Last week was the 41st anniversary of the Apollo 11 flight, widely viewed as the "defining moment" of my generation.

Really, though, the defining moment of my generation was not when Humanity reached out to stride upon the Moon.

It was when we turned away.

Snappy Answers To Cryptic Questions

athelind: HAVE YOU SEEN THE YELLOW SIGN?
jdarkwulf: Yield?

Yeah, I know, "Yield" signs aren't yellow anymore, but I still laughed.

The Spirit of Radio
I've been having increasing trouble keeping my little stereo tuned to my preferred radio station of late. It's an analogue-dial physical tuner rather than a nice digital gizmo, ( Read more... )

Something is consuming hydrogen and methane on Saturn's moon, Titan.

This isn't as obvious, exciting, or definitive a "yes" as, say, an ancient city atop Olympus Mons, or giant tentacles pulling a space probe beneath the ice, and most people are going to react by saying, "aw, that could be anything".

And yes, it could be a lot of things ( Read more... )

I just watched President Obama's speech at Kennedy Space Center ( Read more... )

Mostly for my own reference:

Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design

While Dr. Akin is an aerospace engineer, most if not all of these Laws apply to systems design in general.

normanrafferty should take particular note of the following:

14. (Edison's Law) "Better" is the enemy of "good".

Snagged from theweaselking, whom I forgot to credit when I first posted this.

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In the wake of columnist and Nixon speechwriter William Safire's death, here is the speech that he wrote for the President to read in the event that the Apollo 11 astronauts were stranded on the Moon.

It's surreal to read this today; earlier this morning, I found the lyrics to "The Green Hills of Earth" running through my head:

We pray for one ( Read more... )

This is making the rounds of my Friends List; for those who haven't seen it yet, it's my turn to share.

Click to view

I always said that Unca Carl was a poet.

From a significant fraction of my f-list, including the_gneech, pyat, and leonard_arlotte:

• If you like, post this meme and your current wallpaper.
  
• Explain in no more than five sentences why you're using that wallpaper!
  
• Don't change your wallpaper before doing this! The point is to see what you had on!

( Read more... )

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I just spoke to my mother on the phone, and she had her own memories of the landing.

"We all sat up and watched every minute of the landing. People asked me later, 'how could you let your children stay up until all hours like that?' And I'd answer, 'how could I not?'"