Enter Space

By Valeska Roedjito
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Space Fundamentals
Celestial Bodies
Space Travel
Opportunities & Obstacles
Space Technology

Models Of the Universe

Geocentrism

In the early times all knowledge had originated from the catholic church and the bible. In the geocentric system, the Earth is considered to be the center of the solar system. Greek philosopher, Aristotle, was a strong believer in this system. The Moon, the planets, the Sun, and the stars all rotate around the Earth, with uniform circular motion. That was the heavens, which was unchanging.

Heliocentrism

However, Nicolaus Copernicus argued against this. He believed all the spheres revolve about the sun. which is the centre of the universe. What appears to us as motions of the sun not from its motion, but the earth. The earth has, then, more than one motion.

Units of Space

Astronomical Unit
Light Year

ASTRONOMICAL UNIT

In a lunar eclipse, the shadow of the earth is cast on the moon. With the time for the earth’s edge to reach the moon's end and other calculations, you can discover how far the moon is. However, this method fails due to inaccuracy. Later on, Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton laid the mathematical groundwork of planetary orbits. That in theory made it possible to measure distances to planets. However you need to know the distance from the earth to the sun. This distance was so crucial that is was given its own unit, the Astronomical Unit. In the 1960’s, astronomers used radio telescopes to finally accurately measure it to be 149, 597, 870. 7 km.

Light Year

When even the diameter of the earth’s orbit wasn’t convenient enough, astronomers created another unit. The light year, which is the distance light travels in a year. Light travels at a speed of 300, 000 km a second. The light would take only one and a quarter seconds to pass the moon, four hours to reach the outermost planet Neptune, and one year to cover 10 trillion km. 

A Star's Life Cycle

          Out there in space are huge clouds of interstellar matter; dust and gas. And if one of these clouds is massive enough, its own gravity causes it to collapse. So it folds in on itself, and towards the centre of that cloud (nebulae) it becomes denser and more heated. This is a protostar. Stars with the mass of our sun were protostars for around 10 million years. Eventually, the particles are brought so close together, that they  fuse. Inside every newborn star, hydrogen atoms are fused together to create helium, this is the star’s energy source. What happens to a star during the rest of its life, depends on how massive it is at birth. Our sun is at a delicate balance between gravity, which wants the star to collapse in on itself, and the pressure that pushes outward from the reactions at the core. At some point, the hydrogen runs out. The core will collapse under its own weight. It becomes denser to where helium atoms make carbon and oxygen. This energy causes the outer layers to expand. Our sun will one day grow so large that it will swallow the planets of our solar system up to the earth. It will become a red giant, the beginning of the end. 

          As the outer layer continues to expand, the force of gravity felt gets weaker. Until the layer drifts out into space to become a planetary nebula. A dead white dwarf star is the dead core. This is roughly half the mass of the sun and the size of the earth. Over millions of years it will gradually cool down to become a black dwarf. Some stars, however are able to fuse heavier elements up to iron and can grow to be 1000 times larger than the sun. An iron core is where no more energy can be had from fusion. That is the core of a supergiant. For stars, that have larger than eight solar masses during its lifetime is a massive star. These stars die out quickly with a main sequence and supergiant phase. When a star like these collapses, a huge shock wave occurs. The outer parts are blasted into space in a huge supernova explosion. All that is left is a super dense core, known as a neutron star. They can have a greater mass than that of our sun, but be less than 20 km across. But for the most massive stars of all, we think that when the core collapses the gravity is so strong, it becomes a black hole.

          In the main sequence graph, very bright stars are near the top and fainter ones are near the bottom. Hot blue stars are on the left and cool red stars are on the right. The main sequence is a broad long line because of how stars make energy. The higher rate at which a star’s car performs fusion depends on the pressure in a star’s core. More massive stars have denser cores, so they fuse faster and get hotter than low mass stars. The stars on the upper right are luminous, cool, and huge and above them are supergiants.

Star Groups

Galaxies

A galaxy is a space system of gas, dust, and billions of stars and their solar systems. Spiral galaxies, such as our Milky Way, consist of a flat disk with a bulging center and surrounding spiral arms. The disk's stars & planets rotate around the center.

Constellations

The constellations are the 88 internationally recognized stellar groupings in the sky. They typically correspond to a recognizable pattern and many are named from mythology. However, in modern usage, a specified constellation technically referred to the entire region of the sky, not just the recognizable star pattern.

Asterisms

An asterism is also a group of stars, but don't correspond to the recognized constellations. Some, like the Big Dipper, are a subset of the stars in a larger constellation. The Big Dipper's constellation is Ursa Major. Others are made up of stars from multiple constellations.

Space Fundamentals
Celestial Bodies
Space Travel
Opportunities & Obstacles
Space Technology

Celestial Bodies

Meteoroids

Meteoroids are typically small stone-like or metal-like debris that orbit the sun. What differs a meteoroid from an asteroid is the dramatically smaller size. As it approaches earth, our gravity accelerates it at about 11 more km per second.

Meteors

When it hits our atmosphere it moves  70 km per second or more. As it hits our atmosphere they slow down from their orbital speed to nearly a stand still. That energy gets converted into heat and light. 

Meteorites

Meteors become meteorites when they hit the earth’s ground.

Asteroids

An asteroid is a celestial body - composed of rock, metal or a mixture of both - that orbits the Sun. Most of them are in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Even though there are millions of asteroids with sizes up to more than 500 km (like Vesta & Palla) they are of no danger to the planet Earth. When pieces break off they are considered meteoroids.

Comets

Comets are composed of ice, dust and rocky particles. When a comet nucleus nears the sun, solar energy begins to heat the ice and vaporizes it. The gas flies off the comet and forms a cloud around the nucleus called the coma. Some of the gas is stripped of electrons and blown back by solar wind. This forms a bluish colored ion tail. The dust particles are pushed away  by solar radiation, forming a dust tail that can be millions of miles long

Our Solar System

The centre of our solar system is the sun. This centre releases charged particles that flow out to create loops of strong magnetic fields.Their clashing creates solar wind. It passes Earth at an average speed of 400 km/s bt we’re protected from the solar wind by earth’s own magnetic field.

Terrestrial Planets

  • Inner planets & closer to the Sun
  • Tend to be smaller
  • Rockier in composition

Jovian Planets

  • Located great distances from the Sun
  • Gaseous
  • Tend to be large
Space Fundamentals
Celestial Bodies
Space Travel
Opportunities & Obstacles
Space Technology

Space Transport Structure

FINS: Provide stability
FUSELAGE: 
PAYLOAD: Cargo to a specific orbit such as water, air, and people.  Rockets are modified to launch satellites with missions such as planetary exploration
TANK: Holds fuel and oxidizer for the engine to make combustion happen in space

Continued...

Space Shuttle
Ion Drives
Solar Sails
Space Probes
Space Stations (ISS)
Gravitational Assist


The Space Shuttle was the world's first reusable spacecraft, and the first in history to carry large satellites to and from orbit. It launches like a rocket, maneuvers in Earth orbit like a spacecraft and lands like an airplane. Since 1981, it has boosted more than 3 million pounds of cargo into orbit, and over 600 crew members.

Ion drives are engines that use xenon gas, which is charged, accelerated, and emitted as exhaust. Today’s fuel’s thrust is 10 000 times stronger but isn’t nearly as efficient.


The Sun emits electromagnetic energy in the form of photons. When the photons hit the sail, the energy moves the craft.

Space probes have visited the Moon, asteroids, comets, and every planet in the solar system. It is an unmanned device that explores and gathers scientific data in space. There are three types of space probes: interplanetary, orbiters, and landers (explained later).

Space stations are orbiting spacecraft and a permanent laboratory for new technologies and an observation platform for astronomical and environmental research.  It is a project of 16 nations, such as the U.S, Canada, Japan, and 11 nations of the European Space Agency.

As a spacecraft approaches a planet, its gravity pulls the spacecraft. The orbital momentum from the planet gives the spacecraft a

tremendous speed boost. The closer, the more momentum. The spacecraft can use its rockets during the approach, and will multiply the effect of the rockets.

U.S.A

  • 1 Apr. 1960 The United States launched TIROS 1, the first successful meteorological satellite, for monitoring Earth’s weather.
  • Project Apollo, was the third United States human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which accomplished landing the first humans on the Moon from 1969 to 1972.
  • Apollo 11 blasted off on July 16, 1969. Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins were the astronauts on Apollo 11. Four days later, Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon.

Russia

  • The first human in space and to orbit the Earth, Yuri Gagarin
  • Vostok was the first spacecraft to carry a human being in space
  • In 1995, Valery Polyakov, a Russian cosmonaut (the Russian term for astronaut) returned to Earth after living for a record 437 days in space.
  • SPUTNIK-1 was the first ever artificial satellite to orbit the earth - launched in October 1957.

Living In Space

Environmental Hazards

  • cosmic rays
  • solar radiation
  • being hit by meteoroids
  • lack of atmosphere causes shadows to be freezing and extremely hot near the sun

Psychological Challenge

  • In long-term space flight, medical and psychological evaluations occur everyday through journal writing. It's unclear exactly what astronauts will experience, but studies show a risk of anxiety, depression, and psychosomatic symptoms

Microgravity

  • Gravity is the attraction between masses
  • Microgravity is the condition where things seem weightless. It causes bone deterioration, muscle loss, fluid redistribution (leads to dehydration), and reduces production of red cells because it slows the heart
Air & Water
Heating System 

The Space Suit

Cooling System
Portable Toilet
Custom for the Wearer
Flexible to Grip & Maneuver

Continued...

Recycling Water

  • recycling wastewater for drinking
  • using recycled water to produce oxygen
  • removing CO₂ from air
  • filtering microorganisms and dust from air
  • keeping  air pressure, temp., and humidity stable

Producing Oxygen

  • electrolysis uses electricity to split water molecules
  • in space, electrolysis creates hydrogen and oxygen from water. This process can supply oxygen for the crew’s needs
Space Fundamentals
Celestial Bodies
Space Travel
Opportunities & Obstacles
Space Technology

Space Tech on Earth

SATELLITE COMMUNICATION

REMOTE SENSING

A communications satellite creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations through radio communications signals. Due to this, through geosynchronous orbit satellites photograph weather, follow ships, report environmental change, and search for natural resources.

Imaging devices in a satellite make observations of Earth’s surface and send this to Earth. Images can be photographs by cameras or data from the sensing of heat and energy waves.


GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM

The Global Positioning System (GPS) finds your location on the ground. Twenty-four GPS satellites are in orbit. Radio signals are picked up by a receiver and are translated by a computer.

REFRACTING TELESCOPE

Refracting telescopes use two lenses to gather and focus starlight. The lenses refract light to intersect. The intersection of light form the real image the observer sees.

REFLECTING TELESCOPES

Reflecting telescopes uses a metal, concave mirror to detect starlight. A second mirror refracts light to the eye.

INTERFEROMETRY

The image using two or more telescopes or radio telescopes make. This resulting image can have greater clarity for the observer.

Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope avoids clouds, humidity, and winds, at low Earth orbit. It can focus on a new objects of interest and switch data transmission modes.

Radio Telescope

Instead of receiving visible light, a radio telescope detects radio waves using a large parabolic ("dish") antenna. They are the primary means to track space probes. Many celestial objects, such as pulsars or active galaxies (like quasars), produce electromagnetic radiation in the form of radio waves. 

Space Probes

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/space-probes/

In this case, space probes are space instruments that place equipment near or on planets. They carried out remote sensing on Mercury and Jupiter, collected soil samples on Mars, landed on Venus, and even studied Saturn’s rings.

Space Fundamentals
Celestial Bodies
Space Travel
Opportunities & Obstacles
Space Technology

Opportunities and Obstacles

Hazards in Space
Hazards on Earth
Space Junk

- Effects of solar and cosmic radiation are magnified which can burn electronic circuits in a satellite In humans, this radiation kills cells in vital organs
- When returning to Earth, too shallow an angle will make the craft bounce off the atmosphereIf too steep an angle, the craft can burn

- In 1986, the space shuttle Challenger experienced a catastrophic explosion shortly after takeoff, killing all seven astronauts aboard.
-In space radiation is in the form of subatomic particles that can come from the Sun and further out in the Universe including the Milky Way Galaxy and even beyond. They are moving at high speeds and can rip through our DNA molecules causing damage or splitting

  • The re-entry of a spacecraft is even more dangerous. The friction of air on the rocket would cause the rocket to burn up like a meteor and be destroyed in seconds, so spacecraft have been designed to allow them to re-enter the atmosphere slowly by gradually circling downward. Now this has not always ran smoothly. With Columbia disintegrating during its return to Earth in 2003 after a small part of the Shuttle Orbiter’s wing was damaged on launch
  • Rocket engines emit reactive gases that cause ozone molecules to break apart
  • Space junk can come back to Earth’s surface In 1978, a nuclear-powered Soviet satellite, on reentry to Earth’s atmosphere, disintegrated, showering radioactive debris over 124 000 km2.
  • One of the most dangerous places for an astronaut is the launch of their rocket. A lot of rocket fuel for reaction mass and energy is required to attain even a low Earth orbit. The spacecraft needs to get up to least 11 km per second or 40 230 km per hour. Even regular tests have proven hazardous. On Jan. 1967, three of the first group of NASA astronauts died during a routine ground test of the Apollo capsule (Apollo 1). They suffocated from an electrical spark-ignited fire in their high-pressurized, pure-oxygen cabin.
Space debris is a growing problem with space travel. Space debris can be ANYTHING. From tiny flecks of paint, a metal bolt, to a fully-sized defunct satellite. Over 2000 satellites have been launched into space since the first, Sputnik in 1957. But unlike Sputnik, which returned to Earth when it re-entered the atmosphere after three short months in orbit, some have refused to come home, such as the US Vanguard 1 satellite which is the oldest satellite still orbiting in Earth’s low orbit after its launch in 1958.

Canadian Contributions

Pros and Cons of
Space Exploration

Pros

Exploring space could help improving life on Earth

- Learn more of the universe because that is a human’s purpose

- Paves the way to advanced technology

- Creates jobs

- Learn to better predict weather and natural disasters

- Looking for planets that can support human life for our growing population

Cons

- Endangers the lives of astronauts

- Pollution in space

- Undeniably costly: training and educating astronauts, building rockets and space shuttles, developing new technology for missions

SPACE RESOURCES 

Who Owns Space?

People did not use to consider space as an attainable thing. However, now due to increase space travels it has become pretty predominant that space will be partially owned in the future. Currently, space exploration is controlled by the UN Outer Space Treaty of 1967. In our present time and era, people are coming to thoughts of mining and exploiting space's resources. Although mining on asteroids is still in research and development.

Questions

Political

• Who has the right to use its resources?
• Who determines how space will be used?

Ethical
• Is it right to spend money on space exploration rather than on solving problems on Earth?
• How can we ensure that space resources will be used for the good of humans and not to further the interests of only one nation or group?

Environmental
• Who is responsible for protecting space environments from alteration?
• Who is responsible for cleaning up space junk, and who should pay for doing it?

Animals In Space

Laika: The First Dog Into Earth's Orbit

Her Tale

On Nov. 3, in 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first living animal into earth’s orbit: a dog named Laika. Other dogs had gone to space, but only for suborbital launches. Her purpose, to study the safety of space travel for humans. However, without the technology advancement for a safe return trip, Laika was aboard  a suicide mission.

Laika was a stray picked up from the streets of Moscow just over a week before the rocket was set to launch. She was part of the 36 stray dogs the Soviets sent into space before Yuri Gagarin. Merely a month before, Sputnik, the first satellite, had launched. Later, Laika’s vessel, Sputnik 2, shot into orbit. News media headlines yelped barbaric words like pooch-nik and  sputpup, until settling on Muttnik. Other headline-writers had compassion for Laika, forcing the Soviet embassy in London to switch from celebration mode to damage control. A Soviet official protested, “This has been done not for the sake of cruelty but for the benefit of humanity.”

Although Russian officials insisted Laika died painlessly after a week in orbit, the true story leaked in 2002: She died within hours of takeoff from panic and overheating, according to the BBC. Sputnik 2 continued to orbit Earth for five months, but burned up on reenter of the atmosphere in April 1958.

Laika proved that it was possible for humans to enter space. Her tale sparked animal rights debates across the planet. Nonetheless, in the Soviet Union, Laika and all the other animals that made space flight possible are remembered as heroes. In 2008, a statue of Laika was unveiled in Moscow.

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