Interstellar Probe: The Dream Is Lost (Again)...

Earlier today, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) released the long-awaited Solar and Space Physics Decadal Survey...a report that recommended to NASA what type of heliophysics-centric mission the agency should undertake over the next 10 years.

The decadal survey proposed that NASA conduct two flagship-class missions: Links, a satellite constellation that consisted of over two dozen spacecraft flying in different orbits to study Earth's magnetosphere, and the Solar Polar Orbiter—a mission that would see a robotic probe orbiting the Sun's polar regions to observe them from above.

What the decadal survey didn't recommend was an ambitious mission that I've been enthusiastically posting about since early 2021: the Interstellar Probe (IP).

Just like what happened when the Trident Neptune-Triton flyby mission was rejected by NASA in early 2021 in favor of two Venus-bound spacecraft, I'm absolutely disappointed that the Interstellar Probe will not see the light of day. At least within the next decade or so, and in the type of mission profile that the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory—who NASA paid $4 million to study the feasibility of this project and would've built the IP spacecraft itself—proposed in its Mission Concept Report three years ago.

If you've been reading this Blog since at least September of 2005 (stop smirking), you'll know just how eager I am to see NASA develop another Pioneer/Voyager/New Horizons-type mission that will fly to the outer Solar System and beyond. Obviously, I was very excited to see what kind of scientific discoveries IP would make during a 15-year journey to interstellar space (on a mission that was designed to last up to 50 years), but it was the dream of putting my name on the spacecraft in a potential public outreach campaign (like what was done with New Horizons back in 2005—when over 430,000 people submitted their names online to be flown on a compact disc aboard the Pluto-bound explorer) that enthralled me about this endeavor.

I got to send a message via radio signal to the exoplanet Gliese 581d courtesy of the Hello From Earth campaign in 2009, but to have my name on an actual spacecraft and not in an energy wave traveling through the Milky Way galaxy some day was obviously a more wondrous scenario.

What makes me especially annoyed about this new decadal survey is that the Solar Polar Orbiter is basically a rehash of the NASA and European Space Agency's Ulysses mission which launched in 1990 and studied the Sun till 2008. Unlike Ulysses, however, the Solar Polar Orbiter would be equipped with cameras to photograph the northern and southern regions of our host star.

Big whoop. What's that compared to potentially capturing an image of our entire Solar System from beyond the heliosphere courtesy of the Interstellar Probe?

Seeing as how NASEM wanted NASA to focus on the near-Earth space environment and how solar activity affected it, it's clearly obvious that the decadal survey was influenced by this year's geomagnetic storms that caused auroras to be visible around much of the globe. This is similar to how the 2020 discovery of phosphine in Venus' atmosphere ultimately caused Trident to be rejected in favor of the VERITAS and DAVINCI missions...which NASA doesn't even care to launch to the Evening Star till sometime next decade.

(Trident would've lifted off for Neptune either next year or 2026 had NASA approved it as its next Discovery-class mission.)

Well... It's clearly obvious that the Universe doesn't really want me to put my moniker on a New Horizons-type spacecraft anytime soon. I guess I'll just have to stick with submitting my name to fly on missions within our Solar System instead.

But one thing is certain: I can have a virtual presence on over a hundred spacecraft venturing to destinations as close as Venus (courtesy of Akatsuki) and worlds as distant as Saturn (through Cassini) in our Solar System, and these missions will never make up for me missing out on New Horizons...or having the dream opportunity that is the Interstellar Probe taken from me and everyone else who are enamored by the idea of having their name attached to a manmade object drifting through the cosmos.

Happy Thursday.


Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory


Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

So @theNASEM's Heliophysics Decadal Survey is out... The survey recommends near-Earth solar-monitoring missions but apparently not the Interstellar Probe...which is a shame considering that Voyager 1 may be in its final years of operation.https://t.co/k4Q1LioCX2 pic.twitter.com/HEe77m3Y7i

— Rich Par (@AstroPnoy) December 5, 2024

I guess all the talk about SLS being cancelled (when this was the launch vehicle mentioned in @JHUAPL's report on Interstellar Probe) made @TheNASEM hesitant about recommending this project.

Like what happened with JHUAPL's Neptune Odyssey in the 2022 Decadal Survey. pic.twitter.com/acBDrHlsjH

— Rich Par (@AstroPnoy) December 5, 2024

Flying at Light Speed for 180 Months Now...

Fifteen Light-Years... That’s how far the Hello From Earth message has traveled since being transmitted from a giant NASA antenna in Australia to the exoplanet Gliese 581d in the summer of 2009.

As of 7 PM California time tonight (12 PM Sydney time on Wednesday, August 28), the radio signal containing 25,878 goodwill text messages—including one by me—will have ventured across approximately 88 trillion miles (142 trillion kilometers) of deep space...which, as stated at the very start of this Blog entry, equals a distance of fifteen light-years.

The signal, despite traveling 186,000 miles per second (or 671 million miles per hour, or um, 1 billion kilometers per hour), will still take about 5 years to reach the Gliese 581 star system. Carry on!

Flying at Light Speed for 168 Months Now...

Fourteen Light-Years... That’s how far the Hello From Earth message has traveled since being transmitted from a giant NASA antenna in Australia to the exoplanet Gliese 581d in the summer of 2009.

As of 7 PM California time tonight (12 PM Sydney time on Monday, August 28), the radio signal containing 25,878 goodwill text messages—including one by me—will have ventured across approximately 82 trillion miles (132 trillion kilometers) of deep space...which, as stated at the very start of this Blog entry, equals a distance of fourteen light-years.

The signal, despite traveling 186,000 miles per second (or 671 million miles per hour, or um, 1 billion kilometers per hour), will still take about 6 years to reach the Gliese 581 star system. Carry on!

Flying at Light Speed for 156 Months Now...

Thirteen Light-Years... That’s how far the Hello From Earth message has traveled since being transmitted from a giant NASA antenna in Australia to the exoplanet Gliese 581d in the summer of 2009. As of 7 PM California time tonight (12 PM Sydney time on Sunday, August 28), the radio signal containing 25,878 goodwill text messages—including one by me—will have ventured across approximately 76 trillion miles (123 trillion kilometers) of deep space...which, as stated at the very start of this Blog entry, equals a distance of thirteen light-years. The signal, despite traveling 186,000 miles per second (or 671 million miles per hour, or um, 1 billion kilometers per hour), will still take about 7 years to reach the Gliese 581 star system. Carry on!

Flying at Light Speed since 2009...

Twelve Light-Years... That’s how far the Hello From Earth message has traveled since being transmitted from a giant NASA antenna in Australia to the exoplanet Gliese 581d in the summer of 2009. As of 7 PM California time tonight (12 PM Sydney time on Saturday, August 28), the radio signal containing 25,878 goodwill text messages—including one by me—will have ventured across approximately 71 trillion miles (114 trillion kilometers) of deep space...which, as stated at the very start of this Blog entry, equals a distance of twelve light-years. The signal, despite traveling 186,000 miles per second (or 671 million miles per hour, or um, 1 billion kilometers per hour), will still take about 8 years to reach the Gliese 581 star system. Carry on!

Flying at the Speed of Light since 2009...

Eleven Light-Years... That’s how far the Hello From Earth message has traveled since being transmitted from a giant NASA antenna in Australia to the exoplanet Gliese 581d in the summer of 2009. As of 7 PM California time tonight (12 PM Sydney time on Friday, August 28), the radio signal containing 25,878 goodwill text messages—including one by me—will have ventured across approximately 65 trillion miles (104 trillion kilometers) of deep space...which, as stated at the very start of this Blog entry, equals a distance of eleven light-years. The signal, despite traveling 186,000 miles per second (or 671 million miles per hour, or um, 1 billion kilometers per hour), will still take about 9 years to reach the Gliese 581 star system. Carry on!


"My name is Richard Par, and HELLO from planet Earth!!! I hope all is well in your civilization...and I hope you are a much more peaceful species than we are..."
Richard Par
August 17, 2009

Flying at the Speed of Light for a Decade...

Ten Light-Years... That’s how far the Hello From Earth message has traveled since being transmitted from a giant NASA antenna in Australia to the exoplanet Gliese 581d in the summer of 2009. As of 7 PM California time tonight (12 PM Sydney time on Wednesday, August 28), the radio signal containing 25,878 goodwill text messages—including one by me—will have ventured across approximately 59 trillion miles (95 trillion kilometers) of deep space...which, as stated at the very start of this Blog entry, equals a distance of ten light-years. The signal, despite traveling 186,000 miles per second (or 671 million miles per hour, or um, 1 billion kilometers per hour), will still take about 10 years to reach the Gliese 581 star system. Happy Tuesday!


"My name is Richard Par, and HELLO from planet Earth!!! I hope all is well in your civilization...and I hope you are a much more peaceful species than we are..."
Richard Par
August 17, 2009

My Name Was Transmitted to NASA's New Horizons Spacecraft and the Kuiper Belt Region! I Hope...

On December 31 (of last year), a transmission containing names and messages from 30,547 people was beamed towards NASA's New Horizons spacecraft only hours before it made its closest approach to the Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule on New Year's Day. I would say that this makes up for me not being able to submit my name in time for it to be included on a CD containing over 430,000 monikers that was attached to the spacecraft almost 14 years ago, but it doesn't. Why? It's because I kept track of this latest campaign till the final minutes before its deadline (on Friday, December 21, 2018)...and over 37,000 names and messages were submitted by the time this campaign came to a close at 9:00 PM, Pacific Standard Time that Friday.

37,000+ messages were submitted online in the hopes that they would make their way to the Kuiper Belt region billions of miles from Earth and beyond. And yet, less than 31,000 greetings were ultimately included in the transmission. Why were the other 6,000 greetings omitted from the radio signal? Why would John Hopkins University (which was responsible for beaming the signal to New Horizons and not NASA itself) vet the submissions if they weren't gonna be stored on the flight computers of New Horizons itself—and instead making their way to interstellar space as just a mere radio wave (like the Hello From Earth message that was transmitted towards deep space in 2009)? Why would the folks at John Hopkins care if someone submitted "Jesus Christ," "Mr. T" or "Luke Skywalker" (which I didn't; I'm just listing random examples) if these names weren't gonna find their way into New Horizons' data recorders? Oh well.

I'm just hoping that I posted the certificate above because my name is about 81 billion miles in space (assuming my math is correct) since its journey began at the speed of light on December 31, and not one of those 6,000-plus submissions grounded on a computer server at John Hopkins University. That is all.


NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute

About 53 Trillion Miles and Counting...

Nine Light-Years... That’s how far the Hello From Earth message has traveled since being transmitted from a giant NASA antenna in Australia to the exoplanet Gliese 581d in the summer of 2009. As of 7 PM California time tonight (12 PM Sydney time on Tuesday, August 28), the radio signal containing 25,878 goodwill text messages—including one by me—will have ventured across approximately 53 trillion miles (85 trillion kilometers) of deep space...which, as stated at the very start of this Blog entry, equals a distance of nine light-years. The signal, despite traveling 186,000 miles per second (or 671 million miles per hour, or um, 1 billion kilometers per hour), will still take about 11 years to reach the Gliese 581 star system. Yup. Have a great week ahead!

More Than 47 Trillion Miles and Counting...

Eight Light-Years... That’s how far the Hello From Earth message has traveled since being transmitted from a giant NASA antenna in Australia to the exoplanet Gliese 581d in the summer of 2009. As of 7 PM California time tonight (12 PM Sydney time on Monday, August 28), the radio signal containing 25,878 goodwill text messages—including one by me—will have ventured across approximately 47 trillion miles (76 trillion kilometers) of deep space...which, as stated at the very start of this Blog entry, equals a distance of eight light-years. The signal, despite traveling 186,000 miles per second (or 671 million miles per hour, or um, 1 billion kilometers per hour), will still take about 12 years to reach the Gliese 581 star system. Yup. Hope you're having a great weekend!

Now We Need To Send A Message Towards Proxima Centauri!

Seven Light-Years... That’s how far the Hello From Earth message has traveled since being transmitted from a giant NASA antenna in Australia to the exoplanet Gliese 581d (whose existence was in doubt until March of last year) more than half a decade ago today. As of 7 PM California time tonight (12 PM Sydney time on Sunday, August 28), the radio signal containing 25,878 goodwill text messages—including one by me—will have ventured across approximately 41.1 trillion miles (66.2 trillion kilometers) of deep space...which, as stated at the very start of this Blog entry, equals a distance of seven light-years. The signal, despite traveling 186,000 miles per second (or 671 million miles per hour, or um, 1 billion kilometers per hour), will still take about 13 years to reach the Gliese 581 star system. Hopefully we'll be on our way to sending people to (orbit) Mars by then.

More Than 35 Trillion Miles and Counting...

Six Light-Years... That’s how far the Hello From Earth message has traveled since being transmitted from a giant NASA antenna in Australia to the exoplanet Gliese 581d (whose existence was in doubt until earlier this year) more than half a decade ago today. As of 7 PM California time tonight (12 PM Sydney time on Friday, August 28), the radio signal containing 25,878 goodwill text messages—including one by me—will have ventured across approximately 35.3 trillion miles (57 trillion kilometers) of deep space...which, as stated at the very start of this Blog entry, equals a distance of six light-years. The signal, despite traveling 186,000 miles per second (or 671 million miles per hour, or um, 1 billion kilometers per hour), will still take 14 years to reach the Gliese 581 star system. Woohoo.

30 Trillion Miles and Counting...

Five Light-Years... That’s how far the Hello From Earth message has traveled since being transmitted from a giant NASA antenna in Australia to the exoplanet Gliese 581d (which apparently doesn't exist and may just be a false signal according to recent studies by astronomers... Whatever) exactly half a decade ago today. As of 7 PM California time tonight (12 PM Sydney time on Thursday, August 28), the radio signal containing 25,878 goodwill text messages—including one by me—will have ventured across 30 trillion miles (48 trillion kilometers) of deep space...which, as stated at the very start of this Blog entry, equals a distance of five light-years. The signal, despite traveling 186,000 miles per second (or 671 million miles per hour, or um, 1 billion kilometers per hour), will still take 15 years to reach the Gliese 581 star system. Will we have landed folks on Mars by then? Nope— That's planned for the 2030s. You can thank NASA's budget issues for that.

Hello From Earth!

Four Light-Years... That’s how far the Hello From Earth message has traveled since being transmitted from a giant NASA antenna in Australia to the exoplanet Gliese 581d exactly four years ago today. As of 7 PM California time tonight (12 PM Sydney time on Wednesday, August 28), the radio signal containing 25,878 goodwill text messages—including one by me—will have ventured across 24 trillion miles (38 trillion kilometers) of deep space...which, as stated at the very start of this Blog entry, equals a distance of four light-years. The signal, despite traveling 186,000 miles per second (or 671 million miles per hour, or um, 1 billion kilometers per hour), will still take 16 years to reach the Gliese 581 star system. I'll twiddle my thumbs during the wait.

Three Light-Years! That’s how far the Hello From Earth message has traveled since being transmitted from a giant NASA antenna in Australia to the exoplanet Gliese 581d exactly three years ago today. As of 7 PM California time tonight (12 PM Sydney time on Tuesday, August 28), the radio signal containing 25,878 goodwill text messages—including one by me—will have ventured across 18 trillion miles (29 trillion kilometers) of deep space...which, as stated at the very start of this Blog entry, equals a distance of three light-years. The signal, despite traveling 186,000 miles per second (or 671 million miles per hour, or um, 1 billion kilometers per hour), will still take 17 years to reach the Gliese 581 star system. Um, I can wait.

On another note, the Sent Forever signal that was transmitted from the United Kingdom at 8:07 PM (California time) on October 5, 2009 is 17 trillion miles (27.4 trillion kilometers) from Earth as of this typing. I stated in past entries that I was gonna submit another message through Sent Forever, but unfortunately, it still looks like this won’t happen. The Sent Forever folks stated on their website back in 2010 that they were unable to renew their transmission license... I shouldn't have waited. But it's all good. Gliese 581d will do.

Two Light-Years... That’s how far the Hello From Earth message has traveled since being transmitted from a giant NASA antenna in Australia to the exoplanet Gliese 581d exactly two years ago today. As of 7 PM California time tonight (12 PM Sydney time on Sunday, August 28), the radio signal containing 25,878 goodwill text messages—including one by me—will have ventured across 12 trillion miles (19 trillion kilometers) of deep space...which, as stated at the very start of this Blog entry, equals a distance of two light-years. The signal, despite traveling 186,000 miles per second (or 671 million miles per hour, or um, 1 billion kilometers per hour), will still take 18 years to reach the Gliese 581 star system. Hope all of you are having a nice weekend.

ONE LIGHT-YEAR...AGAIN! August 27 marked one year since the Hello From Earth signal (which contains 25,878 goodwill text messages—including one by me) was transmitted from NASA’s Deep Space Network in Australia to the exoplanet Gliese 581d 20 light-years away...and today, it has been 12 months since another message I typed was relayed into space via the Sent Forever website. I wanted to send another personal greeting to any extraterrestrial being out there (yes, I say that with a grin), but unfortunately, Sent Forever has been out of action since early this year because the webmasters were unable to renew their transmission license. Oh well.

All I’m wondering is...after the recent discovery of another potentially habitable world orbiting Gliese 581, will another Hello From Earth message be transmitted towards this red dwarf star sometime in the near future? We shall see. The current message already zooming through interstellar space still has 19 years to go before it reaches this intriguing solar system.

Lynette Cook

One step closer to finding ET...

****

NASA and NSF-Funded Research Finds First Potentially Habitable Exoplanet (Press Release)

A team of planet hunters from the University of California (UC) Santa Cruz, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington has announced the discovery of a planet with three times the mass of Earth orbiting a nearby star at a distance that places it squarely in the middle of the star's "habitable zone."

This discovery was the result of more than a decade of observations using the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, one of the world's largest optical telescopes. The research, sponsored by NASA and the National Science Foundation, placed the planet in an area where liquid water could exist on the planet's surface. If confirmed, this would be the most Earth-like exoplanet yet discovered and the first strong case for a potentially habitable one.

To astronomers, a "potentially habitable" planet is one that could sustain life, not necessarily one where humans would thrive. Habitability depends on many factors, but having liquid water and an atmosphere are among the most important.

The new findings are based on 11 years of observations of the nearby red dwarf star Gliese 581 using the HIRES spectrometer on the Keck I Telescope. The spectrometer allows precise measurements of a star's radial velocity (its motion along the line of sight from Earth), which can reveal the presence of planets. The gravitational tug of an orbiting planet causes periodic changes in the radial velocity of the host star. Multiple planets induce complex wobbles in the star's motion, and astronomers use sophisticated analyses to detect planets and determine their orbits and masses.

"Keck's long-term observations of the wobble of nearby stars enabled the detection of this multi-planetary system," said Mario R. Perez, Keck program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Keck is once again proving itself an amazing tool for scientific research."

Steven Vogt, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz, and Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution lead the Lick-Carnegie Exoplanet Survey. The team's new findings are reported in a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal and posted online at:

http://arxiv.org

"Our findings offer a very compelling case for a potentially habitable planet," said Vogt. "The fact that we were able to detect this planet so quickly and so nearby tells us that planets like this must be really common."

The paper reports the discovery of two new planets around Gliese 581. This brings the total number of known planets around this star to six, the most yet discovered in a planetary system outside of our own. Like our solar system, the planets around Gliese 581 have nearly-circular orbits.

The new planet designated Gliese 581g has a mass three to four times that of Earth and orbits its star in just under 37 days. Its mass indicates that it is probably a rocky planet with a definite surface and enough gravity to hold on to an atmosphere.

Gliese 581, located 20 light years away from Earth in the constellation Libra, has two previously detected planets that lie at the edges of the habitable zone, one on the hot side (planet c) and one on the cold side (planet d). While some astronomers still think planet d may be habitable if it has a thick atmosphere with a strong greenhouse effect to warm it up, others are skeptical. The newly-discovered planet g, however, lies right in the middle of the habitable zone.

The planet is tidally locked to the star, meaning that one side is always facing the star and basking in perpetual daylight, while the side facing away from the star is in perpetual darkness. One effect of this is to stabilize the planet's surface climates, according to Vogt. The most habitable zone on the planet's surface would be the line between shadow and light (known as the "terminator").

Source: NASA.Gov

ONE LIGHT-YEAR! That’s how far the Hello From Earth message has traveled since being transmitted from a giant NASA antenna in Australia to the exoplanet Gliese 581d exactly one year ago today. As of 7 PM California time tonight (12 PM Sydney time on Saturday, August 28), the radio signal containing 25,878 goodwill text messages—including one by me—will have ventured across 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion kilometers) of deep space...which, as stated at the very start of this Blog entry, equals a distance of one light-year. The signal, despite traveling 186,000 miles per second (or 671 million miles per hour, or um, 1 billion kilometers per hour), will still take 19 years to reach the Gliese 581 star system. By the way, have you guys seen the trailer for the upcoming sci-fi film Skyline (which comes out in theaters this November)? The Hello From Earth signal is mentioned at the very start of this trailer. Nice...



On another note, the Sent Forever signal that was transmitted from the United Kingdom at 8:07 PM (California time) on October 5 of last year is now 5.2 trillion miles (8.4 trillion kilometers) from Earth as of this typing. It's 700 billion miles (1.1 trillion kilometers) from reaching one light-year as well... I stated in past entries that I was gonna submit another message through Sent Forever, but unfortunately, looks like this won’t happen. At least temporarily, that is. The Sent Forever folks stated on their website a few months ago that they were unable to renew their transmission license... I shouldn't have procrastinated. Here’s hoping their inability to renew their license is due to financial reasons and not the service being a scam this whole time. That is all.

HELLO FROM EARTH Update... As of 7 PM California time tonight (12 PM Sydney time on Friday, June 25), it will be 43 weeks since a radio signal containing 25,878 goodwill text messages—including one by me—was transmitted to the exoplanet Gliese 581d from a giant NASA antenna in Australia. The signal will be 4.8 trillion miles (7.7 trillion kilometers) from Earth. By August 27, the radio beam will officially be 1 light-year distant from our world. Cool. The Sent Forever signal that was transmitted from the United Kingdom at 8:07 PM (California time) on October 5 last year is now 4.2 trillion miles (6.8 trillion kilometers) from Earth as of this typing.