Green Options

When I first read the news that NASA was going to start experimenting on monkeys with radiation to study the effects of deep space travel, my heart sunk. As an anthropologist who has studied non-human primates I have seen up close the emotions, the feelings, and the physical qualities we share with our evolutionary cousins. My mind went back to shooting chimps into space, not caring if they lived or died. To cruel (and now illegal) experiments of all kinds performed on our closest living relative.

Now NASA is planing to irradiate squirrel monkeys. Scientists are particularly interested in studying how the radiation impacts the monkeys’ central nervous systems and behaviors over time. Messing with the monkeys brains. Oh great!

Google Inc. is joining forces with space agencies around the world and the conservation organization Group on Earth Observations (GEO) to monitor deforestation rates using satellite imagery. Among the space agencies working on the program are NASA, the ESA, and the national space agencies of Japan, Germany, Italy, India, and Brazil.

The GEO is a global partnership of 80 governments and more than 50 organizations. Internet company Google currently collects satellite images for use in its Google Earth application, and will be providing satellite images to the project.

A desert is the perfect place to find water — if you have the right equipment, that is.  Scientists and engineers from NASA’s Langley Research Center have set up camp in the “driest place in the world,” the Chilean desert of Atacama, to deploy an instrument called the Far-Infrared Spectroscopy of the Troposphere (FIRST).  One of only four instruments of its kind in the world, FIRST measures the effect of high altitude water vapor on the Earth’s atmosphere.

FIRST could help researchers more effectively predict changes in the Earth’s climate, since it measures a band of radiation linked to the absorption of water vapor through the greenhouse effect.  This radiation activity is a significant climate factor that may account for half of the Earth’s natural cooling mechanism.  However, while other major factors have been studied from satellites, the technology has not been developed to do so with water vapor.  The FIRST equipment may well live up to its name and deliver our first precisely measurable insights into the effect of water vapor on our climate.

Not every breakthrough in the solar industry comes from efficiency gains from esoteric new Silicon Valley start-ups (though these are being catapulted by the recent funding bonanza) and university labs.

Some come from understanding that half the cost of a solar installation is just the cost of getting boots up on your roof, like for any other roofing job. One block off the grid reduces that cost by aggregating homeowners into groups to go solar together.

Some breakthroughs come when utility-scale solar companies forge innovative partnerships with housing developers rather than keep on battling NIMBY transmission costs, as BrightSource just did to meet its contract with PG&E for RPS solar power.

Others are starting to happen as titans of industry like Dow Chemical gear up to develop the little extras that smooth the assembly line process to speed up production-lines.

Because in manufacturing, assembly-line efficiency determines production costs:

This week in the journal Nature scientists give the most comprehensive view of thinning ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica to date.

Scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the University of Bristol analyzed 50 million satellite measurements (from NASA) to show the massive ice loss on these polar giants.

The result are surprising, even to the scientists.

Scientists have discovered that sunspots are not the only thing from the Sun that have a significant and varied impact on the Earth.

There is a “solar cycle” of approximately 11 years. Variation of the Sun’s impact on the Earth during those 11 years is generally thought to be due to sunspots. The Sun also shoots high-speed winds at the Earth, however, and scientists have just discovered that these super winds significantly affect the Earth in several ways.

It maybe happening in space but people are still screaming. NASA’s mission to fire a high velocity “impactor” rocket into the moon to search for water is being widely criticized in the blogosphere.

The moon’s big bang

If NASA’s plans go ahead as forecast for an October 9 launch people have got just two more opportunities to watch a full moon before the planet is subject to what many consider mightily unneighbourly conduct.

A new study this month is showing a lot of concern for Indians, and all of us who rely on products from India.

Millions of nuts, bolts, pieces of metal and carbon, and whole spacecraft from thousands of missions and launches form an orbiting garbage dump spinning around the Earth at speeds up to 22,000 mph.

After the recent collision between a Russian and U.S. satellite, concern for the growing hazard of space junk is becoming even more acute within the international space community. In recent months, NASA and the European Space Agency have both diverted resources into monitoring space debris and researching ways of mitigating and—some day—removing it.

NASA claims it’s currently planning what would be the greenest building in the federal government. To be called the Sustainability Base, this is slated to be one of NASA’s most ambitious eco-friendly projects.

The $20.6 million building will utilize current alternative energy technologies such as water recycling systems, fuel cells and solar panels to achieve a LEED-certified edifice. NASA will even use some of its technologies developed specifically for space exploration. The aim is to build a self-sustaining structure that consumes no net energy and 90 percent less potable water than other buildings its size. According to Steve Zornetzer, Associate Center Director at NASA Ames, the name Sustainable Base is an homage to Apollo 11’s Tranquility Base.

NASA has released the first ever images of mysterious polar night clouds that form 50 miles above Earth’s surface, and says that they might be linked to global warming.

The startling images were captured by NASA’s “AIM” satellite (Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere), and show night clouds above 70 degrees north latitude on May 25. Since then, eyewitnesses on the ground have reported seeing the formations on June 6 over Northern Europe (see image after the jump).

When viewed from space, the mysterious clouds are known scientifically as Polar Mesospheric Clouds, or PMCs, when seen from the ground they are called Noctilucent or “night-shining” Clouds.