Space Zoo Patrol Ask an Astronaut a Question
For millions of years, people have looked up at the night sky and saw a vast unknown. Some were frightened but many dreamed of flying out into the darkness of space to explore. These dreams turned into books such as “From the Earth to the Moon” by Jules Verne (1865) and “The First Men in the Moon” by H. G. Wells (1901), into TV shows such as “Star Trek”, and into movies such as “2001” and “Star Wars.”
These books, shows, and movies inspired a generation of scientists to figure out how to turn dreams into reality. A few years ago, NASA astronauts walked on the moon! And today, civilian crews are visiting space!
Someday soon, you could join them. If you could ask an astronaut your wildest question, what would you like to know?
…So ask away!
- Submit your question along with your name and city & state to: [email protected]
- we will Ask an Astronaut buddy
- then we will post your questions along with the answers!
Q – Are there really space aliens (like in Men in Black)? And will they have ray-guns? Jack, McLean, VA
A – Chris Hadfield, Astronaut, Shuttles #74, 100
Roswell costume parades and conspiracy theories aside, we haven’t actually found any ETs yet. It’s all TV fantasy and wishful thinking. But we’re looking! We have probes driving around on Mars, satellites out to all the planets of our solar system, and we’re even scanning the skies for radio signals. With half a trillion stars in just our galaxy, and half a trillion galaxies, the odds are pretty good that we’re not alone.
Big or small, ray-guns, such as in Men in Black, seem pretty impressive. But where does all the energy come from? To push that much power through the air would take a lot of electricity. If we’re ever going to have such things, we need to make batteries or fuel cells (or dilithium crystals!) that are many times more powerful than anything we’ve invented …so far.
Q – Is time travel (like in Back to the Future) real? Mike, McLean, VA
A – Mary Ellen Weber, PhD, Astronaut, Shuttles # 70, 101
Although traveling through time to the past is not even theoretically possible as far as we know, one can theoretically travel to the future. How? Well, the Theory of Relativity shows that that if you go amazingly fast—close to the speed of light—your time will actually pass more slowly than everyone else’s. So, if you traveled into space at blazing speeds for say one year, when you came back to Earth, tens, hundreds, or even thousands of years will have passed on Earth. The problem is that it’s a one-way ticket…you can’t go back. And keep in mind it’s merely theoretical, since we don’t have any of the capability—the propulsion, the materials, the technology—to go even close to fast enough to see a significant difference in time passage. But one day… who knows.
By the way, Back to the Future is on my all-time-favorite-movie list.