GRAA October 2021 Issue

GRAA NEWSLETTER
P.O. Box 1184, Greenbelt, MD 20768-1184

October 2021

http://GoddardRetirees.org

37th Year of Publication

IMPORTANT DATES

October 12

Mark your calendar for the GRAA Luncheon starting at 11:15 a.m. at the Greenbelt American Legion Post #136 at 6900 Greenbelt Road. Our featured speaker will be Claire Parkinson, Senior Scientist in Climatology in Goddard’s Earth Sciences Division, and a Senior Goddard Fellow. Her talk is titled “What a 42-Year Satellite Record Shows About Earth’s Changing Sea Ice Coverage”. Reservations are required, so please contact Alberta Moran on her cell phone at 301-910-0177 or via her email address at bertiemae90@gmail.com not later than noon on October 8th.

November 9

Our speaker will be David DeVorkin, Senior Curator, History of Astronomy and the Space Sciences, at the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution. His talk, “Science with a Vengeance” is also the title of his book about the origins of the space sciences after WWII using captured V-2 rockets. The military invited scientists to develop payloads for flight in the “V-2 era” 1946 – early 1950s. Their experiences in payload design and function led to future satellite instruments.

COMMENTS FROM TONY COMBERIATE AND ARLIN KRUEGER:

Our September luncheon speaker was Lori Perkins, a computer engineer for NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio (SVS) located in Goddard’s Sciences and Exploration Directorate. Her presentation was titled “Visualizing NASA’s Science Results and Why It Matters”. Lori explained that these visualizations are designed to be enjoyed by people of all walks of life and to be accurate enough to also be insightful for the NASA research community. This work empowers scientists to share the meaning and excitement of their work as widely as possible. Scientific visualization is not a mere translation of numbers into pictures: shapes and colors breathe life into real scientific data, allowing us to see patterns and complexities that were once invisible or unknown. The visualization process itself becomes a vehicle for scientific inquiry, capturing the curiosity of both visualizer and researcher. The resulting data-driven artworks inspire as much as they educate and entertain. Scientific visualization reminds us of the beauty in understanding, and it is a means of discovery all its own.

Lori showed an SVS animation of NASA’s current fleets of Earth observing, communications, and navigation spacecraft in their LEO, geostationary, and Lagrange point orbits. NASA’s Earth Sciences program emphasizes integrated observations from polar orbiting platforms like Aura, Aqua, Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM), Terra and Landsat, and from geostationary NOAA GOES satellites. Examples of SVS products include weekly animations of rain-producing meteorological systems around the Earth, and a video of Hurricane Ida as it approached Louisiana in August using data from 7 spacecraft. Other SVS products use Goddard’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office GEOS forecasts. Model forecasts are frequently shown by TV weather forecasters, such as Al Roker on the Today show.

Lori discussed the history of Landsat scenes, from 1984 when they cost $600 each, to now, when they are available for free from Google Earth, which has all of the Landsat data along with Aqua MODIS data. Landsat data sequences show the decreasing area of Lake Meade as the western US becomes more arid with climate changes. Other SVS illustrations show how migration patterns derived from sensors on birds and wild animals have been affected by climate change and how Arctic Sea ice has decreased over the last 30 years. Another SVS product is a spectacular animation of Antarctic Ocean currents at the sea surface and underwater, including under glaciers where the warming water melts the ice. The SVS team will be part of the US delegation to the World Climate Conference in October and will show graphics to help delegates see the impact of climate change.

SVS also produces visualizations of the Sun and the solar environment using Solar Dynamics Observer (SDO) data. A long-standing mystery is why the solar corona is more than a million degrees warmer than the sun’s surface. Data from both SDO and sounding rockets found nano flares that may heat the coronal plasma. In the area of space weather, SVS has produced animations of coronal mass ejections observed with Stereo spacecraft that could cause massive power disruptions if they hit the Earth.

In Solar System Exploration, the Lucy mission, ready for launch this October to seven Trojan Asteroids orbiting the sun near Jupiter, will examine primordial material from the birth of the solar system. Data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has enabled the Visualization Studio to make a play by play video of actual lunar scenes to accompany Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott’s audio track voice description of his EVA walk in 1971, showing exactly what Scott saw.

In the Astrophysics area, Lori mentioned that when JWST started to be developed there were no known exoplanets but now there are thousands. JWST will examine exoplanets that the TESS spacecraft has identified as targets of opportunity. Lori showed a time lapse video of the final preparation of JWST for shipment to the launch site in French Guiana.

In summary, Goddard now has a fantastic capability to make volumes of our satellite data available to scientists and the World in graphic form. As the ability to collect more Earth Sciences, Astrophysics, Solar, and Planetary data has grown, SVS’s work to make it accessible to the public is a major accomplishment. More than 8300 visuals and links to other Goddard resources are available for viewing at the SVS website: svs.gsfc.nasa.gov.

REMEMBERING OUR FORMER COLLEAGUES:

David Dean Neill: 90, of Tallahassee, Florida, died on August 23. David attended Gallaudet College in Washington, D.C. where he majored in mathematics, played intramural sports and was on the college tennis team and where he also met Helen Machen with the couple marrying the day after their graduation on May 29, 1956. David spent most of his career as a software engineer at Goddard. He was active in the Maryland Association of the Deaf and served as president of the association. David and Helen moved to Tallahassee in 2016.
James P. Heppner: Space Physics Pioneer Dr. James P. Heppner, 94 who was both project manager and principal scientist for the first satellite built at Goddard, Explorer-10, died on August 31, 2021 from natural causes. Dr. Heppner was extremely proud of his professional accomplishments in the field of geophysics focusing on space explorations, including Explorer-10. Earlier, at the Naval Research Laboratory, Dr. Heppner's 1956 proposal for satellite magnetic field measurements using a newly developed proton precession magnetometer was selected for flight under Project Vanguard, the U.S's initial satellite program. Replicas of the SLV-5, Vanguard-3, and Explorer-10 satellites now hang in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. In 1962-1963 he served as a technical advisor to the delegation to implement the "Bilateral Space Agreement" between the US and USSR. Dr. Heppner and co-workers-initiated NASA projects for measuring electric fields. In parallel with satellite projects, between 1956 and 1989 Dr. Heppner also used 60 high altitude sounding rockets to study phenomena in and above the ionosphere. Following retirement from NASA in 1989 he supported NASA programs as a contractor until 1996. He then devoted full time to his interests in farming in New Market, Md, where he continued cattle operations until 2010.
Gail Skofronick-Jackson: 58, of McLean, VA, died suddenly September 7, 2021. Gail was deployed with a joint NASA-European Space Agency airborne campaign team in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. On a day off from the experiments, she perished in a tragic accident while hiking with colleagues. Gail was a brilliant scientist-and a deeply passionate and principled person-who carried her enthusiasm for life over into her career at NASA. She was a dedicated researcher whose interests included passive remote sensing, radiative transfer theory, and detection and estimation of falling snow using active and passive spaceborne sensors. Gail received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Florida State University. She went on to complete her M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology after which she was hired at NASA. At the time of her death, she was a Program Manager at NASA Headquarters, Science Mission Directorate.
Harry E. Montgomery: 90, died from heart failure September 15 at his Brookeville, MD home. During more than 40 years at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Dr. Montgomery was involved in development of cutting-edge calibration devices for the Orbiting Geophysical Observatories and the Synchronous Meteorological Satellite. However, he was most proud of his work as Sensor Engineer on the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). The MODIS technology has scanned and measured Earth’s environmental changes, including cloud cover and radiation, since 1999 and is still in use. Its recent scans have provided scientists with valuable data on the deadly wildfires in California and Oregon. Dr. Montgomery was honored several times by NASA for his contributions to the agency’s science missions. After retirement from NASA in 2002, Dr. Montgomery often accompanied his wife, State Senator Karen S. Montgomery, on her official duties and contributed to her office’s research and constituent work. A Memorial Service will be held on Saturday, October 23, 2021 at 11 A.M. at the Brookeville Academy, 5 High St., Brookeville, MD 20833, with a luncheon to follow.
Robert (Bob) Edward Dwyer: 81, died on September 24 surrounded by family, including his wife of 57 years, Elizabeth Kay Dwyer. Bob served in the United States Army after attending Drexel University. He had a degree in Electrical Engineering and subsequently worked as an aerospace engineer at Goddard then for Computer Science Corporation (CSC), Ford Aerospace, Loral Aerospace, and retired from Lockheed Martin as a Director in 2000. He worked on the ground system for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) as well as many other aerospace programs during his career, attending numerous launches at the Kennedy Space Center. After retirement he enjoyed bowling, golfing, fishing, skiing, and taking nature walks as well as attending his grandchildren’s sporting events. Friends and relatives may visit Thursday October 7, from 6:00-9:00 P.M. at Donaldson Funeral Home in Laurel, MD (313 Talbott Avenue, Laurel, MD 20707). Burial will take place on Friday, October 8, at 10:00 A.M. at the Chapel at Donaldson Funeral Home in Laurel.

FROM THE GODDARD ARCHIVES — IT HAPPENED IN OCTOBER:

October 22, 1977 – the Delta launch of Explorer 56/ISSE-1 to study Earth’s magnetosphere and solar winds

October 25, 2006 – the Delta-II launch of STEREO, two nearly identical satellites to study Sun/Earth relationship, one ahead of the Earth’s orbit and one trailing behind Earth’s orbit.

TREASURER’S REPORT: Treasurer Jackie Gasch received a considerable donation from the estate of Robert C. Wigand, Jr. Bob was our GRAA Treasurer for more than 19 years and supported other GRAA efforts well into his nineties.