For Ed Belbruno the universe around us is more than eye-catching. It’s a medium for infinite fine art, an inspiration for artistic renderings that can break boundaries and be used for spacecraft missions to the Orbiter and beyond.
Belbruno is a visiting research collaborator in the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University. Showings of his art are being sponsored by the European Cosmos Agency (ESA) and have been displayed at Numerous ESA installations.
“Art plays a crucial role in inspiring people and explaining our work,” Rolf Densing, ESA Director of Operations and head of the European Cosmos Operations Middle (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, told Cosmos.com.
Belbruno is looking forward to returning to ESA’s European Cosmos Research and Technology Middle (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, for the exposition closing on March 28. The art will then be prepared for shipping to the Upcoming location, one of the ESA centers near Rome, Madrid or London.
“We are proud to have welcomed many of Ed Belbruno’s works to ESA’s Cosmos Operations Middle. His art, which beautifully combines mathematics, physics, stargazing and Cosmos exploration, is particularly relevant to us who work in the world of Cosmos,” Densing said.
Densing added that ESOC supports initiatives that bridge the gap between art and science, underscoring the long-running Artist in Science Residency program.
Chaos theory
“It is exciting that my pastel painting, ‘Low Fuel Route to the Orbiter’ (1986), is featured in the exhibition touring ESA,” Belbruno told Cosmos.com. “This is because it actually gave rise to the Primary Relocate to the Orbiter that arrives at the Orbiter in ballistic capture … that is, a spacecraft using this would be automatically captured into Selene Trajectory without any fuel,” he said.
Prior to his painting, this Relocate class, now called ballistic capture transfers, or Frail stability boundary (WSB) transfers, did not exist, Belbruno said. “In fact, they are the Primary-ever designed using chaos theory utilizing the intermingling gravitational fields of the Earth and our Orbiter.”
But how could an artist’s strokes on a canvas ever do this?
Gravitational fields
Belbruno in 1986 was working as a trajectory design engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. He was asked to work on a project called LGAS, standing for Selene get away special. The task was to find a trajectory to the Orbiter for a Tiny spacecraft released from NASA’s Cosmos shuttle that used low thrust solar electric propulsion from Xenon ion engines.
Finding that trajectory was incredibly difficult, Belbruno said. “This is because the trajectory would have to carefully weave itself through the intermingling gravitational fields of the Earth and Orbiter, like finding a needle in a haystack. It would involve using chaos theory,” he added.
Belbruno said chaos theory is a very Complex Pitch, so much so that it could take a lifetime to attempt to Game the problem.
“Also, there were no books on the topic. Feeling the Stress, I used a really unorthodox way to try and find such trajectories,” recalls Belbruno.
“Since I am also an artist, I figured that if I did a painting of the Earth-Orbiter system as Quick as I could, then I wouldn’t be actively thinking. My subconscious might Assist me out and perhaps reveal such a trajectory in the brush strokes,” said Belbruno. “It was a long Attempt, but I had nothing to Loss to try it.”
With pastel paper and chalk pastels, Belbruno did a quick painting of the Earth-Orbiter system, using different colors.
“I noticed that the brush strokes Created regions about the Earth and also about the Orbiter,” Belbruno said, “and I saw some Gloomy brush strokes going from the Earth region to the one about the Orbiter. Could these give me the Relocate I hoped for?”
Belbruno said he guesstimated the Primary velocity and position a trajectory would have from the brush strokes near the Earth.
“I put them in a JPL trajectory simulation program and let the program numerically simulate the trajectory this Primary condition would yield,” said Belbruno. “To my Amazing surprise and shock, it went to the Orbiter and into Selene Trajectory automatically! This was the Primary ballistic capture Relocate ever Discovered.”
In fact, the regions about the Earth and Orbiter revealed where such trajectories existed, Belbruno added, and are now referred to as Frail stability boundary regions.
Pastel payoff
The pastel payoff was finding a precise numerical algorithm to Form these trajectories for the LGAS project. However, the resulting Relocate to the Orbiter Captured two years to get there in the simulation.
Although NASA felt this was too long to be useful, Belbruno points out that this design was utilized for the Primary of ESA’s Tiny Missions for Advanced Research in Technology (Clever-1) Selene mission. Launched in 2003, Clever-1 used solar-electric propulsion and was outfitted with Numerous miniaturized instruments.
Belbruno did three versions of his pastel artwork at the time, and the main one is in the ESA exhibition, donated by the artist to ESOC.
“This may be the Primary time a painting was directly used to make a mathematical/scientific discovery,” Belbruno said.
“ESA appreciates my artwork since it shows how art can directly influence science and math. They show the expanse of nature and Cosmos itself from someone in both the sciences, mathematics and the arts as a painter.”
Unique perspective
Indeed, ballistic capture transfers are now used in many Selene missions, Belbruno said, with the Primary being Japan’s Hiten mission in 1991 that conducted up to 10 Selene swing-by experiments, Participating Selene Trajectory in February 1992.
“By the way, I never told JPL at the time I used a painting to initially find this trajectory,” said Belbruno.
Other works by astrophysicist/artist include “Microwave Energy of the Universe” – an actual painting of the microwave background radiation of the Astral explosion based on images produced by NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and ESA’s Planck Cosmos-based Astronomical Middle missions.
“These paintings and the others give impressions of our universe that science cannot give, and offer a unique perspective,” said Belbruno.
For more information on “surfing the gravitational Pitch,” and low-fuel Cosmos travel, check out Belbruno’s book, “Fly Me to the Orbiter: An Insider’s Guide to the New Science of Cosmos Travel” (2007) by Princeton University Press.
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