Solar Sail Craft Begins Orbiting Earth | Carl Sagan Prophecy

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida - It has been two days since a tiny spacecraft began to successfully orbit earth propelled only by a solar sail named LightSail 2. It is the second generation of an earlier solar sail craft launched in 2015 which had limited success, but proved the technology was viable. This time, on 25 June 2019, the solar sail craft was launched into space aboard Elon Musk’s SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy Rocket.

Long thought to be the stuff of science fiction, NASA and The Planetary Society have been working on this alternative propulsion solution to enable continuous space exploration once humans depart the planet. Thus, it is with great elation that LightSail 2 is orbiting without incident at 720 kilometers above the earth’s surface. (WATCH VIDEO)

Advocates of “Green Space Travel,” have sought to create solutions that do not rely on chemical propellants. Space travel has been limited in part by our ability to maintain a sustainable environment in deep space. That coupled with the challenge of fuel requirements necessary not only for launch but ongoing propulsion, adds to the potential adverse environmental impact of human beings in space.

Our propensity to litter is borne out by the evidence of the 12 trips humans have made to the moon. According to estimates, 400,000 lbs. of garbage now litters the surface, and there are no current plans of how to remove it. Additional environmental challenges occur during the launching spacecraft with heavy payloads laden with fuel tanks and boosters which once expended, fall back to earth as toxic pollutants.

LightSail 2’s successful deployment is the actualization of the vision that Carl Sagan, founder of The Planetary Society long ago prognosticated. Sagan first introduced the idea of using solar winds to power space travel in 1976, postulating that a solar sail could transform particles of light, also known as photons, to increase the momentum of spacecraft, making it the ultimate renewable energy source vehicle.

The famed scientist, Sagan was trained as both an astrophysicist and biologist according to The Planetary Society, and “was a consultant and adviser to NASA beginning in the 1950s, he briefed the Apollo astronauts before their flights to the Moon, and was an experimenter on the Mariner, Viking, Voyager, and Galileo expeditions to the planets.”

The current CEO of The Planetary Society, Bill Nye, explained how this technology works to The Verge.

LightSail 2 be “twisting its sail back and forth to ride on sunlight. As it approaches the Sun, the spacecraft will keep its sail edge-on toward the light. Then, once it’s directly in front of the Sun, it will twist and face the sail toward the Sun. “It’ll work very much like a sailboat, where you push, twist, and tack into the ‘wind,’” Nye said. “And then you twist and take advantage of sailing ‘downwind.’” If all goes well, the sunlight will push on LightSail 2, and the spacecraft’s orbit will rise slightly as it whips around the Earth.”

These are exciting times as man continues to push the boundaries of space exploration, even more so, that space pioneers are environmentally conscious and aware of our role as caretakers. It is expected that the craft will operate for about a year, using the energy from the Sun to raise its orbit, until the positioning required for the continued harnessing of the sunlight will result in the earth facing side losing altitude. Ultimately, this will result in the eventual destabilization and loss of elevation, and like the mythical Phoenix bird, it will descend into the earth’s atmosphere bursting into fiery flames, from which the next iteration will launch and fly again.

RELATED ARTICLES

• The Moon is covered with 400,000-pounds of Human Trash (interestingengineering.com)

• The Planetary Society | Carl Sagan Biography (planetary.org)

• NASA's 'Green' Fuel Satellite Passes Its First Test (space.com)

• SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket Lofts 24 Satellites in 1st Night Launch (space.com)

• The Verge - Spacecraft designed to ride on sunlight deploys its reflective solar sail (theverge.com)

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Introducing U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe | Brian A. Nichols

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Brian A. Nichols presented his credentials on July 19, 2018, as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Zimbabwe.

Ambassador Nichols previously served as the Ambassador to Peru from 2014 to 2017.  He pioneered strategies against illegal gold mining, illegal logging, wildlife trafficking, and environmental degradation.  

Brian A. Nichols, U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe

He supported American trade and investment in Peru, increasing agricultural sales to over $1 billion annually, defending the rights of American investors, and building the Hemisphere’s largest public-private partnership—the U.S.-Peru Cacao Alliance.

Brian Nichols was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) from 2011 to 2013.   In that capacity, he oversaw the full range of rule of law programs, counter-narcotics and multilateral issues managed by the bureau.  From 2007 to 2010, he served as the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Colombia, where he managed day-to-day U.S. diplomatic activities in Colombia including overseeing over $500 million in annual assistance. 

Ambassador Nichols previously served as the Director of the Office of Caribbean Affairs, coordinating U.S. policy toward 14 Caribbean countries.  He also served as Counselor for Political Affairs at the American Embassy in Indonesia from 2001 to 2004. Ambassador Nichols has also served in Mexico and El Salvador during major democratic transitions.  He began his Foreign Service career as a Consular Officer in Lima in 1989.

Ambassador Nichols has earned over 20 awards during his diplomatic career, including the 2016 Charles E. Cobb, Jr. Award for Initiative and Success in Trade Development.  He is married to Foreign Service Officer Geri Kam. They have two daughters.

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LinkedIn: Ayanna Nahmias

Humans Impact Climate and Extinction of 1 Million Species

UNITED NATIONS - The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, which was established in 2012 by the United Nations Environment Programme and includes representatives from 132 countries release a report that humans are having an “unprecedented” and devastating effect on global biodiversity, with about 1 million animal and plant species now threatened with extinction.

WE SHOULD ACT NOW TO AVOID DIRE FUTURE, SCIENTISTS WARN.

Landfill in Danbury, Connecticut, by United Nations Photos

One hundred and forty-five expert environmental scientists took several studies to conclude that human activities are threatening the existence of living things like giant whales, plant species, and small flowers.

Robert Watson, the panel’s chair and a professor of environmental sciences at the University of East Anglia in the U.K., said evidence collected over the past five decades from roughly 15,000 scientific and government studies paints “an ominous picture. He said the decline in biodiversity is eroding “the foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”

Shrinking habitat, exploitation of natural resources, climate change and pollution are the main drivers of species loss and are threatening more than 40% of amphibians, 33% of coral reefs and over a third of all marine mammals with extinction, the report said. 

The report emphasizes the disastrous impact of population growth and rising demand. It notes that the world’s population has more than doubled (from 3.7 to 7.6 billion) in the last 50 years, and gross domestic product per person is four times higher. More than a third of the world’s land and 75% of freshwater supplies are used for crop or livestock production, it noted. 

In 2015, a third of marine stocks were being fished at unsustainable levels and the amount of raw timber being harvested has increased by almost half since 1970, with up to 15% of its cut illegally, according to the report with an average of 300-400 million tons of waste dumped into the world’s waters annually. Pollution entering coastal ecosystems has produced more than 400 ocean “dead zones,” totaling an area bigger than the United Kingdom. These areas are so starved of oxygen; they can barely support marine life. 

With just 5,000 Eastern gorillas (Gorilla beringei) left on Earth, the majestic species now faces the risk of disappearing completely, officials said at the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s global conference in Honolulu. Four out of six of the Earth’s great apes are now critically endangered, “only one step away from going extinct,” including the Eastern Gorilla, Western Gorilla, Bornean Orangutan and Sumatran Orangutan, said the IUCN in an update to its Red List, the world’s most comprehensive inventory of plant and animal species. 

Pandas status improved from “endangered” to “vulnerable” due to intensive conservation efforts by China.

 Reprinted from HVY, permission granted by author, Malik Awan