Tech and the Government: The Future Is Now

government-owners-uncle-sam.jpeg

I'm a strong proponent of the government using science and technology to reach out to us in innovative ways. I was happy to read that several representatives of Congress have adopted Twitter as a platform of communication. I'm glad to see that the leaders of our government are engaging us in spaces that we already occupy.

Vice President Joe Biden is holding a video chat via Google+ hangout on Thursday, Jan 24th at 1:45pm EST.  While I understand that the conversation will be heavily filtered and scripted, I hope that people begin to feel more connected with their leaders.

This follows the excellent video chat that President Obama held last year, which I've embedded below. 

If you can't see the video below, click here.

Internet video sure as come a long way since I was buffering terrible video on Real Player over my 56k connection ...

The Best View of the Inauguration

Check out this amazing pic of Washington DC from International Space Station (ISS) astronaut Chris Hadfield. Whether you're in the huge crowd expecting to attend the presidential inauguration festivities, at home watching on TV, or on another planet (greetings), I'm sure you agree that the view is amazing!

If you look at the trail of lights on the center-left you can make out the parade route. As  I posted yesterday, this is where NASA astronauts, engineers, and scientists will be showing off models of the Curiosity Rover and Orion capsule .

,

Science During Inauguration Weekend

,
rover obama.jpg

Presidents and science have been a fantastic combination over the years. As I mentioned in a previous post, presidents have served as scientific proponents by helping to pass laws as well as speak publicly on the importance of science education for our country and the world.

The Obama inauguration festivities continue this trend by including a life size model of the Curiosity rover in the post-inauguration parade. In addition, there will be a model of NASA's Orion capsule which is being built for longer space travel.  Astronauts, engineers and scientists involved with both projects will also be in the parade.

For a cool set of images of NASA's parade stuff, check out the NASA Flickr photo album!

I'm very excited that science is being prominently featured in one of the largest American celebrations . Now if only I can decide if I'm actually heading down to the madness that will be DC this weekend ...

Source: NASA

Preparing To Go To Mars + ISS Video

The International Space Station (ISS) will be testing a new module that will eventually help toward long duration spaceflight to places like Mars. If that isn't cool enough, the module, named BEAM, will be delivered by the private SpaceX Dragon spacecraft in 2015!  This is another example of the private industry taking on the challenges of spaceflight and coordinating not only with the US government, but the other governments involved with the ISS as well. I've covered the previous SpaceX launches here.

The astronauts inside of the ISS will be testing the BEAM module to make sure it is up to task. If you want to check out where they'll be testing, check out this video from inside the ISS that I found this while browsing CNET's Australian site.

In her final days as Commander of the International Space Station, Sunita Williams of NASA recorded an extensive tour of the orbital laboratory and downlinked the video on Nov. 18, just hours before she, cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and Flight Engineer Aki Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency departed in their Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft for a landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan.

If you can't see the video below, click here.