:(

RIP, Kevin Beurle.

Of course...

this particular type of meteorite costs three times as much as a regular meteorite and is only available at Whole Foods.

Friday Song

Gol drat, this was a good album.

90th anniversary of the "Relativity Eclipse"

90 years ago today, Arthur Stanley Eddington viewed "the eclipse that proved Relativity."
Eddington photographed the Hyades during the eclipse, then compared these photos to the ones he had taken of the Hyades the night before.

Einstein was right, of course.

Space is flexible and warped (sorry, Newton) and the light passing near massive objects bends due to gravity. And that gravity actually shifts the positions of the smaller objects when they near something massive.

Of course, you can't SEE objects near massive bodies, because massive bodies are very, very bright. (Except for black holes, right. But this was 1919.) Eddington had an idea which now seems obvious. Observe objects near the Sun during a total eclipse, and you'll know whether their positions are shifted by the Sun's gravity. Conveniently, the calendar showed there would be a solar eclipse on May 29th.

There you have it.

Above: The proof

Press reaction was extraordinary. Almost immediately, the word "Einstein" became a synonym for "genius" and remains one to this day.



Big ups to Eddington for getting the eclipse idea, and for organizing the expeditions to both Brazil and West Africa to get the photos.

Below: "Suckas."

Storytime.

I started this yesterday and ended up getting distracted by an aircraft emergency probably something shiny. Therefore...

Today is Yesterday was Paul Desmond Scully-Power's birthday.
Besides having a cool surname that pays unintentional homage to The X-Files, Scully-Power was party to a pretty heated diplomatic incident.

Scully-Power was a crew member aboard Challenger for STS-41G.
STS-41G was memorable for a couple of reasons. First, it was the very first time that astronauts had taken an IMAX camera aboard the shuttle to film. (The Dream is Alive was released the following year. I might have seen it once or twice. Or thrice.)

But here's something you might not know.

On 10 October 1984, the Evil Empire (the one not created by George Lucas), enraged after seeing this Wendy's commercial*



flipped its hair, stomped its feet, and fired a "warning shot" at Challenger from the Terra-3 laser complex, which caused onboard systems to fail and caused temporary blindness in the crew.
Fortunately, the problems either fixed themselves or were easily repaired.

As you can imagine, this resulted in a fairly substantial diplomatic protest.

The laser bit didn't make the movie. However, if they had put it in, I'll wager The Dream is Alive would have grossed 18 kajillion bucks and solved NASA's funding problems for a hundred years.
If the crew of Challenger had fired back, we'd be driving flying cars on Saturn by now.



*Probably

Somebody call Steve McQueen.

Seriously? A BLOB?
Wow. Didn't see that coming.

This problem is about to get a lot worse with three additional bodies.

This International Space Station is a Pig Sty!*


* I am constantly looking for an opportunity to link to this piece.

As a cat-fancier...

I am saddened.

Someone is in BIG trouble.

Once, I lost Dad's screwdriver and got the business.

Someone is going to be grounded forever for this one.

Charlie Bolden gets the nod

President Obama has tapped Charlie Bolden to be the new NASA administrator. Bolden is a strong supporter of Project Constellation, and he has a proud history as an astronaut and a Marine.

Charlie flew on the STS-61C Space Shuttle Columbia mission, during which flight crew members deployed the SATCOM KU satellite and conducted experiments in astrophysics and materials processing. The mission ended shortly before the launch of the Challenger in 1986.

He also flew on STS-31, Space Shuttle Discovery, which launched on April 24, 1990, and deployed the Hubble Space Telescope.

Then, on STS-45, Bolden commanded a crew of seven aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis, the first Spacelab mission dedicated to NASA's Mission to Planet Earth. During the nine-day mission, the crew operated the twelve experiments that constituted the ATLAS-1 (Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science) cargo. ATLAS-1 obtained a vast array of detailed measurements of atmospheric chemical and physical properties, which contribute significantly to improving our understanding of our climate and atmosphere. In addition, this was the first time an artificial beam of electrons was used to stimulate a man-made auroral discharge.

Finally, in 1994, he commanded a crew of six aboard Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-60), the first joint U.S./Russian Space Shuttle mission involving a Russian Cosmonaut as a mission specialist crew member.

He's got the cred.

However, he also lobbied for ATK, which manufactures the shuttles' solid rocket boosters, and I don't much care for lobbyists being put in charge of billions of dollars of taxpayer jack.

Bolden is a fan of manned space flight, which I think is a good thing. But I don't think manned space flight at the expense of unmanned, robotic missions is necessarily a positive position. I don't see why both can't remain an intrinsic part of our space program. Spirit and Opportunity, the two Mars "droids" have done an amazing job of imparting information over their lifespans, as have the various probes we have launched toward Pluto, Jupiter and the outer reaches of the solar system. And Constellation, which I support, is billions of dollars over budget.

And while I emphatically agree with the position that manned space flight is a necessary and important policy, I do see the need to get the costs under control. I have no problem with spending billions of dollars on the space program. I have a serious problem with allowing contractors to go billions of dollars over budget with no consequences.

All that aside, I think Bolden is a good pick. It can't hurt to have a former astronaut in charge of NASA.