Now that we are at the end of 2022, it is time to look back at this year’s material published on Drew Ex Machina and see which of the new essays I posted during this site’s ninth year online, along with earlier published material, proved to be most popular to my readers. In addition to satisfying my curiosity, this exercise is an attempt to figure out what kinds of articles my readers prefer so that I can focus my attention on similar topics over the coming months when possible. Because of my increasing duties at my “real job” as the Chief Scientist at the Boston-based aerospace start up, Tropical Weather Analytics (as well as the Chief Scientist of our Canadian partner company, Canada Weather Analytics, starting this past summer), I did not publish as many articles on Drew Ex Machina as I have done in years past. Although I have published a number of new work-related posts on the Tropical Weather Analytics website (see TWA Blog Posts), the new material I posted on Drew Ex Machina this year has proven to be quite popular despite their diminished numbers.
What follows is a review of the Top Ten most popular articles on this site during 2022 based on a raw tally of their page views. If you are interested in checking out any of these articles for yourself, they can be accessed by clicking on the titles or the feature images in the reviews that follow.
The launch of Skylab 1 on May 14, 1973. (NASA)
#10 Rockets Falling from Orbit: The Saturn V That Launched NASA’s Skylab
Among the space-related news stories during 2022 were the uncontrolled reentries of a pair of 22-metric ton Long March 5B core stages after they had orbited new modules for the Chinese space station. While there are legitimate concerns about the risks posed by such large objects falling uncontrollably from orbit, this is not the first time this has happened nor are the Long March 5B core stages the largest. The #10 ranked essay on Drew Ex Machina for 2022 was about the S-II-13 second stage of the Saturn V which launched NASA’s Skylab space station into orbit on May 14, 1973. Although it was possible to modify the 45 metric ton S-II-13 stage to be safely deorbited (as NASA had done with spent S-IVB stage during this era), the decision was made to accept the risks for this one-off launch.
A view of the American southwest taken at an altitude of 103 kilometers by V-2 #13 on October 24, 1946.
#9 First Pictures: The View of Earth from Space – October 24, 1946
A couple of years ago, I began a new series of essays called “First Pictures” which has proven to be quite popular. In this series, I share the first space-related images of their kind with details on how they were taken as well as background on the missions. The #9 ranked essay for 2022 discusses the first images of the Earth taken from the threshold of space on October 24, 1946 using a surplus V-2 rocket launched from White Sands, New Mexico.
Diagram of the Space Shuttle from c1975. (NASA/MSFC)
#8 The Dream of NASA’s Space Shuttle: Artwork of the 70s
Following the approval of the Space Shuttle program a half century ago, a flood of artwork from NASA and its contractors gave space enthusiasts a glimpse of what to expect in the near future. The #8 ranked article for 2022 provides a sample of this artwork in my personal collection from the mid to late-1970s.
A true color image of the Earth as it appeared from the surface of the Moon at about 10:38 GMT on April 30, 1967. (NASA/JPL)
#7 First Pictures: The View of Earth from the Surface of Another World – April 30, 1967
Over the decades, we have been treated to a growing stream of images of the Earth taken from afar by our robotic explorers throughout the Solar System. But to find the first image of our home planet taken from the surface of another world, we need to go back over a half a century to NASA’s Surveyor 3 lunar landing mission. The #7 rated essay on Drew Ex Machina took a look that this first-of-its-kind image taken 55 years ago on April 30, 1967.
The Sojourner rover and its undeployed ramps onboard the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft can be seen in this image taken by the Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) in the hours after landing on July 4, 1997. (NASA/JPL)
#6 First Pictures: NASA’s Mars Pathfinder – July 4, 1997
On July 4, 1997, NASA’s Mars Pathfinder successfully landed on the Red Planet – the first Mars landing in over two decades. Part of NASA’s Discovery program, the Mars Pathfinder mission was meant to test technologies later employed in the highly successful Mars Exploration Rover mission. The #6 ranked post on Drew Ex Machina took a close look at the first images returned by Mars Pathfinder (the first new images from the surface of Mars in 15 years) and the camera used to take them.
A portion of one of the color panoramas returned from the surface of Venus by Venera 13 on March 1, 1982. (Don Mitchell)
#5 First Pictures: Color Views of the Surface of Venus by Venera 13 – March 1, 1982
On March 1, 1982, the Soviet Venera 13 lander touched down on the surface of Venus. While the seventh successful landing on our sister planet by the Soviet Union, the highly instrumented Venera 13 was the first to return color images from the hellish Venusian surface. The #5 rated post on Drew Ex Machina (and the most popular of the new “First Pictures” series of articles in 2022) took a closer look at how these first of their kind images were acquired.
A Soviet depiction of Venera 8 on the surface of Venus. (Lavochkin)
#4 Venera 8: The First Characterization of the Surface of Venus
With a trio of NASA and ESA-sponsored missions to Venus now in the works, Earth’s twin-gone-bad is finally getting some much-deserved attention as an important target for further exploration. Coincidentally, a half century ago this year on July 22, 1972, the Soviet Venera 8 probe successfully landed on the surface of Venus. Arguably the most successful of the first generation Venera missions, Venera 8 provided the first in depth characterization of the surface of Venus setting the stage for the more advanced missions to follow. The #4 ranked article for 2022 took a detailed look at the Venera 8 mission and its findings.
A prelaunch photograph of Ranger 3 on the pad at LC-12 with the Moon visible beyond. (NASA)
#3 NASA’s Ranger 3: The First Attempt to Land on the Moon
With the renewed interest in the exploration of the Moon, I took a look back sixty years to the first attempt to land on our nearest neighbor: NASA’s Ranger 3 launched on January 26, 1962. Its mission frequently confused with the later Block III Ranger impact missions, one of the objectives of the three Block II Ranger flights of 1962 (starting with Ranger 3) was to deploy a hard lander equipped with its own retrorocket to place a seismometer on the lunar surface. The #3 ranked essay on Drew Ex Machina for 2022 was a detailed look at the Ranger 3 mission and the failures which prevented it from completing its mission.
An artist conception of an Earth-like exoplanet. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle)
#2 Kepler’s Most Earth-like Planet Candidate
While NASA’s now defunct Kepler spacecraft’s design and observation strategy were tailored to spot Earth-size planets in Earth-like orbits around Sun-like stars, none of the thousands of confirmed Kepler finds could be reasonably considered a true “Earth analog”. The small number of potentially habitable planets found by Kepler, while scientifically important, turned out to be very un-Earth-like. While disappointing, there are a small handful of potentially more Earth-like worlds among the thousands of unconfirmed planet candidates found during Kepler’s four-year primary mission. The #2 post on Drew Ex Machina took a close look at KOI-4878.01 which has been gaining some interest online recently (as it does from time to time) as being the most Earth-like planet candidate found to date.
Here are a pair of images of Jupiter taken during the commissioning phase of JWST to test the telescope’s ability to track moving targets accurately. The contrast of these images was stretched to reveal the faint rings and moons. (STScI)
#1 Webb’s First Glimpse of Jupiter, Its Moons and Rings
One of the biggest space-related news stories of the past year was the successful launch and deployment of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Along with the public release early this past summer of the first test images taken by JWST, there was the release an interim report about the results to date from the telescope’s six-month commissioning phase. Among the unnoticed images in that report were a pair JWST took in the infrared of Jupiter to test the telescope’s ability to track objects moving against the background stars. The top-rated post on Drew Ex Machina took a look at these new images which also reveal the planet’s faint rings and two of its tiny inner moons.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the 100,000 people from around the globe who have taken time in 2022 to read these Top Ten as well as the other 355 essays on Drew Ex Machina. The many comments and feedback on this site as well as in other forums have also been greatly appreciated. I intend to continue posting interesting essays on space-related topics during 2023 and hope that all of you continue reading and enjoying them.
Happy New Year! Drew LePage
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