Filed under: Events
They look like anybody’s grandparents now, but they’re special.
Men on the Moon
It’s something I’ve dreamed of my whole life. It’s something I may yet see in my life, and it’s something for which I would sell anything, give anything to see. The passion with which these men speak of the moon, the look in their eyes as they remember the experience of landing, walking on, and — in the end — successfully leaving the moon behind is something I empathize with, even if I can’t know the whole truth of it.
Filed under: Events
On this day, twenty years ago, seven of the best and brightest vanished from the world in a flash of light.
Although there had been deaths before, and there have been deaths since, Challenger was the first one I remember, and so holds a special place in my space-lovin’ heart.
Filed under: General Thoughts
Nothing political, just something that any mac users reading this might like: EarthDesk.
Actually, on reading, it’s a Windows app, too, so all of you can use it 
I’m not usually a fan of the pointless graphical doodads, but this one is pretty nice; It displays a live-updating view of the earth as your desktop, with accurate sun- and moon-light mappings, and (given an internet connection) up-to-date cloud cover.
Pretty slick.
I don’t know how long I’ll be using my copy, but since I got it for free (and legally, too!) it might last for a bit.
Filed under: General Thoughts
The view from the plane on the way into San Jose airport is one that made me wish I had a camera. There’s something … amazing about the vast swathes of light sprayed across the black, slashed here and there with the deeper darkness of the bays and inlets that litter this part of the coast.
I couldn’t help but think; I’d give anything to see the earth from space. That’s my fondest dream, my deepest single desire. That being said, I don’t know that it’s comparable to the beauty of a strip of light that stretches a significant fraction of the length of a continent, a monument to both excess and achievement that changes the dark face of the world in a way that I would be able to see, even from the vantage I crave.
The earth from space would be beauty, but it would be a mindless, undirected beauty. The cityscape, the glowing spray of seeds spread across the coast beneath my plane, is a beauty that springs from the minds and hands of men, and more than any natural thing it puts poetry in my heart.
(Note: No actual poetry was produced in the writing of this post. Count yourselves fortunate.)
Filed under: General Thoughts, Internet and Rants
Every once in a while it strikes me (harder) that more needs to be put into realistic alternatives to the dependence that we’ve fostered on fossil fuels.
This isn’t a new thing to many of my readers, most of whom swing more to the left than I do, with commesurate (Matt, want to confirm my spelling on that?) views on environmental issues. It’s not really new to me, either, although I lack the knee-jerk anti-corporate reaction to massive oil companies.
What I do have is a strong distaste for short-sightedness and waste.
The latter is the the easiest make that hardest to address. Waste is hard to define simply because we don’t have an absolute scale against which to measure it. Is fossil fuel use really being wasteful? In and of itself, that is? I’ll acknowledge that there are uses to which it is put that are, but not that it’s a waste in toto. How about the idea of a space elevator? Is that a waste?
The former is clearer. Little research is done into alternate energy sources, relative to the amount that goes into squeezing yet more oil from the ground. And, really, what’s their motivations? It’s clear that there’s more money to be made selling oil than there is to be made spending it on research into ways to make oil obsolete. That’s the shortsightedness I was talking about.
All one can really hope is that high oil prices and the increased cost to consumers drive the adoption of alternatives to oil.
Filed under: Events and General Thoughts
Today, at long last, the X-prize, for the first private, re-usable, passenger-capable space launch was won by Scaled Composites’ SpaceShipOne when it made its second flight within two weeks to the boundary of earth’s atmosphere.
Proof that governments aren’t needed to make it in to space.
Proof that dedication can give men wings.
Proof that even I might see the edge of our atmosphere before the end of my life.
Words, really, fail me. This is a good thing, a very good thing.
Filed under: General Thoughts and Internet
NASA has just updated the Project Apollo Image Gallery with photos from the Apollo 11 mission.
Although at present the site is still slashdotted into submission, preventing me from actually viewing the images, I wanted to make sure that you all saw them.
A return soon, I hope.
Filed under: Events, General Thoughts and Media
As of 10:11 AM Eastern Time, SpaceShipOne is airborne as the first non-governmental space shot.
May this bring in an era of private and public flight to the stars for the average joe.
To me, at least, this is probably one of the best news events of the last year or more. One small step for Man…
(See MeFi for more)
Update
As of this writing, the SpaceShipOne has landed safely. Next stop, re-use and re-launch.
It’s a big one, folks. This is a big, big event.
Filed under: General Thoughts and Media
CBC News is running a piece on the possibility of a Space Elevator in their News Indepth segment. Dad referred me to this one a couple of days ago, but i couldn’t spot a link to it on CBC’s site at the time. However, it eventually got discussed on /. and undoubtedly, when i get around to checking it, Mefi as well.
Even more than a return to the moon, this project is one of my fondest imaginings. The idea that we might be able to make space travel work for even people like me? How could someone not appreciate that?
Of course, in this wonderful world we inhabit, there’s weaknesses to this too; for eample the terrorist threat, which is briefly addressed in this article. Even leaving aside the present-day terrorist threats, this in and of itself could spawn a new kind of fear in the luddites that lead these sorts of things.
I guess we’ll see how it pans out — which is, more often than not, how i sign off on news items like this. I’ll admit, for all of my hopes for a better future, I too am a cynic here. It’s worth noting, though, that the comic i link to above has one of the more evenhanded visions of the (near) future i’ve seen in a while.
h6. Update:
Dave Barry also said a funny thing or two on the subject.
Filed under: Events and General Thoughts
President Bush Announces New Vision for Space Exploration Program
Choice Quote:
_Now is a bad time to do it_
Now is always a bad time to do it.
Do it anyway.
I can only sit by and hope…
Posted on February 21st, 2008 by Chris
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