NASA Launches Einstein Experiment from California

[MORTARDUDE]

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...5&section=news

NASA Launches Einstein Experiment from California
Tue Apr 20, 2004 01:27 PM ET
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NASA To Prove Einstein Correct


By Broward Liston
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - Forty-five years in the making and 24 hours late, NASA launched a $700 million satellite into orbit on Tuesday to test Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity.

The Gravity Probe B, one of the most precise scientific instruments every built, was carried aloft by a Boeing Co. Delta 2 at 12:57 p.m. EDT from the rocket range at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base.

A day earlier, launch directors from Boeing and NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida scrubbed the launch in the final minutes of the countdown when there was a problem loading software.

Einstein developed his mind-bending theories of relativity in the early 20th century, and today those theories are generally accepted, especially as they find their way into applications such as medical scanners and the Global Positioning System.

Among the most exotic of Einstein's predictions was that massive bodies -- planets, stars or black holes -- actually twist time and space around as they spin, much like the winds of a tornado.

Other tenets of general relativity have been tested, such as the warping of time and space by massive bodies, but the twisting effect, known as frame dragging, has never been put to the test, project scientists said.

If Einstein is right, scientists say, the satellite should detect that small bits of time and space are actually missing from each orbit, something indiscernible to orbiting astronauts but measurable nonetheless.

"I call it the missing inch," said the program's chief scientist, Francis Everitt, a theoretical physicist from Stanford University, where the mission was first conceived in 1959, then funded in 1964. Not until the 1990s were engineers from Stanford and NASA able to build a satellite precise enough to make the measurement.

The heart of the 3.5-ton satellite is a container holding four spheres the size of ping pong balls that will be chilled to near absolute zero and spun 10,000 times a minute, making them the most accurate gyroscopes ever built.

"There are two reasons why these are the most perfect gyroscopes. They're the most perfect spheres (ever manufactured) and going into space allows you to make enormously more accurate gyroscopes than is possible on the ground," Everitt said.

The satellite, which was inserted into a polar orbit, will spend two months getting ready, then 16 months making measurements.

Mission scientists hope they will not only have proof about Einstein's theory, but a precise number for calibrating the effect.

Although the effect is hard to measure around something Earth-sized, it can be quite dramatic around something as massive as a black hole, where this frame dragging may account for quasars, the most violent eruptions of energy ever detected.

? Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.

[MissleMonkey28]

http://einstein.stanford.edu/

There is the main site for the research. It's really interesting, When I was up at Vandenberg we got to meet a lot of the tecnicians working with it. The launch was scrubbed and delayed so many times that I am glad its up there.
Greg

[SparrowHawk62]

What was that noise? Sounds like a large shitter being flushed to the tune of Millions of my tax dollars!!

[MissleMonkey28]

Sparrow hawk,
I don't know much about scientific research but i was under the impression stanford university and lockhead- martin were funding it. So that might make it not so scary for your tax dollars...although im sure with some grants look at it this way at least your tax dollars are getting shot to outer space instead of goin right into the pocket of those in gov't.

[SparrowHawk62]

Originally posted by MissleMonkey28 Sparrow hawk,
I don't know much about scientific research but i was under the impression stanford university and lockhead- martin were funding it. So that might make it not so scary for your tax dollars...although im sure with some grants look at it this way at least your tax dollars are getting shot to outer space instead of goin right into the pocket of those in gov't.

Nothing personal, but I'd like to see my money better spent.
Yeah, why take care of Vets in VA hospitals, the home less Vets, Vets who need out of hospital care? Why do any of this when you can send it up into space???

[MissleMonkey28]

Sparrowhawk,
I understand and agree fully money could be much better spent. Mainly in veteran's affairs. However with the A-wholes we have currently running the show its either waste it on shooting stuff into space, or researching global warming(ya that wont happen for a billion years lets study it now) or some other out there idea. The way i see it is its gonna get wasted the politicians rarely if ever do anything right (i say rarely cause currently new jersey has a few congressmen that have really been pushing veterans benefits Representitive smith is one of em)

[SparrowHawk62]

Missle Monkey,
I guess your right. One way or the other someone would have figured out how to waste this money.
It is good to hear that a few in Jersey may have gotten the message.

Don't mean to step on anybodies toes, but I'd have to argue that money spent on the space program is some of the best money ever spent.Our present world would be a very very diferent place if the money spent in the past had not been spent.Reserch and money put into space programs has not always accomplished the goal that was being attempted at a particular time but has never failed to spawn scores of innovations and inventions that we consider vital today.It could easily be argued that there is no way that our Country could not be on the top of the heap without hi-tech. innovations that have their roots in the space program.Both the battlefield and modern medical care would be very diferent had there never been a space program.Our dailey lives are also very diferent than they would have been without a space program.Literally hundreds of thousands of American lives have been saved because of money spent on the space program in the past and all of our lives have been made better.Sounds like worthwhile spending to me.

[MissleMonkey28]

Doc,
I am foremost a huge backer of the space program(heck without it i sure wouldn't have a job) But this current project/experiment is to just verify einstein's theories. Einstein himself has said that none of his theories stack up to one another. They cancel each other out (that is also how he claimed there is a God) So I agree I grew up followin the space program heck I have a library full of books on it. But i do not personally think this is an all out important mission. It is more of a "i told you so" for scientists. There is no health, engineering or any feesably helpful aspects to this mission. Some say that it is to determine a faster way to go to mars. Thats a load of bologna. They know what rocket to use and what mixture of hypergolic chemicals will get us there at teh best rate (it does involve a base on the moon don't know if you follow it also but thats a big discussion people don't like) This mission is only there to make some stanford scientist happy to say "I proved einsteins 34th theory on light travel wrong" I placed a link in the privious post on this section if they still have the FAQ section up i think it was removed you would see that the people behind it are just interested in looking good. I am all for space funding. Just look at how it has helped us diplomatically (space race ya but apollo soyuz was one of the first joint operations between Cold war america and russia) And now china and japan are launched by lackheed martin.

As a child I went out into the back yard and watched Sputnik fly over and I heard lots of folks talk about what idiots those Russans were to spend all that money just to fling a basketball off into space for a little while.A lot of other folks were a little worried because now the Russans (litteraly) had something hanging over our heads and they were wondering if maybe in a year or two it might be an A-bomb hanging up there waiting for the word to drop.In just a little while we had a medicine ball in space.Lots and lots of folks were absoutely convinced that our leaders were crazy to spend all that money on a spaceball that "...don't do nary a thang cept fly around an beep beep alla time."

JFK came on TV and told the world that before the decade was out we would land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth.Many of the church-goin folk were of the opinion that this couldn't be done because "If God had wanted man on the moon he would have put him there."But,by God,we got it done even though all we had to show for it were a few footprints and a flag up there.Some folks would(and did)call that an awful small return for the money spent.

When I was in Jr. High a man came by our school and let us in on some of the new space age technology.In the future-he told us-our astronauts would be able to cook their food in micro-wave ovens that don't take up much space and don't heat up everything around it.Then he proceded to boil water in a glass in the one he had brought with him.Talk about amazement!If it had up to us he would have been there for days boiling glasses of water, and as soon as he got it boiling one of us would stick our hand inside and report:"Nope can't feel nothin but the heat coming off the water!"Unbelieveable.The other stuff he brought was a piece of two part material that was going to allow our astronauts to walk around under weightless conditions by putting
one part on the soles of their shoes and the other covering the floor.It was kinda cool but not too interesting to us because we couldn't see any practical use for it.The stuff was called "Velcro".

Well,just how foolish were we to go spending large amounts of money that could well have been spent on something a lot more "practicle" than balls that don't do anything but fly around in circles,go "Beep!"..."Beep!"awhile and then fall back to earth?
Well these days we have GPS,cellphones,and real-time TV/military intell./weather tracking from anywhere on earth.Some folks seem to think pretty highly of these things.

The space program is like a boxed lunch auction.You have to spend your money up front and fine out what goodies you've gotten later.While you may not end up with what you were looking for or thought you wanted, you many times end up with more than you could posibly have hoped for.

This mission is pretty sure to bring back one of the most precious things in the world:KNOWLEDGE.With knowledge all things are posible.