Tag: nasa
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Beautiful Cosmic Disorientation
Astrophysicist Katie Mack published a wonderful video titled “Disorientation” just over a year ago that combines cosmic images with her poem of the same name. I found out about the video while watching another terrific video commemorating the Hubble Telescope’s 30 anniversary on the It’s Ok To Be Smart channel, titled “Fly Through a Nebula…
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Spectacular BECO cutoff during Starliner launch
NASA and Boeing launched the Starliner Commercial Crew space craft yesterday. One of the stages is BECO cutoff where the main booster detaches from the rocket, prior to the Centaur engine starting up, and pushing Starliner into orbit. There’s an awesome view of the rocket from the ground that shows this spectacular effect at BECO…
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Generational differences in our Space Age
NASA streamed a milestone in Human spaceflight yesterday: an all women spacewalk at the International Space Station. Although it wasn’t exactly a thrilling ride (I’m pretty sure that when it comes to working in Earth orbit, “thrilling” isn’t what you want), it was still momentous in that both astronauts doing the spacewalk were women. Generational…
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Thank you for the wonderful Opportunity to visit Mars
This last week saw the official end of the Opportunity rover’s mission on Mars. NASA was unable to coax it back to life after signalling it for about eight months. This remarkable rover continued exploring Mars long after it’s original 90 day mission. There is a wealth of imagery, and other information available on the…
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Grainy Moon photos were a ruse!
Those grainy Moon photos the public saw back in the early days of NASA’s Moon missions were a ruse! No, not that ruse. Humans really went to the Moon. The ruse is that NASA actually captured much higher resolution images, but didn’t disclose them publicly because they didn’t want the Soviets to know how good…
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Voyager 2 enters interstellar space and all I can think about are Klingons
Last week we learned that Voyager 2 had followed in its sibling’s metaphorical footsteps, and entered interstellar space. According to Ars Technica: On Monday, NASA announced that one of its longest-running experiments has started a new phase. Five years after Voyager 1 reached interstellar space, its sibling, Voyager 2, has joined it there. While the…
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The sound of wind on Mars
NASA’s InSight probe has heard the sound of wind on Mars. Just think about that for a moment: the sound of wind on Mars! I played this for our kids this morning. Our son seemed to be impressed, although our daughter’s response was something along the lines of: “Meh, it sounds like wind … 🙄”.…
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How Humans first walked on the Moon in Apollo 11
Vox has a terrific video that explains how the Apollo 11 mission worked, and how the astronauts that took part in the mission made their way to the Moon and back. If you’re into old footage of historical events like this, also be sure to check out the CBS coverage of the lunar landing (also…
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