The recent Blue Moon was captured by Rockford resident Matthew Palmieri on Aug. 30 with a 6-inch reflector
By Deborah Reed
deborah@wktv.org
Picture of the Blue Moon at 98% on Aug. 31, taken with a 6-inch reflector (Courtesy, Matthew Palmieri)
A Blue Moon appeared Aug. 30-31, the second full moon to emerge within a single calendar month.
Though having nothing to do with color, Blue Moons occur once every two to three years.
The cycle of the phases of the moon takes 29.5 days to complete, taking 354 days to conclude 12 lunar cycles. This equals one full moon per month and totaling 12 full moons each year.
The occasional exception to a monthly full moon is February. With only 28 days in a common year and 29 days in a leap year, February will never experience a Blue Moon.
The next seasonal Blue Moon is expected to take place Aug. 19-20, 2024.
A poem by Patricia Clark, professor emerita of writing and former poet laureate of Grand Rapids, is slated to be launched to the moon as part of the “Lunar Codex” project.
The poem, “Astronomy ‘In Perfect Silence,'” will be part of a time capsule headed to the moon in 2024. Lunar Codex project leaders say they are using surplus payload space for multiple moon missions to archive the works of more than 30,000 artists from around the world on the moon.
Clark’s piece, which will be stored on archival technology, is part of the “Polaris” collection, which is scheduled to launch in November 2024. The poem is also in an anthology named “The Polaris Trilogy: Poems for the Moon.”
An invitation for her piece to “go to the moon”
She was invited by an editor soliciting poems for the project to contribute a piece, an invitation that Clark eagerly accepted. She learned that her poem was chosen with an email that opened with, “You’re going to the Moon! Well, to be more precise, your poem is.”
For Clark, who was poet laureate for Grand Rapids from 2005-2007 and also served as Grand Valley’s poet-in-residence, it is a thrill for her poem to be included in the payload carrying artistic material that is set to stay at the moon in perpetuity.
“My husband says he’s going to look up there and think about my poem,” Clark said.
Poets were asked to tell the judges if they were writing about the moon, stars or sun. Clark said she chose a form called abecedarian, which is a 26-line poem where each line starts with a letter, A-Z, in order of the alphabet (and with a little poetic license where necessary, as Clark did with the line starting with “X.”).
A celebration of astronomy and teaching
The poem is a celebration of astronomy and the wonder of space.
Her inspiration was an astronomy professor from her undergraduate time at the University of Washington whose enthusiasm for the subject stayed with her even though she never pursued the discipline professionally.
“When I saw the call for work, I was immediately excited because I thought, ‘This will give me a chance to write about this experience I had.’ I thought I’d start writing about the experience of the class and see what I get to,” Clark said.
A key reason she knows that class stuck with her is because she still has the book, one of the few from college that she saved after multiple decades and many moves. She valued the star charts, too.
Though the poem notes that Clark had forgotten the professor’s name, she contacted her alma mater to see if they could figure out who the professor was. She soon learned that the professor was George Wallerstein, who had sadly died in recent years.
But the poem is a testament to his inspiration as a teacher and the importance of a well-rounded education, she said. While she didn’t dig deeply into the field, she has a deep appreciation of it because of this teacher.
“It might not be something you spent your life on, but it mattered to you. That’s what liberal education is all about,” Clark said. “The magic of space and the wonder of it all is still there because of this class and this professor who was so jazzed about it all.”
Edgar Mitchell sets up an Apollo lunar surface experiments package made up of a set of scientific instruments placed at the landing site. (NASA/Alan Shepard)
With all the overpowering noise of the recent presidential election cycle, the good and bad news of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the mixed-reaction to Wonder Woman 1984, it was easy to miss the news that our children’s children may well be visiting a “Moon park”, of sorts, in the future.
In a late December, the office of U.S. Sen. Gary Peters (D-Michigan), announced that The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill introduced by Sen. Peters and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to permanently protect the Apollo landing sites on the moon.
The One Small Step to Protect Human Heritage in Space Act would enact first-of-its-kind legal protections for the Apollo sites by making NASA’s preservation recommendations a requirement for future activities on the Moon. After passing both the house and senate, it was signed by outgoing President Donald Trump on Dec. 31 and is now law.
Apollo 17 mission commander Eugene A. Cernan makes a short checkout of the Lunar Roving Vehicle during the early part of the first Apollo 17 extravehicular activity at the Taurus-Littrow landing site. This view of the lunar rover prior to loadup was taken by Harrison H. Schmitt, Lunar Module pilot. The mountain in the right background is the east end of South Massif. (NASA/
The legislation directs NASA to require future moon activities to follow its preservation recommendations, and honors the over 400,000 scientists, designers, and researchers who contributed to the Apollo programs, including NASA’s “Hidden Figures” like Katherine Johnson — an African American mathematician who worked at NASA for 35 years and calculated the trajectory of the Apollo 11 flight to the moon as well the trajectories for the spaceflights of astronauts John Glenn and Alan Shepard.
“As a former astronaut in the Apollo program, it is fitting that one of humanities’ greatest collective achievements should be preserved for future generations to learn about and be inspired by,” A.W. “Tony” England, an astronaut during the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs and now a professor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, said in supplied material. The act “will honor Apollo’s invaluable legacy of innovation, collaboration, and determination and preserve it for future generations.”
Congressional support for protections
Sen. Peters has long been an advocate for NASA and America’s space technology programs.
“As a child, I watched the achievements of the Apollo missions with excitement about what is possible when we come together with a common goal,” Sen. Peters said in supplied material. “I was proud to author this bipartisan legislation to preserve for all of humanity the incredible achievements of the Apollo astronauts on the Moon.”
Sen. Peters has also led other efforts in Congress to support American space exploration. In September 2020, Peters’ bipartisan bill to strengthen the nation’s ability to predict and mitigate severe space weather events and mitigate their harmful impacts on Earth wa signed by President Trump. In addition, Peters’ bipartisan bill to help authorize and set priorities for NASA and the nation’s space exploration mission was signed into law in 2017.
One Small Step to Protect Human Heritage in Space Act also had bipartisan support in the U.S. House of Representatives.
“The Apollo landing sites mark one of humanity’s greatest achievements: the first time we were able to do more than look up at the sky, but actually leave our planet and visit another world,” said Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Oklahoma), of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. “The One Small Step Act maintains these historic sites while encouraging the spirit of exploration that got us to the Moon. I’m proud to sponsor this bill to honor our historical achievements, and I look forward to the time when we can return humans to the Moon and continue the mission of discovery and learning that the Apollo astronauts began.”
International support for protections
Sen. Peters and the other bill authors worked closely with NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, who negotiated similar provision in the Artemis Accords and expressed his support for protecting the historic lunar sites in a 2019 Senate hearing, just before the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing.
Lunar module pilot James Irwin works at the Lunar Roving Vehicle during the first Apollo 15 lunar surface extravehicular activity at the Hadley-Apennine landing site. The shadow of the Lunar Module “Falcon” is in the foreground. This view is looking northeast, with Mount Hadley in the background. This photograph was taken by mission commander David Scott. (NASA)
According to the NASA website, NASA’s Artemis program has a goal to land the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024, “heralding in a new era for space exploration and utilization.” While NASA is leading the Artemis program, international partnerships formalized with the Artemis Accords “will play a key role in achieving a sustainable and robust presence on the Moon while preparing to conduct a historic human mission to Mars.
“With numerous countries and private sector players conducting missions and operations in cislunar space, it’s critical to establish a common set of principles to govern the civil exploration and use of outer space,” NASA states.
The Artemis Accords will “describe a shared vision for principles,” grounded in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, to create a safe and transparent environment which facilitates exploration, science, and commercial activities for all of humanity to enjoy.
“As we go forward to the Moon with the Artemis Program, NASA has been clear that we must do so sustainably,” said Bridenstine in supplied material. “As part of the Artemis Accords agreements signed with partner nations, NASA has emphasized that protecting historically significant sites is critical, and I applaud the leaders of this legislation for their commitment to ensuring that future lunar science and exploration is done in a safe and transparent manner.”
The nations that have signed the Artemis Accords include, in alphabetical order, Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States of America. Noticeably absent in the initial list of signatories are Israel, Russia, China and India — all with working space programs.
Among the principles of the Artemis Accords are focusing on peaceful exploration, conducting activities in a transparent fashion to avoid confusion and conflicts, rendering assistance to personnel in distress, public release of scientific information, extracting and utilizing space resources in safe and sustainable exploration, planning for the safe disposal of debris.
“Fundamentally, the Artemis Accords will help to avoid conflict in space and on Earth by strengthening mutual understanding and reducing misperceptions,” Mike Gold, NASA acting associate administrator for international and interagency relations, said in supplied material. “Transparency, public registration, deconflicting operations – these are the principles that will preserve peace … The Artemis journey is to the Moon, but the destination of the Accords is a peaceful and prosperous future.”
So what does the Black & Decker Dustbuster vacuum have to do with the exploration of space?
It actually has to do with drilling. Black & Decker was tasked with creating a self-contained drill capable of extracting core samples for the Apollo program. The company later would use the drill’s computer program to develop the cordless miniature vacuum cleaner.
It this type of “spin-off” technology that the space program has on everyday life, said U.S. Senator Gary Peters, who made a stop in Grand Rapids to celebrate the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum’s current exhibit “SPACE: A Journey of our Future,” which runs through May 29.
Check out a piece of the moon in the “SPACE: A Journey of our Future.”
“We know that when we invest in science, we will get a higher return for taxpayers,” Peters said.
And as the Ranking Member of the Senate Subcommittee on Space, that higher return is something Peters and the Subcommittee are banking on with the mission to Mars.
“Similar of what you think about President Kennedy — I am sure you have studied this in that President Kennedy made the claim that we would get to the moon by the end of the decade and really set this goal, this bar of which everyone one was trying to achieve,” Peters said to a group of high school students during a lecture at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum.
“The same thing is happening to the Mars mission in it is in the process of moving forward.”
While the Mission to Mars is still about 15 years away — the target year is 2030 — the work toward making that happen has lead to innovation not only through out the United States, but right in Michigan, Peters said, adding that several Michigan companies are involved in developing technology and even constructing the SLS rocket that will carry the astronauts to Mars.
In the “SPACE: A Journey to Our Future,” there is an up-close look at NASA’s new Constellation Program with a model of the Ares I launch vehicle and the Orion crew capsule, which is planned to be used in in the Mission to Mars. Other highlights of the traveling exhibit including a Lunar Habitat, where visitors can experience what it would be like to live and work on the Moon, a look at the Hubble telescope, an illustrated timeline 0f NASA’s 50 years of space exploration, and the multimedia 360-degree “Future Theatre.”
Peters discussed some of these items in the lecture such as it being a costly venture to have people living on the moon, but that NASA is looking to use the moon as sort of a laboratory by pulling an astroid into the moon’s atmosphere so as to be able to study it and its components.
Learn how to pack for a trip into space.
“It is believed that astroids that slammed into the earth brought the basic building blocks for life,” Peters said, adding it is exciting to be able to study those “seeds of life.”
The Hubble Space Telescope has served the United States well bringing incredible images, but soon the James Webb Space Telescope — scheduled to be launched in 2018 — will study the phases in history of the universe. “It is said that if the James Webb telescope was on earth, pointing to the moon, it would be able read the heat signature of a single bubble bee…that’s how powerful it is,” Peters said.
All of these advancements lead to new technology such as autonomous or self driving cars, which could impact space programs on a variety of levels, Peters said.
“We do not know what the next big thing is,” Peters said as he talked about research and advancements. “We know that if we continue to invest in the basic chemistry, basic biology, basic physics, that kind of basics that are being done in our research universities, of which Michigan has several in Grand Rapids and throughout, that it will lead to the next big thing that will transform life as we know it know.”
“SPACE: The Journey to Our Future,” which explores the past, present and future of space exploration, is at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum, 303 Pearl St. NW, through May 29.
