Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

The typewriter that Douglas Adams used to create The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is currently up for sale. It's being sold along with a first edition hardback of Hitchhiker's Guide.

Sale price: US$ 25257.94

**also**
Our play FWD opened this past weekend, and it was a blast. Thanks to everyone who came out to support us, we really appreciate it.

FWD runs until August 2nd.

Visit Sunny P3X-984

According to the website NASA watch (and boingboing) during a recent demolition at the Ames Research Center a Stargate was discovered.

They're saying it's actually a giant piece of a wind tunnel. But that doesn't mean that we can't dream of being wisked away to the Alpha site when the Goa'uld bring their Ha'tak motherships to bear on our little planet.

Also, on an unrelated note, when we did our maintenance earlier this month we totally screwed up our comments pages. So bare with us while we sift through the css to see what we messed up.

Voyager Turns 30

Yesterday Sept. 5th in 1977 the Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Wired magazine has an awesome photo essay about Voyager.

Besides being developed by this website's patron saint, Carl Sagan, there are many other interesting things about Voyager 1.

The spacecraft was designed to take advantage of a newly developed technique for space travel called "gravity assist." It seems like common place now, but for it's time this idea was revolutionary. The spacecraft would use gravity wells produced by the planets in our solar system to slingshot itself through space. This method not only reduced the amount of fuel needed to travel the distances intended for Voyager, but would also allow the spacecraft to make the journey in 12 years instead of 30!

The timing of Voyager was critical. A planetary event would occur in the late 70's that would make for a perfect opportunity to use the new gravity assist technique. This event was called The Grand Tour, and it consisted of an unprecedented alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. An alignment this perfect would not recur for another 176 years!

Bolted to the outside of Voyager is the now famous "Golden Record."

The Record was designed by Carl Sagan, with elements drawn by Jon Lomberg, an artist whose work is inspired by astronomy. The record also contains 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, and thunder, and animal sounds, including the songs of birds and whales. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earthlings in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.

Here is Jimmy Carter's Presidential message to the cosmos:

"We cast this message into the cosmos... Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some -- perhaps many -- may have inhabited planets and space faring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: We are trying to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of Galactic Civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe."

Pale Blue Dot

by Carl Sagan

We've got to go back... To The Moon!

To plant explosives.

Keep it up NASA.

all these worlds are yours...

20 light years away... Circling a small red dwarf star called Gliese 581 (the star is still 10X the size of our sun: Sol) there sits an Earth-like planet. This planet has a climate similar to Earth's (some cosmologists suspect it ay be MORE friendly to life than our beloved Earth) it has gravity and water. It's got all the right conditions to support life, and it's only 20 light years away. Right now it is designated: Gliese 581c

If we were to transmit a message today to this newly discovered planet on the end of a laser beam traveling the speed of light it would take 20 years for our message to get there. Our message would have traveled 117,492,033,468,146.02 miles. Not that there'd necessarily be anybody there to receive our message. But there might be life...

So Astronomers and Cosmologists have this thing called the Drake Equation. The Drake Equation predicts how probable extra-terrestrial life is in our Universe. It takes into account how many stars *probably* have formed within our Cosmos. (R*) Then the equation narrows that variable down to the stars that may have planets circling them (fp) and is then refined further still to how many of those planets may be capable of supporting life (ne). But we're not done yet... The equation takes into account how much of that life may develop (fl) and then that life developing intelligence (fi), the ability to communicate (fc) and finally... actually be alive long enough to send us a message (L).

It's written like this:

Cosmologists believe there may be billions of planets floating around in our Cosmos, but as of today they have only discovered 220 that exist beyond our solar system. This is due to the mind-blowingly large distances between us and any other planets out there. We're in the sticks, a pale blue dot in a backwater arm of the Milky Way. Although we've been learning sooo much about our Universe in recent years it's still easy to forget how little we really know.

For the Overdroid: Let's Blow up Gliese 581c!!

Geostationary Banana Over Texas

There is currently an art project underway to place a gigantic banana in the Texas sky. The object will float between the high atmosphere & Earth's low orbit, being visible only from the state of Texas & its surroundings.

To be constructed out of bamboo and balsa-wood with onboard gyroscopes, the banana will be clearly visible from the ground day and night. (via metafilter)

We are made from star stuff

December 20th marks the 10th anniversary of Carl Sagan's passing. Even though my childhood falls squarely into the 80's. (Transformers, M.A.S.K., The A-Team) I was around for a little bit of the 70's. (Banana Splits, Welcome Back Carter, The Electric Company) I can remember Carl Sagan's outfit from his Cosmos TV series. A turtleneck, often paired with a brown sport jacket that had those elbow patches on it. Not to mention his mopy haircut. Very iconic.

It wouldn't be until after I had gone to college that I really took an interest in what Carl Sagan had to say. I was struggling with "What I Believed." I had some friends who were confident in their spiritual beliefs, but I was still on the fence.

One of the greatest things I learned from Carl Sagan, and the thing that the Catholic Church could never reconcile with me, was the grander of Man's smallness. Everything I learned going to Catholic School told me that we lived snugly within God's blessed cross-hairs. It would take The Church hundreds of years to admit we weren't the center of the Universe... Not only are we not the center, we're barely even on the map, and more than 99% of the map is a complete mystery to us!

"If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?....For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."

We've recently lost a close member of our family. It was very difficult, and this system of belief I've adopted offers little in the way of comfort. In fact, it offers none. While this seems like a recipe for despair... in fact, it instills in me a love and respect for life. This life we live that clings as a film to the surface of a rocky ball that orbits an unremarkable star in the suburbs of an average galaxy. It's fleeting, and the people in it need to be appreciated. We may not be the center of this Universe, but the fact that we exist at all in an environment so hostile is amazing enough!

These are the ideas that give me pause, and a reason to reflect on life. It took a man like Carl Sagan, who brought the grand concepts of the Universe to my living room, to help me see what's so great about Universe without dressing it up to be more than it is.

"We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself"

Many people are writing posts this week to celebrate Carl Sagan and the contributions he has made to both Science and Humanity. Check out more Celebrate Sagan Blog-o-thon posts here. Look here for previous clunkyrobot posts about Carl Sagan.

See Carl Sagan talking about the golden plaque he helped design for The Pioneer Spacecraft:

Here is the opening to Carl Sagan's Contact:

Physics for Future Presidents

Richard Muller is a professor of physics at UC Berkeley. He teaches a physics class designed specifically for non-physics majors called Physics for Future Presidents. In the style of Carl Sagan his goal for the lectures is "for everyone to come away with the feeling that what was just covered is important for every world leader to know." (via metafilter)

Now you can take his entire class online... for free-ninty-nine! (that means free) Complete with quizzes, exams, and google video of his actual lectures. You can even email Muller himself if you're having problems!

I have always kicked myself for not taking my math classes more seriously in school. Although I did take a shine to Catholic High School level Biology, but I believe this to be the result of having to hand draw hundreds of models of single celled, and micro organisms. Once I've drawn something I can pretty much remember it forever. I even tried to teach myself calculus with available online text books, however, I've found that without a good lecturer, it's difficult to self-teach.

Now that Muller's lectures are all available online, that's not such a problem anymore. Well, Berkeley has taken this even further. You can now view courses and lectures from UC Berkeley directly through iTunes! Also for free! It's really a refreshing thing to see knowledge being given away freely like this. Sadly, it's also very rare.

Why does it have to be so rare? Why shouldn't everyone have access to this knowledge? OK, the people who attend Berkeley have worked very hard to do so, and are paying a lot of money. I totally respect that, their reward for this is a Berkeley diploma. The knowledge itself, the actual teachings, should be free to everyone. But if you want to say you've gone to Berkeley, well that's a different story, you need to get the grades to be accepted, you must pay the University to sit in their classes. This is essentially what Steve Jobs did. He dropped out, and started attending the classes that interested him. Learning what he wanted to learn. Look where that got him.

Capsule Stylin'

I remember the first time I watched a shuttle launch on TV with my Dad. (STS-1) Seeing that space ship sitting on the launch pad was awesome, and it actually looked like a space ship, wings... giant engines, the works. Of course, it looked kinda like the dorky younger cousin of a space fighter, but close enough right?

I loved the shuttle. My Dad built and painted a beautiful shuttle model for me that same year. It hung from the ceiling of my bedroom, complete with robotic arm (Shuttle Remote Manipulator System: SRMS) the Skylab Experimental Science Station in it's cargo bay, and 2 tiny Astronauts wearing MMUs. All I ever wanted to do was play with it, but it was a model... so off limits.

NASA announced that it has awarded Lockheed Martin a contract to build the next generation of NASA spacecraft. The Orion. It's an Apollo style capsule throwback! It looks like it's going to be bad ass, and they're planning on launching it no later than 2014. They plan on going back to the moon by 2020! After that? Mars. Be sure to check the Orion Spacecraft Weblog for ongoing information.

Sadly, this means that the shuttle is officially old. (ok, to be honest, they've been old for a while) Rumors of an early retirement are all but confirmed, and the reusable winged design of "space ships" is becoming a thing of the past. While old school capsules, which began America's manned journey into space are becoming all the rage. What's old is new again.

Maybe there will come a day when we actually build a spacecraft IN SPACE. This will eliminate many of the design limitations placed upon us by gravity and atmosphere. (while probably introducing many more... like lack of air...) It could make for some unEartly design possibilities... literally.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

The typewriter that Douglas Adams used to create The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is currently up for sale. It's being sold along with a first edition hardback of Hitchhiker's Guide.

Sale price: US$ 25257.94

**also**
Our play FWD opened this past weekend, and it was a blast. Thanks to everyone who came out to support us, we really appreciate it.

FWD runs until August 2nd.

Visit Sunny P3X-984

According to the website NASA watch (and boingboing) during a recent demolition at the Ames Research Center a Stargate was discovered.

They're saying it's actually a giant piece of a wind tunnel. But that doesn't mean that we can't dream of being wisked away to the Alpha site when the Goa'uld bring their Ha'tak motherships to bear on our little planet.

Also, on an unrelated note, when we did our maintenance earlier this month we totally screwed up our comments pages. So bare with us while we sift through the css to see what we messed up.

Voyager Turns 30

Yesterday Sept. 5th in 1977 the Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Wired magazine has an awesome photo essay about Voyager.

Besides being developed by this website's patron saint, Carl Sagan, there are many other interesting things about Voyager 1.

The spacecraft was designed to take advantage of a newly developed technique for space travel called "gravity assist." It seems like common place now, but for it's time this idea was revolutionary. The spacecraft would use gravity wells produced by the planets in our solar system to slingshot itself through space. This method not only reduced the amount of fuel needed to travel the distances intended for Voyager, but would also allow the spacecraft to make the journey in 12 years instead of 30!

The timing of Voyager was critical. A planetary event would occur in the late 70's that would make for a perfect opportunity to use the new gravity assist technique. This event was called The Grand Tour, and it consisted of an unprecedented alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. An alignment this perfect would not recur for another 176 years!

Bolted to the outside of Voyager is the now famous "Golden Record."

The Record was designed by Carl Sagan, with elements drawn by Jon Lomberg, an artist whose work is inspired by astronomy. The record also contains 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, and thunder, and animal sounds, including the songs of birds and whales. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earthlings in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.

Here is Jimmy Carter's Presidential message to the cosmos:

"We cast this message into the cosmos... Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some -- perhaps many -- may have inhabited planets and space faring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: We are trying to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of Galactic Civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe."

Pale Blue Dot

by Carl Sagan

We've got to go back... To The Moon!

To plant explosives.

Keep it up NASA.

all these worlds are yours...

20 light years away... Circling a small red dwarf star called Gliese 581 (the star is still 10X the size of our sun: Sol) there sits an Earth-like planet. This planet has a climate similar to Earth's (some cosmologists suspect it ay be MORE friendly to life than our beloved Earth) it has gravity and water. It's got all the right conditions to support life, and it's only 20 light years away. Right now it is designated: Gliese 581c

If we were to transmit a message today to this newly discovered planet on the end of a laser beam traveling the speed of light it would take 20 years for our message to get there. Our message would have traveled 117,492,033,468,146.02 miles. Not that there'd necessarily be anybody there to receive our message. But there might be life...

So Astronomers and Cosmologists have this thing called the Drake Equation. The Drake Equation predicts how probable extra-terrestrial life is in our Universe. It takes into account how many stars *probably* have formed within our Cosmos. (R*) Then the equation narrows that variable down to the stars that may have planets circling them (fp) and is then refined further still to how many of those planets may be capable of supporting life (ne). But we're not done yet... The equation takes into account how much of that life may develop (fl) and then that life developing intelligence (fi), the ability to communicate (fc) and finally... actually be alive long enough to send us a message (L).

It's written like this:

Cosmologists believe there may be billions of planets floating around in our Cosmos, but as of today they have only discovered 220 that exist beyond our solar system. This is due to the mind-blowingly large distances between us and any other planets out there. We're in the sticks, a pale blue dot in a backwater arm of the Milky Way. Although we've been learning sooo much about our Universe in recent years it's still easy to forget how little we really know.

For the Overdroid: Let's Blow up Gliese 581c!!

Geostationary Banana Over Texas

There is currently an art project underway to place a gigantic banana in the Texas sky. The object will float between the high atmosphere & Earth's low orbit, being visible only from the state of Texas & its surroundings.

To be constructed out of bamboo and balsa-wood with onboard gyroscopes, the banana will be clearly visible from the ground day and night. (via metafilter)

We are made from star stuff

December 20th marks the 10th anniversary of Carl Sagan's passing. Even though my childhood falls squarely into the 80's. (Transformers, M.A.S.K., The A-Team) I was around for a little bit of the 70's. (Banana Splits, Welcome Back Carter, The Electric Company) I can remember Carl Sagan's outfit from his Cosmos TV series. A turtleneck, often paired with a brown sport jacket that had those elbow patches on it. Not to mention his mopy haircut. Very iconic.

It wouldn't be until after I had gone to college that I really took an interest in what Carl Sagan had to say. I was struggling with "What I Believed." I had some friends who were confident in their spiritual beliefs, but I was still on the fence.

One of the greatest things I learned from Carl Sagan, and the thing that the Catholic Church could never reconcile with me, was the grander of Man's smallness. Everything I learned going to Catholic School told me that we lived snugly within God's blessed cross-hairs. It would take The Church hundreds of years to admit we weren't the center of the Universe... Not only are we not the center, we're barely even on the map, and more than 99% of the map is a complete mystery to us!

"If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?....For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."

We've recently lost a close member of our family. It was very difficult, and this system of belief I've adopted offers little in the way of comfort. In fact, it offers none. While this seems like a recipe for despair... in fact, it instills in me a love and respect for life. This life we live that clings as a film to the surface of a rocky ball that orbits an unremarkable star in the suburbs of an average galaxy. It's fleeting, and the people in it need to be appreciated. We may not be the center of this Universe, but the fact that we exist at all in an environment so hostile is amazing enough!

These are the ideas that give me pause, and a reason to reflect on life. It took a man like Carl Sagan, who brought the grand concepts of the Universe to my living room, to help me see what's so great about Universe without dressing it up to be more than it is.

"We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself"

Many people are writing posts this week to celebrate Carl Sagan and the contributions he has made to both Science and Humanity. Check out more Celebrate Sagan Blog-o-thon posts here. Look here for previous clunkyrobot posts about Carl Sagan.

See Carl Sagan talking about the golden plaque he helped design for The Pioneer Spacecraft:

Here is the opening to Carl Sagan's Contact:

Physics for Future Presidents

Richard Muller is a professor of physics at UC Berkeley. He teaches a physics class designed specifically for non-physics majors called Physics for Future Presidents. In the style of Carl Sagan his goal for the lectures is "for everyone to come away with the feeling that what was just covered is important for every world leader to know." (via metafilter)

Now you can take his entire class online... for free-ninty-nine! (that means free) Complete with quizzes, exams, and google video of his actual lectures. You can even email Muller himself if you're having problems!

I have always kicked myself for not taking my math classes more seriously in school. Although I did take a shine to Catholic High School level Biology, but I believe this to be the result of having to hand draw hundreds of models of single celled, and micro organisms. Once I've drawn something I can pretty much remember it forever. I even tried to teach myself calculus with available online text books, however, I've found that without a good lecturer, it's difficult to self-teach.

Now that Muller's lectures are all available online, that's not such a problem anymore. Well, Berkeley has taken this even further. You can now view courses and lectures from UC Berkeley directly through iTunes! Also for free! It's really a refreshing thing to see knowledge being given away freely like this. Sadly, it's also very rare.

Why does it have to be so rare? Why shouldn't everyone have access to this knowledge? OK, the people who attend Berkeley have worked very hard to do so, and are paying a lot of money. I totally respect that, their reward for this is a Berkeley diploma. The knowledge itself, the actual teachings, should be free to everyone. But if you want to say you've gone to Berkeley, well that's a different story, you need to get the grades to be accepted, you must pay the University to sit in their classes. This is essentially what Steve Jobs did. He dropped out, and started attending the classes that interested him. Learning what he wanted to learn. Look where that got him.

Capsule Stylin'

I remember the first time I watched a shuttle launch on TV with my Dad. (STS-1) Seeing that space ship sitting on the launch pad was awesome, and it actually looked like a space ship, wings... giant engines, the works. Of course, it looked kinda like the dorky younger cousin of a space fighter, but close enough right?

I loved the shuttle. My Dad built and painted a beautiful shuttle model for me that same year. It hung from the ceiling of my bedroom, complete with robotic arm (Shuttle Remote Manipulator System: SRMS) the Skylab Experimental Science Station in it's cargo bay, and 2 tiny Astronauts wearing MMUs. All I ever wanted to do was play with it, but it was a model... so off limits.

NASA announced that it has awarded Lockheed Martin a contract to build the next generation of NASA spacecraft. The Orion. It's an Apollo style capsule throwback! It looks like it's going to be bad ass, and they're planning on launching it no later than 2014. They plan on going back to the moon by 2020! After that? Mars. Be sure to check the Orion Spacecraft Weblog for ongoing information.

Sadly, this means that the shuttle is officially old. (ok, to be honest, they've been old for a while) Rumors of an early retirement are all but confirmed, and the reusable winged design of "space ships" is becoming a thing of the past. While old school capsules, which began America's manned journey into space are becoming all the rage. What's old is new again.

Maybe there will come a day when we actually build a spacecraft IN SPACE. This will eliminate many of the design limitations placed upon us by gravity and atmosphere. (while probably introducing many more... like lack of air...) It could make for some unEartly design possibilities... literally.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

The typewriter that Douglas Adams used to create The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is currently up for sale. It's being sold along with a first edition hardback of Hitchhiker's Guide.

Sale price: US$ 25257.94

**also**
Our play FWD opened this past weekend, and it was a blast. Thanks to everyone who came out to support us, we really appreciate it.

FWD runs until August 2nd.

Visit Sunny P3X-984

According to the website NASA watch (and boingboing) during a recent demolition at the Ames Research Center a Stargate was discovered.

They're saying it's actually a giant piece of a wind tunnel. But that doesn't mean that we can't dream of being wisked away to the Alpha site when the Goa'uld bring their Ha'tak motherships to bear on our little planet.

Also, on an unrelated note, when we did our maintenance earlier this month we totally screwed up our comments pages. So bare with us while we sift through the css to see what we messed up.

Voyager Turns 30

Yesterday Sept. 5th in 1977 the Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Wired magazine has an awesome photo essay about Voyager.

Besides being developed by this website's patron saint, Carl Sagan, there are many other interesting things about Voyager 1.

The spacecraft was designed to take advantage of a newly developed technique for space travel called "gravity assist." It seems like common place now, but for it's time this idea was revolutionary. The spacecraft would use gravity wells produced by the planets in our solar system to slingshot itself through space. This method not only reduced the amount of fuel needed to travel the distances intended for Voyager, but would also allow the spacecraft to make the journey in 12 years instead of 30!

The timing of Voyager was critical. A planetary event would occur in the late 70's that would make for a perfect opportunity to use the new gravity assist technique. This event was called The Grand Tour, and it consisted of an unprecedented alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. An alignment this perfect would not recur for another 176 years!

Bolted to the outside of Voyager is the now famous "Golden Record."

The Record was designed by Carl Sagan, with elements drawn by Jon Lomberg, an artist whose work is inspired by astronomy. The record also contains 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, and thunder, and animal sounds, including the songs of birds and whales. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earthlings in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.

Here is Jimmy Carter's Presidential message to the cosmos:

"We cast this message into the cosmos... Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some -- perhaps many -- may have inhabited planets and space faring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: We are trying to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of Galactic Civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe."

Pale Blue Dot

by Carl Sagan

We've got to go back... To The Moon!

To plant explosives.

Keep it up NASA.

all these worlds are yours...

20 light years away... Circling a small red dwarf star called Gliese 581 (the star is still 10X the size of our sun: Sol) there sits an Earth-like planet. This planet has a climate similar to Earth's (some cosmologists suspect it ay be MORE friendly to life than our beloved Earth) it has gravity and water. It's got all the right conditions to support life, and it's only 20 light years away. Right now it is designated: Gliese 581c

If we were to transmit a message today to this newly discovered planet on the end of a laser beam traveling the speed of light it would take 20 years for our message to get there. Our message would have traveled 117,492,033,468,146.02 miles. Not that there'd necessarily be anybody there to receive our message. But there might be life...

So Astronomers and Cosmologists have this thing called the Drake Equation. The Drake Equation predicts how probable extra-terrestrial life is in our Universe. It takes into account how many stars *probably* have formed within our Cosmos. (R*) Then the equation narrows that variable down to the stars that may have planets circling them (fp) and is then refined further still to how many of those planets may be capable of supporting life (ne). But we're not done yet... The equation takes into account how much of that life may develop (fl) and then that life developing intelligence (fi), the ability to communicate (fc) and finally... actually be alive long enough to send us a message (L).

It's written like this:

Cosmologists believe there may be billions of planets floating around in our Cosmos, but as of today they have only discovered 220 that exist beyond our solar system. This is due to the mind-blowingly large distances between us and any other planets out there. We're in the sticks, a pale blue dot in a backwater arm of the Milky Way. Although we've been learning sooo much about our Universe in recent years it's still easy to forget how little we really know.

For the Overdroid: Let's Blow up Gliese 581c!!

Geostationary Banana Over Texas

There is currently an art project underway to place a gigantic banana in the Texas sky. The object will float between the high atmosphere & Earth's low orbit, being visible only from the state of Texas & its surroundings.

To be constructed out of bamboo and balsa-wood with onboard gyroscopes, the banana will be clearly visible from the ground day and night. (via metafilter)

We are made from star stuff

December 20th marks the 10th anniversary of Carl Sagan's passing. Even though my childhood falls squarely into the 80's. (Transformers, M.A.S.K., The A-Team) I was around for a little bit of the 70's. (Banana Splits, Welcome Back Carter, The Electric Company) I can remember Carl Sagan's outfit from his Cosmos TV series. A turtleneck, often paired with a brown sport jacket that had those elbow patches on it. Not to mention his mopy haircut. Very iconic.

It wouldn't be until after I had gone to college that I really took an interest in what Carl Sagan had to say. I was struggling with "What I Believed." I had some friends who were confident in their spiritual beliefs, but I was still on the fence.

One of the greatest things I learned from Carl Sagan, and the thing that the Catholic Church could never reconcile with me, was the grander of Man's smallness. Everything I learned going to Catholic School told me that we lived snugly within God's blessed cross-hairs. It would take The Church hundreds of years to admit we weren't the center of the Universe... Not only are we not the center, we're barely even on the map, and more than 99% of the map is a complete mystery to us!

"If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?....For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."

We've recently lost a close member of our family. It was very difficult, and this system of belief I've adopted offers little in the way of comfort. In fact, it offers none. While this seems like a recipe for despair... in fact, it instills in me a love and respect for life. This life we live that clings as a film to the surface of a rocky ball that orbits an unremarkable star in the suburbs of an average galaxy. It's fleeting, and the people in it need to be appreciated. We may not be the center of this Universe, but the fact that we exist at all in an environment so hostile is amazing enough!

These are the ideas that give me pause, and a reason to reflect on life. It took a man like Carl Sagan, who brought the grand concepts of the Universe to my living room, to help me see what's so great about Universe without dressing it up to be more than it is.

"We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself"

Many people are writing posts this week to celebrate Carl Sagan and the contributions he has made to both Science and Humanity. Check out more Celebrate Sagan Blog-o-thon posts here. Look here for previous clunkyrobot posts about Carl Sagan.

See Carl Sagan talking about the golden plaque he helped design for The Pioneer Spacecraft:

Here is the opening to Carl Sagan's Contact:

Physics for Future Presidents

Richard Muller is a professor of physics at UC Berkeley. He teaches a physics class designed specifically for non-physics majors called Physics for Future Presidents. In the style of Carl Sagan his goal for the lectures is "for everyone to come away with the feeling that what was just covered is important for every world leader to know." (via metafilter)

Now you can take his entire class online... for free-ninty-nine! (that means free) Complete with quizzes, exams, and google video of his actual lectures. You can even email Muller himself if you're having problems!

I have always kicked myself for not taking my math classes more seriously in school. Although I did take a shine to Catholic High School level Biology, but I believe this to be the result of having to hand draw hundreds of models of single celled, and micro organisms. Once I've drawn something I can pretty much remember it forever. I even tried to teach myself calculus with available online text books, however, I've found that without a good lecturer, it's difficult to self-teach.

Now that Muller's lectures are all available online, that's not such a problem anymore. Well, Berkeley has taken this even further. You can now view courses and lectures from UC Berkeley directly through iTunes! Also for free! It's really a refreshing thing to see knowledge being given away freely like this. Sadly, it's also very rare.

Why does it have to be so rare? Why shouldn't everyone have access to this knowledge? OK, the people who attend Berkeley have worked very hard to do so, and are paying a lot of money. I totally respect that, their reward for this is a Berkeley diploma. The knowledge itself, the actual teachings, should be free to everyone. But if you want to say you've gone to Berkeley, well that's a different story, you need to get the grades to be accepted, you must pay the University to sit in their classes. This is essentially what Steve Jobs did. He dropped out, and started attending the classes that interested him. Learning what he wanted to learn. Look where that got him.

Capsule Stylin'

I remember the first time I watched a shuttle launch on TV with my Dad. (STS-1) Seeing that space ship sitting on the launch pad was awesome, and it actually looked like a space ship, wings... giant engines, the works. Of course, it looked kinda like the dorky younger cousin of a space fighter, but close enough right?

I loved the shuttle. My Dad built and painted a beautiful shuttle model for me that same year. It hung from the ceiling of my bedroom, complete with robotic arm (Shuttle Remote Manipulator System: SRMS) the Skylab Experimental Science Station in it's cargo bay, and 2 tiny Astronauts wearing MMUs. All I ever wanted to do was play with it, but it was a model... so off limits.

NASA announced that it has awarded Lockheed Martin a contract to build the next generation of NASA spacecraft. The Orion. It's an Apollo style capsule throwback! It looks like it's going to be bad ass, and they're planning on launching it no later than 2014. They plan on going back to the moon by 2020! After that? Mars. Be sure to check the Orion Spacecraft Weblog for ongoing information.

Sadly, this means that the shuttle is officially old. (ok, to be honest, they've been old for a while) Rumors of an early retirement are all but confirmed, and the reusable winged design of "space ships" is becoming a thing of the past. While old school capsules, which began America's manned journey into space are becoming all the rage. What's old is new again.

Maybe there will come a day when we actually build a spacecraft IN SPACE. This will eliminate many of the design limitations placed upon us by gravity and atmosphere. (while probably introducing many more... like lack of air...) It could make for some unEartly design possibilities... literally.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

The typewriter that Douglas Adams used to create The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is currently up for sale. It's being sold along with a first edition hardback of Hitchhiker's Guide.

Sale price: US$ 25257.94

**also**
Our play FWD opened this past weekend, and it was a blast. Thanks to everyone who came out to support us, we really appreciate it.

FWD runs until August 2nd.

Visit Sunny P3X-984

According to the website NASA watch (and boingboing) during a recent demolition at the Ames Research Center a Stargate was discovered.

They're saying it's actually a giant piece of a wind tunnel. But that doesn't mean that we can't dream of being wisked away to the Alpha site when the Goa'uld bring their Ha'tak motherships to bear on our little planet.

Also, on an unrelated note, when we did our maintenance earlier this month we totally screwed up our comments pages. So bare with us while we sift through the css to see what we messed up.

Voyager Turns 30

Yesterday Sept. 5th in 1977 the Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Wired magazine has an awesome photo essay about Voyager.

Besides being developed by this website's patron saint, Carl Sagan, there are many other interesting things about Voyager 1.

The spacecraft was designed to take advantage of a newly developed technique for space travel called "gravity assist." It seems like common place now, but for it's time this idea was revolutionary. The spacecraft would use gravity wells produced by the planets in our solar system to slingshot itself through space. This method not only reduced the amount of fuel needed to travel the distances intended for Voyager, but would also allow the spacecraft to make the journey in 12 years instead of 30!

The timing of Voyager was critical. A planetary event would occur in the late 70's that would make for a perfect opportunity to use the new gravity assist technique. This event was called The Grand Tour, and it consisted of an unprecedented alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. An alignment this perfect would not recur for another 176 years!

Bolted to the outside of Voyager is the now famous "Golden Record."

The Record was designed by Carl Sagan, with elements drawn by Jon Lomberg, an artist whose work is inspired by astronomy. The record also contains 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, and thunder, and animal sounds, including the songs of birds and whales. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earthlings in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.

Here is Jimmy Carter's Presidential message to the cosmos:

"We cast this message into the cosmos... Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some -- perhaps many -- may have inhabited planets and space faring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: We are trying to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of Galactic Civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe."

Pale Blue Dot

by Carl Sagan

We've got to go back... To The Moon!

To plant explosives.

Keep it up NASA.

all these worlds are yours...

20 light years away... Circling a small red dwarf star called Gliese 581 (the star is still 10X the size of our sun: Sol) there sits an Earth-like planet. This planet has a climate similar to Earth's (some cosmologists suspect it ay be MORE friendly to life than our beloved Earth) it has gravity and water. It's got all the right conditions to support life, and it's only 20 light years away. Right now it is designated: Gliese 581c

If we were to transmit a message today to this newly discovered planet on the end of a laser beam traveling the speed of light it would take 20 years for our message to get there. Our message would have traveled 117,492,033,468,146.02 miles. Not that there'd necessarily be anybody there to receive our message. But there might be life...

So Astronomers and Cosmologists have this thing called the Drake Equation. The Drake Equation predicts how probable extra-terrestrial life is in our Universe. It takes into account how many stars *probably* have formed within our Cosmos. (R*) Then the equation narrows that variable down to the stars that may have planets circling them (fp) and is then refined further still to how many of those planets may be capable of supporting life (ne). But we're not done yet... The equation takes into account how much of that life may develop (fl) and then that life developing intelligence (fi), the ability to communicate (fc) and finally... actually be alive long enough to send us a message (L).

It's written like this:

Cosmologists believe there may be billions of planets floating around in our Cosmos, but as of today they have only discovered 220 that exist beyond our solar system. This is due to the mind-blowingly large distances between us and any other planets out there. We're in the sticks, a pale blue dot in a backwater arm of the Milky Way. Although we've been learning sooo much about our Universe in recent years it's still easy to forget how little we really know.

For the Overdroid: Let's Blow up Gliese 581c!!

Geostationary Banana Over Texas

There is currently an art project underway to place a gigantic banana in the Texas sky. The object will float between the high atmosphere & Earth's low orbit, being visible only from the state of Texas & its surroundings.

To be constructed out of bamboo and balsa-wood with onboard gyroscopes, the banana will be clearly visible from the ground day and night. (via metafilter)

We are made from star stuff

December 20th marks the 10th anniversary of Carl Sagan's passing. Even though my childhood falls squarely into the 80's. (Transformers, M.A.S.K., The A-Team) I was around for a little bit of the 70's. (Banana Splits, Welcome Back Carter, The Electric Company) I can remember Carl Sagan's outfit from his Cosmos TV series. A turtleneck, often paired with a brown sport jacket that had those elbow patches on it. Not to mention his mopy haircut. Very iconic.

It wouldn't be until after I had gone to college that I really took an interest in what Carl Sagan had to say. I was struggling with "What I Believed." I had some friends who were confident in their spiritual beliefs, but I was still on the fence.

One of the greatest things I learned from Carl Sagan, and the thing that the Catholic Church could never reconcile with me, was the grander of Man's smallness. Everything I learned going to Catholic School told me that we lived snugly within God's blessed cross-hairs. It would take The Church hundreds of years to admit we weren't the center of the Universe... Not only are we not the center, we're barely even on the map, and more than 99% of the map is a complete mystery to us!

"If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?....For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."

We've recently lost a close member of our family. It was very difficult, and this system of belief I've adopted offers little in the way of comfort. In fact, it offers none. While this seems like a recipe for despair... in fact, it instills in me a love and respect for life. This life we live that clings as a film to the surface of a rocky ball that orbits an unremarkable star in the suburbs of an average galaxy. It's fleeting, and the people in it need to be appreciated. We may not be the center of this Universe, but the fact that we exist at all in an environment so hostile is amazing enough!

These are the ideas that give me pause, and a reason to reflect on life. It took a man like Carl Sagan, who brought the grand concepts of the Universe to my living room, to help me see what's so great about Universe without dressing it up to be more than it is.

"We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself"

Many people are writing posts this week to celebrate Carl Sagan and the contributions he has made to both Science and Humanity. Check out more Celebrate Sagan Blog-o-thon posts here. Look here for previous clunkyrobot posts about Carl Sagan.

See Carl Sagan talking about the golden plaque he helped design for The Pioneer Spacecraft:

Here is the opening to Carl Sagan's Contact:

Physics for Future Presidents

Richard Muller is a professor of physics at UC Berkeley. He teaches a physics class designed specifically for non-physics majors called Physics for Future Presidents. In the style of Carl Sagan his goal for the lectures is "for everyone to come away with the feeling that what was just covered is important for every world leader to know." (via metafilter)

Now you can take his entire class online... for free-ninty-nine! (that means free) Complete with quizzes, exams, and google video of his actual lectures. You can even email Muller himself if you're having problems!

I have always kicked myself for not taking my math classes more seriously in school. Although I did take a shine to Catholic High School level Biology, but I believe this to be the result of having to hand draw hundreds of models of single celled, and micro organisms. Once I've drawn something I can pretty much remember it forever. I even tried to teach myself calculus with available online text books, however, I've found that without a good lecturer, it's difficult to self-teach.

Now that Muller's lectures are all available online, that's not such a problem anymore. Well, Berkeley has taken this even further. You can now view courses and lectures from UC Berkeley directly through iTunes! Also for free! It's really a refreshing thing to see knowledge being given away freely like this. Sadly, it's also very rare.

Why does it have to be so rare? Why shouldn't everyone have access to this knowledge? OK, the people who attend Berkeley have worked very hard to do so, and are paying a lot of money. I totally respect that, their reward for this is a Berkeley diploma. The knowledge itself, the actual teachings, should be free to everyone. But if you want to say you've gone to Berkeley, well that's a different story, you need to get the grades to be accepted, you must pay the University to sit in their classes. This is essentially what Steve Jobs did. He dropped out, and started attending the classes that interested him. Learning what he wanted to learn. Look where that got him.

Capsule Stylin'

I remember the first time I watched a shuttle launch on TV with my Dad. (STS-1) Seeing that space ship sitting on the launch pad was awesome, and it actually looked like a space ship, wings... giant engines, the works. Of course, it looked kinda like the dorky younger cousin of a space fighter, but close enough right?

I loved the shuttle. My Dad built and painted a beautiful shuttle model for me that same year. It hung from the ceiling of my bedroom, complete with robotic arm (Shuttle Remote Manipulator System: SRMS) the Skylab Experimental Science Station in it's cargo bay, and 2 tiny Astronauts wearing MMUs. All I ever wanted to do was play with it, but it was a model... so off limits.

NASA announced that it has awarded Lockheed Martin a contract to build the next generation of NASA spacecraft. The Orion. It's an Apollo style capsule throwback! It looks like it's going to be bad ass, and they're planning on launching it no later than 2014. They plan on going back to the moon by 2020! After that? Mars. Be sure to check the Orion Spacecraft Weblog for ongoing information.

Sadly, this means that the shuttle is officially old. (ok, to be honest, they've been old for a while) Rumors of an early retirement are all but confirmed, and the reusable winged design of "space ships" is becoming a thing of the past. While old school capsules, which began America's manned journey into space are becoming all the rage. What's old is new again.

Maybe there will come a day when we actually build a spacecraft IN SPACE. This will eliminate many of the design limitations placed upon us by gravity and atmosphere. (while probably introducing many more... like lack of air...) It could make for some unEartly design possibilities... literally.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

The typewriter that Douglas Adams used to create The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is currently up for sale. It's being sold along with a first edition hardback of Hitchhiker's Guide.

Sale price: US$ 25257.94

**also**
Our play FWD opened this past weekend, and it was a blast. Thanks to everyone who came out to support us, we really appreciate it.

FWD runs until August 2nd.

Visit Sunny P3X-984

According to the website NASA watch (and boingboing) during a recent demolition at the Ames Research Center a Stargate was discovered.

They're saying it's actually a giant piece of a wind tunnel. But that doesn't mean that we can't dream of being wisked away to the Alpha site when the Goa'uld bring their Ha'tak motherships to bear on our little planet.

Also, on an unrelated note, when we did our maintenance earlier this month we totally screwed up our comments pages. So bare with us while we sift through the css to see what we messed up.

Voyager Turns 30

Yesterday Sept. 5th in 1977 the Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Wired magazine has an awesome photo essay about Voyager.

Besides being developed by this website's patron saint, Carl Sagan, there are many other interesting things about Voyager 1.

The spacecraft was designed to take advantage of a newly developed technique for space travel called "gravity assist." It seems like common place now, but for it's time this idea was revolutionary. The spacecraft would use gravity wells produced by the planets in our solar system to slingshot itself through space. This method not only reduced the amount of fuel needed to travel the distances intended for Voyager, but would also allow the spacecraft to make the journey in 12 years instead of 30!

The timing of Voyager was critical. A planetary event would occur in the late 70's that would make for a perfect opportunity to use the new gravity assist technique. This event was called The Grand Tour, and it consisted of an unprecedented alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. An alignment this perfect would not recur for another 176 years!

Bolted to the outside of Voyager is the now famous "Golden Record."

The Record was designed by Carl Sagan, with elements drawn by Jon Lomberg, an artist whose work is inspired by astronomy. The record also contains 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, and thunder, and animal sounds, including the songs of birds and whales. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earthlings in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.

Here is Jimmy Carter's Presidential message to the cosmos:

"We cast this message into the cosmos... Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some -- perhaps many -- may have inhabited planets and space faring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: We are trying to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of Galactic Civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe."

Pale Blue Dot

by Carl Sagan

We've got to go back... To The Moon!

To plant explosives.

Keep it up NASA.

all these worlds are yours...

20 light years away... Circling a small red dwarf star called Gliese 581 (the star is still 10X the size of our sun: Sol) there sits an Earth-like planet. This planet has a climate similar to Earth's (some cosmologists suspect it ay be MORE friendly to life than our beloved Earth) it has gravity and water. It's got all the right conditions to support life, and it's only 20 light years away. Right now it is designated: Gliese 581c

If we were to transmit a message today to this newly discovered planet on the end of a laser beam traveling the speed of light it would take 20 years for our message to get there. Our message would have traveled 117,492,033,468,146.02 miles. Not that there'd necessarily be anybody there to receive our message. But there might be life...

So Astronomers and Cosmologists have this thing called the Drake Equation. The Drake Equation predicts how probable extra-terrestrial life is in our Universe. It takes into account how many stars *probably* have formed within our Cosmos. (R*) Then the equation narrows that variable down to the stars that may have planets circling them (fp) and is then refined further still to how many of those planets may be capable of supporting life (ne). But we're not done yet... The equation takes into account how much of that life may develop (fl) and then that life developing intelligence (fi), the ability to communicate (fc) and finally... actually be alive long enough to send us a message (L).

It's written like this:

Cosmologists believe there may be billions of planets floating around in our Cosmos, but as of today they have only discovered 220 that exist beyond our solar system. This is due to the mind-blowingly large distances between us and any other planets out there. We're in the sticks, a pale blue dot in a backwater arm of the Milky Way. Although we've been learning sooo much about our Universe in recent years it's still easy to forget how little we really know.

For the Overdroid: Let's Blow up Gliese 581c!!

Geostationary Banana Over Texas

There is currently an art project underway to place a gigantic banana in the Texas sky. The object will float between the high atmosphere & Earth's low orbit, being visible only from the state of Texas & its surroundings.

To be constructed out of bamboo and balsa-wood with onboard gyroscopes, the banana will be clearly visible from the ground day and night. (via metafilter)

We are made from star stuff

December 20th marks the 10th anniversary of Carl Sagan's passing. Even though my childhood falls squarely into the 80's. (Transformers, M.A.S.K., The A-Team) I was around for a little bit of the 70's. (Banana Splits, Welcome Back Carter, The Electric Company) I can remember Carl Sagan's outfit from his Cosmos TV series. A turtleneck, often paired with a brown sport jacket that had those elbow patches on it. Not to mention his mopy haircut. Very iconic.

It wouldn't be until after I had gone to college that I really took an interest in what Carl Sagan had to say. I was struggling with "What I Believed." I had some friends who were confident in their spiritual beliefs, but I was still on the fence.

One of the greatest things I learned from Carl Sagan, and the thing that the Catholic Church could never reconcile with me, was the grander of Man's smallness. Everything I learned going to Catholic School told me that we lived snugly within God's blessed cross-hairs. It would take The Church hundreds of years to admit we weren't the center of the Universe... Not only are we not the center, we're barely even on the map, and more than 99% of the map is a complete mystery to us!

"If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?....For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."

We've recently lost a close member of our family. It was very difficult, and this system of belief I've adopted offers little in the way of comfort. In fact, it offers none. While this seems like a recipe for despair... in fact, it instills in me a love and respect for life. This life we live that clings as a film to the surface of a rocky ball that orbits an unremarkable star in the suburbs of an average galaxy. It's fleeting, and the people in it need to be appreciated. We may not be the center of this Universe, but the fact that we exist at all in an environment so hostile is amazing enough!

These are the ideas that give me pause, and a reason to reflect on life. It took a man like Carl Sagan, who brought the grand concepts of the Universe to my living room, to help me see what's so great about Universe without dressing it up to be more than it is.

"We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself"

Many people are writing posts this week to celebrate Carl Sagan and the contributions he has made to both Science and Humanity. Check out more Celebrate Sagan Blog-o-thon posts here. Look here for previous clunkyrobot posts about Carl Sagan.

See Carl Sagan talking about the golden plaque he helped design for The Pioneer Spacecraft:

Here is the opening to Carl Sagan's Contact:

Physics for Future Presidents

Richard Muller is a professor of physics at UC Berkeley. He teaches a physics class designed specifically for non-physics majors called Physics for Future Presidents. In the style of Carl Sagan his goal for the lectures is "for everyone to come away with the feeling that what was just covered is important for every world leader to know." (via metafilter)

Now you can take his entire class online... for free-ninty-nine! (that means free) Complete with quizzes, exams, and google video of his actual lectures. You can even email Muller himself if you're having problems!

I have always kicked myself for not taking my math classes more seriously in school. Although I did take a shine to Catholic High School level Biology, but I believe this to be the result of having to hand draw hundreds of models of single celled, and micro organisms. Once I've drawn something I can pretty much remember it forever. I even tried to teach myself calculus with available online text books, however, I've found that without a good lecturer, it's difficult to self-teach.

Now that Muller's lectures are all available online, that's not such a problem anymore. Well, Berkeley has taken this even further. You can now view courses and lectures from UC Berkeley directly through iTunes! Also for free! It's really a refreshing thing to see knowledge being given away freely like this. Sadly, it's also very rare.

Why does it have to be so rare? Why shouldn't everyone have access to this knowledge? OK, the people who attend Berkeley have worked very hard to do so, and are paying a lot of money. I totally respect that, their reward for this is a Berkeley diploma. The knowledge itself, the actual teachings, should be free to everyone. But if you want to say you've gone to Berkeley, well that's a different story, you need to get the grades to be accepted, you must pay the University to sit in their classes. This is essentially what Steve Jobs did. He dropped out, and started attending the classes that interested him. Learning what he wanted to learn. Look where that got him.

Capsule Stylin'

I remember the first time I watched a shuttle launch on TV with my Dad. (STS-1) Seeing that space ship sitting on the launch pad was awesome, and it actually looked like a space ship, wings... giant engines, the works. Of course, it looked kinda like the dorky younger cousin of a space fighter, but close enough right?

I loved the shuttle. My Dad built and painted a beautiful shuttle model for me that same year. It hung from the ceiling of my bedroom, complete with robotic arm (Shuttle Remote Manipulator System: SRMS) the Skylab Experimental Science Station in it's cargo bay, and 2 tiny Astronauts wearing MMUs. All I ever wanted to do was play with it, but it was a model... so off limits.

NASA announced that it has awarded Lockheed Martin a contract to build the next generation of NASA spacecraft. The Orion. It's an Apollo style capsule throwback! It looks like it's going to be bad ass, and they're planning on launching it no later than 2014. They plan on going back to the moon by 2020! After that? Mars. Be sure to check the Orion Spacecraft Weblog for ongoing information.

Sadly, this means that the shuttle is officially old. (ok, to be honest, they've been old for a while) Rumors of an early retirement are all but confirmed, and the reusable winged design of "space ships" is becoming a thing of the past. While old school capsules, which began America's manned journey into space are becoming all the rage. What's old is new again.

Maybe there will come a day when we actually build a spacecraft IN SPACE. This will eliminate many of the design limitations placed upon us by gravity and atmosphere. (while probably introducing many more... like lack of air...) It could make for some unEartly design possibilities... literally.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

The typewriter that Douglas Adams used to create The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is currently up for sale. It's being sold along with a first edition hardback of Hitchhiker's Guide.

Sale price: US$ 25257.94

**also**
Our play FWD opened this past weekend, and it was a blast. Thanks to everyone who came out to support us, we really appreciate it.

FWD runs until August 2nd.

Visit Sunny P3X-984

According to the website NASA watch (and boingboing) during a recent demolition at the Ames Research Center a Stargate was discovered.

They're saying it's actually a giant piece of a wind tunnel. But that doesn't mean that we can't dream of being wisked away to the Alpha site when the Goa'uld bring their Ha'tak motherships to bear on our little planet.

Also, on an unrelated note, when we did our maintenance earlier this month we totally screwed up our comments pages. So bare with us while we sift through the css to see what we messed up.

Voyager Turns 30

Yesterday Sept. 5th in 1977 the Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Wired magazine has an awesome photo essay about Voyager.

Besides being developed by this website's patron saint, Carl Sagan, there are many other interesting things about Voyager 1.

The spacecraft was designed to take advantage of a newly developed technique for space travel called "gravity assist." It seems like common place now, but for it's time this idea was revolutionary. The spacecraft would use gravity wells produced by the planets in our solar system to slingshot itself through space. This method not only reduced the amount of fuel needed to travel the distances intended for Voyager, but would also allow the spacecraft to make the journey in 12 years instead of 30!

The timing of Voyager was critical. A planetary event would occur in the late 70's that would make for a perfect opportunity to use the new gravity assist technique. This event was called The Grand Tour, and it consisted of an unprecedented alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. An alignment this perfect would not recur for another 176 years!

Bolted to the outside of Voyager is the now famous "Golden Record."

The Record was designed by Carl Sagan, with elements drawn by Jon Lomberg, an artist whose work is inspired by astronomy. The record also contains 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, and thunder, and animal sounds, including the songs of birds and whales. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earthlings in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.

Here is Jimmy Carter's Presidential message to the cosmos:

"We cast this message into the cosmos... Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some -- perhaps many -- may have inhabited planets and space faring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: We are trying to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of Galactic Civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe."

Pale Blue Dot

by Carl Sagan

We've got to go back... To The Moon!

To plant explosives.

Keep it up NASA.

all these worlds are yours...

20 light years away... Circling a small red dwarf star called Gliese 581 (the star is still 10X the size of our sun: Sol) there sits an Earth-like planet. This planet has a climate similar to Earth's (some cosmologists suspect it ay be MORE friendly to life than our beloved Earth) it has gravity and water. It's got all the right conditions to support life, and it's only 20 light years away. Right now it is designated: Gliese 581c

If we were to transmit a message today to this newly discovered planet on the end of a laser beam traveling the speed of light it would take 20 years for our message to get there. Our message would have traveled 117,492,033,468,146.02 miles. Not that there'd necessarily be anybody there to receive our message. But there might be life...

So Astronomers and Cosmologists have this thing called the Drake Equation. The Drake Equation predicts how probable extra-terrestrial life is in our Universe. It takes into account how many stars *probably* have formed within our Cosmos. (R*) Then the equation narrows that variable down to the stars that may have planets circling them (fp) and is then refined further still to how many of those planets may be capable of supporting life (ne). But we're not done yet... The equation takes into account how much of that life may develop (fl) and then that life developing intelligence (fi), the ability to communicate (fc) and finally... actually be alive long enough to send us a message (L).

It's written like this:

Cosmologists believe there may be billions of planets floating around in our Cosmos, but as of today they have only discovered 220 that exist beyond our solar system. This is due to the mind-blowingly large distances between us and any other planets out there. We're in the sticks, a pale blue dot in a backwater arm of the Milky Way. Although we've been learning sooo much about our Universe in recent years it's still easy to forget how little we really know.

For the Overdroid: Let's Blow up Gliese 581c!!

Geostationary Banana Over Texas

There is currently an art project underway to place a gigantic banana in the Texas sky. The object will float between the high atmosphere & Earth's low orb