Tomorrow I’m heading down to Florida with my wife for a much needed vacation. After two years of nearly continuous scholarly work, I completed my Masters of Science in Criminal Justice.
Before I have to start looking at engaging in a more professional line of post-graduate work, I figured that I should reward myself. So as a graduation/birthday present, my wife and I are doing pretty much everything there is to do in central Florida: Disney World, a trip to Phillies spring training in Clearwater, and a visit to the coolest place on Earth … the Kennedy Space Center.
From the very nature of this here blog given some of the items which I cover, it goes without saying that I am a gigantic NASA geek. So understandably, finally getting to check out Launch Pad 39A and the Vehicle Assembly Building is huge. But if you have any Florida related insights, feel free to leave them in the comments below.
Even though I’ll be gone for the next week, I’ll do my best to document my travels via Twitter.
I’m extremely gay for NASA videos. They’ve always found ways to cover their launches from every possible angle. And the one below is one that I haven’t seen before, of the solid rocket boosters separating from Discovery during her launch on March 15th.
It may be vertigo inducing, but the views are tremendous. Discovery returns to Earth on Saturday afternoon, where it’s scheduled to return to the Kennedy Space Center after 1:30pm.
NASA has always been a target of geeky love and adoration. It was a majority of geeks across this great nation of ours that petitioned the space agency to name the first space shuttle orbiter Enterprise.
Well, NASA is at it again this time however, with online balloting to determine the name of a new module for the International Space Station. Officially designated Node-3, voting opened in the last two weeks and a geeky name has already emerged as a clear favorite.
NASA wants your opinion in naming the International Space Station’s Node 3 – a connecting module and its cupola – before the two segments travel to space and are installed on the orbiting laboratory. The name should reflect the spirit of exploration and cooperation embodied by the space station, and follow in the tradition set by Node 1- Unity- and Node 2- Harmony.
Currently holding at 86% is Serenity, which just so happens to be the name of the most badass tub in the Whedonverse. Is it merely a coincidence, or are the heads at NASA trying to keep with a theme? I’m thinking someone down there on the Cape is a Browncoat, but that’s just me. So if you would please, head on over and vote once or ten times for Serenity.
Voting is open until March 20th, but it looks as though Serenity is a sure bet. However, we do have to consider that number one write in also has a science fiction theme, Xenu. For those who are unfamiliar, Lord Xenu is the Anal Overlord of Scientology to which Tom Cruise has pledged his eternal soul to. So if you love Jesus, and especially hate psuedo-religions based on lunatic rantings of a pederast …. then vote for Serenity.
e purpose of the experiment was to measure the ‘dark current’ of STEREO-B’s CCD detectors. The idea is familiar to amateur astronomers: Point your telescope at something black and see how much ‘dark current’ trickles out of the CCD. Later, when real astrophotography is taking place, the dark current is subtracted to improve the image.
In this case, the Moon served as a black calibration disk backlit by the sun. “The observation was no accident,” she says. Mission controllers arranged the alignment with a small tweak to STEREO-B’s orbit last December and engineers have been waiting for the dark current data ever since.
Even cooler than this stunning image are the videos which can be found here. The images are hauntingly alien, and its almost hard to believe that the purple orb is actually our Sun.
With the lack of manned space flight news, this is about all the excitement we’re going to get for a long while. At least until NASA sacks up and launches the Shuttle again.
One of my hobbies ever since I was a kid was the space program. Pretty much every science fair project I did had something to do with NASA. I always had some ridiculously complex diorama, I never went with the go-to “Volcano” or “Cup of Dirt”. Even to this day, my favorite place in DC is the National Air & Space Museum. The last time I was there with Ash, she was amazed at my Rain Main like ability to name every rocket, plane, and spacecraft in the building. The other reason I like going there … space ice cream.
Anyway, NASA & JPL released some bad-ass pictures of Saturn that the Cassini-Huygens took in early February. Launched in October 1997, the Cassini was the ire of many tree-huggers, due to the fact that it was powered by plutonium. The ultimate fear was that the probe would explode on lift off, radiating Southern Florida. Well, that didn’t happen and Cassini-Huygens is happily orbiting Saturn gathering all kinds of astronomical goodness. The pictures show all of Saturn’s rings in amazing detail (more can be seen here).
What totally amazes me is how here on Earth, NASA & JPL are able to communicate with a plutonium-powered spacecraft some 934,534,231 miles away. Shit, I used to have trouble getting a cell phone signal in Penndel. It’s a shame that NASA has had so many things go wrong, and that our exploration of space is extremely limited compared to 10 or 15 years ago. By 2020 we’ll be back on the moon, utilizing technology held over from the Apollo program. Maybe by then I will be able to hitch a ride on Richard Branson’s V.S.S. Enterprise for an orbital excursion. Sigh.
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One of my hobbies ever since I was a kid was the space program. Pretty much every science fair project I did had something to do with NASA. I always had some ridiculously complex diorama, I never went with the go-to “Volcano” or “Cup of Dirt”. Even to this day, my favorite place in DC is the National Air & Space Museum. The last time I was there with Ash, she was amazed at my Rain Main like ability to name every rocket, plane, and spacecraft in the building. The other reason I like going there … space ice cream.
Themocracy