Just three days to the opening of the Space Elevator games in Las Cruces, NuMex, where we can hope to see some new improvements in the technology that ain’t rocket science but presents challenges and opportunities of its own–and the promise of a smooth, no-pressure ride into the black. /image by Christian Science Monitor
Comments Off on Let the games begin
Posted in Science/Engineering, Space
Tagged Las Cruces, New Mexico, space elevator
Tonight’s the night to get the telescope out of the garage and, shortly after sunset, start pointing it northwest, just below and to the right of the handle of the Big Dipper, in search of Comet Swan, a green glow out there in the black.
While Times Online claims Neil Armstrong’s planned utterance ("One small step…" etc.) was ungrammatical–and sci fi writer Arthur C. Clarke (writing in 1986) agreed–until an Australian computer expert recently uncovered the missing article. Well, every Texas schoolboy knows the REALLY important matter was the First Word from the lunar surface, not those planned-in-advance words.
That first word? "Houston," as in Armstrong reporting the landing by saying "Houston, Tranquillity base here…" etc. I used to have a colorful poster of an orbiting city made up by the Houston chamber of commerce crowing about it. As a paid scribe, I even once examined the official transcript to confirm it.
Comes Wikipedia claiming the first words were those of Buzz Aldrin: "The first words spoken from the surface were Aldrin’s, who reported ‘Contact Light’ as the Eagle’s landing probe touched the moon."
Harrumph. This is why, as we so often hear, Wikipedia’s encyclopedic veracity is questionable at best.
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Posted in Space
Tagged Buzz Aldrin, first word, Houston, Moon, NASA, Neil Armstrong, Wikipedia
It’s been called the finest achievement of the Space Age, taking pictures of the Earth in context. This is one of the oldest and best-known, the Apollo 17 look-back at the African continent, which some scientists consider the cradle of humanity/NASA
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Posted in Science/Engineering, Space
Iranian Anousheh Ansari, the latest space tourist with enough bucks (a reported $25 million) to buy her own ride, is spending some time each day blogging her experience–with embedded YouTube videos.
"The launch was very smooth. The trip to the station felt long but it was worth it. I cannot keep my eyes off the windows. Earth is magnificent and peaceful from up here. You don’t see any of those awful things you hear on the news, from up here…As they pulled the hatch open on the Soyuz side, I smelled ‘SPACE.’ It was strange… kind of like burned almond cookie. I said to them, ‘It smells like cooking’ and they both looked at me like I was crazy and exclaimed:’Cooking!’
"I said, ‘Yes… sort of like something is burning… I don’t know it is hard to explain…’”
Ms. Ansari has big plans for future $200,000-a-ticket suborbital jaunts in a mini-space shuttle.
Comments Off on Blogging from low orbit
Posted in Blogosphere, Space
Tagged Anousheh Ansari, Soyuz, space tourist
The Pleiades, also called the Seven Sisters, although there seem to be more. Above and to the right of Orion the Hunter, 425 light years away. /NASA
The true colors of Earth acquired from space: green forests, brown mountains, tan deserts, white ice, and oceans of blue. /NASA
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