imwithkanye: 9/11 From Space: An Astronaut’s Perspective  From Aug. 12 to Dec.  15, 2001, astronaut Frank Culbertson was aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Two hundred fifty miles above the Earth’s surface, Culbertson was the only American not on the planet at the time of the terrorist attacks. He — along with two Russian cosmonauts — witnessed the horrific events of Sept. 11, as well as the invasion of Afghanistan a month later, from space. [Watch the video]

imwithkanye:

9/11 From Space: An Astronaut’s Perspective 

From Aug. 12 to Dec.  15, 2001, astronaut Frank Culbertson was aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Two hundred fifty miles above the Earth’s surface, Culbertson was the only American not on the planet at the time of the terrorist attacks. He — along with two Russian cosmonauts — witnessed the horrific events of Sept. 11, as well as the invasion of Afghanistan a month later, from space.

[Watch the video]

“One of NASA’s most important contributions might simply be bringing large teams of scientists together to solve problems, according to Roger Launius, curator at the National Air and Space Museum. “Then, when they disperse to go to other corporations or universities, they take with them the knowledge they gained through the process,” he said. Hence, spinoffs are born.”

Cool article over at News Hour abut the 1,750 products that have resulted from such NASA meetings.
briancolligan: I published the following column in the July 10 Daily Reflector. Those Behind the Space Program Deserve Nation’s Gratitude On a cloudless night, even roughly 20 miles away, the twin solid rocket boosters poised to shrug off gravity and propel the space shuttle into the heavens paints the sky a deep, bright orange. The light reflecting off the atmosphere is visible long before the flame rises over the horizon, with the familiar craft riding a pillar of smoke over the Atlantic Ocean and into the sky. Standing on a Florida beach, huddled on a March morning against the strong sea breeze, the only launch I witnessed was a thrilling, inspirational experience. It overloaded the senses, from the ground rumbling against 5.6 million newton pounds of thrust to the slow comprehension that America had once again, remarkably, sent people into space. The energy that accompanies a launch viewing was a jolt to me, a college-age 20-something at the time, as I imagine it was for my father. He witnessed his first launch as 21-year-old, newly minted 2nd Lt. Jack Colligan in the U.S. Air Force watching the October 1962 liftoff of astronaut Wally Schirra in one of the final Mercury missions. His first duty after joining the service was assignment to the Gemini Launch Vehicle Systems Division at Cape Canaveral. His job: to help NASA send its men into space and return them safely to the Earth. It sounds like the stuff of fiction, birthed in a comic book or the scattered mind of a sci-fi author. Yet these were serious people doing the most serious of work. The Soviet Union gained an upper hand on the United States with its launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957 and Americans were desperate to wrestle momentum back. Their goal was no less than the moon, as set forth by President John Kennedy in a May 1961 speech to Congress. From nothing — at the start of the Mercury program, the Soviet Union was well ahead of their American counterparts — they would achieve Kennedy’s goal in a mere eight years. That did not come without setbacks, the Apollo 1 disaster and the deaths of Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee being the most tragic, but it did come. When focused on the launches, the story sounds rather straightforward, though it was anything but. Hundreds of thousands of man-hours poured into each design detail. Those assigned to the program invented products and methods that solved problems and would come to change modern society. Countless innovations in science and math — as well as commonplace items like cordless power tools and solar panels — owe their existence to our mission in space. Astronauts serve as the face of the nation’s space program and their talent, skill and legendary exploits more than justify that status. They were modern American heroes, the best and brightest risking life and limb when their country called. But behind them stood legions of men and women in NASA and the military who provided the brains and brawn needed to land people on the moon and return them safely not once, but six times in three years. In the moments before the Space Shuttle Atlantis cleared the pad Friday morning, small mention was given to those who spent their career with their feet on the ground and their heads in the stars. The 24,000 employees once charged with the responsibility of the space program will dwindle to about a thousand when Atlantis returns. The agency cannot justify maintaining positions absent a future mission. It is to them the nation should extend its gratitude, those on the job today as well as those who came before, like my father. They took the idealistic dream of space exploration and made it reality, inspiring generations along the way. Brian Colligan is editorial page editor of The Daily Reflector. (Photo from the Associated Press; sorry that I don’t know the photographer)

briancolligan:

I published the following column in the July 10 Daily Reflector.

Those Behind the Space Program Deserve Nation’s Gratitude

On a cloudless night, even roughly 20 miles away, the twin solid rocket boosters poised to shrug off gravity and propel the space shuttle into the heavens paints the sky a deep, bright orange. The light reflecting off the atmosphere is visible long before the flame rises over the horizon, with the familiar craft riding a pillar of smoke over the Atlantic Ocean and into the sky.

Standing on a Florida beach, huddled on a March morning against the strong sea breeze, the only launch I witnessed was a thrilling, inspirational experience. It overloaded the senses, from the ground rumbling against 5.6 million newton pounds of thrust to the slow comprehension that America had once again, remarkably, sent people into space.

The energy that accompanies a launch viewing was a jolt to me, a college-age 20-something at the time, as I imagine it was for my father. He witnessed his first launch as 21-year-old, newly minted 2nd Lt. Jack Colligan in the U.S. Air Force watching the October 1962 liftoff of astronaut Wally Schirra in one of the final Mercury missions. His first duty after joining the service was assignment to the Gemini Launch Vehicle Systems Division at Cape Canaveral.

His job: to help NASA send its men into space and return them safely to the Earth.

It sounds like the stuff of fiction, birthed in a comic book or the scattered mind of a sci-fi author. Yet these were serious people doing the most serious of work. The Soviet Union gained an upper hand on the United States with its launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957 and Americans were desperate to wrestle momentum back. Their goal was no less than the moon, as set forth by President John Kennedy in a May 1961 speech to Congress.

From nothing — at the start of the Mercury program, the Soviet Union was well ahead of their American counterparts — they would achieve Kennedy’s goal in a mere eight years. That did not come without setbacks, the Apollo 1 disaster and the deaths of Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee being the most tragic, but it did come.

When focused on the launches, the story sounds rather straightforward, though it was anything but. Hundreds of thousands of man-hours poured into each design detail. Those assigned to the program invented products and methods that solved problems and would come to change modern society. Countless innovations in science and math — as well as commonplace items like cordless power tools and solar panels — owe their existence to our mission in space.

Astronauts serve as the face of the nation’s space program and their talent, skill and legendary exploits more than justify that status. They were modern American heroes, the best and brightest risking life and limb when their country called.

But behind them stood legions of men and women in NASA and the military who provided the brains and brawn needed to land people on the moon and return them safely not once, but six times in three years.

In the moments before the Space Shuttle Atlantis cleared the pad Friday morning, small mention was given to those who spent their career with their feet on the ground and their heads in the stars. The 24,000 employees once charged with the responsibility of the space program will dwindle to about a thousand when Atlantis returns. The agency cannot justify maintaining positions absent a future mission.

It is to them the nation should extend its gratitude, those on the job today as well as those who came before, like my father. They took the idealistic dream of space exploration and made it reality, inspiring generations along the way.

Brian Colligan is editorial page editor of The Daily Reflector.

(Photo from the Associated Press; sorry that I don’t know the photographer)

“On Tuesday, April 13, 2004, NASA transmitted “Where is My Mind?” to Mars to wake up the Mars rover Spirit in honor of its software transplant.”

Wikipedia (via brianfeldman)

If your goal as a band or artist is to have millions of fans, win awards, or influence a generation, you band will still never be as cool as The Pixies. 

(via gbreaux)

Well, yes, cool. But nowhere near “Chuck Berry-on-Voyager’s-Golden-Record” status.

(via soupsoup)

THE GUARDIAN: A Nasa scientist has stirred up fresh debate over life elsewhere in the cosmos after claiming to have found tiny fossils of alien bugs inside meteorites that landed on Earth. Richard Hoover, an astrobiologist at the US space agency's Marshall space flight centre in Alabama, said filaments and other structures in rare meteorites appear to be microscopic fossils of extraterrestrial beings that resemble algae known as cyanobacteria. »