… and they had a spaceship!

May 27, 2016

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endeavour

If you’re a regular reader, you know of SpaceCadet Jimmiejoe.  He’s the twelve year old who hides behind these 58 year old eyes, demanding to be let out from time to time.  Last Wednesday, he’d had enough.  We WERE, by GAWD, going to Los Angeles, and we WERE, by GAWD, going to see the Space Shuttle Endeavour.  He was accepting no more excuses, no more delays, and no more procrastination.  There’s a space ship sitting less than 200 miles away, and we needed to go.  How can you argue with logic like that?  So, we went.  The SpaceCadet surprised me.  He didn’t tear up when he saw the Endeavour. I was kind of expecting that, after his reaction to seeing a Saturn V rocket in person.

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I Love Living In the Future

March 5, 2014

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Inmarsat-3A few minutes ago, I was sitting in my living room, holding a little piece of plastic and metal to my ear, no wires connecting me to any plugs on the walls, talking to a friend in Virginia as he drove down a highway.  Space Cadet JimmieJoe was jumping up and down in my head again, amazed.

When I was 12, the Space Cadet often daydreamed about the future.  There were spaceships and incredible computers.  Meals would be selected on a screen, and be magically transported to the table by a conveyor. Communication anywhere on the planet would be simple, quick, and complete with video. Super sonic jets would whisk you to anyplace on Earth in a short time, and, of course, flying cars would be everywhere.  Think – “The Jetsons”.

Well, the future is here, but it looks a bit different than Space Cadet JimmieJoe imagined.

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Mars isn’t the only place we’ve landed out there!

August 19, 2012

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The surface of Titan, a satellite of Saturn

Space Cadet JimmieJoe is taking me to task right now.  This is a big thing, and I missed it!

On January 14, 2005, NASA and ESA landed a probe on Titan, one of the moons of Saturn!

I don’t recall being aware of this, at all.  I don’t even know if I’ve seen this picture before, but if I have, I’m fairly certain I would think it was of Mars.  Instead, this is the surface of a satellite orbiting a planet 794 million miles away from us (at it’s closest approach).

I’m thinking, right now, of all the hoopla surrounding the recent landing of the Curiosity on Mars, and marveling that there was not something similar back in 2005.  Yes, the Huygens probe, part of the Cassini mission, only parachuted to the “ground”, and Curiosity did the whole ‘heat shield – parachute – retro rocket – sky crane’ deal, but still…

I missed it!  (hanging head in shame, avoiding the glare of 12 year old Space Cadet JimmieJoe)

Mars, and Titan.  But did you know, they’re not the only two places we’ve set down on.

We’ve landed on another planet, too.

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