International Spaceflight Museum

In the top picture from left to right, Planners Gamel Goodfellow, Becka Finesmith, Paradox Olbers, Kat Lemieux, Marcus Olbracht,  Arisia Vita, and Opal Lei look at the central area honoring Kirra Ball’s donation of the Spaceport Bravo sim to the ISM.

ISM Planners looking at this Opal Lei prototype

The Bravo! Donors Monument atop the VAB

 http://slurl.com/secondlife/Spaceport%20Bravo/167/193/89  is the permanent home of the Donors’ Monument now, down on the lower roof below and to the right of the American flag.  More iterations will produce the final design.

This past month we had a bit of a scare, with some annual corporate expenses for our nonprofit as well as the new responsibility of paying land use fees for Spaceport Bravo. Our members and friends came through for us at the last minute, for which we thank them all profusely! But we would like to avoid the need for emergency fundraising. To that end, we now have several ways for friends of the ISM to provide support.

Please see our Donate page, or go to the Sponsorship page, or directly to our Donation Subscription page for more information on ways to send us donations. Of course, if you are in Second Life and want to donate Linden Dollars, you can use any of the tip jars on Spaceports Alpha or Bravo. The ones that look like pickle jars with a tiny rocket in them will launch a rocket when you make a donation — the larger the amount, the bigger the rocket!

ISM Tipjars

Whatever way you choose to help out, we thank you very much! We couldn’t do it without you, and that’s the literal truth. Thanks!

On the 22^nd October, the Indian moon probe Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft launched from a southern Indian launch pad. Aboard it is a special camera, called an X-ray spectrometer (C1XS). This camera was developed in the UK at the Rutherford Appleton Laboroatory in Oxfordshire . The samples of the moon collected by the Apollo missions only tell us what the surface composition is like in a few places. It is like deducing the surface composition of the Earth by sampling soil in Boise, Idaho, Manchester England and Bhopal, India!  

PSLV on the way to the launch pad (Photo: ESA/ISRO).

The Indian probe will orbit the Moon and gather information about it’s surface, including its composition, using C1XS. Of particular interest is the level of Magnesium it will find on the surface. This would be a good indicator of whether the moons surface was Molten at some time in its life (Magnesium would float to the surface). The ratios of Iron to Magnesium will also indicate its post molten history.

In addition to C1XS, other instruments will map the moons magnetic anomolies, produce 3 dimensional maps of the surface and drop a probe that will impact in the surface. The probe carries a video camera, mass spectrometer and and an altimeter. It will produce images of the decent along with data about the atmospheric composition of the moon as it plummets towards the surface.

Chandrayaan-1 was launched using a modified version of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle , A model of this vehicle is included at the ISM.

What do the ATV, the Mars Exploration Rover, and the F-1 Engine have in common?

They’re all at the ISM, and sponsorships are on auction this week.  Well, those three and the Nearest Stars to 10 Parsecs exhibit, which is hidden high above the giftshop annex inside the VAB.  These are four of our newest exhibits, never before sponsored.

Auctions end on October 27. Sponsorships will begin on November 1, 2008 and end on April 30, 2009.

* Automated Transfer Vehicle (Item # 120321473572)  SLURL / info
* F-1 Engine (Item # 120321475345)  SLURL / info
* Mars Exploration Rover (Item # 120321476292)  SLURL / info
* Nearby Stars to 10Parsecs (Item # 120321477371)  SLURL / info

To submit a bid on eBay:
1. Go to http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZism_exhibits
OR
a. Go to www.eBay.com .
b. Click on “Advanced Search” near the top.
c. In the Search panel on the left, choose “Items by Seller”.
d. In the “Enter seller’s User ID” field, type “ism_exhibits” and click Search.
2. Go to the exhibit you’d like to sponsor, enter a maximum bid amount and click Place Bid.

The Voyager spacecraft have far exceeded their original goals of studying the outer planets and gone on to feedback some important data about the region called the “Termination Shock”. This is where the Solar wind slows considerably from around 1 million miles per hour to a quarter of a million miles per hour. It is the start of the outer boundary where the Suns influence start to give way to Inter stellar space.

Now, the ibex probe has been launched to investigate some of the phenomena discovered by the Voyager spacecraft and go on to investigate what the Voyager spacecraft can expect to encounter when they reach the Heliopause.  This is the point at which the influence of the Sun is perfectly balanced with the influence of the Inter stellar medium.

The launch of ibex was unusual. Rather than being launched at ground level, it was dropped from a jet and then propelled into Earth orbit aboard a Pegasus rocket.

CyRos Captain Cypress Rosewood playing at the helm

Cypress demonstrates his musicianShip, dressed for the occasion.  His 3rd ISM concert is the first of a monthly series – practically speaking since Cypress does real life tours too, it will be 8 or so concerts a year.

 30 avatars enjoyed Cypress’s return to the ISS exhibit high above both the world and Spaceport Alpha.

Space shuttle Endevour linked to the ISS at ISM

The full set of concert snaps are at flickr.

I arrived inworld November 4th, 2006, immediately pulling up my Map with a control-M [Windoze], and typing in “Spaceport Alpha.” I like to say “I never left.” I did, though, and found that over half of the two dozen sims on my to visit list that I’d made from reading months of items from New World Notes and Metaverse Messenger were gone! This was my first abrupt exposure to the volatility and impermanance of Second Life.

In contrast, ISM was formed in September 2005, opened Spaceport Alpha in July 2006, and Spaceport Bravo in 2007 – and is still here. We appreciate the support of all of our visitors, donors, builder/scripters, and staffers, past and present. There’s a lot more work to do to put ISM on a self-sustaining basis, beginning with replacing our generous donor Kirra Ball’s more than a year’s payments for Spaceport Bravo (plus buying it in the first place).  I’m confident that all of us and newcomers together can do this!

You can make a one-time Donation [we are looking into Paypal monthly subscriptions - 200 hundred humans (or others - ISM doesn't discriminate) paying less than one Euro or US dollar a month would pay Spaceport Bravo's way completely], buy a present for a loved one at our virtual and real giftshops, and/or help us get a sponsorship from your company.

Thank you.

It makes Enceladus a prime candidate for life beyond Earth. Yet gaining funding to find out for sure is difficult. A mission to investigate potential under-ice liquid water lakes is risky. However, future exploratory missions have been suggested and are in concept stage. If any of them get accepted, it will be at least 2015 before anything concrete is on the table. In the meantime, keep track of Cassini’s current position.

Cassini today - 20081007, 2 Days to Enceladus!

Perhaps Mars Phoenix has been the most media savvy Mars lander ever. Throughout the mission, Phoenix has been twittering to interested subscribers about the day to day goings on during its time on the “red planet”. So successful has been this venture that the lander won a “Twitties” award as the Smartest tweet. Other missions are now following in Phoenix’s tracks (OK, Phoenix has no tracks but that shouldn’t stop the puns), such as Cassini and the Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.

Phoenix has arguably been one of the most successful missions to Mars ever.  It has far exceeded its original goal of operation for 90 days (Martian days that is).  But as the environment on Mars steadily gets colder, the lander will spend more of its precious energy keeping its instruments warm.  Well before the 3 month period next April when the sun will not rise at the poles on Mars, it will fall silent and the world will miss its day to day escapades.