As I write this I am sitting in the back seat of Bob & Brenda Rose’s minivan as we drive down to Florida for Monday’s shuttle launch. We plan to arrive at Space View Park in Titusville around 8 pm Sunday to claim a good location for seating, waiting, and watching the launch. We will be about 11 miles away, but this park is considered one of the better locations for the general public, with a clear view of the launchpad.
Stay tuned for more updates!
The first tourist in space was not Dennis Tito, but this woman from Britain.
An evening pause: Fifty years ago today, America’s response to Gagarin and the Soviets, Alan Shepard’s suborbital flight.
Or as he said as he lifted off, “The clock has started.”
The flight actually lasted 15 minutes 22 seconds. Though only a fourth the size of Gagarin’s much bigger Vostok capsule, the Mercury capsule was steerable. During the flight Shepard adjusted the capsule’s pitch, roll, and yaw, proving that humans could pilot a spacecraft manually.
Did a microbe survive 2.5 years attached to Surveyor 3 on the Moon, and then come home on Apollo 12? New research says no.
An evening pause: The last part of “The Guns of John Browning” from Tales of the Gun.
The documentary correctly honors Browning for the quality of his designs and workmanship. To me, it is more important to honor him for making the weapons that allowed the United States to defend freedom in the twentieth century. Without these tools in the hands of our soldiers, the wars would have been longer and many more lives would have been lost. And worse, the fascists and Nazis and dictators might have won.
As George Bernard Shaw wrote in Major Barbara, “The people must have power.”
The world’s ten creepiest abandoned cities.
An evening pause: As this year is the 100th anniversary of the M1911 pistol, probably the most popular pistol ever made, here is the part one of a four part documentary telling the story of the man who designed it, John Moses Browning.
Ancient books uncovered in Jordan may date from the start of Christianity. Then again, they may be forgeries.
The books are currently the subject of a dispute between authorities, archeologists and an Israeli Bedouin who smuggled the books into Israel and hid them, claiming they were found by his great-grandfather, The Telegraph reports. Authorities in Jordan want the books returned, since under Jordanian law, they are property of the Kingdom of Jordan, according to the news release. Archeologists in Israel claim the books are forgeries, while British archeologists are committed to saving and studying the ancient scrolls.
A tiny church in England has discovered that its church bible is actually an original 1611 King James bible, “one of perhaps 200 surviving 400-year-old original editions.”
An evening pause: Forty-six years ago today Alexei Leonov became the first man to walk in space. This Soviet-era film shows practically the entire event, using footage from two cameras. Unfortunately, I don’t speak Russian and it is not subtitled. I’d love it if someone out there could provide a translation.
Several things to note as you watch:
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Treasures from the Soviet Union’s space history.
The strange tale of the Lebanese space program.
Violence and unions: It’s in their blood.
Sergei Korolev: the rocket genius behind Yuri Gagarin.
An evening pause:I had played this video as an evening pause back in November, when I thought the last mission of the space shuttle Discovery would be launched. Now that it has finally landed, completing its final mission, I think worthwhile to once again go back in time and watch a film of the shuttle’s maiden flight, launched August 30, 1984, narrated by the astronauts themselves. Note that the female astronaut on this flight is Judith Resnik, who died a little over a year and a half later in the Challenger accident.
Shackleton’s Antarctica, in color in 1915.
NASA administrator Charles Bolden revealed at House hearings this week that NASA will announce the future museum homes for the retiring shuttles on April 12.
There is something terribly sad and ironic about having this announcement occur on the 50th anniversary of the first manned flight into space by Yuri Gagarin.
Scientists have uncovered the oldest cremated human remains ever discovered in northern North America at a dig site in central Alaska. Key quote:
Archaeologists discovered the remains last spring in a fire pit in an abandoned living area from 13,200 years ago and dated the child’s death to about 11,500 years ago.
The worst generation’s war in Wisconsin.
In the past 10 years, says the Wisconsin Department of Employee Trust Funds, taxpayers paid more than $8 billion for state workers’ health care coverage, while the workers put in only $398 million. And from 2000 to 2009, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, taxpayers spent about $12.6 billion on public employee pensions while the employees contributed only $8 million. [emphasis in original]
A new report says that government spending on space will flatten worldwide over the next five years. Some key quotes from the news story however suggest all is not going downhill:
A total of 692 satellites will be launched by governments in the coming decade, up 43% from the previous decade. This is a direct reflection of the increasing number of new space-capable countries across the globe. Civil agencies will launch roughly 75% of these satellites, a significant increase compared to the last decade during which they accounted for 67% of all government satellites launched.
Also, while certain areas will show a decline (the U.S. manned program) others appear robust.
Access to space (launch capability) investments reached $4.6 billion in 2010, and should be sustained in the coming years as more governments see independent access to space as a top priority of their space programs.
In both of the above examples, the areas where space activity will increase is because of the arrival of new space-faring nations (India, Japan, China to name only the most obvious), what I have been calling the new colonial movement. I also believe that as these new countries begin to show their stuff in space, their success will further fuel the competition, and the older space-faring nations will come back to life in order to stay in the game.
Fifteen ancient mysteries that aren’t so mysterious.
A Roman super-highway, built 1,900 years ago, has been uncovered in England.
