February 2010

Station with a Star Trek View

The landing of the Space Shuttle Endeavor, with its six astronauts, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, late Sunday night, marked the end of  twelve years construction, costing one hundred billion dollars, for the sixteen nations owned, International Space Station. The Endeavor  carried the station’s final connecting  hub,  a new life support module, which includes a toilet, a water-recycling system,  an oxygen generator,  an air scrubber and an exercise equipment, and of course,  to make the station a comfortable and inviting place for Star Trek fans  -- an observation deck with seven windows, so  that astronauts -- or  future space tourists can gawk at the view?

MoD : If you See An UFO, Don't Call!

Last December, The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) suddenly  shut down its UFO reporting phone hotline and email address,  and told the public, not to try to call the Government, if one spots a UFO, because the MoD is not going to investigate anymore UFO reports from the public, period!  And as far as some of these UFOs being extra-terrestrial,  don't ask the Government, because the British Government has no opinion on UFOs, period! But don't worry, as far as we know (or are going to admit) no UFO is  threatening the UK-- so just shut up about UFOs!  Not  taking  your UFO reports will save your Government money, ( about $73,000 a year), so shut up, will you?

Twitpics from Space

There's been a lot of interest in social networking of late, especially because of the emergence of Twitter as a micro-blogging tool. I'm a fan of Twitter, but this is, so far, the coolest use I've seen yet for Twitter, and the Twitter-friendly image sharing service Twitpic. We've been able to follow, sort of, the Mars Orbiter and robots, and various announcements from JPL and NASA, which were all fabulous (and nominated for a Shorty award), but this, this is even better.