In this extra special guest blog post, a little under 2 hours before space shuttle Discovery's launch, Greg Fish has prepared something a little different for Space Disco.
I love trance music, and I'm happy to know that Greg does too, so he's mixed a selection of corking tunes for your listening pleasure. If you read his description, you'll see why I've decided to post it now... enjoy!
The famous Woodstock Music Festival ran from August 15 to August 18, exactly 40 years ago. Woodstock is widely regarded as a pivotal moment in music history. During a period of time where incredible scientific endeavors were tarnished by savage warfare in Vietnam, Woodstock became synonymous with a call for world peace (indeed, the slogan for the event was "3 Days of Peace & Music").
In this special guest article for Space Disco, Govert Schilling, author of the outstanding book 'The Hunt For Planet X' and collaborator in the @Twisst project, shares his memories of this musical event, showing how singer Joni Mitchell included some stellar physics in her lyrics...
Canadian folk singer Joni Mitchell did not perform at the legendary Woodstock festival, forty years ago today. Her manager thought it would be better for her to appear on The Dick Cavett Show. In a New York City hotel room, she witnessed the three-day hippie fest in Bethel on television, and right there she wrote her famous song 'Woodstock'.
'We are stardust, we are golden. And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.' Beautiful music and wonderful lines - back then, I must have played that record hundreds of times.
Joni Mitchell described the most impressive message of modern science. This is no poetic metaphor of sorts - we really are dust from the stars. Billion year old carbon, as she sings toward the end of the song.
It's the story I like to tell most during public lectures. How one of the countless carbon atoms in my body was forged in the interior of another star, billions of years ago. How it was hurled into space during a supernova explosion, drifted through the Milky Way for hundreds of millions of years, and eventually became part of the cloud that gave birth to our solar system.
How it experienced the geological history of our home planet, was blown into the atmosphere by an active volcano, and was in- and exhaled by Julius Caesar. And, of course, how it ended up in a tiny carrot, which my pregnant mother ate over fifty years ago, so it could become part of my body.
It's a magical story about man's place in a vast, evolving universe. The carbon atoms in our muscles, the calcium atoms in our bones, the iron atoms in our blood - it's all stardust, in the most literal sense of the word.
I imagine 25 year old Joni Mitchell sitting there in her New York hotel room. Saddened about the fact that she isn't performing herself at Woodstock for half a million people. Depressed by all the misery, hatred and warfare in the world. But also hopeful because of the fact that over ten billion years of cosmic evolution has led to so much love, peace and happiness.
Back to the garden, Joni. To play in the grass with the people you love. And to enjoy the beauty of the stars.
--Govert Schilling
Follow Govert on Twitter via @GovertSchilling, @GovertTweets and the ISS service @Twisst.
In this second instalment for Space Disco, guest blogger Kunal Pujara, a science teacher and "Shoot for the Moon" contest winner, shares his diary of his last few days at last week's Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama.
Read Part 1 of Kunal's diary »
BACKGROUND: "For most people, Space Camp is as close as you'll get to training like a real astronaut. During the week-long program, attendees get hands-on training and learn about the mental, emotional, and physical demands astronauts must face. Camp-goers feel what it's like to walk on the moon, experience a simulated tumble in space, and alternate roles in mission control and shuttle crew during two different Space Shuttle missions.
In a series of posts, Kunal Pujara, a science teacher at Highland Park High School in Highland Park, Ill., details his experiences at Space Camp. Kunal, one winner of the "Shoot for the Moon" contest, is taking the trip courtesy of the Adler Planetarium and ComEd, Illinois' largest electric utility." --Rachel Gerds, ComEd.
In this special guest post for Space Disco, Kunal Pujara, a science teacher and "Shoot for the Moon" contest winner, shares his diary of his first few days at last week's Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. Over the coming days, we'll also be seeing Space Camp from the perspective of high school sophomore Azza Cohen.
What a wonderful way to learn about and experience space flight...
BACKGROUND: "For most people, Space Camp is as close as you'll get to training like a real astronaut. During the week-long program, attendees get hands-on training and learn about the mental, emotional, and physical demands astronauts must face. Camp-goers feel what it's like to walk on the moon, experience a simulated tumble in space, and alternate roles in mission control and shuttle crew during two different Space Shuttle missions.
In a series of posts, Kunal Pujara, a science teacher at Highland Park High School in Highland Park, Ill., details his experiences at Space Camp. Kunal, one winner of the "Shoot for the Moon" contest, is taking the trip courtesy of the Adler Planetarium and ComEd, Illinois' largest electric utility." --Rachel Gerds, ComEd.
After traveling around the Earth for 13 days, notching up 5.3 million miles, I'm sure the seven crew of Atlantis were a little frustrated at having to postpone their return to Florida due to bad weather. But Florida's loss is California's gain when mission control decided use the back-up option of landing at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert.
For more on the STS-125 Hubble servicing mission check out Shuttle Crew Over the Moon at Hubble Success.
I thought we'd seen the last shuttle landing at Edwards when Discovery used the base as a backup landing strip late last year after the space station STS-126 mission, so this is a bonus.
Edwards is only two hours north from where I live, so I'm feeling itchy I should have made the effort to welcome in Atlantis this morning. Looking out the window, the shuttle will be enjoying some classic SoCal sunshine right about now.
But you know what this means don't you? We get to see some more 747-Shuttle piggyback action when NASA authorizes the mother of all cross-country taxi services! I thought we'd seen the last of that too.
Welcome to California Atlantis, we're very excited to have you visit!
Update (10:45am PST):
The STS-125 astronauts are walking around and beneath space shuttle Atlantis, taking a last look at the vehicle that served them well in orbit and brought them safely home to Edwards Air Force Base in California this morning. --NASA archives
Source: NASA
Saddle up for this week's Discovery Space Wrap Up, ladies and gents: Asteroid tsunamis aren't as bad as we thought, Kepler planet-hunting telescope sees first light, Scientists want to land on Ceres in the Asteroid Belt, and Colbert gets "treaded" by NASA:
Few words can really describe Yuri's Night 2009, but the best is probably "awesome." Just look at this picture... how could this not be awesome?
Ok, some other words include "a little weird," "pretty nerdy" and "boatloads of fun." But you get the idea.
The normal-looking people in there are James Williams (video producer/Friday News Feedbag regular; right), Alex Esteves (sound guy; left) and I (center).
We all went to this year's Yuri's Night -- a worldwide celebration of putting people in space -- at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD.
Our mission? To document what Yuri's Night is all about, and why people volunteer their time to make it happen. So stay tuned for that... in the meantime, here are some highlights:
And so on. Clearly we had a blast, but you can too! Not to be a promotional advertisement for Yuri's Night, but...
The celebrations have just begun and will continue through April 12. Note that you don't have to be complete nerds like James, Alex and I to have a ridiculous amount of fun and learn a thing or two about space history in the process.
More than 170 parties going down worldwide this week, and to find one all you need to do is navigate yourself to the front page of www.YurisNight.net. There, you'll get a map of where all of the events are.
Nothing close by? Do your town a favor and start one! There's still time... click here for details.
Photos: Dave Mosher, Discovery.com
For some reason, I completely forgot to mention the Discovery Channel's new Cosmic Collisions show in this video post. D'oh. Be sure to visit the Wide Angle we put together here.
That being said, this week's video:
If you haven't heard by now, the present NASA administrator -- Michael "Gruff" Griffin -- will soon wave the peace sign and retreat into his proverbial helicopter. (I mean "gruff" as in "surly," and don't take the irrelevant Nixon analogy seriously. Just for fun.)
As might be expected, space nerds across the country are gossiping away about who President-elect Barack Obama will tap for Mike's spot.
You can add one more space nerd to the list with this post.
At any rate, if you're looking for a good sense of what's going on:
Keith Cowing at NASA Watch is keeping a pretty even keel on the secretive and rather drama-less (from Obama's end -- notsomuch from Griffin's) transition at the U.S. space agency. Jeff Foust at Space Politics is also putting a non-kool-aid-stained finger to the pulse of what's precipitating.
I'm a fan of mixing things up, so if Griffin wants to bow out I'll shed no tears. So who would I pick?
Contrary to what the headline of this post teases you with... I have no idea. And I don't envy being in Obama's shoes.
The people have spoken, however, and their choice *coughPhilPlaitcough* seems to be crystal clear. Here's the list in order of most-to-least votes for the top 25 thus far (note #9):
Who would you pick?
Photo: AP
Props to NASA for sending up yet another space shuttle -- a strange breed that will go extinct in 2010!
Now that Endeavour and its crew are safely zooming around the Earth, I admit the following:
I feel spoiled. I'm sitting at home in a big comfy chair, sipping a mixed drink with my shoes off while I watch NASA TV replays of the launch. (Yes, I lead an exciting life on the weekend.)
Wait... what could not be cooler than watching a space shuttle rumble into orbit around the Earth?
Truthfully, not a lot. But if you're a space journalist, you're nothing more than a glorified astronaut babysitter. Let me explain.
While I was a staff writer with SPACE.com, my bosses quickly recruited the "fresh meat" (aka me) to cover NASA space shuttle missions. I was stoked by the opportunity to witness millions of pounds of fuel rocket people into space, ham it up with astronauts and see history in the making.
The reality of it all, however, soon made itself apparent: Shuttle missions are nerve-wracking, exhausting and often demoralizing affairs.
During 20-hour workdays, you constantly watch NASA TV, listen to radio chatter, monitor the Internet and bug press relations to make sure the astronauts and their multi-billion dollar mobile home are a-OK. As a space reporter, I followed missions in my sleep. Not even close to kidding.
If everything is fine, you write a news story.
If anything is wrong, you write a bunch of news stories (and scrap the ones you pre-wrote).
Then you update your news stories.
As soon as you finish updating, you get a head-start on the next day's round of stories.
Mind you, to write anything substantial you have to navigate the weird, dark, dense forest that is NASA bureaucracy.
Multiply that experience by about 10 days, and that's if you're lucky enough to have someone replace you half-way through the mission. Otherwise, coverage can go as long as 20 days.
High fives if NASA decides to conduct their mission during normal waking hours... those "overnight" missions are painful. Before you know it, you're a zombie with a journalism degree who drinks a pot of coffee at 2:00 a.m.
As they say, misery loves company. Thankfully, very good people -- your reporter colleagues -- are there to endure this grueling journalistic marathon with you.
You form strong bonds with fellow space reporters, and for me they were a big reason I never minded covering another shuttle mission. They were my crew. My homies. My posse.
So as I sit here sippin' and relaxin', I feel for my reporter pals -- Tariq Malik, Irene Klotz, Robert Pearlman, Gina Sunseri, Mark Carreau, Frank Morring (Jr.), Todd Halverson, Bill Harwood and Patrick Peterson, to name a few.
You guys, as you waste away in a fluorescent NASA newsroom, I'm pouring this one out for you.
<3 Dave
Photos, top to bottom: Getty; Dave Mosher
Dr Ian O'Neill produces Discovery Space for the Discovery Channel. He is a solar physicist, but loves to write about manned space exploration and exposing the myths behind bad science. He can also be found ranting about space on Astroengine.com.
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