Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known
Founder: Joseph Barone
Contributors: crookedindifference, bumerangue, propagandery, rocketmagic, rostenbach
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
own a piece of space history - auction features 858 items from the dawn of aviation to the space shuttle era.
Some Strange Things Are Happening To Astronauts Returning To Earth
Read what happens when Astronauts poop their pants in space
Way back in 1969 during NASA’S Apollo 10 Moon Mission the crew (made up of Thomas Stafford, John W. Young and Eugene A. Cernan) had quite a few documented encounters with alien turds in their atmosphere. And now, thanks to NASA’s mission transcripts these moments and be relived and laughed at all over again.
(if you click on the pictures you’ll see what city you’re looking at)
Flown Saturn V Engines Recovered from Atlantic
So I just learned that bazillionaire Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos funded a salvage mission to recover spent Saturn V parts from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Bezos’ team has indeed located two Saturn F-1 engines from a depth of almost three miles. The specific engines have not yet been positively identified but they may belong to S-1C-6, the first stage of the Saturn V which launched Apollo 11. If so, this would be amazing. The only hardware to return from that mission are some pressure suits and the Command Module Columbia. Having more physical remnants by which to remember that historic mission would be wonderful.
News release from Bezos Expeditions.
Digitally manipulating images found by NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory, Chris Keegan’s Celestial Artworks feature all sorts of creatures built of the stars, space-clouds and various naturally-occuring visuals found far, far away.
More.
Why So Curious?
Swimming with Spacemen
Everything you ever wanted to know about one of the most amazing facilities in the world: the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, where astronauts train for spacewalks.
NASA: “We’ve discovered a previously unknown surprise circling Earth”
This is wild. NASA’s recently deployed Van Allen probes — a pair of robotic spacecraft launched just last August to investigate Earth’s eponymous pair of radiation belts — are already turning out some very unexpected findings. Chief among them: an ephemeral third ring of radiation, previously unknown to science, surrounding our planet.
Shuttle: The World’s First Spaceship (1979) #NASA
The Space Shuttle Operators Manual (1982) via library book sale. both the Challenger and Columbia were later destroyed in flight. the book contains an incredible wealth of photos, illustrations and in-depth diagrams. will post some another time.
Five Billion Years of Solitude: Lee Billings on the Science of Reaching the Stars
More broadly, speculating about extraterrestrial intelligence is an extension of three timeless existential questions: What are we, where do we come from, and where are we going? The late physicist Philip Morrison considered SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, to be the “archaeology of the future,” because any galactic civilizations we could presently detect from our tiny planet would almost certainly be well more advanced than our own. It’s unlikely that we would ever receive a radio message from an alien civilization in the equivalent of our past Stone Age, and it’s unlikely Earth would ever be visited by a crewed starship that powered its voyage using engines fueled by coal or gasoline. Optimists consider this, and say that making contact with a superior alien civilization could augur a bright future for humanity, as it would suggest there are in fact solutions to be found for all the current seemingly intractable problems that threaten to destroy or diminish our species. It’s my opinion that most people think about aliens as a way of pondering our own spectrum of possible futures.
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I now believe that while life may be widespread in the universe, creatures like us are probably uncommon, and technological societies are vanishingly rare, making the likelihood of contact remote at best. I am less confident than I once was that we will find unequivocal signs of life in other planetary systems within my lifetime. I believe that, when seen in the fullness of planetary time, our modern era will prove to have been the fulcrum about which the future of life turned for, at minimum, our entire solar system. I believe that we humans are probably the most fortunate species to have ever arisen on Earth, and that those of us now alive are profoundly privileged to live in what can objectively be considered a very special time. Finally, I would guess that though we possess the unique capacity to extend life and intelligence beyond Earth into unknown new horizons, there is a better-than-even chance that we will fail to do so. The human story may end as it began - in nasty, brutish, and short isolation on a lonely, solitary planet. The book in part is my attempt to explain and come to terms with these beliefs, beliefs that I would very much like to be proved wrong.
