U.S. East Coast viewed from the International Space Station.
I won’t be able to post many (or any) posts on Beyond Apollo in the next few weeks because of holiday and work travel. I’ll be hauling along research material when I travel (I always do), but I doubt that I’ll have time to do much more than take notes.
The good news is that I’ll be visiting Washington, DC, for the first time in several years, and I’ve built a personal day into my meeting schedule to do some archival research. I hope to be able to photocopy or scan some new documents to write about in the Smithsonian archives at the Udvar-Hazy facility, which I have not visited before.
My meetings are at the Smithsonian on the National Mall, and I look forward to breaking away, if possible, to have a look at the National Air and Space Museum. I last visited in 2000, so I expect that it has changed a great deal since then.
Here’s what I am currently working on for Beyond Apollo: a post on plans for Outer Solar System exploration before gravity-assist and the Grand Tour; a much-delayed second installment in my series of posts on North American Aviation’s 1965 Mars-Venus piloted flyby study (begun here); an anniversary post on Mariner II, the first successful interplanetary spacecraft; and another delayed post, this time on a 1962 Chrysler study of possible equatorial launch sites for NASA launches (the working title is “Spaceport: Somalia”).
As always, I thank you for reading Beyond Apollo. I appreciate your comments and suggestions.
To conclude this post, I want to let any night-sky fans out there know about a disturbing development in Flagstaff, Arizona. Flagstaff was designated world’s first International Dark-Sky City in 2001. Located 7000 feet above sea level in ponderosa pine forests on the flank of an extinct volcano, the city of 60,000 people is home to Lowell Observatory, the U.S. Naval Observatory, the U.S. Geological Survey’s Astrogeology Science Center, Northern Arizona University’s recently upgraded observatory, and other educational and science institutions. Most of these facilities have a global reach – actually, an interplanetary reach, because scientists based at many of them are involved in missions to Pluto, Saturn, Ceres, and other places.
Over the years, dark-sky advocates – only a few of whom work for the observatories, it turns out – have fought off challenges to Flagstaff’s dark-skies zoning policies. Occasionally the city government has been seduced by the light side; usually, as is now the case, when big-money development is promised.
Often this happens when members of the city council fail to understand the contribution the science institutions in Flagstaff make to the community. They pump millions of dollars into this small city on an on-going, regular basis, and have at least since the U.S. Naval Observatory came to town in the 1950s (Lowell Observatory has contributed to Flagstaff since Percival Lowell set up his first telescope on Mars Hill in 1894). Some of this money comes from tourism – people visit from all over the world – but even more comes from science.
In addition, Flagstaff’s science institutions support local science and technology education. One example is Flagstaff’s annual two-week Festival of Science, which takes place every September, but support for schools, teachers, and students continues throughout the year.
I wrote about Flagstaff’s long and successful battle to keep its skies dark. You can find my article here, on the website of the Flagstaff Dark-Skies Coalition.
The latest challenge to Flagstaff’s dark skies is well described here. It is an apartment complex on the road leading to the U.S. Naval Observatory. A vote will be held December 2, but it’s doubtful that the battle will end there if this ill-conceived plan goes ahead. A defeat for dark skies in Flagstaff would send a negative message to other towns and cities near observatories all around the world. If you wish to tell the Flagstaff city government that the world is watching what it does next, you can do so by sending email to the addresses below:
Mayor Jerry Nabours – jnabours@flagstaffaz.gov
Vice-Mayor Coral Evans – cevans@flagstaffaz.gov
Councilmember Celia Barotz – cbarotz@flagstaffaz.gov
Councilmember Karla Brewster – kbrewster@flagstaffaz.gov
Councilmember Jeff Oravits – joravits@flagstaffaz.gov
Councilmember Scott Overton – soverton@flagstaffaz.gov
Out-going Councilmember Mark Woodson – mwoodson@flagstaffaz.gov
In-coming Councilmember Eva Putzova – eva.putzova@gmail.com
Assistant to the City Manager Stephanie Smith – ssmith@flagstaffaz.gov
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