An evening pause: In honor of today’s election, a little history lesson from Schoolhouse Rock from 1975.
We’re gonna elect a president! (No more kings)
He’s gonna do what the people want! (No more kings)
We’re gonna run things our way! (No more kings)
Nobody’s gonna tell us what to do!Rockin’ and a-rollin’, splishin’ and a-splashin’,
Over the horizon, what can it be?
Looks like it’s going to be a free country.
An evening pause: I posted this video song the evening of election, 2010. I think its point remains the same today, the eve of election day 2012. The people do not go away, no matter how much the elite leadership of society wishes they might. Even in a dictatorship they hover over everything.
How our bitter election will end.
We hope.
The protective housing for the shuttle prototype Enterprise collapsed yesterday due to Hurricane Sandy.
There are clearly many more serious problems caused by the hurricane than damage to Enterprise. I note this however, because it seems to fit with Enterprise’s sad tale of woe in becoming a museum piece in New York.
Random poison in Halloween candy? It has never happened.
Using modern technology scientists think they have a chance of decoding the oldest known undeciphered writing.
In a room high up in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, above the Egyptian mummies and fragments of early civilisations, a big black dome is clicking away and flashing out light. This device, part sci-fi, part-DIY, is providing the most detailed and high quality images ever taken of these elusive symbols cut into clay tablets. This is Indiana Jones with software. It’s being used to help decode a writing system called proto-Elamite, used between around 3200BC and 2900BC in a region now in the south west of modern Iran.
I am thrilled to announce that the new ebook edition of my first book, Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, is now officially available for sale for only $5.99 from Mountain Lake Press. The direct link to Mountain Lake Press’s sales page is here and on the right. Within two weeks the book will also be available at all retailers, but if you buy it direct from Mountain Lake Press, I will make a little extra money, which would be very much appreciated.
In creating this ebook edition I made sure that all the graphics from the original but out-of-print hardback were included. Valerie Anders, the wife of astronaut Bill Anders, added her own thoughts in a new foreword. I also added a new introduction discussing how the history of space exploration has evolved since the book’s initial publication in 1998. As I noted,
» Read more
An evening pause: An evocative song from a musical that is presently in development.
What I like about this video is how it reminds us that every image, every movie we see, especially the older ones, can only show us a image of a human being that no longer exists, and is essentially nothing more than a ghost to us.
Want a piece of history? Butch Cassidy’s Colt 45 revolver will be auctioned off later this month.
Eleven construction workers sit on a girder eating lunch, 800 feet above the ground: The story behind the 1932 picture.
An evening pause: A wonderful song, but the images, most of which were taken during the recording session, will give you a taste of the wild, crazy, irreverent, and often foolish 1960s. Today, a half century later, we still are reaping the whirlwind of that decade, for good and ill.
The National Media Museum in Great Britain has restored the first color movie images, shot in 1901-1902. With video.
R.I.P. Neil Armstrong’s ashes were buried at sea today.
Americans say goodbye to Neil Armstrong.
Fifty years ago today, John Kennedy gave a speech at Rice University in Texas, outlining his reasoning behind his proposal that the United States send a man to the Moon before the end of the decade. The key phrase:
But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?
We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
Video below the fold. The full text can be found here. (Interesting sidebar: When I posted Monday’s evening pause that quoted this speech I hadn’t realized the 50th anniversary of the speech was this week!)
This speech is worth watching, in full, if only to see the passion of both Kennedy and the audience for what he says. It also reveals a somewhat higher level of sophistication coming from a politician than one would see nowadays. Kennedy not only understood the deeper philosophical reasons for exploration, his thoughts were grounded in history as well as recent events, all of which he referenced repeatedly.
» Read more
The view of New York City from ISS on September 11, 2001.
For Tuesday: Five words and two numbers.
According to a family spokesman, Neil Armstrong is to be buried at sea.
A public memorial service for Neil Armstrong has been scheduled for September 13 in Washington, D.C.
