Really space-related

If you were to ask me to choose a living human being to spend a week with in a closed room with no food, no books and no teevee, I would pick Neil DeGrasse Tyson. If you were to tell me that I had to live the rest of my life in one building and never venture outside that building, I would choose the Rose Center for Earth and Space.

I just bought Tyson's new book, The Pluto Files, and I can't recommend it highly enough. I never knew that Uranus was originally named George for the king of England. I had no idea that Tyson was responsible for changing the mnemonic from "My very excellent mother just served us nine prunes" to "My very excellent mother just served us nine pizzas."

And I'm only on page 23!

Anyway, Neil, if you read this, my email address is on this blog. Call me if you're ever forced to pick someone to spend a week in a room with you. I'll bring the beer.

Not space-related.

But utterly awesome.

Do you know how many times in my life I've said, "Screw the top of the Eiffel Tower. Screw Times Square. Someone needs to put a live webcam on the ocean floor."

Well, guess what?

Someone did. I am addicted to this thing. I have been watching for a couple of hours and I have seen some of the coolest stuff swim by.

Here is the link to ORCA'S "Eye in the Sea" camera.

Your birthday star.

A fun thing to do when stargazing is to look at your "birthday star."
Your birthday star is a star whose light left on the long journey to Earth the year you were born.
Of course, your birthday star changes each year.
Being 37, my birthday star this year is Arcturus.
Last year, it was Denebola and next year it will be Lambda Ser.
Here's a fun chart to look up your star.
I'd imagine that if you're having a stargazing party, breaking out the Birthday Star Chart and letting everyone see "their" star would be a humongous hit.


Above: Arcturus

I know I put it here somewhere

Comet Lulin briefly lost its tail yesterday. In what is being called a "disconnection event," which sounds vaguely like something psychosomatic, a gust of solar wind tore off part of the comet's tail. Comet Lulin will come within 38 million miles (a trip to the corner store in astronomical terms) on Feb. 24. Meanwhile, tonight, the comet will be visible near the double star, Zubenelgenubi (pronounced "elephant,") in Libra.

As the Ward sisters and sister-in-law will be in O'Neil, Fla., with a still-fairly-dark sky next week, we will be watching for it. Here's what the tail thing looked like.

Gemini Ale

It's no secret that I often decide which beer to purchase based on the label.
By fortunate coincidence, I have found that the beers with the prettiest, most interesting, or most unique labels are also the best tasting beers. Thankfully, I have a liquor store within walking distance which, though small, surely has the biggest collection of beautifully-labeled beers outside of the big liquor chains.
Don de Dieu ("Gift of God") pairs nicely with the peppery Maudite ("Damned") and I first bought them because of their beautiful labels.
Naturally, opening a Maudite is a charming wink-wink nudge-nudge precursor to opening a bottle of Salvation for your guests:
Anyway.

The point of this is the latest fab beer label I came across, which turned into a new fab beer discovery.
Gemini beer not only has a beautiful label; it's space-themed, too.
Bonus.
I'm not one to wax poetic about piquant aftertastes of leather and cigar - I'll just tell you this is a really good beer.
If you'd like to hear the poetic waxing, it's all here on Beer Advocate's page devoted to the brew.

Perhaps you can find some Gemini for your next "Yuri's Night" party.

Ad astra per aspera

In memoriam.

Yakety Sax makes everything hilarious.

I thought, "Boy, I know a video that would be awesome with The Benny Hill Show theme."
So I went to the Benny Hillifier and you know what?


I was right.

What?

Today's birthday story.

Today is Bob Cabana's 60th birthday.
Here's your Story of the Day:

On June 25, 1997, Vasily Tsibliev, Aleksandr Lazutkin, and Michael Foale were aboard Mir. Tsibliev was attempting to dock the Progress resupply ship to the space station. Something went wrong, and the 7-ton, bus-sized Progress slammed into the side of Mir. A loud hissing sound made it clear that the crew was in mortal danger. By an incredible stroke of luck, the three men found the damage in the Spektr module almost immediately. They cut the wires to the resupply ship and sealed the holes. The crew had to go to minimal power during the crisis; therefore the gyrodynes were inoperative. Mir started to spin. To right the ship and re-orient the solar arrays toward the Sun, the crew needed to know the spin rate of Mir. But of course, the computers were powered down. Michael Foale held his thumb up to the stars outside the window and used celestial nagivation and physics to estimate the rate of spin. The damaged Mir, Foale said, was spinning at 1°/sec, which meant it made a 360° turn in just six minutes. This information was radioed to Moscow Ground Control, who fired the rockets of Mir and stopped the spin.

You can imagine that this latest mishap, coming on the heels of the famous Mir fire, caused a bit of concern among some in the space community.

Astronaut Blaine Hammond said, “We have been extremely lucky so far. We may not be so lucky next time and, in my personal opinion, there will be a next time, it’s just a matter of when and how bad."

Hammond went on to call Mir "a disaster waiting to happen."

A year after Hammond left NASA, he told a reporter, "You’d have thought I was preaching heresy, the way people reacted to that. They would let me talk, but they didn’t act like they ever were going to take it forward. You’d see eyes rolling or you’d get the impression, 'Geez, here he goes again.'"

Evidence to back up Hammond's claims came from an e-mail he had, an e-mail sent by none other than our birthday boy.

On July 1, 1997, chief astronaut Bob Cabana rebuked Hammond by e-mail for his negative statements about Mir. Cabana, in his words, wanted to remind Hammond of the duties of his position, which did not include the critique of Mir. Or the critique of anything, for that matter.

Cabana chided, "I was told that you stood up at a meeting and said, 'It would be criminal for us to send Wendy [Lawrence] to Mir.'" He then criticized Hammond for making such a statement without clearance. "Our primary goal right now is to help the Russians fix Mir and ensure that it’s done correctly. Your job is to make sure the system is supporting [our decisions], doing all the right things to fly safely, not to express [emotional] personal opinions that may or may not coincide with policy."

The e-mail ended with the ominous, dreaded "I would like to talk with you."

Above: Eileen Collins expresses the personal opinion that she'd like to come home to little Bridget in one piece after her mission.

Happy birthday, Tom Jones!

Today is the birthday of astronaut Tom Jones.
After I read Dr. Jones' book "Skywalking", I sent him an e-mail to tell him how much I enjoyed it.
I was delighted when he sent me back a very kind note to thank me. When I responded back with a sort of specific conversation, he wrote me *again* and addressed every point I had made. I get the feeling that Tom Jones is one of those rare people who, though he is smarter and more fascinating than the vast majority of the planet's inhabitants and even though he is asked the same questions over and over again, treats every person kindly and patiently addresses each person's points as though he's hearing them for the first time. That's how astronauts are in our imaginations. That's the ideal astronaut. They aren't rude or conceited. They don't get irritated by admiration and they don't act bored with your questions. They certainly don't act like this. They act like --- heroes.
And heroes are kind.

In an age of violent athletes and slutbag celebrities, it's good to know that guys like Tom Jones exist.