Spaaaaace
Right, so...I go through periods where I get very interested in a subject and will read/watch/look up stuff about it ad nauseum until I drive other people crazy with it, though I of course enjoy every moment of it until the subject burns itself out in my brain and I move on to something else. At Thanksgiving I borrowed my dad's copy of Apollo 13, having not watched it in years, and I rediscovered what a good movie it is (the book is very cool too). I've been on something of a spaceflight kick ever since ^_^;; I downloaded the Discover Channel series "When We Left Earth" off iTunes, and it's really an excellent documentary series of the NASA missions. Methinks I'll be getting it on actual DVD now to get all the nifty bonus material. 'cause I'm a geek. Yep.
I figure while I'm at it I might as well share a couple of the cooler links I've found in this latest mini-obsession on the off-chance some of you might be interested too :)
Remembering Apollo 8 - rather nice article on Yahoo! news (yes I know, normally they suck, but this was a surprisingly decent article) from Christmas Eve, the anniversary of humans first orbiting the moon.
Apollo Lunar Surface Journal - this site is just cool, it's a collection of all the photos (many of them in hi-res), video and audio recordings from the various missions. You could geek out for hours here, especially in the image gallery.
Space Center Lecture Series - this is a site I will be visiting regularly as they have new speakers, since they're being kind enough to post the lectures to Youtube for everyone to enjoy. They only have one right now, the speaker being one of the last two men to walk on the moon. Cool stuff :)
I also found out there's a Mythbusters episode addressing what is apparently a widespread conspiracy theory, that NASA faked all the moon landings and that humans have never been there at all. Did I ever mention that conspiracy theorists infuriate me? Well it's a good episode at any rate, and on the show they demonstrate 1/6 gravity using a company called Zero G...which operates a plane similar to NASA's infamous "Vomit Comet" that you can actually buy tickets on and experience weightlessness. How cool is that?! The price of the experience? $4500. *sad sigh* Maybe someday when I'm independently wealthy....
And yes, NASA is in fact working on getting us back to the moon and eventually Mars, starting around 2014. For the record, seeing how much of our current technology (especially in computers) owes its existence to innovations made in the Space Race of long ago, I do think this is a worthwhile investment in our long-term future, current economic troubles notwithstanding. Technologies developed to save energy and keep us alive in space - fuel cells and solar panels among them - are directly relevant to the challenges (especially climate) we're facing here on Earth, and we need to keep pursuing it.
All right, I'm done putting off cleaning the apartment now, I swear...
I figure while I'm at it I might as well share a couple of the cooler links I've found in this latest mini-obsession on the off-chance some of you might be interested too :)
Remembering Apollo 8 - rather nice article on Yahoo! news (yes I know, normally they suck, but this was a surprisingly decent article) from Christmas Eve, the anniversary of humans first orbiting the moon.
Apollo Lunar Surface Journal - this site is just cool, it's a collection of all the photos (many of them in hi-res), video and audio recordings from the various missions. You could geek out for hours here, especially in the image gallery.
Space Center Lecture Series - this is a site I will be visiting regularly as they have new speakers, since they're being kind enough to post the lectures to Youtube for everyone to enjoy. They only have one right now, the speaker being one of the last two men to walk on the moon. Cool stuff :)
I also found out there's a Mythbusters episode addressing what is apparently a widespread conspiracy theory, that NASA faked all the moon landings and that humans have never been there at all. Did I ever mention that conspiracy theorists infuriate me? Well it's a good episode at any rate, and on the show they demonstrate 1/6 gravity using a company called Zero G...which operates a plane similar to NASA's infamous "Vomit Comet" that you can actually buy tickets on and experience weightlessness. How cool is that?! The price of the experience? $4500. *sad sigh* Maybe someday when I'm independently wealthy....
And yes, NASA is in fact working on getting us back to the moon and eventually Mars, starting around 2014. For the record, seeing how much of our current technology (especially in computers) owes its existence to innovations made in the Space Race of long ago, I do think this is a worthwhile investment in our long-term future, current economic troubles notwithstanding. Technologies developed to save energy and keep us alive in space - fuel cells and solar panels among them - are directly relevant to the challenges (especially climate) we're facing here on Earth, and we need to keep pursuing it.
All right, I'm done putting off cleaning the apartment now, I swear...