The Space Age: Shuttles and Stations

When the average American thinks about space, both the space shuttle and the space station usually come to mind. Two milestones related to both of these achievements are being celebrated this week!

I was lucky enough to see Atlantis take off last year, and now it is taking on its final journey - a 10 mile trek from the Vehicle Assembly Building (where shuttles hang out)  to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) visitor center. This will definitely be the easiest of the shuttle retirement trips, but it is still a task that requires intense expertise and planning. C

The International Space Station also celebrates a milestone - 12 years ago, the first crew began living on the station!  Check out the crew of Expedition 1 below, consisting of USA Commander Bill Shepherd and Russian Flight Engineers Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko. The ISS has served as a beacon of international cooperation, especially between the former Cold War adversaries.  They've worked together to provide wonderful images like this one provided by my Google+ buddy Erica Joy, 

Thank You

Thanks to everyone that voted for this blog during the Black Weblog Awards. I'm pleased to announce that we've won the award for Best Science & Technology blog!
 

This blog is nothing without you. Thank you so much. I love breaking science down into fun, easily understandable chunks of awesome, and I appreciate your support. Now, on with the show!

Hurricane Sandy from Space

Hurricane Sandy is approaching landfall on the east coast of the US, between Delaware and Connecticut. People are buying supplies, weather reporters are freaking out with delight, and I made the wonderful decision to visit my mom in northern NJ and friends in NYC right before the entire public transportation system shut down.

Be safe everyone! Check out the rest of NASA's coverage on their Flickr page.

Quantum Mechanics: Don't Get Run Over

When you walk around, things seem to be fairly normal. Gravity holds everything down so things are floating in the air.  When you see a driver, no matter how crazy, careening down the road, you can say "Hey, this idiot is driving around 90 mph and is going through that red light".  If you had a radar gun, you could be even more precise at getting the car's position and momentum.

However, what we think of as "normal" ​is not an accurate representation of the universe.  Quantum mechanics exists to explain all of the absurdity that happens when you start looking at things on a microscopic level, like electrons and photons. For example, the idiot driving in the car that we mentioned in the previous paragraph. If we squeezed the driver down to a microscopic side,  if you knew the exact momentum of the car, it would be impossible to get its exact position.  Similarly, if you know the position, you can't measure the exact momentum. 

For my quantum mechanics fun, check out the video below. If you can't see it, click here.

The Most Interesting Science In The World

​Y'all all know him. He does all kinds of great thing while being drunk on the finest Dos Equis beers. Well, it turns out that he was an extra on Star Trek back in the day - the kind of extra that always died.  These extras became known as "Red Shirts", because most of the non-essential characters in Star Trek had a red uniform. But because he is the Most Interesting Man in the World, he survived! Check out the proof at iOS9.com!