VOYAGERS INTO INTERSTELLAR SPACE

Sure, Armstrong's walk on the Moon was remarkable.  Our space exploits helped bankrupt the Soviet Union, leading to the end of the Cold War.  Yes, the James Webb Space Telescope is doing wonders.  

However, maybe the most impressive NASA space project has to be those two Voyagers hurtling into interstellar space.  You can keep track of their status here.  Voyager 1 is 14.8 billion miles and Voyager II is 12.4 billion miles away from Planet Earth.  They are moving along at 38,027 miles/hour (I) and 34,391 MPH (II).  It has been more than 45 years since they were launched.  Light would take more than 22 hours to reach Voyager I.  Every day they move away by another three to four light-seconds.  See Voyager I's path.

Tim Folger has an excellent article in the July 2022 issue of Scientific American, entitled Record-Breaking Voyager Spacecraft Begin to Power Down.  I'd recommend you read it, but the story is so extraordinary that I feel compelled to summarize the essence.

• First of all, there never would have been any Voyagers if not for two freaky circumstances.
• 60 years ago no one was really aware of a rare planetary arched syzygy that had occurred in the time of the presidency of Thomas Jefferson,
• In 1965, a few years before the first walk on the Moon, Gary Flandro (above), a PhD student at CalTech, had been tasked with finding the most efficient way to send a space probe to Jupiter, and maybe even Saturn, Uranus or Neptune.

• 
  Using a man-made technology called a pencil, he charted planetary orbital paths and discovered in the late 1970's and early 1980's, all four planets would be strung along a long arc with Earth.
• This coincidence meant that a space vehicle could get a speed boost from the gravitational pull of each giant planet to the next, cutting the flight time between Earth and Neptune from 30 years to 12.

• 
  This happened only every 176 years, so timing was crucial, and any spacecraft to take this journey would have to be launched by the mid-1970's.  Remember, this was 1965.
• NASA drew up plans for a Grand Tour, to send five probes to the four giant planets...and Pluto, also in line.  Congress initially turned it down, but eventually allowed for two at minimal cost.

• 
  With funds, NASA planned for a four-year mission of limited scale.  However, without telling even the management, insiders of the project added equipment for a more ambitious effort.
• Mind you, in the early 1960's NASA had attempted 12 failed missions to find a future Moon landing site, and finally succeeded on the 13th.  Failure was expected.
• 
  For the Voyagers, there was a worse hurdle, as they had to fly through the asteroid belt and could be torn to pieces.  Fortunately, Pioneer 10 and 11 in 1972 passed through, improving confidence.  For the Voyagers, launch was not yet to be until 1977,

• 
  Remember, these Voyagers were not tiny.  Each was as large as an old Volkswagen Beetle.
• Each had a computer with 69 kilobytes of memory.
• This was 1/100,000 the capacity of a typical smartphone today.
• Actually, that does not do the comparison justice.  These Voyager computers had less memory than the key fob that opens your car door.
• 
  All data collected would be stored on 8-track tape recorders and then sent back to Earth by a 23-watt transmitter, which is about the power level of your refrigerator light bulb.
• They hoped that this weak signal could be adequately transmitted using a 12-foot wide dish antenna.
• That was the top of the technology in those days.

If you can't read that graphic, go to the article.  Note that Voyager II was launched before I, because it had a longer path, and the Voyagers are today headed in different directions.  Also appreciate that a four-year project is now in its 46th year.

• 
  Voyager I reached Jupiter in March of 1979, 546 days after launch, with II getting there in July of 1980.
• Pictures began to be sent a few months before the encounter.
• The data came in line by line.  I had a similar experience in 1976 when Viking I sent the first photo of Mars to the NASA Ames Research Center, where a group of us, including Carl Sagan, sat in impatient awe.  We were the first to see Mars before the photo was sent out to the media.
• One image was of Jupiter's moon Io, which came in an unexpected bright orange (below right).  
• Instruments also detected oxygen and sulphur a thousand times higher than anticipated.  
• 
  Io, about the size of our Moon, had volcanoes, which was a shock, for scientists then thought it was only Earth that had any in our solar system.  And Io's volcanoes had 10 times the activity of our planet.  Debris from just one, Pele, covered an area the size of France.
• The Voyagers took more than 33,000 photographs just of Jupiter and its moons.

• 
  Plus, Jupiter, it turned out, had rings, and 53 moons.
• One, Europa was covered with ice, estimated to be 60 miles thick.
• It is here that both Voyagers got that farewell gravitational kick to allow them to reach interstellar space.  
• They parted company at Saturn, with II heading to Uranus and Neptune.   
• II found 10 new moons around Uranus and saw it too was ringed.  
• Much of this new information was overshadowed, however, by the 20January1986 explosion of the space shuttle Challenger shortly after launch, killing all seven on board.

• 
  Voyager II went on to pass Neptune's azure methane atmosphere, and measured the highest wind speeds in our solar system...up to 1000 MPH.  Neptune's largest moon Triton was found to have a surface temperature of -391 F, maybe the coldest in our solar system.  Ice volcanoes on Triton spewed nitrogen gas and powdery particles five miles into its atmosphere.
• 
  At this point NASA had planned to turn off the cameras on both probes, but Carl Sagan got them to have Voyager I transmit one last series of images on Valentine's Day in 1990, aiming back to us with 60 shots, including that Pale Blue Dot, with Earth 3.7 billion miles away.  That key photo had 640,000 pixels.  Earth represented only one pixel.  Sagan penned a book using that title in 1994.  He passed away two years later.

Finally:

• Voyager I crossed the heliopause on 25August2012, and Voyager II reached the interstellar shoreline in November of 2018.  Then again, maybe not.  
• The Voyagers will reach the Oort cloud of comet-like bodies in about 300 years.  
• In the meantime I has four functioning instruments and II has five, all still powered by converting heat from the radioactive decay of Plutonium into electricity.  
• 
  To conserve energy, NASA two years ago turned off the heater for the cosmic-ray detector.  The temperature dropped 60-70F, but the instrument kept working.
• In another 16,700 years, Voyager 1 will pass our nearest neighboring star, Proxima Centauri, with II similarly doing so in another 3,600 years.  That was from the Scientific American article.  Readers have interjected that Voyager I will take 40,000 years to get halfway there, and that Voyager II will take over 73,000 years to reach Proxima Centauri. 

• But:

FOLGER REPLIES: To answer Cary: In 40,000 years the Voyagers will reach the outer edge of the Oort cloud, which is indeed about halfway to Proxima Centauri. But tens of thousands of years before that time, Voyager 1 and 2 will make their closest encounter with that star, coming within about 3.5 and 2.9 light-years of it, respectively. That’s not very close: the sun is currently about 4.2 light-years away from Proxima Centauri. On a cosmic scale, the sun and the Voyager spacecraft are essentially the same distance from our nearest stellar neighbor. But because the spacecraft are moving away from the sun, and Proxima Centauri is moving toward it, the Voyagers’ closest approach to our neighboring star will occur in 16,700 and 20,300 years.

•  Thus, they are not heading towards Proxima Centauri, for they are going in different directions anyway.  In any case, that is a long time from today.

• 
  Will any alien civilization find them?
• The Voyagers are the most distant man-made objects.
• But we won't know anything after 2025 because the spaceship power will runout...unless it is found.  Then, who knows?  Will there then be a call from another civilization?
• Each has a record made of copper and coated with gold and sealed in an aluminum cover.
• The executive producer of these Golden Records was Carl Sagan.

• 

  There are pictures of children, sunsets, Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 and Chuck Berry's Johnny B Goode.  Then President Jimmy Carter has a written message.
• Here is a nearly 2-hour long video of the entire contents.

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ANOTHER LOOK AT THAT GREAT TOHOKU CATACLYSM

This Regent Seven Seas Explorer trip was memorable, but certainly not as meaningful as others I've had.  For nostalgic Tuesday, I return again to that once-in-a-lifetime adventure I had around the time of the 11March2011 Great Tohoku Earthquake because, save for that cruise itself, was somewhat similar in location.  I left Honolulu on March 1, 2011 for Bangkok.  

I did not get home until April 10, so the length was similar to my recent trip.  On the final day in Tokyo I felt several serious tremors, one around 7.1, which no doubt was more intense than 95% of you have ever experienced.  A couple of days earlier I wrote an article for the Huffington Post on a similar earthquake.  I did visit Shinjuku Park that final day, for this would be a night flight.

The trip was so monumental that I had two summaries.  First:  GRAND SUMMARY OF THE ORIENT:  SPRING 2011.  

• The Great Tohoku Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Catastrophe occurred on 11March2011, the eighth day of my trip when I was in Bangkok.  I was scheduled to fly to Japan the next day, and did.  This is now a nuclear accident level 7 disaster, equal in severity with Chernobyl. 
• 
  I spent almost half my travel time on train trips.  Paul Theroux wrote two books about his train adventures:  The Great Railway Bazaar and Ghost Train to the Eastern Star.  His seats were usually on the lowest class possible, and food was an afterthought.  The second book, in particular, was grimy.  My train trips were at the opposite end of the comfort scale:  the Eastern and Oriental Express from Bangkok to Singapore featured the highest cuisine imaginable with some very fine wines, while two weeks on the Green Car (first class) Shinkansen per se were mostly bentos (Japanese box lunch), beer and sake, but, at each stop, I asked the concierge, what was the best restaurant in town.  On this tour I focused on the latest, cutting edge fusion establishments.  One problem with train trips is that you have some baggage, you must be careful about falling asleep because the stop is only for a minute, and if you don't get off, it could be 100 miles to the next station.  All told, I caught 26 trains of one hour or longer, and made only one mistake.
• 
  This summary went on to wax about the various fusion meals, sakura blossoms, and hotel stays.  I did not say much about the suffering and sense of hopelessness of the people in Tohoko, many who are still in despair today.  Today, 42,565 people still haven't be able to return home.

• 
  That tragedy caused by this 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami destroyed more than 120,000 buildings, killed almost 20,000, with 2500 still reported missing, caused a 128-foot high tsunami (and 11,000 miles away in Chile resulted in a wave height of 6.6 feet), caused the Fukushima nuclear calamity, shortened the length of the day by a microsecond, resulted in 5,000 aftershocks the following year, one with a magnitude of 7.9, dropped the Honshu coastline by 2 feet, moved the island of Honshu eastward by 8 feet, with a 5-foot wave height, killed 110,000 nesting birds at the Midway Atoll, radioactive water in more than 1000 huge tank still to be treated, and 4000 workers will need another 30 years to clean up the nuclear site.  The cost to Japan will be around $300 billion.

A couple of days later I had:  SOME FINAL THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ORIENT.

• I can save $500/day by staying home.
• I bought a nearly 5 pound bag of Niigata koshihakiri rice from Uonuma for the equivalent of $7/pound to take home to Honolulu.  For what I paid, I could have gotten 20 pounds of domestic rice.  I also previously had left over some rice from Akita (said to be #2 to those from Niigata), and with a taste including California Calrose, involving friends, we couldn't tell which one was definitely the best with Zippy's chili.

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GLASS ONION FOR CHRISTMAS

I'm tempted to write about all that snow, the end of Trump and the skyrocketing number of new covid cases in China, but will just show three photos of one Christmas meal this weekend.

Why the splurge?  Not sure.  But the choice was not mine.  For example, that 25-year old Kurayoshi Pure Malt Whisky from Japan is close to $1000/bottle.  And that Caymus Cab was also not exactly cheap. $80.  

Having those quality alcoholic drinks match with the 15 Craigside Christmas dinner was almost unfair.  In that bento box were ham, pork and turkey, with dressing.  The soup was Kahuku corn chowder.

I should also add that playing for free on Netflix was Glass Onion:  A Knives Out Mystery, starring Daniel Craig, Ed Norton, Dave Bautista, Kate Hudson, Janelle Monáe and others, including cameos by Angela Lansbury, Stephen Sondheim, Serena Williams, Jake Tapper, Kareem Adul-Jabbar, Yo-Yo Ma, and even the likeness of Jared Leto and Jeremy Renner.  

As you might know, both Lansbury and Sondheim passed away this year.  This is the second chapter of the series.  Rotten Tomatoes gave Glass Onion really good scores: 93 by reviewers and 93 by the audiences.  I agree, it was most entertaining.  Director Rian Johnson said that there will be a third film.

I might finally add that the soundtrack included:

• Fugue in G Minor by Bach
• Star Child by Parliament
• Under the Bridge by Red Hot Chili Peppers
• To Love Somebody by The Bee Gees
• Take Me Home Country Roads

• 
  Star and Starman by David Bowie
• Cool Change by Little River Band
• Mona Lisa by Nat King Cole
• Glass Onion by The Beatles.

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THE EVOLUTION OF SANTA CLAUS

 How much do you really know about Santa Claus?  

• To begin, historians identify Bishop Nicholas of Myra, who was born around the year 260 in what is today southwestern Turkey, as the first Santa Claus.  He was known to be a miracle maker, and was known as the patron saint of schoolchildren.

• 
  But it took until the end of the 11th century for his relics to be transferred to Italy for the cult to begin.
• The Feast of Saint Nicholas (this painting by Jan Steen in the 17th century) was welcomed in the Netherlands, which spread the tradition.
• Around this time, Dutch Calvinists fleeing religious persecution set sail for what became Nieuw Amsterdam, later named New York.  But Sinterklaas was introduced to the New World.  He was also called De Goedheiligman (The Good Holy Man), so who knows where this would have gone if it had prevailed.

• 
  His Dutch name was Americanized to Santa Claus, as a symbol of resistance against the British around the time of the 1776 Revolution.
• In 1809 Washington Irving (as Dietrich Knickerbocker, who himself originated from the first Irving novel, and wore knickerbockers) published A History of New York, popularizing Santa Claus.

• 
  In 1823, Clement Clark Moore, a professor at New York's Episcopalian seminary, published a poem...Twas the Night Before Christmas, where Santa was first presented as a cheery fellow with ruddy cheeks.
• Meanwhile, in England around 1850, Santa was dressed in green.
• 
  From 1862 to 1866, Thomas Nast, the godfather of the American cartoon (who created the Republican elephant, Democratic donkey and Uncle Sam), created 33 Santa Claus drawings for Harper's Weekly, one at first depicting Santa wearing the colors of the American flag, became a Union hero, where President Abraham Lincoln credited Santa Claus as his best recruiting agent.

• 
  Over time, Nast's Santa gained weight, grew a beard, wore fur and became jolly.
• In 1884, Santa spoke on a brand new contraption patented in the USA in 1876, the telephone.
• Finally, in 1885, he left New York for the North Pole.
• Writer George Webster took over, and in 1886 indicated that Santa built a toy factory and lived buried in the snows of the North Pole.

• 
  In parallel, Louis Prang (who in 1875 invented the Christmas card in the U.S.) depicted Santa Claus as a jolly grandfather with a long white beard.
• How his outfit became red remains a mystery.  Nast's illustrations were in black and white.  If anything, in those days he was dressed more in brown wearing animal fur.

• 
  Perhaps it first was Louis Prang in his Christmas card, but no question that in 1931 Coca Cola decided to broaden its market to children, and had Haddon Sundblom depict a paunchy, smiling Santa dressed in red.  After all, Coke is always red.

In an actual survey, 20% of American adults actually believed in Santa Claus.  In another, from BuzFeed News, 43% believed in Santa Claus.  Appropriately enough, the Pew Research Center reported that 17%  did NOT believe in an Afterlife.  And 73% believed in both Heaven and Hell. Makes you wonder about American beliefs.

On other Christmas matters, everyone must know that the best-selling Christmas single in the U.S. is the 1942 White Christmas by Bing Crosby, with sales in excess of 50 million.  He first sang this song on Holiday Inn.  Rotten Tomatoes gave this film 100/86 ratings.  It is also the #1 all-time seller, with Elton John's 1997 Something About the Way You Look Tonight / Candle in the Wind at #2 at 33 million.  On the basis of digital downloads, #1 is Mariah Carey's 1994 All I Want for Christmas is You.

Surprisingly enough, the 2018 The Grinch with Benedict Cumberbatch is the most popular Christmas film with a worldwide gross of $511.5 million.  However, Rotten Tomatoes only gave it 59/51 ratings.  #2 is the 1990 Home Alone at $476.7 million and #3 the 2000 Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  

While many consider this film to be full of joy and happiness, the #1 darkest Christmas movie, and maybe most often shown during the holiday season, is said to be It's a Wonderful Life (1946) with James Stewart.  Happy ending, but compounding tales of woe leading to an almost suicide.  Rotten Tomatoes:  93/95.  #2?  Gremlins (1984), by Steven Spielberg.  

Where is A Christmas Carol? The 1971 animated version is #7.  You know how many productions of this movie?  Here, read about 57 adaptations, ranked.

The past couple of days I featured Bloom County and Calvin and Hobbes.  They too wish you a Merry Christmas.

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