ASTROCON 2006

This time Astrocon had a higher attendance. However, the now traditional format was kept the same: an audience large enough to represent different fields of expertise, but small enough to allow for real interaction among the attendants. No simultaneous sessions, no huge crowds grouping around the last batch of coffee. Actually, no such a thing as last batch of coffee.

The success of Astrocon is precisely that it is not intended to become a gigantic conference, but a listening forum. The organizers also recognize that our profession is far larger than the mathematics behind it; the political, legal, and sociological aspects are also of importance. That is why we also count lawyers, entrepreneurs, managers, industrials, and presidential advisers among the attendants. It may sound like the beginning of a joke: an astronomer, a mathematician, a plasma physicist, a lawyer, an astronaut, a time traveler, and a Mexican are in a room… it is fun, indeed, but the importance of such forum is dead serious.

More space missions are being designed around advanced astrodynamics concepts. "Better, faster, cheaper" can only be accomplished by increasing our understanding of the universe and the laws that govern it.

Astrocon will continue to close the gap between the book and the launch pad.

See you in Spain!

Day One

Олсен, кислород!
Olsen, oxygen!

He considers himself neither an astronaut nor an space tourist. Astronaut is a profession that requires a life of practice, and he respects that a lot. But tourist is a designation that implies just looking, when in fact he conducted several experiments.

He gave us first-hand experience on the details of human space flight, like the extensive training required to set your foot in the ISS. A central aspect of his talk were the living conditions on board of a spacecraft, something everybody wonders but nobody talks about. He presented several videos and images taken during his expedition.

It was a motivating talk given by someone that did not give up on his childhood dreams. I was able to capture a short video of the takeoff.

During the atmospheric reentry the return capsule suffered a depressurization. Olsen was the crew member in charge of the oxygen valve. He received the instruction "Olsen, oxygen!" in Russian, and was able to act accordingly. It was a "minor" incident that could have ended up in tragedy had Olsen not done the right thing.

The talks

An answer to the wrong question is useless. The talks in this session ensured that we got the question right.

The talk by Dr. Choueiri explained the fundamentals of plasma acceleration and discussed a new mechanism—found in nature and reproducible in laboratory—that could be very useful in the design of dramatically more efficient plasma thrusters.

Any serious discussion regarding space mission design must include David Dunham, from the Applied Physics Laboratory. This time he presented the mission details for STEREO and other APL spacecraft.

As one can imagine, the presentation was spotless and precise to the tenth of second. Literally. STEREO is a mission that will capture images of coronal mass ejections and background events from two observatories at the same time. STEREO's twin observatories will be offset from one another in orbit. One observatory will be placed "ahead" of the Earth in its orbit, and using a series of lunar swingbys, the other will travel "behind." Just as the slight offset between your eyes provides you with depth perception, this placement will allow the STEREO observatories to obtain 3-D images of the sun.

Dr. Dunham and his team designed the mission. It does take a rocket scientist to do rocket science.

Relativity

Dr. Efriomsky presented a mathematical theory for explaining the bodily tides. His usual style of presentation, where he walks the audience through a carefully prepared overhead slide (as opposed to a Power Point presentation), is the only way in which the audience could follow his complex reasoning in a surprisingly straightforward manner.

The math behind the relativistic effects on astrodynamic systems is far from trivial. However, the quality of presentation during the last session made it possible to follow the arguments, assumptions, and implications of the important relativistic phenomena.

Wind down

Back to the future

You cannot understand the future if you do not understand the past. He begins with a high-school picture. He was already interested in physics and astronomy back then. The fellow to the left is Al Gore, who was interested in politics. Had the high-school teacher left a global warming assignment, we would not be having a lot of problems now.

His methodology was successful in predicting for how long would last a given Broadway musical. I guess another important message from his talk is the fact that we—humans— are not special, neither is it our planet, our time, or place in the universe. The instant that we realize that, truth surfaces.

I've used Gott's methodology to predict for how long will we have Astrocon:

(1/39) x 3 years ≤ tFuture ≤ 39 x 3 years

We need to go back to space.

To the right: a picture of the Apollo 11 mission taking off. It was taken by Richard Gott on July 16, 1969. Four days later, Neil Armstrong would be setting his foot on the Moon. I captured the picture from Dr. Gott's presentation during the Astrocon.

Day Two

Slowly but surely

The implications of this work can be of great impact. Is it possible for life created in one planetary system to be transported to another planetary system?

A negative answer would put an end to theories regarding "extraterrestrial spores" transporting life throughout space. An affirmative answer implies the likelihood of life outside the Earth.

After complete discussion regarding chaotic transfers in general, Ed introduces us to the concept of a "bio-rock" traveling in a planetary system.

Due to the chaotic nature of the motion between planetary system, the conclusions are one of two extremes: either we are here, in our planet, by a freak accident extremely unlikely to occur, or this sort of life is extremely common throughout the universe. Somehow I lean toward the second.

Dynamical systems, optimization, and homoclinic fishes

The presentation by Pini Gurfil on gauge symmetry was surprising; it provides a mechanism to study the deterministic behavior of chaotic systems.

At this point it is important to mention the implications of dynamical systems theory on the practice of astrodynamics. While the study of chaotic behavior in N-body problems has been around since the times of Poincaré, it was not until more recently that such concepts found application in actual space missions, maybe Bob Farquhar's ISEE-3 was the first spacecraft to actually use "contemporary astrodynamics." Ever since, it has been clear that advanced astrodynamics concepts have provided new paradigms for space mission design. Astrocon must continue that effort.

Marian Gidea presented his work on homoclinic connections and made a strong point regarding special locations within the PCR3BP. It turns out that the diagram of such regions is identical to the silhouette of a fish. Of course, there was a slide to "prove" this claim, where the anatomical diagram of an actual fish was compared to the mathematical diagram: identical.

Jesús Palacian presented his work on invariant manifolds in a very comprehensive talk that motivated several questions.

Egeman Koleman presented his joint work with Robert Vanderbei about the linear stability of ring systems. This work is a tremendous example of valuable information that can be extracted by clever manipulations and study of linear systems. In particular, they were able to confirm J. C. Maxwell's previous result regarding the nature and stability of Saturn's rings (a result obtained 150 years ago):

mr <= 2.298 ms /n^2

The talks during day two ended with a good example of fine French mathematics. Mickael Chekroun presented his work on Floquet theory applied to stability of periodic orbits. I must confess that my mathematical self does not claim to have understood the subtleties of his talk. However, I did appreciate the clarity and order of his presentation, which allowed me to understand the big picture. Also, the word topology sounds way better with French accent.

Astrobanquet

There is no better way to discuss astro-gossip than doing so while drinking wine or beer. Occasionally, your astro-gossip would be friendly interrupted by a fellow offering some hors'd'oeuvres or, why not, offering to top your glass.

As expected, most conversations revolve around astrodynamics or the latests spacecraft news; it makes sense. Our field is that much fun. Less fortunate souls do their job because they get paid for it. My feeling is that we do our job and get paid for it. Most likely we would do it anyway.

After discussing whether or not NASA should be going to the Moon, or whether radiation should be a major concern for astronauts traveling to Mars, the time had come for the actual dinner. Only four tables for approximately 40 people. The quality of interaction is inversely proportional to the amount of people. The interaction here is great.

The awards

Ed announces the first award in recognition to superior technical achievements for the individual who has designed many advanced space missions, and let his boss take credit for it. I am not quoting verbatim, but it went something like that. There is only one person that fits such profile, and he is David Dunham. There is a well known legend in the astronautics community. I call it the fantastic duo. What it is said is that great space missions are designed by humans, while fantastic missions are designed by the fantastic duo: David Dunham and Bob Farquhar. "Farquhar starts with sharp insights and follows through with broad brush strokes. Dunham works out details with deliberate, exacting precision. Farquhar cheerfully collects the accolades for the both of them; Dunham doesn't seem to mind." (Wired magazine, Dec. 1999)

The second award recognizes superior theoretical advances—Ed says—for his work on gauge freedom. At that point you know he is talking about Mike Efriomsky. Ed still has trouble pronouncing his last name but what matters is that we all recognize Mike. It is hard not to recognize him; who else would quote verbatim—page included—the great works on mathematical physics? Mike is the living example of great Russian scholar.

We have an early day on Friday, but no one seems to mind. We are having fun in Triumph and we are not leaving anytime soon. The banquet is a success, the food was great and the drinks plentiful. Ed is happy. We are too.

Day Three

The talks on interstellar travel have a philosophical ingredient: we realize how small we are. Our cutting-edge technology is not even close to achieve the goal of visiting another star. However, the fact that we think about it makes us bigger; we learn to look up and find challenges, and only through challenges can we grow.

The session on dynamical astronomy had contributions ranging from theories of lunar origin to relativistic navigation. This last one, presented by Sergei Kopeikin from University of Missouri, was a wealth of information regarding the actual disturbances experienced by spacecraft due to relativistic effects. While most of us might be aware of the generalities behind relativistic navigation, this talk provided a solid link between mathematics and engineering. In addition, Sergei pointed out an important discrepancy while processing Voyager's (acceleration) data. Further analysis on the data might shed more light on our understanding of relativistic phenomena. It might also mean that there is something out there we had not considered previously. Hopefully, New Horizons mission will provide more data for Sergei.

Astrocon ended with a talk by John Pazmino, from the National Space Society. Gravity behaves like that? seems to be a question that John keeps getting while explaining astronomy to the public. In response, he simulates comet trajectories and, by varying certain parameters by hand, he finds different scenarios in which we might find this comets or asteroids in the future. He presents several examples of historical interest.

Toward the end of his talk, he answered the question that many of us had: could any of these objects collide with Earth in the short future?. By "playing" with the orbital elements and their variation due to massive planets, he decided to finish Astrocon with a "funny" slide. Not ha, ha funny, though.

While the probability of 99942 Apophis colliding with Earth is rather low (1/43000), it did cause some concern to the NEO scientists. Now we "know" it won't hit us, but John made a good point: since gravity behaves like that there could be a chance of this collision happening. I am confident that if Apophis decides to come and visit us, the Astrodynamicists from Astrocon will find a way to divert her… not that we don't like her, but some friendships are kept better from a healthy distance.

For the troopers that made it all the way through the very end, there was a nice good-bye get-together. Triumph saw us again.

Epilogue

The effort and hard work put by the organizers is noticeable, as it is the quality and reach of the talks and presentations.

We hope to have Astrocon for years to come. Spain sure sounds good for our next stop. Olé!

About this blog

Adiós,

J. J. Arrieta-Camacho