I have been following with great interest for the past year. I spent the afternoon cruising poster...

I am privileged to be spending the week in one of my favorite places: San Francisco. The city is famous among geeks for being more than the future home of Starfleet Academy ; it also hosts the annual American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting (AGU). This is my fifth time attending the meeting in the past nine years, and each time I come back it feels like returning to a familiar home. The conference is the world's largest gathering of earth and space scientists. According to the AGU Fall Meeting Blog , more than 16,000 attendees will descend upon the Moscone Center to give 15,516 presentations in 1,293 sessions this year. Topics range widely from aeronomy, atmospheric sciences, biosciences, climate science, cryosphere science, education, environmental change, geochemistry, geodesy, geology, geomagnetism, geophysics, heliophysics, hydrology, informatics, minerology, natural hazards, ocean sciences, planetary sciences, public affairs, rock physics, seismology, tectonophysics, ...

With last month's earthquakes and tsunamis in Samoa on Sept. 29 and Vanuatu on Oct. 7 , the spotlight has been on my workplace. The Samoa event produced the first tsunami casualties on American soil since the 1975 Hawaii tsunami . 34 people died in American Samoa and about 160 more in neighboring Samoa. This has spurred a lot of recent visits by the news media, school groups, concerned citizens, and several government review panels. The tsunamis were also popular on Twitter . CNN.com even wrote an article about me that was their top story for a few hours. I usually keep this blog focused on my astronaut aspirations, but today I'll break tradition and write about my job. For the uninitiated, I work as a Geophysicist at NOAA's Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) in Ewa Beach, Hawaii . I have been here 4 years and in that time have gained a great deal of experience during more than 10 significant tsunami events.  Founded in 1949 , PTWC was the world's first...

Most astronauts have transformative experiences while viewing the Earth as a fragile oasis in space. NASA's famous 1972 Apollo 17 photo of the entire Earth helped bring a part of that experience to everyday citizens and in the process sparked the modern environmental movement. A more recent photo of the Earth and Moon as seen from Mars further emphasizes just how isolated the Earth is compared to the larger universe: Today, I join over 13,000 other bloggers around the world in observing Blog Action Day as part of Earth Science Week . The purpose of Blog Action Day is to generate discussion about climate change, which is the single biggest threat to life on Earth. Although I could stress the doom and gloom scenarios of what could happen if we continue on a business as usual path, this post will take a more optimistic view. Public favor and political will towards sustainable living are on the rise, and I believe we are poised on the precipice of a new age characterized by ...

Tucked away into the mountains of Hawaiʻi's Garden Isle is NASA's Kōkeʻe Park Geophysical Observatory. This radar station has had a long history tracking spacecraft and monitoring plate tectonic motion. I visited the observatory on official business back in 2006 and thought it would be fitting to report on it this week since I am vacationing in Kauaʻi with my family.

In addition to my seismic and electromagnetic projects, I made other significant contributions to the FMARS 2009 mission , including creating our mission patch and all of our EVA maps . In this post, I'll describe the maps. These are more more than mere geographic illustrations since they include georeferenced photos, heart rate and other information. My main goal was to integrate geotagged photos and GPS tracks within the geographic context of Google Earth to help the interested public share in our experiences. To accomplish this, one first needs geotagged photos. Last year, Wired Magazine had a good article introducing the concept, and an Outdoor Photography article summarized the concept nicely: Geotagging is a way to add location or GPS data to your photos to help you organize, search, find and share your images. In the past, it was difficult for even the most advanced photographers to geotag images. There was a patchwork of technology that could do it, but it w...

If I can take off my Mars explorer hat for a moment and put on my seismologist hat, I'd like to clear up something with everyone. We can't predict earthquakes or tsunamis. It's not currently scientifically possible to say when an earthquake or tsunami will happen. Based on probabilistic analysis, we can guess where they are likely to happen, but constraining when is not (yet) possible. Why do I bring this up? Because for the past two months there has been a rumor circulating on the internet that a tsunami will happen on July 22. The basic premise behind the claim is that the combined gravitational pull of the Sun and Moon pulling on the Earth's tectonic plates during the July 22 lunar eclipse will cause a major quake. The author of the tsunami hoax (as it's being called) took some NASA data of the eclipse path across the Pacific and compared where it crossed tectonic plate margins. Based on when the maximum eclipse would pass over the area (and factor...

Today is Earth Day ! Every year since 1970, Earth Day has been a day set aside to increase our awareness of the environment and learn what we can do to help better sustain the planet. Please take some time out of your day to consider what changes you can make to decrease your carbon footprint . Try one of these carbon footprint calculators to see where you stand: Nature Conservancy , TerraPass , or EPA . In addition, the Sierra Club has a lot of green living tips and several quizzes you can take to see how green you are in a variety of areas like food, travel, exercise, etc. Also check out Earth Day events in your area . The U.S. government's EarthDay.gov website has some great tips for taking action to protect the environment at home, work, or schoool. NASA's Earth Day website has loads of great photos and information, including a HD video of Earth views from space . Climate change is a big and growing problem, and I am happy that it is now receiving mainstream r...

I wanted to share a video that's been making the rounds on Facebook. It features a Space Shuttle launch, views of Earth from orbit, and landing. The editing is done very well, and it's set to inspiring music. Note that it shows Atlantis on the launch pad but Endeavour on the landing. Here is the direct link to see it in HD full screen (1280x720), but it's also embedded below for your convenience. Enjoy!

Today's post is for the kids out there. Below is a 7-minute video that shows an animated crab teaching a class on tsunami preparedness. The video was created by the San Diego County Office of Emergency Services with grants from NOAA (via the NTHMP ) and the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services .

Loyal readers of this blog know that Japan's Kaguya (Selene) Mission has captured some stunning high definition images of the Moon, including video and photos of the Earth rise ( partial and full ). Never failing to disappoint, Kaguya has snapped another picture of the Earth from the Moon. During the penumbral lunar eclipse on February 10, Kaguya was on the far side of the Moon just as the Sun-Earth-Moon conjunction happened. From the spacecraft's perspective, the Earth came between the Sun and the Moon, leaving only a ring of light because it isn't large enough to cover the entire solar disk. This is the first time the " diamond ring " effect has been observed from the Moon. In other Kaguya news, the mission has now posted dozens of HD videos on YouTube . Some of these were featured in the National Geographic Channel's program " Direct from the Moon " back in November. The mission is also the subject of a special issue of Science magazin...