BIRD-DOGGIN' THE INTERNET

Astronomy & Space Sciences

By Dr. Steve O'Neil, Micro Mo Electronics, Inc.

With the ignominious ending of the last two Mars missions, the successful repair of the gyroless Hubble Space Telescope, and a plethora of celestial events occurring just before the new Millennium, it seems as though all eyes have turned heavenward in recent months. This has provided grist for endless discussions on mankind's progress and processes in accessing the Final Frontier. It has also served to rekindle the sale of telescopes, star maps, and at least one recent rocket-powered space burial. But for most of us in the design and engineering disciplines, the wonder of the technology and fascination for the subject matter itself are usually ample drivers.

One of the overwhelming aspects of astronomical and space-focused work is the tremendous range of talent and activity it involves. For an idea of what is takes, visit the NASA Ames Intelligent Mechanisms Group at http://img.arc.nasa.gov. Here you can see the work of the IMG whose objective is "to develop and advance the technology of planetary and space-based robotic systems." Some of the disciplines involved to achieve this goal include mechanical and electrical engineering and design, high-performance computer processing and visualization, telerobotic OIs, virtual environments, various software architectures, sensor processing, machine learning and intelligence, and, of course, large scale system integration. Also included on this site are rundowns on various earthly field experiments in support of the program including the much-broadcast descent of Dante II into Mount Spurr, Alaska.

From the Hubble Heritage site: Images obtained with NASA'S Hubble Space Telescope reveal episodes of star formation that are occurring across the face of the nearby galaxy NGC 4214.

For a good connection point to The Big Picture, go to the WWW Virtual Library: Astronomy and Astrophysics at http://webhead.com/wwwvl/astronomy/. Here you'll get the lowdown on observing resources (telescopes, projects, schedules), data resources, publication-related resources, people-related resources (including jobs, conferences, and more than 50 newsgroups and mailing lists), organizations (about 600 at last count), software resources, imagery archives, and other links to related sites. A good companion site is the AstroWeb Consortium at http://www.cv.nrao.edu/fits/www/astroweb.html, which also provides some content input to the WWW Virtual Library. Organized and run as a cooperative project posting group, AstroWeb allows you to search hundreds of site links by subject, by country, and by protocol. This is a mammoth collection of annotated resources covering observatories, publications, applications, projects, networks, and other directly linkable resources. If it isn't in these two sources, it probably doesn't exist.

For great fun and edification for yourself and the whole family, try Astronomy World at http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/prophecy/79/index.html.This is a good take-off site with convenient access to other popular astronomy sites via hotlinks. It also includes information on NASA TV (with links) and NASA images. From here, move on to the NASA Human Spaceflight (HSF) site at http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/index-m.html. This is a new site which consolidates much of what was previously stored on many separate sites. It works optimally with the installation of Microsoft's Virtual Machine, a free 4.5MB download from your current OS CD-ROM. Information is here on the International Spacestation, shuttle countdowns, other realtime statistics (for tracking and sighting opportunities), space news and images, and audio and video clips. If the ole ball and chain is dragging you down, you can also find out here "how to be an astronaut" -- the ultimate in getting away from it all.

Harder core gazers and doers will find good information on current goings-on at the site of the American Astronomical Society. Located at http://www.aas.org,this site is, mechanically speaking, one of those slow loading dogs with yellow print on a black background. However, if you can wait through the loading process, you will find conference information as well as searchable archives for the electronic editions of The Astronomical Journal and The Astrophysical Journal. The Hubble Heritage site at http://heritage.stsci.edu/ is a repository of some of the best and most popular images captured by Hubble. Changed monthly, you can find new images posted the first Thursday of each month. It has a text-only index with quick links to Hubble resources on pages throughout the site. There is also technical information on the actual images and a "what's new" page that primarily reports new images posted. The archives section links to stunning images of galaxies, nebulae, planets, and other celestial bodies.

For an intriguing glimpse of what's over the horizon, check out the Next Generation Space Telescope site at http://ngst.gsfc.nasa.gov. It contains the scoop on design concepts, history, and deployment plans for the NGST that is scheduled for launch in 2008. There are details here of the technologies under consideration, schedules, project team tasks and members, and project office contacts. The Hardware page has viewable designs for some of the alternatives under consideration. Test your design acumen by downloading the TRW/Ball Aerospace, GSFC, and Lockheed-Martin versions complete with specifications. You can also see a video of the proposed deployment sequence, and download 3D VRML models of the Yardstick NGST design (including animated deployment model). This is one of those sites that can suck you into its vortex!

Dr. Steve O'Neil

Contributing editor Steve O'Neil is president of the Small Motors and Motion Association (SMMA) and vice president advanced research and planning of Micro Mo Electronics Inc., Clearwater, FL. He can be reached on the Internet at steveo@micromo.com

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