h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Of course there will be, just not shuttle flights. For the next few years astronauts will get there via Soyuz flights (ticket prices have recently soared). Then in a few years private space companies will take over ferrying humans and supplies to the ISS. For example the Space X company is currently developing and testing their Dragon spacecraft.

Meanwhile NASA is developing the Orion capsule for deep space missions. The reports of NASA's death have been greatly exaggerated.

Right. NASA is awesome. I wish we could fund it better. But it was still a sad morning.

The most disturbing news NASAwise I've heard lately is from the House Budget committees that have submitted budget proposals cutting another 9% or more from the NASA budget and specifically CANCELLING the James Webb Space Telescope. This is devastating. The JWST is the only Great Observatory telescope in the works. With it dies the entire program. It is designed to see things we've never seen before. It will be able to view things over 13 billion light years away (and back in time). That is nearly back to the origin of the universe itself (give or take a few million years.) Also, it will be able to directly image extra-solar planets. Imagine being able to actually SEE planets orbiting other stars. So far we've only detected them through gravitational wobbles of their host stars or through techniques like interferometry. Their excuse for killing the project is that it is highly over-budget and behind schedule but at this point most of those costs and delays are "sunk". Imagine building a house and all that's left to do is furnish it, but instead you tear the whole thing down to save the future cost of a living room and dining room set. (I recommend writing your representatives in D.C. Unfortunately I've got John Cornyn and Ron Paul representing me. I've written enough to both of them in the past to know that they don't give a about the concerns of folks like me.)

Oh, and one more really cool thing about the JWST... It won't be in direct orbit around the Earth. It will be positioned at the L2 LaGrange point basically a spot balanced between the Earth and Sun's gravity wells.

http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/about.html

You live here.


Messenger leaving Earth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmBv7udnbes

Of all the local planets, we have the prettiest one.

Ooh look, I can see my house

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2014.html

Welcome home.

That's pretty special

Ahh... this is just beautiful.

Star trails and fireflies; http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110805.html

I meandered across this several years ago and just now found it again. It's called the McCullough Effect. This is one of the strangest optical phenomena I've ever seen. It's not your typical optical illusion. Rather it's a temporary retraining of your brain. The effect can last for hours!

http://www.cheswick.com/ches/projects/me/index.html

This might make for a good guide entry. The wiki entry is bit too academic for my tastes (I got lost in the technical/medical jargon.)

Oh... and here's something else.

Think about it. Have you ever seen Tom Waits and Cookie Monster in the same room together? No, you haven't.

http://boingboing.net/2011/08/17/cookie-monster-performs-tom-waitss-gods-away-on-business.html

By the way... over 5 hours after I induced the McCullough effect on my eyes, I can still see a bit of green in the horizontal lines.

I see the green, the magenta not so much but it's there.

Oh, and have you ever seen Tom Waits, Cookie Monster *and* Ron Perlman in the same room?

Nope, and neither has the oracle of Bacon.

Go big or go home... seriously, you're going to want to go full screen and 1080 on this as you watch an owl coming right for you at 1000 frames per second.

http://www.petapixel.com/2011/08/09/eagle-owl-attacking-camera-at-1000fps/

That's pretty spectacular I'm a big fan of slow-mo and ultra slow-mo.

I like to imagine the next frame is a splash of red then it all fades to black.

With maybe a little side-to-side wobble of the camera as it goes down.