View from the ISS at Night from Knate Myers on Vimeo.
It looks like the opening cinematic to a video game or a movie. What's better, the fact that real life can be as epic as media that we create, or that there is still so much more out there to discover? Hard to say, but I'm excited either way!
When the space shuttles were first awarded to different cities across the country, I was a little peeved that New York was awarded one. There are cities such as Houston that are more deserving of a shuttle due to a direct connection to the space program
Now, the geniuses are deciding to keep the Shuttle under a plastic bubble so that no one can see it. Why? The only thing that tempered my feeling about New York landing the shuttle was how awesome it would look on top of the Intrepid. The current implementation has it hidden away behind an ugly bubble that's not even transparent, so you can't see anything unless you pay the $24 Intrepid museum fee.
It gets worse. On top of that, you have to pay an extra $6 in addition to the normal museum fee. Again, why? At the very most, it should be a suggested donation. No city should be able to get something as valuable as a shuttle without a plan to offer it free. Or, you know, don't put it in an ugly dome that people can't even see off of the highway or while flying into NYC.
Stupid.
Frogger, one of my favorite classic games
My man BrothaTech decided to shoot a video with his kids about how they can have fun without technology. I'm a big fan of this - people, especially kids, need to lead a balanced life that's not 100% gadget based. At the end of the cute video, BrothaTech's daughter gives a shout out to the frog people. It makes sense when you watch, I promise. So check it out!
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords
Time's Techland blog has a great piece showing the technology on the Mars Curiosity Rover. I've posted about the 7 minute process for Curiosity to land on Martian soil from orbit. Curiosity is scheduled to land on the red planet on August 6th to commence its mission of looking for signs of life such as water.
The coolest piece of tech that Techland features is the Heat Rejection System, which pumps out heat when it's hot and stores heat when it's cold. Even in my mighty man cave, my computer needs a constant room temperature to run smoothly. On Mars, where the temperature can vary 300 F in a single day, this heat regulation is even more important. Additionally, temperature change can cause metal to expand and contract rapidly, meaning that the rover has to tolerate this variability in the metal throughout the day.
To view the fact sheet for the mission, click here. There's also a lot of Curiosity games on the Xbox Kinect, web, mobile, and tablet devices - check them out here!
MSNBC gives a short blurb on the history of this global collaboration:
"By coincidence, the U.S.-Russian-Japanese crew's launch and docking is coinciding with the 37th anniversary of the world's first international space mission: the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.""On July 15, 1975, NASA launched an Apollo capsule and the Soviet Union launched its Soyuz 19 capsule to perform the first international space docking test. The mission set the foundation for the international partnerships that have led to the $100 billion International Space Station in orbit today."
Check out details on the crew known as Expedition 32 - which consists of American, Japanese, and Russian personnel - at NASA's site!
