Conference 7.286::space

920.0. "SpaceArc - Earth Orbit Time Capsule" by MTWAIN::KLAES (No Guts, No Galaxy) Thu Sep 08 1994 16:46

From:	US1RMC::"[email protected]" "Ron Baalke"  4-SEP-1994 
To:	[email protected]
CC:	
Subj:	Time Capsule Launched into Space

From the "JPL Universe"
August 26, 1994

JPLers help launch `people's' time capsule
By KARRE MARINO

   Time capsules are nothing new. But sending one that contains
ordinary citizens' hopes and dreams into space, now that's a new
take on an old idea.

   It's also a logistical nightmare. But that didn't stop a
handful of JPLers--past and present--from giving it their best shot
to ensure that SpaceArc, the Archives of Mankind, became a
reality, as it was launched Aug. 3 from Cape Canaveral.

   The brainchild of a Fairport, N.Y., high school student, James
Ferren, it took the involvement of the Rochester Museum and
Science Center and a handful of corporate sponsors--who thought the
idea of inviting students worldwide to offer messages to be uncovered 
by future generations was a good one--to kickstart the project.

   It didn't hurt the venture that the nonprofit space research
organization World Space Foundation's president was a Rochester
native--and now JPL's Pluto Preproject Manager--Robert Staehle.

   "I'd had this idea for an archive in space since about 1977,
but the technology at the time wasn't available to make it
possible," Staehle said, so he had given up on the notion.
However, a friend, a reporter who covered news in the space
industry, alerted him to the Rochester Museum's desire to get its
own version of a spaceborne archive off the ground. "I called," he
said, "offering to help in any way that I could."

   It would be Staehle's connections to space flight--specifically
getting objects into space--that would make him especially valuable.

   In fact, he surmised that probably the most practical way to
arrange a launch was via a communication satellite owner. He
tapped the services of Jim Abrahamson, former head of NASA's space
shuttle program, and at the time a mover and shaker at Hughes
Aircraft [now chairman of Oracle Corp.]

   "We met with Jim, and after a 1 1/2-hour discussion," Staehle
related, "he gave us a commitment to find a satellite on which to
fly the SpaceArc."

   It took months of calls and faxes to arrange which satellite,
he said, but it was finally decided that the SpaceArc would fly
bolted into the side of a Hughes DirecTv2 satellite.

   This was only half of the undertaking. The messages themselves
had to be in an appropriate form and contained in a canister whose
specifications were also dictated by stringent requirements. Enter
George Carlisle, an engineer in the Mission Design Section 312. He
brought the museum people together with those at Hughes who were
responsible for launching the payload.

   "To some extent, I also obtained some technical input from a
Canadian firm, Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, which transcribed
the individual messages onto the optical tape," Carlisle
explained. "We had to meet certain specifications that were
compatible with what Hughes was able to have as an extra add-on to
its own satellite."

   The result was a capsule filled with some 40,000 messages
encoded on optical tape from children in 45 countries and
luminaries like Arthur C. Clarke, a compact disc featuring the
music of 18 performers, poetry, art and philosophy.

   In addition to the personal messages, SpaceArc's passengers
also include CD-ROM discs of the newest edition of Compton's
Encyclopedia and a copy of Cable News Network's "1993: The 100
Defining Moments."

   While organizers admitted that extraterrestrial time capsules
have been attempted before, most notably with the Voyager
spacecraft, it was the hands-on, human interaction that made
SpaceArc unique. "SpaceArc allowed people to access space," said
Richard Shultz, Rochester Museum president and director.

   Both Staehle and Carlisle, who'd done their parts  for the
"mission" on their own time, concurred, emphasizing the importance
of the participation by so many unsung heroes. It was the
project's reliance upon the students that drove the two.

   "This just seemed like such a great opportunity for kids to
think about their world and their place in it," Staehle offered.
"It was wonderful that the students involved could think beyond
what they were being taught in class--learning in a way that was
based in reality. Their ideas were actually going up in a satellite.

   "It's easy to trivialize today, perhaps," he admitted, but "in
500 years, SpaceArc could be the Rosetta Stone of the common
people--kids. That's great."

   "Something is ultimately noble about our efforts to explore
space," Carlisle explained. "One aspect of that nobility is to
extend ourselves beyond our own place and time. That was what
SpaceArc represented--communication across time to future
generations, offering what we are now."

   He agreed that such sentiment is "consistent with all time
capsules. But what made this unique was that it's the first
spaceborne time capsule meant to be retrieved by the future
citizens of Earth, representing our time to an unknowable future,
millennia away. SpaceArc is a cultural expression of that sort.
And I wanted to do what I could to facilitate such an effort."

    re .0
    
    So, did the satellite to which the time capsule is attached go into
    geostationary orbit? At that altitude it isn't going to deorbit by
    itself in a long time. Is the idea that at some far future time when
    Earth orbit (both low and high) is regularly travelled, someone will
    collect the capsule?

    	See Note 910.3 under satellite Directv-2.
    
        Larry
             

    re .3
    
    Thanks, Larry.

    I keep thinking that more likely we will have rendered ourselves
    extinct before retrieving the capsule and that in the far distant
    future some alien archaeologist will puzzle over the contents and
    wonder about what caused our demise. )-: