PLANET 9 AND GRAVITY WAVES

       Astronomy always crops up in the general news media, and lately the buzz has been about “Planet 9” and “gravity waves.”

       The news crawl on the bottom of your TV news says something like: “Astronomers suspect “Planet 9” in Kuiper Belt beyond Pluto” and “Astronomers’ discovery of Gravity Waves Creates New Branch of Physics.”

       Which can be confusing, particular to dwarf planet and former ninth planet Pluto.  Not to mention any beach surfers out there wondering if they might “catch” a gravity wave.

       Well after decades of “surfing” the cosmos, astronomers finally did after decades of trying—they “caught” some gravity waves rippling along space, intercepting Earth and altering space and time.

       (…and maybe not far behind is Marvel Comic’s Silver Surfer—searching for planets that might energize his captor, Galactus. Huh? Space nerds understand).

       Even though it was just a movement of one-ten-thousandths the width of the smallest atom, the detection of gravity waves on Sept. 14, 2015 has shaken the foundation of physics.

       Released in a scientific journal and a press conference in February 2016, the direct evidence of gravity waves has a profound effect on the future of astrophysics and our comprehension of the Universe.  

       In a nutshell, Albert Einstein predicted 100 years ago that gravity bends light (proven in 1909) and can also warp space and time. Along with that is all the exotic concepts of time travel, warped space and even multiple Universes!

       There a plenty of visuals on the Internet to help you wrap your head around the bending of time and space. Think of this one:  a trampoline with a bowling ball in the middle.  The trampoline is outer space and the bowling ball is a huge object with lots of gravity, like a Black Hole. The stretching of the trampoline towards the bowling ball is like gravity bending space.  And if something is orbiting the Black Hole, it can create waves in that gravity force. 

       And those gravity waves can alter the space around it and the time it takes light and other cosmic matter to travel. The bottom line: time travel, as predicted in science fiction, is possible!

       Just how astronomers discovered this is quite complex and the brainy stuff of astrophysics.  But here goes how the discovery happened:

       A team of astronomers have been using two identical, special scientific instruments to detect minute changed in Earth’s gravity caused by waves of altered space/time.  Looking like a “Y” shaped pipe a half-mile long above the ground in Richland, Washington and Livingston, Louisiana, a precise laser records any disruption. The scientific tools are formally called the Laster Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO).

LIGO in Livingston, Washington

What happened is this: Watching the rare occurrence of two super Black Holes actually colliding, one 30 time the size of our Sun and the other 40 times more massive, the astronomers detected the warping of space and time as gravity waves from the event thousands of Light Years away flowed past Earth.

The actual evidence is in the form of simple graphs like an electrocardiogram of outer space, and astronomers turned that into an audio track.  The sound bite rises to a middle C before abruptly stopping, the first direct evidence of ripples in the fabric of space-time that Einstein predicted a century ago.

The discovery is ground breaking because this reveals a new factor of the Universe that is not part of the electromagnetic spectrum—of which visible light is just a small part.  You have light, radio, infrared, gamma and x-rays in that spectrum, but gravity waves are something different. Like ripples in the water, the very fabric of outer space has waves created by the mass, or weight of objects, tugging on it. Yes, it’s a hard concept to grasp, but very real.

       What will happen next, after a possible trip to Sweden for a Nobel Prize in physics? For sure, more scientific funding will become available to build bigger and better detectors of gravity waves.

        And around the world, universities of nerdy scientists will play with their experiments, build some now unknown contraptions, and possibly, quite possibly, 50 years from now create the “time machine” first written about by HG Wells in 1895. 

While the excitement of gravity waves has people thinking about time travel and Einstein’s weird Universe, another recent astronomy item in the news has two astronomers saying they have evidence for a 9^th planet in the far reaches of our Solar System. 

       Ironically, one of the astronomers, Mike Brown, is the culprit behind the demotion of Pluto from planet to dwarf planet.  Brown discovered an object, now called Eris, that is the same size as Pluto (2,370 miles) but farther away from the Sun. Than another half-dozen objects about the same size were found in this region called the Kuiper Belt. The dilemma was adding more planets or clumping these objects in their own classification.  Brown wrote about it in his book “How I Killed Pluto.”

       Now Brown and his science partner Konstantin Batygin are convincing colleagues they have found a huge planet at the edge of the Kuiper Belt, maybe tens of billions of miles from the Sun.

Astronomers Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin

The astronomers have been studying a cluster of six objects each around 1,000 miles wide and orbiting deep in the Kuiper Belt. Their behavior has led them to a new “Planet 9.” studied the clustering of six objects way beyond Pluto and how they have been tugged about in a similar direction.  That direction, they say, is a large, Neptune-sized planet that is gravitationally effecting the cluster of much smaller bodies.

       The “Planet 9” may be no closer to the Sun than 18 billion miles and might be in an extreme elliptical orbit that takes it 65 billion miles from our star. That would mean one orbit every 10,000 years or so.   Pluto is in an elliptical orbit that takes it from 2 to 4 billion miles from the Sun.  It take 243 years to orbit the Sun.   

  
       That is the key to the prediction that Planet 9 exists, that these six dwarf planets are being tugged in the same direction out of the normal orbital plane where the rest of the planets dwell.  The eight planets and asteroids orbit the Sun in a flat, saucer-shaped plane that varies only up to 3 degrees from horizontal.  But Pluto and the other Dwarf Planets are orbiting at extreme angles to the planetary plane, just like comets that can come from any direction around the Solar System.

       The inference of unseen objects has plenty of precedence as that’s how Neptune was discovered.  After the discovery of Uranus through the eyes of astronomy giant William Herschel in 1781, it was realized something was pulling at it.  The math was done by two independent researchers and Neptune was discovered in 1846 at a Berlin Observatory.

       Pluto was also found in 1930 when searching for gravitational tugs on Neptune, though the gravity calculations were for something larger. 

       How could an 80,000-mile-wide object, 10-times the size of Earth, be so so far away from the Sun? 

       Astronomers have worked supercomputers overtime to determine that the early Solar System was filled with hundreds of large objects crashing into each other, some getting larger, some getting flung deeper into space.  One giant impact severed the Moon from the Earth in that first 500 million years of our 5-billion-year lifetime of the Solar System.

       Assuming the math is correct and there is giant Planet 9 out there, how will we find it? The “geek squad” has several earth-based telescopes looking for it, and the prediction is within 5 years Planet 9 will be found.

       Give time some time and we may just have a new member of our Solar System. And that will create a wave of excitement for all of us.   

       

Moon Man Mitchell and Soviet Moonship

       The anniversary of an Apollo lunar landing or death of a rare moon walker gets the attention of everyone looking at the Moon.

       And it gets the Space Age fanatics thinking about the race to the Moon in the 1960s.

       It was America vs the Soviet Union; Democracy vs Communism; Good vs Evil; open access vs censored secrecy; and triumph vs tragedy.

Apollo 14 Moonship "Antares"  Note right pad dug in edge of crater...close call!

       And one of the astronauts taking steps on the Moon and making a triumph out of the near-tragedy of Apollo 13 was Edgar Mitchel, who died at age 85 on Feb. 3, 2016, which was the 45^th anniversary of him orbiting the Moon with two other astronauts aboard Apollo 14.

       While I was enjoying Internet posts about the life of Mitchell and the Apollo 14 mission to the Moon, I also participated in the space nerds’ cyber banter about the one-man Soviet moonship called “LK” for Lunar Ship. It’s clear that America was ahead during most of the space race, but just barely. And once censored details about the Soviet space program are being revealed each year.  

       Edgar Mitchell walked on the Moon Feb. 5, 1971 with his commander and Mercury space hero Alan Shepard, the fifth and sixth humans to set foot on an alien world.  The astronauts were outside for two, four-hour moonwalks during their 37 hours on the surface. They brought back 95 pounds of precious lunar rocks.

       The Apollo 14 landing will be remembered for Shepard swatting two Titleist golf balls with a make-shift 6-iron during the last moonwalk.  This was after the pair became exhausted in the fluffy moon dust. They actually turned away with just a few yards from the edge of a large crater they wanted to look inside, the moonscape disorientating them slightly. 

The Apollo 14 moonwalkers taught us that without familiar objects like trees and telephone poles that we have on Earth, it was extremely hard to judge distances on the Moon.  Shepard and Mitchell walked in the deepest lunar soil experienced among the six landers, often over the tops of their boots.   They had a wheeled utility cart with all their tools, like a lunar rickshaw, which was hard to drag along the deep, moon dirt.

The Apollo 14 mission was the last of the three test missions that basically verified all the complex systems and navigational requirements.  The next three, Apollos 15, 16 and 17, would have three-day stays with a lunar rover to drive them around complex geology.

Edgar Mitchell came back from the Moon experience a changed man.  He said he felt the presence of a universal entity, not unlike, but different from the Biblical God of Christianity.  He created the Institute of Noetic Sciences to investigate the paranormal and psychic phenomenon.  A staunch believer that UFOs are evidence of extraterrestrials, he often created controversy that NASA chose to ignore. 

Mitchell’s impression of his Apollo 14 experience and his unworldly beliefs are put down in his book, “The Way of the Explorer: An Apollo Astronaut's Journey Through the Material and Mystical Worlds” (1996).

Had the Soviets landed on the Moon first, their mission would have been a “grab-and-go” to claim the historic first.  The Soviet moon plans has no scientific experiments, and it has been guessed that the lucky cosmonaut would dash

Soviet Moonship "LK"  

outside for a mere 20-30 minutes with a camera, shovel and suitcase.  After hurriedly gathering rocks and tossing the suitcase of lunar booty into the LK moonship, the cosmonaut would get ready for blast off and rendezvous with a second cosmonaut orbiting in a Soyuz-style ship called Zond.

This “land and go” scenario would have to take place during a two-hour Zond orbit. The LK moonship could probably only operate for 6-8 hours on the Moon surface because of its small batteries for power.  So the Zond cosmonaut would be in position for rendezvous for two, maybe three lunar orbits.

       Though America had won the Moon Race in July 1969 with Apollo 11, the Soviets continued to test their LK moonship in Earth orbit without cosmonauts.  Disguised as “Cosmos” series flights, the usual cover for Soviet secrecy, it is known that Cosmos 379 and 382 were LKs flown in November and December 1970, and Cosmos 398 and 434 were LKs flown in February and August 1971.  Space insiders followed the flights with tracking information, confirming that the descent and lunar ascent systems seemed to work well.  Yet, the Soviets never sent a man on their LK moonship.

       The main reason America beat the Soviets to the Moon was the Russians failure to build a successful rocket to launch the LK moonship.  America’s Saturn V rocket was a modern day marvel even today, and it’s proven, three-stage system proved the difference in the Moon Race. The Soviet’s moon rocket, called N-1, exploded in catastrophic fashion three times in 1968 and 1969, dooming the dreams of a cosmonaut on the Moon before an American.

       The LK moonship was also questioned if it could pull off the landing and launch from the Moon. The LK was one-third the size of NASA’s Apollo.  Weight distribution, including the cosmonaut, would have been critical to maneuvers.  And the claustrophobic interior with death a simple mistake away would have taken a very brave cosmonaut to fly the mission.  Indeed, several cosmonauts have openly doubted it would work, calling their Moon landing plans a suicide mission. 

       Would the world be different if the Russians won the Moon Race?  For a while. The secrecy and ensuing propaganda would have the world thinking Communism was superior to Democracy. 

But NASA would have kept on schedule with its plans and continued the exploration of the Moon.  America’s ambitious scientific missions would have put any Soviet moon science to shame. The Russians weren’t going for the science, just the fame of being first to the Moon.  

Nearly 50 years later, only Americans have been on the surface of the Moon. The Chinese say they’re going back to the Moon in the next 10 years, while NASA looks to a Mars mission with the Moon as a possibility in 15-20 years. And Russia says they also want to go the Moon. 

       One thing is for certain, humans will one day again walk on the Moon as our nature is to explore, and outer space is the ultimate adventure. 

FIVE PLANETS DAZZLE MORNING SKY

       The media is calling it the “Great Naked Eye Planet Show,” and it is coming to your predawn sky everywhere.

       Until around Feb. 20 when Mercury moves too close to the Sun, everyone can also see the five “classic” planets strung like celestial pearls across the eastern sky.

       It might be while walking the dog before the rising Sun or climbing in your vehicle, but if you look up to the early morning twilight you will see Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn with a few bright stars tossed in between.

       Stretching from the horizon to directly overhead, this celestial necklace is an easy target for any telescope, as well as just a breathtaking sight to inspire one to appreciate planet Earth.

       In the ancient world, such a gathering of the wandering “stars” would have created a public sensation of astrological predictions and everybody would be talking about the scintillating morning scene.

       Ancient stargazer/astrologers would be working overtime trying to figure out what the Gods were trying to tell Earth.  And there would be a lot of interpretation as in all the sky just the Sun, Moon and these five bright “stars” move about in predicted patterns.

       In our 21^st Century world, horoscopes are finally just entertainment and a small percentage of us will even take the time to look up in the pre-twilight morning and see this celestial line up.  And that’s a shame, because those of us who look up can watch the Solar System in action.

       As the planets move and Earth journeys around the Sun, the whole passion play of planets will get jumbled up. Before you know it, one May evening after sunset you’ll look up and there will be Jupiter shining down with Mars nearby.  But for the Winter of 2016, they belong to the after-midnight scene.

       Following the fascinating rhythm of the stars with just your eyes—called “naked eye” stargazing—is a perfectly good way to enjoy astronomy. And it connects you with our ancestors from civilizations past, who were much more intimate with the stars than modern man.

       The morning planetary lineup will be easy to see before climbing in your mechanical chariot for the drive to work.   If before 6:20 am, you won’t see illusive Mercury hugging the eastern horizon.  But rising up from the horizon will be brilliant Venus, much dimmer red Mars, yellowish Saturn and definitely yellow Jupiter.

       Let’s look at the beautiful morning display of the five classic planets of antiquity and the constellation they dwell in this Winter 2016:

       At 6 am, Jupiter is directly overhead, shining brightly as a golden point of light. That gold light has always been associated with royalty and gold treasure.  Rising in the east at 9 pm, Jupiter is in the hindquarters of Leo the Lion, moving into Virgo the Virgin.           

       Looking at Jupiter, to the right is Regulus, the brightest star of Leo, and to the left is bright, white Spica in sprawling Virgo the Virgin. And left of Spica is Mars.

       The red hue of Mars has been associated through all antiquity with blood. Thus the great Roman warrior Mars became the fourth planet.  And it’ll be rising around 2 am in Libra the Scales, and only inanimate object in the Zodiac.

       Mars will be brightening up as it gets closer to Earth this Spring.  It is always fascinating to look at the Red Planet and think about the two rovers and four orbiters that are currently exploring the world most like Earth.

       To the left of Mars and rising around 4 am in the claws of Scorpius is Saturn.  Looking a creamy yellow, it was associated with the staple food corn, and Saturn is the Roman god of agriculture. 

       Rising in the east around 6 am is the brightest planet, Venus.  And 20 minutes later will be much fainter Mercury.  So, you have to look quick: twilight starts around 6:40 am.  And your last look of Mercury will be around 7 am just before sunrise.

       Venus is always the brightest planet, the brilliant white being associated with the purity of women and goddesses like the Roman goddess of love. Today we know that the brightness is caused by a global cloud system that reflects sunlight like a mirror.

       The ancient stargazers called Venus the Morning Star or Evening Star, depending when seen.  It was even thought to be two different objects.  But today we know Venus’ 224-day orbit puts it about 100 days in the morning and 100 days in the evening skies.

       Mercury is the illusive one for sure, as the first planet never gets far away from the Sun and takes just 88 days for its solar year.  So in Earth’s 365-day solar journey, we see Mercury bobbing back and forth from morning to evening twice in a year.

       Mercury will be the only bright star near the eastern horizon, rising ahead of the Sun at around 6:20 am, and 10 minutes later can be easily seen.  Like everything else in the sky moving westward as the Earth spins eastward to greet the Sun, the advancing twilight puts out the stars one-by-one.

       Mercury will disappear and then Mars and Saturn.  But the bright Venus and Jupiter will linger longer in the twilight—a challenge to see how long you see them against the blue sky. Sunshine takes over, and the night is officially day.

       The morning offers quite a unique and beautiful sight of our five naked eye planets, one that is worth getting up early to see.  But don’t wait as the show will be over before the March winds blow.

      

NASA's Darkest Week Remembers Fallen Astronauts

By Mark D. Marquette

       This is NASA's darkest week as 16 Americans and Israel's first astronaut are remembered for their ultimate sacrifice in pushing the boundaries of human exploration.

       Since Alan Shepard's first sub-orbital ride into outer space 54 years ago, there have been three fatal American accidents claiming astronauts lives in their spaceships.

       Separated by decades but falling in the same week, the NASA family and all Space Age followers will be thinking of the men, women and their families as the tragic dates roll by: Jan. 27, 1967, Apollo 1; Jan. 28, 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger; Feb. 1, 2003, Shuttle Columbia.

       A unique and beautiful memorial to the fallen astronaut corps is a centerpiece of the public grounds at Kennedy Space Center.  A huge slab of polished stone has the names of the deceased astronauts etched, the huge memorial rigged to catch floodlights shining on the structure, highlighting the names.

       There are 24 names on the memorial, though 17 died in spaceships. Seven astronauts in training are also on the memorial

       Jan. 27^th marks the 49th anniversary of three Apollo 1 astronauts trapped inside their capsule when a fire broke out during a launch pad dress rehearsal. 

       Succumbing to the searing heat sparked by an electrical spark and fueled by pure oxygen were three future Moon voyagers, space veterans Gus Grissom and Ed White, and rookie Roger Chaffee.

       Grissom was the second American in space, duplicating Alan Shepard's suborbital flight in 1961.  He then commanded the maiden voyage of the two-man Gemini spacecraft with John Young.  Grissom's command of the first Apollo spaceship put him on the short list of men NASA wanted to command the first Moon landing.

       Indeed, it could just as easily be Virgil “Gus” Grissom in the history books as the first man to set foot on the Moon instead of Neil Armstrong.

       And right there on the Moon with Grissom could have been Ed White, who's first American spacewalk in 1964 has produced the iconic image of man floating freely outside a spaceship.

       Chaffee, too, would have had a ticket punched for a Moon mission, and all three Apollo 1 astronauts are revered across the country with schools, museums and awards named in their honor.

       Their ultimate sacrifice resulted in a greatly improved Apollo spacecraft, one that literally rose out of the ashes and first flew to the Moon in December 1968 in the historic orbital mission of Apollo 8. 

       The lessons learned from the destruction of two $2 billion spacecrafts and the death of 14 astronauts in the Challenger and Columbia Space Shuttle accidents have also yielded a huge reward—the safe construction of the $100 billion ISS. 

       Sold to the US Congress as a “space truck” that would stimulate space commerce with affordable, twice-a-month launches into Earth orbit, the Space Transportation System (STS) of Shuttle orbiters and launching rockets never lived up to the ambitious dream.

       First launched in April 1981 with Columbia, the Shuttle fleet was lucky to be launched every two months, and issues were constantly cropping up in the most complicated machine every built to fly.

       The patchwork fixes of the dynamically precarious Space Shuttle caught up with NASA on the 25^th launch and 10^th of orbiter Challenger.  In NASA lingo, it is known as STS-51L

       A segment on the right side Solid Rocket Booster blew a seal and hot flame gushed out like a blow torch.  That sent the Orbiter crashing into the huge, orange External Tank, holding 500,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and oxygen.  It was 73 seconds into the 11:30 am launch when the explosion ripped Challenger apart.

       So apathetic was the public in 1986 about a Space Shuttle launch that only cable news networks showed Challenger live, the main interest coming from thousands of school children across the nation.  They were watching the first “Teacher in Space” Christa McAuliffe, the first true civilian launched into space. She was to give a school lesson to those thousands of kids from space later that week. But she never made it.

       The Challenger disaster was directly caused by below freezing temperatures at Cape Kennedy. Rubber seals were prohibited from setting up properly in the seven giant segments that were stacked to make up the Solid Rocket Boosters on each side of the Shuttle. One “O-ring” didn’t seal the gap, hot flame blew through and eventually brought Challenger down.

       A Congressional investigation blamed poor management decisions to launch Challenger under unfavorable and unknown weather conditions, while compromising human safety to keep an unrealistic launch schedule.  Pressure to launch was exacerbated by several previous delays, and President Ronald Reagan was scheduled to talk to the crew in orbit during his State of the Union address on Jan. 28, 1986.

       Dead were Commander Dick Scobee, Pilot Michael Smith and mission specialists Ellison Onizuka, Ronald McNair, Gregory Jarvis, Judy Resnik and Christa McAuliffe. 

       Evidence showed that the astronauts probably survived the initial explosion when the rigid, space-proof crew cabin was blown out of the fuselage and tumbled the 7 miles to a 300 mph impact with the Atlantic Ocean.  Three astronauts had turned on their emergency oxygen packs, so they were conscious for a while before the fatal impact with the ocean.   The entire Shuttle program was revamped with several close calls being revealed.  The Solid Rocket Boosters were redesigned to prohibit another segment blow through, and other concerns were addressed.

       But what kept nagging launch inspectors was the amount of ice that clung to the big, orange External Tank—created by the -250 below zero liquid helium and oxygen inside. Video had shown many flights were ice and sometimes foam sections of the External Tanks would break off during the first minute after blast off, sometimes striking the Orbiter and its wings.

       Finally, the problem became a disaster when the matriarch of the Shuttle fleet, Columbia, was launched on January 16, 2003.  

       STS-107 was the last Shuttle mission scheduled not to visit the ISS. Instead, the Space Lab filled the cargo bay for a 16-day science mission.  Had Columbia docked with the ISS, no doubt a gaping, two or three-foot hole in its left wing would have been seen by Space Station astronauts.

       Instead, the crew of Columbia were unaware that while they performed two weeks of the most productive science ever done in a Shuttle's Space Lab, their spaceship was crippled and could not survive the blazing, 10,000 mph reentry through Earth's atmosphere. 

       Again, NASA had employees who suspected something was wrong with Columbia.

       Launch video showed that seconds into the launch a five-foot chunk of foam broke loose and smashed into the left wing.  Engineers investigated the possibility that damage may have occurred, and several managers requested that a US spy satellite be pointed at Columbia in orbit to see if any problems could be detected.  That request was turned down as unnecessary. 

       Had the damaged wing been discovered by that spy satellite, a rescue scenario would have been incredibly difficult.  Columbia would not be able to reach to ISS because of orbital differences and lack of fuel.  But food and water would have been rationed to the crew while another Shuttle was hurriedly prepared for a rescue launch—a two-month process crammed into a few weeks at best! 

       NASA never has publicly assessed if they could have pulled off a Columbia rescue mission.  And when the July 2009 final repair of the Hubble Space Telescope was added to the Shuttle manifest, orbiter Endeavour was on the adjacent pad 39-B as a rescue ship when Atlantis roared off pad 39-A   The 400-mile high orbit of the Hubble made it logistically impossible for the Space Station to be a safe haven.

       So, in another NASA comedy of fatal errors, a simple puncture in Columbia's wing brought the 10-ton spaceship to its doom as the reentry plasma tore through the fuselage, and within minutes the supersonic speed ripped the vehicle apart, debris and human remains being spread over East Texas and Southwest Louisiana. 

       Like the Challenger astronauts, the Columbia 7 had no chance, though their death was probably swift and merciful.

Lost were Rick Husband, Willie McCool, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark. The seventh member was Israel's first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, a popular national war hero.

       NASA's darkest week always gives space enthusiasts a reflective time to assess where the space program has been and where it is going.    

       These deaths have been the price that America has paid for expanding into the Solar System, the first primitive steps away from our home planet. 

The loss of life has not been in vain.  Built on their shoulders is the incredible orbiting International Space Station, home to mankind's first serious outpost in outer space. And a place, in spirit, where we touch the stars.   

Music of the Cosmos No Space Oddity

 

Collage by Jonathan Sabin

       The death of music superstar David Bowie brings to mind all the beautiful songs written with a spacey theme.

       And when you see the cosmic collection of works, well, you realize that the inspiration of the cosmos is no space oddity.

       The Sun, stars and mostly the Moon are themes of songwriters since, well, probably since the cow jumped over the Moon!

       There are classic monster hits like “Moon River” (Henry Mancini & Johnny Mercer 1962), “Here Comes the Sun” (The Beatles 1970) and “Stardust” (Hoagy Charmichael 1927).

       But there is so much more between heaven and Earth.

       I have a Spotify account, and keep several favorites list.  Song with the title “Moon” in them have 45 entries lasting 3 hours; “Sun” has 30 songs at 2 hours My folder of “Astro” has 83 songs at 6 hours (from heavy metal master Rob Zombie’s “Mars Needs Women” to “Cosmic Rays” by jazzman Charlie Parker). And there are certainly some great songs we all know.

       But David Bowie nailed it.  Sure, “Space Oddity” and its prologue “Ashes to Ashes” are the giant hits.  But there’s so much more…like the beautiful lyrics in “Starman” and “Lady Stardust”, both from the “Ziggy Stardust and Spiders from Mars” album. And then there is the album “Black Star,” the 25^th and final album from this once-in-a-lifetime talent.

       Tributes from David Bowie music lovers show that the man literally “sold the world” on his quirky yet positively received music creations.  And they were just that, keenly crafted musical stories about loving Earth but reaching for the stars. 

       Music is a lot like that.  Dreamy stories about our own nirvanas, some good, some a little nasty.  Music is a lot like that too—taking glimpses at the good and bad sides of life. And astronomy themes have plenty of “Dark Stars” (Grateful Dead) and “Moonage Daydreams” (Bowie) for those songwriters.

The whole spacey music concept of such bands like Yes, Rush and of course Pink Floyd were influenced by the Space Age.  And look at all the album cover art (another “Stargazer” column) with outer space themes, i.e. albums by Boston, Grateful Dead, Asia and Electric Light Orchestra, and many more.

       I looked around and thought about all the songs with themes of the Earth, stars, planets and Moon. There is a whole genre of “space music” of instrumentals, as well as concert pieces like Holst’s “The Planets.” But I found some tunes I’m sure you’ll be tapping your toes to…

       Let’s start with some of the top hits from the Cosmic Billboard Top 100 and the first spacey hit, the 1962 instrumental Telstar by the Tornadoes.  The song is the first #1 hit in the USA by a British band, and came on the heels of John Glenn’s historic three orbits of Earth. 

The 1960s had a little musical story by the Byrds called “Mr. Spaceman,” the 1970s were ruled by Bowie and Pink Floyd; the ‘80s and the disco era had a hit “Lucky Star” by Madonna. The 1990s had REM “Man on the Moon” and into the 21^st Century there’s “Soak Up the Sun” by Cheryl Crow.

There are a hundred songs about the Sun, but you know some of the real smash hits by heart: “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone,” by Bill Withers; “Let the Sun Shine In (Aquarius),” by Fifth Dimension; and Sunshine (Go Away) by Jonathon Edwards. 

There’s “Keep on the Sunny Side” by the 1928 Carter Family and “You Are My Sunshine” from the 1930s which nearly everybody knows: “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray. You’ll never know dear how much I love you, so please don’t take my sunshine away.”  And 20 or so more verses to this happy song, which is the state song of Louisiana.

Some of those songs about the Sun have some awful long titles: “Do You Know You Are My Sunshine” (The Statler Brothers 1978); “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” (Gerry & The Pacemakers 1964); and “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” (Elton John 1974).  

Don’t forget, a “Good Day Sunshine” by The Beatles deserves some “Cheap Sunglasses” by ZZ Top. And if your lost, you might be in a “Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden

My favorite solar karaoke classics would be “House of the Rising Sun” by Eric Burdon; “Paper Sun,” by Traffic; “Sunshine of Your Love,” by Cream; and “Sunshine Superman,” by Donovan.  Yeah, all from the 1960s of my life, so if you don’t know them, go fetch ‘em on your favorite Space Age communication device!

Most of the planets have songs titled after them “Drops of Jupiter” by Train was a big hit in the 2000s, and “Jupiter’s Child” by Steppenwolf was a ‘60s hippie favorite.  Meanwhile, Emily Lou Harris is singing to her lover about “Jupiter Rising.” And Janis Joplin is running from sunlight under a “Half Moon.”

I was excited to see planet “Mercury” on a list, listening to an Alan Jackson cover I realized it a girl was crazy about a car, not a planet!

And I can’t ignore the obvious bad song titles about our much abused planet Uranus: “Anus of Uranus” by Klaatu; “Up Uranus” by KMFDM; and “Out of Uranus,” by Killing Floor. Pew!

There’s a bunch of “stoner” songs that seemed to make their way from vinyl to 8-track to cassette to CD and now internet music.  “Space Truckin’” by Deep Purple was a rocking through the Universe in the 1960s.  And then you have that little Pink Floyd album called “Dark Side of the Moon” packed with stellar classics.  How about Blue Oyster Cult and their spacey songs like “Astronomy.” Another cosmic rocker is “Star Rider” by Foreigner. 

Venus is a hot topic for some Cosmic Top 100 hits. 

A monster hit for the teen idols of the 1950s was about a modern goddess “Venus” by Frankie Avalon.  Then in the 1960s there was a hit “Venus” by the Shocking Blue (“I’m your Venus, I’m your fire, at your desire”).  And that was covered in the 1990s for a mild hit by Bananorama. Meanwhile, somewhere in the music temples, the Chili Peppers took a “Subway to Venus.”

And the Moon.  Yes, it is the most sung about object in the skies.  You’re probably not a songwriter if you’ve never written a tune about our favorite celestial neighbor.   

Some of the logical hits: “Bad Moon Rising,” by Credence Clearwater Revival; “Moondance” by Van Morrison; “Moonshadow” by Cat Stevens; and “Moon River” by Henry Mancini and classically sung by Andy Williams. Are you humming along yet?

One of the earliest “astro songs” songs that became a hit in the 1950s was “How High the Moon” by Les Paul & Mary Ford (It’s 240,000 miles FYI).  Shortly after that, Hank Williams, of course, was “Howlin’ at the Moon!” I’d walk a “Moonlight Mile” with the Rolling Stones if Frank Sinatra would promise to “Fly Me to the Moon,” just another classic that sticks in your head.

And the “do-wop” spin on the Marcels’ 1961 “Blue Moon” is a completely different song than the beautiful 1956 ballad by Elvis Presley, “Blue Moon.”

A nice two-step melody is the 1909 Gus Edwards /Edward Madden classic “By the Light of the Silvery Moon,” made more popular by Doris Day’s 1953 recording.

Hear Ozzy Osbourne “Bark at the Moon” and tell me if that melody is nice…or nasty.  Little Feat will serve you up a drink at the “Spanish Moon,” and you can really trip out on the imagery of the Grateful Dead’s “Picasso Moon.” And the Kink’s let it all hang out on “Full Moon.”  Bring it home is Neil Young with “Harvest Moon.”

I suggest three Moon songs for you to checkout: “Moon at the Widow” by Joni Mitchell; “The Moonbeam Song” by Harry Nilsson; and “Drunk on the Moon” by Tom Waits.  Each melodic, interesting and, well, about my favorite subject, the Moon!

Stevie Wonder has sung about living on “Saturn,” where people live to be 205.  Tori Amos is a “Star Whisperer” and Jethro Tull immortalizes the “Big Dipper.”  Yet it is David Bowie who ponders for us “Is There Life on Mars?”

 I’ve taken many trips around the cosmos listening to John Lennon’s “Across the Universe.” And there’s not a finer bluegrass tune than Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky.”  Both seemingly come from the opposite sides of the music cosmos, but they don’t. The inspiration is out of this world for both great musicians.

Astronomers believe there is a harmonic rhythm to the motion of the spheres, and mathematicians will show you the laws that govern both an orbiting planet and a vibrating guitar string. The music of the spheres is a beautiful thing.  

The great David Bowie understood the harmony of the Universe and his planet.  And his cosmic playground was music. 

Bowie took that celestial rhythm from his soul and shared it with his fellow earthlings—trying to reach across the Universe.  I think he made it.

          I was at the LBJ Texas White House Ranch (Friday Jan. 15, 2016), turned a corner in the gift shop/museum and...wow! Very neat, concise space display with...what's this...OMG! President Johnson collected autographs of the famous who visited the Ranch on concrete blocks, called "Friendship Stones." And before me were the Mercury Triumvirate--Shepard and Glenn (signed April 24, 1962) and Grissom (who put the date of his sub-orbit July 21, 1961). They must have been at the Ranch together. Look at hero Gus' with the Mercury 7 symbol! Nice little serendipity at an awesome American treasure--the LBJ Ranch 50 miles west of Austin, TX.
        

MARQ AT LBJ RANCH  and SPACE RACE DISPLAY

                 FRIENDSHIP STONES AT PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON'S TEXAS WHITE HOUSE A SWEET SURPRISE OF SPACE HISTORY

     No politician of the 1950s or '60s did more for space exploration than Texan Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States.  As Vice President under President John F. Kennedy, it fell to him to oversee the new agency NASA and the Moon Race with the Soviet Union when Kennedy cast the die to the Moon in 1961.   America's launch in Florida is named for Kennedy.  But is in Houston at the Johnson Space Center where most of the training is conducted and astronauts live.  And all the Moon rocks are at JSC!  
    So it must have been a special day when Americas first three spacemen came to visit the Texas White House on April 24, 1962.  

The Friendship Stones:   
     

Alan Shepard 

ALAN SHEPARD, Mercury 1 and Apollo 14  At age 37, the Navy test pilot from Derry, New Hampshire was strapped in a tiny Mercury capsule called on top of a converted rocket built for a nuclear warhead.  On the morning of May 5, 1961, after long delays necessitating him relieving himself in his spacesuit, America's first spaceship "Freedom 7" blasted off the coast of Florida.

Shepard in First Mercury Space Suit

  The spaceship reached 115 miles high and Shepard experienced a few minutes of weightlessness as he took controls.  Arcing back to Earth and  a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean 350 miles from its launch pad, the 15-minute, sub-orbital flight propelled Shepard to fame--a hero's ticker-tape parade in New York City awaited.  Ten years later, Shepard would sand on the Moon and wack a golf ball with a 6-iron while the world watched the Apollo 14 mission of 1971. 

 Shepard was one of the first astronaut millionaires (real estate), and was actor Jack Nicholson's character study as the neighbor moonwalker in the movie "Terms of Endearment."  Shepard and Deke Slayton were at the top of NASA's astronaut managment, in charge of chosing the prime and backup crew assignments for all the manned missions.  

Both were grounded by medical problems (Shepard an ear balance problem; Slayton a heart murmur) and than ran the astronaut office until medical treatment cleared their problem.  Shepard put himself originally as commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13, but needed more training and moved to Apollo 14.


  Slayton flew the historic Apollo mission link with a Russian Soyuz spaceship in 1975.  Navy Rear Admiral Shepard died in 1998 at age 74, and his ashes were spread at sea.  Shepard has been immortalized in a US postage stamp. 

JOHN H. GLENN  Mercury 3 1962; Shuttle Discovery 1998

Look up the word "hero" in the dictionary, and there is John Glenn, one of America's finest.  At age 40, he took "Friendship 7" around the world 3 times, the first American to orbit Earth.  

Glenn, wife Annie and Vice President LBJ

The spaceman came back way too valuable to risk sending back to space. So after a few years of spreading NASA's good will, he became a Senator from Ohio for 25 years.  But he yearned for space, kept in shape, and flew again at age 77 aboard Shuttle Discovery in 1998.


In 2016, Glenn was age 94 and retired to his boyhood home of Cambridge, Ohio.

VIRGIL "GUS" GRISSOM  Mercury 2 July 21, 1961; Gemini 3 March 23, 1965


Born in Mitchell, Indiana, Grissom was 34 years old when he strapped a rocket on his back and blasted into space on a Mercury mission that duplicated Shepard's first American foray into outer space.  The mission was a success except for one problem...a big one--the Mercury capsule sunk after filling with water, and Grissom nearly drowned when water filled his suit. 

Grissom on ship after rescue

 Grissom claimed the emergency hatch explosion was not caused by him, but he may have accidentally hit the button. Anyrate, he was redeemed, and chosen to fly the maiden flight of the two-man Gemini spaceship with rookie John Young.  That highly successful mission in March 1965 paved the way for Grissom to be given the nod as commander of America's new moonship, the Apollo. While testing a simulated flight while on top of their Saturn rocket at Cape Kennedy, a spark inside the pressurized spacecraft caused a flash fire that killed Grissom and two other astronauts in a minute. Date was Jan. 27, 1967. 

 The first US spacewalker Ed White and rookie Roger Chaffee perished with Grissom because of shoddy workmanship. Space history has many twists and turns in its story, and this is one that may have kept the name Grissom from eternity's history books as the first man to walk on the Moon.